The cold touch was like a venomous snake, slithering from the hard, rough ground right into Qin Lie's bones.
He snapped his eyes open. In his field of vision, rotating, dust-thickened roof beams came into focus, a few withered branches poking blindly toward the pitch-black ceiling.
A stench mixed with rotting wood and inferior herbs assaulted his nostrils directly, churning his stomach in a violent upheaval.
A severe headache raged as if someone were frantically stirring a red-hot iron rod inside his brain; every single heartbeat tugged at the meridians throughout his entire body, sending waves of agonizing, inch-by-inch tearing pain.
A fishy, sweet taste of rust blocked his throat, and every labored breath felt like swallowing shards of glass.
"Ugh, ah..."
A suppressed, beast-like groan squeezed out from his cracked lips, carrying a near-death hoarseness.
He tried to prop up his body, but his arms were as limp as overcooked noodles. The moment he lifted himself slightly, he crashed heavily back onto the icy ground, stirring up a choking cloud of dust.
Desperation, like a freezing tide, instantly flooded his remaining consciousness.
Where was this?
The netherworld?
His final memory was a blinding flash of light that tore the heavens apart, a deafening and terrifying roar, and the profound emptiness of his body instantly turning into fine dust under an irresistible, overwhelming force...
That was the end of his past life. A terrifying cannonball infused with the lifelong True Essence of a grandmaster from a hostile nation had blasted Qin Lie, the illustrious Heir of the Prince of Northern Suppression of the Daxia dynasty, along with his twenty years of bitter cultivation at the Peak Martial Master realm, straight into ashes.
No! That wasn't right!
A massive, chaotic memory fragment, fraught with monstrous malice and grievance, rushed violently into his currently fragile mind like a breached dike.
Countless images flickered and overlapped frantically:
The glittering yet treacherous imperial court of the Imperial Capital;
The increasingly haggard yet still resolute profile of his father, Qin Zhantian;
The cold candlelight in the mourning hall when his mother died early;
That pair of mother and son from the Second Branch—his "good second uncle" Qin Xiao and his petty stepmother, Madam Liu, whose greedy and vicious natures could not be concealed beneath their hypocritical smiles;
And... Su Qingxue!
That peerless face that had once stirred his youthful heart, which now left behind only endless coldness and disdain!
The final frozen image was a cup of wine.
A cup of amber-colored fine wine personally handed to him by his "gentle and virtuous" fiancée, Su Qingxue, under the "concerned" gaze of the Second Prince, Xia Yuanchen.
The wine was mellow as it passed his lips, but the next instant it transformed into a bone-corroding poison, violently destroying his dantian, tearing apart his meridians, and casting him down from the clouds into the dust as a good-for-nothing worse off than someone locked in a firewood shed!
The Zhenbei Estate! The firewood shed!
Qin Lie's unfocused gaze suddenly locked into place, resembling a blade quenched in ice.
He jerked his head to the side, his vision piercing through the skewed crack in the wooden door of the firewood shed.
The weather outside was gloomy, leaden gray clouds pressing low against the soaring eaves and bracket sets of the estate.
The familiar dark-black "Zhen" and "Bei" battle flag, symbolizing towering military achievements, fluttered powerlessly in the cold wind, exuding a belated desolation.
This was the place! Truly the Zhenbei Estate! He was back!
No soul scattering, no falling into the cycle of reincarnation.
He had actually returned to the most humiliating, darkest, and deadliest turning point of his life—
His cultivation had been poisoned away by his fiancée Su Qingxue and the Second Prince in collusion, and he had been thrown into the firewood shed like a dead dog to fend for himself.
And today was the very day Su Qingxue was coming with the annulment letter.
With the Second Prince as a "witness," it was the day she would thoroughly trample him into the mud!
"Hah... hah-hah..."
A low, raspy laugh like a broken bellows issued from his throat.
Qin Lie's body trembled violently from the extreme hatred, an unnatural flush rising on his pale cheeks.
A monstrous rage burned furiously in his chest, scorching his internal organs until they spasmed.
Su Qingxue! Xia Yuanchen! Qin Xiao! Madam Liu!
And that Emperor Xia Hong, who sat high upon the dragon throne and viewed the Zhenbei Estate as a thorn in his eye, using imperial arts!
One hypocritical, sinister, and greedy face after another twisted and magnified before his eyes.
In his past life, the estate had collapsed, his father had died in battle, his loyal generals had been entirely slaughtered, and he himself had wandered in displacement only to die miserably in an enemy camp...
The root of all this began in this freezing firewood shed, began with today's premeditated humiliation!
Hatred! Hatred deep into the bone marrow!
The hatred was like magma, almost bursting through the bonds of his battered shell!
"Calm down!"
A voice as cold as if it came from the nine nether hells exploded deep within his heart, carrying the cruel rationality forged by blood and fire in his past life, forcibly suppressing that heaven-burning hatred.
Qin Lie bit down hard on his lower lip until he tasted a heavy, bloody tang.
The sharp pain instantly cleared his chaotic thoughts for a fleeting moment.
Hatred? Anger? Roaring? What use were they?
Weren't the blood and tears of his past life profound enough?
What was he right now?
A useless wretch with shattered meridians, a broken dantian, poisoned to the core, thrown into a firewood shed to await death!
Inside the estate, his father was placed under house arrest in a suburban villa on the pretext of "recuperation," the estate's authority had fallen into other hands, the steward Zhao Gui had long since been bought out by the Second Branch, the guards were panicked and unsettled, and their assets were being nibbled away piece by piece.
Outside the estate, the emperor, the Second Prince, Prime Minister Li Yuanfu, and that fiancée Su Qingxue who couldn't wait to draw a clear line—countless pairs of eyes were staring at him, wishing he would draw his last breath immediately!
Impulsiveness is a devil!
Especially for him, who currently lacked the strength to truss a chicken; the slightest loss of emotional control could invite an even more fatal killing blow.
What he needed was ice—a calmness capable of freezing bone marrow down to the core! The forbearance of a venomous snake lurking in the dark!
Qin Lie forced himself to slow his breathing; every inhalation pulled at a tearing agony all over his body, but he paid it no mind.
He had to figure out the state of this body immediately, right now!
This was his only capital for a comeback in this hellish start!
With great difficulty, he moved his right hand—the only one that could barely manage to obey commands—and tremblingly, bit by bit, unbuttoned his tattered, unlined inner garment, which was stained with filth and reeked of a sour stench.
Using the faint daylight filtering through the door crack, he looked down at his chest.
His skin presented a sickly, sallow yellow, faintly revealing a lifeless gray-white aura.
Even more startling was that an inch below his heart lay a dark purple bruise the size of a copper coin, glaringly apparent!
The edges of the bruise formed a bizarre web-like pattern, and threads of black lines slowly wriggled and penetrated into the surrounding skin like living things.
When his fingertips gently brushed against it, an icy, bone-chilling pain instantly shot up his arm to his crown, causing his vision to blacken and nearly making him faint.
"Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison!"
Qin Lie's heart sank to rock bottom.
This was an extremely vicious chronic poison circulating on the Daxia black market. Colorless and odorless, its initial symptoms were merely weakness and fatigue, making it extremely easy to misdiagnose as a cold or internal injury.
It would quietly erode the victim's heart meridian and bone marrow like tarsus maggots, bit by bit wearing away their vitality, ultimately causing the victim to die amidst endless agony from organ failure and brittle bones!
This poison was definitely not the work of a single day; it required at least three months or more of continuous poisoning!
Who was it? Was it Su Qingxue under the guise of visiting?
Was it the "tonics" sent by the Second Branch under the pretext of care?
Or was it some link in the estate's kitchen that had long since been compromised?
A chill crawled all the way up his spine.
What Su Qingxue and the others had administered was probably not just this one poison!
The domineering toxin contained in that cup of wine that destroyed his dantian was the true culprit that instantly reduced him to a cripple!
Two potent poisons intertwined, conflicted, and raged within his body, like two mad dragons dragging his physical form completely toward the abyss of destruction!
"Hah... hah..."
Qin Lie panted heavily, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.
With all his remaining will, he attempted to sense his dantian Qi Ocean.
That place had once been the surging source of endless power and the fundamental pride of a Martial Artist.
Yet at this moment, the instant his consciousness sank in, it was greeted only by a pitch-black, icy, and boundless void of deathly stillness!
Not a shred of Qi sensation, not a half-trace of True Essence fluctuation.
The once-resilient and spacious dantian walls were now covered in spiderweb-like cracks, resembling a glass mirror smashed by a heavy hammer.
Deep within those cracks, wisps of bizarre, dark-green viscous matter still lingered.
Like the filthiest pus, it exuded a nauseating, fishy sweetness and corrosive aura, stubbornly blocking any possibility of self-repair.
This was the masterpiece of that "Soul-Dispersing Severed Vein Wine"!
It had completely severed a Martial Artist's foundation!
The condition of his meridians was even worse. River channels that were once unobstructed and capable of bearing the scouring of violent True Essence;
Now silted, distorted, and broken inch by inch, even concentrating the slightest bit of spirit to perceive them brought about needle-like, burning torment across his entire body.
Useless! A thorough, absolute good-for-nothing! Even worse off than the lowest commoners!
An Heir of the Prince of Northern Suppression who had lost his strength, in this Daxia where the weak were prey to the strong and martial arts reigned supreme, and in this crisis-ridden, ambush-laden estate, was nothing more than a piece of fat meat placed on a chopping block, waiting to be hacked to pieces at any moment!
Desperation, like an icy tide, once again tried to submerge him.
Was living another life meant only to experience an even more humiliating death?
No! Absolutely not!
The cannonball from his past life that tore everything apart had not completely erased him, and the poison within this broken shell could never take Qin Lie's life either!
A crazy, nearly absurd thought, like lightning cleaving through the dark, suddenly split his chaotic consciousness—the Ancient Bronze Mirror Fragment!
Before his death in his past life, the core of that enemy nation's cannonball which had blasted him to smithereens seemed to have wrapped around a strange piece of ancient bronze that was neither metal nor jade!
At the very instant his consciousness was annihilated, it was as if an imperceptible, icy stream of light had weirdly plunged deep into his soul along with the shock of the explosion!
Could it be...
Qin Lie's heart pounded frantically, almost smashing through his fragile sternum.
Struggling, he groped desperately inside his tattered lapel. His fingertips grazed the cold, rough skin, brushed past the filthy fabric soaked in sweat...
Suddenly, a hard, cold object whose edges seemed to bear irregular jagged teeth touched his fingertips!
Found it!
He thrust his hand deep into his bosom and, using all his remaining strength, pulled that object out.
It felt heavy in his hand, carrying an icy texture that had traversed eternity.
This was a fragment about the size of a palm, with an extremely irregular shape.
Its entire body presented a deep, archaic bronze color, and its surface was densely covered with intricate, unfathomable dark-gold patterns.
These patterns were not carved; they looked more like they had grown naturally, and under the dim light, they faintly circulated an extremely weak dark-gold luster that seemed on the verge of extinguishing at any moment.
The edges of the fragment were uneven, bearing the marks of smelting and tearing, clearly having broken off from a larger whole.
It was cold, heavy, and completely inconspicuous. Tossed by the roadside, probably even a beggar wouldn't bother to stoop and pick it up.
Was this that stream of light?
Was this the "thing" he had managed to grasp at the moment of his death in his past life?
A piece of scrap bronze and iron?
Qin Lie stared fixedly at the fragment, the spark of hope that had just ignited in his heart seemingly about to be extinguished by the freezing despair in the face of cruel reality.
However, the instant his fingertip stung slightly from exerting force, a tiny bead of blood seeped out and inadvertently stained the icy surface of the bronze fragment—
Hum!
A weak yet unmistakably clear tremor transmitted from inside the fragment without warning!
It was as if an ancient, slumbering fierce beast had been gently awakened by this negligible droplet of blood!
The dark-gold patterns on the surface of the fragment lit up abruptly, as if injected with life!
Though the light was extremely faint and vanished in a flash like a summer firefly, in the absolute darkness and silence of the firewood shed, it shone glaringly bright!
An indescribable throbbing, seemingly from the depths of his soul, seized Qin Lie's heart fiercely!
Cold! No, not just cold!
It was an indescribable, bone-freezing chill capable of freezing the soul and peering into the origin of all things!
This chill followed his fingertips like the finest current, instantly flowing through every numb, dead inch of flesh and blood across his body, reaching every corner filled with poison and despair!
"Ugh!"
Qin Lie let out a muffled grunt, his body twitching violently.
This sudden chill was not a harm; instead, it was like a basin of icy water poured over his head, making his chaotic, burning mind clear to the extreme in an instant!
What shocked and horrified him even more was that wherever this chill passed, the two "poison dragons" raging frantically within his body, trying to completely swallow him whole—
The icy deathly aura of the "Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison" and the domineering corrosive power of the "Soul-Dispersing Severed Vein Wine"—actually emitted silent wails, as if encountering their nemesis and natural predator!
The momentum of their frantic thrashing abruptly stalled, as if frozen for a split second by an invisible frost!
Though it was merely a split second, the bone-deep agony miraculously... eased by a fraction!
It was not an illusion!
Qin Lie widened his eyes abruptly, staring fixedly at the bronze fragment in his hand that seemed to have come alive, his pupils contracting violently from extreme shock and wild joy.
Blood! It was blood! His blood had activated it!
This was definitely not an ordinary piece of scrap metal!
It... it could suppress the poison inside him?!
Wild joy, like a raging wave, instantly breached the embankment of reason.
Without the slightest hesitation, and using all his remaining strength, he pressed his blood-stained finger once again fiercely toward the most complex and core dark-gold pattern on the surface of the bronze fragment!
This time, he concentrated all his spirit, carrying a desperate, all-or-nothing madness as he tried to probe his consciousness into it!
Open for me!
It was as if a primordial roar of creation exploded deep within his soul!
An icy cold current ten times, a hundred times stronger than before, rushed violently into Qin Lie's battered body like a breached starry river!
This cold current was no longer a gentle soothing comfort; it carried a domineering and arrogant will, piercing fiercely like cold steel needles into his broken, twisted meridians, driving straight into his cracked dantian filled with filthy toxic matter!
"Ah—!"
The indescribable pain caused Qin Lie to arch his body instantly, like a shrimp thrown into boiling oil, a non-human shriek bursting from his throat. This pain far exceeded the sum of all his previous poison flare-ups!
It felt as though tens of millions of ice needles were piercing and stirring his flesh, blood, and bone marrow all at once!
Cold sweat poured down like a waterfall, instantly soaking his tattered clothes, only to quickly freeze in the biting air, bringing a bone-chilling cold. His teeth chattered wildly, every muscle in his body spasmed and twitched out of control, his vision darkened with flashing stars, and his consciousness tottered on the edge of the abyss of pain.
Yet, amidst this extreme pain bordering on collapse, a strange, weak yet incomparably clear perception—like the first glimmer of light piercing through a dark abyss—stubbornly broke through the boundless torment and mirrored itself in the depths of his consciousness!
He "saw" it!
Borne by the momentum of that domineering cold current, his consciousness seemed endowed with "eyes" capable of piercing through everything.
He clearly "saw" the hellish scene inside his body:
The meridians that ought to have been resilient and unobstructed were now like riverbeds ravaged by a storm—silted, distorted, broken inch by inch, covered in purplish-black toxic sludge, the bitter fruit of long-term erosion by the "Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison";
And at the core of the dantian Qi Ocean, that void space representing his martial foundation was even more horrific.
The dantian walls were covered in spiderweb-like cracks, and dark-green, wriggling viscous toxic matter (the residue of the Soul-Dispersing Severed Vein Wine) like tarsus maggots sat heavily deep within the cracks, exuding a destructive, corrosive aura that blocked any possibility of repair.
The two potent poisons were not distinct; rather, they intertwined and conflicted within his body, further accelerating the collapse of his physical form.
But at this moment, with the forceful intervention of that icy cold current, a subtle change occurred!
Wherever the cold current passed, acting like an invisible frozen domain, the spread and erosion speed of those once-raging toxins—whether the purplish-black sludge or the dark-green viscous matter—were distinctly suppressed and slowed down!
Especially when the core power of the cold current, acting like a precision scalpel, focused its impact toward the most critical crack nodes of the dantian wall, the dark-green toxic matter entrenched there actually emitted a silent "sizzling" sound, as if frozen and weakened by the extreme cold!
Though it was merely a minuscule fraction, and though it could not be completely eradicated, this was truly a suppression!
A delay! The very first thread of survival in the darkness!
What shook Qin Lie's mind even more was that the instant this icy cold current made contact with his consciousness, a massive, ancient, and obscure fragment of information beyond understanding poured brutally into his mind like a torrent!
The information was fragmented, chaotic, filled with countless broken runes, distorted light and shadows, illusions of stars rising and perishing, and...
An icy will capable of penetrating all things and reflecting reality!
This information was far too vast and complex, far exceeding the endurance limit of his currently fragile soul, instantly bringing about a tearing headache as if his head were about to explode.
"Ugh, ah!"
Qin Lie cradled his head, curling up in agony, his fingernails digging deeply into the icy ground, leaving behind a few bloody claw marks.
He could not comprehend even a ten-thousandth of that information, but some fragmented, vague concepts concerning "Reflection," "Analyze," "Trace," and "Reconstruct" were deeply imprinted into the core of his consciousness like a brand.
The moment he felt his consciousness was about to be torn apart by this torrent of information and on the verge of complete submersion, that icy cold current seemed to sense the limit of his soul and pulled back abruptly!
Like a receding tide, it quickly withdrew from his entire body's meridians and dantian. The soul-tearing pain and informational impact retreated like a wave as well.
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Like a fish out of water, Qin Lie lay sprawled limply on the cold ground, left with nothing but heavy breathing pushed to its absolute limit.
His sweat had long since dried, his body trembled incessantly from excessive pain and exhaustion, and a sense of collapse weighed down on him like heavy lead blocks.
Yet those eyes shone terrifyingly bright! As if burning with the fires of hell!
He had succeeded!
Though the process was as agonizing as walking through a mountain of blades and a sea of fire, he had truly and securely activated this mysterious ancient bronze mirror fragment!
Not only could it suppress the poison inside his body and delay death!
More importantly, that torrent of information that had surged into his mind, those vague concepts concerning "Reflection" and "Analyze"...
Could this be...
A nearly fanatical thought grew wildly in his heart—a golden finger!
This was his only reliance for a comeback in this desperate world!
Was this a shred of... compensation from fate for his tragic ending in his past life?!
Struggling, he used his trembling fingers, stained with mud and blood, to once again tightly grip the bronze fragment that had returned to stillness and turned cold and archaic once more.
This time, he did not use brute force to spur it; instead, he attempted to wind that slight, vague concept of "Reflection" he had just comprehended around it like the gentlest thread, wrapping it up cautiously.
The dark-gold patterns on the surface of the fragment flashed again, extremely faintly, the light a fraction more stable than the last time.
Qin Lie held his breath, his consciousness sinking inward to "inner-view" once more.
This time, without the impact of the domineering cold current, the pain was much reduced.
Concentrating all his spirit, he guided that trace of weak "Reflection" power transmitted from the ancient bronze mirror fragment, cautiously casting it toward the most severely clogged and fractured primary meridian in his body—the Taiyin Lung Meridian of the Hand.
Hum...
A wondrous sight appeared!
Under that barely perceptible "Reflection" power, the interior of the meridians, which had previously only allowed a vague perception of chaotic darkness, instantly became much "clearer"!
Though still shattered and clogged, he seemed to possess a peculiar "fluoroscopic" ability!
He could "see" the trajectory of the minuscule cracks along the meridian walls, "see" the specific form of the purplish-black toxic sludge piled up at the clogged nodes, and even faintly "see" the more deeply damaged muscle tissue beneath the toxins!
More importantly, within this "reflected" field of vision, this meridian was not completely dead!
Deep within those broken gaps, covered by the turbid toxins, there actually remained an extremely weak trace of...
Vitality! It was the most tenacious struggle of the primal source of life!
Hope! The true fire of hope ignited fiercely in Qin Lie's heart!
The "Reflection" power of this ancient mirror was actually capable of discerning the most minute damage and remaining vitality within his body!
This was simply an ability tailor-made for his current desperate plight!
Suppressing his excitement with effort, his consciousness stirred as he attempted to cast the focus of "Reflection" toward that mass of dark-green viscous poison entrenched deep within a huge crack on the dantian wall—the residual core of the "Soul-Dispersing Severed Vein Wine"!
The instant the "Reflection" power touched that mass of dark-green toxin—
Screech!
A backlash a hundred times colder than before, carrying a dense, destructive, and corrosive aura like an awakened venomous snake, fiercely bit back along that thread of "Reflection" power!
Qin Lie felt as though his head had been pierced by a red-hot, venomous needle, and severe pain accompanied by intense dizziness and nausea struck instantly!
"Pfft!"
Unable to hold it back any longer, he abruptly coughed up a mouthful of dark red, fishy-smelling congealed blood, which splattered onto the firewood before him, quickly blooming into a dark stain.
His vision darkened, and his consciousness blurred once more.
No! It was too forced!
The core toxin of this "Soul-Dispersing Severed Vein Wine" was far too domineering. Given his current spiritual strength and the weak power of the bronze fragment, he simply could not "reflect" and analyze it deeply for a prolonged period!
To forcefully pry would only invite self-immolation!
Panting heavily, Qin Lie wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze growing even sharper.
He decisively abandoned the notion of directly prying into the dantian's toxic core.
One had to eat a meal bite by bite.
The immediate priority was to stay alive!
To clear or suppress those relatively easier-to-deal-with chronic poisons that were constantly wearing away his vitality—the "Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison"!
At the same time, he had to find a way to regain a shred of mobility as quickly as possible, even if it was just the weakest trace of Qi sensation!
Otherwise, let alone revenge, he wouldn't even survive Su Qingxue's visit today!
What would an heir who couldn't even stand up use to face that meticulously orchestrated humiliation?
Stay alive! Recover strength!
This thought was branded like iron deep into his soul.
Once more gripping the bronze fragment tight, he cast the weak "Reflection" power toward other parts of his body, especially the visceral regions eroded by the "Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison."
He needed to find the nodes within his body where the toxicity was relatively weakest and easiest to clear or suppress!
At the same time, a vague memory fragment from his past life flashed across his mind—the foundational introductory cultivation technique passed down in the Zhenbei Estate, the *Boulders Formula*!
Although it was only the crudest, lowest-tier Huang-grade technique, its saving grace lay in its balanced and upright nature, focusing on tempering the bones and muscles and nourishing qi and blood.
With his meridians now completely destroyed and his dantian shattered, it was logically impossible for him to cultivate any technique ever again.
But... what about this Ancient Mirror Fragment that could "reflect" minute internal details and even suppress deadly poison?
Could it... optimize it?
Or find some "heretical path" to forcibly draw in qi from a desperate dead end?
Sink or swim!
A flash of lone-wolf ruthlessness flickered through Qin Lie's eyes.
He closed his eyes, concentrated all his remaining mental energy, and began to visualize over and over again in his mind the simple, almost crude cultivation route diagram of the Boulders Formula—
Drawing the Yuan Qi of heaven and earth into the body, circulating it along specific meridians, and finally converging it into the dantian to nurture qi and blood and temper the skin and membranes.
At the same time, he cautiously guided the trace of faint "reflection" power transmitted by the Ancient Mirror Fragment, covering it over his visualized intent.
Time slowly slipped away amidst the freezing cold and agonizing pain.
Outside the woodshed, the sky seemed even gloomier, and the cold wind swept through the door cracks, letting out a wailing hiss.
Deep within the Prince's Mansion, a faint commotion of human voices and footsteps could be heard drawing closer, carrying a deliberate clamor.
Qin Lie's heart plummeted.
The time... was almost here!
Su Qingxue, along with her noble "knight in shining armor," the Second Prince Xia Yuanchen, were probably already on their way!
He had to hurry!
He forced himself to banish all distracting thoughts, immersing his entire mind in visualization and "reflection."
Once, twice, thrice...
The route diagram of the Boulders Formula became increasingly clear in his mind.
Just as he was about to despair and give up, preparing to endure the coming humiliation head-on—
Hum!
The Bronze Shard in his hand once again emitted a faint yet distinct tremor!
This time, it was no longer a cold current assault, but a strange resonance!
The arcane dark gold patterns on the surface of the fragment seemed activated by an invisible force, suddenly igniting with a light clearer and more stable than at any time before!
This light did not radiate outward; instead, it rippled across the surface of the fragment like water waves, outlining an extremely tiny yet infinitely more complex and intricate light-and-shadow structure!
Qin Lie felt his mind go "boom"!
The simple, crude cultivation diagram of the Boulders Formula that he had been visualizing was suddenly "sucked" away by an invisible force the moment the ancient mirror's light surged!
Immediately afterward, an incredible scene unfolded!
That simple cultivation diagram, amidst the flowing light of the Ancient Mirror Fragment, was like a pebble tossed into a calm lake, instantly stirring up countless ripples of tiny light spots.
The light of the ancient mirror, like the carving knife of a master craftsman or a cold eye piercing all rules, began an unimaginable "analysis" and "reconstruction" of that cultivation diagram!
Some originally straight routes were subtly twisted and turned, making them conform more closely to some indescribable rhythm;
Some previously ignored, minute meridian tributaries were lit up and connected;
The operational methods at several key nodes were completely altered, becoming more efficient, more tricky, and even... more domineering!
The complexity of the entire cultivation diagram instantly increased tenfold and more!
Within this optimized reconstruction, the originally peaceful and upright aura of the Boulders Formula faintly revealed a brand-new artistic conception—as heavy as a boulder, yet carrying a trace of unyielding sharpness!
What made Qin Lie's heart almost stop beating was that the starting point of this brand-new cultivation diagram, optimized and reconstructed by the ancient mirror, completely bypassed his shattered dantian Qi Ocean infested with the Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison!
Its core route was bizarrely concentrated in the visceral regions and deep within the bones where he was currently suffering relatively minor damage and retaining a trace of weak vitality!
Especially... right below the heart, around the deep purple bruise formed by the Purple Heart Bone-Corroding Poison!
This brand-new route seemed to...
Seemingly intended to forcibly rouse the stray Yuan Qi between heaven and earth, using his remaining visceral vitality as a furnace, his bones as firewood, and that poisonous bruise as a catalyst...
Blazing a new trail to forcibly temper a wisp of... qi and blood power?!
This... this was simply defying the heavens!
It was pulling chestnuts from the fire!
It was a crazy act of using his own broken body and deadly poison as fuel!
Would it work?
Qin Lie did not know. This completely subverted his understanding of martial arts!
Yet this was his only straw!
A crack torn open for him by the Ancient Mirror Fragment in this desperate plight—
A gap that might lead to hell, or might lead to survival!
There was no time to hesitate!
Outside the woodshed, the deliberately heavy footsteps and the faintly audible, sycophantic yet gloating voice of the steward Zhao Gui were already clearly audible!
"Young Lord? Young Lord, are you awake? Miss Su and the Second Highness have graced the Prince's Mansion and will be at the front hall in a moment! The Prince is not here, and Madam has given orders, asking you... to go over without fail!"
Zhao Gui's voice came through the door panel, masking undisguised contempt and urge beneath hypocritical respect.
It was here! The moment of judgment had arrived!
Qin Lie snapped his eyes open. Deep within his pupils, the last trace of confusion brought by agonizing pain and weakness vanished completely, replaced by an extreme calmness like millennial black ice, and beneath that ice layer, a raging fire of vengeance capable of burning everything to ash!
He tightly clenched the glowing Bronze Shard in his hand, as if gripping the throat of fate.
He struggled, using up the tiny sliver of strength he had just recovered to clumsily pull his tattered lapels together, covering the fatal purple bruise on his chest.
Then, he took a deep, deep breath of the cold, foul air inside the woodshed—a stench mixed with dust, mold, blood, and cheap herbal medicine—drinking poison to quench thirst.
This breath poured into his lungs, bringing a tearing pain, yet acting like a potent sobering agent that completely drove away his last remaining weakness.
Survive! Recover strength!
And then... make all the betrayers and perpetrators pay in blood!
This conviction, like quenched steel, rang out deep within his soul.
With difficulty, inch by inch, he moved his numb and stiff body, leaning against the cold wall and using his shoulders and head to... prop up his battered body bit by bit.
Cold sweat instantly soaked his thin garments once more, but he clenched his teeth, biting his lower lip again until it split. The salty taste of blood spread in his mouth, bringing him a cruel sense of sobriety and strength.
The footsteps outside the door grew closer, accompanied by Zhao Gui's impatient urging and the hypocritical "concern" of another shrill voice (clearly the confidante wet nurse of Madam Liu from the Second Branch):
"Oh, Steward Zhao, keep your voice down, don't startle the Young Lord.
Our Young Lord has a precious constitution, even though right now... well, sigh, but after all, he is the Prince's flesh and blood! Wouldn't you say so?"
The mockery pierced the door panel like poisonous needles.
Leaning against the wall, Qin Lie panted heavily, every breath sounding like a wheezing bellows.
He slowly raised his lowered head. Beneath the messy, blood-stained strands of hair, his gaze was icy and sharp...
Like an injured lone wolf locking onto its prey, he stared fixedly at the wooden door of the woodshed that was about to be pushed open—a door symbolizing endless humiliation.
Su Qingxue... Xia Yuanchen...
His throat rolled, swallowing down the surging taste of blood, while the corners of his mouth slowly and with extreme difficulty pulled upward!
Tugging into an expression of the utmost coldness and madness.
The game had only just begun.