Bai Yunxi's condition grew increasingly alarming. Her once lustrous, voluminous hair, a symbol of her vitality, turned an eerie shade of white.
Strands began to fall in clumps, scattering across the bed sheets like withered petals.
The supple glow of her skin, still warm with the flush of passion hours earlier, dulled into a dry, papery texture marked by wrinkles and age spots.
The soft swell of her breasts, the gentle curve of her hips, all the signs of youth, shrank visibly. Her body, once full of life, now appeared frail and fragile, as if her vitality was being drained away with every breath.
Su Kang's heart clenched in helpless fear. He hated seeing her like this. There was nothing he could do to stop it, and that truth weighed heavily on him. His anger grew, not at her, but at himself and Fate.
A cold dread took root in Su Kang's chest, his voice hoarse and stripped of all composure.
"What's happening to her?"
Fate's tone carried an unusual trace of confusion as it observed her condition.
"I don't know. Something is consuming her vitality at an alarming rate."
"Fate, are you sure the pill was safe?" he asked, a trace of doubt creeping into his voice.
"Although I don't know why I possess these items, nor do I fully understand their uses or complete capabilities, that doesn't mean I would lie to you."
"Su Kang, I used my own powers to examine whether the pill aligned with her destiny. It did—so I gave it to you. I still believe it will benefit her. If something has gone wrong, then the responsibility lies with me."
Fate's voice, usually indifferent, carried a faint cold tone. Su Kang stopped thinking about it. There was no reason for Fate to harm Bai Yunxi—she was essential for its plan to siphon destiny as well.
They remained by her side through the long night, anxiety mounting with each shallow breath she took. By dawn, her youthful features had vanished entirely.
What remained was the body of an old woman. Her breathing had grown weak, and her scalp was completely bare.
"We can't just stand here and do nothing!" Su Kang's voice rose, tight with desperation. His fists clenched hard enough to tremble.
"We must act!"
Fate continued watching her shifting destiny, still uncertain of the cause. Then, something changed.
A faint emerald light began to glow from within her chest, growing stronger with each passing moment. Suddenly, it flared and surrounded her entirely, forming a cocoon of radiant green light.
She slowly rose from the bed, suspended in the air within the cocoon. Her old skin began to crack and peel away, while thick, dark blood oozed from her pores and soaked the sheets. Her eyes and lips were stained red with blood.
Su Kang stared, unable to look away. Through the translucent cocoon, he could still see her body. Her skin melted, muscles tore apart, and bones cracked with a sickening sound.
His heart was filled with dread, yet hope refused to die. He asked quietly,
"Fate, she's still alive in there, right?"
"Yes," Fate replied.
"Her destiny hasn't vanished. She is still alive."
Su Kang exhaled with visible relief, holding onto that fragile thread.
The emerald light resembled what they had seen before, when she first took the pill, but this time it carried a strange and overwhelming power.
"She is surrounded by strong life energy. This may be the true manifestation of the pill's effect," Fate said, trying to reassure him.
"Then let's wait and see how it unfolds," Su Kang replied, his voice steadying slightly.
Still, the transformation continued. Even her bones began to splinter, the sound sharp and dreadful. She was breaking down completely, as if her body was being torn apart in preparation for something new.
Bai Yunxi woke in an endless, dark void.
"Husband... where are you?"
Her voice didn't echo. In fact, it didn't even leave her lips. She could neither see nor hear. Her senses were useless.
Is this... death?
Cold seeped into her soul—deep and hollow, as if her very essence had been frozen. Her limbs wouldn't move. Her thoughts scattered like ash in the wind.
Just yesterday... I married him.
I found Mother. I was going to fulfill Father's dream.
I wanted to see my child soar to great heights.
"I was supposed to be happy…"
Yet now, all of that seemed like a cruel illusion—devoured by this unending darkness.
"Why…?" Her heart cracked with the word.
"Why is this happening to me?"
Time lost all meaning. Minutes blurred into hours, days into something nameless. She couldn't tell if she was alive—if she even had a body anymore.
"Please... someone... help me…"
She tried to scream, to cry, to claw at the void with desperation, but her efforts dissolved into silence, like stones dropped into a bottomless abyss with no splash and no end.
Her despair was slow and quiet, creeping through the cracks of her mind. With passing time, her memories blurred, her thoughts grew sluggish, and the image of her past self began to fade.
She forgot the feel of her son's hand, the warmth of her mother's embrace, and the love of Su Kang—until even the weight of those losses became distant and unfamiliar.
Her thoughts died.
Her heart died.
But then… something reached into her.
A warmth—foreign and fleeting—slipped into her chest and mended the cracks in her mind.
With it came fragments—visions of a woman smiling at her, a man patting her head, a child calling out to her, and a man looking at her gently holding her hands.
She remembered herself. And just like that, it was gone again. The darkness reclaimed her, pulling her back into madness.
The warmth would return again— though it never stayed for long, it always brought a piece of her back with it.
Each time, her thoughts took longer to fade.
Each time, her will strengthened—tempered by suffering, hardened by helplessness.
---
As the sun began to set and the room was bathed in the soft glow of evening light, the green cocoon started to show some changes.
Her bones had become almost invisible, leaving only a shimmering skull behind. Her skull began to glow with a vibrant, emerald luster.
It was as if it was made of the jade, infused with the essence of life itself.
Su Kang held his breath, his eyes glued to the shimmering cocoon.
The skeletal form within began to reform, to reshape itself. The emerald light coalesced, weaving new flesh, new muscle, around the reconstructed bones.
The emerald glow intensified, concentrating itself, and her bones began to reconstruct themselves with astonishing speed.
New cells, imbued with an otherworldly vitality, formed and multiplied, connecting and growing into healthy tissue.
Muscles, taut and firm, stretched over her newly formed bones, each fiber infused with the vibrant emerald light, giving her form a subtle, almost imperceptible glow.
Her hair began to grow back on her head, cascading down in thick, lustrous locks, a stark contrast to the brittle white strands that had fallen away.
Her eyes grew brighter, the pupils expanding and contracting as if coming back to life. The emerald glow seeped into her sockets before they vanished.
Her once ordinary pupils transformed into a mesmerizing green, hinting at the profound changes in her body.
Finally, the green light faded, absorbed completely into her body. Her physical form was restored, yet undeniably changed.
Su Kang could sense it—her strength, her vitality, has increased.
Her qi cultivation, however, had regressed to the fifth level of the Qi Refining realm.
But her physical body and her soul had reached the second realm, a testament to the pill's extraordinary power.
He rushed to her side and checked her condition. Though her body was stable, her emerald eyes stared blankly ahead, vacant and unblinking.
"Xi'er?" he whispered.
His heart sank, feeling her empty consciousness.
Suddenly, her eyes glimmered faintly, and her body began to tremble. She blinked, then flinched as if startled by her own existence. Her gaze was distant, lost, searching.
"Xi'er, are you okay? Do you feel anything uncomfortable?" he asked, voice low with concern.
She didn't respond at first. Then a flicker of raw fear crossed her face. Her hands darted out, gripping his with unexpected force. Her fingers dug into his skin, trembling uncontrollably.
Without hesitation, Su Kang pulled her into his arms, wrapping a silk sheet around her bare body.
He held her tightly until her shivering began to subside. After a long moment, she took a shaky breath, her voice barely a whisper.
"…What happened to me?"
"Your body was being reconstructed because of the pill that you took before." His voice soft and slow.
" Reconstructing?" she repeated, confused.
Slowly, she began to speak. Her voice quivered as she described the endless darkness she had been trapped in.
Her senses had vanished. Time had no meaning. She couldn't hear, see, or feel. There was only void. Madness crept in, piece by piece.
Her will had begun to erode, her mind unraveling. And just when it felt like she would fade forever, waves of warm energy would return, pulling her back—again and again.
To her, it had felt like eternity. A cycle of torment and recovery, over and over, with no escape.
Su Kang's chest tightened with guilt. She had always been soft-hearted, a little timid. Now, after enduring such a horrifying ordeal, he feared the damage done to her spirit might leave a lasting scar.
"No, I won't let it become a trauma for her," he whispered, pulling her closer.
His arms tightened slightly around her as they remained like that, holding each other in silence, letting the warmth between them ease the cold weight in their hearts.
"Everything is okay now," he said, stroking her back. "That darkness… it was the pill's way of protecting your consciousness while your body transformed. If you had stayed awake, you wouldn't have been able to bear it."
He explained what he had seen—the sudden aging, the cocoon, the reconstruction. He tried to keep his voice steady to comfort her as best he could.
"Let's go; we have to greet your mother. We haven't left the house for a whole day."
He wanted to distract her, to ground her in the present, to help her move past the nightmare she had endured.
She nodded. She felt like she had not seen her mother for many years. She wanted to see lights after coming out of that nightmare.