Chapter Thirty: Master, You Cannot Eat Me

Fortunately, Ye Wuyá’s cultivation did not continue to rise; instead, it settled and stabilized, the immense pressure gradually calming as spiritual energy silently circulated, steadily reinforcing his foundation.

Within Ye Wuyá’s dantian, three vortices spun ceaselessly. Although his cultivation had stopped advancing for the moment, both women felt a surge of pure ice spiritual energy flooding into their bodies. They quickly sat cross-legged to absorb it.

Not long after, once they had fully taken in this refined spiritual energy—

“Bang! Bang!” Two sounds rang out from within their bodies.

They both jumped two cultivation realms—Spirit Gathering Stage, Fifth Level!

The two women stared at each other in astonishment. What just happened?

Suddenly, from within the Ancient Ice Marrow, there came a sharp cracking sound—a fissure appeared!

A corpse spirit with the head of a tiger and the body of a snake wriggled out, opened its mouth wide and gave a loud burp. “That’s enough to burst old Bing!” it declared.

With another burp, it exhaled a frigid breath so cold it seemed even the air would freeze.

The two women gazed curiously at the corpse spirit, which had grown from the size of a fingernail to the size of a palm. Astonishingly, it, too, bore three layers of protective spiritual energy around itself, radiating the same cultivation fluctuations as Ye Wuyá—Spirit Gathering Stage, Third Level!

“Wow, Sister, our husband’s corpse spirit is so cute! I want one too!” Ruoxue cupped the creature in her hands, inspecting it happily as she spoke to Ruyue.

“Greetings, my two mistresses. I am Bingling!” The corpse spirit blinked at them.

A thought echoed in their minds.

“Was that you calling us? You can speak?” Ruyue asked, curiosity lighting her gaze as she looked at the ice spirit in Ruoxue’s hands.

“Yes, it was me. But I cannot actually speak—this is all done through thought. That surge of pure ice spiritual energy you just felt? That was me channeling it to you.” Bingling continued to send its thoughts directly into their minds.

“Oh!” The two women suddenly understood. No wonder they had leaped two cultivation levels in an instant.

Looking at Ye Wuyá, still frozen in ice, they asked, “How is our husband?”

“The master is fine—it’s just that the ice spiritual energy from the Ancient Ice Marrow was too pure and extreme, so he ended up frozen.”

Bingling finished speaking and jumped onto Ye Wuyá. The ice encasing Ye Wuyá quickly melted, turning into surges of spiritual energy that flowed into Bingling.

Ye Wuyá slowly regained sensation. He twitched his fingers, then gradually opened his eyes. Blinking, he looked in confusion at the two women standing nearby, then at the snowy-white creature resting on his body. His stomach rumbled noisily.

Staring at the plump, chubby Bingling, Ye Wuyá swallowed and muttered sleepily, “So fat! Looks delicious…” He even stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.

“Master, you can’t eat me!” Bingling cried in alarm.

Terrified, it leapt from Ye Wuyá onto Ye Ruoxue, curling up in her arms and pleading, “Mistress, save me! The master wants to eat me!”

Ye Wuyá heard the voice in his mind and thought, Why does this sound so familiar? He slapped his own head to clear his mind, then looked at the plump white figure in Ruyue’s hands. “Isn’t this my corpse spirit? How did it get so big?”

He walked over and poked the creature in Ruoxue’s arms with a finger, asking, “Are you really my corpse spirit? How did you grow so large?”

“Supp… supplement…” Bingling stammered, thinking to itself, I only just awakened my intelligence, and my own master already wants to eat me. How terrifying!

“Supplement? Did you finish the Ancient Ice Marrow?” Ye Wuyá spun around in shock, peering at the giant ice bed. There was a gaping hole in the middle, and the bed now had a fist-sized hollow.

Previously, the spiritual energy here had been so thick and viscous that Ye Wuyá could almost feel it clinging to him. Now, upon waking, he found the spiritual energy nearly depleted, the once-mighty ice bed now just a regular block of ice, its energy all but gone.

Anything lasting ten thousand years could not be ordinary. Since both Ruoyue and Ruoxue had ice attributes, this was undoubtedly beneficial to them.

“Mm, I finished it, Master. There were only three drops—one I used to awaken my intelligence, one to help you and the mistresses communicate telepathically and boost your cultivation two full levels, and one to open your dantian,” Bingling’s voice sounded in Ye Wuyá’s mind.

“Just two levels? Wasn’t it supposed to be ten thousand years old?” Ye Wuyá protested. Shouldn’t something that old be more powerful?

“It was once, but most of its energy had already dissipated; at best, it was the equivalent of eight hundred to a thousand years now,” Bingling explained.

Ye Wuyá nodded, recalling the description from the Corpse Spirit Technique: when the corpse spirit awakens, its attribute emerges. Looking at this chubby, snow-white spirit, he pinched its head and asked, “According to the Corpse Spirit Technique, does this mean I now possess the ice attribute?”

“Yes, yes!” Bingling nodded frantically, worried the master might still want to eat it.

Inspecting the protective spiritual energy around himself, Ye Wuyá closed his eyes to sense his body’s condition. “Hmm? Is this my dantian?” He quietly focused on the three spiraling currents of spiritual energy within. This… this was Spirit Gathering Stage, Third Level! He’d actually reached the third level, just as the books described.

Feeling the immense power surging from those three vortices, Ye Wuyá suddenly punched at the ice bed, channeling a burst of forceful energy straight at it.

A gentle ice-attribute energy, running through the Mad Corpse Forbidden Art, became incomparably fierce. From his dantian, it traveled to his fist, which he slammed down upon the ice bed, sending wild ice spiritual energy exploding within.

With a loud crash, the two-meter-long ice bed shattered into pieces.

Seeing this, Ye Wuyá burst into wild laughter. “Ha! I’ve reached Spirit Gathering Stage, Third Level! Yue’er, Xue’er, your husband has reached Third Level, hahaha!”

He swept the two women into a tight embrace, kissing each in turn before laughing heartily again.

Letting them go and calming himself, he turned to the corpse spirit and asked, “Do you have a name?”

“Master, my name is Bingling!” it replied.

“Bingling? Not bad, sounds nice! Well then, Bingling, what sort of skills do you have?” Ye Wuyá asked excitedly.

Bingling rolled its eyes thoughtfully. “Master, what are skills? Does eating count? I can eat, I can eat a lot! I’m especially good at eating.”

Hearing this, Ye Wuyá’s mouth twitched. He glared fiercely at Bingling and threatened, “I’m good at eating, too. Look at how fat and plump you are. Should I steam you, braise you, or coat you in egg and breadcrumbs and deep-fry you?”

“Steam? Braise? Deep-fry? Demon, demon…” Bingling trembled in terror, the word ‘demon’ echoing through its mind as Ye Wuyá’s image became forever imprinted as that of a monster. It squeezed its eyes shut and lay limp in Ye Wuyá’s hand, looking utterly forlorn.

“Pfft!” Bingling’s hopeless demeanor made both women burst into laughter.

Ruoxue picked up Bingling, smiling as she said, “He’s just teasing you! You really believed him?”

“Really, Mistress?” Bingling looked up at Ruoxue with innocent, shining eyes.