CH 57

After pondering for a long time, Su Yang still couldn’t find the reason in the storyline for the Devil Sect’s Young Saint to extradite the poison for Gu Feidi.

He internally consoled himself: this world was fictional to begin with, there may be some plot points which were not strict or some unknown settings that he was unaware of that enabled Pu Lingyun, who practiced pure and upright methodology, to practice Half Withered Red.

Besides, what was important now was not to investigate the questionable points of the heroine’s methodology, but to overcome the issues caused by the Cold Pond Ice Spirit and persevere in mastering the methodology.

Su Yang calmed his state of mind, sat cross-legged, extinguished the flame again and began to stimulate his internal strength.

Although the Cold Pond Ice Spirit was a double-edged sword, it has to be said that it was indeed beneficial to those practicing cold methodology.

It took about three days for the Su Yang to surpass the first level of Half Withered Red. After completing the first week, the effort required would be reduced. Coupled with the help of the Cold Pond Ice Spirit, another two days later, Su Yang had achieved a breakthrough of the first level of Half Withered Red.

When Su Yang opened his eyes from meditation, he moved his limbs around for a while. They were almost frozen stiff, so he bounced up and down in the dark for a moment to get his temperature to return to normal. He then lit the torch and returned to the stone chamber where the two of them were staying.

He himself could not tell whether there was a psychological impact but he didn’t want to let Gu Feidi know the price he’d paid to train Half Withered Red. Furthermore, he didn’t want Gu Feidi to see the negative influence of Cold Pond Ice Spirit on him.

For this reason, he had specifically instructed Gu Feidi not to look for him in the room. The excuse was that he must not see light while training the Half Withered Red.

Gu Feidi was also very obedient and had never disturbed Su Yang. Every day, he sat quietly at the table grinding the ink stone and writing scriptures to calm his mind.

Seeing Su Yang returning to the stone chamber, Gu Feidi put down his brush and looked up, “How is it?”

Su Yang grinned, sat down across the table and raised his eyebrows proudly: “This Young Saint has never had bad instances while training methodologies. Today, I’ve managed to breakthrough the first level, so this calls for a proper celebration!”

Gu Feidi also laughed and asked, “There’s no tea or wine here; how are we to celebrate?”

Su Yang thought for a while and said, “It doesn’t matter, we can celebrate by singing and dancing! You said you can’t sing, why don’t I teach you?”

Gu Feidi raised an eyebrow: “You know how to sing?”

Su Yang proudly said: “Although I don’t sing professionally, at least my pitch is on point, so teaching you is not a problem.”

Hearing his words, Gu Feidi made a confused expression: “Pitch what?”

Su Yang: …….

He’d been so relaxed lately that he had misspoken in modern-slang.

Su Yang snickered twice and said, “It’s Devil Sect slang, it means I can sing quite well.”

Gu Feidi smiled: “Then you sing first and I’ll decide if I want to learn or not.”

Su Yang thought for a moment then picked a song he once liked and often hummed. He slowly began to sing.

“Wandering alone in the sea of ​​people, walking with loneliness. The sound of footsteps is as light as dust and no one can hear my monologue.

“You appeared outside the four seasons, separating the day from the night. Your fingertips fall on my clothes and bring me into your era…”

Originally a theme song of a movie about love between humans and ghosts, this song was widely sung because of the sweet affection of the tune.

“… being defeated by fear, afraid to speak of love, willing to be words written on your journey and to erase the expectation of lonely existence. Only hope to be with you in the next life.”

When Su Yang finished singing, he opened his closed eyes a little and asked with a smile, “Does it sound good?”

Gu Feidi stared directly at Su Yang with no expression on his face, but his hands under the table were already clenched into fists.

He gritted his teeth and endured it for a long time but finally, he couldn’t suppress the pain in his heart. He lowered his head and coughed a few times. A few drops of black blood splattered onto the pieces of paper on the desk.

“Wei…! You!”

Su Yang was so scared that he didn’t have the spirit to sing anymore. He quickly moved round the table, took Gu Feidi into his arms and asked anxiously, “Why hasn’t your injury healed?”

Gu Feidi raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and said in a low voice, “I can’t use the internal strength to heal the injury, so naturally recovery will be slower.”

Su Yang continued to ask, “Have you taken the medicine?”

Gu Feidi nodded: “I have, but…it’s not very effective.”

These few days, Su Yang had been immersed in practicing Half Withered Red Heart and didn’t pay much attention to Gu Feidi’s condition. Currently, the Gu Feidi in his arms seemed to have lost a lot of weight compared to the time they had previously fought each other. Evidently, his body had been greatly affected by Gu poison and internal injuries.

Su Yang felt distressed at once.

He agitatedly probed Gu Feidi’s pulse, but he could only feel that his heartbeat was slightly weak and could sense nothing else.

Inevitably frustrated, he asked, “Is there anything I can do for you? What should I do if I want to heal you with my internal strength?”

Gu Feidi leaned on Su Yang’s embrace and turned to look at him.

The two of them were very close; so close that they could feel each other’s breath.

Gu Feidi frowned and gritted his teeth, saying, “Similar to when you heal yourself, draw internal strength into my meridians and focus it… on the wound.”

Su Yang spread out his palm and neared Gu Feidi’s chest, hesitating for a long time, not knowing where to start. Gu Feidi took hold of Su Yang’s wrist and pressed the palm to his heart.

“Shanzhong? This… is quite risky?” Su Yang couldn’t help frowning.

Shanzhong is a large acupuncture point in the human body, which is extremely vital. If an unscrupulous person rushes at the Shanzhong acupoint with internal strength, it may be instantly fatal.

“It’s fine.” Gu Feidi said, “I trust you will not harm me.”

Su Yang slowly took a breath and nodded. He focused his internal strength in his palm, slowly transferred it into Gu Feidi’s body along his meridians then gathered and controlled it at the wound on his chest.

However, Gu Feidi shuddered suddenly and violently. His face paled and he couldn’t help groaning.

Su Yang was so frightened that he immediately retracted his palm anxiously, “What’s going on?!”

Feeling the pain reduced, Gu Feidi managed to croak out, “The Gu poison… will also be affected by your internal strength.”

“Then wouldn’t it be impossible to heal the wound?!” Su Yang asked in shock.

“Yes… it’s impossible to treat the wound with internal strength.” Gu Feidi said, “We can only use medicine, slowly recuperate… you…”

Su Yang clutched Gu Feidi’s shoulders tightly. He sat there for a long while then slowly helped him to lie down.

“Get some more rest,” he said solemnly. “I’m going to practice the exercises.” He then got up and was about to head into the room with the engraving.

“Wait,” Gu Feidi called out, “Su Yang…”

Su Yang turned around and said quickly: “The best way now is for me to quickly achieve a breakthrough of the third level of Half Withered Red and extradite the Gu poison for you, that way you can use your own internal strength to heal your injuries.”

Gu Feidi let out a sigh, “Don’t worry about this now… you just achieved a breakthrough today, why don’t you rest for a night—”

“Time is running out.” Su Yang interrupted Gu Feidi. “It’s better if I can speed things up by a day or half.”

When he finished speaking, he turned his head, but heard Gu Feidi call out in a low voice; his tone full of grievance: “…keep me company for a while, okay?”

Su Yang stopped in his tracks.

Before that, Gu Feidi had never shown such vulnerability. Su Yang turned around and saw Gu Feidi’s expectant expression. His heart instantly softened.

He slowly walked towards Gu Feidi side and sat down, “Alright, I’ll keep you company. You can sleep for a while. Get more rest and your injury will heal faster.”

Gu Feidi shook his head and said, “You’re not going to teach me how to sing?”

Su Yang was surprised: “You really want to learn?”

Gu Feidi chuckled: “Of course. That song… it sounds good.”

“Alright, then I’ll sing a verse and you follow.” Su Yang said.

Gu Feidi was a quick learner and after following three times, he could hum all the lyrics and music in tune himself and he was completely on-key. Even though his breathing was a little weak due to the injury, his exhalation was very steady. This made Su Yang feel that Gu Feidi had the talent to be a singer, but it was a pity that this was a fictional martial arts world.

After singing it twice, Gu Feidi stopped and started to hum the tune instead.

Su Yang asked: “You like this song, huh?”

Gu Feidi leaned his head towards him; his gaze cheerful as he lay on the couch looking at Su Yang, “…mmm, I like it.”

Su Yang smiled. He lay down beside Gu Feidi and both of them looked at the stone stalactites hanging down from the top of the cave while chatting with each other.

Gu Feidi closed his eyes and hummed the song. Su Yang listened and gradually fell asleep.

Then, he dreamed of the Jade Mirror Pond.

The coldness of the pond water penetrated his skin and pierced straight into his bones, causing a sting in his heart with the slightest movement.

Su Yang tenaciously held Gu Feidi in his arms, trying to find a path through the pitch-black water……

He remembered that there was a passage here that led to the Veiled Pearl Pavilion. But for some reason, the water kept spinning, making it hard for him to breathe.

Suddenly, he felt a warm breath from Gu Feidi in his arms and a voice rang softly in his ears: “…Su Yang, wake up.”

Su Yang embraced the warmth in his arms tighter, trying to relieve the chill that could almost freeze his soul.

“Su Yang! Wake up! *Cough, cough*……”

Gu Feidi patted Su Yang’s shoulders as he endured the biting pain of the Gu poison and urged his internal strength to try to warm up Su Yang who was about to freeze into a block of ice.

Su Yang’s body was shivering very quickly and thin icicles began to form on his temples and eyebrows. Gu Feidi pressed his cheek against Su Yang’s forehead as he manoeuvred internal strength and called out: “Su Yang, Su Yang! Wake up!”

Finally, Su Yang slowly opened his eyes and shuddered again.

He hugged his arms tightly around Gu Feidi’s waist, his jaw was trembling and he said hoarsely, “It’s freezing…”

Gu Feidi swallowed a mouthful of blood and asked in a low voice, “What’s going on?”

Su Yang subconsciously nestled closely to Gu Feidi, drawing heat from him almost greedily. After a while, he withdrew without saying a word.

Gu Feidi covered his mouth, coughed twice, then asked, “Is it related to Half Withered Red?”

The corners of Su Yang’s mouth twitched and he evasively responded, “Mmm… it’s a bit related, but it’s not serious and it doesn’t always happen. Maybe it’s because I’ve just achieved the breakthrough of the first level and haven’t gotten used to it yet.”

After a long silence, Gu Feidi asked, “Are you still cold?”

“Much better already,” Su Yang said.

“Mmm, if you’re still cold…” Gu Feidi paused and said, “…just hug me to sleep.”

Su Yang panicked. He smiled reluctantly and said nothing.

It was past midnight. Su Yang was sleeping very peacefully.

Seeing him doze off, Gu Feidi quietly took a light and went to the room where the Half Withered Red technique was located.

He found the stone block and read it carefully all the way through from beginning to end. He made sure that there were no reminders or instructions in the exercise that mentioned harming the practitioner’s body. Moreover, this method was indeed a treasure book that could suppress all kinds of Gu worm poisons, even if it couldn’t be completely removed after extradition, it could be completely suppressed for decades.

After repeatedly confirming that there was no problem with this technique, Gu Feidi still had some doubts, but he was a little relieved. Returning to the outer stone chamber, he gently wrapped Su Yang in his arms, closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Once both had their fill of rest, Su Yang went to the room and began to practice the second level of Half Withered Red.

Gu Feidi sat down at the desk, picked up the brush and was about to silently continue writing the remaining half of the scriptures from yesterday when he saw that the paper was stained with spots of blood.

Staring at the blood stains for a moment, he changed to another piece of paper.

The tip of the brush moved lightly and the ink marks stroked easily on the paper with a beautiful flow. The handwriting intertwined and a new set of lyrics gradually took shape:

The bustling crowd is like a sea, asking where you will return. It is a pity that the flower steps are not stained with dust and the black hair is like mist and eyebrows like blue mountains.

Outside the Qingwu, Lesser Jade House, there is a lone mossy rock. A light fragrance combed the red hair band, my heart was wandering, the owner’s heart was hard to guess.

Knowing the spring will shine with the setting sun, the open book reveals the lighted stage. Jade Mirror cold water veiled pearls for two years, parting ones yearn the moon lingers. 

I wish to be with you in this life.