"You can’t say that..."
Gu Changsheng replied, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"It’s more like they don’t care about anything outside of swords. Complete sword fanatics! And they are known to be just and direct, too."
"So... Are we gonna learn sword fighting?"
Mulan asked, a hint of defiance in her tone.
Gu Changsheng chuckled, a low, warm sound that vibrated through his chest.
"Only if you want to."
...
A few days later.
Elder Ye, though eager to match his son with his ’chosen’ brides, couldn’t just send them without a reason or any prior arrangements.
Today, he finally made those arrangements, sending Su Mingyue to carry the news to Gu Changsheng.
Because she was quite familiar with the couple, and neither of them minded her intrusion, she went in without knocking.
As she entered the house, she bumped into Dong Mulan, asking about her husband.
"Sister Mulan, where’s Gu Changsheng? Why don’t I see him?"
"Oh, Sister Mingyue! Changsheng? He is cultivating right now."
Dong Mulan replied thoughtlessly, not asking her purpose for coming here. Instead, she pulled Su Mingyue into another room and started chattering away.
"Sister Mingyue, you know what I saw that day..."
Meanwhile, in the main bedroom.
Gu Changsheng was seated cross-legged in the center of the bed, with his eyes closed as he meditated in silence.
In between all those days, he had also nicked time for cultivation. Now at the peak of the Body Refinement Realm, he was trying to achieve a breakthrough.
He was currently trying to break through to the Qi Refinement Realm.
The Body Refinement Realm signified physical growth, enhancing physical prowess and introducing Spiritual Qi to the body, but overall, spiritual energy wasn’t a necessity.
Whereas in the Qi Refinement Realm, a prototype storage space was created for Spiritual Qi, enabling cultivators to store and use Spiritual Qi as they wished.
It was essentially the first proper step towards becoming a cultivator, as from this realm onward, Spiritual Qi could be accumulated within the body and used much more efficiently.
As Gu Changsheng tried to circulate the surrounding Spiritual Qi through a special breakthrough method taught by Elder Ye, Spiritual Qi began to seep into his skin, converging in the area around his pelvis.
After all, this was his first time attempting to break through into the Qi Refinement Realm, and although Elder Ye had already explained the entire process to him, knowing something and actually doing it were two completely different matters.
Fortunately, the process went smoothly.
Slowly but surely, the Spiritual Qi accumulation surged as it began to form a small container, in which the Spiritual Qi spun counterclockwise, slowly and rhythmically.
And with this, Gu Changsheng achieved a breakthrough to the Qi Refinement Realm.
"Finally, Qi Refinement Realm!!"
He opened his eyes slowly, exhaling as he felt the energy flowing throughout his body.
Above his pelvis region stirred a meager amount of spiritual energy that enabled him to possess greater prowess and ability than before.
But the change wasn’t as exaggerated as he had imagined.
Unlike what he had read in novels in his previous life, there wasn’t any trace of an aura of breakthrough, and cultivation itself was a task of extreme focus, consuming all of his attention in a single point to attract Spiritual Qi.
Hell, even cultivation realms couldn’t be detected in the ways described in those novels.
When he asked his master how cultivators detected the cultivation of others, he just said through the Divine Sense of a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator.
For someone below that, you had to sense it through contact, like feeling Spiritual Qi for Qi Refinement cultivators and enhanced physical strength for Body Refinement cultivators.
Shaking his head, he returned his attention to cultivation, consolidating his Realm.
In the next room, Dong Mulan and Su Mingyue were gossiping when Su Mingyue felt the spiritual energy in the surroundings change, slowly converging towards the room Gu Changsheng was in.
She smiled slightly, calling out to his wife sitting right beside her.
"Hehe, it seems your dear husband succeeded in his breakthrough. Quite a charm you are for him, it appears to me."
Dong Mulan wasn’t one to take the teasing, so she replied proudly.
"Hmpphh, after all, whose husband is he!!"
After a while, Gu Changsheng ended his cultivation session. He came out only to see his wife and senior sister standing by the door.
"Congrats on your successful breakthrough, dear husband!!"
Dong Mulan congratulated him, and so did his senior sister.
"Little brother had a plentiful cultivation session, didn’t he?"
He greeted both while embracing his little wife, causing her to blush and complain.
"Hey! Senior Sister Su is here!!"
"So what? I’m hugging my own wife!"
He exclaimed, not caring at all about the dog food getting sprinkled around and the fact that it was literally being rubbed in someone’s face.
"Hmm! My purpose of coming here was to tell you that Elder Ye had organized a sect expedition with you and her included. We will go to the Sword Sect for a friendly exchange three days from now."
Unable to handle the couple’s loveliness, Su Mingyue came to the point, speaking out and leaving the next second.
Though he didn’t understand the ’we’ part, he just thought it was to make up the numbers so someone couldn’t find out Elder Ye’s shady plan.
But what he didn’t know was that he had already unknowingly matchmade his senior brother and sisters together.
"Go slowly, Senior Sister Su!"
Gu Changsheng called out as he watched Su Mingyue leave the house in a hurry.
He shook his head before turning towards his wife, who was still standing beside him.
"What’s with Senior Sister Su? She seems to be in quite a hurry."
Dong Mulan looked towards the direction Su Mingyue had left before turning back to her husband with a clueless expression.
"Probably because she couldn’t stand watching us show affection anymore."
"Huh?"
She blinked, clearly not understanding what she meant, causing him to roll his eyes at her before grabbing her arm and pulling her back inside.
"Forget it. Didn’t you hear what Senior Sister Su said? We’re going to the Sword Sect."