Chapter 119: Is There Something Dirty on My Face?

Qu Hongxiu and Gu Jia'er stood frozen in place, utterly stunned.

Xu Zhe had merely taken a pulse and pointed out so many issues; the key was that, judging by Chu Xiaotong’s expression, he seemed to have hit the nail on the head!

This... this was simply too absurd!

Gu Jia'er found it hard to believe. She had personally checked Chu Xiaotong’s pulse and observed her condition many times, eventually even utilizing her divine sense, only then managing to detect the injury in Chu Xiaotong’s dantian.

It wasn't that Chu Xiaotong’s injury was particularly well-hidden, but rather that her cultivation level was far too high. While Gu Jia'er was only one rank lower, the biggest hurdle was Chu Xiaotong’s bloodline.

The Vermillion Bird bloodline was simply too overbearing and powerful.

Gu Jia'er’s own spiritual energy was somewhat related to the Cheng Huang bloodline, yet it had still taken considerable effort to probe into Chu Xiaotong’s dantian, requiring multiple attempts before finally locating the site of the trauma.

As for the specific cause of the dantian’s injury, or the issues regarding how Chu Xiaotong was using her spiritual energy to bridge the ruptured meridians, she hadn't been able to discern those at all.

Yet now, Xu Zhe had pointed them all out.

What was most terrifying was that this guy not only claimed he could treat it, but even dismissed it as a "trivial matter"?

Wasn't this a joke?

With an injury like this, even the number one miraculous doctor of the Qingci Continent would be at their wit's end! At best, they could only manage to alleviate or suppress it; curing it was simply impossible!

"Xu Zhe, do you... really have a way to cure Chu Xiaotong’s injury?" Gu Jia'er looked at Xu Zhe with a strange expression.

She simply couldn't believe that Xu Zhe, a cultivator at the Golden Core stage, could treat the injuries of a Tribulation Transcendence powerhouse.

"Didn't I just say? I can cure it."

Xu Zhe looked at Gu Jia'er with a puzzled expression.

What was wrong with this young lady?

Being slow-witted was one thing, but to ask the same question again right after he had just answered it...

"How will you treat it?" Gu Jia'er asked again.

"It's very simple. A Jiuxiao Vitality Pill will solve it, though the issue of the ruptured meridians is a bit troublesome," Xu Zhe said, furrowing his brows.

Given Chu Xiaotong’s strength, ordinary meridian ruptures would be easy to recover from.

However, Chu Xiaotong’s injury was not that simple; it appeared to be caused by a bloodline backlash. After all, with a ninety-percent Vermillion Bird bloodline, practicing Vermillion Bird innate techniques would inevitably create some conflict between the flow of energy in the meridians and the human body.

Of course, if one were to use spiritual energy to bridge the meridians, it wouldn't be a major problem, though it would make further breakthroughs in cultivation very difficult.

Therefore, to resolve the meridian rupture issue, one had to start from the root—for instance, by refining away the Vermillion Bird bloodline, turning it into nutrients to nourish the physical body, and returning to a human bloodline.

However, given Chu Xiaotong’s current strength and the ninety-percent purity of her Vermillion Bird blood, completely refining it would be a massive undertaking.

Xu Zhe didn't say anything more; he would wait until Chu Xiaotong’s dantian injury had healed before discussing it with her in detail.

"Jiuxiao Vitality Pill? Why have I never heard of such a pill?" Gu Jia'er thought carefully, her face filled with confusion.

She was certain she had never heard of such a medicinal pill.

"A friend of mine came up with it. It’s specifically designed for dantian injuries, and the efficacy is quite good," Xu Zhe laughed.

"A friend?"

This time, it was Chu Xiaotong who spoke up.

She looked at Xu Zhe with suspicion. "Which friend? What is his name?"

During this time, she had been constantly guessing where Xu Zhe had acquired his techniques and those two astonishing magical treasures.

She had even begun to speculate whether there was some big shot behind him, using Xu Zhe to build him up to achieve some ulterior motive.

But as a childhood friend who had grown up with him, Chu Xiaotong understood Xu Zhe’s temperament well, so she had never taken the initiative to ask.

Now that she heard Xu Zhe mention this himself, she immediately seized the opportunity to inquire.

"You wouldn't know him. He... is called Jiang Wuque," Xu Zhe said with a faint smile.

Jiang Wuque was the name he had used in his previous life within the Immortal Emperor family.

According to the elders of the clan, the Jiang family had once been glorious many years ago, with ancestors who were extremely powerful and, as rumors went, had even become supreme gods.

However, these were all just legends; basically, no one took them seriously. Even his own family joked that those were just exaggerations by their ancestors. After all, throughout the Cangtian Domain, no records regarding the ancestors of the Jiang family had ever been found in any ancient ruins.

The name "Jiang Wuque" was given according to the Jiang family genealogy.

Xu Zhe had quite liked the name back then, but he had no intention of telling others the secret of his soul-transmigration from his previous life. There was too much involved, and once word got out, it could potentially bring huge trouble.

After all, quite a few items from the Cangtian Domain had already appeared in the Qingtian Domain.

If people from the Cangtian Domain were to discover he was in the Qingtian Domain, many of the Jiang family’s mortal enemies would likely come hunting for him.

However, out of a small bit of mischievousness, Xu Zhe still used this name as his friend’s identity to tell Chu Xiaotong and the others.

Perhaps one day in the future, when they learned the truth, they wouldn't be too shocked.

"Jiang Wuque..." Chu Xiaotong frowned, her expression very serious.

Having traversed the Qingci Continent for so many years, she had never heard of this name; even the surname "Jiang" was rarely seen.

"Let me see the pill formula to see if it’s reliable," Gu Jia'er said, very cautiously. It wasn't that she doubted Xu Zhe or coveted the formula, but she was afraid that Xu Zhe might be exploited by someone with ill intentions, causing him to accidentally poison Chu Xiaotong instead of saving her.

"Alright." Xu Zhe didn't care in the slightest. The mere Jiuxiao Vitality Pill was just a small, casually developed medicine; there was nothing to hide.

He touched his storage ring, took out a jade slip, and handed it to Gu Jia'er.

Gu Jia'er immediately opened her divine sense and began to examine it.

Initially, she was convinced her judgment was mostly correct and that the formula was fake.

But after looking at the medicinal ingredients recorded in the formula and the annotations on the refining techniques, Gu Jia'er’s expression changed instantly.

What on earth... what was this?

There were several medicinal ingredients in the formula whose names she had never even heard of.

Yet the techniques for refining the pill were completely ancient alchemical methods, and the difficulty requirements were extremely high.

Each ingredient had to be refined until it was completely free of impurities, and one had to control the constant temperature of the herbs according to the heat, while also fusing them according to the Five Elements and Yin and Yang...

Was this something a human could accomplish?

"How is it?" Chu Xiaotong asked, looking at Gu Jia'er.

She wasn't afraid that asking would upset Xu Zhe.

She understood Xu Zhe well and trusted him, so she was very clear that if something came from Xu Zhe, he would only consider using it on her if he was certain and had confirmed there were no issues.

Therefore, her question was more about wanting to hear from a professional like Gu Jia'er whether there were any hidden tricks in the formula that Xu Zhe might have missed.

"It’s hard to say..."

Gu Jia'er shook her head with a complex expression; it really was hard to say.

She didn't know how to describe it. This pill formula was profound and mysterious; she hadn't heard of many of the ingredients, so she couldn't judge if there were any problems.

However, the refining techniques noted at the end made her feel they were quite logical, yet beyond that logic, they were also highly utopian.

These refining techniques were theoretically sound, but impossible to execute.

"Xu Zhe, I’ll be honest with you, please don't take offense..." Gu Jia'er took a deep breath and voiced her understanding.

When she mentioned that there were several ingredients she didn't recognize, Chu Xiaotong also frowned slightly.

But when she mentioned that the ancient alchemical techniques were impossible to perform, Xu Zhe raised his hand.

"I can do it," Xu Zhe said calmly.

"You can do what?" Gu Jia'er was stunned for a moment, not quite understanding his meaning.

"I can refine this pill. You don't have to worry about there being any issues with it. The only problem right now is that I haven't gathered all the ingredients listed in the formula."

As Xu Zhe spoke, he couldn't help but frown and sigh. "I have to say, this place is truly unexpected. Although there are many good things, the restrictions are really not easy to open. I've been in here for two days and have only managed to harvest from thirty-something herb fields."

Chu Xiaotong: "???"

Qu Hongxiu: "???"

Gu Jia'er: "???"

"Oh, right. You've been in here for so long, you must have had quite a harvest, right? Take out the herbs you've collected, and I'll see if any of them are the ones needed for the formula."

"What's wrong? Why are you all just standing there, stunned and silent?"

"Is there something dirty on my face? That shouldn't be; I wash my face every hour."