Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 696 Unorthodox Techniques, Detoxification Through Self-Reward (Bonus Chapter for Alliance Leader ink)

Fang Yu quickly took a few steps and decisively blocked her path.

"Su Su!" he said, his voice still hoarse from just waking up and experiencing a huge psychological shock.

Su Su paused, her cold, wooden eyes lifting to reveal emotions for the first time.

That was undisguised displeasure.

Her brows furrowed. "I'm your senior sister." Her voice was clear and cold, carrying a distinct accusatory tone. "Don't you know any manners?"

Fang Yu choked a little, scratched his messy hair, and put on a slightly lazy smile: "Sorry, Su Su! I didn't mean to! It's just... I think your name is very nice, Su Su, it sounds so crisp and sweet!"

This sudden, somewhat roguish, and affectionate explanation caused a blush to unexpectedly rise on Su Su's face, which seemed to always be frozen in a "keep away" expression!
The red quickly spread across her slender neck, even tinging the tips of her ears with a faint pink.

She has killed people.

She almost died too.

But this is the first time I've ever been flirted with.

Although those who cultivate themselves do not see many people, they are basically untouched by worldly affairs.

But how could she not tell that this was almost frivolous flirting?

"You!" She glared at Fang Yu, her anger clearly visible. Holding the bowl of porridge, she suddenly turned around and rushed back to her stone house like a gust of wind, slamming the door shut with a loud "bang!"
Fang Yu looked at the tightly closed door, touched his nose, and muttered to himself, "The language is a bit rough, but the name sounds nice."
He turned around, ladled out a bowl of thin porridge, gulped it down in a few mouthfuls, and then washed the pot and bowls clean and put them back in their place.

But just as he finished washing the dishes and was about to go back to his room, the tightly closed door creaked open again.

Su Su came out, her face still flushed with an unnatural blush, but her eyes had returned to their usual cool and aloof expression.

She didn't mention what happened before, but looked at Fang Yu and said in a stiff tone, "I advise you to start practicing your skills as soon as possible."

She paused, seemingly considering something difficult to say, but ultimately didn't say much, only repeating, "Otherwise... Anyway, hurry up and practice your skills." Then she was about to close the door again.

Fang Yu's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly asked, "I did practice! I studied late into the night last night, very seriously!" He tried to appear sincere.

Su Su's hand, which was closing the door, paused. She gripped the doorframe, turned to the side, and for the first time, a clear expression appeared on her usually cold face—a sharp, sarcastic, and disbelieving snort: "Hmph!"

Her sharp gaze swept over Fang Yu's face, which appeared merely tired but showed no sign of pain: "Our inner cultivation method, after practicing it for forty-two hours... no, within three days, it feels as if a thousand ants are biting your body, causing excruciating pain and itching! You said you practiced it." A sneer curled at the corner of her lips, "Do you even believe it yourself?"

After speaking, before Fang Yu could react, she slammed the door shut again, leaving Fang Yu frozen in place as if struck by lightning.

A body gnawed by ants, causing excruciating itching and pain?!
Fang Yu's fake smile froze completely, and a chill instantly crept down his spine.

Isn't it said that after cultivating immortality and building a foundation, one feels completely relaxed and ethereal after cleansing one's body and marrow?

Are novels all lies?! How could it be such torture?! This isn't some kind of path to heaven, it's just the prelude to being put into the furnace for alchemy!

Fang Yu returned to his cold stone house, dejected and distraught.

This time, without any hesitation, he sat down at the table and, with unprecedented solemnity, picked up the nameless old book.

He carefully opened the cover and, using the daylight streaming in from the window, focused intently on the obscure and distorted runes on the first page.

The first page, alongside obscure characters, was surprisingly accompanied by several simple diagrams drawn with extremely fine ink lines and some small annotations.

Fang Yu patiently read through the text, word by word. Suddenly, his eyebrows shot up and he gasped!
The text clearly states: "To guide Qi into the body, one must first break through barriers and open the orifices. Turbid Qi corrodes the bones, and filth will devour one within three days, causing pain throughout the body, as if being gnawed by thousands of ants. Only by enduring this ordeal can one cleanse oneself of impurities and dust, open the void in the Dantian, and nourish the spiritual soil."

Next to it was a small figure, covered with countless wandering black dots and arrows, curled up in pain.

"Opening up a spiritual field?" Fang Yu pondered these words as if he were reading a book written in heaven, but the descriptions of "ten thousand ants gnawing at it" and "turbid air corroding its bones" matched Su Su's warning perfectly!
"Hiss, so it's true." He muttered to himself, a chill rising from the bottom of his heart.

He stared blankly at the words and pictures describing pain, then glanced at the small crack in the corner that led to the next room and had once let in a glimpse of Li Guang peering into it.

The cold wind howled outside the window, sweeping across the cliffs like the wailing of ghosts and wolves.

Fang Yu clenched his back teeth, his cheeks taut.

"Damn it. Practice! Fine, practice then!" A ruthless glint flashed in his eyes, almost like a gambler's, as he growled at the strange old book. "If I don't practice, I'll just wait to be watched by that old ghost like he's observing a cricket, and then one day he'll tear out his heart and lungs to become the catalyst."

So what, can it run away or what?!
Since death is inevitable anyway, at least this broken skill seems to offer some hope!
He flipped the book back to the first page without hesitation, his gaze fixed on the obscure and distorted characters and meridian diagrams, trying to find a way to survive.

In the cold stone chamber, only his heavy breathing and the rustling of turning pages could be heard.

Fear remains, but the resolve is stronger.

then
Then he started to feel pain.

The pain comes quickly and silently. It's like someone with high uric acid eating seafood, then getting home that evening, and just as they're about to hold the mouse, their wrist starts to hurt.

The excruciating pain erupted without warning, like a tsunami!

Just a second ago, Fang Yu was still struggling to guide his aura according to the twisted runes on the nameless old book.

The next second, a chilling current, seemingly from the depths of the underworld, carrying thousands of red-hot steel needles, suddenly crashed into his limbs and bones!

"Well--!"

Fang Yu's scream got stuck in his throat, instantly turning into a dissonant whine.

He felt as if he had been struck by an invisible giant hammer, bouncing off the cold earthen bed and crashing heavily onto the hard ground.

Curling up? Completely out of control!
Every muscle and nerve in the body was twitching, twisting, and rebelling wildly!

The feeling was like countless red-hot iron ants frantically drilling, biting, and gnawing in the gaps between his bones, causing an itchy, numb, and burning pain that felt like it was going to boil his bone marrow dry!

"what--!!!"

He finally let out a piercing howl, desperately scratching at the rough, cold ground with his hands, leaving streaks of blood.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through his tattered coat, and steam rose from it amidst the extreme cold and excruciating pain.

He had experienced fractures, dislocations, and even the damned feeling of a kidney stone stuck in his urethra that nearly killed him in his modern memory. Compared to the excruciating pain he was experiencing now, those so-called unforgettable pains were like a mosquito bite!
"Mom, stop, stop!" He rolled on the ground, pounded the ground, curled up into a ball, and then suddenly sprang away, like a live shrimp thrown into boiling oil.

Each spasm aggravated the lower back injury caused by the kick the day before, making the pain even worse.

His vision blurred, and he saw stars. He even absurdly thought that if he had to choose between this and having twins, he would rather go into the delivery room!

He'd give birth! He'd accept having ten babies! He just wants to be spared this inhuman torture!

Just as he was in so much pain that he was losing consciousness and wished he could smash his head against the stone wall to find relief, Su Su's cold voice came from outside the tightly closed, dark, simple wooden door.

The sound wasn't loud, but it pierced his confused mind like an ice needle:

"If you really, really can't help it," Su Su paused, seemingly trying to suppress some unspeakable embarrassment, "then...that will relieve it."

Fang Yu, who was writhing on the ground in pain, suddenly froze!
Was that sound a hallucination? Or a hallucination created by the will to survive?
No, it's not a hallucination!

A strong survival instinct overwhelmed the chaos brought on by the excruciating pain. Fang Yu gasped for breath like a dying fish, struggling to crawl towards the door on all fours.

His fingernails scraped across the ground with a screeching sound. He practically rolled to the door, and with his last ounce of strength, he shakily raised his weak hand and yanked open the bolt.

The door opened a crack.

Sunlight streamed out, illuminating Su Su's beautiful face at the doorway, a face etched with an extremely complex expression.

Fang Yu's pale, contorted face suddenly peeked out from the crack in the door, his bloodshot eyes fixed on her, his hoarse voice strained out like a broken bellows: "Wh-what? What did you say? Which one??"

Su Su was caught off guard by his disheveled yet fervently expectant face, and two extremely unnatural blushes instantly rose on her cheeks.

Her eyes darted quickly to the stone wall beside her, her lips moving almost inaudibly, yet carrying a desperate, straightforward quality:

"...It's...the thing that all you men know how to do..." These few words seemed to have exhausted her strength. After saying them, her face turned even redder, and she almost dared not look at Fang Yu anymore.

Fang Yu is not stupid, much less mentally challenged.

Su Su's hesitant stammering, her face flushed red, coupled with the unmistakable reference in her words—"that you men all know how to do"—all these things made her speech.

boom!
Fang Yu felt as if something had hit his head hard, and he was instantly stunned!

What the hell is this?!
It's bad enough that the pain of practicing martial arts is worse than death, but this evil thing tortures people to the extreme, and the solution is so incredibly difficult to talk about?!
How could a senior sister who appears aloof, quiet, shy, and even a little arrogant blush as she runs to tell him this?!
Fang Yu curled up on the cold doorway floor, the excruciating pain in his body continuing to rage, wave after wave almost tearing his soul apart.

But the excruciating pain seemed to be briefly suppressed by an even stronger sense of absurdity and shame.

He looked at Su Su, whose face was flushed red and who seemed to want to disappear into the ground. The intense pain was still gnawing at every nerve, but an indescribable heat and impulse from the depths of his instincts was quietly growing and struggling in the gaps of the pain, as if two beasts were tearing each other apart and fighting inside his body.

This extreme situation, where he was caught between ice and fire, completely shut down his brain.

"What did you say?!" His voice changed, it was hard to tell if it was from pain, shock, or something else.

Su Su seemed unable to bear the bizarre embarrassment any longer. She abruptly turned her face away, leaving only a bright red earlobe and a barely audible utterance: "I...I was just saying! Whether you do it or not is up to you!"

Before she finished speaking, she practically ran back to her stone house and slammed the door shut with a loud bang.

(End of this chapter)