An excruciating headache as if a pump was inflating inside, the pain swelling in her mind, growing more and more intense—Lan Tian wished she could smash it with a tiny hammer; her body scalding hot like being engulfed in flames, eyelids as heavy as if they weighed a thousand catties, her throat burning and parched, unable to cry out for help, stomach and intestines cramping painfully—Lan Tian could only curl up, hugging her chest in agony.
Lan Tian thought she was doomed this time. But isn’t there a saying, ’Those who survive great disasters are destined for good fortune’?
After braving the Heavenly Tribulation, could it mean she had become a Foundation Establishment Cultivator? Thinking of herself as a High-level Cultivator, Lan Tian reveled in pain tinged with joy, feeling as if her headache had subsided a little.
Her Cultivation had already reached Qi Cultivation Great Perfection, stuck at that stage for nearly a decade. She had consumed Foundation Establishment Pills three times, yet not once did she break through to Foundation Establishment; her Cultivation had not advanced either. A Qi Cultivation Cultivator’s lifespan is roughly about 150 years, while for Foundation Establishment it is between four to five hundred years; she was already 150 years old, with less than ten years of life remaining. If she went into secluded cultivation and still failed to break through to Foundation Establishment, she could only wait for death.
All of the Foundation Establishment Pills in her space had been used up during previous attempts. Left with no choice, she gave up on Foundation Establishment, planning to enjoy her last ten years in the mortal world, to witness life’s various states and indulge in the pleasures of food and drink.
On her travels, she suddenly had a realization; feeling that the time for her last attempt at Foundation Establishment was nigh, she immediately returned to Wuhua Mountain, activated the prohibition on the cave dwelling at the back of the mountain, setting up Array Formations and preparing Spirit Stones and elixirs.
As things fell into place, the Spiritual Energy transformed from gaseous to liquid state, and finally, her Dantian was filled with compressed liquid Spiritual Energy, like an ocean, bringing joy to Lan Tian who finally let out a sigh of relief. But then, disaster struck without warning—a Heavenly Tribulation thundered down, catching her off guard, the strike charred her on the outside and made her vomit fire and blood, while she wondered why she was afflicted by a Heavenly Tribulation when it was supposed to occur during the transition from breaking the elixir to become a baby. Why?
Why did she, of all people, encounter the Heavenly Tribulation that comes once in ten thousand years? Was it not said that only those with exceptional and defiant talents, or Demon Cultivators whom the heavens and earth cannot tolerate, would attract a Heavenly Tribulation? Isn’t she spared from all that?
Fortunately, she had her space, using all the Immortal and Divine Artifacts within it, she barely escaped the Heavenly Tribulation with merely a breath to spare, not even having the chance to feel relieved, the Heart Demon Tribulation descended silently upon her, and as a result...
Thinking of this, Lan Tian felt like crying without tears, wishing she could give the heavens the middle finger—talk about being set up...
Who could tell her why there was a Heavenly Tribulation for merely Foundation Establishment and why there was a test of the Heart Demon after overcoming the Heavenly Tribulation? She managed to escape the former but almost didn’t make it past the latter. Nevertheless, she finally did it; it wasn’t easy at all, was it!
She was in a daze as if hearing someone speaking, but she couldn’t make sense of the content.
"...Where did this little ghost come from?"
"I don’t know, probably from the outside!"
The villagers, who had been working in the fields at noon, finished their morning’s toil and walked home in small groups, chatting idly. They discovered a shabby child lying at the entrance of the village, and gathered around three layers inside and three layers outside, creating a spectacle.
In a rural village without television or other entertainment, villagers would take their stools after dinner to the center of the village, congregating under a ginkgo tree hundreds or thousands of years old, gossiping about the most tiresome local news—who lost an egg, who bought a pack of cigarettes, who had an affair with whom, and so on. A fallen stranger at the village entrance was fresh, hot gossip.
The child on the ground was disheveled, clothes torn and tattered, on a hot day, wearing a cotton-padded jacket, covered with holes, exposing the blackened cotton inside, thick with layers of dirt and grime, giving off a foul and pungent smell under the sun’s rays.