"You don't know anything about our family."
The most teenage answer possible from a teenager.
"Of course. I don't need to know. I don't even need to hear the answer from you—you need to answer yourself. Your father and brother lost a wife and a mother. And now they've lost you too for the sake of... What, exactly?"
"I just want my family to be reunited again."
"And what if that's impossible? You know your father was partly at fault in that situation too."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Think. You have goals and dreams. You have a future. You're the future Mistress of Frozen Cloud Palace. Then suddenly enemies attack you. You fight them off, but you suffer a head injury and lose your memory.
"Then some ordinary merchant finds you, saves you, takes care of you, and becomes your husband. You don't remember Frozen Cloud Palace, you don't remember your obligations to your teacher and the Palace Mistress, you don't remember your goal of finding your mother. You just live, having forgotten everything. Then one day your memory comes back. Do you understand?"
"So Father is to blame for everything?"
"No. Not at all. If your father hadn't saved her, she might have died. If your father had saved her but hadn't married her, then maybe one of your father's guards or someone else would've taken her as a wife. A lone woman with no memory, injured on top of that, couldn't have survived in this world. No one is guilty, but everyone is guilty. Do you understand now that nothing is that simple?"
"I don't."
"And you aren't supposed to. It's actually very complicated. That's why, before making decisions, you have to consider every possibility. Your mind has to be flexible and account for every option, even the most unbelievable ones. But you've set yourself a childish goal and you're charging straight ahead. Understand?"
"It's simply the right thing to do."
"Is that what your heart tells you?"
"Yes."
And there went any doubts I had about that thing.
"Let's try another possibility. What if it takes too long?"
"That's all right."
"Actually, it's very much not all right. You forgot that your father and brother are ordinary mortals. They won't live long enough to see you accomplish your goals."
"I'll..."
"Get stronger as fast as possible regardless of the price? And here we are again."
"I suppose so." God, the way she pouted was cute.
"All right. It's nearly impossible to lie to you, isn't that right?"
"That's right."
"I'm your husband. Did I lie?"
I simply left out the word "future." Otherwise, I was confident in myself.
"How is that possible?" The poor thing even took several steps back.
"I hate you. I like you very much. Where did I lie?"
I hated not her specifically, but the version of her from the book in the future. I liked her as she was now.
"Nowhere. But..."
"Convinced now that your heart can deceive you too?"
"How did you do that?"
"I just used my brain. I'll explain later. Now tell me: do you know what a clone is?"
The finishing touch. I needed to smash her trust in this thing to pieces. I didn't like this "Glass Heart." Something was very wrong with it.
"No. What is it?"
"It's a technology or a technique. Imagine someone takes one drop of your blood and creates an exact copy of you from that drop. Your body, face, eyes, even your memories. The clone has all of it."
"Does such a mysterious technique exist?"
"It does. Can you picture it?"
"Yes."
"Now imagine Xia Qingyue is sleeping in her room in the Palace. Someone sneaks in, creates her clone and leaves it in her place, while Xia Qingyue herself is kidnapped. Can you picture that?"
"That's frightening."
"We haven't even gotten to the frightening part yet. The worst part is that the clone won't know she's a clone. She has all of Qingyue's memories. She remembers falling asleep in this bed, and she remembers just waking up in this bed. As far as she's concerned, she is Xia Qingyue. So how do you know that you are you and not a clone?"
Done. The girl stared at me with huge, frightened eyes. And I hadn't even started on the dream and the caterpillar.
"Nonsense." She was presumably trying to say it angrily, but it came out pitiful. "I am me. I am Xia Qingyue."
"That's exactly what a clone would say."
"Brother Lun, you're scaring me."
"But the point isn't to scare my sweet Yue. You just need to understand that overconfidence is stupid. Doubt is good. I know you were raised on that nonsense about how a practitioner must always be confident because we are the great ones defying the will of Heaven. And that's partly right, but only in moderation. There is always room for doubt."
"I need to think."
"Of course. Come on, let's train."
For two whole months, the girl didn't dare bring up things like that with me again. I'd seriously overloaded her brain. Training was going well too. I could already create a lotus with twelve petals, while Qingyue had a whole lot of them.
The girl progressed much faster than I did at this, which was normal. With her buffs, how could she not? We killed beasts from time to time too, but that wasn't our main occupation. Progress was what mattered. We'd have plenty of time to butcher the beasts later. I had the means.
One evening, the client finally ripened.
"Brother Lun, I don't understand you."
"What exactly don't you understand, little Yue?"
"How can you live like that? Constantly doubting everything?"
"I'll tell you the story of my life. I was born into a clan where every member had been cursed by the Phoenix God. No clan member could rise above the tenth level of the Elementary Profound Realm. Everyone said the Phoenix was a god, that an ordinary mortal couldn't bypass its curse, and that we were doomed. But I doubted. I doubted the elders' words. I doubted the power of the god and its curse. But I wasn't a fool who charged straight ahead. Instead of trying to find a solution to the curse, I thought, 'If I can't develop my profound veins, I'll develop my body.' And in the end, here I am."
"How did you remove the curse?"
"I simply tempered my body so much that I could stand under the Phoenix's fire and became immune to it."
"You stood under the Phoenix's fire and survived?"
"I have a good body. And yes, I became almost invulnerable not just to the Phoenix's fire, but to its curse too. See? I doubted. I didn't charge straight ahead. I used my head—and I succeeded."
"Is that why you're afraid of fire?" Oh, those huge eyes looking at me with such a palette of emotions. Beautiful.
"No, I'm not afraid of fire anymore. I saw my weakness"—I stuck my hand into the flames—"and I solved the problem."
"But you were afraid before."
"Yes. You noticed it yourself, while I hadn't even noticed."
"The price of power."
"You learn fast."
"How do I start thinking like you?"
"To begin with, you need at least a basic education. Let's leave that for later. I think you already have plenty to think about."
Have I told you about the most important thing? Something far more important than all those gods, goddesses, inheritances, and other crap? No?
The True Profound Realm gives you control over energy outside your body. Why is that important? I learned how to brake. Yaaahoooo! I don't plow the ground with my face anymore—what could possibly be more important? I just redirect all my momentum through profound energy into the ground or the sky. I can also turn much more sharply, which gives me greater maneuverability.
So my Falling Star movement art began evolving from a simple trick into something with the properties of a real technique, and that couldn't help but make me happy. I hadn't stopped following my old style.
More specifically: I know some piece of crap existed in canon, and I know roughly—very roughly—how it worked. Why not reproduce it?
So, I had ice, and I remembered a movement technique that worked specifically in tandem with that element: Moon-Splitting Cascade.
Despite its ridiculously pompous name, the technique was pretty good. Top-tier, even. And there was something I could learn from it. How could I integrate ice into Falling Star?
First, I used ice spikes to make my grip stronger. Second, I tried to create absolutely smooth ice—in other words, do the opposite and completely eliminate traction so I could slide instead of taking steps.
That removed upward momentum from the equation entirely, so much less time was wasted.
So I got faster. Much faster. By about three hundred percent. Naturally, only while using the technique. But that was enough. Still, that wasn't the point of a top-tier technique. Those were all just tricks.
Once I realized that the local "Dao" had nothing to do with normal physics and that you could invent any bullshit you wanted as long as it worked, my life suddenly became much easier.
Why not work with the concept of sliding, which is part of ice? What if my enemies' gazes slid off me and failed to see me? In normal physics? Bullshit! In a cultivation world? Also bullshit, because normal physics exists here too and, incidentally, works perfectly well. Profound energy just does its own crazy shit around it.
Moon-Splitting Cascade had its own concealment abilities, didn't it? Which meant I could do some shamanism with ice too and dig in that direction.
I also made lotuses. Out of ice. Lots of lotuses. Nobody had canceled training the Palace technique. God, I already hated that damned flower.
"Roses are better!" I shouted from time to time, making poor Qingyue glance at me strangely.
But in truth, she was tired too, and I'm sure she hated that flower no less than I did.
"You said I need an education," the girl finally decided to approach me again.
"Exactly. A basic education and knowledge of the world."
"I had an education. I know about the world. Father hired the best tutors and..."
"Acceleration due to gravity?"
"What?"
"If I simply let go of a pebble over a cliff, how fast will it fall?"
"How would I know?"
"Twelve meters per second per second. I measured it when I was a kid. That's the acceleration due to gravity on our planet. If I let go of a pebble, it'll fall at twelve meters per second, and every second its speed will increase by another twelve meters per second. That's such a basic thing that every child should know it."
"I don't know much about the air element."
"That has nothing to do with the elements of profound energy. The world is not profound energy. I only realized that myself not long ago."
"But we were told..."
"They lied."
Now she was looking at me angrily.
"Teacher would never lie to me."
"Your teacher doesn't know either. But in reality, profound energy isn't the world itself. It's like clothing. Imagine your body is the world, and profound energy is clothing. The clothes on you take your shape and move when you move. Or the other way around. If I pull you by your sleeve"—which I did in reality—"your arm rises. So the connection is fairly strong. But... if your clothes are blue, that doesn't mean your skin is blue too. They aren't the same thing."
"Then why do I need to know this?"
"Without knowing the world, you'll never truly understand profound energy either. And without that, you'll never be able to think clearly and look at your fate with your eyes wide open."