Young Master Ling stumbled as he caught the falling sky tiger inner core, and after placing it in his qiankun bag, he immediately began searching for Su Meier's whereabouts.
As his Divine Sense swept over the ravaged Lightning Prison, he finally caught a trace of the fading Qingqiu aura in a crater thirty miles to the southwest!
Su Meier lay on her back at the bottom of the crater, her Green Wood Vine Armor shattered, revealing skin scorched by lightning. Purple-black lightning poison continuously seeped from her gruesome wounds. The Heavenly Dao Golden Core's radiance flickered erratically within her Meridians, each flash accompanied by a mist of blood oozing from her seven orifices.
"Meier, hold on!"
Young Master Ling trembled as he opened his qiankun bag. The sky tiger inner core, still crackling with lightning arcs, rolled into his palm. He unhesitatingly held the sky tiger inner core in his mouth, then lowered his head to cover Su Meier's cold lips, before tightly gripping her left hand with his right to transfer his True Essence.
His Middle Stage Nascent Soul True Essence surged into the girl's body like a breached river. Young Master Ling could clearly feel his Origin rapidly draining. When the last trace of True Essence was transferred, a myriad of golden stars exploded before his eyes, and the wail of his Dantian's depletion echoed in his ears, before he collapsed beside the girl.
As the sky tiger inner core, accompanied by robust True Essence, entered her body, Su Meier's Heavenly Dao Golden Core suddenly trembled. The sky tiger inner core, suspended above her Dantian, glowed with lightning, and nine streams of Origin lightning essence transformed into swimming Dragons, coiling around her Golden Core. Her Meridians, severely damaged by Thunder Lord, began to greedily devour the inner core's essence, and her charred flesh regenerated at a visible speed.
As the sky tiger lightning essence slowly merged into her Golden Core, it was as if vast Spiritual Qi poured down, and Su Meier's Golden Core aura began to rise steadily!
Golden Core Middle Stage Perfection... Golden Core Late Stage... Golden Core Late Stage Perfection... The Nascent Soul shackles began to loosen... In her inner world, Su Meier's Primordial Spirit stepped barefoot on a sea of lightning. The sky tiger inner core transformed into a purple lightning white tiger, coiling in the Void Realm. Every bolt of lightning that struck carved Dao patterns onto her Primordial Spirit. When the ninth lightning pattern cracked on the surface of her Golden Core, the entire sea of lightning suddenly boiled.
When the first Purple Heaven Divine Lightning struck, her newly regenerated skin instantly carbonized. But before the lightning dissipated, a second purple lightning bolt followed immediately.
The third... the fourth... the eighth... "Golden Core breaks, Nascent Soul forms!"
The suspended emperor seal suddenly projected a phantom image of the Qingqiu Empress. Wherever her fox tail swept, her Physical Body, destroyed by the Lightning Tribulation, became even tougher than before. When the ninth Lightning Tribulation descended, a pillar of green light shot out from Su Meier's crown.
Within the light pillar, a nascent Nascent Soul could vaguely be seen, identical to the girl in appearance, save for a fox-fire mark on its forehead. The small Nascent Soul formed an arcane hand seal, and the pervasive Lightning Tribulation suddenly changed direction, transforming into a sweet dew that nourished her Primordial Spirit.
Having previously consumed the supreme treasure, the Profound Spirit Broken Essence Pill, Su Meier's path to Nascent Soul was unimpeded and without any risk. As the sky tiger inner core was completely absorbed, the nine fox-fires in Su Meier's Purple Mansion Dantian finally merged into a complete Nascent Soul—a miniature fox immortal with nine tails on its back, forming an ancient Qingqiu seal with its hands.
Immediately after, the moonlight from a hundred-mile radius was forcibly drawn in, forming a hundred-zhang-diameter Spiritual Qi storm above her head. Su Meier's Physical Body began to fox-ify: her fingernails transformed into glazed fox claws, her pupils split into gold and silver, and the tips of her nine tails ignited with Chaos fox-fire.
When the first ray of dawn pierced through the clouds, the Nascent Soul completely solidified. Su Meier let out a long cry to the sky. The Nascent Soul's pressure contained within her cry directly shattered the suspended mountain several miles away. She looked down at the Chaos Qi flowing in her palm and finally understood why the Qingqiu emperor seal had chosen her—the mark on her Nascent Soul's forehead was actually the 'Chaos Spirit Mark' of the first generation Nine-tailed Sky Fox!
The Chaos halo flowing around her wrist suddenly trembled—only then did she notice Young Master Ling lying face-down on her lap, his face as pale as gold leaf, his right hand's Meridians still tightly clasped with her left, and his palm bearing the scorch marks of forcibly stripped spiritual power.
"Young Master Ling... how could you be so foolish..."
Her voice broke into a sob, and Su Meier tremblingly caressed Young Master Ling's sunken cheek. His back was covered in ruptured blood wounds from the backlash of the Fiery Dragon's Three Revolutions, the deepest scar running from his shoulder blade to his waist, yet he had still risked the complete severance of his Meridians to pour the last thirty percent of his True Essence into her body.
Her nine tails instinctively wrapped around Young Master Ling's cold body. Su Meier bit her tongue, activating her Nascent Soul with the Qingqiu Secret Technique. Golden-green spiritual power transformed into a thousand silk threads, gently probing from her Dantian into Young Master Ling's parched Qi Sea. Upon discovering the dense cracks on the surface of his Nascent Soul, the easily tearful fox immortal wept again, her hot tears falling onto Young Master Ling's collarbone, burning out specks of starlight.
The Fire Spirit Pearl, taken from the qiankun bag, rotated with a seven-colored halo above the tent, reflecting Su Meier's unadorned white figure as she shed her luxurious robes. She spread out the ten-thousand-year ice silkworm quilt to wrap Young Master Ling, but her nine tails stubbornly maintained the posture of bridging spiritual power. Whenever Young Master Ling convulsed in agony, her tail tips would bloom with fox-fire to warm herbal soup; seeing his lips cracked, a tail tip would immediately dip into moon dew to gently moisten them.
At midnight, the backlash suddenly struck! Young Master Ling's pores were all oozing blood. Su Meier unhesitatingly cut her wrist, mixing the Nine-tailed Sky Fox's heart blood with the emperor seal's Chaos Qi, and drew Qingqiu life-extending charms all over his chest. As the crimson snaked along Young Master Ling's skin, it resembled the red threads of three-life entanglement in the Matchmaker's Temple.
At dawn the next day, Su Meier took off her Phoenix Plume Nine Heavens Feather Robe and, naked, carried Young Master Ling into the hot spring. Her nine tails, like a cloud veil, obscured the rising steam. Her fingertips rubbed ointment onto his terrifying wounds, but paused when she touched the scar on his waist and abdomen—it was the mark of blocking the sky tiger lightning Dragon's venomous fangs for her.
"They always say that Qingqiu, cultivating the Dao of emotionlessness, is the most cold-hearted..."
She suddenly buried her face in Young Master Ling's neck, which smelled of medicine, her tail tips curling around the blanket to cocoon him. "But every time you protect me so recklessly, why don't you think about how my heart will ache too?"
Young Master Ling, in his daze, seemed to sense something, and his fingertips suddenly hooked onto her falling strands of hair. Su Meier instantly froze like the snow on Qingqiu Mountain's peak, even her Nascent Soul trembling, until she realized he was only unconsciously entwining it. Only then did she, with reddened ear tips, indulge this transgression... As the morning light pierced through the shark-gauze curtain, Young Master Ling awoke in the warm bed woven by the nine tails. Su Meier was delivering the last mouthful of medicinal liquid with her lips, her black hair intertwined with his graying temples on the pillow, blooming like twin lotus flowers.
"Meier... Hiss!" Young Master Ling tried to get up but was slapped back onto the bed by a tail tip.
"Young Master Ling has quite the ability." Su Meier's face was frosty, but her tail tips honestly massaged his Acupoints. "You'd give up your life just to transfer Qi?"
Her chiding words were cut short by a fingertip suddenly pressed against her lips. Young Master Ling loosely held the strand of long hair that had turned snow-white to save him, the galaxy in his eyes more scorching than when they first met: "If I could do it again..."
A tail tip suddenly covered his mouth. Su Meier turned away, pretending to tidy the medicine bowls, but couldn't hide the fox ears peeking out from her hair: "The medicinal spring needs to be changed for the third time. I trouble Young Master Ling to soak for another two hours..."
As Young Master Ling got up to prepare for the medicinal spring, he suddenly felt a softness behind him. Su Meier hugged Young Master Ling's waist from behind, pressing her face tightly against his broad back, then turned to face him, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered, "Does Young Master Ling know how a Nine-tailed Sky Fox repays a favor?"
Young Master Ling was about to speak, but the girl's fingertip pressed against his lips. Su Meier formed a hand seal with her left hand, and the Qingqiu emperor seal appeared, gently pressing against his heart: "With the emperor seal as a covenant, from now on, if you live, I live; if you die... even if I, Su Meier, have to break through Reincarnation, I will snatch you back!"
Then, blushing, she stood on tiptoe and kissed Young Master Ling's lips. At this moment, their fingers were tightly intertwined.