Chapter 36
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: I'm a Eunuch?!
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Lethargy.
The energy had drained from my entire body to the point where I couldn't even twitch a finger.
It felt like an emptiness where even my soul had been thoroughly ransacked.
Deep in my lower abdomen.
Near my dantian, it throbbed as if it might burst, and waves of pain crashed over me as my five viscera and six bowels twisted and tangled of their own accord.
'Hot...'
Somewhere inside me, an unidentified heat was boiling up.
More than mere fever, a sticky, insidious energy flowed through my meridians, forcibly fanning the dying embers of my life force.
"Yi Yi! Open your eyes...!"
From far away—very far away—someone was calling me.
A familiar voice.
'Sen... ior Sister?'
I tried to move my lips to respond, but my throat felt clogged, and no sound came out.
My tongue was parched, and a bizarre taste mixed metallic blood and sweet fragrance filled my mouth.
My eyelids weighed a thousand tons.
It was like massive boulders were placed on my eyes.
"If Yi Yi doesn't wake up, I'll really kill you, so bring him back to life right now!"
"No... he's not dead, I told you... Damn it, nosebleed again."
Senior Sister's desperate cry mixed with another woman's grumbling voice.
'Who is that...?'
Even as my consciousness flickered, hot, acrid energy kept pouring into my nostrils.
It felt like someone was pressing their lips to mine, forcibly blowing breath in, or like they were making me inhale smoke from burning potent herbs.
"Ugh..."
A shallow groan escaped from instinctive repulsion.
Bang—!
At that moment, a loud crash rang out.
Something breaking or someone getting smacked.
"Ow! You crazy bitch...! I told you to heal him, not throw people around!"
"Yi Yi! Are you coming to?"
A cool touch on my cheek.
At that familiar sensation, I forcibly pried open my eyelids.
Through my blurry vision, I saw a tear-streaked face gazing down at me.
White robes, disheveled hair, and a red plum blossom embroidered on her chest.
"Sis... ter...?"
"Yeah! It's your sister! Are you back? How's your body? Does it hurt anywhere? Any discomfort?"
Her voice was urgent.
The barrage of questions pounded my ears like a waterfall.
A voice laced with moisture, unimaginable from her usual self.
Her hands roamed my face, shoulders, and chest, checking my condition.
Warm, desperate hands.
I wanted to open my mouth and answer each one.
'I'm fine, Senior Sister. Nothing happened. I'm just a bit tired.'
But my tongue felt like someone else's flesh, refusing to move.
"Ha... fi... fine... okay..."
The voice I barely squeezed out was nothing but a cracked rasp.
Even proper sentences wouldn't form, just mangled syllables scattering.
I wanted to leap up and pull Senior Sister into a hug.
I wanted to reassure her trembling form and flash a hearty grin like old times.
But my limbs felt weighted with stones, without even the strength to twitch a finger.
"Hey! Come out here! He's trying to move too hard because of you!"
A sharp voice jumped up from the corner.
But Senior Sister's hand never left my cheek.
She cupped my face, refusing to let go.
"It's okay! Sister will stay right here. Take it slow...!"
Senior Sister's eyes brimmed with tears.
That pitiful gaze made me force my eyes to meet hers, trying to reassure her.
"No! You need to keep administering the Nourishing Yang Soul-Reviving Incense for him to snap out of it quick! If you keep making a fuss... Ugh... Fine, whatever..."
A heavy silence fell for a moment.
Senior Sister's gaze drifted to empty air, then she bit her lip as if resolved.
Soon, her body shifted slightly aside, and acrid, hot smoke seeped back under my nose.
Whoosh—
"...Ugh."
The hot energy pierced through my nasal passages, stabbing sharply into my brain.
My hazy mind and senses forcibly began to awaken.
Had another hour passed?
My numbed senses were slowly returning.
The tingling flow of blood at my fingertips and toes.
My icy limbs regained a lukewarm warmth.
"Sister..."
"Yeah! Sister's right here! Feeling better?"
Senior Sister's face brightened.
The shadow of worry lifted, replaced by relief.
"Yes..."
Now my head turned bit by bit.
My stiff neck muscles cracked and loosened.
My vision slowly rotated, taking in the room.
Still here.
The shabby hut where I'd rescued the pitiful lady kidnapped by ruffians and brought her.
Sooty walls, moldy old mat.
Here, I couldn't resist her seduction.
A Daoist's precepts, a hero's pride—all crumbled futilely before a moment's lust.
'And then... what happened?'
As I groped through foggy memories and turned my gaze, a bizarre shape in the corner caught my eye.
A figure hanging upside down, legs bound with rope, dangling.
Hands tied behind the back, swaying in the air.
It was her.
The lady I'd saved.
"Huh...? What's with her?"
At my question, Senior Sister's expression hardened coldly.
She glared at the hanging woman with contempt and spat out through gritted teeth.
"That bitch... She's the Poison Spider, the most vicious in Hubei. Zhuge Jiun of the Shadow Gate Sect."
Poison Spider? Shadow Gate Sect?
"If I'd known she was such a demoness, I never would've let you go alone... Sister messed up. Sorry."
My mind went blank.
Ah... Did I charge in recklessly again and fall for it?
She wasn't a pitiful woman nearly raped by Shadow Gate Sect ruffians.
I'd been toyed with under the claws of that unorthodox faction, the Shadow Gate Sect.
Even her pitifulness was bait to lure me, and I'd walked right into the trap.
Despair washed over me like an ebbing tide, boring a hole in my chest.
I'd tried to do good without noticing.
I'd fallen for the seduction without noticing.
'Am I really this incompetent?'
Shame burned through my body.
A cultivator blinded by lust, falling into a demon's embrace. A hero failing to see through an unorthodox plot, endangering comrades.
I'd lost my qualification as a Daoist.
'Better if... I hadn't gotten the Summoning Pill.'
Greed had brought disaster.
Obsession to reclaim the lost Summoning Pill had blinded my eyes and deafened my ears.
Ah... That's why.
"What happened to the Summoning Pill?"
"Huh? That..."
Senior Sister trailed off, averting her eyes.
Her pupils wandered lost, roaming the floor.
Then, the upside-down Zhuge Jiun spoke.
"That? You already ate it. I fed it to you. The Yin-Yang Harmony Powder is so potent that if you don't take it with the Summoning Pill, your dantian explodes when you force it out."
In that instant, it felt like lightning struck.
"Shut your damn mouth!"
Thwack—!
Senior Sister hurled the pillow she held.
It smacked Zhuge Jiun's face squarely, and her already swollen nose crunched again.
"Argh! Nose again! Hey! Isn't that too much for a patient?"
"Shut up! One more word from that mouth, and I'll rip out your tongue!"
Senior Sister yelled with killing intent, but nothing reached my ears.
Only Zhuge Jiun's words echoed in my head, shaking my brain.
'I... already ate the Summoning Pill?'
Me?
I barely moved my trembling fingertips to my lower abdomen.
Dantian.
To a martial artist, the source of qi more vital than the heart, the vessel storing internal energy.
If I'd swallowed the Summoning Pill, there should be solar-hot energy surging or immense power coiled there.
But the sensation at my fingertips was just cold, dead skin on my belly.
No matter how I tried to gather qi, my dantian was silent as an empty ruin.
No—beyond silent, desolate.
As if nothing had ever existed there.
"It's... gone. I can't feel any internal energy."
"What?"
Senior Sister's eyes widened.
The moment she hurriedly reached for my lower abdomen.
"No! Don't! Touching it now will really make your dantian explode! Qi deviation will hit immediately and kill him!"
Zhuge Jiun's desperate scream upside down tore through the hut.
So frantic that even Senior Sister flinched and stopped her hand.
Her fingertips trembled an inch above my navel.
"Can't feel the dantian? What does that mean?"
Confusion laced Senior Sister's voice.
I swallowed dryly and shook my head.
"Not... certain yet, but I can't feel it. My qi sense is completely severed."
Shing—
A chilling metallic ring sliced the hut's air.
Senior Sister drew her Plum Blossom Sword again and strode toward Zhuge Jiun.
This time, she meant to kill.
Her eyes flickered with rage, like an assassin's.
"W-wait! I can explain! I'll explain everything!"
"......"
"Kill me, and your junior brother lives as a crippled waste who can never learn martial arts again?!"
Clack!
Senior Sister's sword tip halted at Zhuge Jiun's plea.
The razor edge stopped right before her throat.
The blade's chill brushed her thin neck skin, making Zhuge Jiun stiffen.
"I... I can really fix it, so hear me out. I was gonna make him my plaything and keep him around—would I have totally wrecked his dantian...?"
Zhuge Jiun muttered aggrievedly.
At 'plaything,' Senior Sister's brow twitched, but she kept her sword steady and asked coldly.
"Explain. One shred of lie, and your head rolls right then."