CH 34

Chapter 34: Returned

“Xiao Mei, you’ve gotten thinner again.” Originally Li Xinmei still had a bit of baby fat on her cheeks. However, as of now, that bit of fat was gone and her chin was pointed. The sight of it caused people’s hearts to ache.

“Grannie, you look like you’ve gotten younger again.” The two spoke simultaneously. After those words came out, Su Tingyun and Li Xinmei started laughing together.

At the side, Yin Li pouted. “Grannie, you care about Mei jiejie the most.” Then she beamed. “I like Mei jiejie the most too.”

Du Xizhi, for lack of a better option, pulled Yin Li away as he said, “Grannie, we’ll leave first.”

After Yin Li and Du Xizhi left, Su Tingyun went back inside the house with Li Xinmei. She then took out all the Meridian Moistening Pills that she had refined this past half a year and gave them to Li Xinmei. “These were all refined with that fire so the quality is much better than before. I think it wouldn’t lose to third rank Meridian Moistening Pills.”

While she was speaking, she had one hand propped against her back and her chest was puffed up with pride.

“En. I’ll go cultivate as soon as I get back.” Li Xinmei’s eyes were practically glowing as she accepted the medicinal bottle. She looked as if she itched go back and try them right now.

“There’s no need to work that hard…”

Before Su Tingyun even finished speaking, she saw Li Xinmei shake her head. “Everyone else is working really hard too. From the start, to cultivate is to defy the natural order and fight over the control of one’s fate with the Heavens. Not a single day can be wasted.”

If it weren’t for the fact that she wanted to come here and see Grannie, she would still be absorbing spiritual energy and practicing mental cultivation methods. Upon seeing Grannie’s concerned expression, she gave a smile. “I’m doing well, I’m just a little tired from studying arrays. However, I can already lay down a lot of strong arrays now. Even Master praised me and said it was amazing.”

She thought for a little bit, then said, “Remember those people from the foot of the mountain? Xu Wei is now already at the sixth stage of Spirit Condensation. If I don’t work harder, how will I be able to bring Grannie along and hit…”

What words did Grannie use last time? It sounded really satisfying. She paused for a moment, then said, “Hit their faces with ‘pa pa pa’s!”

There was pressure from fear of falling behind, and Li Xinmei was also unwilling to be left behind by them. After she finished speaking, she then said, “Grannie, I’m going to head back to train.”

Su Tingyun was very happy that Li Xinmei was such a sensible girl that was obedient and cultivated diligently. Not to mention, Li Xinmei even remembered what she had once said and kept it in mind. However, Su Tingyun still hoped that she could relax a little. This feeling seemed just like that of a parent persuading her children not to work themselves so hard.

However, as of now Li Xinmei already had her own goals so as the guardian, her role should be to support Li Xinmei with all her heart. As for herself, she should also work to be a good role model. Even if her aptitude was abnormally poor, she can’t give up on cultivating. No matter what, as long as she tried she will definitely be able to advance.

Other people have already advanced, yet she was still stuck at the first stage of Spirit Condensation.

Once Li Xinmei left, Su Tingyun also started cultivating. She utilized the mental cultivation method and revolved her spiritual energy until her spiritual consciousness was so exhausted she could no longer guide her spiritual energy. However, despite tiring herself out this much, she still didn’t feel any changes in her body.

She continued persevering with this for an entire month. Based on the fact that she was only at the first stage of Spirit Condensation, under normal circumstances she definitely should have advanced a little. However, when Su Tingyun used her spiritual consciousness to check her own body, she found that her meridians were still only capable of retaining that same amount of spiritual energy and that this entire month of cultivation hadn’t changed anything at all.

Having poor aptitude was just like being a leaking bottle. How much spiritual energy could the bottle possibly contain if it was full of holes? Unless she somehow got a high-rank medicinal pill or some rare treasure to cleanse out her bone and marrows, it would really be hard to advance. Even if she continuously cultivated nonstop day after day until the day she died, she’ll probably still be stuck at the Spirit Condensation Stage.

Was it possible to find a treasure while holed up at home? It clearly wasn’t. But, you want her to go out and learn through experience? Grannie indicates that she can’t do it. In the end, she should just be content and cherish her now stable lifestyle. Once the wind season passes, she’ll just go back to the household to continue being the residential big boss!

Xiao Mei’s world was here. When the thought that they would have to part ways in the future occurred to Su Tingyun, she became a bit depressed. If only Xiao Mei was willing to go to the mundane world as well. In life, it’s enough just to enjoy life alongside the people you care about. What need is there to chase after that elusive dream of immortality?

Another two days passed. Su Tingyun was planting medicinal grass in the pond. She had just finished sprinkling the seeds but before she could use Spring Wind Transform Rain, Liu Feizhou, wearing a flashy, bright purple robe, appeared next to the pond.

After a year of not seeing him, he seemed to give off even stronger of an imposing aura Liu Feizhou. He seemed even more icily arrogant as well.

He had arrived noiselessly and simply stood there like a ghost, causing Su Tingyun quite a fright when she noticed. After Su Tingyun recognized who it was, she immediately faked a smile and rubbed off the mud on her hands. Then, she bowed towards Liu Feizhou and greeted him politely, “Master Liu, you’ve come out from seclusion.”

Liu Feizhou gave a cold humph in reply. He sized Su Tingyun up, then said, “Looks like you’ve actually been doing quite well. I never expected that you would have been able to completely get rid of Gu Hao.”

He raised his eyebrows and continued, “I heard that Spiritual Master Lingwu had also come from that side of the void sea. He seems to care a lot about you. Could it be…”

Su Tingyun’s heart went ‘tha-thump’. Spiritual Master Lingwu and she did not want for their past relationship to be found out by any more people. In reality, even she wasn’t willing to accept that truth. After all, she wasn’t Wei Yun, she wasn’t Spiritual Master Lingwu’s real hair-bound wife.

Just as Su Tingyun’s emotions were on edge, she heard Liu Feizhou say in an uncertain tone, “Could it be that you’re Spiritual Master Lingwu’s birth mother…?”

He could tell that her bone age was over seventy, but he wasn’t sure how old Spiritual Master Lingwu was. All he knew was that Spiritual Master Lingwu had extremely high innate talent and had broken through to the Golden Core Stage at a young age. As for how young exactly was ‘young’, Liu Feizhou didn’t know since his cultivation was lower than that of Spiritual Master Lingwu’s. However, if one inferred by age, this possibility couldn’t be ruled out.

Su Tingyun almost spurted out a mouthful of old blood upon hearing Liu Feizhou’s speculation.

Su Tingyun: “Ha. Ha.”

If Spiritual Master Lingwu had heard this, he definitely would have skinned Liu Feizhou alive.

Before Su Tingyun even gave a response, Liu Feizhou shook his head at his own speculation. “On second thought, that’s unlikely. You’re way too ugly. Forget it, this isn’t the time to be discussing these things. I heard that you know how to refine pills now and that your skill is actually not bad. It just turns out that we’re lacking manpower so come help out.”

After he finished speaking, he picked up Su Tingyun by her collar again and ascended into the air like last time. However, this time, there was someone that shouted, “Hey! What are you doing!? Treat my Grannie with more respect!”

“What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing!?” The Orchid Tongue Grass repeated the words like an amplified echoing machine.

The person who had shouted was Du Xizhi. As he shouted, he sent his sword flying aggressively towards Liu Feizhou.

Du Xizhi was wearing the disciple clothing of Heaven Firmament Peak so Liu Feizhou naturally knew who he is. He didn’t feel like spending time explaining things to a brat so he simply said, “I’m inviting her over to help with refining pills. The situation is urgent and cannot be delayed. If it displeases you, then you should go complain to your master and see if he’ll pay any attention to you. From the start, if it weren’t for your master’s request we wouldn’t be working ourselves to death refining pills!”

Du Xizhi was originally glowering angrily at Liu Feizhou but after hearing this, he said, “Huh? You said my master asked you for help? He has returned?”

All that he got in reply was another cold humph.

Liu Feizhou entered a pill refining room in Heaven Jade Pavilion with Su Tingyun in tow. Then, he threw a pill formula at her. “This is a second rank Detox Pill formula. Immediately start refining pills according to the formula. The more you make, the better.”

“Hah?”

Seeing her confused expression, Liu Feizhou gave a brief explanation. “Didn’t a mysterious palace appear on the island? The Wuliang Sect is closest to the island so they sent out a huge amount of disciples. However, they ended up falling into the trap set by the unorthodox sects. Eighty percent of the members in all the factions has been poisoned and all the Detox Pills in the markets have already been intentionally purchased by someone.”

Originally, only the high-leveled cultivators who were at the Golden Core Stage and above were supposed to go. However, people didn’t understand the situation and more and more people ended up running over there to try their luck. This caused the island to be filled with people. From time to time, fights would break out. The orthodox and unorthodox cultivators kept coming into contact and fighting. In the end, no one managed to obtain any benefits.

The Elders from Wuliang Sect discovered the trap early and used arrays in combination with revolving their spiritual energies to drive away the poisonous mist. Due to that, the large majority of the disciples were fine. A second rank Detox Pill would be enough to cure them. As for those Elders that had revolved their spiritual energies, they ended up having bad luck and were severely injured.

The Alchemists in Wuliang Sect couldn’t handle it so Spiritual Master Lingwu had no choice but to ask Liu Feizhou’s Master to exit seclusion ahead of time. Liu Feizhou was originally learning about profound techniques to refine pills but now that had been interrupted. He didn’t even know when would be the next time his master went into seclusion.

There were several thousands of ordinary disciples that had gotten slightly poisoned. One stove of pills at most only contained one hundred pills. Although it was only a second rank pill, his pill formation success rate was only at sixty percent when he refined in bulk.

Although the task had been divided between Xu Yishan, him, and the other Alchemists of Wuliang Sect, the amount he had to handle was still several hundred pills. Upon recalling this, Liu Feizhou got irritated again.

“We’re only guest Alchemists of Heaven Firmament Peak and there’s not even anything wrong with the cultivators from Heaven Firmament Peak. However, your master came and asked us for help and our master agreed. You also count as half a disciple of mine so I’ll leave the task of these second rank Detox Pills to you.”

If she has to refine them then she’ll just refine them. Su Tingyun didn’t dare to expose the fact that she now had a pill flame so she continued to use the spirit wood to refine the pills. After two failures, she succeeded in making a batch. Opening it, she counted. Her batch had thirty-three pills.

As for Liu Feizhou, he had already used his pill fire and cauldron to successfully refine three batches of pills. In total there were 237 pills.

Wuliang Sect disciples were waiting outside the pill refining room. There were quite a lot of them as there was one representative from pretty much every Hall. There were too many disciples that had gotten poisoned. Every Hall had some. Since there weren’t that many medicinal pills as of now, those who managed to obtain them first would be the first to be cured. Naturally, everyone hoped that the disciples from their own faction could get the medicinal pills first.

However, they had reached a unanimous agreement outside and agreed that each hall representative would receive a batch for each time they came and lined up. Thus, no conflicts broke out and no one tried to forcibly seize the pills.

Every time a batch of pills succeeded, it would immediately be delivered to the poisoned disciples. When it was the cultivator from Blade Sect’s turn, his face immediately turned pale upon seeing that Su Tingyun was the one giving out her pills. She was holding such a small bottle, it definitely contained less than other that of the other Alchemists. In addition, the quality definitely wasn’t as good as Master Liu’s. However, he didn’t dare to complain so he could only shuffle forward with a sad face.

Only when Liu Feizhou shouted for him to hurry up did he reluctantly take the pills. Su Tingyun didn’t mind it. Although the formula was the same, if the abilities of the Alchemists were different, the quality of the pills would also turn out different. Naturally, the effectiveness would also differ. The fact that these disciples didn’t have faith in her wasn’t anything strange.

She continued to refine pills. Because she was using spirit wood, her speed was much slower than Liu Feizhou’s. In the time she took to refine one batch, Liu Feizhou had already finished multiple batches.

However, this time, she happened to finish at the same time as Liu Feizhou.

When Su Tingyun opened the door, the first person she saw was that Blade Sect disciple from last time. He was definitely going to cry this time. He had waited half the day yet ended up having to take her pills again.

Before Su Tingyun even stepped out with the pill bottle, she saw that Blade Sect disciple rush up and snatch the pill bottle directly out of her hands. The Blade Sect was last in line of the six sects. Right now, the one behind him was the representative of the Weapon Hall, which was naturally first in line. The disciple from the Weapon Hall had originally been prepared to intimidate the disciple from the Blade Sect in order to get Master Liu’s pills. He didn’t expect that the cultivator from the Blade Sect would rush up like that, and of all things, grab the pills from the middle-aged woman.

Liu Feizhou’s eyelids twitched. He turned around to glance at Su Tingyun, then gave a cold laugh. He had been pretty attentive while refining the pills. However, from the looks of how that disciple had acted, the old woman’s pill quality was still better than his and it wasn’t just by a small amount. Only a large disparity in effect could have caused them to give up on quantity in order to choose quality. Anyways, for the time being those disciples had no risk of dying. They could still endure for a couple days so they’d definitely be happy to get pills that would enable them to recover quickly.

Thinking to here, Liu Feizhou’s gaze changed a little as he looked towards Su Tingyun. His brows slightly knit as he watched her with a cold gaze. Taking in her vulgar actions as she lit the fire and added wood, Liu Feizhou…

He humphed again to express his disdain.

Humph humph humph! Humph your lil’ sis! Are you the reincarnation of a hog?

Su Tingyun rolled her eyes as she uttered in her heart, “Humph!”

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Credits: Translated by Chiyomira, Proofread by Yours Truly