Chapter 8 — ILK Chapter 8

Northern Snakehead Tofu Soup and Crispy Grass Carp (1)

A night of sound sleep. In Sang Ye’s dreams, the Parasol Tree rustled continuously, accompanied occasionally by the sound of bones popping—like the rhythmic snapping of bamboo stalks growing.

The pocket dimension and the Parasol Tree complemented each other; the growth of one would lead the other to a breakthrough. However, these two had been stuck in a bottleneck for a long time. Hearing those long-lost bone-popping sounds, Sang Ye entered her pocket dimension with a surge of excitement, only to be met with disappointment. Her spiritual essence stood as tall as it had been before she went to bed, completely unchanged.

Before her disappointment could settle, a massive crash echoed from outside the small building. It sounded like a fight, punctuated by the piercing shrieks of a bird.

A woman’s furious voice cut through the air: "Don't block me! Make her come out and face me! I want to ask her exactly what she did to my daughter!"

Sang Ye’s heart tightened. Before she could react, a powerful force kicked her bedroom door open. The display shelf she had meticulously set up just last night was smashed to pieces. Just before a massive wave of mental energy could strike her, Sang Ye nimbly rolled off the bed, wrapped in her quilt, narrowly dodging the blow.

"Enough!" General Asu's voice rang out, laced with displeasure. "Do you want someone to die on their very first day? She was sent by Her Majesty. Don't go too far!"

Sang Ye peeked her head out from beside the bed. She saw the tall General Asu and her fish-tailed Gu-Eagle blocking a woman with a brown ponytail. A scar snaked from the woman’s right eye down to her jaw, and her eyes were ablaze with erupting rage.

"Why let this kind of Guide into our base? Do we have to accept everyone the Empress sends?" the brown-haired woman shouted irrationally. "Isn't she here to channel Marshal Lin? Why wasn't she sent directly to him yesterday! Instead, she stayed at the base and harmed my daughter!"

Sang Ye was completely bewildered. General Asu, realizing the woman couldn't be reasoned with, turned around. She knit her brows and questioned Sang Ye with a look of pure loathing: "What exactly did you feed Wu Jianing?"

Wu Huansheng and her husband, Mu An, had rushed back for Wu Jianing’s next scheduled surgery.

When Wu Jianing was born, Wu Huansheng was a General of the Empire’s 19th Legion, guarding the G-sequence planetary cluster in the Gamma Galaxy—the first line of defense against the Zerg. A Zerg parasite had invaded the brain of one of Wu Huansheng's subordinate officers and attacked the mother and daughter during childbirth. The mutated subordinate, growing hard Zerg mouthparts, lunged to bite Wu Jianing. Though Wu Huansheng managed to pull her away, the Zerg latched onto the infant's calf.

Mu An had acted decisively, amputating her leg—with Imperial medical technology, a severed limb could be reattached if frozen immediately. However, they hadn't expected the Zerg to spend so much to cripple an Imperial General; they had deployed a rare S-rank toxin-Zerg. The bitten limb was instantly corroded to bone, and the remaining stump was being continuously invaded by toxins.

Mu An had poured his entire mental reserve into the child just to preserve her spiritual form. Because he lost too much non-renewable mental energy, he dropped from an A-rank Guide to a C-rank. Due to the Zerg toxins, Wu Jianing’s spiritual form never woke up. Whenever Mu An channeled her, he could only see a tiny ball huddled in the deepest corner, sleeping without a sound.

Her body would continue to grow until adulthood, but without the help of her spiritual form, her tissues were restricted. She was destined never to regrow her calf; instead, her body produced useless connective scar tissue, and the bone growth became deformed from the toxins. She had to undergo surgery every three months to shave off useless bone and necrotic tissue. The young child endured agonizing pain four times a year.

But last night, after eating the dinner Sang Ye made, Wu Jianing had gone to bed earlier than usual, only to wake at dawn wailing in pain. A new section of her calf had suddenly grown out, bloody and covered in a fresh layer of flesh.

Wu Huansheng and her husband were heartbroken and horrified. Wu Huansheng’s mental state was already unstable due to her daughter’s trauma; years ago, during a mental riot, she had single-handedly piloted a combat ship to bomb a Zerg base.

Now, the doctors at the base hospital were afraid to operate. The bone that had just grown out of Jianing was perfectly healthy. There were no malformations, no dry or redundant tissue—it was as if the limb were truly regenerating. But Jianing’s pain was real. Wu Huansheng had stormed here in an unstoppable rage.

Sang Ye knew her food could perform mental channeling regardless of rank, but she hadn't expected it could trigger limb regeneration. Even in the cultivation world, "bringing life to the dead and flesh to bone" was a heaven-defying spell that even her Grandmaster couldn't perform, let alone a "small fry" like her.

Sang Ye recalled what she had fed Wu Jianing last night. It all seemed like ordinary ingredients filled with spiritual energy—nothing stood out. Until she remembered those few pieces of pork marrow.

At the time, she had thought the bones were simply too hard to simmer down. Now that she remembered their source, she realized it wasn't that simple. The marrow in her storage ring came from a divine beast called the Dangkang. It looked like a pig but possessed four massive tusks. In its 150th year, it would undergo a complete molting of its body from skin to bone, then live another 150 years in freedom before passing away. Wherever a Dangkang went, a bountiful harvest followed.

A tribe of them had once come to Shifang Grotto to rest, and the two sides lived in peace for decades. Shifang Grotto enjoyed record harvests because of them, and many Dangkang left behind their molted bones and flesh as gifts. The meat had been consumed long ago, but many bones remained.

Sang Ye had her answer, but she needed to see Wu Jianing’s spiritual form to confirm. She stood up, still wrapped in her quilt. Being tall, she easily looked the furious Wu Huansheng in the eye.

"Your daughter isn't injured," Sang Ye’s voice was light but carried undeniable weight. "Her leg is regenerating. If you let the doctors saw off that new growth now, she might never stand up again in this lifetime."

"I have a way to treat her, as long as you let me see her spiritual form."

Wu Huansheng didn't believe her at all. Sang Ye’s "notorious reputation" preceded her, and where her daughter was concerned, she preferred to be conservative. Furthermore, limb regeneration technology was unheard of, and severe damage to a spiritual form was considered irreversible. That was why Lin Tengyuan had retired.

Facing Wu Huansheng’s suspicion, Sang Ye sneered: "General, it is precisely because of Sentinels like you, who look down on everyone from your high pedestals, that 'ruthless' Guides like me are born."

While the two women were locked in a standoff, Mu An had been observing Sang Ye. As a fellow Guide, he sensed no malice in her.

"I'll take you there," Mu An, who had been silent, suddenly spoke.

"What did you say?!" Wu Huansheng turned sharply, looking at him in disbelief.

"Given our physical and mental conditions, we can't protect Jianing forever." Mu An did not back down this time. "If there's a chance she can stand..." He didn't finish the sentence, but Wu Huansheng understood his meaning.

At the base hospital, the doctors had administered painkillers to Wu Jianing. The little girl lay sleeping peacefully in a sterile chamber. The new calf bone was stark white, and one could see the flesh and blood tissue gradually wrapping around and spreading across it.

A circle of doctors surrounded the chamber, staring at this miracle. Medical science seemed to pale in comparison. And this effect had apparently been triggered after the girl ate a meal prepared by the notorious Guide.

Seeing the couple enter, the lead doctor’s voice was filled with excitement: "It’s real! The calf is actually growing! It’s not necrotic bone!" She held up a tablet to show the data: "All the metrics are normal; they match the indicators of a healthy child!"

Seeing Sang Ye behind them, her eyes lit up: "Are you that Guide? How did you do it!"

Doctors were usually former Guides whose mental power wasn't high enough for front-line military service, so they studied medicine to support civilians and the army. Many medical devices now required mental power to operate. Wu Huansheng shot the doctor a cold look, and the woman fell silent.

"I'll go in with you." Even though Mu An had agreed to her request, he didn't fully trust her.

Sang Ye nodded and attempted to release her mental power. For the first time, she acted like a normal Guide. The sensation of releasing mental power was strange, yet similar to releasing spiritual energy. To enter someone’s mental landscape, she simply directed her focus toward them.

Normally, a child’s mental landscape has no autonomous defenses, and parents add restrictions. Mu An lifted the restrictions, allowing Sang Ye’s mental power to flow into Wu Jianing’s landscape alongside his own.

Jianing’s mental landscape was a vast land of lush green grass, reflecting her cheerful nature. Floating across the grass, the two soon came upon a gray mass. This was the first time Sang Ye had seen a sleeping spiritual form. However, the gray mist over Jianing’s form was only a thin layer, and the figure within was clear.

It was a small, golden-white Dangkang. A miniature version of the one in Sang Ye’s memories. Its tusks were short, its body was chubby, and it had two emerald, jade-like horns on its forehead. Its large head rested on its short front legs—though the lower sections of all four legs were enveloped in a much thicker black mist.

Mu An circled it, his expression turning jubilant. He looked at Sang Ye: "The mist on its body has thinned."

Thinning mist meant the spiritual form was about to wake up. Sang Ye breathed a sigh of relief, her theory confirmed. It seemed that after Wu Jianing ate the Dangkang marrow, her spiritual form had received a "bloodline" infusion of mental power, triggering the limb regeneration, which then reflected onto her physical body.

Mu An was an exceptionally doting father. Whenever he was home, he would perform mental channeling for his daughter four or five times a day, hoping to wake the spiritual form through sheer infusion of energy. A spiritual form can self-repair as long as it is alive. He had worked for years without success, yet Sang Ye had succeeded with a few pieces of Dangkang bone.

The little Dangkang’s belly rose and fell rhythmically, and it occasionally stretched lazily. It was clear that its awakening was only a matter of time.

When Sang Ye and Mu An withdrew, Wu Jianing was slowly waking up. The painkillers were still working, but she began crying that her legs were itchy, trying to scratch at the growing limbs. Wu Huansheng, in a sterile suit, grabbed her small hands and knelt by the bed, coaxing her gently. She saw the smile on Mu An's face and the heavy stone in her heart finally dropped.

"Sister, why are you here?" Wu Jianing looked at Sang Ye through the glass of the sterile chamber. Her mother held her hands like she was a little caught monkey. "Sister, my legs are so itchy." Tears rolled down her thin face—a child who had to go under the knife every three months naturally couldn't put on weight.

Sang Ye leaned closer to the chamber. The itching was like a wound healing because the nerve endings were regenerating.

A bit of Northern Snakehead fish will fix that, she thought. Snakehead meat stops itching.

She would use the remaining Dangkang marrow from her storage ring to make a broth, then use that broth to make a Northern Snakehead Tofu Soup, served with two fried eggs. It would stop the itching and help the spiritual form heal faster.

Sang Ye leaned down: "How about I go make you some Northern Snakehead soup? Once you drink it, it won't itch anymore."

"Really?" Wu Jianing’s eyes sparkled again, her voice filling with joy.