Chapter 53: The Secret of the Cold Pool: The Forbidden Touch of Skin

Shen Yan felt the world spin around him, his body like frozen meat thrown into a meat grinder, plummeting toward the abyss as the ground beneath him collapsed. Before his consciousness could fully return, instinct took over—he grabbed the wrist of the person beside him. It was cold and slippery to the touch. It was Pei Yue.

“Hold on tight!” he shouted, unsure if she heard him.

Overhead, rubble fell like a torrential downpour, while a biting cold wind swept over them. The roar of rushing water filled his ears. Just as they were about to crash into the bottom of the pool, Pei Yue’s other hand shot out, sending three silver needles flying through the air. They embedded themselves into cracks in the rock wall, the threads attached to them pulling taut and creating a buffer arc.

“Thud!”

The two still slammed heavily into the water. The impact left Shen Yan’s chest aching, and the Dust-Severing Sword sank another inch deeper inside him, the pain so intense his vision darkened. This wasn’t water—it was liquid ice! Every inch of his skin felt pierced by thousands of steel needles, and the spiritual energy he tried to circulate froze and shattered instantly.

Gritting his teeth, he mentally typed a command: “Initiate emergency protection protocol v0.8!”

The phone interface flickered for half a second, black background with green text flashing: 【Loading…】

But the next moment, the Code light membrane had barely formed before it shattered with a “crack,” like a cheap lightbulb blowing a fuse.

“Damn it… this broken System fails at the worst times?” Shen Yan cursed inwardly, but he instinctively muttered aloud, “Next time, I’ll have to add an anti-freeze patch.”

The pool water churned in a spiral, dark currents lashing at their bodies like countless iron whips. Forcing his eyes open, he saw faint blue runes slowly swirling around them. The bottomless center of the pool seemed to hide the eye of a giant beast, coldly watching them.

Suddenly, a chaotic stream of ice spikes shot toward them from the side, too fast to react.

At the critical moment, Shen Yan yanked Pei Yue into his embrace, his back slamming hard against a protruding stone spike. Excruciating pain exploded, and the blood that seeped out instantly froze into a string of red ice beads, tinkling as they fell into the water.

“Mmph…” Pei Yue groaned softly, collapsing into his arms. Their chests and abdomens pressed tightly together, and through their soaked clothes, they could clearly feel each other’s frantic heartbeats.

“Don’t move,” she said, her voice trembling, the tips of her ears flushed red. She shivered from the cold as soon as the words left her lips.

Shen Yan wanted to nod, but his teeth chattered uncontrollably, and even his jaw felt nearly frozen stiff. He intended to let go and put some distance between them, but the next moment, the entire cold pool shook violently!

An invisible force erupted from the pool’s center, like a magnet attracting iron, forcibly pulling the two of them closer together. Their positions were forced into proximity—shoulder to shoulder, arms overlapping, even their warm breaths fogging against each other’s necks.

“What’s happening?!” Shen Yan’s heart tightened.

What was even more alarming was Pei Yue’s deteriorating condition. Her dark hair rapidly frosted over, strands crystallizing into ice flowers that spread from her hair tips to her shoulders and neck. Her lips turned from pale to purple, her eyelashes coated with tiny ice crystals. She looked like a jade sculpture about to be sealed away forever.

“The cold syndrome… is flaring up…” she managed to utter with difficulty, her gaze already beginning to blur.

Shen Yan panicked. He knew the Saintess of Medicine Valley was born with the Dark Jade Cold Pulse, usually suppressed by her medicine pouch and jade ornaments. Once it went out of control, it would backfire on her. In this environment, it was like throwing her into the domain of her own nemesis.

Struggling, he tried to circulate his remaining spiritual energy to create some distance and administer acupuncture, but the force holding them together didn’t budge. Instead, it tightened even more.

“Twin Spirit Induction… extracting energy…” He suddenly recalled the term the System had mentioned earlier, his mind buzzing. “No way? I just acknowledged a younger brother, and now there’s some bloodline resonance ritual?”

As he pondered, his peripheral vision caught the small jade ornament behind Pei Yue’s right ear—the Star-Shattering Token Imitation. Its originally dull surface now displayed intricate talisman patterns, faintly glowing, subtly synchronized with the rhythm of the Source Code Spiritual Root within him.

“Wait… this thing isn’t just an accessory?”

Suppressing his dizziness, he input a diagnostic command in his mind: “Scan for high-energy items in the vicinity.”

The Terminal lagged for a long while before finally displaying a line of green text:

【Detected ‘Heaven’s Secret Holder Resonance Device’ prototype match: 97.3%】

【Recommend establishing a bidirectional link immediately】

Shen Yan’s pupils contracted. Heaven’s Secret Holder? That was the destined individual recorded in the Medicine Valley Ancient Texts, said to be capable of rewriting the rules of heaven and earth. And he himself had been confirmed by Pei Yue as the “Heaven’s Secret Holder.”

In other words… this jade ornament was responding to him?

He wanted to investigate further, but Pei Yue suddenly opened her eyes.

Her gaze was dazed, her voice so weak it was almost inaudible: “That’s… left to me by my mother… can’t remove it…”

Before she could finish, her head tilted, gently resting against the hollow of his shoulder. Her breathing was as faint as a thread, and she completely lost consciousness.

Shen Yan froze.

Her hair brushed against his neck, cold with a faint, elusive medicinal scent; her body pressed softly against him, trembling yet feeling like the only source of warmth he could still perceive. He could sense her heartbeat, faint but persistent, like a candle flame on the verge of extinguishing at any moment.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep,” he whispered, shaking her gently, but there was no response.

The pool grew colder, the runes swirling faster, their eerie blue glow casting a pallid hue over both their faces. Shen Yan knew that if he didn’t find a solution soon, she would truly die here.

He looked down at the Star-Shattering Token Imitation, feeling the faint resonance of his own Source Code Spiritual Root, his mind racing: “If this is a resonance device, can it be used in reverse? For example… using her cold meridians as a conductor to inject a heat-generating program in reverse?”

But the problem remained—high-energy-consuming techniques were currently impossible to execute; he could barely maintain his protective protocol. Moreover, the System’s latency was severe; the slightest mistake could freeze both of them into ice statues.

“Let’s risk it,” he gritted his teeth. “At worst, it’ll be another explosion. It’s not like it’s my first self-destruct.”

He attempted to construct the simplest thermal circulation model in his mind, planning to use the Star-Shattering Token as an anchor point for a low-power version. But as soon as he brought up the editing interface, the System lagged again.

【Data Stream latency… retrying…】

“Can’t you be reliable for once?” Shen Yan couldn’t help but curse. “Slacking off and not fixing bugs normally, and now playing dead at a critical moment?”

Just then, Pei Yue’s fingers twitched slightly, the tips resting against his waist curling faintly, as if unconsciously grasping something.

Shen Yan looked down at her, his brow furrowed deeply. The frost on her face thickened, and her breathing had nearly stopped.

There was no more time to wait.

He took a deep breath, concentrating all his Mental Power into his Consciousness Sea, forcibly bypassing the System’s Cache, and manually inputting a low-level Command:

“Bypass the GUI layer, directly connect to the Core… Enable developer mode… Load the thermal conduction protocol alpha version… Target node: Star-Shattering Token Imitation… Energy source: residual output from the Source Code Spiritual Root… Execution condition: contact-based conduction…”

The Terminal finally responded, with green text slowly appearing:

【Protocol compiled successfully】

【Awaiting physical connection confirmation】

Shen Yan understood what it meant.

He needed to get closer—skin-to-skin contact to conduct the energy.

He hesitated for a moment. Although the situation was critical, this operation seemed somewhat over the line. But seeing Pei Yue on the verge of losing consciousness, he gritted his teeth, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulled her fully into his embrace, pressed his forehead against her icy Temple, and placed his right palm on the back of her neck, precisely covering the location of the Star-Shattering Token.

In an instant, their body temperatures merged, and the faint glow of the Source Code Spiritual Root seeped through the meridians, resonating with the Talisman Pattern on the jade ornament. A thin golden thread flashed through the water, as if a circuit had finally connected.

【Bidirectional link established】

【Thermal cycle initiation countdown: 3…】

Just as Shen Yan breathed a sigh of relief, a low hum suddenly emanated from the depths of the pool, as if some ancient Restriction Seal had fully awakened. The dark blue Runes abruptly brightened, and the water’s rotation speed increased severalfold, firmly locking the two at the center of the vortex.

Pei Yue’s body trembled violently, her eyelids fluttering slightly, as if she had something to say.

Shen Yan leaned in closer and heard her extremely faint voice:

“You… did you already know… this jade ornament… would recognize you as its master…”

(End of Chapter)