The training was effective, though sometimes Wu Chongyun’s stubbornness was somewhat exasperating.
Previously, handling the box and the bamboo tube required two months of practice. But this time, capturing a moving object took only three days.
When she first looked at Wu Chongyun calmly holding the teacup, Wei Mingyi still felt somewhat dazed. If she slipped—Wei Mingyi hurriedly shook her head, suppressing the ominous thought. With her strength, she certainly couldn’t injure Wu Chongyun. But the thought of that Dao seal hitting her? It made her panic! Bullying her beautiful Shizun—that was utterly inhuman.
Fortunately, that disastrous outcome didn’t occur. Ripples spread across the cup’s surface, the floating petal turned to dust, yet not a single drop of tea spilled. Wu Chongyun gave a faint “Mn” and said, “Just the beginning.”
Wei Mingyi nodded, understanding. Her taciturn Shizun was saying this was only the beginning, a small test, nothing much—a kind of entry-level skill. To elevate her Dao cultivation, she must continually hone herself. Either through slow, grinding effort, or directly using her cheat’s Talent Points.
During this period, aside from practicing her magical power control, Wei Mingyi also attempted to open more Qi meridians. The results were fairly significant; she had now pushed to the sixteenth. However, Wei Mingyi also noticed that the process of opening meridians afterward had become much more difficult, as if mountains blocked the way. Wei Mingyi endured and didn’t add points, but when the new month’s Achievement Points came in, she spent five hundred points to upgrade the Meridian Opening Pool to Profound Tier.
The high-intensity training kept Wei Mingyi temporarily from thinking about other matters. But during a stolen moment of leisure, her mind suddenly kicked back into gear. She looked at the desolate, indifferent Wu Chongyun in the wheelchair and blinked, asking, “Shizun knows the antidote for ‘Wither and Flourish,’ don’t you?” Otherwise, why had she said the Millennium Pill was one of the ingredients earlier?
Wu Chongyun lowered her gaze and said flatly, “I don’t know.”
Wei Mingyi didn’t believe her. Wasn’t the act of turning the wheelchair to show her back just guilt? She rushed forward in a few strides, blocking Wu Chongyun’s way, not letting her leave. She pressed her lips together and said seriously, “Although my cultivation is low now, the future is promising. I will find the antidote for Shizun. Why won’t Shizun speak frankly? Are you afraid we’ll face danger searching for the ingredients?”
Seeing Wu Chongyun unwilling to answer, Wei Mingyi continued, “In the Wild Domain, there are chances to encounter people from other aristocratic families. Even if Shizun won’t say, I’ll find ways to ask. Shizun knows I have ways to get the answers I want.”
“You—” Wu Chongyun’s brows furrowed. She moved her lips and, after a long moment, only said three words: “Don’t go.”
Wei Mingyi crossed her arms and deliberately snorted with laughter. “If Shizun won’t listen, then naturally, I won’t either.”
Wu Chongyun stared at her for a while, then sullenly tried to maneuver her wheelchair away. But how could Wei Mingyi just let her leave in silence? No matter which direction Wu Chongyun turned, Wei Mingyi stuck to her, blocking her path. Wu Chongyun’s fingers on the armrests of the wheelchair tightened, and a flush of annoyed anger rose on her snowy-white face. She opened her mouth, wanting to scold Wei Mingyi, but couldn’t bring herself to. In the end, she just took off her whisk and poked Wei Mingyi, pursing her lips. “So annoying. Go away.”
“Annoying already?” Wei Mingyi laughed, pressing her hands onto the wheelchair and bending slightly forward, as if about to envelop Wu Chongyun in an embrace. “I still need to tell the Sect Leader and the Assistant Master. We’ll all come ask you together. Day and night, without end.”
Wu Chongyun’s face grew even redder. Her eyes looked as if they were covered by a mist over an autumn river. She pushed at Wei Mingyi’s hands, lifting herself partially from the wheelchair, as if wanting to stand.
Wei Mingyi had already figured out that her Shizun’s legs weren’t actually crippled; she just used the wheelchair to ease her pain due to her poor health. Her eyelid twitched, and she hastily wrapped her arm around Wu Chongyun’s waist to prevent her from stumbling. Either silent or causing a huge commotion—her Shizun was truly something else! Wei Mingyi felt helpless. She sighed and softened her tone. “Why won’t Shizun say? Are you afraid we’ll go looking for the medicine and fall into danger? Or are you afraid that once we know, we won’t even try and just give up? Or maybe both?”
Why had her Shizun become what she was now? She knew quite a bit about the aristocratic families, suggesting she came from a noble background. Had people died for her? Or chosen to give up or betray her? Was that why her heart seemed dead ash?
Afraid Wu Chongyun would become restless, Wei Mingyi simply scooped her up horizontally into her arms.
Shizun’s hands, quite naturally, looped around her neck. But then she buried her head against Wei Mingyi’s shoulder, hiding her expression.
“Once a teacher, always a—” Wei Mingyi stopped halfway and swallowed the word “mother.” For one, she and Wu Chongyun couldn’t really be considered true master and disciple. For another, it felt somewhat perverse. Wu Chongyun had no reaction, so Wei Mingyi smoothly changed her phrasing. “In any case, I will take care of Shizun. My shoulders are broad and thick as a mountain; Shizun can lean on them.”
Wei Mingyi didn’t expect to immediately move a frozen heart. She’d exhaust all her kind and soft words first, slowly grinding away. One day, Shizun would believe her. After settling her back inside the house, Wei Mingyi sat cross-legged on a meditation mat to cultivate in peace. By the time one Grand Celestial Circulation cycle was complete, it was already dark. The lamps in the corridor lit automatically at the appointed time, but inside the house, if she didn’t light the candles, it would remain pitch black.
Even though her eyes could see in the dark, Wei Mingyi still disliked that kind of blackness. Holding a lit candle, she entered the inner chamber and glimpsed Wu Chongyun lying on her side on the bed in her clothes. Her lotus-patterned hair crown had been removed, her white hair cascading like snowy light over her dark robes.
“Shizun?” Wei Mingyi set down the candle and called out to Wu Chongyun. No response.
Wei Mingyi rubbed her face.
As expected.
She’d been in a huff from daytime all the way to the night.
After a moment, a rustling sound came. Wei Mingyi naturally climbed onto the bed. Previously, after Wu Chongyun had an episode, she’d carried her back to her own room to watch over her. Sleeping in the same bed as her—Wu Chongyun hadn’t refused, and so it had continued. Just as Wei Mingyi thought Wu Chongyun would remain silent until the next day, Wu Chongyun turned over.
The bright moonlight streaming through the window fell like liquid mercury, casting a veil of untouchable divinity over Wu Chongyun’s profile.
Wei Mingyi knelt upright on the bed and looked down at Wu Chongyun. Softly, she asked, “What is it?”
Wu Chongyun lay on her side, looking at Wei Mingyi for a long while before saying, “You covet my beauty.”
Wei Mingyi froze, completely caught off guard by such a statement. Her eartips instantly flushed red, and a sense of embarrassment and inexplicable restlessness stirred deep within her. Her eyes flickered, and she rubbed her fingers together, uneasy. Who didn’t appreciate beauty? But now that Wu Chongyun had pointed it out directly, she felt utterly at a loss.
She licked her lips, racked her brains, and finally said, “Shizun is transcendent and otherworldly, like the bright moon rising over the mountains. I’m not the only one who appreciates Shizun, there’s also—” before she could finish, her words dissolved like bubbles under Wu Chongyun’s ambiguous, dismissive scoff.
Wu Chongyun stared fixedly at her and said, a single word: “Come.”
Wei Mingyi: “?”
Dazed, she looked at Wu Chongyun, her brain completely shutting down.
Come what? What come? What did Shizun mean?
Seeing Wei Mingyi’s silence, Wu Chongyun shifted closer to her. She caught Wei Mingyi’s hand and pressed it against her own chest.
Fingertips touched something soft. Thunder roared in Wei Mingyi’s ears, and her vision was a blaze of dazzling gold. She yanked her hand back, staring at Wu Chongyun in panic, almost suspecting her Shizun had a split personality. The blush wasn’t just on her earlobes anymore; it had fully spread across her entire face.
Wu Chongyun lowered her eyelids. A faint, slight smile curved her lips—not joyful, not mocking or sarcastic. In an eerily calm, almost hollow voice, as if detached from the world, she said: “No need to flatter me. You can have it anyway.”
Wei Mingyi: “…” Her heart was far from calm; it was like churning waves in a wild storm.
As for Wu Chongyun, she seemed peacefully mad.
Just to stop her from asking, she was actually willing to offer her body?
She did appreciate Wu Chongyun’s beauty, but she wasn’t that despicable.
At this moment, Wei Mingyi felt no romance in her mind, only a fury that even that immortal beauty could not fully smooth over.
She glared at Wu Chongyun, wanting to mock her, to throw out some sarcastic remarks, just like she did with those annoying people. But the Wu Chongyun who had said those words had already moved on, turning over without a care, as if nothing had happened.
Leaving only that head of prickling white hair for her to see.
Shizun is a patient.
One must allow patients to be neurotic.
Wei Mingyi soothed herself.
Shifting on her knees until she was pressed against Wu Chongyun’s thin back, she asked, “Did Shizun take her medicine today?”
Wu Chongyun shifted her hair, covering her ears tightly with strands of white hair.
Wei Mingyi: “…” Fortunately, she also kept a supply of the pills the Assistant Master had made for Wu Chongyun. She turned her over and looked down at her, saying, “Take it.” Her fury hadn’t subsided; her voice wasn’t as gentle as usual, carrying a bit of stern chill. Wu Chongyun blinked and took the pill from Wei Mingyi’s hand.
“Shizun, if you have something to say, please wait a quarter hour before speaking to me,” Wei Mingyi added. With a flick of her finger, she extinguished the candle. Only the cold moonlight outside silently illuminated the window lattice.
There would be nothing to say.
Her Shizun wasn’t a mute, but she was worse than one.
A mute person still babbled.
Wei Mingyi covered her mouth and yawned. Before a quarter hour had passed, she was already wandering on the edge of dreamland.
In a daze, she vaguely heard someone calling her name.
Wei Mingyi forced her eyelids open with effort, only to feel Wu Chongyun burrowing into her arms.
She also said a single word: “Pain.”
Wei Mingyi’s mind instantly jolted awake.
She had clearly taken the painkilling pill—there shouldn’t have been any sensation. But Shizun was still hurting.
Her cultivation was too low, capable of too little. All she could do was hold her tightly in her arms, as if a warm embrace could relieve the pain.
She asked softly, “Where does it hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer was very faint. Soon, the pained breaths faded away, leaving only quiet, shallow breathing.
She was as fragile as an autumn butterfly.
Wei Mingyi didn’t sleep a wink that night.
During the night, Wu Chongyun only mentioned the pain once, then remained still.
The next morning.
Sunlight replaced the penetrating, cold moonlight, casting a rosy glow into the room.
Wu Chongyun opened her sleepy eyes, gradually getting used to waking up in Wei Mingyi’s embrace. Only this time, she didn’t gently push Wei Mingyi away. Instead, she looked at her and said, “Sorry.”
Wei Mingyi was no longer angry. She stroked Wu Chongyun’s back, letting her rigid body relax. In a gentle, soft voice, she asked, “Still hurting?”
Wu Chongyun’s gaze was lost for a moment, then she shook her head.
