Chapter 62 - The Reversal of Yin and Yang
On the morning of the ninth day, the air inside the prepared chamber had grown heavy, thick with the smell of scorched needles and iron-tasting blood. The first two stages of the surgery—the main meridians stitching and the primary pathways weaving—had been completed by the second day. Step by step, day by day, Su Ming had woven, and Wang Tian had gritted his teeth and endured the agonizing process.
Now, they stood at the precipice of the final, most dangerous stage - the connection of the deepest, hidden sets of the Shattered Sword meridians, expanding the network toward the legendary limit of one hundred and eight paths.
Bai Qingxian leaned out, her face pale and her hands trembling from exhaustion. She looked at the desk, where the incomplete blueprint lay. They had spoken of this before the surgery—she knew the third step was not detailed on any scroll, existing only within Su Ming’s mind. The blueprints they had studied for the past month only mapped the pathways up to the second stage, the twelve primary meridians and their foundation that would allow Wang Tian to cultivate normally.
For these final, terrifying sets, Su Ming followed the dynamic insight of the Halo of Insight and his Essence Sight, carving the pathways as the glowing currents of life showed him the way—a method that defied the very scriptures of Medicine Valley. She could only watch in silence, her hands clasped tight as the weight of the moment pressed down on them.
She looked at Su Ming, whose face was pale but his posture remained absolutely steady. For the last seven days, he had worked in this silent focus. She could see the grueling strain on him, marked by the unusual amount of refined Qi and sheer spiritual focus concentrated behind his eyes, a depth of concentration that felt almost inhuman.
In Su Ming’s own vision, the room was a dark void where Wang Tian’s body glowed like a map of burning white and silver rivers. It was an incomplete body desperately trying to complete itself—as if the Twilight Nether Lantern dormant inside his spiritual sea was whispering. The trace of Samsara Resin suspended in his soul sea burned continuously, its golden light clarifying his mind, while the Void Dragon Soul poured its raw, draconic soul force, pushing his abilities even further to sustain this long ordeal.
Pushing both systems to full capacity required his absolute focus, pouring his strength into his eyes and mind like water through a narrowing throat. The massive drainage of his Qi and soul force was a constant, grueling weight, a dull, throbbing ache forming behind his temples as his Golden Core spun at a frantic pace to fuel the vision.
Yet, as he wove the pathways, a passive resonance within his mind began to capture and catalog every micro-movement, meridian alignment, and energetic flow. Every needle stroke did not just carve a channel; it inscribed a vast, detailed library of bodily anatomy deep into his consciousness, granting him an understanding of human pathways that surpassed even the grandest of medical scriptures. It was a profound, peerless knowledge of meridians and body anatomy that was priceless.
Now, his fingers moved on his own authority as he prepared to carve the final, most dangerous connections of the 108 pathways.
Outside the prepared chamber, the wind had died down completely.
Lin Yao stood near the veranda steps, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. Beside her, Elder Bai Zhen stood like a sentinel, his brow deeply furrowed as he stared up at the sky.
Above White Lotus Peak, the bright midday sun was slowly being choked out by an unnatural darkness. Dense thunder clouds, tinted with a dark, violent, and purple hue, had started forming since the previous day and were now turning in a slow, massive spiral directly over the peak. The wind died down to a deathly still, and the birds that usually nested in the nearby pines took flight, fleeing down the mountain in panicked flocks. There was no thunder yet, but the air was thick with the sharp scent of ozone, the hairs on Lin Yao’s arms standing up as a chilling, metallic hum vibrated through the stone steps.
"Elder," Lin Yao whispered, her chest tightening as the ambient pressure began to weigh on her lungs. "What is that?"
Elder Bai Zhen did not answer immediately. He knelt down, pressing his hand to the formation flags. They were now vibrating violently in the soil, crackling with tiny sparks of escaping Qi. "A tribulation. The heavens are reacting to something defying their will. Stand fast, child. Keep your focus on the gate. No one enters this peak today."
Inside the chamber, Bai Qingxian did not look at the windows. Her eyes were locked on Su Ming’s hands.
She was managing the final reserves of the Life-Stabilizing Elixir. Her own Qi was depleted to the point of extreme, but she had managed to sustain herself by consuming a handful of spirit-replenishing pills. Fortunately, since she was not directly assisting in this final stage of the operation, her Qi expenditure was not nearly as vast as Su Ming’s.
Su Ming himself had already been forced to swallow two high-grade Spirit Restoring pills just to prevent his core from running dry. Yet, what held her in a grip of cold, silent terror was not her own fatigue. It was what Su Ming was doing.
Over the past eight days, she had watched him start the procedure, his needle technique improving at an inhuman rate. After he reconnected the first twelve primary meridians and mended their foundation, he immediately moved to the next set of twelve secondary pathways. When those were completed, he wove the next set of twelve tertiary meridians, day by day, pushing through the thirty-six meridians on the third day.
Now, on this ninth day, he was guiding the silver Qi threads with a speed that left afterimages in the dim lamplight. As the needles began their work on this final day, she began to count the pathways silently in her mind, her heart hammering against her ribs.
’Twelve principal meridians reconnected.’
’Twenty-four secondary meridians connected.’
’Thirty-six tertiary meridians forged.’
She had expected him to stop there. As of the second stage, Wang Tian’s meridian foundation was complete enough that he could cultivate well beyond an ordinary cultivator. She had wondered what Su Ming was trying to do, and how much further he wanted to push this, thinking thirty-six was the absolute limit of human endurance. But Su Ming’s hands did not slow.
’Forty-eight... sixty... seventy-two...’
Bai Qingxian’s breath caught. Her hands trembled as she sensed them through Wang Tian’s ribs. This was impossible. No ordinary cultivator, much less a hack of a physician whose knowledge was recently put together, should have the anatomical knowledge or the raw spiritual precision to map the human body at this depth.
How did he know these paths existed? How could a master of an outer peak of an ordinary sect possess insights that surpassed the grand scriptures of her Medicine Valley?
A deep creeping horror settled in her chest alongside her wonder. And now, on this ninth day, he was pushing beyond any scripture she had ever read, connecting deep, hidden eighth-order meridians whose very names she did not know.
Who was this man? What was his true background? Was there some hidden master supporting him from the shadows?
As the number of meridians entered the nineties, Wang Tian’s body began to show signs of declining. A fine tremor shook his limbs, and his breathing grew ragged, desperate gasps escaping his dry lips. Faint lines of dark, stagnant blood began to trickle from his nose and the corners of his bloodshot eyes.
Under Bai Qingxian’s experienced hands, his pulse was fluctuating wildly, dropping with every needle Su Ming drove home. She could feel his life force slowly declining, his body buckling under the immense pressure of the new pathways.
Wang Tian gritted his teeth, his fists clenched so hard his fingernails cut into his palms, his eyes wide and trembling as he fought against the dark void pulling at his consciousness.
’One hundred and eight.’
Su Ming’s fingers flicked, driving the final needle into the crown of Wang Tian’s head, connecting the 108th Shattered Sword meridian.
Instantly, the room erupted.
A sudden, violent shockwave of raw, wild sword Qi burst from Wang Tian’s chest, tearing through the air. The wooden desk split down the center with a loud crack. The specialized needles inserted into his flesh began to vibrate at a high, screaming pitch, their dark blue surfaces turning red-hot.
Wang Tian’s back arched off the table. His eyes rolled back, and his heart, which had been slowing gradually, gave one final, violent shudder and halted completely. His life force, which had been slowly declining, collapsed toward zero like a stone dropped off a cliff.
Su Ming did not panic. His expression remained calm, his eyes cold and fixed on the center of the boy’s chest.
"Move," Su Ming said.
He stepped forward, placing his palm over Wang Tian’s silent heart. Drawing upon his Yin-Yang Origin Law, he invoked Yin-Yang Reversal.
Inside his vision, the white and silver rivers of Qi froze. He forced the flow backward, turning the exploding sword Qi into cold, stagnant stillness and freezing the physical decay in time.
Beside him, Bai Qingxian staggered back in absolute horror. As a descendant of a famous medical lineage, she recognized what he was doing.
Reversing Yin and Yang on a living soul was a direct violation of the natural heavenly laws. The sheer audacity of the technique—commanding life and death with such authority—terrified her.
But the reversed energy was beginning to rebound. The massive pressure pushed back against Su Ming, his Golden Core trembling. Blood ran from his nose. If he held it for more than ten breaths, the feedback would shatter his foundation.
She did not hesitate.