Chapter 44: Chapter 41 Old Qing Jun
“Impossible,” Gui stated emphatically.
“I’ve met Zhao Lingfei. Your lady’s cultivation aptitude is ten thousand times better than yours. Hmm, you might not grasp that comparison; let me put it this way—when I first practiced the ‘Ant Ascending Heaven Technique,’ I advanced to the Fu Yao Realm in just one iteration. She would need, at most, to practice it thrice.”
“Born of golden stone, once to cleanse the void, once to shake off the dust, once to ascend to Fu Yao.”
“How could it possibly take four years? Four quarters of an hour, maybe. You must have remembered it wrong.”
Zhao Rong furrowed his brow, pondered for a moment, and shook his head. “No, I haven’t remembered it wrong. She started cultivating when she was ten. Before that, she had always been studying in the private school in Zhao Mansion with me. After she turned ten, while I continued my studies, she and Qian’er started their cultivation journey under my mother’s and a few other mentors’ guidance.”
“I wasn’t familiar with cultivation before, but I knew she reached the Fu Yao Realm at fourteen because Qian’er told me so—unless Qian’er was lying to me, which she indeed confirmed. Qian’er wouldn’t lie to me, firstly because she doesn’t know how, and secondly, because there’s no reason for her to do so,” Zhao Rong paused then added.
...
Zhao Rong vividly remembered the year he was fourteen, the year his mother passed away. At that time, they had to leave Duke Mansion to cultivate at the Purple Energy Pavilion. Qian’er had run to him before leaving, crying, telling him that she and the young lady would be away for a long time because the young lady had now reached the Fu Yao Realm. They needed the sect’s resources to continue their cultivation and could no longer stay at the mansion.
Qian’er, grabbing his sleeves with both hands and with tears brimming in her eyes, begged him to stop holding grudges against the young lady and to wait for them to return to the mansion, as Aunt Liu had already passed away, and only the three of them were left in the world as the closest kin.
That day, he vaguely remembered, Qing Jun was just silently standing far away.
At the time, he felt nothing but impatience, finding one a crybaby and the other a nuisance, urging them to just leave if they were going to leave, not to hold him up from his studies…
“That’s strange. By logic, the Ascending Realm hardly ever stalls someone. The real challenge is the Fu Yao Realm, especially the bottleneck from Fu Yao to the Vast Realm. Many so-called geniuses get stuck at this stage, unable to attract spiritual energy into their bodies, sinking into mediocrity. If you told me your lady was stuck in the Fu Yao Realm for four years, I might believe it, but the Ascending Realm?”
“Could she have practiced some strange cultivation technique? But I’ve never heard of such a technique,” Gui expressed his doubts. “By the way, how long did she take to reach the Fu Yao Realm?”
“I’m not sure, but according to Qian’er, she was directly admitted to the Tranquility Mansion upon entering the Taiching Four Mansions.”
“The criteria for accepting residence students in the Taiching Four Mansions is being sixteen and having achieved perfection in the Fu Yao Realm. To be directly admitted to the Tranquility Mansion means she had reached the Vast Realm by the age of sixteen and nurtured a flying sword of not low grade.”
“Judged by the mansion as a sword cultivator with promising potential, it means she only spent less than two years in the Fu Yao Realm. That pace makes sense, but four years to reach the Ascending Realm…”
“Could it be that you, as a kid, always made her skip classes or hooked her early on, making her lose all focus on cultivation?” Gui speculated.
“…”
Zhao Rong’s head was full of black lines. What sort of logic is this—accusing the bad boy of leading the good girl astray, the untalented ruining the gifted?
“What right do you have to tarnish her reputation? I was very serious about my studies as a kid.”
Zhao Rong touched his nose, suddenly feeling a bit guilty. “Cough, at least after I got engaged to her at twelve, I barely spoke to her, so it has nothing to do with me.”
“Ha, and before you turned twelve? It must have been you.”
“I didn’t, I didn’t, don’t spread rumors about me.”
“Daring to do but not to admit?”
“If I didn’t do it, what is there to admit?”
“Alas, how unlucky she was to meet a fickle scholar like you at her most naive time.”
“I didn’t, why do you—wait a minute, I get it, haha, you’re blaming me to cover up the fact that you also don’t know why it took her four years to reach the Ascending Realm, right, am I right?”
“…”
“To think there’s something you don’t know, Zhao has learned something new today. Apparently, even the faltering supremes are not infallible.”
Soon, the two shelved the serious matters and started bickering back and forth.
Before long, Zhao Rong, looking satisfied, walked back to the farmhouse where he was staying, which was near a stream. At that moment, a petite figure was squatting by the stream.
Approaching, Zhao Rong saw it was Su Xiaoxiao, who was washing her clothes, her back turned to him. Her ponytail bounced with her movements.
Zhao Rong glanced and was about to leave but took a few steps, stopped, and turned back to look again at the small figure crouching on the ground.
He suddenly remembered something from his childhood, a long-forgotten memory that had flashed through his mind just now.
At that time, he and Qing Jun were not yet engaged, and she had only recently begun her cultivation.
That evening, after the class had ended, he packed up a bit and walked out of Zhao Mansion’s private school. As soon as he stepped out, he saw a small, exquisite figure crouching in a corner not far from the door.
Her slender shoulders were shaking, and her little drooping head, tied up in a high ponytail, also began to bounce.
He quietly walked over and playfully caught hold of that bundle of black hair, gently lifting her ponytail.
“Look what I’ve caught.”
The girl suddenly turned around, revealing a tear-stained oval face, with picturesque brows and eyes. However, she was furrowing her brows and sobbing, with a light brown teardrop mole beneath her left eye, innocently submerged in tears.
“Rong’er brother!”
Qing Jun’s furrowed brows relaxed, sunny after the rain, blooming a smile like a flower amidst the tears.
It was as if the sunlight had dispelled all the unhappiness.
“Ouch.”
But she soon softly exclaimed.
With her black hair caught by someone, she could no longer escape. She bit her lip, looked up at him with a naive expression.
He released his grip, allowing the silky black hair to fall through his fingers.
She happily got up, straightened her embroidered bodice dress, stood in front of him, slightly raised her head, her eyes brimming yet she subconsciously sniffled.
He looked at the tear streaks on her face, reached out to wipe away the tears on her small face, his thumb brushed her brows and eyes as if gliding over a piece of white jade, then rubbed the tear mole lightly.
The movements were casual, without any hesitation.
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“Why are you crying?”
Having said that, he pinched her reddened nose tip gently.
Her cheeks still pressed against his hand, she looked at him with pitiful eyes and voiced the troubles recently hidden in her heart. Occasionally, she would rub her cheek against his warm palm as she spoke. Sometimes, she paused midway, and upon seeing him nod, knowing he wasn’t annoyed, she would excitedly continue. In fact, she had a lot to say, usually hidden away, only pouring out now.
She said she had snuck out. Normally, she wasn’t supposed to go out to play during this period, so she waited outside while he was still in class.
She said she felt so useless because she couldn’t draw the sword.
She said it hurt when she gripped the sword. The pure white moonlight spilled from the sword scabbard and entered her body, cutting her painfully like a knife.
She said cultivation was very difficult; every time she gathered strength, it would dissipate as soon as the moonlight touched it, and then she had to start climbing again.
She said although Aunt Liu and the others told her to take it slow and didn’t blame her, she felt she had let them down.
She said she didn’t want to cultivate anymore; she just wanted to do simple embroidery…
At that time, he quietly listened, not really understanding and therefore didn’t take it to heart.
Zhao Rong’s eyebrows raised slightly; these things now seemed not as simple as he had thought before.
He remained silent for a while and did not tell Gui.
Instead, his eyes deepened, reevaluating many things.
Soon enough.
The morning sun slowly rose.
Zhao Rong and his two companions tidied up a bit and hit the road again. The Luojing of Zhongnan Country wasn’t far from here, and they would arrive today.