The pain was unbearable.
Han Fei opened his eyes in the darkness, and the first thing he felt was his Dantian burning as if someone had poured molten acid into the center of his being. The air reeked of metallic rust, cheap incense, and cold sweat. The stone slabs beneath his body were damp and freezing, as if he'd been lying on a freshly opened grave.
Where...?
The memories weren't his, yet at the same time they were. Two lives intertwined in his brain like mating serpents: that of a 21st-century man who had read far too many mediocre web novels, and that of Han Fei, an outer disciple of the Blood Lotus Sect, a third-rate demonic organization that used its lower members as disposable cattle.
"Oh? Little Han is still alive?"
The voice was like poisoned honey. Han Fei turned his head, the movement sending waves of agony through his shattered meridians.
Before him, with her back turned, stood a woman in crimson robes that barely covered her pale jade skin. Deaconess Li screamed, clinging to the floor as furniture orbited around her.
Li. Even without seeing her face, Han Fei recognized her from the body's memories: a poisonous beauty known for castrating those who disobeyed her, for draining her victims until they were empty husks.
She turned slowly, wiping a curved dagger with a silk cloth. Her phoenix eyes narrowed as she saw him move.
"That 'Heartbreaker' pill should have liquefied your meridians an hour ago. How... tenacious."
She approached. The dagger grazed her bare thigh with each step, a predatory smile curving her red lips. The killing intent was palpable, like static electricity just before a storm.
Han Fei processed the information with the coldness of a surgeon analyzing a corpse. The body he occupied was supposed to die today from poison-induced "Qi Deviation," so that Deaconess Li could steal his meager cultivation base. It was the fate of the cannon fodder character in a web novel he'd read out of boredom.
But I'm not that idiot.
Inside his chest, something pulsed. It wasn't his shattered heart. It was... something else. A sphere of crimson light spinning in a space that shouldn't exist, sucking the poison from his veins with the voracity of a microscopic black hole.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATED!] [Golden Finger Detected: Blood Pearl] [Function: Impurity Refinement - Active] [Converting lethal toxin into pure Qi...]
The words flashed in his mind like a computer screen. Han Fei didn't allow himself to be surprised. If he'd reincarnated into a cultivation world with memories of a trashy novel, then having a "cheat" was statistically probable. The Blood Pearl... was identical to the Sky Poison Pearl from Against the Gods. A dimensional space that refined impurities.
Perfect. Now to not die in the next thirty seconds.
"No, it won't be because what you gave me was bad," Han Fei said, forcing a crooked smile as he looked around, evaluating escape routes. "Maybe poorly made? I don't know, just saying."
The effect was immediate. Deaconess Li's smile vanished as if someone had ripped off a mask. In a red blur, she lunged at him.
Shit.
The cold steel of the dagger pressed against his jugular, drawing a drop of warm blood. She pinned him against the slab with a knee on his chest, her face inches from his. Her pupils were dilated with rage, two black pits of fury.
"Bad? My Black Heart Pill... bad?" she whispered in a voice that promised torture. "A Level 1 waste dares to judge my Dao."
Suddenly, her free hand violently grabbed Han Fei's wrist to take his pulse and verify the poison's state.
Internally, Han Fei felt a searing heat in his chest. The Blood Pearl spun furiously in his soul space, sucking up the poison with a hungry vortex. If she felt that unnatural fluctuation in his pulse, she'd cut him open to extract it. He'd become a lab rat.
Servitude. My greatest fear.
But Han Fei's body reacted before his conscious mind. He yanked his hand back, interrupting the pulse reading.
"Save the agony for the dying, you already got what you wanted. Why don't you fuck off and let someone die? Crazy bitch, isn't liquefying my meridians enough for you?" he growled, annoyed.
His abrupt movement sealed his fate. As he pulled his arm, a spark of crimson energy jumped from his skin to hers. It was unmistakable. It was the purity of a celestial treasure.
Deaconess Li froze. Her expression changed instantly: mockery disappeared, replaced by a fanatic greed that chilled the blood.
"Your meridians... they're not dissolving," she murmured, licking her lips as her eyes roamed Han Fei's body as if he were a prime cut of meat. "They're feeding. You have something inside. Something that refines my poison into pure Qi."
She raised her hand. Five threads of viscous red Qi sprouted from her fingers like living tentacles.
"Change of plans, little Han. You're not dying today. I'm going to open you layer by layer until I find what you're hiding."
The cell door slammed shut with a movement of her other hand. Han Fei was trapped with a Level 5 cultivator who wanted to dissect him alive.
But something had changed in his body. The Pearl had devoured the poison completely. He felt energy, pure and refined Qi, flooding his lacerated meridians. Not much, but enough for one last desperate move.
The red threads flew toward his limbs to bind him to the slab.
Now or never.
Han Fei lunged forward with all the strength his broken body could muster. Not toward the door. Toward her.
He kissed her.
The taste was metallic, of blood and surprise. But his right hand was an iron claw: he grabbed one of Deaconess Li's nipples through the thin fabric and twisted it with the brute force of someone fighting for his life.
The piercing scream that followed broke the tension in the air. The pain and absolute humiliation paralyzed the cultivator for the vital instant Han Fei needed. Her defensive Qi flickered, destabilized by the shock.
BAM!
Han Fei kicked the reinforced wooden door. Splinters flew. He shot into the corridor like a black arrow, channeling all the refined Qi into his legs.
Behind him, a roar that shook the foundations:
"I'LL SKIN YOU ALIVE, YOU FILTHY RAT!!"