Gong Liwei appeared from the mist the next moment. She was waiting inside the Dream Realm, ready as soon as she heard that Wu Long needed her from Fen Baihu.

"Liwei...", Wu Long turned to her.

"I understand", she nodded, seeing how urgent the situation was and signaling that she didn’t need any explanations.

It was another paradox, in that it was now possible to treat Hong Xinyi due to her lower cultivation level, but for that same reason her body was not as resilient and was far more vulnerable to her wounds - thus requiring urgency in treatment. What’s more, her cultivation realm continued to drop from her injuries, but now at a far slower rate.

As Gong Liwei began treatment, Wu Long began treating Hong Xinyi’s cultivation base so that it would stop dropping in cultivation level, his right hand hovering above her dantian, while his left hand made hand seals, profound glowing patterns appearing under his right hand palm, and hundreds of thin glowing strings made of Qi stretching out from the patterns and going into her dantian.

Gong Liwei put her hands together in a hand seal. This time, it was the hand seal she hesitated to use before - the starting seal of the technique that Wu Long made specially for her.

But now, unlike the indecisiveness before, as she made the seal her eyes were full of confidence and determination instead, as well as intense desire to succeed since she saw it was important to Wu Long. Her hands weaved a series of complicated hand seals next as her Vessel of Life pots appeared to her sides, two big ones and two small ones.

A bright green glowing circle of Qi appeared behind her, with complex patterns and symbols, all moving and intertwining in profound ways, small formless ripples of semi-transparent green Qi coming in all directions from the circle and traveling about a meter out before disappearing, making it look like a semi-transparent curtain of moving greenish light behind her.

A profound aura filled the area, ripples of vitality spreading from her, and from the pots grew lush green bushes, a unique and mysterious symbol glowing on top of each leaf.

The next moment, buds grew on the bushes and then as they ripened, they split, revealing a whitish glow inside, white flower bulbs rapidly growing until they unraveled into beautiful, ethereal flowers with almost-transparent white petals, each individual petal looking like a gorgeous work of art.

Gong Liwei’s eyes glowed green, as intense concentration filled them.

Specs of bright green light appeared on top of each flower, descending onto it like a slow shower of glowing magical dust, and accumulating into dozens of small dots, which slowly revealed forms of life-like butterflies made of pure green light.

Her lips parted, as she softly spoke, "Divine Garden of Life Art"

The butterflies all fluttered, and with a bit of difficulty, three flapped their wings, and flew out from the flowers, toward Hong Xinyi, beginning to fly above her.

But it seemed that it was hard to control the technique, as Gong Liwei’s eyebrows frowned, and then she changed the hand seal.

The butterflies stopped flying in circles and instead flew down to land directly onto Hong Xinyi.

The moment they landed on her wounds, the color of her face which worsened quickly after her cultivation dropped, sustained only by the pills that Wu Long fed her, once again became much better, and her wounds began visibly healing. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

A soft, warm green glow spread from her, along with ripples carrying the air of vitality and life itself.

Wu Long finished stopping the crumbling of her cultivation, by this time it has dropped to the gate of the Mortal Transcendence Realm, almost regressing back into 9th-level Core Reformation Realm but stopping short of that, and even beginning to climb a bit. He predicted it would climb to about 2nd-level of Mortal Transcendence Realm by the time she made a full recovery.

Gong Liwei’s face was somber, completely concentrated, as sometimes the movement of the butterflies was a bit jittery, and no matter how she tried she couldn’t make the ones still sitting on the flowers to move, as they simply softly flapped their wings staying in one spot.

But even the effect of the three butterflies was miraculous, as soon Hong Xinyi’s wounds closed up, all bleeding completely stopped, and her condition began improving moment by moment.

As soon as her condition stabilized completely, and her life was out of danger, Wu Long, who was holding her hand after doing all he could for her, let out a sigh of relief, closing his eyes for a moment.

He took out another pill from his spatial ring and gently fed it to Hong Xinyi, as Gong Liwei recognized it as a sedative, correctly guessing that now that the former’s condition was becoming better, waking up while the treatment was not yet finished and the situation was so chaotic was problematic, so he chose to let her sleep until she was completely healed.

Although he had another reason she did not know of.

When her condition improved, the efficacy of Gong Liwei’s treatment became even more potent, both since treating lighter injuries was easier, and because she was getting a better hang of using the technique.

In just a minute after that, Hong Xinyi’s injuries completely disappeared, and a minute more later, her cheeks gained a bit or healthy rosy color signifying that her internal wounds were also getting better, by the end of five minutes after the improvement in condition, Hong Xinyi was completely restored to full health.

"Fuu~...", Gong Liwei made a long exhale, a bit exhausted as she was still not used to the mental strain from controlling such a complex and powerful technique.

Wu Long’s hands wrapped around her as he locked her in his embrace, "Thank you, Liwei, you did a great job, an incredible job"

She could feel the intense emotions in his words, as warmth spread through her chest, a smile lifting the corners of her lips, and her eyes lighting up with joy which made her beauty bloom even more.

His lips covered hers as he expressed immense gratitude and intense adoration for her in that kiss, which she blissfully answered with her own.

As their lips parted, he kissed her forehead next, seemingly unable to contain his feelings for her, and express how grateful he was enough with just one kiss as she giggled with a blush and filled with happiness.

"I will take her back to the Dream Realm mansion then?", Fen Baihu turned to the sleeping Hong Xinyi.

"Not yet", Wu Long shook his head, finally letting go of Gong Liwei, "You two go ahead, I will bring back Xinyi with me a bit later... though I won’t be able to explain everything right away, I promise I will after everything is settled"

Gong Liwei nodded right away. Fen Baihu hesitated for a moment, but nodded as well, as the two beauties disappeared into the mist.

"Such a lovely scene~", Xun Yawen appeared without any notice or signs - of course, Wu Long knew that she was likely here while he was kissing Gong Liwei even if he couldn’t perceive her presence - hence the comment she made.

"Thank you", he spoke in a sincere tone while turning to her.

"As I said, this happened to be beneficial to you, but everything I did was transactional. She paid the price for every bit of help I gave her", Xun Yawen spoke, causing Wu Long to reveal a thoughtful look.

"You’re worried about sowing Karma", he concluded.

"Hehe, it’s always fascinating how you get to the root of things so precisely and so fast", she smiled, walking closer and looking at the peacefully sleeping Hong Xinyi, "Yes, just as an Immortal should be very careful to sow Karma with a Transcendent or a Mortal, I must be even more careful about such things, lest you bear the weight of having a Karmic connection to me and thus receive trouble appropriate with such a connection. You think you can handle it?"

"Is her first price, for the Spatial Rift in the moment of need, all of her possessions and most of her cultivation?", Wu Long asked.

"Yes", Xun Yawen nodded with a widening grin as he got it right again, "I also drained her clothes and accessories she was wearing of any unique properties which turned them into normal mortal items, this too is a price. But to be honest, you and her are both extremely lucky"

He turned a questioning look to her, and she chuckled.

"The price for helping her is so low only because of an insane luck - all Seven Boundless Worlds are in alignment right now, so it was extremely easy for me to create the spatial rift - the chances of such a coincidence are so astronomically low that I’d say if luck truly was a person, it’s a woman who fell for you", she made a light laugh.

And then added, "Without that incredible luck, I might’ve not been able to interfere at all - the risk of sowing Karma with her and through her, you, would’ve been too high. Neither of you can handle a Karmic connection with me"

"I seem to not have paid any price though", Wu Long raised his eyebrow.

"You did. Although, as I said I’m not the one you have to thank for everything that happened to you, but you paid the full price for as much as I was involved in the whole thing", she made a mysterious smile, "Even now, the price for receiving all these answers from me is my amusement, and whatever cultivation progress you made after advancing into Essence Awakening Realm, so you’re now back at the gate of the Realm. Which is why this conversation is about to end"

He realized that she was right. He didn’t make much progress, only advancing a bit past the gate and not even reaching the 1st level of the Realm, but now he was squarely back at the gate of the Realm again.

He knew that the time for asking her questions was over, as her figure became a bit thinner, as if gradually disappearing.

"Thank you", he still smiled.

"Heh, you’re welcome", she smiled as well, full of delight and then playfully winked at him, "See you later, Wu Long~"