“The spiritual energy inside her has settled down, there’s nothing seriously wrong. I’ll prescribe some medicine for her to drink to regulate her breathing, and she should rest well these next few days.”
Fang Cheng examined the sleeping girl. Small patches of red still flushed her arm. “These red spots will itch, be careful not to let her scratch them.”
“I’ll also prepare an ointment for her. Apply it evenly twice a day and dissolve it with spiritual energy, in a few days it’ll fade.”
Xie Wuwang gave a soft hum. “Was it something she ate?”
Fang Cheng stood up and stated matter-of-factly, “No. Xuanling Crystal Red-Cloud Mushroom does not make the one who eats it lose their reason and go berserk beating people. Her condition is simply a matter of personal constitution, she has an allergic reaction to mushrooms.”
“It’s not strange. Plenty of people are allergic to things, iron, plants, herbs. I’ve even treated a patient allergic to spirit stones. Spirit-mushrooms are far more potent than ordinary ones, which is why her reaction was so severe. From now on, make sure she doesn’t eat this sort of food again.”
Xie Wuwang lowered his eyes to the girl. “Understood.”
After a while, Fang Cheng brought over the prepared medicine and told Xie Wuwang to take it back and decoct it per instructions.
The diagnosis over, Fang Cheng dropped his professional demeanor in a single second, squinted, and leaned in to gossip. “So this is that new disciple you took on?”
He’d heard yesterday that Xie Wuwang had returned to the sect with a disciple in tow, and he’d wanted to go take a look right then, but there’d been a critically ill patient needing emergency care, and he’d been busy all night, only now getting a chance to rest and sleep a little.
Xie Wuwang: “Yes.”
Fang Cheng hmphed a couple of times and tossed him an exquisite jade box. “A meeting gift. Pass it along once she wakes, tell her it’s from her most handsome and dashing Senior Uncle Fang Cheng.”
“Never would’ve guessed five hundred years apart would turn your temperament around. Back in the day, no end of people wanted to take you as their master and you refused every one. I remember Old Shuo pressing you for a reason, and a certain someone put on his whole world-weary Buddhist-cultivator act and said something about it being ‘dull.'”
Fang Cheng folded his arms, sat in a chair, and went cold-faced. “Old Shuo was putting on an act too, chiming in with some nonsense about how a peerless master doesn’t need disciples, how he wanted to stand alone atop the summit and look down on this cold mortal world.”
“And now, a mere five hundred years later, you both have disciples, and that dog Old Shuo has taken TWO! I’m the only one who believed your garbage, and I’m still a lonely soul to this day.”
Fang Cheng grew genuinely indignant. “Cursed. I’m going to take disciples too. A hundred of them. I’ll send you meeting gifts until you’re both flat broke.”
Xie Wuwang ignored the tirade, tucked the medicine away, and said slowly, “The Lingyun Sect has two hundred thousand new recruits this year. If you want disciples, you’ll have to put in some effort and screen them carefully.”
At that, Fang Cheng got an instant splitting headache. How was that any different from fishing a needle out of the sea?
“Where’d you pick this disciple up?”
“The mortal realm.”
Great. The sea just got bigger.
Propping up his head, Fang Cheng thought for a while, then his eyes suddenly lit up.
Why insist on choosing from the unknown? Weren’t there candidates right in front of him? Other people’s stuff was always the best, and Shuo Yunhuai’s two disciples were surely fine seedlings.
It would even let Shuo Yunhuai experience the joy of getting demoted from Master to Senior Uncle. Just picturing his gnashing-teeth expression made Fang Cheng feel great.
The examination done, there was no need to linger. Xie Wuwang scooped up the sleeping girl and prepared to leave.
His sleeve rolled up a little, and Fang Cheng’s gaze swept across the young man’s arm. There was a bite mark on it. He really couldn’t be blamed for reading into things earlier, the scene when he walked in had genuinely been something.
The dignified Sword Venerable Wuwang, pinned to a bedpost, being bitten on the arm.
“By the way, dab some of that ointment on yourself when you get back,” Fang Cheng said.
Xie Wuwang, mildly puzzled, glanced over. ?
Fang Cheng pointed at the back of his hand, where a small patch of red had flushed up. “Didn’t notice you’d broken out yourself?”
Then he shot him a sidelong look. “Oh, Great Vehicle-stage experts have thick, tough hides and don’t feel a thing, right?”
Xie Wuwang: “……”
He had indeed noticed the reddish marks on the back of his hand, but he’d assumed Yun Xiu had made them tossing and pressing against him last night, so he hadn’t paid them any mind.
Xie Wuwang lowered his lashes.
Had he touched something strange yesterday?
……
Yun Xiu woke from a groggy haze to a thick, medicinal smell, a bitter astringency laced with a thread of white sandalwood.
Her body ached all over as if she’d been in a brawl with someone. She blinked and found she was in her own room.
Xie Wuwang had brought her here that morning: a little courtyard by the spirit-lake, architecture very much in his own style, clean, quiet, and elegant.
Yun Xiu slowly sat up on the couch and saw, not far off, a white-robed young man holding a scroll, lashes lowered, reading in silence. The source of the medicinal fragrance was beside her couch, a cup of decoction simmering over spirit-fire.
Fully awake now, Yun Xiu finally remembered what she’d done.
While she’d been out of her mind, she’d beaten up a person.
No, two.
And thrown in a beating for You Yujing, who’d tried to break up the fight, while she was at it.
…That morning she’d said she wouldn’t cause him trouble, and in less than a day she’d caused a great big pile of it.
A wave of guilt washed over her. She picked at her fingers and didn’t dare make a sound.
“Since you’re awake, drink your medicine.” The young man’s languid, calm voice suddenly sounded.
The medicine cup started up on its own and poured out a bowl of decoction. It felt warm to the touch. Yun Xiu didn’t dare ask questions, she took the little white-jade bowl, tipped her head back, and gulped it down in a few big swallows.
Then the bitterness hit, and she choked into a coughing fit.
“Why drink it so fast? I’m not going to fight you for it.”
Xie Wuwang gave her a lazy glance, set down his book, and walked over unhurriedly to sit down at her side.
A cup of warm water was held out to her. Yun Xiu cupped it and drank most of it, and the bitterness in her mouth finally eased a little.
Head down, not daring to look at him, she apologized guiltily. “…I’m, I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
The young man took the cup from her hand and set it beside the little medicine cup, his tone as calm as ever. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Yun Xiu was taken aback. “But I beat people up. Is it really all right?”
A soft laugh fell over the top of her head. “You weren’t afraid while you were fighting. Now you’re worried?”
Yun Xiu looked up, a little dazed, and saw the young man’s expression indolent and relaxed. He went on, unhurried, “Beaten’s beaten, it’s no great matter. And if anyone comes to lay blame, I’m standing in front of you. What is there to be afraid of?”
Yun Xiu: OvO!
What an astonishing thing to say.
In this whole affair, she was the little terror who’d beaten up someone else’s kid, and Xie Wuwang was the utterly unreasonable parent who doted on his own.
Not only was he not disciplining her, he was actually indulging her.
“Hold out your hand,” the young man said suddenly.
Yun Xiu didn’t understand. Was this corporal punishment? But smacking her palm seemed a bit childish, she wasn’t a seven- or eight-year-old anymore.
Mind a mess, Yun Xiu slowly held out her hand.
The next second, the young man’s cool fingertips settled in her palm.
At the instant of contact, Yun Xiu felt her heart give a thump, and the blood in her body heated along with it. A little hot.
…A little strange.
He’d touched her hand this way before, but there hadn’t been a reaction like this.
He didn’t smack her palm the way she’d imagined, though. His fingertip merely traced down her palm to the base of her thumb and pressed there with a bit of force.
A tiny prickling sensation came, and a warmth slowly rose inside her body.
“Do you feel the spiritual energy? Try to guide it here.”
Yun Xiu nodded and tried to steer that warmth, slowly flowing it toward her arm, gathering like a babbling little stream into her palm, condensing into a small ball.
The young man’s fingertip pressed at the base of her thumb released with the motion. Instinctively, Yun Xiu’s fingertips twitched, as if to grab his hand.
A cool little glazed box dropped into her palm, and Yun Xiu snapped back to herself.
…Ah-shee, what kind of pervert move was she pulling on Xie Wuwang?
But the young man clearly hadn’t noticed that little gesture. He instructed calmly, “Rub this ointment on the red spots on your body, then dissolve it with spiritual energy the way you just did, twice a day.”
Xie Wuwang looked at the red spots on the back of her hand. “This spirit-mushroom put you through an ordeal, but it was a blessing in disguise, it broke you through in cultivation. You’re now at the Foundation Establishment stage.”
Yun Xiu: OvO?
She hadn’t done anything, and she’d Foundation-Established just like that?
Wasn’t cultivation in this world supposed to take ages of grinding to gain a single level? How had she gone from zero to Foundation Establishment in one day and one night?
Could it be that she wasn’t actually a cannon-fodder side character, but some kind of invincible protagonist?
Xie Wuwang, too, felt the speed of her progress was genuinely fast, but he was certain her body had had no spiritual energy at all before she came, on that point he could not be wrong.
Turning it over, the only explanation for cultivating to the seventh layer of Qi Refinement in a single night was that her body absorbed spiritual qi extremely well. She’d long been in a place barren of spiritual qi, and the moment she reached the qi-rich spirit-lake she’d automatically absorbed and refined it.
Add today’s boost from that spirit-plant, and she’d broken straight through the cultivation barrier into Foundation Establishment.
“It’s late. Rest well here these next few days. Call me if you need anything.”
Xie Wuwang dropped those words and left the room, closing the door behind him to give her privacy to apply the ointment.
Yun Xiu opened the little glazed medicine box, dabbed some of the white ointment onto the red spots on the back of her hand, spread it evenly, and dissolved it with spiritual energy. The cool ointment covered the itch, and at last she felt much more comfortable.
She took off her clothes and applied the ointment to every reddened patch, but when she got to her back she ran into a technical difficulty.
…She couldn’t reach.
Between asking Xie Wuwang for help and doing it herself, Yun Xiu decisively chose to struggle on alone.
She dabbed ointment on her fingertips and rubbed toward her back, working at it painstakingly bit by bit, and in the end just smeared it around with her fingers a few times without caring whether it was even, and put her clothes back on.
The medicine kicked in, drowsiness came over her, and soon she was asleep again.
Bright moonlight spilled over the spirit-lake, and the cloud-udumbara flowers unfurled and bloomed.
Xie Wuwang waited outside for the better part of an hour, and once the girl inside was deeply asleep, he pushed open the door, walked in, and returned to his chair to keep reading.
On the table sat a stack of books from the Repository Pavilion, mostly concerning cultivation for Foundation Establishment cultivators.
His own Foundation Establishment had been so many years ago, so long past, that he no longer remembered what he was supposed to be careful about.
Xie Wuwang turned the pages methodically. From the girl’s side came the sudden rustle of fabric.
He looked up to see her hand unconsciously reaching to scratch the red marks on the back of her neck.
Remembering the medical instructions, Xie Wuwang walked over and put her hand back under the covers.
She settled for a while. Xie Wuwang turned a few more pages, and the girl reverted to her old ways, reaching to scratch again.
So Xie Wuwang simply caught both her slender wrists, formed a hand-seal, and bound them with a thin length of vine.
After watching a moment to confirm she couldn’t scratch anymore, he turned away satisfied, sat back in the soft chair, and continued reading.
A short while later.
Xie Wuwang suddenly heard a snapping sound.
……
Early the next morning, Yun Xiu woke to find her entire body bound up in vines, hands and feet unable to move.
Yun Xiu was silent for two minutes.
In those two minutes, a great many things flashed through her mind.
Most of them just weren’t broadcast-safe.
At last, trembling, she lifted her lashes and looked toward the white-robed young man in the soft chair. After an inner struggle, she worked up the courage to ask, “Um… Master.”
“Is, is tying me up also part of recuperating?”