At three or four in the morning, when one sleeps the sweetest, the second miss of the Tian family, Tian Yuying, was in a deep slumber, lying on her side in bed, facing the doorway. The summer heat made her dress lightly, leaving her fragrant shoulders and thighs exposed. This was the scene that Lan Tian saw upon entering.
Pinching off a sleeping spell, Tian Yuying immediately fell into a deeper unconsciousness. Lan Tian approached her, sensing the fluctuations of Spiritual Energy in her body. Indeed, she was a cultivator with Qi Refinement Seventh Layer, her cultivation far surpassing Mei Lan’s.
Tian Yuying’s room was nothing special, just a luxurious young lady’s room. At the very center was a large bed that took up most of the wall, a large wardrobe filled with the latest fashionable dresses, a dressing table between the wardrobe and bed, and a shoe cabinet by the door.
Lan Tian made a round inside the room without detecting anything peculiar. His gaze then turned to the person on the bed. With a sweep of his Divine Sense, he discovered that Tian Yuying had lost her Primordial Yin. Frowning, he touched her wrist, channeling Spiritual Energy through her body for a cycle before withdrawing his hand, with even more suspicion in his heart.
The Spiritual Energy inside Tian Yuying’s body was disordered, her foundation weak and unstable as if over-harvested by someone, her cultivation seemed forcibly elevated by an excessive intake of elixirs, it seemed she was practicing the Furnace Tripod Technique.
Casually checking her aptitude, she had Gold and Fire Dual Spirit Roots, better than Mei Lan’s. The Gold and Fire Spiritual Roots complement each other, making cultivation twice as effective with half the effort. Such outstanding aptitude, yet she was trained as a Furnace Tripod; the person behind this had malicious intentions.
Lan Tian suspected that the puppeteer behind this had suffered severe injuries, perhaps to the extent of damaging their foundation, and could no longer recover just by meditative cultivation, hence resorting to such lowly methods. As long as a cultivator’s cultivation isn’t below the third-tier Qi Cultivation, they have the means to intimidate the ignorant masses, enticing them with power or the promise of longevity to find these girls with Spiritual Roots, teaching them cultivation techniques to guide them onto the Immortal Path—all for the purpose of using them for cultivation replenishment. Of course, these were all Lan Tian’s speculations, without any concrete evidence.
He pried open Tian Yuying’s mouth, popped a pill in, took out a dark red sandalwood incense stick from his Sleeve Universe and lit it. After consuming a Universal Detoxification Pill and sealing his senses, he waited several minutes for the medicine to take effect before he began his questioning.
"Tian Yuying." The person on the bed did not open her eyes, yet she answered accurately. The pill was specially designed for cultivators.
The only flaw was that it was rigid; one question, one answer, without a superfluous word.
"How old are you this year?"
Lan Tian was surprised to find that Tian Yuying was already that old, which was strange. Generally, in these kinds of noble families, the daughters would have been arranged to marry suitable matches in their early twenties, and for Tian Yuying to still be at home at twenty-five was not normal.
"He doesn’t agree, the family doesn’t dare."
He? A glint shone in Lan Tian’s eyes, a clue had emerged. Carefully, he asked, "Who is he?"
The person on the bed fell silent. Seeing this, Lan Tian understood this question was a forbidden topic, unanswerable, and pointless to pursue.
"Have you ever raised a gu?"
As suspected, the person behind all this harbored no good intentions. When Lan Tian caught Mei Lan, he found out she was raising gu, and after noticing the changes in her aptitude, he grew suspicious. Now that Tian Yuying also admitted to raising gu, it confirmed his speculation.
"When did you begin cultivation?" After thinking for a bit, Lan Tian changed the question and continued to ask.
So early, even earlier than when she started cultivating.
"How did you cultivate?"
"Where did he teach you?"
"..." Once again, Tian Yuying fell silent. Lan Tian sighed; the person behind this was too cunning, certainly like Mei Lan, having placed prohibitions on any information related to him.
She couldn’t pry anything useful. What to do? Biting the corner of her lip, Lan Tian pondered. Every time Tian Yuying smelled the person behind her, she would show vivid expressions on her otherwise wooden face. Perhaps... Lan Tian then thought of a marvelous idea, which she might try.
"What’s the most beautiful place in your memory?"
"He Xu Palace." This time, Tian Yuying answered crisply.
He Xu Palace? Such a foreign name, Lan Tian thought, seemingly not heard of in her previous life. Does such a place exist in Beijing? She asked various questions, mostly trivial matters, but whenever she touched upon ’him,’ a sensitive subject, Tian Yuying would not speak. Seeing the medicine’s effects were about to fade, Lan Tian pinched off the burning sandalwood, erased her traces, and left the Tian Mansion silently, flying towards the Qiao family’s residence.
The situation with the Miss Qiao was much like that of Tian Yuying, except that she started cultivation at ten years old, and the deepest memory she had was also ’He Xu Palace,’ and she too had raised gu insects. By the time Lan Tian left the Qiao residence, it was nearly dawn; breakfast stalls had already opened on the streets, and people were flying over with flying swords, such a shocking event. Lan Tian certainly didn’t want to become a fairy of legend, so she slapped an Invisibility Talisman on herself and returned to Mo Mansion. She saw Mr. Mo practicing punches in the yard but didn’t disturb the old man; instead, she quietly went back to her room.
After returning to her room, she dismantled the Array that had been set up and lay down on the bed to catch up on sleep, waiting for daylight.
After finishing his punches and jogging, Mr. Mo came back and saw Lan Tian eating breakfast at the dining table, chuckling, "Girl, you finally woke up, must be hungry, eat more, see if you do this again, sleeping until even dinner is skipped. Tell Grandpa, are Old Ji and his grandson bullying you?" Fresh chapters posted on novel[f]ire.net
"Grandpa, good morning," Lan Tian swallowed the porridge in her mouth and said, "No, it’s just that extracting the gu was exhausting. That gu insect has been raised for too long and has already developed its own climate. If it had been raised for a few more years and became intelligent, even a lofty immortal couldn’t do anything. I don’t know who has such a grudge against Old Ji to resort to this kind of gu."
"What gu?" Mr. Mo always wanted to ask Lan Tian, but there was never a good opportunity, and now at home was the perfect time to find out.
"To cut off descendants."
"Cough cough cough," Mr. Mo almost sprayed the porridge from his mouth, facing his granddaughter. He had to hold it in, and although he didn’t spray it out, he almost choked.
Indeed venomous enough, but is it okay for a girl to talk like that?
"That brat Ji Feng..." No matter how much Mr. Mo disliked Ji Feng on normal days, Ji Family only had this one seedling and couldn’t end the lineage.
"The extraction of the gu insect from Ji Feng was timely. It has not affected him much. If it had been delayed by a year or two, not only the lineage but also his life would have been in danger." There would be no question of descendants then.
Hearing that Ji Feng was fine, Mr. Mo breathed a sigh of relief.
"Grandpa, I’ll go to school now." Putting down the bowl and chopsticks, Lan Tian picked up her bag and heading to school.
Lan Tian arrived at school just in time. The class was already full. As she walked in, everyone first paused, then remembered the beautiful girl in their class who had not been there for a long time.