Nonsense! How could my adopted son be a villain?

Xu Lingguang opened his eyes groggily, feeling dizzy and his limbs ached as if they had been crushed by a giant wheel. His neck was stiff and numb, and he also felt waves of throbbing pain.

He groaned in pain and tried to sit up, but found that he couldn't move his neck at all, and his limbs were too weak to exert any strength. He could only grope around with his hands, trying to find something to lean on to sit up.

Instead of finding anything to lean on, he touched a cold, thin, long object.

Xu Lingguang was startled by the strange sensation. If he hadn't been so weak and unable to move, he would have jumped out of bed.

Fortunately, after the initial shock, he realized that he kept a mysterious black snake at home, and what he had just touched was likely the black snake.

"Xiao Hei? Xiao Hei? Is that you?" Xu Lingguang's voice was also a little hoarse. He could speak, but only in breathy sounds. He couldn't even call out loudly.

He stiffly and slowly turned his head to see if what he had just touched was a black snake, but unexpectedly heard a cool hissing sound in his ear.

Xu Lingguang's mind couldn't keep up with his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the much larger black snake had silently climbed onto the roof beam. Its triangular head was hanging down, coldly watching him flick its tongue, as if it was ready to bite him at any moment.

Xu Lingguang: "..."

He was a little confused. Why did the black snake look at him as if he were an enemy when he had just fainted and then woken up?

He took a deep breath. He couldn't avoid it, so he could only try to reason with him: "But I saved you. Now that you've gotten fat and powerful, you want to repay kindness with enmity, right?"

While trying to reason with him and appeal to his emotions, Xu Lingguang also tried to find some self-defense tools, but he couldn't find any. Suddenly, a scene flashed in his mind - a black snake raised its head high, opened its mouth wide, and flicked its scarlet tongue to bite him.

Along with the image flashing by, a sudden pain shot through my neck.

Xu Lingguang's face contorted in pain as he stared at the black snake before him, a terrifying thought surfacing in his mind: "Could it be that you bit me like this?"

Enraged, he blurted out, "Do you know the story of the farmer and the snake? Now I'm the unfortunate farmer, and you're the ungrateful snake who repays kindness with enmity!"

The black snake stared at him, tilting its head in confusion.

He naturally couldn't understand Xu Lingguang's words, but he felt that Xu Lingguang's aura had changed, making him feel relaxed and safe. So his tense body slowly relaxed, and the snake tail that was still wrapped around the roof beam swayed. Listening to Xu Lingguang muttering some words that snakes couldn't understand, he slowly shrank back onto the roof beam and continued to lie there lazily.

They were talking so densely, I couldn't understand them.

Xu Lingguang: "..."

I shouldn't have risked my life to save that white-eyed snake in the first place!

Fortunately, the cubs outside soon heard the commotion inside and rushed in. When they saw that Xu Lingguang was awake, they happily crowded around him, asking, "You're awake?"

Yun Feng also asked thoughtfully, "Brother Lingguang, are you hungry? We picked a lot of wild fruits and caught some fish."

Mu Yun quickly added, "I also picked a lot of medicinal herbs to heal injuries. Eat more of these and you'll get better soon!" With that, she took out medicinal herbs from her small magic bag.

Xu Lingguang's eyes widened in surprise. Having known Mu Yun for so long, he had never realized that the other party had a hidden pocket on his stomach.

Mu Yun noticed his gaze, and proudly raised her head, saying, "This is where I hide my treasures."

Xu Lingguang touched his now-flat stomach with difficulty with his finger: "You should hide your treasures well. I just aggravated an old injury from refining pills. I'll recover after some rest. I'm not going to die. I don't need your treasures."

He thought he had just fainted from the pain of an old injury, just like before.

The cubs looked worried after hearing this. Yu Rong scratched his head and said, "But you've been unconscious for three days."

"Luckily, we called our older brother over," Yun Feng said.

Zhao Ling chirped in agreement.

Xu Lingguang was stunned, somewhat incredulous: "I was unconscious for three days?"

The cubs nodded in unison, while Yun Feng looked at him accusingly: "You've become so scary, looking at us with eyes that look like you want to eat the cubs."

Xu Lingguang frowned, suspecting that the cubs were talking nonsense.

What do you mean by "looking like he's eating cubs"? Wasn't he unconscious?

But the cubs kept talking amongst themselves, making it impossible to get any clear answers. So he slowly and laboriously sat up and asked about Lan Jian's whereabouts—the cubs had just said they had called Lan Jian over.

"So it was you who called Chief Lan to save me?"

He vaguely remembered that he was in the main room before he lost consciousness, not in the bedroom. Lan Jian must have carried him here.

The cubs nodded, and Yun Feng ran a few steps to the door and called out to Lan Jian, who was resting in the tree, "Big brother, big brother, Brother Ling Guang is calling you!"

Xu Lingguang: !!!

Unexpectedly, Lan Jian was right there in the courtyard. Xu Lingguang immediately got out of bed, not daring to trouble the imperial carriage.

But he was so weak that he almost twisted his neck and fell off the bed after struggling for a long time. Luckily, Yu Rong grabbed his clothes and pulled him back.

As soon as Lan Jian entered, she saw his flustered and disheveled appearance. The corners of her mouth curved slightly and she said, "You are still recovering from your serious injuries. You should rest and recuperate."

Xu Lingguang had no choice but to lie back down, and said apologetically, "Clan Chief Lan saved me again."

Lan Jian didn't answer, but instead asked, "Do you know why you fainted?"

Xu Lingguang blinked and honestly said, "Before I fainted, I was trying to refine the Rejuvenation Pill, but the Rejuvenation Pill requires too much spiritual power, and it was too difficult for me to refine. It's possible that the spiritual power in my body was exhausted and my old injury was aggravated, which caused me to faint."

He looked a little sullen: "I overestimated myself."

Lan Jian's eyes flickered slightly upon hearing his explanation. He slowly flicked his tail and asked again, "When I examined your spiritual veins, I found that your inner palace was shattered, your spiritual energy was chaotic, and your soul seemed to be about to leave your body. Where did your old injury come from?"

Xu Lingguang was stunned when he heard "the soul seems to be leaving the body": "The soul is leaving the body, is it that serious?"

He thought that after this period of hard work and taking the Rejuvenation Pill, his condition should have improved a lot. How could it be that his soul was leaving his body just because he was refining a pill?

Does the soul leaving the body mean death?

They even said he would become a wandering ghost and roam around in this strange world?

Becoming a wandering ghost is more terrifying than dying directly. Xu Lingguang turned pale at the thought of this possibility.