“I’m the only one who is familiar with every inch of your skin and your ki meridians. I know how much strength to exert, and at which angle to exert the force. The slightest mistake could easily destroy your ki meridians and internal organs, so it’s impossible for anyone who doesn’t understand your internal condition well,” said Zu An.

He wasn’t telling the truth here. It was actually Mi Li who was familiar with Chu Chuyan’s condition, as she had entered Chu Chuyan’s body previously, which allowed her to know every intricate detail of her.

However, he promised Mi Li not to expose her existence, so he could only claim the knowledge as his own.

Chu Chuyan was taken aback. “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. Of course I’d be familiar with the internal structure of your body. There’s no one else in the world who knows the internal parts 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 laid out the medicine Cheng Shouping had prepared beforehand. He crushed the medicine into powder before formulating them into a medicinal extract. 

Catching a whiff of the medicinal herbs, Chu Chuyan couldn’t resist asking, “You know medicine as well? Based on what I know, though, you’ve never dabbled in medicine before.”

“Didn’t I tell you that a mysterious grandfather imparted his skills to me? That involved medicine as well. I just haven’t been that interested in this field so far. I only chose to invest in it because of your condition,” replied Zu An with a smile.

“Who are you calling 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. Do you really lack that much self-awareness?

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 said with a snort. “Speaking of which, I’m really interested to know where you picked up all your skills as well. After all, you knew my name right away when we first met.”

Zu An deeply regretted digging himself such a deep hole. He shouldn’t have been honest with her, and pushed everything onto that mysterious grandfather as well.

“We can talk about that later. You’re stuck with me for the time being anyway, so you’ll eventually learn about my secrets. For now, let’s focus our efforts on saving my wife,” said Zu An.

Mi Li fell silent, a subtle expression of acknowledgment, and Zu An heaved a sigh of relief.

“What’s wrong?” Chu Chuyan had noted the subtle changes in Zu An’s expression as he stood there in a daze.

“Nothing much. Let’s begin now.” Zu An reached out to grab Chu Chuyan’s hand.

Chu Chuyan instinctively tried to pull her hand away, but Zu An didn’t let go this time. Instead, he forcefully pulled her hand over to him.

Chu Chuyan knew that her reaction was a little too much, given that he was trying to treat her, so she resisted her urge to struggle and allowed him to do as he wished.

Zu An soaked a silver needle 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, a blur flashed across her vision, and before she knew it, the silver needle had 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 needle.

Following that, Zu An pulled her sleeves up to her shoulder, revealing her beautiful arm.

Chu Chuyan was horrified. “What are you doing?!” 

“You don’t have to react so strongly. It’s not like it’s my first time seeing it anyway—I’ve already kissed it as much as I wanted to last time. I’m just applying acupuncture to the other acupoints on your arm,” remarked Zu An.

His words left Chu Chuyan feeling incredibly embarrassed. She couldn’t help but recall the image of him planting kisses all over her body in the underground hall, and it made her both a little mad and embarrassed.

You have successfully trolled Chu Chuyan for 33 Rage points!

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. 

“Focus. Stop thinking about all of this nonsense,” warned Mi Li.

Knowing that he couldn’t make the slightest error, 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’d had intimate contact with Chu Chuyan before, having used his primordial ki to reconstruct her ki meridians. As a result, a little of his primordial ki still lingered in her ki meridians, and he could channel it 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, and she could visibly see frost being expelled into the air through 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 felt less resistant towards it. Instead, she cooperated with him, raising her arm and letting him roll her sleeve 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 as well.

“My hands don’t feel as chilly anymore. The frost around my acupoints is gradually being released outward,” remarked Chu Chuyan as she stared at the white mist being released into the surroundings. “I didn’t think that it would actually work.”

“It’s not that simple,” Zu An said. “The accumulation of frost in your body is simply too severe. Your high aptitude really backfired on you this time. You advanced your cultivation far too quickly, and your body wasn’t able to adapt to the accumulation of frost. This made you particularly vulnerable to a backlash whenever you sustained 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 under control back then, but the seed had already been planted. 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 Chu Chuyan. Of course, the matter concerning the Clans Tournament was something he’d shared with Mi Li to ensure that she could assess the issue more accurately. 

“That’s indeed the case.” Chu Chuyan was feeling deeply impressed with Zu An. His diagnosis was spot-on.

“The accumulation of frost has permeated deep into your organs and ki meridians, massively complicating this problem. This isn’t something we can resolve within days. At the very least, it’ll require two to three months of daily acupuncture to expel the frost and allow you to recover from your current condition,” said Zu An.

Chu Chuyan heaved a sigh of relief. “I’ll leave it to you, then. Thank you.”

Even Physician Bao Youlu had mentioned earlier that her condition was hopeless, and said that it was unlikely that even Ji Dengtu would be able to do anything about her condition. 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. All right then, please take off your clothes.”

Chu Chuyan’s eyes went wide with shock.

“What are you staring at me for? All I’ve done thus far is 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 to treat 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 such huge qualms 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… ahem ahem, 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 too severe for me to take such a risk. Even the slightest misuse of force 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 of such a complicated operation.”

Chu Chuyan fell silent for a long while.

Eventually, 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 she’s 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! They are hardly different options at all!” Chu Chuyan was utterly flustered. “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 be thankful that there are already two options for you to choose from. How could there be a third one?”

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 the way human nature worked. Had he proposed the second option right from the start, there was no way she would have accepted it. However, by throwing out the utterly unacceptable first option in advance, it made the second one much more palatable.

Lu Xun’s quote really rings true. If you propose to create a skylight 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 create a skylight.

“Can we… start from the back first?” Chu Chuyan lowered her body as her breathing hastened a little. She was quite clearly in a panicked state.

“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 buttocks. All of it was perfection. 

Chu Chuyan pulled a silk cloth over to cover the front part of her body, then she murmured in protest, “Why aren’t you starting yet?”