Transforming into a stunningly beautiful fox spirit, leaving a scar on the heart of a prodigy.

The wind direction has changed.

The hole in the dome was made even bigger by the shockwave, and the cold wind no longer blew straight in, but swept in from the side.

Su Chang'an shifted his body three inches to the left.

She turned the fourth tail around and blocked the vent. The red fur at the tip of the tail was blown backward, desperately trying to shrink back against her skin.

Chen Xuan lay on her lap.

Su Chang'an's left hand rested on his lower back, his palm burning hot. The Phoenix True Fire had long since been exhausted, and now they were only managing to hold on thanks to the Celestial Fox Clan's basal body temperature, which was two degrees higher than that of humans.

Chen Xuan's breathing was frighteningly shallow; his chest would only rise and fall slightly once every ten or so breaths.

Her fingers slowly traced down his spine.

The broken bone that had just been forcibly reattached was coated with a thin membrane by the Heavenly Fox's essence. The membrane was still there, but it had become brittle. She could clearly feel the bone fragments sliding beneath the membrane, and with each slide, Chen Xuan's back muscles would involuntarily tense up.

Something's wrong; it's not a bone problem.

Su Chang'an's fingertip stopped at the joint of the third broken bone.

The remnants of the Quasi-Emperor Law.

When Chen Daolin stomped on his spine, he embedded a wisp of the power of law into it. That wisp, stuck in the bone, was even more disgusting than a malignant tumor.

It is eroding the meridians.

Su Chang'an touched the cold, thin thread. It was coiled among the broken bones, drilling into the walls of the meridians on both sides. The already riddled passageways were completely blocked by this thing.

The spiritual energy that flowed from his dantian completely leaked out by the time it reached his lower back. No wonder his body temperature kept dropping; he had no spiritual energy left to maintain basic circulation.

Su Chang'an withdrew his hand, his fingertips covered with a layer of grayish-white powder, and a stinging sensation shot straight to his palm.

The laws of a quasi-emperor are so powerful that even touching them can be painful.

Hurried footsteps could be heard outside the broken bricks.

Su Chang'an's third tail instantly stood up like a spear.

"Senior Su." It was Chen Mu's voice, lowered to a whisper.

He lowered his tail by half an inch. Chen Mu bent down and crawled into the ruins, carrying a black wooden box on his back and two cloth bags stained dark brown with medicinal powder in his hands, which he dumped on the ground.

"Everything that can be taken from the Medicine King Hall is here. The second-floor storeroom is being guarded by the main family, so we can't get through."

Without wasting any words, Su Chang'an directly opened the wooden box.

Twelve porcelain bottles, their labels hastily written. She unscrewed them one by one and smelled them. Bone-setting powder, blood-activating pills, external injury powder... all a bunch of junk used by low-level cultivators.

Until the eighth bottle—the Meridian Clearing Dew.

Su Chang'an took a sniff. The medicine was mild and wouldn't clash with the Heavenly Fox's essence; it was barely usable.

She opened the cloth bag again and pulled out two stalks of *Sophora flavescens* and one stalk of *Cymbidium goeringii* from a pile of very poor-quality hay.

"That's all?"

"The valuables have already been taken away by the owner," Chen Mu said through gritted teeth.

Su Chang'an didn't ask any further questions. There was no mortar and pestle, no spiritual fire. Advanced operations often only require the most primitive methods.

She snapped off the roots of the herb, placed them in her palm, and crushed them with her thumb and forefinger.

The plant fibers were crushed layer by layer under the fingertips, and the juice stained the spaces between the fingers green. In the end, the fingertips were hot and stinging, and the fingerprints were almost flattened.

She scraped the medicinal mud onto the broken bricks, mixed it together, and stirred it with her little finger into a dark green paste. Finally, she added three drops of meridian-clearing dew.

The medicinal mud hissed and bubbled, activating the remaining spiritual energy.

"I need to clear the residual laws from his meridians." Su Chang'an didn't even turn his head. "Hold his shoulders down, don't let him turn over even if he's dead."

Chen Mu immediately knelt on the other side, pressing down hard on Chen Xuan's shoulder blades with both hands.

Su Chang'an dipped his left index finger in the medicinal mud and inserted it directly into the joint of Chen Xuan's broken bone in his lower back.

The moment his fingertips touched the icy law, Chen Xuan's entire body tensed up like an iron plate.

Su Chang'an didn't stop; he pressed his fingernails against the edge of the remaining law and pried it outwards.

"hiss--"

Chen Xuan's back jolted violently. His left hand, which had been gripping Su Chang'an's clothes, slipped away, and his fingers gripped the broken bricks beneath him so tightly that his knuckles cracked.

The first fragment was pried out. It was grayish-white and so thin it was translucent.

When it was thrown to the ground, it burned a small, charred pit directly into the brick surface.

The second one. The third one. The fourth one.

It was truly like scraping the bone to remove poison. With each strip peeled away, Chen Xuan's body would convulse, and the newly plastered spinal membrane emitted a dangerous tearing sound.

Cold sweat beaded on Su Chang'an's forehead. If it cracked two inches more, his spine would break a second time.

"Bite down." She tore off a strip of fabric from her collar and stuffed it into Chen Xuan's mouth.

Chen Xuan bit down hard. Blood mixed with saliva dripped down the corner of his mouth.

The fifth fragment was hidden the deepest, with its two ends hooked upside down onto the meridian wall.

Su Chang'an took a deep breath, pressed her fingernails against the tip, and pulled hard.

"Click—"

A small layer of the meridian wall was torn off along with the skin and flesh.

A muffled groan of extreme pain rolled down Chen Xuan's throat. His right hand, shattered into pieces, somehow managed to grab something in mid-air with a sudden burst of strength.

They missed.

It then fell limply, landing squarely on Su Chang'an's knees. His bloodied and mangled fingers didn't clench, but simply rested there quietly.

Su Chang'an paused for a moment.

She deftly flicked away the fragments and smeared the medicinal paste fiercely into the wound. The medicinal properties of the herbs, mixed with the essence of the celestial fox, barely managed to seal the torn meridians.

Su Chang'an wiped her bloodied fingers on her trouser leg, then placed her hand over Chen Xuan's hand that was resting on her knee.

It was as cold as a piece of iron.

She didn't move away, letting him lean against her.

Chen Xuan's breathing gradually calmed down, and the strip of cloth slipped out of his mouth, covered with bloody teeth marks.

Su Chang'an wrapped him even tighter with her three tails. She didn't even glance at the burns on his right shoulder, yellow pus dripping down his arm.

"Five have been cleared; the rest are deep inside and will have to wait for him to recover his spiritual power to cooperate."

Chen Mu looked at their clasped hands, opened his mouth, but swallowed all his words.

The ruins fell into silence.

Su Chang'an's left hand returned to the ground.

The main root of the spiritual vein was still twitching, but the rhythm had changed. Thirty breaths, thirty-two breaths, thirty-five breaths…

Li Changgeng was gathering his strength. His intensity remained the same, but his frequency slowed; he was concentrating his power on a single point of the seal.

"Chen Mu, how far can you sense the energy flow of the great formation?"

"At most fifty feet." Chen Mu smiled bitterly.

Su Chang'an decisively drew out a wisp of the Heavenly Fox's essence and pierced it into the ground along his fingertip.

A map of the spiritual veins was forcibly unfolded in her mind. Chen Daolin drained the energy from nine branch veins, and all the spiritual energy was being poured into the main array eye in the city center, forming a vicious cycle where nothing could get in or out.

Directly attacking the main formation's core is suicidal; she needs to find an auxiliary formation core.

"Chen Xuan." She lowered her head.

Chen Xuan half-opened his left eye, his weak gaze falling on her face.

"Where is the dungeon where you were locked up as a child?"

Chen Xuan's Adam's apple bobbed, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping: "Guiyuan Hall... half a mile south."

What's down there?

A long silence. As if rummaging through a moldy memory.

"An abandoned waterway. Circular runes are carved on the stone walls, with a dot in the center and three rings around it."

Su Chang'an's eyes sharpened, revealing the standard auxiliary array core symbol.

How do you know so much?

Chen Xuan tugged at the corners of his mouth, his smile looking more like a grimace.

"I climbed inside three times. The first time was to find my way, the second time was because I was afraid of getting lost. The third time was because... no one came to open the door."

The air in the ruins instantly dropped to freezing point.

Chen Mu gripped his knees tightly, his eyes reddening.

Su Chang'an offered no words of comfort; sympathy was worthless at a time like this. She quickly drew terrain lines on the broken bricks.

Guiyuan Hall is half a mile south.

wrong.

The nine branch meridians she had sensed completely avoided that location. The auxiliary array eye had been rendered useless.

However, the abandoned array core is still connected to the framework of the main array. If it is destroyed, even without spiritual energy, it will trigger a chain reaction in the physical structure.

She quickly calculated. The crack transmitted for five breaths, and Chen Daolin repaired it for three breaths.

She only had a two-breath break.

Two breaths aren't enough to run away, but they're enough to send a distress signal 300 miles away.

Who should I send the signal to? Several names flashed through my mind, but they were all uncontrollable variables.

Let's see how it goes after we get through tonight.

Su Chang'an withdrew his senses; the convulsions underground had slowed to once every forty-one breaths. The runes at the bottom of the abyss flickered, and Li Changgeng was desperately trying to break the chains.

Following the returning spiritual energy, Su Chang'an detected a very faint dark red aura.

Ancient, decaying, yet imbued with the warmth of a living being. The ancient celestial fox, imprisoned for three thousand years with its bones pierced, is still alive.

Su Chang'an suppressed the tremor in his heart: "Chen Mu, go to the dungeon. Just make sure the waterway entrance isn't blocked. If you encounter anyone, tell them you're searching for a corpse."

Chen Mu glanced at her right arm, gritted his teeth, and turned to leave.

Only two people remained in the ruins.

The effects of the Meridian-Clearing Dew began to take hold, and Chen Xuan's body temperature finally stabilized, while his pulse also strengthened slightly.

"Don't fall asleep," Su Chang'an said in a low voice. "If you fall asleep now, your body temperature will drop again."

Chen Xuan looked at her bleeding shoulder: "Your shoulder..."

Mind your own business.

Chen Xuan bent his fingers, trying to reach her arm. Su Chang'an grabbed his wrist: "Seven bones in your right hand are broken. You can't even hold chopsticks properly. Don't try to be brave."

"I can take it," Chen Xuan stubbornly uttered.

Su Chang'an ignored him.

Just then, an unusual pulse tremor came from the ground.

Take fifteen breaths at a time, with even pressure.

It wasn't Li Changgeng from the abyss. The tremor came from the southeast—the direction of the third branch of the spiritual vein. Someone is causing trouble outside.

The system panel flashed in a corner of my consciousness: [Destined Death Tribulation Progress: 94%]

"How many have come?" Chen Xuan asked.

"They're not coming for us; someone's activating the third branch." Su Chang'an frowned.

"The Wang family?"

Su Chang'an did not answer. The goddess of the Wang family had Chen Tianyou's severed arm, the arm that carried the essence of the imperial clan's blood, which was currently the only item that could be used as a "physical cheat" to interfere with the great formation.

Before she could think it through, a devastating tremor suddenly erupted from the direction of the abyss!

Broken bricks flew half a foot into the air, stone pillars cracked, and medicine bottles rolled all over the ground.

Su Chang'an pulled Chen Xuan tightly into his arms, and his five tails instantly transformed into a crimson iron wall.

The tremor lasted for three breaths, followed by a deathly silence.

Ten breaths later.

A dark red beam of light shot violently into the sky along the main root of the spiritual vein, tearing a half-zhang-wide crack in the ruins! The red light illuminated the night, carrying a strong smell of three thousand years of rust and blood.

Amidst the blinding red light, a sigh echoed from an extremely distant place.

All suffering is experienced, yet all beings are saved.

Su Chang'an didn't hear those two words clearly.

But Chen Xuan, nestled in her arms, heard it clearly. He stared intently at the crack in the ground, his voice shattering in the wind:

"She's calling for...help."