The reconstruction of Qingxu Temple advanced slowly in oppressive circumstances, sorrow like an invisible mist shrouding every inch of land. Tang Xiaoqi's body, supported by pills and his stubborn will, had recovered some strength. Though his meridians still ached with emptiness and his spiritual energy flowed sluggishly, he could at least move freely. He did not participate in the actual clearing work, but spent most of his time in a crude "medical hut" temporarily erected from several not-yet-collapsed hall walls and oilcloth.
Inside the medical hut, smells mixed together. The bitterness of herbs, the foul stench of festering wounds, and the lingering burnt smell after demonic energy erosion all mingled together, stifling the chest. Several dozen severely wounded lay on crude straw mats on the ground, their groans and coughs sounding one after another. The few disciples and servants slightly skilled in medicine busily shuttled between them, their faces full of exhaustion and helplessness.
And Xiaoqi stayed for long periods at one position in the farthest corner.
There lay Second Brother, Luo Feng.
He was fortunately found at the edge of the Black Wind Mountain Range. When found, he was almost turned into a bloody figure by rocks, his breath as faint as gossamer, only the fading spiritual light of his protective dharma artifacts keeping the last breath of life.
At this moment, Luo Feng had long lost his usual nimbleness and liveliness. His plump body had grown much thinner, his face a deathly ashen pallor, lips cracked, eyes tightly closed. Only the extremely feeble rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive. His body was wrapped in bandages soaked with dark red and medicinal stains. The most severe wound was near his dantian, a ferocious crack almost piercing through his lower abdomen, caused by the backlash from the core fragments of dharma artifacts he himself had detonated.
An elder skilled in medicine, after careful examination, only heavily shook his head and said quietly to Xiaoqi beside him: "His dantian sea suffered devastating impact, over seventy percent of his body meridians were severed, demonic energy and violent spiritual energy remnants entangle within, constantly eroding his vitality... Keeping him alive is already fortunate. His cultivation level... is likely lost. Whether he can wake up depends on heaven's will."
These words were like ice water poured over his head. Complete cultivation level ruin, for a cultivator, was little better than death.
Xiaoqi looked at Second Brother's lifeless face, scenes from the Black Wind Mountain Range continuously flashing in his mind - Second Brother pushing him and Zhao Tiezhu toward the path of survival while he resolutely turned around and detonated all his belongings with that crazy smile.
"Second Brother saved us..." Xiaoqi's voice was hoarse, his fists clenched tightly, nails cutting deep into his palms.
He could not accept this result.
From that day on, he barely left Second Brother's side.
First, he searched through the sect's remaining pill reserves and those privately contributed by several elders, finding the few precious spiritual pills for sustaining life and repairing meridians, carefully dissolving them and feeding them into Luo Feng's mouth drop by drop. But these pills had negligible effect on Second Brother's severe injuries, only barely keeping that thread of vitality from dissipating.
Seeing that conventional pills were ineffective, Xiaoqi steeled his heart.
He sat cross-legged beside Luo Feng, extended his right index finger, and once again pointed at his own shanzhong acupoint! This time, however, he was not aswild as when burning essence blood before, but in an extremely slow, extremely meticulous manner, carefully extracting wisps of pure life-origin essence containing a faint purification aura from his already unrecovered origin!
This process was extremely painful, like cutting his soul with a dull blade. His face instantly became even paler, cold sweat pouring down, his body uncontrollably trembling slightly. But he gritted his teeth, his gaze firm, guiding that wisp of pale goldenessence containing life origin and purification power slowly into Luo Feng's shattered dantian.
Life-origin essence was the fundamental cultivated through life and death by a cultivator. Losing even a thread required a long time to make up, let alone his current poor condition. But he did not hesitate in the slightest.
The pale golden essence like the finest stream flowed into Luo Feng's dantian, like a torn cloth bag, slowly nourishing those broken, withered meridians, trying to drive out the demonic energy and violent spiritual energy remnants lodged within. This process was agonizingly slow, the effect negligible, like trying to put out a fire with a cup of water.
Xiaoqi ignored all this. He repeated this process day and night. During the day, while enduring his own meridians' empty pain and the severe pain of extracting life-origin essence, he continuously channeled spiritual energy to Second Brother. At night, when his spirit could no longer hold up, he would lean against the wall for a brief rest, clutching Master's vermillion wine gourd in his arms, as if drawing strength and comfort from it, then wake again before dawn to continue that seemingly futile effort.
His behavior attracted the attention of other disciples and elders in the medical hut. Some admired him, some were moved, and others secretly shook their heads, thinking he wasoverdrawing his future to gamble on a slim hope.
Senior Brother Mu Qingfeng visited several times, looking at Xiaoqi's increasingly gaunt appearance yet stubborn gaze, about to speak but ultimately just letting out a heavy sigh, silently placing some of the sect's last qi-nourishing herbs in his hands.
Third Sister Liu Yun would occasionally pause outside the medical hut during patrols, her icy gaze sweeping over Xiaoqi's desperate figure, saying nothing, only her sword-gripping fingers unconsciously tightening several times.
Xiaoqi was oblivious to everything around him. In his world, it seemed only the barely breathing Second Brother existed, along with the life-origin essence constantly being extracted from himself carrying a faint hope.
Sweat soaked his clothes, then dried by his body temperature and obsession. His lips trembled slightly from weakness and focus, mouthing silently: "Second Brother, hold on... You can definitely wake up... We still need to go back to the Black Wind Mountain Range together, bring Zhao Tiezhu back... We still need to reconstruct Qingxu Temple together..."
He did not know if what he was doing would help, nor did he know how much longer he could hold on. He only knew he could not give up. Just as Second Brother did not abandon them back then.
This tireless guardianship at the cost of life-origin essence burned faintly in that corner of the medical hut full of death and sorrow, like a candle in the wind, yet stubbornly refusing to extinguish.