Chapter 143 | I Was Just Gathering Herbs, So Why Did I Find a Sword Fairy?

Perhaps it was because Lu Yan's firm promise just now had been so steady that it suppressed the chaotic thoughts in Jiang Ci's heart.

Her once-tense body relaxed completely. Her glass-like gray eyes, filled with heavy exhaustion, slowly shed all emotion, leaving behind only a gentle, docile peace.

Sleepiness wrapped around her, spreading from her limbs to her chest.

Jiang Ci's breathing gradually grew lighter. Lu Yan sat beside her without moving a muscle, quietly watching her sleep.

Under his unblinking gaze, Jiang Ci's eyelids slowly drooped and closed. Her vision slipped entirely into darkness as she finally fell fast asleep.

She slept peacefully, as if she had temporarily laid down all her worries and the heavy burden of her remaining lifespan.

Yet, Lu Yan did not feel even the slightest bit sleepy.

That was just how human nature worked. The one who suffered the most was never the sick person, but the one keeping vigil beside them.

The sick could fall into a deep slumber, empty their minds, and temporarily escape reality without a single thought. But the one who remained awake could not. All the despair, the pressure, and the worst-case scenarios had to be borne by him alone.

A paranoid and agonizing thought repeatedly surged in his mind—

Why isn't it me who is sick? Why does the person lying there, counting down their days, have to be her?

Countless grievances and feelings of helplessness clogged his chest, suffocating him. But fortunately... all hope was not yet lost. He still had time, and he still had a chance to fight for her.

The effects of the Focus-Stabilizing Pill he had swallowed earlier were slowly wearing off. His once-clear and bright vision gradually blurred, covered by layer upon layer of hazy, gray pixels.

He had to find something to do. Anything would do, as long as he didn't just sit there in a daze! He could not calm down at all. The moment his surroundings grew quiet, his mind would automatically spiral into frantic, chaotic thoughts.

What would happen after a year? If he couldn't find Jiang Ci's lost Glass Sword Heart within a year and ran completely out of options, then what would become of her?

Countless unanswerable questions bombarded his mind in a relentless onslaught. He could not even stop himself from picturing the scene of that final day—imagining Jiang Ci quietly closing her eyes, never to wake up again.

Looking back, everything that had happened today felt as absurd as an unreal nightmare.

Just a short while ago, he had been secretly rejoicing, thinking they could take things slow. They could spend time together, slowly grow closer, and it wasn't like Jiang Ci was going anywhere.

But the reality was not that she wanted to run away, but that he simply couldn't keep her here.

The brutal, hopeless reality had ruthlessly shattered all his hopes with a single blow.

There was no more time for a slow-paced romance. All that remained was a desperate race against death itself. If he lost, she would die.

As a formation cultivator, he naturally detested sudden, unexpected events.

In his entire life, he hated sudden skirmishes and out-of-control situations the most. Whatever he did, whatever fight he picked, he was accustomed to setting things up in advance, only fighting battles he was prepared for.

But fate was a bitch that never catered to his whims.

It loved nothing more than throwing a life-threatening crisis at him just when his life had settled down, catching him off guard and once again turning him into a prisoner who had lost everything.

Right now, only one thought occupied his mind—

A contingency plan. He had to find a way to secure a safety net.

Within this one-year limit, if he truly couldn't find her heart in the end, he had to have a foolproof method to preserve Jiang Ci's life.

Following this train of thought, he desperately began to deduce.

Transplanting a heart into a living person was far too difficult. Without reliable anti-rejection medication, an allogeneic heart transplant wouldn't hold up at all, and would only lead to a swifter death.

Then... what about a mechanical heart?

Crafted mechanically and made of spiritual materials, with formations engraved on it to gather spiritual energy and power it—it would be a purely inanimate object. Since it wasn't living tissue, would it... avoid that fatal physical rejection?

The moment this thought surfaced, Lu Yan's tense heart eased slightly. This could work.

He continued to frantically ponder every possible way to save her life, refusing to overlook any potential avenue.

If her physical body couldn't hold out and her life force was about to be cut off, could he take the soul route? What if he extracted Jiang Ci's soul completely beforehand, using secret arts and formations to specifically seal and nurture it?

As long as her soul remained, she wouldn't be considered entirely gone.

This idea grew clearer and clearer. It felt as though it were just behind a thin veil of mist, a blurry boundary that he was on the verge of breaking through and fully comprehending.

Machinery, the Artifact Sect, mechanical structures, spirit-iron mechanisms... the Molten Heart Tower...

Yes, the Molten Heart Tower! Could the complete Soul Carrier One inside the Molten Heart Tower be used for Jiang Ci?

A dead end that was originally blocked off had been forcibly revived into a brand-new path of survival by his sheer obsession.

Immediately after, the ghost cultivator lecturer at the academy who specialized in Applied Soul Studies flashed in his mind.

That person was usually gloomy and reclusive, and the students they taught were all cold and unapproachable. In the past, Lu Yan had subconsciously avoided dealing with such people, steering clear of them whenever possible.

But now, he couldn't afford to care about that. No matter how difficult they were to talk to, or how eccentric and reclusive, he had to brace himself and visit them, respectfully begging for their help. As long as he could save Jiang Ci, nothing else mattered.

The table was covered with sheets of draft paper, densely packed with the deductions, ideas, formation structures, and alternative plans he had rapidly written down.

Countless unfeasible ideas were crossed out directly, and crumpled balls of waste paper piled up in a messy heap on the table.

The sky was slowly changing. It shifted from the pitch-black of deep night to a heavy, dark blue, before a faint glimmer of light finally broke through the horizon.

For the entire night, Lu Yan did not move an inch.

With his half-step Golden Core cultivation, he no longer needed sleep. However, the high-intensity mental exertion of the night still drained his mind, leaving his eyes dry, sore, and swollen.

On the pale yellow Xuan paper, three distinct paths to survival that he had stayed up all night to devise were written down, prioritized clearly.

The first path was always the optimal solution—find and retrieve Jiang Ci's original, gouged-out Glass Sword Heart. Returning the source to its rightful place would completely eradicate all underlying issues, saving her from the very root.

But this path was too difficult. It involved past events in the Central Continent, with absolutely no clues and an unknown road ahead. Therefore, he had to prepare backup plans.

The second path was replenishing spiritual energy to prolong her life.

If they truly couldn't find her original heart, he would seek out the expert who had stepped in back then and forcibly condensed a pseudo-heart of spiritual energy for Jiang Ci.

Only that person understood this unique mental cultivation method, and perhaps they could continuously replenish spiritual energy to this gradually dissipating spiritual heart, delaying the time of its collapse.

The third path was mechanical replacement.

Give up on transplanting a living heart. Instead, he would personally forge a mechanical heart tailored to her spiritual meridians to replace her original heart's function of pumping blood and circulating spiritual energy, forcibly keeping her alive.

And the final path—which was also the fallback plan he was most reluctant to use, his most desperate last resort—

Completely preserving her soul. If her physical body truly couldn't hold out and reached its end, he would extract and seal Jiang Ci's soul in advance, temporarily separating her from her decaying physical body. Once his cultivation and capabilities were sufficient in the future, he would search for a heaven-defying method to reconstruct a true body for her.

Three paths. One led to the blood feuds of the Central Continent, while the other two relied on the Molten Heart Tower and ghost cultivation secret arts. None of them were easy, and none of them could be accomplished by him fighting alone.

Lu Yan blinked gently, easing the soreness in his eyes.

By the table, the small light-gathering formation he had casually set up ran completely out of spiritual energy. The specks of light dimmed bit by bit before fading into total silence.

The sky outside grew brighter and brighter. The white light of dawn poured into the wooden cabin, silently reminding him that the long night was completely over.

Lu Yan slowly stood up and looked toward the bed. Jiang Ci was sleeping very peacefully, curled up in a tiny ball, instinctively wrapping herself in the blanket, completely quiet.

He let out a long breath of the turbid air that had accumulated in his chest overnight, deciding not to linger any longer.

Moving his fingers, he opened the wooden door with extreme gentleness, then closed it softly, not daring to make even the slightest sound for fear of disturbing her rare, peaceful sleep.