After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Late that night, after Marcus was dealt with, a man sat on a stone bench in the backyard of the manor.

Zhou Ran did not turn on the light.

The golden elixir spun within the dantian, and the three gray lines wriggled even more brazenly as the night deepened. The lines on the dantian wall arched outward inch by inch, as if biting with teeth, carving out new grooves.

The fighting has been too fierce these past few days.

The Heavenly Dao's interest was deducted on time, and the chill of the Underworld accumulated layer upon layer. The crack on the Primordial Origin Bone was two degrees deeper than when he left the Three Palaces.

He spread out his left hand, his five fingers gently tapping.

It's like cold air is seeping out from between my bones, and I can't stop it.

Footsteps came from the shadows.

Li Zhiyao carried a bowl of hot soup to the stone bench, put down the bowl without saying a word, and sat down next to him.

The steam from the soup rose up, but the night wind swept half of it away.

"I can't drink it."

"Then cover it up."

She pushed the bowl to his left, the porcelain bottom scraping against the stone surface with a clinking sound.

The second person arrived.

Chen Ya emerged from the side door carrying a stack of financial statements for the day, muttering about reporting on her work, and walking faster than usual.

"After Marcus left, the European headquarters reacted strongly, and they urgently transferred funds..."

The conversation ended halfway through.

She saw Zhou Ran's left hand.

Resting on his knees, his knuckles trembled in the moonlight.

The report fell onto the stone bench.

Chen Ya didn't say anything more. She bent down, wrapped her hands around his left hand, and probed his fingertips with spiritual energy.

Three breaths.

The color drained completely from her face.

"The cracks in the Primordial Bone have deepened."

"Know."

Why didn't you say so?

Zhou Ran withdrew his hand and handed the report back to her.

"If I told you, would you make it up to me?"

Chen Ya gripped the report tightly, her nails digging into the paper.

Someone was walking towards us from a distance, their steps becoming increasingly hurried.

Lin Qingxue came out wearing a bathrobe, her hair loose, and the white mist on her eyes had not yet completely faded.

She detected the abnormality in Zhou Ran's body from fifteen zhang away, and her footsteps became light running, the hem of her robe scraping against the floor tiles.

As soon as he got close, he said one sentence.

"Why don't you go soak in the hot springs for a while?"

Zhou Ran looked up at her.

"I saw it."

Lin Qingxue lowered her voice to the very bottom.

"Those gray lines on the surface of your golden core are spreading outwards. The speed isn't fast, but at this rate, your meridian system will be swallowed up within three to five days."

"By then, hand tremors will be considered mild."

Chen Ya gripped the report even tighter.

"Go down."

Li Zhiyao stood up and patted the dust off her cheongsam.

"Don't be stubborn."

There is a hot spring pool underground.

The Taiyi Spirit Spring was the foundation for this transformation; Zhou Ran had previously used it to heal everyone's injuries.

This time it's the other way around.

Chen Ya and Lin Qingxue each grabbed one of his arms and pulled him to the ground.

The pool water had been nourished by the spiritual spring for more than half a year, and it shimmered with a pale blue light.

Steam rose from the water's surface, creating a thin mist that hung on the stone walls.

The moment Zhou Ran stepped into the water, all the patterns on the Taihuang map were activated.

Black and gold totems sprouted from her ankles, greedily absorbing the spiritual energy from the water.

The speed of the golden core's circulation slowed down, and the gray lines on the core wall temporarily stopped protruding, being forcefully suppressed by the spiritual energy.

"I'm going down."

Li Zhiyao changed into a light outfit and came out through the side door. Before anyone could answer, she stepped into the water.

The ghost cultivator, with two thousand years of experience, had a more refined understanding of meridian pathways and spiritual energy guidance than anyone else present.

"The energy of the spiritual spring cannot be poured in randomly; it must flow along specific meridians."

She walked up to Zhou Ran and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Don't move."

The spiritual energy surged from the bottom of the pool, enveloped by her magic power, and pressed down along the Tian Tu acupoint, through the Tan Zhong acupoint, past the Dan Tian acupoint, and into the surface of the golden core.

The distance couldn't be closer.

Their foreheads were almost touching, and the steam rising from the water swirled between their faces.

Li Zhiyao stared at the faint halo emanating from the golden core on his chest, pressing her fingertips on the acupoints below his collarbone.

"Those three gray lines in your golden core."

She spoke softly, her voice barely loud enough for two people to hear.

"It's not a crack."

Zhou Ran opened her eyes.

The steam from the pool water hit my eyelashes, condensing into a tiny water droplet that slid down the corner of my eye.

"What is that?"

"A letter from the Heavenly Corpse to you."

Li Zhiyao continued to guide the spiritual energy in her hands without stopping, and continued speaking.

"The gray lines contain extremely small rules."

The structure is almost identical to the lowest-level particles of the Void Realm Laws.

His fingertips moved from his collarbone to his chest, and his spiritual energy probed deeper into his golden core.

"It's not eroding you."

"It's using an outdated method to dump data on you."

"What data?"

She looked up and met his gaze.

"A picture."

"An internal structural diagram of a gigantic body."

The pool water rippled between the two of them.

Footsteps came from upstairs.

Su Qingling and Su Qingwu were called down by Chen Ya.

The two maintained the tidal formation until they were completely exhausted, their spiritual energy depleted.

Su Qingwu saw the scene in the pool first; two red blotches burned from her neck to her ears, and she stood rooted to the stone slab.

Su Qingling's face was expressionless, but a thin blush rose to the tips of her ears.

"Don't just stand there, come in."

Zhou Ran didn't turn around; his tone was the same as when he was assigning tasks.

He circulated the Yin-Yang Technique, and the primordial energy spread outward through the hot spring water, simultaneously nourishing the meridians and spiritual cores of everyone in the pool.

It was neither too intense nor too mild, and there was nothing particularly tender about it; it was simply a group therapy session that saved the most time.

Su Qingling went into the water first, sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool, and the dried-up magic power in her spiritual core was flushed by the Taihuang Qi and blood, and her lips regained their color.

Su Qingwu hesitated for a few seconds, then, after being glared at by her sister, carefully sat down.

Xiao Hongli arrived last.

She stood by the pool without moving.

The palm print on her left cheekbone shone a dark red in the mist.

Marcus's bodyguard slapped him during a body search during the day.

Zhou Ran glanced at the mark, his gaze lingering for two seconds.

"Get down."

The tone is very flat.

"The matter of the seal will be settled tomorrow."

Xiao Hongli lowered her head, her lips moved slightly, but she didn't make a sound.

After a while, she bent down, took off her shoes, and sat in the water.

When the primordial energy and blood flowed into her meridians, her eyelashes trembled, and the redness and swelling at the edge of the palm print gradually subsided.

The restoration of the hot springs has reached its deepest level.

The golden elixir reached its peak under the nourishment of the spiritual spring.

The three gray lines lit up at the same time.

Gray light emanated from his chest, piercing through his skin, the water's surface, and into the mist above his head.

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

A huge image emerged from the mist.

Grayish-white, with blurred outlines.

A giant humanoid figure curled up in the shadows.

Inside its body cavity, countless tiny points of light flowed, converging into rivers and weaving a net, filling the body from head to toe.

The image lasted for three breaths.

It shattered, scattered, and turned into wisps of gray smoke that disappeared into the mist.

The only sound in the hot spring pool was the dripping of water droplets falling from the stone wall into the pool.

Su Qingling spoke first, her voice strained.

"that……

"Is that the Heavenly Corpse?"

Zhou Ran shook his head.

"No."

He stared at the last gray afterimage on the water's surface.

"That's the inside of the Heavenly Corpse."

"There is a whole world inside."

A white mycelium emerged from a flowerpot by the pond.

The mycelium crawled along the damp stone slab for a while, writing a line of words in a crooked and uneven way.

"It's inviting you in."

Zhou Ran looked down for three seconds.

The mycelium that Bai Xuan was writing with was trembling slightly.

That's not fear.

Zhou Ran recognized that trembling technique.

It's excited.

Bai Xuan himself was tempted by that "world".