Evolution - Chapter 106
Chapter 106
The icy-cold medicine went down her throat, and in a moment, a warmth spread from her stomach.
Then came a searing heat, as if her entire body was on fire. Her exposed skin gradually turned red.
Immersed in the glass container, Ji Changqing was like a prisoner in an ancient cage cart, her limbs firmly restrained with only her head exposed.
She closed her eyes and silently circulated her body-forging technique. She gave herself a mental pep talk. No problem. What is this so-called repair agent, anyway? Isn’t it just reforging the body, breaking it down to build it back up?
Stay calm, you can do this!
If you succeed, you’ll reach a new level!
What if you fail? No, that’s not an option. You will succeed!
Even with her mind full of exclamation points, when the drug’s power began to take effect and she guided it through her body to temper her flesh, the numb, itching sensation, like ten thousand ants gnawing at her, still made her tremble uncontrollably.
She didn’t know the full extent of the drug’s potency, but she wasn’t afraid. After tempering her flesh and blood, she would temper her meridians and acupoints. It would be even better if she could use this opportunity to open more acupoints!
Even if the drug was incredibly potent, she could still temper her bones and organs. Who was afraid of whom?!
The power of the ingested medicine radiated from the inside out. Although she managed to guide most of it in time, a small portion was still scouring her internal organs.
What did it feel like? It was like being subjected to the “iron comb” torture over and over, like being seared by raging flames. The pain originating from her organs made her forehead break out in sweat, her features twisting into a ferocious grimace.
She cursed inwardly. Damn it. She hadn’t expected this orally ingested concoction to be so savage and explosive, like swallowing a pack of dynamite.
But there was nothing she could do now. She gritted her teeth and took the risk of dividing her focus, putting a small part of her attention on tempering her flesh and blood, and the majority on her organs. She didn’t need to completely refine them this time; she just had to repeatedly temper the residual medicinal power inside her to strengthen them.
It couldn’t be helped. She was familiar with the techniques for tempering flesh and blood, but as for tempering bones and organs, she knew of them but had died before reaching that stage.
The medicinal liquid she was soaking in began to seep into her flesh and blood at an accelerating rate.
Externally, the sensation upgraded from ten thousand ants gnawing to ten thousand needles piercing her flesh. Internally, the pain in her organs escalated from a scouring agony to a hammering torment. Compared to the internal agony that made one want to end it all, the pain of ten thousand needles felt like a mere tickle.
While she was in agony, outside, a rough-looking man and four handsome young men were staring at the rapidly refreshing data on the real-time monitor, their eyes shining. All five of them were as excited as crazed fans chasing their idols.
“Internal organ trauma level nine, flesh and blood activity up by 27%!”
“Pain level has broken through 10.”
“Mental fluctuations have surpassed the yellow alert… ah, it’s turned red!”
…
But they were just chattering excitedly, with no intention of taking any action.
The rough-looking big boss was very composed. He gazed at the various indicators with the same obsession one might have for a dream lover, murmuring, “As expected, it’s even better this time.”
He had already improved it many times. From the first attempt where all indicators instantly went off the charts and the test subject exploded into a bloody pulp before his eyes, to later subjects who could last an hour, then a day… and the last one, seven days.
At least in the last nine experiments, the test subjects hadn’t exploded into bloody pulp.
They had all been driven mad by the pain before dying from it.
These indicators looked much better now.
Three hours had passed, and the indicators hadn’t all gone red.
He looked thoughtfully at Ji Changqing, who had her eyes shut tight and was trembling all over. He knew in his heart that the drug’s effects had become a little milder, and the most likely reason for this was the four ingredients Ji Changqing had insisted on adding.
However, the preparation, refinement, and dosage of these four ingredients had been handled by her alone.
If before he had been moderately hopeful that his potion would succeed, he was now desperately hoping that, successful or not, Ji Changqing would actually manage to stay alive!
Otherwise, he still wouldn’t know how to prepare and refine those ingredients!
The one old and four young men stared at the monitor with obsessive fervor for nearly six hours. They found that the internal organ trauma level remained high but wasn’t fluctuating violently. The pain level, however, was continuously climbing, definitely exceeding the tolerance threshold of 99.99% of people.
Previous test subjects would have long since gone insane at this level of pain.
The most eye-catching indicator was the mental power fluctuation, the only one to enter the red alert zone. And it was precisely because it remained in the red alert zone, yet never broke the critical threshold, that it was so strange.
Every time her mental power fluctuated violently, everyone grew so tense they held their breath, thinking that at this rate, she might break the critical threshold at any moment and lose consciousness or go mad. But in the next instant, the wave would be brutally suppressed.
It was as if she could always hold on to that last shred of clarity.
But this was a good thing.
Being able to remain conscious meant she could still consciously guide the energy to repair her body, rather than letting it run rampant.
This wasn’t the only thing they had to do. After staring for six hours, they left one person to stand watch while the others went to attend to other matters.
Eight hours later, the rough-looking big boss and another student who was coming to take over the shift arrived.
The rough-looking man glanced at the monitor. The mental power fluctuations were still trying to break the critical threshold with increasingly violent waves, but they were all suppressed.
This time, it was the pain level that was drawing attention.
“This pain level has already surpassed the previous highest value.” The big boss’s gaze was deep, a hint of disappointment in his heart.
The pain level had exceeded the maximum value, yet Ji Changqing hadn’t gone mad. What did this mean?
It meant that his experiment had, in fact, already failed this time as well.
It was only continuing because of the test subject’s unique nature.
This was a special case.
And a special case meant it was not replicable. Therefore, it had already failed.
In that instant, the big boss felt that all of this had become utterly meaningless.
He looked melancholically at the monitor, then at Ji Changqing, a low-pressure aura surrounding him. On his rough face, where his beard and hair blended together so much it was hard to see clearly, an expression of grievance actually appeared.
The two students shivered and did their best to turn away, pretending not to notice.
As they turned, their gazes fell on Ji Changqing.
Both of them gasped at the same time, “She’s coughing up blood!”
The three of them rushed over.
Getting closer, the rough-looking big boss’s expression changed. “It’s not just blood. Those are fragments of internal organs.”
The three of them whipped their heads back to the monitor in unison.
The internal organ trauma level, finally unwilling to be left out, began to fluctuate violently along with her mental power.
Its fluctuation pattern was different from that of her mental power.
The mental power fluctuated constantly at a high level within the red alert zone, stubbornly refusing to break the critical point.
The internal organ trauma level, however, was repeatedly jumping back and forth across the line of death.
One moment, the trauma level would jump squarely onto the death line; the next, it would jump back, returning from the brink.
“So, this is breaking down to rebuild? Constant destruction and constant repair? As long as there’s life, the repairs don’t stop?” the rough-looking big boss murmured. The earlier listlessness was swept away, and the light in his eyes was so bright it nearly blinded his students.
“Haha, I get it now!” he exclaimed excitedly, rushing out like a gust of wind. A moment later, he ran back in. “Whoever’s on duty, clean her up. Place the organ fragments in chronological order, and the blood too.”
The four students took turns on duty, each watching for eight hours. After everyone had completed five rotations, all of Ji Changqing’s indicators, except for the steadily increasing activity of her flesh and blood, were still fluctuating violently and jumping back and forth.
But this was a good thing. The indicators were chaotically stable, which was a form of stability in itself. It showed that she was beginning to control the medicinal energy and maintain a delicate state of equilibrium.
Although she still coughed up blood and organ fragments from time to time.
The medicinal liquid she was soaking in had turned a pale red from her capillaries repeatedly bursting.
After testing and finding that ninety-nine percent of the medicinal efficacy had been absorbed, the rough-looking big boss reluctantly replaced the vat of liquid for her.
They cared for Ji Changqing as if she were in a vegetative state, feeding her high-energy liquid food through a nasal tube every day.
After another five rotations, Ji Changqing’s pained trembling had turned into pained convulsions.
The medicinal liquid she was soaking in this time was different. The last batch had smelled of blood, but the smell and color of this one were less than complimentary.
There was black filth, red blood, and even some greasy grime.
Frowning, they changed the vat of liquid for her again.
Except for the rough-looking big boss, who had already seen through everything, the four students were extremely excited.
Ji Changqing had broken the record for enduring this potion, and her indicators hadn’t reached the critical point.
They were even changing for the better. The activity of her flesh and blood had briefly broken through 100% before slowly declining and stabilizing at a 75% increase. Her internal organ trauma level had also dropped from nine to four and was still slowly and steadily decreasing. She was no longer frighteningly coughing up blood and organ fragments.
Perhaps, just maybe, they would get lucky and succeed this time?!
The third vat of medicinal liquid didn’t last until the end of the third set of five rotations. After everyone had completed four rotations, Ji Changqing opened her eyes.
Thanks to the rough-looking big boss’s exceptional generosity in providing three vats of medicinal liquid, she had successfully tempered her flesh, blood, and meridians, and had opened 1,080 acupoints in the process.
She hadn’t originally intended to touch her bones and organs, but man proposes, God disposes. To survive, she had no choice but to risk a preliminary tempering of her internal organs, stopping once she judged she could withstand the scouring of the medicinal power.
She now had 1,080 acupoints, less than a third of which were filled, but she already felt brimming with power.
She especially wanted to smash the heads of these bastards! They had played with her like a ball of yarn!
But it was just a thought.
Seeing that she had woken up, the big boss, knowing his experiment had failed, did not show himself. He only had the student on duty collect all possible samples from Ji Changqing and run a series of tests.
Only after all this was done was Ji Changqing allowed to wash up and eat.
Then, the big boss summoned her and questioned her in minute detail about her feelings, the changes she experienced, how she coped, and so on, asking repeatedly. Naturally, Ji Changqing didn’t reveal everything. She answered other questions truthfully but was vague and evasive when it came to her cultivation techniques.
The rough-looking big boss didn’t make things difficult for her, but he didn’t show any particular favor either—he was still smarting from his heavy losses. Ji Changqing’s tuition fee was nowhere near enough to cover the resources he had expended on her.
Seeing her face felt like a mockery to him. Since the five-month period was up, he readily let her leave.
Even though she had successfully recovered and even improved her aptitude, the toll of nearly twenty days of torture was real. Ji Changqing remained vigilant all the way back to the Star Hidden Big Boss’s territory, where she finally relaxed and fell into a deep sleep.
She slept for nearly twenty hours. When she woke up, a doctor informed her that her qi and blood were abundant and her body was strong and healthy. Even the old hidden injuries from her frequent beatings had healed.
In contrast to her, He Qingzhi was in bad shape. His body had been shot full of holes. Though his vital points had been avoided each time and his life was not in danger, the damage to his body was significant. Many of the gunshot wounds were repeated traumas, destroying his body’s self-healing ability. He would need at least a week to recuperate.
The two of them got together to exchange notes on their training.
He Qingzhi was envious of Ji Changqing, who was full of life with all her hidden injuries gone. He recounted his own experience with a tearful tale of bitterness: “Every day was spent disassembling and assembling guns, and learning how to build firearms from any available materials.”
Recalling the pressure, anxiety, and fear of living under the gun every day, he said grimly, “They’d send someone to compete with me each time. The winner was decided based on time, completion, lethality, and durability. The loser had to take a bullet.”
No wonder he was shot full of holes, Ji Changqing thought.
“A bullet every time?” If his training intensity was anything like her drug testing, concocting, and detoxifying, he probably would have been shot dead on the first day.
He Qingzhi shook his head. “The gun they called the ‘Judgement Pistol’ had a twelve-round capacity, but it was only loaded with two bullets.”
Ji Changqing understood. It was a non-lethal version of Russian roulette. If you lost, you took a shot. If you happened to get a round with a bullet, you were out of luck.
Thinking about it that way, it wasn’t too terrible.
He Qingzhi felt he had it rough and emphasized, “They’re really good! On my worst day, I took eight shots.”
Then you should have practiced your speed!
To her teammate who had taken eight shots in a single day, Ji Changqing stated woodenly, “I tested a total of 118 drugs. Twenty-one times I was on the verge of death and almost couldn’t be saved. At the end of four months, my foundation was destroyed.”
He Qingzhi was suddenly unable to play the victim.
When faced with someone who had it much worse, suddenly getting a few holes punched in you every day seemed… lucky?
“But now you’re…” Even more of a beast than before!
“Oh. This was from risking my body exploding into a pile of bloody pulp to test one last drug. I was lucky to get my life back.”
You don’t know the pain until the knife cuts you. Even though Ji Changqing had suffered miserably, things had taken a turn for the better in the end, and she had reaped a great harvest.
He Qingzhi still stubbornly congratulated her. “A blessing in disguise is still a fortunate thing.”
On her expressionless face, a chilling smile slowly, slowly, slowly formed. “Believe me, you wouldn’t want to try it.”
She said no more.
Even if He Qingzhi wanted to walk her path of tragic, beautiful strength, he wouldn’t get the chance.
Who would be willing to do a losing business twice?
Taking a step back, even if the big boss held the spirit of sacrificing everything for research, there was a ninety-nine percent chance that at the end of the road, he would find it to be a dead end.
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