Chapter 37

When fog rose over the Lidan River, it seemed as though there were no living creatures either in the river or above it. Only when the dense fog fully dispersed would birds fly over the river.

A white bird spread its wings and skimmed across the river surface. It had intended to rest on the mast of a small ship, but was frightened away by a wail and swiftly flew off.

Fang Yue clung tightly to the mast, almost about to cry. “Martial Uncle, I really can’t run anymore. My legs already can’t move!”

“Is that so?” Lin He walked over, grabbed Fang Yue by the back of his collar, and easily peeled him off the mast. “If your legs can’t move, then follow me back inside and train your arm strength.”

Fang Yue let out another miserable scream.

Xu Yizhuo held a plate of melon seeds and peeked around from a distance, her heart full of sympathy.

Lin He noticed Xu Yizhuo in the distance and cheerfully suggested, “Since you’re idle anyway, why don’t you…”

Xu Yizhuo shook her head hard. “I’m not your martial nephew!”

Lin He’s devilish training had begun three days ago.

When she said the five words “I am a body cultivator,” Xu Yizhuo and Fang Yue had not yet realized the seriousness of the problem. Not until Lin He started by making them hold a horse stance for fifteen minutes. Fang Yue held on strongly for seven and a half minutes before his legs no longer felt like his own. Xu Yizhuo had not held the stance for long before sitting on the ground and refusing to move. Whether she had even lasted one minute was hard to say.

After graduation, she had not [read the original at bailiantales.com]even finished a full 800-meter run once. She had long since become a useless cub.

Of course, Lin He would not allow Xu Yizhuo to slack off. When that ruthless iron hand reached toward her, Xu Yizhuo had a flash of inspiration in her desperation and shouted, “I’m not a disciple of your sect!”

Right. Lin He was Fang Yue’s martial uncle, not her martial uncle. Why did she have to train together with Fang Yue?

Lin He had not thought of this point before either and froze when she heard it.

Xu Yizhuo took the opportunity to climb up from the ground and run far away, even giving Fang Yue a “wish you peace” look.

Without a little friend suffering with him, Fang Yue’s days on the ship became even more torturous. A few days later, Xu Yizhuo could not help strolling around in front of Fang Yue. While watching him get trained half to death by Lin He, she cracked melon seeds, looking as leisurely as a senior sister in university happily watching her juniors go through military training.

Crossing the Lidan River would take roughly seven days, and only half the time had passed.

Fang Yue was carried back into the room by Lin He. Xu Yizhuo did not follow. She sat on the deck and continued reading the Qi-Nourishing Art. Life on the ship was extremely dull, and this world had no internet. Aside from finding happiness in Fang Yue’s suffering, Xu Yizhuo could only read books.

Taking advantage of this time, Xu Yizhuo organized the classics that had been messily piled inside the golden hairpin. Most of the texts involved divine meridians. Xu Yizhuo guessed that Di Xiang truly had not deliberately tricked her in this matter. These classics were very likely things Di Xiang had studied in the past, and she had simply given Xu Yizhuo what she herself had learned.

But she had not expected that the two of them had different innate conditions, and Xu Yizhuo could not learn many of the classics at all.

After flipping through them again and again, the one most suitable for her right now was still the most basic cultivation method in the cultivation world: the Qi-Nourishing Art.

The Qi-Nourishing Art had seven chapters.

The first chapter briefly explained how to draw qi into the body. The latter six chapters contained more content. Aside from the most basic content on how Qi Refining cultivators absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, they also introduced some basic offensive and defensive spells. Xu Yizhuo did not dare test spells on the ship, so she only meditated and cultivated according to the content of the method.

Her cultivation efficiency was extremely stable. After meditating for a while, Xu Yizhuo suddenly realized that she had basically been idling.

Wasn’t this exactly how stable gaining experience while idling was?

When she meditated, she did not feel at all the sluggish sensation of spiritual energy circulating through the meridians described in the book. Everything went so smoothly that Xu Yizhuo grew drowsy.

Before long, under the warm autumn sun, Xu Yizhuo actually fell asleep lying sideways on the deck.

Old Li came out of the cabin. He was already somewhat unused to daylight, and when he walked out, he narrowed his eyes.

His foot almost stepped on a book that had fallen to the ground. Old Li sighed, tidied up the book, placed it beside Xu Yizhuo, then walked back into the room. He soon returned to the deck, and when he came back, there was an extra thin blanket in his hand. Old Li crouched down and carefully covered Xu Yizhuo with the blanket.

The river wind was chilly. Even during the day with the sun out, sleeping outside like this would inevitably risk catching a chill.

After covering her with the blanket, Old Li sat down beside Xu Yizhuo. His expression was calm as he gazed into the distance, as if he could see all the way to the Western Continent toward which the ship’s bow was pointing.

Behind him came footsteps almost too faint to hear.

The newcomer had not deliberately lightened his steps. This was simply how he usually walked. Without paying close attention, it was hard to notice him approaching. When he suddenly appeared behind someone, to that person, the newcomer would probably seem as strange and unpredictable as a ghost.

Old Li noticed that someone had come, but did not turn around.

That person stopped one step away from Old Li and asked, “Since you had already resolved to leave, why go back?”

His tone carried a trace of laziness. It was Mister Yu’s voice. He wore dull gray coarse cloth clothes and held a rag in his hand, looking as though he had just finished cleaning somewhere.

Old Li did not answer him. Instead, he asked, “Why would Pingzhou Pavilion send you to the shipyard? Isn’t that wasting your talent on a minor job?”

“I had too much free time.” Mister Yu yawned. “Besides, my main body is properly staying on the Western Continent. This is just a puppet.”

“Your soul-division technique is superb. There are only a little over a hundred Soul Transformation cultivators on the Western Continent. Which one are you?”

Mister Yu smiled. “There are indeed only a little over a hundred famous ones, but there are also nameless people like me. Putting me aside, I can’t tell who you are either.”

Old Li’s expression was calm. “I am a nameless person like you, nothing more.”

Mister Yu’s gaze fell on Xu Yizhuo, and he smiled again.

“Legend says there are people in this world who bear great fortune, shining like the North Star while all other stars gather around them. Yet such a person has not been seen for several thousand years.” Mister Yu sighed. “It seems I’ve caught up with a good time.”

Old Li did not answer him and only looked toward the end of the river.

Mister Yu seemed not to have expected a response from the start and continued speaking on his own. “You were willing to seal your own cultivation to leave the Western Continent. I’m afraid you must have intended never to return in this life. So why regret it now?”

Old Li said mildly, “I know Pingzhou Pavilion likes collecting information. I didn’t expect someone would also be curious about the trivial matters of this old man.”

Mister Yu smiled without speaking. He stepped forward and began wiping the ship’s railing. As he worked, he said, “Since you are returning to the Western Continent, you must have a reason that compels you to go back even if tribulation lightning descends. But this little girl seems to walk a different path from you.”

Old Li was silent for a long time.

Just when Mister Yu thought he would not receive an answer and was about to move elsewhere to continue wiping the railing, he suddenly heard Old Li say softly, “Naturally, she has her own road to walk.”

Three days later.

Xu Yizhuo lay against the ship’s side, holding up a telescope she had borrowed from Mister Yu and looking into the distance.

When Lin He walked over to her side, she even mocked her a little. “I can see the opposite shore without using that thing.”

“You’re a body cultivator, so of course your eyesight is good,” Xu Yizhuo muttered. “When will we reach the Western Continent?”

She had seen the riverbank through the telescope very early, but even after the small ship had sailed for so long, she still could not see the shore with her naked eyes.

“It’s actually still far,” Lin He said. “Wait a little longer.”

As she spoke, Xu Yizhuo heard heavy footsteps nearby. She had grown used to those footsteps over the past few days. Without turning her head, she knew who was running over.

Sure enough, before long, someone collapsed beside her. Just from the sound of his violent panting, one could even hear a dying quality to it.

After six days of training, Fang Yue still collapsed on the ground every day after finishing his run, unable to get up. When he spoke, it was practically with more breath going out than coming in. “…I finished running.”

Hearing this, Lin He raised an eyebrow. “Not bad. Before landing, you finally managed to finish it once.”

Pingzhou Shipyard’s ship was only this big. Xu Yizhuo originally had never imagined one could run laps on this ship. However, Lin He was truly a devil. Even on such a small deck, she refused to let Fang Yue off. Every day, she made Fang Yue run two thousand laps around the deck and did not allow him to stop. This was the first time Fang Yue had finished.

Fang Yue lay motionless on the deck. Lin He reluctantly praised him a little more, then half-knelt beside him and inserted needles into his legs. The needles were coated with a kind of spiritual medicine from Lieyu Sect specially provided for body cultivators. It could clear the meridians and assist cultivation. Otherwise, if he ran like this every day, Fang Yue’s legs would have been ruined long ago.

Out of curiosity, Xu Yizhuo had tried one needle before. At the time, after seeing the smile Lin He revealed, she had felt something was wrong. But it was already too late. Lin He quickly, ruthlessly, and accurately stuck a needle into an acupoint on her leg.

Xu Yizhuo felt that it had already been very impressive that she had not screamed out loud.

In any case, that day, she lay in bed for half the day. After the pain passed, the leg that had been needled had a strange sore and numb feeling, to the point that she had to consider carefully before moving it even slightly.

Fang Yue was very quiet while being needled. He was already too exhausted to make a sound.

Halfway through Lin He’s needling, Xu Yizhuo stood up excitedly. “I can see the shore!”

“If even you can see it, then we’re probably almost there.” Lin He did not raise her head and casually replied while inserting the needles.

Xu Yizhuo looked at the riverbank that had appeared before her eyes, her eyes bright.

Some ships had already reached it ahead of them. From far away, one could also see the bustling scene at the pier.

When she had just boarded the ship, things had still been fine. But after so many days with nothing but water in her field of vision, Xu Yizhuo had not expected herself to look forward to land this much. She wished the ship beneath her feet could directly teleport to the pier.

“Ah, we’re almost there.” Xu Yizhuo heard Mister Yu’s voice. Mister Yu had also come to the deck.

Seeing Xu Yizhuo look at him, Mister Yu said meaningfully, “After you get off the ship later, you’d better be careful.”

Xu Yizhuo: “?”

Xu Yizhuo soon learned what Mister Yu meant.

She had just gotten off the ship when a group of people surged up around her. Old Li, who was only one step behind her, was immediately blocked outside.

More than a dozen people were like walls of bronze and iron, surrounding her so tightly that not even water could pass through. In the middle was only a short little Xu Yizhuo.

A woman took the lead and spoke with great enthusiasm. “Little sister, [bailiantales.com]have you come from the Eastern Continent to cultivate the Dao?”

Xu Yizhuo: “…Ah, yes.”

Xu Yizhuo understood in an instant. Weren’t these people exactly like those people waiting outside elementary schools, catching lone elementary students and desperately trying to sell them tutoring classes?

“Little sister, would you like to test your spiritual roots?” As the woman spoke, she took out a black stone. “Our Yunhe Immortal Sect is currently recruiting disciples. If you join Yunhe Immortal Sect, in time, you will definitely become a great expert of your own region!”

The woman asked with her mouth, but her actions allowed no refusal. She pulled Xu Yizhuo’s hand over and pressed it against the black stone.

Five colors evenly appeared on the surface of the black stone.

Everyone: “…”

Xu Yizhuo: “That Yunhe Immortal Sect you mentioned…”

“It seems our immortal sect has no fate with little sister.” While smiling, the woman coldly and ruthlessly pulled Xu Yizhuo’s hand away and put the black stone back into her robes.

The others scattered just as quickly.

Lin He pulled Fang Yue off the ship and let out a merciless laugh.