My Portable Spirit Farm: Rise of the Humble Servant

“Pfft…!”

A wet, tearing sound broke the silence.

Almost simultaneously, Chen Dashan and Lin Shi lurched forward. Two mouthfuls of dark, foul-smelling blood sprayed from their lips, splattering across the woven mat in a shocking crimson display.

Then, the nightmare deepened.

From Chen Dashan’s temples, nostrils, and ears—and from the seven orifices of Lin Shi’s face—thin, treacherous streams of black, viscous ichor began to leak out. The fluid snaked down their pale skin like living shadows.

It wasn’t just their faces. Every pore on their bodies seemed to tear open, oozing fine beads of black blood that rapidly soaked through their thin clothing.

They looked as if they had just been dredged from a vat of ink, their bodies radiating a pungent, rotting stench.

Their faces turned paper-white in an instant, only to flush with a sickly, necrotic blue-black hue. Guttural, wet rasps rattled in their throats as they swayed, teetering on the brink of total collapse.

Chen Ping felt his heart seize, as if gripped by a cold, iron hand.

He had anticipated the medicinal potency would be violent. He had prepared himself for their pain. But this?

Blood weeping from every orifice? Vitality withering away in seconds? This was a catastrophe far beyond his worst calculations.

A tidal wave of terror threatened to drown him.

But years of clawing for survival in the mud, combined with the steely instincts honed on the Immortal Path, kicked in faster than his fear.

“Father! Mother!”

Chen Ping roared, vaulting onto the kang in a single motion.

His hands struck out like vipers—his left palm slammed against the Danzhong acupoint on his father’s chest; his right hand pressed flat against the Xinshu acupoint on his mother’s back.

Pure, unadulterated Qi surged from his core, flooding into their failing bodies without reservation.

Qi was miraculous. Among its many uses, it could act as a shield for a cultivator’s internal organs.

Chen Ping’s objective was singular and absolute: Guard the heart meridians. Protect the Dantian.

As long as these two fundamental strongholds held, hope remained. Even if their flesh and minor meridians were shredded, they could survive. They could still grasp the Immortal Path.

But as his Qi penetrated their bodies, Chen Ping finally understood the hell they were enduring.

The potency of the Five Elements Yin Spirit Vine was not a gentle stream; it was a stampede of savage beasts. The energy rampaged through their fragile, mortal meridians, tearing and snapping the channels inch by inch.

The chaotic power of the Five Elements eroded their flesh, bringing with it an aura of decay, rot, and absolute destruction that permeated every cell.

Yet, in the eye of this catastrophic storm, two faint sparks of vitality were struggling to coalesce.

They were forming near the lower abdomen, anchored in the Dantian and the Sea of Qi.

Chen Ping’s Divine Sense focused, and his mind reeled—Vines!

They bore a striking resemblance to the “Pseudo Spirit Root” he had observed within Yuan Jingtian via Inner Sight, but these were thicker, their contours more distinct.

They looked like two desperate seedlings fighting to break through the soil amidst a hurricane. They greedily devoured the chaotic medicinal energy, even as that same energy tried to rip them apart.

Destruction and creation, battling in a microscopic war.

Chen Ping clenched his jaw so hard his gums began to bleed.

He split his Qi into two distinct flows. The first transformed into an unyielding barrier, wrapping tightly around his parents’ hearts and the fragile cores of the forming Spirit Roots, taking the brunt of the medicinal impact.

The second flow was gentle, almost surgical. It guided the dispersed, less violent wisps of energy, attempting to stitch the torn minor meridians back together.

It was like trying to patch a boat in the middle of a typhoon.

The task required a level of concentration and micro-control that bordered on the impossible. Every thread of Qi, every subtle adjustment, felt like walking a tightrope over a bottomless abyss.

One slip, one moment of hesitation, would either accelerate his parents’ death or leave them crippled forever.

Chen Ping knelt like a statue between them, his palms cemented to their bodies.

Sweat soaked his robes, evaporating instantly into white steam under the intense heat of his exertion. His face grew visibly gaunt, his lips turning white. His body began to tremble, the physical toll of draining his Qi and Divine Sense mounting by the second.

Chen Dashan and Lin Shi had long since lost consciousness. Their bodies twitched involuntarily, spasmodic jerks wracking their frames. The black blood oozing from their pores grew thicker, darker, before slowly lessening.

But every twitch was a reminder that the tug-of-war inside them was still raging.

Their breathing was shallow, their auras faint to the extreme. They were hanging onto life by a single thread—a thread spun entirely from Chen Ping’s relentless infusion of Qi.

Outside the window, the sun dipped below the horizon. Twilight swallowed the room.

Darkness fell, leaving only the sound of Chen Ping’s heavy, suppressed panting and the terrified, rhythmic thumping of three hearts.

To Chen Ping, the night stretched out like a century.

His Qi reserves were plummeting. The deep reservoir of a Qi Condensation Ninth Layer cultivator was draining like a flood through an open gate.

Fatigue and dizziness assaulted his mind in waves. He bit his tongue, using the pain to stay lucid, fueled only by an unyielding will to refuse failure.

He dared not relax. His entire consciousness was submerged in the chaotic battlefield of his parents’ biology.

Through Inner Sight, he watched the war unfold.

Inside his father, the medicinal force was a wild bull—brute force and destruction. But the new vine Spirit Root was equally ferocious. It was tough, stubborn, and devoured the energy with a mad hunger.

Inside his mother, the energy was insidious, soft but corrosive. Her new vine was slender and flexible, bending but never breaking, possessing a terrifyingly resilient vitality.

Just as Chen Ping felt his Qi scraping the bottom of his reserves—just as his soul began to ache with sharp, stabbing pains—a shift occurred.

The first gray light of dawn squeezed through the window lattice.

At that precise moment, Chen Ping sensed the change. The violent torrent that had ravaged his parents all night suddenly lost its momentum. Like a receding tide, the destructive pressure vanished.

The aura of decay dissipated.

His heart lurched in his chest. Summoning the last scraps of his mental strength, he forced himself to perform one final inspection.

Deep within his father’s Sea of Qi, a vine was rooted.

It was distinct and stable. The main stem was thick and gnarled, semi-transparent, with faint five-colored light circulating within. It exuded an aura of heavy stability, far thicker and more solid than Yuan Jingtian’s root.

It had replaced the void where a mortal’s talent should be. It was the new core.

The surrounding meridians were a mess, shredded and raw, but the heart was untouched, the life force secure.

He shifted his focus to his mother.

Rooted in her Dantian was a similar vine. Hers was slender, colored a deep, verdant ink-green. The light flowing through it favored the Water and Wood elements—gentle, enduring, and endless. It, too, was a full size larger than Yuan Jingtian’s.

Success!

These two Pseudo Spirit Roots, catalyzed by a forty-year-old Five Elements Yin Spirit Vine, had not only formed but possessed a foundation far superior to Yuan Jingtian’s.

Wild, exhausted joy exploded in Chen Ping’s chest.