Bai Yu thought his judgment wasn’t bad. With just one glance, he had set his eyes on this girl, Yun Jiao. Even their ancestral master had appeared personally to meet her. This showed she was destined to be tied with the Daoist sects, born with the aptitude for cultivation. The fact that the ancestral master had bestowed such a profound cultivation method, the Xuanxin Jue, proved that her talent must be one in a million. Perhaps it wouldn’t take many years before she would step onto the Great Dao and achieve success in her cultivation.
Bai Yu instantly felt a great sense of responsibility fall upon him. He took Yun Jiao’s cultivation even more seriously than she herself did. Unlike his usual idle, shameless ways, he swept out the best room for her to use in seclusion and comprehension. He personally handled all the chores—washing clothes, cooking, sweeping, drying laundry—never letting her lift a finger.
Even the delicious meals he used to crave that Yun Jiao cooked for him, he gritted his teeth and gave up. He would rather eat plain rice porridge three times a day than let her be distracted for even half a moment.
What was appetite compared to her cultivation? This girl was going to practice the Xuanxin Jue and bring glory back to Qingyang. How could she be distracted by trivial chores? For her to grasp the mysteries of the book as soon as possible, he even dug out his pitifully small private stash and handed her a few bottles of treasured Spirit-Gathering Pills, the ones he had been reluctant to use himself. Though his heart ached, he still handed them over with a solemn, righteous face.
“Eat! Eat them all! As long as they help your cultivation. If it’s not enough, I’ll find another way. At worst, I’ll swallow my pride and borrow a few bottles from my old friends.”
Without waiting for Yun Jiao to reply, he turned and dashed back into his own room. He pulled out cinnabar and yellow paper and started focusing on drawing talismans. Clearly, he had to sell—cough, sell, not scam—more talismans, so that he could buy more pills.
After all, Daoist arts were not easy to learn. Some people spent their entire lives without achieving anything. Aptitude was extremely important. He himself had studied for half a lifetime, and he still could only occasionally draw some low-level talismans—he couldn’t even open the Heavenly Eye. The more profound the technique, the harder it was to comprehend. Especially the Xuanxin Jue. It was said that when the Bi clan’s ancestral master practiced this method, it had taken him decades just to comprehend it, and only after cultivating diligently for many more decades did he finally ascend.
Bai Yu had already prepared himself for Yun Jiao’s long battle ahead. In all the generations of the Qingyang Sect, it was rare to have such a promising disciple. Naturally, he had to be well-prepared in advance. Fortunately, there was still a long time before the girl would finish comprehending the text and begin her real cultivation—there was time to get ready.
He could already vaguely see, years from now, Qingyang Sect rising again in the Daoist world. Finally, he would not have failed the master and grandmaster who had passed the teachings down to him. The Qingyang lineage would continue!
For a while, Bai Yu was overcome with emotions. He drew talismans with increasing vigor. He worked for two days straight without feeling tired. The flowers in the temple seemed more fragrant, the clouds whiter, the plain porridge tastier, even the holes in the wall looked cuter. Even the girl, stern-faced while wielding a knife and slaughtering a chicken, looked rather kind and pleasant.…Wait a moment!
The girl?!
(⊙_⊙)
Bai Yu put down his cinnabar brush and rubbed his eyes hard. Looking carefully, he indeed saw Yun Jiao standing in the front courtyard. She was holding a bloody wild chicken in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other, skillfully gutting, skinning, and deboning it—her movements so practiced it seemed she had done it countless times before.
In just a moment, the chicken had been divided into three neat piles of bones, meat, and skin, laid in order on the stone slab, forming the shape of a chicken again.
“Girl!” Bai Yu panicked, forgetting to go around to the door. He threw down his brush, climbed out the window, and stood in shock, pointing at her and then at the chicken. “You… what are you doing?!”
“Killing a chicken.” Yun Jiao wiped her knife, looked back at him, and casually asked, “By the way, do you want braised or boiled?”
“Of course braised is bett—no, wait!” He blurted instinctively, then quickly caught himself, eyes wide. “You… why are you here? And this chicken?!”
“Found it at the gate.” Yun Jiao pointed toward the door, explaining casually, “I went out to hang the blankets and saw it. Judging from the wound, it must’ve been bitten to death by some canine beast. It’s been dead no more than two hours, so I brought it back. After five days of plain porridge, it’s good to change the flavor. No need to waste.”
“So that’s how it is… no, wrong!” The old man almost got sidetracked again. “Weren’t you supposed to be in seclusion, comprehending the Xuanxin Jue? Why are you out so soon?”
“You mean that blue book?”
“Yes!” The old man sighed, face full of concern. “That is a profound Daoist technique. You must focus on comprehending it to grasp its mysteries. You cannot give up halfway. Otherwise—”
“I finished it.”
“Yes, you must finish—wait, what did you say?!” The old man froze, thinking he’d misheard.
Yun Jiao cleaned the chicken meat and bones again, tossed away the feathers and skin, and repeated, “I already finished reading that book.”
“All… all of it?!” Bai Yu’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Could it really be that easy?
“Yes.” She pulled the book out of her pocket and handed it over.
Bai Yu instinctively took it and flipped open a page. After reading just two lines, a wave of dizziness hit him. His mind was about to lose control. He quickly shut the book, and the dizziness faded.
This was indeed the inheritance given by the ancestral master. Any profound Daoist cultivation manual contained traces of hidden mysteries. Only after fully comprehending the earlier parts could one proceed. Otherwise, forcing through would cause one’s mind to collapse and harm the soul.
But she had just said… she finished it?!
He knew the girl had a good memory, but this wasn’t about memorizing—it required true understanding and insight into the mysteries, otherwise one couldn’t persist to the end.
How long had it been? Five days?!
And she finished it… finished it… finished… finished!!
Σ(°△°|||)︴
The old man stood dumbfounded, unable to recover for a long time. Meanwhile, Yun Jiao, who had finished butchering the chicken, picked up the knife and headed toward the kitchen. She glanced at the large basin-sized hole in the wall.
“What happened to the wall? It wasn’t there a few days ago.”
Bai Yu answered reflexively, “Collapsed the night before last.”
“Collapsed from the middle?!” Yun Jiao looked at him suspiciously.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” The old man trembled. “It really wasn’t me! These old bones couldn’t knock that down.”
“Forget it!” Yun Jiao gave him a helpless look, as if saying you’re really not reliable. “We’ll fix it after we eat.”
She turned into the kitchen, lit the fire, and started stir-frying chicken pieces and stewing chicken bone soup with practiced ease.
In no time, mouthwatering aromas filled the air. Bai Yu sniffed involuntarily, swallowed, and edged closer to the kitchen. “Girl… you… you really finished that cultivation manual?”
“Yes.” Yun Jiao nodded.
“The whole thing? In five days?!”
Yun Jiao paused while flipping the chicken, then turned back to give him a questioning “study god” look. “Reading one book in five days—is that slow?”
She thought back. When she was skipping grades, she had read a medical history book in three days and an anatomy text in four. Those were far thicker than this little booklet. By comparison, this time was indeed a bit slower. So she added, “I studied medicine, so it’s not exactly the same field. I had to spend some time in the library looking up references, so it was a bit slower.”
“…”
Slower… a bit slower??!!
Bai Yu felt a mouthful of old blood rising to his throat. This kind of freakish speed, and she called it slow?! He suddenly thought of that ancestral master of the Bi clan, who had taken years to comprehend the Xuanxin Jue. If he knew this, he’d probably drop straight out of the Immortal Realm in sheer fury.
(End of Chapter)