Qin Dynasty: They've all turned into zombies, what's there to fear about a rebellion?

"You're asking for it, aren't you?"

Su Ming narrowed his pitch-black eyes slightly, and the pressure emanating from his body, like a tangible hammer, pinned the two women, who were originally at loggerheads, to the wall.

A suffocating sense of oppression filled the air. The fire serpent and the wooden dragon, who had been fighting to the death just moments before, had now dissipated into primal energy.

"You smashed my vase, and now you want to blow up my blood pool?"

Su Ming approached step by step, his boots crunching on the shards of porcelain, making a chilling sound. "Such boundless energy! I bet you all have too much internal energy to release!"

At this moment, Shao Siming and Honglian were like two cats being held by the scruff of their necks by a hunter. Although their eyes were full of resentment and shame, they could not move a single finger under the absolute suppression of power.

Honglian, in particular, never imagined that this seemingly carefree and glib-tongued Taoist priest could be so terrifying when truly enraged. The tremor that came from the depths of her soul reminded her of the fear she felt when she first faced a venomous snake.

"You... what do you want to do?" Honglian gritted her teeth, her voice still trembling but carrying a hint of stubbornness. "Kill me if you want! If I, this princess, even flinch, I wouldn't be called Chilian!"

"Kill you? Dream on."

Su Ming sneered, reached out and grabbed the two of them from the wall like chickens. "You damaged my equipment, and you won't pay for it with your body... oh no, I mean, you won't pay for it with work. You think you can die so easily?"

He dragged the two of them straight to the deepest corner of the alchemy room, which was covered by a black cloth.

"Splash!"

The black cloth was suddenly ripped off, revealing a bronze machine with an extremely bizarre design and a cyberpunk aesthetic.

This thing is as tall as a person, with intricate energy-guiding runes engraved on the base, and countless dense copper wires and transistors extending from the top. There are also two metal buckles in the middle that look like torture instruments.

"What...what kind of torture device is this?"

Honglian felt a chill run down her spine as she looked at the copper pipe that shimmered with an eerie green light.

"Instruments of torture? Superficial!"

Su Ming gave him a look of disdain that said, "You don't understand art," and while skillfully adjusting the knobs on the machine, he introduced, "This is called the 'Dual Corpse Qi Conduction Tester - Modified'! It was originally intended to be used to test whether zombies can 'wirelessly charge' each other through physical contact. Since you two like fighting so much, perfect, you can be my living batteries for once."

"Go up!"

Su Ming didn't give them a chance to refuse. He tapped their acupoints repeatedly with his fingers, sealing them, and then roughly pressed them onto the two metal slots.

"Click! Click!"

The cold, black iron shackles instantly locked their wrists and ankles.

The worst part is that the design of this machine is... extremely anti-human.

To test the so-called "conductive properties," the two positions were designed to face each other, and the distance between them was extremely close. Su Ming's lock directly turned Shao Siming and Honglian into an intimate position with their noses touching and their knees touching.

Their breaths could even land on each other's faces.

"Su Ming! You pervert!"

Honglian, seeing Shao Siming so close yet equally bewildered and humiliated, was about to explode. "Why are you tying me to this mute? Let me go!"

"Enough talk, let's begin the experiment!"

Su Ming ignored Honglian's roar and pulled down the control lever.

"Buzz—"

The machine emitted a deep roar, and the runes on the base lit up instantly.

A specially treated, slightly electric-sounding aura of corpse energy flowed into the two men's bodies through the shackles.

"Hmm!"

Both of them let out a muffled groan, their bodies tensing up uncontrollably.

It was an extremely strange feeling, like countless tiny ants crawling inside my blood vessels, a tingling, numb sensation with a slight stinging pain.

"Listen carefully, the principle of this machine is 'external body diversion'."

Su Ming, holding the record board, stood beside them with a serious expression and gave instructions: "You have all been injected with corpse energy electricity. If you don't want to be electrocuted and foam at the mouth, you must expel this energy."

"How do you guide me?" Shao Siming finally spoke, her voice somewhat hoarse.

"Simple." Su Ming pointed at the two of them, "Hold hands."

"What?" the two asked in unison.

"Don't you understand physical contact? Don't you understand closed-loop circuits?" Su Ming impatiently tapped the instrument panel. "Hurry up! Press your palms together! Otherwise, the next high-voltage current will turn your nice clothes into charcoal!"

Watching the red hands on the dial jump wildly, and feeling the increasingly violent electric current surging through their bodies, the two looked at each other and saw despair in each other's eyes.

Compared to being electrocuted to a crisp, holding hands... doesn't seem so unacceptable?

"Smack."

Two pairs of equally white hands, representing extreme cold and extreme heat respectively, pressed together fiercely in mid-air.

"Sizzle sizzle—"

The instant their palms touched, a visible spark of electricity exploded between their fingers.

"ah--"

Honglian couldn't help but cry out, her voice both alluring and painful, which made Su Ming's eyebrows twitch.

"Don't scream! Focus your energy in your dantian! Guide the electric current!"

Su Ming roared, his eyes fixed on the rapidly escalating data on the instrument panel, "Shao Siming, use your wood-elemental true energy to neutralize it! Honglian, don't hold back your fire poison, let it burn!"

This was nothing short of torture, but also an unprecedented form of training.

To combat the tingling electric current, the two had to put aside their prejudices and begin trying to cooperate.

The Myriad Leaves Flying Flowers True Qi within Shao Siming's body belongs to the Wood element, and is warm and enduring; while the Crimson Lotus's Crimson Flame Poison belongs to the Fire element, and is explosive and scorching.

Under the forceful merging of the corpse energy current, these two completely different forces strangely merged together through the palm of his hand.

Wood makes fire!

"boom!"

Honglian felt an unimaginable surge of vitality enter her body. Her fire energy, which had been somewhat damaged due to her cultivation of poisonous arts, suddenly surged as if a bucket of hot oil had been poured on it!

"This...this is..."

Honglian stared wide-eyed at the pure, no longer foul-smelling crimson flames rising from her body, her face filled with disbelief.

Meanwhile, Shao Siming was not idle either. The feedback from the fire poison made the true energy in her body more condensed and domineering.

"Perfect! Absolutely perfect!"

Su Ming stared at the sky-high curve on the data panel, so excited he almost broke his pen.

"I knew it! Wood and fire are in harmony! The five elements generate each other!"

"If we tie the two of you together and make it a 'dual-core drive,' the output power will be equivalent to ten Black Iron Warriors!"

Like a madman who had discovered a new continent, he circled around the machine, touching the scalding hot tubes one moment and poking the two people's tightly pressed hands the next.

"Again! Let's change positions! This time, back to back!"

At Su Ming's command, he manipulated the robotic arm to forcibly flip the two over, pressing their backs tightly together.

"Spinal alignment! Central nervous system resonance!"

"Ugh...it's hot..."

Honglian was completely too exhausted to curse. She was drenched in sweat and leaned softly against Shao Siming's back. The shivering sensation that sent electric currents through her spine made even her toes curl up.

Shao Siming bit her lip until it bled, enduring the extreme shame and strange feeling, and cooperated with Su Ming's instructions.

Just as Su Ming was immersed in the "ocean of science" and preparing to develop a third, even more outrageous position.

"Waaaaah—waaaah—!!!"

A piercing alarm suddenly blared over Xianyang Palace.

That's... the highest alert level for enemy attack!

"What's going on?"

Su Ming paused, then abruptly looked up at the window.

The once pitch-black night sky was now illuminated by an eerie blue light. A colossal beast, entirely constructed of wood and bronze, was straddling the towering city walls, like a moving mountain, and crashing down upon the core area of ​​Youdu.

"The Mohist mechanical beast—Azure Dragon?!"

Su Ming narrowed his eyes, looking at the densely packed human figures standing on the back of the giant beast, and a cold smile appeared on his lips.

"Well, I didn't even go looking for you, but you've delivered yourselves to my doorstep?"

"Has this a group come to rescue these 'princess brides'?"

He casually tapped the machine's emergency stop button and said to Honglian and Shaosiming, who were still panting heavily:

"Break time is over, you two, stop pretending to be dead."

"Someone's come to cause trouble. Perfect, let's test the power of your new 'dual-core' system on them!"