Chapter 64: Chapter 62: Surging Spiritual Strength
In the middle of the night.
Mo Ning was woken up by Zhang Xiaoxiao, who pulled him out of the closet.
After agonizing for several hours in a painfully cramped position, he received a small "reward."
The class beauty pulled him onto the bed to lie down for a while, letting him experience the softness of a young girl’s waist for the first time.
But that was as far as the "sweetness" went.
Now, Mo Ning had to leave.
Zhang Xiaoxiao dragged him along as they tiptoed together toward the living room.
But just as they entered the main room, the sound of a conversation suddenly came from her parents’ bedroom.
"Where are you going?"
"To the bathroom."
"Can’t you use the master bathroom? Why are you going to the guest bathroom?"
"I was afraid the sound of the flush would wake you."
The hairs on Mo Ning’s arms stood on end instantly.
They were still some distance from the front door; there was no way they could make it out in time.
In a panic, Zhang Xiaoxiao pulled him into the guest bathroom a meter away, quickly shut the door, and fumbled to turn on the light.
The moment the light flickered on, a man’s voice came from outside. "Xiaoxiao, are you in there?"
Zhang Xiaoxiao tried her best to make her voice sound normal. "Dad, just use the master bathroom. I’ll be a while."
But the man replied, "No rush. I can’t sleep anyway. I’ll just sit in the living room for a bit."
Mo Ning started to sweat bullets.
Being in a tiny bathroom with the class beauty sounded romantic, but to him, it felt like a scene from a horror movie.
Every second was an agony, as if he were being roasted over a fire.
Mo Ning looked up at the small, narrow window, wondering if he should climb out to escape.
If they kept waiting like this, her father was bound to discover him sooner or later.
Her father was supposedly a retired soldier with a terrible temper. ’Will he beat me to death?’
Zhang Xiaoxiao immediately guessed Mo Ning’s intention. She looked at him as if he were a madman and held his arm in a death grip.
This was the 28th floor. What was the difference between climbing out the window and committing suicide?
Mo Ning gazed out the window, his expression momentarily dazed.
An exceptionally magnificent eagle was soaring through the night.
Its silhouette carved a graceful arc under the moonlight. Its wings were spread wide, its gaze was like a torch, and it looked like a divine bird that had flown straight out of an ancient totem.
It flew closer and closer, becoming clearer and clearer, until Mo Ning could even make out the faint halo of light around the edge of its wings.
Zhang Xiaoxiao suddenly thought of a plan. She immediately leaned in, her lips almost touching his ear.
"I’ll say my stomach hurts and tell my dad to go out and buy medicine, and then you..."
But Mo Ning didn’t hear a single word.
The image of the eagle was like a carving knife, etching itself into his mind stroke by stroke, growing more vivid and more real.
It didn’t seem to be just passing by; it seemed to have come specifically for him.
The class beauty finished explaining her plan, pressed her head against the door, and was about to call out, "Dad."
But she never got the chance.
Mo Ning suddenly pulled her aside, opened the door, and walked straight out.
Zhang Xiaoxiao was left stunned.
The man in the living room was stunned, too.
He looked up to see a strange young man walk out of his daughter’s bathroom, his expression shifting from confusion to shock, and then from shock to rage.
At first glance, Mo Ning’s actions seemed like a death wish.
But the actual outcome wasn’t as bad as one might expect.
He coherently explained the cause and effect of the situation, took all the blame upon himself, and begged the man not to scold Zhang Xiaoxiao.
"When a person makes a mistake, the easiest way out is to run away and wait for someone else to clean up the mess.
"The hardest way is to step forward and shoulder the responsibility that is yours to bear. I struggled with this for a long time before deciding to take responsibility.
"I am willing to pay the price for my actions, but I beg you, please don’t blame Zhang Xiaoxiao.
"Throughout our interactions, I have always been the one taking the initiative. She was merely led astray by me."
Mo Ning concluded his long speech with those words.
Perhaps it was his neither servile nor overbearing attitude. Perhaps it was the eloquence he displayed. Perhaps it was the sense of responsibility he showed. Or perhaps the man knew "his own daughter hadn’t been led astray"—or maybe it was a combination of all of these.
The class beauty’s father gradually calmed down from his rage.
The class beauty’s mother stood at the bedroom door, looking at him with a very strange expression.
The middle-aged woman had probably never in her life seen a high school student who could spend the night at a female classmate’s house, then speak so eloquently to her parents, all with a clear head and impressive rhetorical skill.
In the end, the retired soldier didn’t resort to violence. He just pointed at the front door and roared, "Get the hell out, and don’t ever let me see you again."
Mo Ning gave the couple a slight bow, said another "I’m sorry," and turned to walk toward the front door.
The moment he stepped out the door, he felt an unusual sense of relief.
It wasn’t the kind of relief that comes from having a weight lifted off your shoulders, but a deeper kind of lightness, as if it were seeping out from the marrow of his bones.
With every step he took, the hazy feelings he had for the class beauty diminished a little more.
It wasn’t a conscious effort to forget, but a natural dissolution.
By the time he reached the elevator, her face had already become a blur, and the scenes that once made his heart race had faded to the color of an old photograph.
Mo Ning took the elevator down to the first-floor lobby. Looking at the bright lights, he suddenly felt he never wanted to come here again.
It was a resistance that came from the bottom of his heart.
As he walked outside, he saw the eagle again.
It was perched on a bauhinia tree by the roadside, watching him quietly. A glow poured from its body like flames forged from moonlight.
In that instant, Mo Ning suddenly understood where he was.
He chuckled in disbelief and said softly, "So this was Meditation."
As his consciousness pulled away, the entire residential complex began to blur rapidly.
Everything in the Meditation World was fading away quickly.
「A moment later.」
Apartment 804 reappeared before his eyes.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, snow was still falling heavily across the Silent Snowfield.
Mo Ning was still lying on the single bed.
The chill from taking the [Moonlight Potion] had completely vanished.
He could sense with exceptional clarity that something inside his Spiritual World was blooming.
Or rather—undergoing a qualitative change.
It was a feeling that couldn’t be described in words.
His heart filled with a faint joy as he naturally recalled a passage he had read in a book:
"In a sense, the Meditation Space is less of a virtual world and more of a Demon that lives in your heart.
"It knows your desires like the back of its hand. It will devise the most brilliant storylines to effortlessly toy with your emotions.
"It can manipulate you as it pleases, making you unable to stop, unable to control your addiction to it.
"But my friend, you have absolutely no need to feel ashamed of this.
"Any rookie who has just stepped into the Meditation World can only become a plaything for the ’Demon,’ with no ability to resist whatsoever.
"Usually, after a period of time—and this period is not short, perhaps two or three years, or even four or five.
"By then, you will have become an Apprentice, be familiar enough with the Meditation World, and your Spiritual Strength will have increased a great deal, giving you the rudimentary ability to deal with the ’Demon’."
"When you successfully resist the ’Demon’ for the first time, when you are no longer manipulated by it but instead leave it roaring in anger from the shadows...
"Then congratulations, my friend. You will experience the first sublimation of your Spiritual World. Your Spiritual Strength will take a small leap forward (usually by 0.02 points).
"I must emphasize that the earlier this sublimation of your Spiritual World occurs, the greater the benefit to you.
"Therefore, I sincerely advise you to constantly hone your consciousness, temper your Spiritual Strength, and defeat the ’Demon’ hidden in your heart as soon as possible."
Amid his joy, Mo Ning naturally came to a realization:
’Zhang Xiaoxiao must have been the ’Demon’s’ first incarnation, right?’
In that bathroom, he hadn’t followed the script designed by the "Demon." Instead, he had pulled her aside and walked out himself.
Mo Ning truly hadn’t expected to successfully resist the Demon after only a few Meditation sessions.
With a thought, his attribute panel quietly appeared.
[Name: Mo Ning.]
[Spiritual Strength: 0.59.]
[Physical Strength: 0.22.]
He took one look and sat bolt upright.
Mo Ning stared at the number, an irrepressible, wide smile spreading across his face.
His Spiritual Strength had increased from 0.55 to 0.59.
A full increase of 0.04 points!
Calculated proportionally, that was an increase of 7.2%.
This was a truly surprising, even shocking, increase!
Generally speaking, a newcomer with average spiritual aptitude would see their Spiritual Strength increase by 0.02 points at most after a full month of normal Meditation.
But in just a single Meditation session, his increase was equal to two months of effort for anyone else.
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