Chapter 223: Compromise
Translator: Pika
“I’m the only one who is familiar with every inch of your skin and ki meridians. I know how much strength to exert and which angle I should exert the force in. The slightest mistake here could easily destroy your ki meridians and internal organs, so it’s an impossible deed for anyone who doesn’t understand your internal condition well,” said Zu An.
He wasn’t speaking the truth here. The one who was familiar with Chu Chuyan’s condition was actually Mi Li as she had entered Chu Chuyan’s body previously, allowing her to know every nook and cranny inside.
However, he promised Mi Li not to expose her existence, so he could only claim it himself.
Chu Chuyan was taken aback by those words. “Why are you familiar with my physical condition?”
Zu An chuckled softly and said, “Have you forgotten? While I was treating you in the underground palace, I focused my attention on repairing your ki meridians. There’s no way I could be unfamiliar with the insides of your body. There’s no one else in the world who knows the insides of your body better than I do.”
Chu Chuyan’s face immediately reddened. “E-enough! Don’t say anymore. Hurry up and apply your acupuncture on me!”
Zu An smiled softly as he got Cheng Shouping to lay out the medicine he had prepared beforehand. He crushed the medicine into powder before concocting it into a medicinal extract.
Catching a whiff of the scent of medicinal herbs, Chu Chuyan couldn’t resist asking, “You know medicine too? But based on what I know, you’ve never dabbled in medicine before.”
“Didn’t I tell you that there’s a mysterious grandfather who imparted to me his skills? That involves medicine too. It’s just that I’m not too interested in this field thus far. It’s only because of your condition that I chose to pick it up,” replied Zu An with a smile.
“Who are you saying is a grandfather?!” Mi Li roared furiously in his head. “Do I look old to you?”
Please, you’ve already lived for a few thousand years now. Do you really lack that much self-awareness?
But of course, there was no way Zu An would say those words out loud. He quickly replied, “I’m not talking about you. I’m just using a figure I fabricated in the past to explain the knowledge I’ve learned from you.”
“That’s more like it.” Mi Li harrumphed. “Speaking of which, I’m really interested to know where you picked up all your skills too. You knew my name right away when we first met too.”
Zu An deeply regretted pushing himself into a pit here. He shouldn’t have been honest with her and pushed everything to that mysterious grandfather too.
“We can talk about that later. You’re stuck with me for the time being anyway, so you’ll eventually find out about my secrets. For now, let’s focus our efforts on saving my wife first,” said Zu An.
Mi Li fell silent, an expression of subtle acknowledgment. This made Zu An heave a sigh of relief.
“What’s wrong?” Chu Chuyan noticed the subtle changes in Zu An’s expression as he stood in a daze.
“Nothing much. Let’s begin now.” Zu An reached out to grab Chu Chuyan’s hand.
Chu Chuyan instinctively tried to retract her hand, but Zu An didn’t let go this time around. Instead, he forcefully pulled her hand over to his side.
Chu Chuyan knew that her reaction was a bit too much given that he was treating her, so she resisted her urge to struggle and allowed him to do as he wished.
Zu An soaked his silver needles into the mysterious medicinal extract for a moment before flicking it lightly. His movements were so smooth that he looked like a veteran physician.
That made Chu Chuyan even more confused than before. This fellow sure is concealing a lot of secrets.
Following that, she saw a blur fly across her eyes, and before she knew it, the silver needles were already stabbed into the webbing between her thumb and forefinger.
She blinked her eyes in surprise. She expected the process to be painful, but she didn’t feel anything at all. Instead, she could feel warmth diffusing into her body from the silver needles.
Following that, Zu An pulled her sleeves up to her shoulder, revealing her beautiful arms.
“What are you doing?!” Chu Chuyan was horrified.
“You need not react so strongly. It’s not like it’s my first time seeing it anyway—I’ve already kissed it all I wanted to the last time. I’m just applying acupuncture to the other acupoints on your arm,” remarked Zu An.
Chu Chuyan was left incredibly embarrassed by those words. She couldn’t help but recall the image of him kissing her body all over in the underground hall, and it made her both a little maddened and embarrassed too.
You have successfully trolled Chu Chuyan for +33 Rage!
The influx of Rage points shocked Zu An, making him think that he had really accidentally angered her. However, when he saw the sum of Rage points, his heart was put at ease. She was probably just feeling frustrated out of anger.
“Pull your attention together. Stop thinking about all of this nonsense,” warned Mi Li.
Knowing that he couldn’t make the slightest error here, Zu An quickly gathered his focus and followed Mi Li’s instructions. He channeled his ki into the acupoints through the silver needles on her arms, shrouding them in a layer of primordial ki.
The primordial ki shouldn’t have had any regenerative effects on anyone before he reached the fourth rank of the Primordial Origin Sutra, but he had intimate contact with Chu Chuyan before, having used his primordial ki to reconstruct her ki meridians previously. As a result, there was still a bit of his primordial ki lingering in her ki meridians, so he could channel them by resonating it with the primordial ki he was infusing into her body externally.
Meanwhile, Chu Chuyan was surprised by how professional his acupuncture was. She felt a cold sensation surging through her arm, toward the silver needles. Then, she could visibly see frost being expelled into the surroundings from the silver needles.
Zu An calmly placed her left arm on a cushion, but he didn’t extract the needles there. Instead, he reached out to grab her right hand.
By this point, Chu Chuyan could already tell that the treatment was effective, so she wasn’t as resistant to it anymore. Instead, she cooperated with him to raise her arm and allowed him to roll her sleeves up.
Zu An did the same with her right arm and filled it with silver needles.
“How are you feeling?” Zu An asked as he placed her right arm on a cushion too.
“My hands don’t feel as chilly anymore. The frost around my acupoints are gradually being released outward,” remarked Chu Chuyan as she stared at the white mist released into the surroundings. “I didn’t think that it would actually work.”
Toward that, Zu An replied, “It’s not that simple. The accumulation of frost in your body is simply too severe. Your high aptitude has really backfired on you this time around. You advanced your cultivation far too quickly that your body is unable to adapt to the accumulation of frost, making you particularly vulnerable to a backlash whenever you sustain significant injuries.
“Now that I think about it, this problem can probably be traced back to the Clans Tournament, when you incurred a severe injury while fighting with Wu Di. You were still barely able to keep it in control back then, but the seed has already been planted there. After that, your ki meridians got destroyed, your cultivation rank was forcefully raised by the Evanescent Lotus, and you suffered a strike from Shi Lezhi. All of these triggers caused you to completely lose control over the frost in your body.”
This was Mi Li’s analysis, and he was just relaying it over to Zu An. Of course, the matter concerning the Clans Tournament was something he shared with Mi Li so as to ensure that she could get a more accurate assessment of the problem.
“That’s indeed the case.” Chu Chuyan was feeling deeply impressed with Zu An. His diagnosis was spot-on.
“The accumulation of frost has deeply permeated your organs and ki meridians, making this problem much more complicated. This isn’t an issue which we can resolve within days. At the very least, it’ll require two to three months of daily acupuncture to expel the frost for you to recover from your current condition,” said Zu An.
“I’ll be troubling you then.” Chu Chuyan heaved a sigh of relief.
Even Physician Bao Youlu had mentioned earlier that her condition was hopeless, saying that it was unlikely that Ji Dengtu would be able to do anything about her condition too. The knowledge that she could recover within two to three months was already a miracle to her.
However, Zu An’s following words left her dumbfounded. “It’s good that you’re willing to cooperate with me. Alright, you should take off your clothes now.”
“???” Chu Chuyan.
“What are you staring at me for? All I’ve done thus far is to dissipate the frost in your hands! What’s far more important is the frost accumulated in your organs!” Zu An rolled his eyes. “How am I going to apply acupuncture on them if you don’t take off your clothes.”
“I...” Chu Chuyan could tell that it was a reasonable request, but her embarrassment left her at a complete loss.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen your body before, so there’s no need for you to make such a big deal out of it,” replied Zu An. “If you have a huge qualm with it, we can do the first treatment method instead. It’s actually far more effective, and you should be able to recover within days. The process will also be far more enjoyable... cough cough, I mean convenient.”
Chu Chuyan immediately shook her head vehemently. There was no way she could accept the first treatment method. “C-can you cover your eyes? I heard that there are skilled physicians who are able to apply acupuncture even with their eyes closed.”
“That won’t do,” replied Zu An affirmatively. “I’m not as skilled as those physicians, and your condition is far more severe for me to take such a risk. Even the slightest misuse of fore here can cause devastating damage to your ki meridians and internal organs. It would be foolish for me to hinder one of my senses here and raise the level of difficulty for such a complicated operation.”
“...” Chu Chuyan.
A long time later, she bit her lips and glared at Zu An sharply, saying, “Are you doing it on purpose?”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Zu An innocently.
Even when throwing a tantrum, she’s still as beautiful as ever. It’s really a feast for my eyes.
“The two treatment methods you propose are all... like that! It’s not even an option at all!” Chu Chuyan was frenzied. “Is there no third solution?”
Zu An sighed deeply and said, “Honey, you should also be aware of how complicated your condition is. You should thankful that there are two options for you to choose from here. How could there be a third one here?”
Chu Chuyan was deeply conflicted. Naturally, the first treatment method was an absolute no, but the second one was...
Sensing her hesitation, Zu An added, “You can use a thin veil to conceal the more sensitive parts of your body. I doubt that I would need to apply acupuncture on those places.”
Hearing those words, Chu Chuyan heaved a sigh of relief and said, “Very well... let’s go with the second treatment method then.”
Meanwhile, Zu An celebrated his victory. This was simply how humans were like. Had he proposed the second option right from the start, there was no way she would accept it. However, by throwing out the more unacceptable first option in advance, it made the second one much more palatable.
Lu Xun’s quote really rings true. If you propose to open up a sky window in an enclosed room, there’s no way the other party would accept it. However, if you propose to destroy the entire roof, the other party might come to a compromise and allow you to open a sky window.
“Can we... start from the back first?” Chu Chuyan lowered her body as her breathing hastened a little. She was obviously panicking at the moment.
“Of course, that’s not a problem,” replied Zu An with a smile.
Chu Chuyan pursed her lips in hesitation before finally sighing deeply. She loosened the belt around her waist, and her silk robe flowed down her shoulders, revealing her beautiful back,
As expected of the number one beauty of Brightmoon City, her skin was so smooth that it looked almost like a mirror. Her figure curved smoothly along her waist all the way toward her bum. There was not a flaw to pick with her at all.
Chu Chuyan pulled a silk cloth over to cover her front as she murmured in protest, “Why aren’t you starting yet?”