Jiang Chen's tone carried a confidence that left Ling Bi'er unable to question it.
Though Ling Bi'er was cold as frost, she was not heartless. Even after Jiang Chen spoke, her face remained taut with worry.
She desperately wanted her father cured, but she refused to bring harm to an innocent in the process.
Jiang Chen was the kind of person who asked for nothing in return and jumped straight into diagnosis—she wanted even more to make sure nothing happened to him.
After all, even Elder Yunnie had never dared probe the Mind-Bewildering Miasma with divine consciousness back in the day.
Seeing that Jiang Chen had already extended his divine consciousness, Ling Bi'er stood rooted to the spot, torn between stopping him and fearing that any interference would only make things worse.
In that moment, her delicate face was etched with anxiety as she stood there, utterly helpless.
But as she watched Jiang Chen's calm and composed demeanor, the knot of worry in her chest gradually loosened. By the end, she was standing properly at his side, watching with focused attention.
In all her life, Ling Bi'er had never stood so close to a man, nor had she ever observed a young man with such concentration.
At that moment, she suddenly realized that this young man—only a year her senior—possessed a steadiness and bearing rarely seen in someone his age, the air of someone destined for greatness.
It was a quality she had only ever sensed in powerhouses like Elder Yunnie, the titans of their sect.
A wave of surprise swept through her heart. Her feelings, frozen like an iceberg, softened into gentle ripples—so faint they were almost imperceptible.
If any other young alchemist had recklessly probed with his divine consciousness like this, Ling Bi'er might have assumed he was trying to ingratiate himself with her and her sister, and she would have intervened without hesitation.
But as time passed, Jiang Chen gave her the distinct impression that he truly knew what he were doing.
A quarter of an hour later, Jiang Chen opened his eyes and withdrew his divine consciousness.
"Junior Brother Jiang Chen—" Ling Bi'er blurted out, then suddenly remembered that he was actually a year older than her. Calling him junior brother—wasn't she putting on airs?
Jiang Chen nodded slightly, his brows furrowing. "Senior Sister Bi'er, your father's Mind-Bewildering Miasma is indeed extremely complex. There are many varieties of the miasma. If it were a single type, treatment would be straightforward. But your father has three or four different varieties inside him. On top of that, after so many years, they've fused and intertwined with each other—thousands of threads woven together. Peeling them apart layer by layer will be extraordinarily difficult."
Jiang Chen was not trying to frighten Ling Bi'er, nor was he being alarmist.
Three or four types of Mind-Bewildering Miasma—if caught within a year of initial poisoning, before the different strains had merged, targeted treatment could still have been administered.
But at this stage, it wasn't that there was absolutely no hope of a cure, but the process would be immensely complex and arduous.
The poison of the Mind-Bewildering Miasma was like a golden silkworm spinning silk—strand after strand wound around each other. Different strains of the miasma had fused together, and unraveling the poison would be exactly like peeling silk from a cocoon, layer by layer. The difficulty was extreme.
And there could be no mistakes whatsoever.
A single slip in one small detail would trigger a full eruption of the miasma, potentially rendering the patient beyond all hope of recovery.
Hearing Jiang Chen's words, Ling Bi'er's face fell at once.
"Does that mean… there's no hope for the Mind-Bewildering Miasma?"
Jiang Chen shook his head. "There is hope, but the difficulty is enormous, and the treatment process will be extremely complex. Danger could arise at any moment."
Without keeping her in suspense, Jiang Chen laid out Ling Su's condition in thorough detail.
Ling Bi'er was exceptionally bright. After listening, she composed herself.
First, her father's Mind-Bewildering Miasma was very hard to treat, but a sliver of hope remained.
Second, detoxifying this particular miasma would be an arduous process that could fail at any moment and trigger an even worse outcome.
Third, the detoxification would require an enormous investment of time and effort, extremely precise techniques, and not the slightest margin for error.
"Jiang Chen, if I were to attempt the detoxification myself, how much chance of success would there be?"
Ling Bi'er felt that asking Jiang Chen to devote so much of his time and energy to curing her father was asking too much. She wanted to try herself.
Though she acknowledged some gap between herself and Jiang Chen, she was still one of the most talented young alchemists of her generation.
Jiang Chen gave a wry smile. "If I'm being honest, Senior Sister, your chances would be virtually zero."
Ling Bi'er was stunned. "Why?"
"Because you cannot use your divine consciousness to enter the sea of consciousness within your father's mind. Without observing the Mind-Bewildering Miasma through divine consciousness, you would have no way to peel apart the layers of poison."
This was not meant to frighten her—it was the truth.
If Jiang Chen hadn't possessed the Golden Cicada bloodline, combined with his unique poison-avoidance techniques—two layers of protection—he never would have risked probing with his divine consciousness either.
As for the actual detoxification, the amount of divine consciousness required and the time needed would be at least a hundred to a thousand times what diagnosis demanded.
Jiang Chen had not anticipated beforehand just how complex Ling Su's poison would turn out to be.