FVN Chapter 12 True Fire Tempers Life
Chapter 12 True Fire Tempers Life
The memory did not end there.
Just when Lu Changgeng thought that this past event had come to an end, images began to surface in his mind again.
After being expelled from Thorn Ridge, Teng San Niang did not wander around aimlessly like a headless fly.
She did something no one expected.
She went to the human world.
In the scene, a town in the mortal realm appears before our eyes.
The cobblestone path is fluttering with wine flags, and people come and go.
Teng San Niang transformed herself into an inconspicuous vine, blending into the firewood chopped by the woodcutter and living among the people.
She couldn't read, so she would squat on a tree outside the private school window to eavesdrop; she didn't understand etiquette, so she would go to the rooftops of teahouses and restaurants to listen to storytelling and watch plays; she couldn't compose poetry, so she would go to bookstores to watch people copy poems and memorize them word by word.
Three years.
For three whole years, she spent her days struggling in the city and her nights cultivating herself in a dilapidated temple or abandoned house.
From an illiterate wisteria spirit, she transformed into a "human" who could write, draw, and knew how to navigate social situations.
She once secretly transformed into human form to copy the Book of Songs in a bookstore. The shopkeeper saw her and praised her, saying, "Your calligraphy has a certain elegance."
She stood there stunned, her nose tingling, and she almost burst into tears.
But a spirit is still a spirit.
That day, she was traveling in a desolate mountain wilderness when she was stopped by three demon cultivators.
A wolf demon, a snake demon, and a eagle demon.
All three demons were at the peak of the Refinement Realm, specializing in ambushing and killing lone spirits and stealing their inner cores.
"Oh, this little vine demon has such delicate skin and tender flesh. I wonder how many hundreds of years of cultivation it has." The wolf demon licked its lips.
Teng San Niang turned to flee, but the eagle demon descended from the sky, grabbing her shoulder with one claw and tearing off a large piece of flesh.
She screamed and fell to the ground, her clothes stained red with blood.
Just as the eagle demon was about to take her life, a dark gray figure rushed out of the forest and smashed the eagle demon away with a hammer.
Iron-Boned King.
At that time, he was not a "king" at all, but a wild boar demon who had cultivated for eight hundred years, at the initial stage of the Condensation Realm, which was a level higher than the three demons.
His mane bristled, his fangs gleamed coldly, and he quickly drove away the wolf demon and snake demon. The eagle demon had its wings broken by that hammer blow and fled with a mournful howl.
"Are you alright?" Tie Gu squatted down, looked at Teng San Niang who was covered in blood, and clumsily took out a handful of herbs and pressed them onto her wounds.
Teng San Niang gasped in pain, but gritted her teeth and remained silent.
"Are you a plant spirit? Why are you wandering around this desolate wilderness all by yourself?" Tie Gu scratched his head. "How about... I give you a ride?"
Teng San Niang glanced at him. This wild boar demon looked fierce and menacing, but his eyes were surprisingly honest.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"I don't have a name, everyone just calls me Iron Lump." He grinned, revealing two large fangs.
Teng San Niang was silent for a moment, then said, "Tie Gu. Your name is Tie Gu."
"Iron Bones...that sounds nice." He chuckled and carried Teng San Niang on his back.
My memory ends here.
Lu Changgeng snapped out of his reverie, his heart filled with mixed emotions.
This Teng San Niang, a plant spirit, did not give up on herself after being expelled from her sect. Instead, she went to the human world to learn calligraphy, painting, and etiquette. This character impressed him.
sixth day.
As usual, Teng San Niang entered the spring to cultivate.
The feedback this day was different from before; it was no longer a set of techniques or fragments of memory, but a pure realization.
That is how the essence of plants perceives the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, completely different from how he, as a spring, perceives it.
She can "hear" the breath of every plant, can distinguish water sources within a hundred miles from the wind, and can draw imperceptible nutrients from the soil.
He tried to integrate Teng San Niang's perception methods into himself, which led to a new discovery.
His springs spread for dozens of miles, and every tiny tributary is like a nerve ending, able to sense every inch of land it flows through.
Now he suddenly sensed a shared aura emanating from a small tributary—it was…
Northeast!
There, one can find an aura of the same origin as his Cleansing Spring! It also carries the aura of the true fire of the sun!
Lu Changgeng silently memorized the location, waiting for the right time to investigate it.
The seventh day, the last day.
Teng San Niang in the spring suddenly opened her eyes, her gaze shifting slightly as she said to Lu Chang Geng's water-form avatar, "Immortal Master, today is the last day. I wish to try to fully utilize my cultivation technique. If there are any unusual movements, I hope you will protect me."
"Please proceed, Madam."
Teng San Niang closed her eyes and began to circulate her internal energy.
Unlike the previous days, this time she held nothing back.
The vitality of plants surged wildly from her body, colliding and merging violently with the true fire energy of the sun in the spring water, causing water to splash and make a "splashing" sound.
Two streams of energy surged within the spring, causing the water to boil like water, and steam to rise several feet high, enveloping the entire surface of the spring in a white mist, making it impossible to see a person more than ten steps away.
Teng San Niang's body began to undergo visible changes.
Her skin, which was originally the slightly yellowish color often found on plant spirits, now seemed to have been washed clean of years of dirt by spring water, becoming white and translucent layer by layer.
From her shoulders to her collarbone, and from her collarbone to the side of her neck, every inch of her skin was flushed with a faint blush, as if she had been soaked in a hot spring, or as if vitality was emanating from within.
Her breathing became deeper and deeper, and her chest heaved more and more.
The water surface rippled, and concentric circles of ripples spread out from her, hitting the spring wall and then returning.
"Well……"
A soft moan escaped from deep within her throat.
The sound was very soft, like the faint sound of a mountain breeze passing through a bamboo forest, carrying a hint of repression, a hint of comfort, and a touch of inexplicable languor.
Her brows furrowed slightly and then slowly relaxed, repeating this process as if she were undergoing a long, thorough cleansing from the inside out.
The true fire energy of the sun seeped into her meridians, gradually refining and stripping away the chaotic demonic energy she had accumulated over hundreds of years.
That process is definitely not pleasant; in fact, it can be described as quite painful.
The bodies of plants are inherently delicate, and being tempered by the most yang and powerful true fire energy is like roasting a tender vine over a fire.
But the relief that followed the pain was also unprecedented.
Every meridian scorched by the true fire will release a cool, life-giving energy the moment the demonic energy is refined. It is a cycle of withering and flourishing, withering first and then flourishing, dying first and then living.
"Um……"
Another soft murmur.
This time it was longer than before, with a slight upward inflection at the end, carrying an unconscious, almost instinctive sense of satisfaction.
Her body swayed gently in the spring water, her legs unconsciously curling up and straightening, her toes skimming the surface of the water, creating a string of tiny bubbles.
Tiny white flowers at the tips of the vines began to bloom in patches, one after another, as if spring had arrived in an instant.
The fragrance of flowers permeated the surface of the spring, mingling with the sulfurous steam to create a strangely sweet aroma.
A look somewhere between pain and pleasure crossed her face; her brow was slightly furrowed, but the corners of her mouth were slightly upturned, and her eyelashes trembled, as if she were having a dream she didn't want to wake up from.