Huang Rong from The Return of the Condor Heroes: Brother Jing, let's get a divorce.

"Yang Guo... let me go..."

Two clear tears slid down Cheng Ying's cheeks.

She hated this man, and even more so her own useless body, which would completely collapse at the slightest provocation.

"If I let you go, you'll explode."

Yang Guo lifted her up a little, so that her thighs were against his hip bones.

"Don't move, let me help you regulate your internal energy."

"Otherwise, with your mediocre skills, you'd definitely suffer a qi deviation."

This isn't just meant to scare people.

The medicinal properties of the Pusiqu snake gall are extremely strong and yang, and it follows the pathway of the Hand Taiyang Small Intestine Meridian and the Governing Vessel.

Cheng Yingxiu's internal energy is pure, clear, and dense, which is completely incompatible with the medicinal properties of snake gall.

If you force it, you will only disperse the medicinal power, causing it to seep into the finer parts of the eight extraordinary meridians, ultimately damaging the foundation.

Yang Guo activated the innate primordial energy bead within his body.

The red and black energy beads slowly rotated, and a stream of pure Nine Yin True Qi flowed from his palm into Cheng Ying's meridians.

This true energy contains the unique yin-yang harmony of the Qiankun Technique, and it enters the body without being hasty or agitated.

It first traveled along the Lung Meridian of Hand-Taiyin for half a cycle, dispersing the heat that was blocking Cheng Ying's chest cavity.

Then, following the momentum, it heads south, passing through Zhongwan and Qihai, and directly exploring Dantian.

The Qiankun Technique mark in his dantian had long been heated to a scorching temperature by the medicinal power of the snake gall, resembling a red-hot iron bead.

As soon as Yang Guo's Nine Yin True Qi arrived, the mark immediately calmed down, and the medicinal power was also drawn by this True Qi, beginning to obediently circulate along the twelve meridians.

Cheng Ying felt a tingling sensation in her meridians.

That surge of energy shot up her spine from her tailbone, and when it reached her Baihui acupoint, her mind went blank for a moment.

She didn't even have the last bit of strength to resist.

He collapsed into Yang Guo's arms, letting his inner energy sweep through his body.

Driven by this true energy, her internal energy from Peach Blossom Island began to circulate on its own.

With each cycle of Yang Guo's true energy, a portion of the medicinal power of the snake gall was absorbed by the Peach Blossom Island mental cultivation method and transformed into Cheng Ying's own internal energy.

This process is quick because the essence of snake gall is formed from the condensation of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, contains no impurities, and has a very high affinity with the human body's meridians.

Cheng Ying could feel her dantian expanding.

The total amount of true qi is increasing, and the meridian walls are also stretched thicker by the medicinal power.

She might not have achieved this level of progress even after three months of arduous training with her master on Peach Blossom Island.

But she couldn't be happy.

On the other side, Lu Wushuang was also at a critical juncture.

The Yi Jin Du Bone Strengthening Method is an authentic Taoist marrow cleansing exercise that follows the Ren and Du meridians in a major cycle.

The yang-like medicinal power of snake gallbladders was perfectly suited to this mental cultivation method. After being guided into the dantian, it was completely transformed into pure internal energy.

Wisps of white steam rose from Lu Wushuang's head.

That was a sign that the turbid qi in her body was being expelled by the medicine, indicating that her meridians were undergoing a large-scale cleansing and widening.

She let out a long breath and opened her eyes.

"My lord!"

Lu Wushuang jumped up immediately, her eyes bright and clear.

"I've mastered it! This snake gall really works; I feel like my strength has more than doubled!"

She ran over and hugged Yang Guo from behind, pressing her face against his back.

With Cheng Ying in front and Lu Wushuang hanging behind, Yang Guo was momentarily unable to move.

He turned his head and kissed Lu Wushuang on the lips.

"As long as it works, I'll have plenty of good days ahead with my husband."

At this time, the medicinal effects in Cheng Ying's body had been almost completely digested.

She pressed her hands against Yang Guo's chest, pushed him away forcefully, stumbled back two steps, leaned against a rock, and gasped for breath.

She looked down at her hands.

Clench your five fingers together, then relax them.

The flow of true qi in my palm was more than 30% smoother than before, and I could feel a slight warmth in my fingertips.

She circulated the internal energy of the Falling Flower Divine Sword Palm and found that when the Qi flowed through the Shaoyang Meridian, all the previously stagnant and blocked areas were now completely cleared.

His internal strength had increased by at least two years.

But this way of improving one's cultivation is too humiliating.

Every bit of internal strength that increased was guided by the man's true energy flowing into his body.

This isn't cultivation; it's clearly being fed!

"Alright, stop making that sullen face."

Yang Guo clapped his hands and pried Lu Wushuang off him.

"You're getting a good deal and you're still acting innocent. Without me, you'd never have such profound internal strength in your entire life."

Cheng Ying gritted her teeth and remained silent.

She knew Yang Guo was telling the truth.

Although the techniques of Peach Blossom Island are exquisite, progress is slow and requires patience and perseverance.

It took Master Huang Yaoshi more than forty years to reach his current level of skill.

In this desolate wilderness, she could only accept her fate.

Yang Guo walked to the rock where the cloth bag was placed and sat down.

He poured the remaining snake gallbladders onto the bluestone slab and ran his fingers through them.

Snake gallbladders of all sizes were piled up in a heap; I counted them, and there were more than ninety of them.

This batch of snake gallbladders comes from the Bodhi snake swarm that constantly breathes in the spiritual energy of plants and trees in the Sword Tomb, and its quality is far superior to that of wild snake gallbladders from outside.

If all of them are refined, at least five or six years of hard work can be saved.

Yang Guo's mind had already begun to make plans.

He is now at the peak of the early stage of the Innate Realm, and there are already two layers of patterns on his Yuanqi Pearl.

According to the pattern he discovered on his own, the concentration of true qi doubles with each additional layer of texture.

The third layer of patterns is faintly visible; it's just one final push away from breaking through to the mid-stage of the Innate Realm.

There's a high probability that this batch of snake gallbladders will expose the truth behind this whole affair.

"Wushuang, go wash and dry that tattered Taoist robe."

"Cheng Ying, go find some dry firewood to start a fire."

Lu Wushuang responded and obediently ran towards the pool.

Cheng Ying stood still.

"What? Still not convinced?"

Yang Guo glanced at her sideways.

"Do I have to activate the mark and make you kneel on the ground begging me before you'll go?"

The last bit of stubbornness in Cheng Ying's eyes shattered completely.

She turned and walked towards the edge of the woods, bending down to gather firewood.

Yang Guo watched her figure disappear into the bushes, then looked away and sat cross-legged.

He grabbed ten snake gallbladders from the pile, weighed them in his hand, and threw them directly into his mouth.

The ten snake gallbladders fell into the stomach, and the outer membrane of the gallbladder was dissolved by the gastric juice, causing the medicinal effects to explode immediately.

A burning sensation spread from the stomach wall to all the meridians in the body, and wherever it passed, every meridian was swollen and tightened by the medicinal power.

For an ordinary martial artist, the impact of just ten of these stones would be enough to rupture most of their meridians.

However, Yang Guo's meridians had been repeatedly tempered by the Nine Yin Manual and the Kanli Technique for forty-nine days on the cold jade bed, making them far more resilient than ordinary people.

He closed his eyes and activated the red and black innate primordial energy beads.

The energy bead began to spin at high speed.

The red, positive Nine Yin True Qi and the black, reversed True Qi are released alternately, forming a vortex of yin and yang opposing each other in the meridians.

The medicinal power of the snake gall was caught in this vortex, like a millstone grinding grain, peeling away impurities layer by layer, leaving only the purest part to be swallowed by the Yuan Qi Pearl.

The changes in the dantian are obvious.

The energy bead is expanding.

The beads, which were originally only the size of longans, have now grown to the size of walnuts.

The two layers of texture on the surface became clearer, and the third layer of texture changed from being barely visible to being a real fine line.

But it's still one step away.

Yang Guo remained calm.

He steadied himself and continued practicing his internal energy.

The innate vital energy in the dantian is being compressed and compressed again.

With each rotation of the energy bead, its volume shrinks by one revolution and its density increases by one unit.

This process lasted for about half an incense stick's time.

Then, a muffled sound came from the dantian.

The sound was audible only to him, traveling from his dantian to his limbs and bones, causing the true qi in his meridians to vibrate simultaneously.

The Qi Bead has frozen in place.

It's actually smaller than before, but the color has become extremely rich, and the boundary between the red and black is more distinct.

The third layer of texture is faintly visible, and it is about to take shape.

The middle stage of innate constitution is in sight.