Chapter 47: The Demon Saintess and the Resurrected Sect Leader Part 2

Lu Mingyi silently counted in her mind. She’d been falling for nearly ten breaths when she heard a distinct echo, and she hurriedly mobilized her scant remaining spiritual power to cushion the descent.

Finally, the plunge reached its bottom—she splashed into water.

Born in Jiangxia and raised in Lin’an, Lu Mingyi was an excellent swimmer. Even battered dizzy by the raging currents, she quickly surfaced.

This area was pitch black. Though cultivators had some night vision, she could only vaguely make out shadows on the shore.

Just as Lu Mingyi prepared to swim to land, a “splash” sounded—someone else had fallen in!

She didn’t know if it was an ally, Ji Xuyun, or Sheng Ye, but after drifting on the surface for a moment with no one emerging, she weighed her options and dove back underwater to search.

Lu Mingyi summoned “Billowing Waves.” The faint blue glow from the spear illuminated a slender, motionless figure floating in the water.

Her heart clenched. She swam over urgently, dragging the person back to shore.

“Xiao Yuxie! Xiao Yuxie? Wake up!”

Lu Mingyi wiped the water from her face, shivering from the cold. She called out to Xiao Yuxie a few times with no response, then retrieved a low-grade Night-Luminous Pearl from her Storage Ring, barely illuminating the five paces around them.

A quick scan revealed no immediate dangers, so Lu Mingyi checked on Xiao Yuxie.

The woman was soaked through, her intricate moon-white family head robes clinging tightly to her body, outlining her alarmingly emaciated frame.

Lu Mingyi also noticed spots of pale red seeping through the fabric on her shoulder—the wound from when she’d pierced her with “Billowing Waves” days ago hadn’t healed and had apparently reopened. Soaked in the icy Spirit Spring Water now, it could only be worse.

“Xiao Yuxie!”

Lu Mingyi called again. With no reaction, she probed the woman’s spirit veins and Dantian, only to be shocked: Xiao Yuxie’s Dantian held not a trace of spiritual power!

As a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator, even after that battle, she shouldn’t have been depleted to this extent!

Unconscious, spiritual power exhausted, wounds reopened.

Xiao Yuxie’s condition was dire.

With a grave expression, Lu Mingyi took a low-grade Spirit Gathering Pill from her Storage Ring, pried open Xiao Yuxie’s pale lips, fed it to her, and tapped an acupoint on her throat to make her swallow automatically.

As she did this, Lu Mingyi pondered: What is this place? Where did Ji Xuyun’s overwhelming spiritual pressure come from? Where are the others now?

The Xiao Family’s Spiritual Spring seemed to span the entire underground. The others had probably fallen like her—into the water.

But even Xiao Yuxie had passed out in the process. Everyone except Jiang Liuzhao was likely in worse shape.

Lu Mingyi’s brows furrowed. She thought of Shen Mingzheng, who couldn’t swim at all. If she’d fallen alone…

And what about Ji Xuyun and Sheng Ye? What if Shen Mingzheng or Qi Yinxue encountered them one-on-one?

And this Spirit Spring Water—what exactly was it?

Jiang Liuzhao…

Even the invincible Jiang Liuzhao couldn’t hold back this deluge?

Where had they all ended up?

Her worries mounting, Lu Mingyi checked Xiao Yuxie’s spirit veins again after a moment’s thought. The Spirit Gathering Pill she’d fed her had done nothing!

She lowered her gaze in contemplation, then understood.

To use a pill, one needed spiritual power to dissolve and absorb it.

Ordinary cultivators, even when depleted, retained traces in their Dantian to absorb pills. But Xiao Yuxie truly had none left— the pill was useless.

To let her absorb the Spirit Gathering Pill and recover quickly, there were only two ways.

One: Xiao Yuxie woke up and circulated her energy to draw in ambient spiritual qi.

Two: …

Lu Mingyi helped her.

Lu Mingyi’s expression darkened. She shook Xiao Yuxie a few more times, careful of her wounds and not too hard, calling, “Xiao Yuxie! Xiao Yuxie! Wake up!”

But it was futile.

Lu Mingyi wasn’t a proper Medical Cultivator; she could only judge from the spirit veins that Xiao Yuxie’s state was extremely poor.

Logically, neither the battle with Ji Xuyun nor the plunge into the underground should have caused such damage. But she recalled overhearing Xie Muqing say Xiao Yuxie’s health was abysmal, beyond even many Medical Cultivators’ help.

Lu Mingyi’s breathing grew heavy.

She gazed down at Xiao Yuxie’s paper-white face. Her white hair lay wet and splayed on the ground, some strands clinging to her face and slender neck. Those gentle, amorous brows and eyes were peacefully closed now, her long lashes trembling faintly with shallow breaths—as if she were merely asleep.

Memories flashed by, settling finally on Xiao Yuxie’s overly thin shoulder, stained with faint red.

Lu Mingyi had said everything between them was settled, that they were strangers from here on.

Yet she thought now, At a moment of life and death, even a total stranger—I couldn’t just stand by.

Her eyes darkened. She stowed the Night-Luminous Pearl back in her Storage Ring, plunging the space into blackness again.

But that wasn’t enough—she closed her own eyes too.

Then, she placed her palm gently on Xiao Yuxie’s lower abdomen.

The woman’s abdomen wasn’t entirely soft; as a Sword Cultivator, it held sleek muscle lines. Chilled by the cold spring water, Lu Mingyi could barely feel her body heat—only the faint rise and fall with each breath.

Gentle Metal-Water spiritual power surged from Lu Mingyi’s Dantian, along her meridians, gathering in her palm before flowing through their touching skin into the other woman’s body.

The moment it entered, she felt strong resistance—the natural defense of a cultivator’s spirit veins and Dantian against foreign spiritual power.

Normally, only Medical Cultivators with innately mild spiritual power could inject directly; forcing it otherwise led to mutual harm.

Thus, Lu Mingyi proceeded with utmost care.

Her spiritual power probed soothingly into Xiao Yuxie’s spirit veins, inching deeper bit by bit until it reached the core Dantian.

The instant it brushed the Dantian, Lu Mingyi felt the body beneath her palm shudder. She called out, but got no response and pressed on.

The Dantian was sealed tight at first. Lu Mingyi could only make her spiritual power circle it, gently caressing the empty space.

With more power flowing in and caressing, her spiritual qi enveloped the Dantian entirely. At that point, Lu Mingyi felt the woman beneath her tremble faintly.

Breaking into another’s Dantian was painful, especially in Xiao Yuxie’s fragile state.

Lu Mingyi focused intently, deciding to speed up. The pent-up spiritual power launched its assault, tentatively probing the sealed Dantian.

This phase was even more sluggish. Eager to finish quickly, she entered too fast—the first thread was repelled, and the body tensed sharply in evident agony.

Lu Mingyi slowed even more, easing in speck by speck. At first, only traces got through, but once some entered, the Dantian gradually adapted. Her infusion grew smoother.

Xiao Yuxie also had a Metal-Water Spirit Root; her Dantian was warm and accommodating. After the initial resistance, it accepted Lu Mingyi’s power without rejection, taking in however much she gave.

It was rare for one’s spiritual power to be fully accepted by another—Lu Mingyi was surprised. But as she infused more, Xiao Yuxie’s body shook harder.

Assuming it hurt, and figuring she’d given enough, Lu Mingyi stopped and prepared to withdraw.

But as she lifted her hand, her sleeve was lightly tugged.

A hoarse, trembling voice—even laced with a hint of pleading—arose: “Little Yi… don’t… don’t stop…”

The voice exploded like thunder in Lu Mingyi’s ears. She jerked back, demanding breathlessly, “You’re awake? Since when?”

She’d had no other intentions, but Xiao Yuxie’s tone was far too strange!

Lu Mingyi had seen it all in her previous life—taboos, romances aplenty.

To her shock, Xiao Yuxie’s words sounded straight out of some steamy play script she’d read.

Xiao Yuxie’s ragged breaths echoed in the space. She choked out, “Just… just now…”

Lu Mingyi’s brows knit tight. Keeping her distance, she said coldly, “Good that you’re awake. I already fed you a Spirit Gathering Pill and just transferred some spiritual power. You should be able to absorb it now.”

“I want to, but Little Yi… the spiritual power you gave… isn’t enough…” Xiao Yuxie rasped.

“Don’t call me that!” Lu Mingyi retrieved the Night-Luminous Pearl and brought it close to check what was wrong.

But as the dim light flared, the sight of Xiao Yuxie lying there made her heart skip.

Her face was still pale, but her eyes brimmed with mist, shimmering “like rippling water” under the pearl’s glow. Her usually dignified features, now flushed red at the corners of her eyes, looked fragile and alluring.

Her thin frame heaved with urgent breaths.

One glance, and Lu Mingyi hurriedly looked away. She merely placed a hand on Xiao Yuxie’s wrist to probe, but the instant spiritual power entered her meridians, Xiao Yuxie’s body trembled uncontrollably again.

She wasn’t lying— as a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator, her Dantian was vast. What Lu Mingyi had given truly wasn’t enough.

But even so, Xiao Yuxie was awake now, surrounded by abundant Spirit Spring Water—more than enough for her to circulate and absorb on her own.

As if reading her mind, Xiao Yuxie added, “I-I don’t want to trouble you, but right now… I can’t move at all…”

Lu Mingyi’s gaze returned to her. In her earlier haste, she’d only glanced roughly; now she saw bloodstains spotting the ground beneath Xiao Yuxie.

“Did you get hurt in the fall?” Lu Mingyi stepped closer and crouched, asking.

Xiao Yuxie opened her mouth, but only managed a soft “Mm.”

When the cavern exploded, everyone plummeted together. Ji Xuyun had been right next to Lu Mingyi then; fearing she’d be taken, Xiao Yuxie had tangled with her using her own body, sustaining many injuries.

But she didn’t say it. She wouldn’t believe me now anyway, she thought.

At this point, Lu Mingyi realized Xiao Yuxie likely had hidden injuries in her meridians, and with total exhaustion, she couldn’t even circulate energy.

“How did you end up with zero spiritual power?” That puzzled her most.

“It’s probably related to Ji Xuyun’s sudden burst of spiritual power… The instant that power pressed down, I felt the spiritual power in my Dantian gradually draining away until it was completely sucked dry.”

Lu Mingyi was surprised to hear this, as she hadn’t experienced anything like it.

She had only felt an extraordinary discomfort in her body, but her spiritual power hadn’t suffered any extra damage. In fact, after the fall, by borrowing the power of the Spiritual Spring, her spiritual power had now recovered to nearly eighty percent.

This whole ordeal was far too bizarre. She couldn’t help thinking of the other three—Shen Mingzheng and Qi Yinxue’s cultivation levels were even lower than Xiao Yuxie’s. If they had landed alone, there was no way they could recover on their own.

Would Jiang Liuzhao find them?

With things as they were, Lu Mingyi set aside those worries and focused on helping Xiao Yuxie recover as quickly as possible.

She stowed the Night-Luminous Pearl again and said, “Xiao Yuxie, I know it doesn’t feel good to have someone directly transfer spiritual power into you, but the situation is urgent. Just endure it.”

…I’ll endure. But… why put out the light? Xiao Yuxie lowered her voice.

Lu Mingyi answered honestly. “I don’t want to get too entangled with a stranger.”

Xiao Yuxie fell silent.

This time, perhaps because Xiao Yuxie was awake and consciously holding back, Lu Mingyi found it much easier to enter than before. She decisively and efficiently gathered her spiritual power and infused it.

The spiritual power from another person flowed through her Dantian and meridians, making Xiao Yuxie burn with heat she could scarcely contain.

And this person was Lu Mingyi, no less.

Those gentle currents of spiritual power coursed through her like a scorching embrace, wrapping around her and turning her chilled body into a furnace of scorching heat.

Her body’s instincts, the yearnings of her bloodline—they screamed for her to draw closer to the woman before her, to demand more.

But Xiao Yuxie knew better than her instincts. Lu Mingyi wouldn’t show her pity. Worse, if she actually voiced it, Lu Mingyi would vanish from her world entirely.

Then they wouldn’t even be strangers anymore.

Reason laid out the answer so clearly, yet as Lu Mingyi withdrew her hand, Xiao Yuxie still let out a soft sob.

Her body, her spiritual power, her very soul—they all thirsted desperately for the blood kin standing before her.

“Xiaoyi… Xiaoyi, please… touch me…” she pleaded.

In the pitch darkness, Lu Mingyi couldn’t see the expression on Xiao Yuxie’s face as she spoke those words. She merely clenched the hand still warm from the other’s body heat, lowered her gaze, and murmured softly, “Xiao Yuxie, you didn’t get the name wrong. That truly surprises me.”