The instant this energy entered Wei Zhao's body, his muscles convulsed sharply, his pores flared open, and they drank in that energy with greed; his body was like a sponge gone dry, plunged at last into water, absorbing with a kind of frenzy.

This was his own energy! That sensation was far too familiar to Wei Zhao. In that moment he was like a droplet falling into the embrace of the sea, and he could not hold back a moan of pure comfort.

As the energy poured in, the damaged meridians within Wei Zhao's body began swiftly to mend themselves.

Wei Zhao's eyes went wide; astonished and delighted, he stared at General Valiant.

The General Valiant in his arms seemed to be suffering terribly, yet it did not flee; it stayed there, sprawled in Wei Zhao's embrace.

Sometimes it is truly so: you wear through iron shoes searching the world over for it, and find it without the least effort at all.

Was not the energy within General Valiant's body his own energy?

Just when Wei Zhao had been grieving that not a trace of energy remained in his body, that he had no way to repair his damaged meridians, he had forgotten something: General Valiant was, strictly speaking, a dog of his own sect. Its energy was his energy, and so it could be applied to his own body without the slightest problem.

"Whatever you do, do not disturb me!" Wei Zhao could spare no time to explain matters to Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu; clutching General Valiant, he ran swiftly into his room and locked the door.

This sudden move of his left Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu utterly baffled.

"Yaoyao, what is wrong with Brother Shield?" Shen Yushu stared at the tightly shut door, puzzled, and asked.

"I do not know either." Gu Mengyao shook her head. She too found it strange. What sort of performance was Wei Zhao putting on? They were about to part, and yet he had suddenly carried General Valiant back to his room. What on earth did he mean to do?

"Could it be that once Brother Shield saw General Valiant, he could not bear to leave after all?" At this, Shen Yushu suddenly turned plaintive. "Yaoyao, are we, you and I, really less dear to Brother Shield than General Valiant is?"

"..." Gu Mengyao did not quite know how to answer, because she truly could not guess what Wei Zhao had carried General Valiant into his room to do.

"But why did he shut the door? Could he mean to do something to General Valiant before he leaves? No, that cannot be. General Valiant is male!" Shen Yushu said, baffled. "Ohh? Could Brother Shield be into that sort of thing?"

"Xiaoshu, what nonsense are you imagining? Must your mind be so filthy?" Gu Mengyao glared at Shen Yushu. This girl was growing more outrageous by the word. "Do you want a beating?"

"No..." Shen Yushu stuck out her tongue and shut her mouth.

"Since he does not want us to disturb him, then we shall not disturb him..." Yet Gu Mengyao was anxious at heart. She knew well how much stronger General Valiant had grown, and Wei Zhao had lost every shred of his martial arts. He was no different now from an ordinary man. So she feared that General Valiant had just leapt at Wei Zhao, and catching him off guard, struck with such force that Wei Zhao was injured.

That was why he had rushed back to his room so desperately, to heal his wounds! But Gu Mengyao feared that if she said it aloud, Xiaoshu would worry as well. It was only her own guess, after all. What if the truth were otherwise?

Back in his room, Wei Zhao sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes half closed, savoring the energy flowing from General Valiant's body as it nourished his injured meridians.

On Wei Zhao's face an expression of ease would surface, then one of agony; in that moment he was both suffering and happy.

Having become an ordinary man, Wei Zhao could hardly bear such a surging, tumultuous flood of energy pouring into his body; and yet, the instant the energy entered and repaired his meridians, the relief was beyond all words.

Within Wei Zhao's body, one meridian after another slowly mended, at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"Phew—!"

Wei Zhao drew a deep breath. One of the principal meridians in his body had completed its self-repair under General Valiant's energy, and relief spread across his face.

It was time. At last it was time! He no longer had to hide!

Wei Zhao was not wholly ignorant of what had happened in Songshan City these past two days. Several great powers had all gone at once to make trouble for Gu Pengzhan; how could he not know? Fatty Lai was a man of the business world too; how could he not know? He simply did not know the precise terms each party had set. And yet, what of it, even if he did know? Wei Zhao was still powerless. Apart from seeking some way to restore his strength, he had no other recourse.

Of course, Wei Zhao merely assumed that these forces were scheming after Gu Pengzhan's business holdings; so though his heart was stifled, he said nothing more. After all, whatever was lost today, Wei Zhao would surely return one day and make them hand it back with both hands.

Only now did Wei Zhao remember that the energy he had used to repair his meridians had come from General Valiant.

Wei Zhao gave a violent start. He opened his eyes and looked at General Valiant in his arms, and saw that its face was twisted with pain; that face, never handsome to begin with, had contorted into a single grimace, hideous to behold.

This energy had been his to begin with; Wei Zhao naturally knew how immense the energy required to repair a single meridian was. Now all of it came from within General Valiant's body. Could it possibly endure?

At the thought, Wei Zhao instinctively moved to set General Valiant down.

But then the eerie thing happened once more: General Valiant seemed glued to Wei Zhao's body, impossible to set down at all, and the energy within it was still pouring in an endless stream into Wei Zhao.

Wei Zhao's expression froze. What on earth was going on? It struck him suddenly that when he had healed Feng Xiaoxiao, something very similar had happened. The energy within him had surged out all at once, beyond his control...

At that thought, Wei Zhao had more or less guessed the answer: when the receiving body needed energy without limit, if he did not first seal certain of its acupoints, then the energy within him would be transmitted across in an endless, uncontrollable flow.

When he had healed General Valiant back then, had not something of the same kind occurred?

So much so that when Wei Zhao treated Liu Bojia, he had sealed several of his acupoints beforehand with silver needles, to avoid wasting energy.

But even that had rested on the premise that he was circulating the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art, so that energy would be drawn from his body and channeled into the recipient. General Valiant, however, did not know the Xuanyuan Dragon-Taming Art at all. How, then, was it controlling the energy within its own body?

Could it be that merely because it was a high-level dog he had remade with his own hands, it resonated with his body and produced this effect?

For the moment Wei Zhao could not work it out. It seemed he would have to go ask Jiao Yazi in the jade pendant's space after all.

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