After regaining awareness with the help of the Burning Sky Drum, Wenren È engaged twenty-one experts in a desperate battle to the death. He didn't know how many of them he had managed to kill, and how many had survived.
Wenren È had originally planned to unleash all of his power and fight to his limits, to learn just what he was capable of. He had wanted to disregard everything else, but the drumbeats brought him back to his senses at the last moment.
Yin Hanjiang had not risked his life using Void Boundary power to activate the Burning Sky Drum in order to see Wenren È die in battle.
He had promised Yin Hanjiang before the battle that he would survive. Wenren È would never go back on his word. At the very end, he held back a part of his power in order to defend himself, and so managed to preserve his life to be saved by Yin Hanjiang.
With his last breath, he let Yin Hanjiang know that he was still alive, before losing consciousness.
His injuries were too severe, and while drifting in and out of consciousness, he could hear Yin Hanjiang calling him, but his eyelids felt heavy and he couldn't open them.
In the original plot, Wenren È had lain unconscious for some time, and upon waking, saw Baili Qingmiao busy working before him. He saw a single ray of the rising sun land on Baili Qingmiao's body. Her expression was warm but resolute, with a beautiful and pure wish to save others. Seeing her bathed in that ray of sun, or perhaps divine light, the heart of the demonic sect leader was moved.
At the time, Wenren È was not yet aware that his love tribulation had arrived, and only coldly told this righteous junior disciple that he could grant her one favor. Baili Qingmiao stared blankly for a moment, then shook her head and said, "I just need you to live."
Wenren È had sustained heavy internal injuries, and also wasn't willing to return to Shangqing Sect with Baili Qingmiao for treatment. Baili Qingmiao could only use the communication talisman Master Qingrong gave her to report back that she would be gone for a while.
Before the war, Shangqing Sect had given each of the support disciples a jade slip and rushed them through some medicinal knowledge and the locations of some magic herbs. During the three months Yin Hanjiang had been cultivating, Baili Qingmiao and her fellow disciples were busy memorizing the jade slips and practicing medicinal spells.
She realized Wenren È's injuries were too severe; the Violet Palace of his dantian was a mess and his spiritual essence was almost completely drained. In order to save his life, Baili Qingmiao decided to take him to the Nine Cauldron Mountains, the location of the Nine Yang Soul-Reviving Flesh Mushroom which could bring back the dead and regrow flesh from bones, as recorded in her jade slip. Wenren È watched her coldly for the entire journey as she climbed the mountain carrying him and did battle with the beasts guarding the mushroom. After she obtained the mushroom, she boiled it into broth and didn't take a spoonful for herself, feeding it all to Wenren È.
In the book, after Wenren È was healed, he saw Baili Qingmiao's overjoyed expression and his heart finally fell for her. He didn't reveal his identity, just left a token and told her she could use it to call him if she met with trouble. No matter what it was, Wenren È would go through hell and high water to help her.
Baili Qingmiao had never thought of receiving something in return from Wenren È, and was only happy she was able to save one more life. After bidding Wenren È farewell, Baili Qingmiao returned to her sect and, when she saw Hè Wenzhao had lost his Nascent Soul, her heart froze in an instant.
The gravely injured and despondent Hè Wenzhao said to Baili Qingmiao, "Shimei, when I was injured, all I wanted to do was see you one last time, but where were you then?"
Baili Qingmiao was sobbing so hard she couldn't speak. She had just obtained the Flesh Mushroom, but used it on a stranger instead of her shixiong.
She asked her elders for a way to save Hè Wenzhao, and set out alone toward the Golden Coast Cliffs. Along the way, she "bumped into" Wenren È, who had been watching her all that time, and now accompanied her on her journey.
This time, the one saving Wenren È was Yin Hanjiang, who didn't know where the Flesh Mushroom grew. The Venerable was unconscious, so all he could do was bring him to the small mountain valley where he'd begun cultivating.
This was the small sect that Wenren È had led once, which he brought Yin Hanjiang to after picking him up. After Wenren È unified the demonic sects, he secretly gave this place to Yin Hanjiang and set up wards around it. It belonged to Yin Hanjiang alone and no one else knew of it.
While Wenren È was in battle, Yin Hanjiang had noticed how Altar Master Ruan had dropped his title. The demonic sects were rife with ambition, and from the Protectors and Altar Masters to the common cultivators, each and every one would kick you while you were down. If Yin Hanjiang brought a heavily injured Wenren È back to Xuanyuan Sect, Shu Yanyan would probably be the first in line to kill him.
When the Venerable was at his full power, the Xuanyuan Sect all stood behind him, but when he was weak, Xuanyuan Sect was as a den of cannibals.
Since Yin Hanjiang didn't dare bring Wenren È to Xuanyuan Sect, he only had two options. First, the small border town where he had grown up, and second, the place the Venerable had taken him to train when young.
Holding Wenren È, he dove through the waterfall he once cultivated in front of into the small cave behind it, rich in spiritual energy and well suited for recovery.
The Venerable was seriously injured. Yin Hanjiang seated him cross-legged and took out all the medicine in his storage belt, picking out some milder ones that could replenish spiritual essence and shoving them in Wenren È's mouth.
Wenren È had no spiritual energy and was unable to swallow the pills. Yin Hanjiang hesitated for several moments, then after saying, "Excuse my rudeness," pried open Wenren È's mouth, and, with an inch of distance between them, exhaled a mouthful of spiritual energy into Wenren È.
He acted with extreme care, terrified of touching his Venerable's pale lips with his own.
After Wenren È had taken the medicine, Yin Hanjiang also poured the remaining dregs of his spiritual essence into him and cycled it through his body once. After feeling his Venerable's essence begin circulating on its own and absorbing the medicine, he breathed a sigh of relief.
After relaxing, Yin Hanjiang found himself wobbling on his feet. He coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed at Wenren È's feet.
The old Sect Master of Xuanyuan Sect had been at the peak of Mahayana, but while using the Burning Sky Drum, he had been trapped by its illusions and suffered qi deviation. Yin Hanjiang was barely in Void Boundary stage. After forcibly activating the Burning Sky Drum and suffering the backlash of its violent energy, his internal organs had been heavily damaged. Singlemindedly desiring to save Wenren È, he hadn't even noticed his own state or felt the pain. Only after he revived Wenren È did Yin Hanjiang notice that he was on his last legs.
Waking up after absorbing the medicine, Wenren È found himself in a dark and damp cave, with a black-clothed man lying at his feet, face pressed against the cold stone. Turning him over, he found green lichen smeared on his face, making him look like the victim of some horror from a folk ghost story.
When Wenren È tried to channel energy, pain shot through his dantian like it was tearing apart. He took off his black robe and saw that his body was covered with wounds from swords, knives, whips, staves, seemingly every kind of wound that could be made by eighteen different magic weapons.
His physical injuries weren't a big deal, but what was more important was that the Violet Palace of his dantian had been destroyed and he had drained his spiritual essence using the Seven Killing Halberd. Without the Flesh Mushroom, he might not recover after recuperating for a hundred years.
He struggled to sit up and lift Yin Hanjiang in his arms, and felt that Yin Hanjiang's clothes were damp. He opened his robe and saw that his thin body looked like it'd been slashed up by a blade before being stitched up by thin thread. It was hard to find an undamaged patch of skin on him.
Wenren È was aghast at the sight of his split-open flesh. He placed a hand on Yin Hanjiang's chest, trying to heal him, but he couldn't call up a single wisp of spiritual energy. Powerless, he could only sit down next to Yin Hanjiang and let out a despairing laugh.
In the three hundred years since he'd entered the Dao, he'd never before been in such a pathetic state.
He had no way to heal himself. In the book, Baili Qingmiao had found the Flesh Mushroom to save him, but in order to change the plot, Wenren È had given up on the easy way out and picked a painful and arduous path for himself.
"Protector Yin," Wenren È said quietly. "The most difficult time in this Venerable's life was three hundred years ago, when I dug through that mass grave to find my family."
There were two hundred and seventy-three corpses of the Wenren clan there, all beheaded. Criminals would not get a burial, and after the execution the heads would be burned and bodies thrown into a mass grave. Seven days had already passed by the time Wenren È made it back to the capital and the bodies had started to decompose. There was no way to tell anyone apart.
He dug through the corpse pile day and night, dragging out two hundred and ninety-six headless corpses. The smallest was just three months old. Aside from the few with unique statures, Wenren È had no way of telling apart the remaining two hundred and thirty-seven corpses.
The bodies of other criminals were mixed in, so Wenren È didn't even know which were his relatives.
The entire clan had been loyal to the end, yet they were killed and their corpses desecrated. At sixteen, Wenren È knelt before two hundred and ninety-six headless corpses, crying and howling, unable to vent his hatred.
The Wuxiang Temple abbot's power had been great, and led Wenren È to uncover memories that had been forgotten three hundred years ago. He glanced over at Yin Hanjiang's closed eyes, and his gaze held a weak smile. "Protector Yin, when this Venerable walked past that corpse pile and saw a hand grab me, do you know how happy I was?"
A hundred years ago, when Wenren È thought he'd already forgotten the past, that tiny hand reached out for the train of his robes. He picked that child up out of the corpse pile and felt his neck to check that he wasn't a beheaded corpse. He pressed an ear against the child's chest, and that weak heartbeat was like music to his ears.
At that moment, the cold and heartless Wenren È held little Yin Hanjiang in his arms, not noticing the tears that slid from his eyes.
It was like he was finally free of the powerlessness he had felt at sixteen.
He had finally managed to save someone.
Wenren È held Yin Hanjiang's wrist. The child he'd saved back then was going to die soon.
This silly child was already heavily injured, but had given the last of his spiritual essence to Wenren È, throwing away his last lease on life.
"Yin Hanjiang, if this Venerable can save you once, he can save you twice. If this Venerable doesn't allow you to die, then you can't die." Wenren È looked at the demonic sword at Yin Hanjiang's side, as his expression darkened.
Yin Hanjiang never put his sword away in a storage item, stubbornly holding it like a sentinel. Yet this sword had a will of its own.
After becoming a cultivator, Wenren È had stolen many techniques from other demonic sects. There had been one which was the hardest to use of all, but perfect for this moment.
"Your name is Chiming," Wenren È said to the sword.
Back when he handed this sword to Yin Hanjiang, he never told him its name.
Calling the name would call awake the demonic sword's consciousness.
Chiming, hearing its own name, trembled lightly and left its sheath, hovering before Wenren È. Many sinister patterns appeared on the surface of its blade, an appearance Yin Hanjiang had never seen.
Looking at the sword, Wenren È recited a spell, and the same patterns appeared on his body.
The Seven Killing Halberd sensed what its master was doing and hummed plaintively. Wenren È raised a hand. "Don't fuss."
The halberd reluctantly trembled a few times, but eventually came under Wenren È's control and quieted down.
Chiming transformed into a hail of blood swords and, with Wenren È's spell, stabbed deep into the patterns on his body, pinning him to the cave wall. Blood flowed down the stone, dripping onto Yin Hanjiang's face.
Yin Hanjiang's eyelashes twitched painfully a few times, but in the end he was unable to wake and see the Venerable he wanted to protect at all costs engrave his body with the Chiming blade and go down a path few survived.
With thousands of swords in his body, Wenren È never stopped reciting. He slowly raised a hand and drew an array in midair with difficulty, matching the patterns on his body.
The Lifeblood Soul Locking Array. After the array was completed, the lines drawn in crimson light melded into Wenren È's soul.
Using the body to sever the blood, and using the blood to engrave the soul.
Chiming left Wenren È's body, and the instant the blades were pulled out, Wenren È's body burst into a cloud of bloody mist, dispersing within the cave.
The Seven Killing Halberd let out a lamenting cry, and the sixth star of the Southern Dipper was gradually stained blood-red.
After several minutes, the blood mist gradually condensed, solidifying into a human figure. At the moment when his body and soul were dispersed, Wenren È endured the soul-splitting pain and, through his resolution, managed to complete the Blood Severing Array.
There was a lost technique in the cultivation world called the Blood Severing Art.
The user needed to carve the blood marks into their flesh, then voluntarily destroy their body and soul, and use the technique at the moment before death. It would fuse one's soul and body together, and from then on, if a single drop of one's blood remained in the world, they would not die.
Only one person had succeeded at the blood art in hundreds of thousands of years. It was not because it was weak, but because it had such a low chance of success. Without an iron will, no one could even bear the pain.
After it was completed, one could recover from any injury no matter how severe, as long as they had sufficient spiritual energy.
Wenren È put the black robe he'd discarded back on, the pain of his soul shattering still lingering in his body. He frowned slightly and took a pill from his sleeve to swallow.
After he had mostly recovered, he picked up Yin Hanjiang and sent the spiritual energy he had just restored into his meridians, chasing out the murderous aura of the Burning Sky Drum.
For the next few months, Wenren È stayed in that small cave, absorbing spiritual energy to transfer to Yin Hanjiang, slowly restoring his damaged meridians.
In a distant location, Qiu Congxue was being carried on Baili Qingmiao's back as she scaled a mountain.
Qiu Congxue had said to Baili Qingmiao, "Leave me be, don't take me back to your sect," before passing out. She was injured worse than Wenren È. The Buddha's light was terribly effective against ghost cultivators and all the spirits she kept inside her body had been sublimated. She had no power left.
Baili Qingmiao assumed the reason Qiu Congxue didn't want to return to her sect was that she didn't want to face her compatriots like this, injured so severely with no hope of recovery. She was determined to save her fellow cultivator.
After reporting the situation with her message talisman, she tied the unconscious Qiu Congxue to her back and set off to Nine Cauldrons Mountain.
It was said that Nine Cauldrons Mountain was a dwelling place of immortals. Even a Mahayana cultivator there would have their powers suppressed to the level of an ordinary person.
Baili Qingmiao was unable to fly and the cliffs were treacherous. She gripped a vine and climbed, gritting her teeth and holding back tears.
She fell countless times on the way up, until her face and body were bruised and battered. She thought of giving up, but each time, she remembered how the person on her back was relying on her, and how she had been unable to save so many people in the Great Sect War, and she gritted her teeth and encouraged herself to continue climbing.
By the time she reached the top, she was about to collapse from exhaustion.
The Flesh Mushroom was very well hidden, impossible for ordinary people to find. After Baili Qingmiao collapsed on the mountaintop, the mushroom took her for a corpse and, drawn by her divinity, rose up from the ground in order to eat her.
A spiritual snake who protected the Flesh Mushroom slithered up and, seeing that the mushroom had emerged, bit down on it and began wrestling with it.
Baili Qingmiao was roused by the noise and was overjoyed to see the Flesh Mushroom right before her. With the dregs of her strength, she slew the snake and picked the Flesh Mushroom, then cooked it in a stew together with the snake.
The aroma emanating from the Flesh Mushroom healed Baili Qingmiao's wounds, and also allowed her to rise from the fifth level of Core Formation all the way to the final level.
If she drank the broth, she could probably ascend on the spot. But she had no desire of it for herself. She let Qiu Congxue soak in the broth and watched as flesh regrew on her bones. "So you're a girl," she exclaimed happily.
After all of Qiu Congxue's organs had been restored, Baili Qingmiao fed every spoonful of the broth to her.
Qiu Congxue's realm was instantly restored to Mahayana, her skin rosy, looking to be in perfect health.
After waking, Qiu Congxue saw a beautiful girl watching her with chin in one hand, expression filled with genuine joy. "Senior, you're healed at last."
Healed? Qiu Congxue sat up and felt something was off with her body. She checked and saw that she had flesh now.
A passage appeared in Qiu Congxue's mind—"He saw Baili Qingmiao's gaze filled with concern and that empty pot of broth which had all been given to him, and let out a sigh. 'Well, that's it, I guess.'"
Qiu Congxue had no idea where these words came from, but she nodded in agreement. "That's it."
"What is?" Baili Qingmiao said, blinking naively as she gazed toward Qiu Congxue.
"This Altar Master was a perfectly good ghost cultivator, willingly offering her own body to hungry ghosts in order to cultivate the Asura Path and reach Mahayana." Qiu Congxue turned a threatening gaze toward Baili Qingmiao.
Baili Qingmiao finally realized something was wrong. She backed away a few steps and fell to the ground, saying in a wavering voice, "S—senior, what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Qiu Congxue said, rising and approaching her. Her warm fingers clenched around Baili Qingmiao's neck. "Do you know how hard it was to give up my body? You went and restored it with a few spoonfuls of soup! I'll kill you!"