Chapter 10: Breakthrough? Or Death Tribulation?
"Dahuang, you three get back. Stay away from here, and watch out for getting struck by lightning later."
In the forest behind the Back Mountain of the Meiyu Sect, the previously clear sky was gradually covered by dark clouds. The gentle breeze grew fierce, causing the branches and leaves to sway wildly in the violent wind with a rustling sound.
The ink-black clouds churned across the sky like surging waves, slowly piling up and pressing down, as if the air itself had frozen, creating a stifling heaviness that made it nearly impossible to breathe.
Low rumbles of thunder echoed from the distant horizon like war drums, growing louder and closer by the second.
Beneath the clouds, Xiao Yichen had bound himself to the tallest tree, wearing an iron hat on his head specifically designed to attract lightning.
Down below, Dahuang and the other two fierce beasts whimpered and howled, trying to get the idiot up in the tree to climb down quickly, but their cries were completely drowned out by the surrounding gale, failing to reach Xiao Yichen's ears at all.
With a deafening crash of thunder, Dahuang and the others were startled into fleeing back into the cave. Xiao Yichen glanced up at the darkening sky above and instinctively swallowed hard.
"After waiting half a month, I've finally waited for a thunderstorm. Everything rides on this. Come on, you treacherous heavens—strike me down if you dare!" The moment his words fell, a dazzling flash of lightning tore through the sky, illuminating the entire mountain forest as bright as day. A terrifying bolt of thunder plunged fiercely toward the ground, instantly splitting a nearby tree in two.
Far off in the cave, Dahuang, Xiaobai, and Xiaohua all cowered flat against the ground, trembling from head to toe in sheer terror at the scene outside.
Xiao Yichen swallowed hard again, looked at the burning remnants of the tree not far away, and felt his courage waver. "How about... taking it slow, a little at a time?"
Alas, fate cares little for second thoughts; waiting to be struck dead first before taking things slow wouldn't be too late.
A flash of lightning tore the sky apart, striking straight down toward Xiao Yichen at the highest point. The lightning instantly illuminated his face, and a powerful current surged through the iron hat on his head straight into his body, feeling like ten thousand arrows piercing his heart. The electricity paralyzed his frame, robbing him of even the ability to cry out, leaving him to passively endure the baptism of nature.
His muscles went taut all over, veins bulging. In mere fractions of a second, his outer layer of skin had already turned as pitch-black as charred wood.
Immediately afterward, as if to punish him for his earlier insolence, another bolt of lightning plummeted from the sky with uncanny precision. Before Xiao Yichen could even recover from the first strike, his body took the second one square and solid.
"Ngh..." Unable to bear it, a muffled groan of agony escaped his throat. The hair all over his body had already been reduced to dust by the first lightning strike and washed clean away by the rain.
After just two bolts of lightning, Xiao Yichen could clearly feel that his internal state was abyssal; his internal organs were vibrating violently, as if they might burst at any moment from being unable to withstand this surge of lightning power.
Clenching his teeth desperately, he thought, *I absolutely cannot pass out right now, or everything will go down the drain.* He kept bracing himself inwardly, and every time he felt like he couldn't take it anymore and was about to black out, he would bite hard on the tip of his tongue to shock his consciousness back awake.
Just as he caught a slight breather, another current surged into his body. By now, his outer appearance no longer resembled a human being in the slightest. The lightning rampaged wildly within him, battering his internal organs and meridians. The sensation felt like countless ultra-fine silver needles constantly stabbing into his bone joints, making death seem preferable to life.
"......"
Aside from his physical exterior, what worried Xiao Yichen even more was his inside. He felt as though his internal organs were practically being roasted to a crisp. Fortunately, the electrical current couldn't do much more damage to that already charred state, giving him a brief respite, but he was clearly now in a state where he was exhaling far more than he inhaled.
He wanted to bite through the sugar-coated pill in his mouth to heal his injuries, only to suddenly discover that the once-soft candy coating had now turned rock-hard and was completely impossible to bite through. Furthermore, the numbing effect of the electricity meant his mouth no longer produced saliva, making it utterly impossible to melt that sugar shell.
"Damn it..." Xiao Yichen cursed inwardly, sighing in despair, "Why didn't I anticipate getting hurt this badly? I was too careless."
Bound to the branch, he was tossed to and fro by the fierce gale, making his already battered body ache all the more. Just as he was about to lose consciousness entirely, another flash of lightning cleaved down from the sky, striking the iron hat still resting on his head—though by now, the hat had long since been pierced through.
The moment the lightning surged into his body, his heart skipped a beat and abruptly stopped. Then, he felt his other organs slowly losing their vitality. Sensing the condition inside him, Xiao Yichen closed his eyes in despair:
"It's over. The pill went to waste."
His head slowly drooped, and the tree trunk beneath him could no longer bear his weight. With a sharp snap, it broke, and his body plummeted to the ground, landing face-up to the sky. He let the relentless rain lash against his back, washing away the wounds on his frame. Unfortunately, because he had landed face-down, not a single drop of rain could enter his mouth to melt the sugar coating around the pill.
Gradually, the dark clouds began to disperse, and sunlight pierced through them to spill across the earth. Everything started to regain its vitality as small animals slowly stepped out of their caves to forage for food. Dahuang and the other two beasts cautiously dragged Xiao Yichen's body back into the cave, holding onto the hope that some miracle might occur.
…………
Back within the Meiyu Sect, Xiao Yichen had been missing for half a month. Yun Mei was leading Liu Qingqing in a frantic search for him everywhere, but the two of them had practically turned the entire sect upside down, even questioning the guards of certain forbidden grounds, yet still failed to get any news of Xiao Yichen.
"Senior Sister, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have let him take me out to play, and then I fell asleep because I was too tired on the way back. He must have taken that opportunity to escape the sect."
Seeing Liu Qingqing squatting on the ground and sobbing uncontrollably, Yun Mei was at a loss for what to do for a moment. After a long while, she slowly squatted down, gently patted Liu Qingqing's head, and said, "No, that won't happen. The gatekeeper sister saw the two of you return; he must still be within the sect. He probably stumbled into some place by mistake and is temporarily trapped. We will definitely find him."
Hearing this, Liu Qingqing seemed to recall something, and she wept even louder.
"Could big brother have broken into one of the sect's forbidden grounds?"
Liu Qingqing's tears continued to stream down, soaking a large patch of the ground.
"Big brother... I don't have a big brother anymore..."
Watching Liu Qingqing cry even harder, Yun Mei had no idea how to comfort her. She could only let out a soft sigh, looking toward the distant room that originally belonged to Xiao Yichen, feeling as though a string in her heart had suddenly snapped. A mist of tears gradually clouded her eyes.
"Where on earth did you go..."
At the Back Mountain, a light drizzle fell outside the cave, blanketing the earth. Raindrops drifted down, pattering against the leaves near the cave entrance with a soft rustling sound.
Dahuang cradled the charred, carbonized form of Xiao Yichen in its embrace. Looking at the barbecue rack Xiao Yichen had previously built inside the cave, a flicker of sorrow unexpectedly surfaced in its eyes as it continuously used its own body warmth to heat the person in its arms.
Day after day, time slowly slipped away. Yet no one knew that deep inside Xiao Yichen's pitch-black body, right at the very center of his heart—burned to the consistency of charcoal—a single drop of bright red had somehow bloomed, expanding outward at a faint, imperceptible pace. Beside it, a wisp of formless energy coiled around this tiny spark of life, constantly roaming, repairing, and slowly growing stronger.