Chapter 8
1513 Words
Cutting Flesh to Light a Lamp
Fan Xue Li returned to his dwelling at the utmost speed.
Pushing open the door, he found his mother lying peacefully at the bedside, her face serene in unconsciousness. By contrast, Xiao Yu beside her looked utterly drained and wilted, as if she had exhausted herself beyond measure.
He couldn't help but ask her, "Xiao Yu, what's wrong with you?"
Why was Mother unharmed, while Xiao Yu's face was deathly pale—and why did she carry that faint scent of charred flesh?
Xiao Yu shook her head, forcing a smile through her fatigue. "Brother, I'm fine. It's just that Mother still hasn't woken..." She glanced at their mother, her eyes brimming with worry.
"Mother's soul is wounded, but I have a way to heal her. Don't worry." Fan Xue Li spoke gently, then stepped into the outer room to begin refining the medicine.
The Bu Li Grass in his hand shimmered with a pure, ethereal fragrance—a warmth that lingered just beyond reach, neither too close nor too distant.
It was then that a sharp cry echoed from the inner room—urgent, laced with raw, heartbreaking anguish.
It was Xiao Yu's voice.
Fan Xue Li's heart lurched. He burst back into the room.
In that instant, he beheld the scene: Xiao Yu had lit the stove fire, and on her arm, flesh hung in ragged strips—she had sliced away a piece of her own meat, now burning in the lamp's flame.
Xiao Yu endured the agony in silence, her lips moving in ceaseless prayer.
She had performed the rite of cutting flesh to light a lamp! No wonder the air around her carried that scorched reek.
In ancient tales, there was the act of offering one's body to feed a starving tiger. Two princes, wandering through a valley, came upon a tigress who had birthed seven cubs. For seven days, she had gone without food, her body wasting toward death. The elder prince believed the famished beast, driven by hunger, would devour her own young. But the younger prince pondered that all beings clung selfishly to their forms, and only one of profound wisdom and boundless compassion could forsake the self for others, braving death without regret. He approached the tigress, shed his robes, and lay down before her.
Awed by the prince's sacrifice, the tigress stood frozen in place. Thinking her too feeble to act, the prince pricked his own neck with a bamboo shard, drawing blood. Only then did the beast consume his flesh and blood entirely. In that very moment, flowers rained from the heavens, and the earth trembled in reverence—the prince ascended to sainthood.
The rite of cutting flesh to light a lamp was akin to offering one's body to the tiger: a selfless act of salvation for another, extolled in countless legends.
Yet many dismissed it as folly, a delusion born of deceit, doomed to yield no fruit.
At this very moment, atop a tree in the small courtyard, Ming Na and Xiang Nu stood hidden, staring in stunned silence at the sight below.
Xiang Nu's voice trembled with disbelief. "Princess, has his sister lost her mind? This method... it can't possibly work." She simply could not fathom it.
Ming Na shook her head, her expression grave. "I think she knows that full well." Her features softened with emotion.
"Ah? Then why would she—" Xiang Nu trailed off, her face a mask of bewilderment and loss.
Ming Na said nothing more, only gazing deeply at Xiao Yu, her eyes alight with a fierce, inner fire.
In that moment, Xiao Yu's body gave way to frailty. She slumped into Fan Xue Li's arms and whispered, "Brother, I can hold on."
But as the words left her lips, she slipped into unconsciousness.
Fan Xue Li's heart twisted like a blade. He eased her gently onto the adjacent bed, a surge of bitterness welling within him.
She was no fool. She was doing all she could. It was said that sincerity born of simplicity might yet stir the spirits, however faintly.
What a remarkable sister she was.
Fan Xue Li's gaze hardened with resolve. He bore her mission on his shoulders now—he must refine the Bu Li Grass into a Soul Restoration Pill with all haste.
Just then, the little fox from before leaped before him. At some point, it had procured a dagger, which it now held to its own chest, its eyes pleading toward Fan Xue Li.
Evidently moved by Xiao Yu's sacrifice, it offered itself in this hour—begging him to draw its heart's blood for his mother's cure.
Fan Xue Li shook his head. The blood of a Nine-Spirit Fox was precious indeed, but with her soul adrift, it could only delay the inevitable. Xiao Yu had already given so much—how could he bear to let another living soul suffer?
It was then that the door creaked open.
An elderly scholar of benevolent bearing entered, a stick of incense in hand, trailing wisps of inky fragrance.
He moved without a sound, his presence commanding and extraordinary, as if he wielded immense power and surveyed all around him from on high.
His eyes lingered briefly on the dagger in the fox's grasp before shifting to Fan Xue Li's face. In a voice cold as frost, he said, "To sate your selfish cravings at the cost of a spirit fox's vital essence—how pitiable, how lamentable!"
He had trailed the fox here and, seeing what appeared to be Fan Xue Li's intent to extract its heart's blood, fury had kindled within him. This fox was his most cherished companion—how could he abide harm to it?
The fox stammered in fear, quailing at the sight of the scholar, and scurried behind Fan Xue Li.
Fan Xue Li's expression turned icy. "And who might you be?" A flicker of killing intent danced in his aura; the man's presumptuous judgment, blind to circumstance, had ignited a spark of rage in his chest. With his mother's salvation at hand, how dare anyone obstruct him?
The old scholar replied evenly, "You may call me Master Fang. Lu Xi was once my servant; he pilfered a fragment of an array manual from me and wrought havoc against the natural order. Your mother's plight stems from my own failing—I shall remedy it. As for your designs on the fox's heart's blood... we'll settle that score later." He was accustomed to deference from all quarters, so even in admitting fault, his tone carried the weight of one elevated above the fray, as if the matter were trifling.
Then he raised the incense high. Its smoky tendrils curled upward, soon seeping into Fan Xue Li's mother as she lay upon the bed.
The entire room seemed to warm, infused with a subtle comfort.
At that instant, noticing the scholar, Ming Na and Xiang Nu atop the tree wore expressions of utter astonishment!
And with it came boundless elation.
It was Master Fang!
A master alchemist!
Even the Holy King of their Little Sacred Palace treated him with profound respect. The palace had extended invitations time and again for him to treat the queen mother, yet his whereabouts had eluded them. To think he was here, of all places.
Ming Na herself was but a novice alchemist—leagues from his exalted realm.
The incense in Master Fang's hand was a formula of singular rarity, worth a king's ransom!
When he intervened, ailments yielded swiftly, without lingering shadow.
"Senior, your intent to heal my mother is noble, but your method falls short." To everyone's surprise, Fan Xue Li spoke up, his eyes grave with intensity.
He recognized the man's genuine desire to help, so his anger ebbed. But witnessing the flawed treatment, he could not hold his tongue.
His insight surpassed the other's by far.
For the man to wield such incense suggested the caliber of a master alchemist. But Fan Xue Li was a grandmaster alchemist—one realm above.
A single character separated them, yet it marked the gulf between cloud and mire.
An ordinary alchemist might spend three or four decades honing their craft; with fortune and ingenuity, they could invent a formula and ascend to master. But a grandmaster alchemist could found a lineage, a rarity across the ages.
Master Fang had not expected this mere youth to challenge him. His gaze sharpened with displeasure. "You doubt me?"
The status of a master alchemist was unattainable, beyond mortal ken. Their word decreed life or death—who would dare impugn it?
With a sharp exhalation, he unleashed a thunderous roar. Starlight from the heavens cascaded down in countless beams, enveloping him wholly and weaving into a Seven Stars Eight Trigrams Array. The surging stellar radiance merged with the incense, blazing with manifold brilliance!
These rays poured entirely into Fan Xue Li's mother's form.
The space between heaven and earth bathed in that myriad starlight, an indescribable ease washing over all.
- Writer
