After I Got Pregnant With The Hero’S Baby, I Ran Away With The Ball. Chapter 8

For outsiders attempting to probe the meridians, the best entry point is the Celestial Spirit point, but the Celestial Spirit is one of the thirty-six vital death points of the human body, and no one would easily allow access to it.

Duan Xi was not fixated on the Celestial Spirit point. Like a normal pulse check, he separated a thin wisp of spiritual energy from Wei Lin’s wrist and sent it inside.

Because they had once cultivated together, their souls and spiritual power were familiar with each other. His spiritual power entered Wei Lin’s meridians without any obstruction.

Wei Lin didn’t feel anything unusual, but for a moment, he felt his soul tremble comfortably, and the pain in his body seemed to be soothed and stopped.

He could feel a current of energy flowing through his body, yet he couldn’t muster any resistance; he even wanted to follow that current and intertwine with it.

Yin Changlan, standing nearby, suddenly opened his eyes wide, the gentle smile on his face freezing into ice. He clenched his fists, staring at Duan Xi with a momentary flash of anger, but quickly concealed it.

Yin Changlan’s change in emotion did not escape Duan Xi’s notice. He knew what Yin Changlan was angry about, but he had no time to worry about that now.

The tiny wisp of spiritual energy passed through the complex network of meridians. As he had expected, Wei Lin’s meridians were severely corroded by demonic energy and were extremely fragile. He had to be very careful not to accidentally shatter them.

The meridians were so badly corroded that some areas were almost broken, barely connected by a trace of Wei Lin’s own spiritual power. Given Wei Lin’s current physical condition, this connection likely wouldn’t last much longer.

Passing through the meridians and directly into the Dantian, a nascent soul, only an inch long, was curled up, eyes closed and brows tightly furrowed. Its beautiful, delicate face, identical to Wei Lin’s, was largely polluted by black demonic energy, looking like a porcelain doll fallen into a mud pit—pitifully vulnerable.

Clutched between the nascent soul’s chubby arms was a fiery red bead, emitting a domineering red glow.

The demonic energy seemed somewhat afraid of this bead. In the areas illuminated by the red light, the demonic energy dared not encroach even slightly.

The power within Wei Lin’s body seemed to originate from this mysterious bead.

He tentatively wrapped his spiritual energy around the bead, expecting it to resist the proximity of his power. Instead, he found that the scorching, fierce red light softened.

The bead tumbled around in his spiritual energy, showing great intimacy toward him.

He vaguely felt that this bead had a deep connection to him, but he couldn’t sense the specifics.

He merely concluded that the time was not right and withdrew the spiritual energy surrounding the bead.

The red bead seemed reluctant to let go. The red glow flickered, dimming and brightening several times. The demonic energy, which had been lying in wait, immediately counterattacked fiercely, attempting to seize the bead in one go, but was ultimately burned and scattered by the red light.

Duan Xi observed the entire process. Seeing that the bead was suppressing the demonic energy’s invasion, he felt relieved and turned his attention back to examining Wei Lin’s Dantian.

The spiritual energy passed through the Dantian’s spiritual sea and then into the divine consciousness’s Purple Manor. Wei Lin’s situation was not optimistic.

Probing the meridians internally is mentally exhausting. By the time they finished, both Wei Lin and Duan Xi felt mentally drained.

Especially since they were originally bound by dual cultivation, having spiritual energy enter the body without the merging of souls was undoubtedly a form of torture for both of them.

When the spiritual energy was withdrawn, Wei Lin felt as if he had fought a difficult battle, drenched in sweat. As Duan Xi pulled his hand back, Wei Lin could no longer hold on and collapsed.

Before losing consciousness, he felt someone catch him, letting him lean against their chest.

The faint scent of plum blossoms was his last memory.

Duan Xi supported the person who had fainted from exhaustion, lifted him into his arms, and carried him into the bedroom. Yin Changlan silently followed behind him, stopping at the doorway.

Duan Xi carried Wei Lin all the way to the inner room, personally removing his outer robe, shoes, and socks, leaving him only in his undergarments and trousers. Then he gently laid the man flat on the bed and covered him with a quilt.

After doing all this, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he reached out and stroked Wei Lin’s soft, smooth long hair, sighing lightly: “You are only this obedient at times like this.”

The person on the bed frowned tightly even in his sleep, as if countless worries weighed on his heart, suffocating him.

Duan Xi reached out and smoothed the furrow in Wei Lin’s brow, but after a moment, it knitted together again.

He repeated the action patiently several times. Finally, the sleeping man yielded to him, his brows relaxing as he fell into deep slumber.

Duan Xi did not linger there for long; Yin Changlan was waiting outside.

When he stepped out of the room, Yin Changlan was indeed still waiting. Duan Xi said to him, “Let’s talk outside.”

Yin Changlan glanced at the closed door, realizing that this place was unsuitable for discussing the following topics, and nodded in agreement.

The two walked out of the house one after the other. Behind the courtyard was a small bamboo grove. Apart from the spies lurking in the shadows, almost no one came here, making it the most suitable place for a conversation.

The weather was gradually turning to autumn. The bamboo leaves in the grove were yellowing and dry, fluttering in the wind, and then scattering on the ground.

Duan Xi and Yin Changlan walked slowly, stepping on the broken remnants of the bamboo leaves. Neither spoke first.

Only when they were far enough from the courtyard did Duan Xi set up a barrier to isolate them from divine sense probing. Then he turned to look at Yin Changlan and said, “Ask whatever you want to ask.”

Yin Changlan pursed his lips, his expression complex.

“What exactly is going on between you and Wei Lin?”

If he hadn’t been mistaken just now, Duan Xi and Wei Lin had clearly engaged in dual cultivation. No wonder Duan Xi was so certain that Wei Lin would not resist his spiritual energy.

“It’s exactly as you saw. I dual cultivated with him—but that was an accident.” Duan Xi admitted it quite frankly, but then reconsidered and corrected himself: “Actually, it can’t be called an accident. It should be considered me forcing him.”

Even though Duan Xi claimed he had forced Wei Lin, Yin Changlan was still very angry. He knew he had no right to influence Duan Xi’s decisions.

Previously, Duan Xi had always called Wei Lin ‘wife,’ and Yin Changlan thought Duan Xi was plotting something, deliberately putting on an act. He even thought that treating Wei Lin’s cultivation deviation was merely a necessary measure because Wei Lin had lost his memory and couldn’t reveal the whereabouts of Duan Xi’s sister, Lingxi.

Now, it seemed this was not the case.

“What are you thinking? Don’t you remember who he is?”

Yin Changlan and Duan Xi had known each other since they were young. He understood some of Duan Xi’s tragic past and knew that Wei Lin had tried to murder Duan Xi repeatedly. Twice, he himself had rescued Duan Xi from the clutches of the Heavenly Dao.

The relationship between Duan Xi and Wei Lin could be described as irreconcilable, a situation where one must perish for the other to live.

He stared intently at Duan Xi, trying to discern something from those calm black eyes, but the owner of the eyes remained composed.

Duan Xi took a deep breath and said, “Of course I remember who he is, and I know I should hate him. But Changlan, I’ve realized I don’t want to kill him anymore.”

Yin Changlan immediately clenched his fists: “Have you forgotten how he killed your mother? Forgotten how he snatched your sister away right in front of you?”

With such a deep blood feud, how could Duan Xi face the spirits of his mother and sister, and how could he face himself, if he didn’t kill Wei Lin?

A flash of hatred crossed Duan Xi’s eyes. “I haven’t forgotten. I remember every detail clearly.”

That year, his young sister and he were shoved into the cellar by their panicked mother. Through the narrow cracks in the cellar’s wooden planks, he watched with his own eyes as that beautiful man twisted his mother’s neck, extracted her soul, and imprisoned it within a plum blossom.

Blood, as vibrant as winter plum blossoms, soaked the wooden planks, dripping down the cracks and splattering on the cellar floor, blooming into crimson plum flowers.

Killing his mother wasn’t enough for Wei Lin. Later, he sent people to hunt down his sister and him.

He carried his congenitally disabled sister, hiding everywhere. To avoid being recognized, he had played the roles of a beggar and a mad child, but in the end, they were still caught by Wei Lin’s people.

When his sister was taken away, he had begged Wei Lin to let her go, but the Wei Lin of that time coldly told him: “Weakness is the original sin. When you are strong enough, no one will ever be able to take anything away from you.”

In the end, Wei Lin took his sister away, and he never saw her again after that. The only thing he knew was that the Saintess of Ghost Valley was also named Lingxi, but she was not disabled and did not recognize him at all.

Wei Lin also seemed to have forgotten him, but when they met again years later, Wei Lin’s gaze was the same as before—contemptuous and arrogant, as if he were just an insignificant little ant that could be crushed easily.

To Wei Lin, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Killing his mother was merely cleaning house.

Yet, despite being called cold-blooded and ruthless, Wei Lin had not completely eradicated the root, sparing the life of the traitor’s son.

Sometimes he truly couldn’t understand Wei Lin. There were several times when he could have been killed, yet Wei Lin coincidentally allowed him to escape with his life, as if he wasn’t truly intent on taking it.

He remembered that the person who killed his mother had an inconspicuous mole below the left side of their Adam’s apple, but Wei Lin did not.

Sometimes he would doubt whether the person he saw that year was truly Wei Lin. This was the main reason for his constant hesitation.

Looking at the ruthless Duan Xi before him, Yin Changlan sighed and said, “Don’t forget that you planned for so long precisely to kill Wei Lin and completely destroy Ghost Valley, in honor of your mother’s spirit.”

Duan Xi’s eyes flickered. He curled his lips into a cold smile: “I’ve changed my mind. I won’t kill him.”

Yin Changlan’s eyes widened. Just as he was about to tell him not to act rashly, he saw Duan Xi catch a fallen leaf drifting into his palm. He clenched his five fingers, crushing it, his eyes dark and dangerous.

“I’m thinking, instead of killing him, wouldn’t it be a greater humiliation and disgrace to make him fall in love with me, his lifelong enemy?”