Chapter Ninety-Four: The Bottom of the Lake

Cold Lingmeng sped forward as fast as she could. By using the power of the silver needles to forcibly unseal her Heavenly Aperture, she had greatly increased her true energy, but it was already the last flicker of a spent arrow.

Looking back, she was relieved that the two of them had not given chase. Still, she dared not relax and continued onward, hoping to find a safe place to heal.

No one knew how long she flew. When she reached a cliff face in the mountains, her body suddenly grew unsteady and began to sway as if about to topple.

She knew the effect of the silver needles had faded. Her true energy was exhausted in an instant, and the side effects of forcibly opening the Heavenly Aperture made her head feel as though it might split apart.

She clutched her head with both hands, and then her vision went black; she fell from the sky.

A moment later, Cold Lingmeng felt as though she had plunged into water. The freezing cold sharpened her senses and eased the pain in her head considerably.

Though she now had no true energy at all, her cultivator’s special constitution still allowed her to survive in water.

With her eyes closed, Cold Lingmeng slowly sank downward.

Suddenly, a surge of heat rose within her body, bursting from her dantian and rushing through every meridian.

With a soft cry, Cold Lingmeng suddenly lost consciousness, her body still drifting slowly downward.

...

By the edge of Nine Flowers Mountain

Shi Qi slowly landed on a hillside and sat down beside a rock.

It was on this very rock that, on that day, he had eaten the spiced chicken and pepper, watching the struggle between the Moon Palace and the Firelight Sect.

It was also on this very rock that Shi Qi had first met Su Xiaomu.

Thinking of how she had snatched a chicken leg from his hand back then, Shi Qi smiled faintly.

He sighed, took off again, and came to the foot of Nine Flowers Mountain.

The scene of that group of people fighting for their fortune here in the mountain was still vivid in his mind.

Shi Qi continued toward the side peak and eventually arrived at a cliff face.

Looking down, he saw the lake where Su Xiaomu had been born.

He sprang lightly into the air, without stepping on the Hundred-Mile Sword and without using wind art, falling straight down.

With a splash, he plunged into the lake, sending a great spray of water across its once-still surface.

Shi Qi quickly dove toward the bottom. Before long, he reached the lakebed. It was pitch-dark there, so he took a night pearl from his cosmos pouch to light his vision.

As soon as the pearl shone, the ugly schools of fish around him scattered in all directions, fleeing from the brightness.

Shi Qi stepped up to the great boulder, then turned to the small stone cave behind it and looked inside.

On that day, there had been shattered eggshells in the cave, along with an ice lotus.

Now, however, the little cave was empty.

Shi Qi sighed, then took from his waist the dragon jade pendant from the dragon-phoenix pair and held it in his hand.

During the battle at White Heron Beach, the dragon jade pendant had been damaged and left in halves, and the blood that had been on it had seeped into the jade, beyond all washing away.

Shi Qi slowly placed the pendant in the cave.

He murmured, "Xiaomu, you were formed by heaven and earth, yet now you have scattered back into them. It was your big brother’s fault. I did not protect you well. I have avenged you already. Yuan Chenglu and Haili have both been slain by my own hand. Only Haiyue remains. When I have cut her down as well, I will come back to see you."

With that, Shi Qi took from his cosmos pouch another spiced chicken tightly wrapped in oiled paper and placed it in the cave too.

"This is your favorite spiced chicken. It is a pity you can never taste it again..."

After muttering a few more words to himself, Shi Qi set a small ward over the cave entrance to keep the ugly fish from entering and causing trouble.

When all this was done, he turned to leave, intending to return to the lake’s surface.

Just after he turned, he suddenly noticed a blue figure not far ahead.

"How could there be someone in a place like this?!"

Shi Qi stepped forward to look more closely.

A graceful figure lay quietly on the lakebed.

"Cold Lingmeng?"

At a glance, Shi Qi recognized her as the Moon Palace saintess Cold Lingmeng, the very woman who had fought the Firelight Sect and Liao Hongda that day.

"Why would she be here?"

Puzzled, he walked over, only to find that her blue robe was stained with blood, and that she herself had fallen unconscious.

"Fellow Daoist? Fellow Daoist?" Shi Qi called.

Cold Lingmeng remained motionless on the lakebed.

Shi Qi crouched down, patted her, and still got no response.

Frowning, he placed a hand on her pulse.

"She has suffered such grave injuries, and there is not a trace of true energy left in her body!"

Her condition was unlike Shi Qi’s when Haili had sealed his cultivation with the Spirit-Sealing Nails.

Those nails had sealed Shi Qi’s dantian, inner core, and meridians, preventing him from drawing upon his true energy.

Cold Lingmeng, however, was suffering true-energy exhaustion caused by poison and by forcibly opening her Heavenly Aperture.

To put it another way, Shi Qi had once been like a great river blocked by a dam: the water was there, but unable to flow out to nourish the land, leaving the earth parched and barren.

Cold Lingmeng’s situation now was worse still: the river itself had run dry, and the land with it. There was no water left at all.

In any case, saving her was the urgent matter.

Shi Qi lifted Cold Lingmeng into his arms, only to discover that though her true energy was exhausted, her body was burning hot. He did not think much of it and carried her toward the surface.

He burst out of the lake with Cold Lingmeng in his arms and set her down on the shore.

Then he stood and began to think of a way to save her.

Shi Qi was no physician, and in his cosmos pouch there were only a few medicinal herbs stolen from Yuan Chengtian. In Cold Lingmeng’s state, such ordinary medicines would certainly be useless.

Just as he was worrying, two words suddenly flashed through his mind: Crimson Fruit.

Yes. What Cold Lingmeng lacked most now was true energy, and the Crimson Fruit could provide its eater with a vast quantity of it, just enough to replenish her exhausted dantian.

Shi Qi took out the blood-red Crimson Fruit from his cosmos pouch.

If no one ate it soon, it would likely disperse in a few days.

"Very well, very well. Saving a life comes first. It is all Heaven’s will, I suppose. I hope this thing can save you."

Shi Qi pried open Cold Lingmeng’s little mouth and tossed the fruit inside.

At once, a tremendous surge of true energy burst within her body and rushed straight toward her dantian.

The parched dantian, as though encountering sweet dew, madly began to absorb the vast energy.

"Mm..."

Cold Lingmeng gave a soft cry, regaining consciousness. Sensing the changes within herself, she frowned and slowly opened her eyes.

When she finally made out who stood before her, she looked at Shi Qi in confusion, as if she did not know what had happened.

Then Shi Qi’s voice reached her ears: "Hold your dantian steady. Endure it."

Cold Lingmeng nodded and slowly sat up. Cross-legged, she felt the powerful surge of true energy coursing through her body.

After the time it takes to burn an incense stick, she was still sitting cross-legged without moving, though her expression had softened somewhat.

Now it was Shi Qi’s turn to be astonished.

After the four of them, together with Bai Qiu, had eaten the Crimson Fruit, each had taken only the time of one incense stick to absorb it completely.

But now that time had passed, and Cold Lingmeng was still seated motionlessly, with no visible change.

Frowning, Shi Qi muttered, "Could it be that the Crimson Fruit has no effect on her?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, a brilliant blue light suddenly erupted above Cold Lingmeng’s head and shot skyward.

Within that blue radiance, Shi Qi faintly saw a golden-core-like spirit body appear above her head.

Under his watchful gaze, the golden core slowly rotated, then began to change. It expanded gradually, swelling to twice its original size, while irregular bulges began appearing across its surface, rising and falling restlessly.

A few breaths later, the bulges gradually quieted down, and the core itself slowly ceased rotating. Only then did Shi Qi realize that the thing no longer resembled a golden core at all. It had become a spirit body resembling an infant.

The infant sat cross-legged and floated above Cold Lingmeng’s head, absorbing the spiritual energy around it.

Shi Qi finally understood what was happening, and his eyes widened.

"Good lord, she’s broken through to the Nascent Soul stage?!"

That little bald head had been talking nonsense. He had said the Crimson Fruit could raise cultivation, but could not help one break through a realm!

So how had this girl managed to break through so bewilderingly, right before his eyes?

As a demon-human, Shi Qi’s own cultivation only transformed through the fivefold changes of his inner core; his body would never produce a Nascent Soul.

Now that Cold Lingmeng was breaking through before him, Shi Qi stepped closer and watched carefully, studying the process by which the Nascent Soul was born.

He thought to himself, Golden core to Nascent Soul—whichever immortal first conceived this method of breaking through must have been a genius beyond measure.

Shi Qi watched as the spirit body above Cold Lingmeng’s head gradually sharpened from blur into clarity, then slowly descended and merged into her body. The spiritual energy around her gradually returned to normal, and the blue beam of light above her vanished.

"Did it succeed?" Shi Qi muttered. Looking at Cold Lingmeng, it seemed she had indeed broken through successfully.

At that moment, Cold Lingmeng, who had been sitting on the ground, suddenly opened her eyes.

And Shi Qi was right in front of her, only a foot away.

"Uh... this..." Shi Qi said awkwardly. He had been so absorbed in watching the Nascent Soul that he had forgotten Cold Lingmeng was a woman, and this distance was indeed a little improper.

Just as he was about to explain, Cold Lingmeng’s face flushed, and she suddenly threw herself at him!

Her lovely face pressed directly against his.

Shi Qi’s first thought was: Her face is so hot...

Before he could react, Cold Lingmeng had already pinned him beneath her, and with a wave of her small hand, the dao robe on Shi Qi’s body slipped cleanly away.

"No, what are you—"

Shi Qi had only just begun to speak when Cold Lingmeng’s faint red lips were already upon his mouth.

"Mm..."

He could not speak. He only felt a sweet fragrance surge from his lips straight into his mind.

Shi Qi was, after all, a vigorous young man with no experience of such things. With that kiss, Cold Lingmeng broke straight through the defenses of his mind, and with a ringing boom, he lost all reason in an instant.

Then Cold Lingmeng laid her hands before her chest and drew back.

A streak of white light appeared before Shi Qi’s eyes...

Before he could gather his wits, Cold Lingmeng’s body had already pressed down over his...

Neck to neck, the pair played in the water like mandarin ducks; shoulder to shoulder, they moved like paired phoenixes amid blossoms.

Joyfully entwined, the linked branches grew; sweetly bound, the hearts were tied as one.

One set of crimson lips pressed tightly together; one delicate face leaned askew against the other.

Her long skirt was lifted high, revealing two crescent shoulders.

Shyness veiled in clouds and rain, her countless charms lingered and delayed.

The warbling of orioles stayed close to the ear, honeyed saliva and laughter touched the tongue, the willow waist swayed, spring’s fragrance deepened, the cherry mouth parted with soft breaths.

Her starry eyes were dim and misted, fine beads of sweat glistened like fragrant jade.

Spring hearts swelled and stirred, like dewdrops slowly gathering on a peony's heart...