Chapter 104: Captives

After returning from the rendezvous, Su Chen got right back to business.

This large-scale, extended battle had given Su Chen many spoils. From the Six Great Nobility Clans and the Zhu Clan members, Su Chen had obtained eleven Origin Rings that contained an assortment of Origin Stones, medicinal ingredients, cultivation techniques, and even quite a few Origin Tools.

But to Su Chen, the most precious items were the people themselves.

Any of the individuals from the seven Bloodline Nobility Clans would be great research subjects. Even if they had already died, they still had value as long as they hadn’t died for too long and their blood was still in their bodies. Su Chen’s Origin Energy-Seeing Eye was very good at discerning the truth because it could see things in very fine detail, making Su Chen’s research much more convenient. While others were stuck in the realm of reality, understanding Origin Energy based on its macroscopic behavior, Su Chen was able to observe and analyze things on a much finer scale and much more precisely. This made it so that his ability to arrive at useful conclusions skyrocketed.

For his research, Su Chen had prepared a large quantity of medicines and collected a large amount of fresh blood, internal organs, and tissue and muscle samples. He had then sealed them in preparation for his research. Although this method was a bit disgusting, the quest for truth was often filled with barriers and obstacles. If he wasn’t even able to handle this, he might as well give up on his grand dreams.

However, compared to a dead person, those who were alive had much greater value.

After he finished preparing the cadavers, Su Chen went to check on his hostages.

He first went to go visit Hong Ming - Hong Ming was the one who was the closest to his physical limits.

During the battle in Red Pinewood Forest, Hong Ming had been badly wounded. His entire body was filled with broken bones from Uncle Eleven’s brutal onslaught, and many of his internal organs had ruptured. He would not have lived for much longer. Although Yang Opening Realm cultivators possessed uncommon strength, there was no way for him to recover from such grievous wounds unless he had cultivated some secret technique like Zheng Bashan.

Hong Ming was lucky to have met Su Chen.

After many years of studying, Su Chen’s medical skill had reached a decent level of proficiency. He had personally performed surgery on Hong Ming and sown up his ruptured organs, even using many costly medicinal ingredients in order to prolong his life. After a day’s worth of struggling, Su Chen had finally pulled Hong Ming back from the brink of death. But this was not so much due to Su Chen’s medical skills as Hong Ming’s innately powerful physique and the support of those medicines.

Hong Ming was also unlucky to have met Su Chen.

Even though he had saved Hong Ming, Su Chen intended on studying and practicing on Hong Ming. He did not care about whether he succeeded or failed, but rather how much information he could glean from his experiments and how much he had progressed. To Su Chen, Hong Ming was an invaluable research subject - after all, those in the Yang Opening Realm possessed astounding recovery rates and were not easy to kill. Such a person was the perfect target for him to practice on and study. Since Su Chen was talented in making medicine, he had been anticipating a breakthrough in his medical skills for some time. Thus, Hong Ming was doomed to a tragic fate - he would not die, but he would be forever confined to his bed for Su Chen to practice his medical skills on until the day that Su Chen accidentally killed him.

Of course, Hong Ming did not know this at the moment.

He lay on a bed, tubes protruding from all over his body. He stared at Su Chen, powerless. Su Chen thoroughly searched the records contained on the medical manual he was holding while his right hand recorded the changes to Hong Ming’s body.

“Why...... did you...... save me......” Hong Ming said arduously.

Su Chen glanced at him but didn’t offer up an explanation of his thoughts or reasonings.

In this time period, most people would not be able to understand Su Chen’s reasoning. There was no point in explaining it anyway especially since it would only cause his research subject to not cooperate with him.

Instead, he gave Hong Ming another, more comforting reason. “I did kill Zhang Sheng’an and Zhong Ding, and the others’ deaths can also be attributed to me. Only one person was truly killed by the Clay Giant. No one caused his death.”

“Hong Wu?”

Su Chen nodded.

This was the truth. Even though it wasn’t Su Chen’s true motivation for saving Hong Ming, it served as an adequate excuse.

Hong Ming sighed. “I understand. When I return, I will tell my clan to not give you any more trouble.”

You think you can go back?

Su Chen laughed in his heart, but since the other party was so willing to believe him, he didn’t object to simplifying the situation a little bit.

He said, “I don’t owe the Hong Clan anything, but now you owe me a life.”

Hong Ming understood what he meant. “Yes, I owe you a life. Everything in my Origin Ring belongs to you.”

Su Chen shook his head. “I already have that.”

“What else do you want?” Hong Ming knew that he did not have the right to lose his temper at the moment.

“Origin Skills. All of the Origin Skills you know, particularly the ones that you used to seriously injure Uncle Eleven.

“This......” Hong Ming hesitated slightly, but he agreed after thinking about it for a moment.

“That’s good enough. You can rest for now.” Su Chen stood up and left.

After taking care of Hong Ming, Su Chen went to go check in on Zheng Bashan.

Zheng Bashan’s situation was completely the opposite of Hong Ming’s.

Her physical injuries were not too severe, but her consciousness had sunk into a deep coma.

This was the result of the blow to the head she had received from Uncle Eleven.

The blow had not been a consciousness-type attack, but it had injured Zheng Bashan’s brain. At this point, most people knew that the consciousness was very closely linked to the brain, but no one knew exactly how deep the connection was. Zheng Bashan’s condition gave Su Chen some new insight into understanding consciousness.

Thus, Su Chen’s main goal with Zheng Bashan was mainly to research consciousness injury and protection with everything else taking a backseat.

Because Zheng Bashan was still unconscious, Su Chen didn’t say anything to her. After inspecting her briefly and feeding her a vial of medicine, he went to go visit Zhu Xianyao.

Of the three captives, only Zhu Xianyao was completely unharmed.

Because of this, Su Chen had taken many precautions with her - she had been fed Qi Obstructing Powder, and Iron Cliff personally stood guard in her room.

When Su Chen came to her room, Zhu Xianyao was sitting on a corner of the bed while hugging her knees to her chest, seemingly thinking about something.

When she saw Su Chen, her back straightened, and a vicious look appeared in her eyes. She was clearly on guard against him.

Su Chen laughed as he walked to her side and sat down. “How is it? I hope you’ve been well since yesterday.”

Zhu Xianyao coldly said, “Su Chen, I admit that you’ve won. The Zhu Clan’s plans have completely failed. As long as you send a letter to my clan and tell them that I am in your possession, my mother will remove the block on Kaihuang’s Heaven.”

“Did you really think that was my reason for capturing you alive?” Su Chen laughed.

“Is that not the case?” Zhu Xianyao was caught off-guard.

Su Chen shook his head. “Of course not. If I wanted the Zhu Clan to give up, it would actually be quite easy.”

He pulled out a copy of the Kaihaung’s Heaven manual and shook it in front of her as he said, “As long as I can find a place to make a few thousand copies, then......”

He gestured as if scattering something to the wind.

“Do you think there would be much point for the Zhu Clan to conceal Kaihuang’s Heaven at that point?”

Zhu Xianyao’s mind began to rumble.

She was completely stunned.

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