Chapter 1844 — Regaining Sensation

Seeing that the Heavenly Thunder Pig really could turn up such valuable castoffs, Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

From now on, all they had to do each day was follow the Heavenly Thunder Pig and gather this sort of thing—no more scrounging for mineral water bottles, drink bottles, cardboard boxes and the like. With the Heavenly Thunder Pig along, they could always be first on the scene whenever anything valuable was thrown out.

True, other scavengers sometimes beat them to it, and they came away with nothing, but on the whole the Heavenly Thunder Pig was fast—remarkably fast.

With the Ice Spirit Sacred Fruit and medicine working in tandem, Wei Zhao slowly regained sensation and "awoke" from his coma—though this awakening was only within the jade pendant's space; his body still had no feeling in it.

"What...?" Wei Zhao opened his eyes within the jade pendant's space and felt his whole body burning with an unbearable heat; every meridian seemed to be on fire, and the pain was excruciating.

"You're awake?" Jiao Yazi was overcome with joy and astonishment at the sight of Wei Zhao waking. These past days Jiao Yazi had been frantic—he was nothing but a phantom, and with Wei Zhao unconscious he could do nothing at all. Unable to reach the outside world, he could only watch over the comatose Wei Zhao day after day, fretting helplessly.

He had clearly felt Wei Zhao's body temperature gradually fall over these days, but there was no guarantee the boy would wake; that depended on how the people outside treated him.

Now that Wei Zhao had actually woken, Jiao Yazi could finally breathe easy.

"Elder Jiao... what happened to me?" Wei Zhao asked groggily. He remembered cultivating, and then—nothing.

"Your cultivation went awry and you suffered a qi deviation—don't you remember?" Jiao Yazi said.

"Mm... a qi deviation... that's right..." Wei Zhao nodded, recalling the agony of that cultivation session. But he had no idea why it had happened: "But... why did it happen?"

"I don't know the cause either. Once you're fully conscious, you'll have to find it yourself," Jiao Yazi said.

He could only reach the outside world through Wei Zhao; and since Wei Zhao had been unconscious, Jiao Yazi naturally could not possibly have known of the conversation between Mo Kongwen and Old Man Wei.

"Conscious... how am I supposed to wake up?" Wei Zhao made an attempt, only to discover to his dismay that he could not return to the real world from the jade pendant's space—he could not even reach the outside world.

"Whoever is with you must have taken steps to suppress the fire poison in your body for now—but they alone won't be enough," said Jiao Yazi. "Outside medicine can only hold the fire poison down and slowly refine it away, but once your body absorbs it, it will affect you—there is no benefit in it, only harm. So you had best force the fire poison out of your body yourself. Only then will your true qi remain pure, and only then will you be able to cultivate the second level of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art!"

"Force it out of my body?" Wei Zhao blinked in surprise, then asked, "What must I do to drive the fire poison out?"

"Try circulating the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art and guiding your true qi to gather every trace of fire poison in your meridians into one place. Then, the way you release your true qi bombs, discharge the fire poison in a single burst!" said Jiao Yazi.

"Gather it all together? Couldn't I find a little and force that out, then a little more?" Wei Zhao asked.

"You could—but can you wake up right now? I mean your body out there," Jiao Yazi countered.

"That... no." Wei Zhao shook his head.

"Exactly," said Jiao Yazi. "If you can't even stay conscious, how do you expect to release true qi? Or do you mean to release it into the jade pendant's space? Release it here, and the moment you draw on the space's energy, you risk taking it straight back in again."

"I see..." Wei Zhao grasped Jiao Yazi's meaning at once. "So only when I've gathered all the fire poison in my meridians together can I wake up—is that it?"

"That's it exactly." Jiao Yazi nodded.

"Ah, and I still have to drive the fire poison out of my body. If I were like Zhang Naipao, taking in whatever came my way, able to absorb any kind of true qi and energy, this wouldn't be such a nuisance..." Wei Zhao smiled wryly. In that moment he actually felt a twinge of envy for Zhang Naipao.

"From what I know, you can," Jiao Yazi answered—entirely to Wei Zhao's surprise.

"I can?" Startled, Wei Zhao pressed him at once.

"Not now, though. But in my memory, you ought to be able to manage it—perhaps in time. Then again, I may be misremembering and have confused it with the cultivation method in the Chrysanthemum Manual," Jiao Yazi said, shaking his head. "My memory has not been unlocked; all I have is a vague impression."

"All right..." Hearing this, Wei Zhao felt a pang of disappointment.

Even if he could, it would not be now—and perhaps Jiao Yazi had misremembered, mixing it up with Zhang Naipao's Chrysanthemum Manual. For the present, Wei Zhao still had to use the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art to guide the fire poison in his meridians, compress it together, and finally force it out of his body.

Wei Zhao reined in his thoughts and gathered all his attention, then set the first level of the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art in motion and began to search his meridians for the fire poison.

Wei Zhao had repaired his own meridians several times before, so he knew the pathways within his body intimately. Now he drove the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art along the familiar route, sending his true qi back and forth through his meridians in search of the fire poison lodged there.

Naturally, Wei Zhao did not begin by exerting himself against the five organs, where the fire poison had invaded over a great area; instead he started with his hands and feet, where the meridians were sparse. Fewer meridians meant less fire poison, and even if something went wrong, the damage would not spread far.

Cautiously, Wei Zhao threaded his true qi through his right arm, and at last he found the fire poison in his meridians. Strictly speaking, this fire poison was a mutated fire-attribute true qi, born of the mutation of Wei Zhao's all-purpose true qi. But the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art he practiced was like a one-way converter: it could turn his all-purpose true qi into other kinds of true qi, yet it could not turn other kinds of true qi back into all-purpose true qi.

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