Chapter 20: Breakthrough

Only after Qingyun had left the room and stepped into the courtyard did she raise her arm and gently rub her slightly sore, numb right wrist.

That clear ring of red marks had not yet fully faded from her skin, and a faint stinging pain still lingered there.

“That little girl looks so sickly, so how does she have such a strong grip...” she muttered under her breath, unable to help complaining.

When she recalled how that burning little hand had clung to her so tightly the night before, refusing to let go no matter what, it still felt somewhat unbelievable.

That was definitely not the kind of strength an ordinary sick child should have. Perhaps part of it came from the unconscious burst of force brought on by her high fever, but combined with the strange poison in her body and her ruined constitution, it always made one feel that something was not quite right.

“Still, judging by how she is, she is probably completely muddled about her own physical condition as well.”

Qingyun sighed, feeling her heart grow somewhat heavy.

How much did Yueli actually know about the poison in her body and the destruction of her foundation?

Aside from her withdrawn and awkward temperament, Yueli usually seemed to believe only that she was weak and chronically ill. Perhaps she had never once imagined that behind this “illness” lay such vicious scheming.

“Ah, I can only hope... that future male lead comes sooner rather than later, and that he is actually dependable.”

Qingyun pushed down these tangled, heavy thoughts.

Right now, she could barely protect herself, and her abilities were limited. There was no use dwelling on such matters. The only thing she could do for the moment was take care of Yueli’s daily needs as best she could, spare her a little of the torment of illness, and then... seize every moment to strengthen herself.

Clearing her mind of distractions, Qingyun turned to the new day’s “schedule.”

Though calling it a schedule might have been a little grand. In this remote, desolate little courtyard that was almost cut off from the rest of the world, life passed in a simple and repetitive rhythm.

In the early morning, she swept the courtyard, tidied the room, and attended to Yueli’s washing and meals. In the morning, she continued putting the courtyard in order and washing clothes. In the afternoon, there was sometimes a little free time, though she could not leave at will. In the evening, she received and distributed the meals. Only at night did the time truly become her own, for cultivation.

It was monotonous, dull, yet also safe for the time being, giving her a relatively stable environment.

As for the dispensary work that let her obtain Spirit Source, Qingyun had been calculating over it the entire time.

From observation and from the bits of information she had subtly coaxed from Huzi, she learned that although medicine was consumed quickly in the Bai Residence, the dispensary usually kept a certain amount in reserve.

Fresh medicinal supplies were brought in from outside roughly once every four to five days, creating a concentrated period of delivery and sorting. At those times, the dispensary would be short-handed, and that was when she was “needed.”

So in the days that followed, Qingyun lived according to that rhythm, neither hurried nor slow.

By day, she dutifully played the role of a proper, hardworking maid who was occasionally a little stubborn.

Her relationship with Yueli, after that night, seemed to have undergone a very subtle change.

Yueli still rarely took the initiative to speak to her, and she still awkwardly rejected certain forms of closer care, but that cold sense of rejection had lessened quite a bit. Sometimes, she would even silently allow Qingyun to remain in the room a little longer. Between the two of them, a strange kind of balance had formed.

At night, Qingyun cultivated 《Longevity Art》 without fail.

Relying on the exceptional aptitude of her mutated dual spirit roots, along with the occasional Spirit Source she converted from the essence of medicinal herbs while “helping” in the dispensary—even though most of it had to be saved for exchanging for 《Heavenly Fiend Glazed Body》—

she still sometimes used a little to replenish the consumption of her own cultivation, and her cultivation speed far surpassed that of ordinary cultivators in the qi-guiding stage.

Time slipped away like running water, silently flowing past her fingertips.

In the blink of an eye, a full month had passed.

This night was no different from any other.

Qingyun sat cross-legged on the hard wooden bed in the side room, her mind calm as she guided the faint but steadily growing thread of spiritual qi within her body along the specific pathways recorded in 《Longevity Art》.

Suddenly, she felt a slight tremor in the dantian at her lower abdomen, as though some invisible barrier had quietly been broken through.

Immediately afterward, a fine numb ache spread through the meridians of her entire body, only to transform into a warm, gentle current that instantly rushed through her limbs and bones.

The sparse spiritual qi in the outside world also seemed to be stirred, gathering toward her body a little faster than usual and seeping into her skin of its own accord.

She had broken through!

The first level of the Qi Refining Realm!

Qingyun slowly opened her eyes. A faint glimmer seemed to flash through her dark pupils before vanishing, leaving them ordinary once more, yet clearer and brighter than before.

She clenched her fist and carefully felt the changes in her body.

The most obvious sensation was lightness.

It was as though she had cast off an invisible weight. Every movement of her hands and feet carried a nimbleness she had never felt before.

It was not merely that her body felt light as a swallow’s. Her five senses had also sharpened somewhat. She could hear insects chirping farther away, and discern finer outlines in the darkness.

Her strength, flexibility, and even the toughness and recovery of her skin had all stepped onto a new level.

This was a complete enhancement, a preliminary elevation in the level of her life itself. Though she was still weak, she had now formally become distinct from an ordinary mortal.

After calming the excitement in her heart somewhat, Qingyun did not continue cultivating to consolidate the breakthrough.

Instead, she quietly got out of bed, pushed open the door, and stepped into the silent little courtyard bathed in moonlight.

It was already the latter half of the night, and all was still.

She changed into a fitted gray outfit she had altered from old clothes, something more convenient for movement, and neatly tied her long hair into a high ponytail, revealing a smooth forehead and an ordinary yet spirited face.

The night wind was cool, brushing past her slender but upright figure, making the hem of her clothes flutter softly.

She stood in the open space at the center of the courtyard, and the moonlight stretched her shadow long and thin.

“Hoo...” She slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, and her gaze sharpened.

Then, suddenly, she moved!

Without a running start, her body shot forward like an arrow released from the bow, heading straight for the mottled stone wall a short distance ahead! She moved so quickly that in the night, she almost left behind a blurred afterimage.

At the instant before her body would have crashed into the hard stone, her left foot landed precisely against the vertical wall. Her waist and legs exerted force together, and borrowing that momentum, her whole body flipped lightly upward and backward.

Her right foot struck the wall again at a slightly higher point.

WHOOSH—!

That single kick launched her upward in an instant, sending her leaping five or six meters into the air, almost level with the crown of the old tree beside the wall.

Suspended in midair with nowhere to gain purchase, just as the force of falling was about to take hold, Qingyun swiftly raised her right hand and formed a simple yet mysterious seal with her fingers. In a low cry, she shouted, “Rise, wind!”

In that instant, a gentle yet resilient current of air arose out of nowhere beneath her feet, like an invisible cushion firmly supporting the soles of her feet, allowing her to hover briefly three or four meters above the ground.

The night wind whipped at her clothing and hair with a fluttering sound.

The hovering lasted no more than a breath. Qingyun’s eyes sharpened, and the fingers of her suspended right hand suddenly spread wide, pressing toward the small stone-lined pool used for storing water to irrigate the flowers several yards away.

“Fireball Art, go!”

Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!

Five red fireballs, each no larger than a walnut, yet solid and bright and radiating scorching heat, shot violently from her fingertips!

They streaked through the air as five distinct red trails and plunged with perfect accuracy into the still surface of the pool.

BOOM—!!!

It was not a huge explosion, but a heavy, muffled roar. The surface of the pool burst violently upward!

The searing fireballs collided fiercely with the icy water, instantly turning great amounts of it into scalding white mist. Along with the water that was blasted upward, it burst outward in all directions, and in the blink of an eye it spread through most of the courtyard, rolling and churning in the moonlight like an immortal realm—

or rather, like the scene of an accident.

Once the force supporting her hover was exhausted, Qingyun landed lightly on the ground, the tips of her feet touching down without a sound.

She stood at the edge of the spreading white mist, looked at the now thoroughly wrecked little pool in front of her—its water level clearly having dropped by a noticeable amount—then lowered her gaze to inspect her own palm and raised an eyebrow slightly.

“The power... is only so-so, I suppose,” she murmured softly to herself, sounding neither satisfied nor disappointed.