As a Master, imparting the Dao and teaching techniques was only natural.
But to ask about a Secret Technique without the right opportunity would seem rash and leave a poor impression—had he even learned to walk yet, and he was already thinking about running?
Of course, when facing Bai Yiyi, Ye Ling felt none of the usual pressure of standing before a teacher.
The respect he showed her was directed at knowledge itself. That Bai Yiyi happened to be the one teaching him was almost incidental.
Even so, she was still his Master. He couldn't be too forward and ask about Secret Techniques the moment he opened his mouth. No matter what, he had to wait for a proper opening.
What he hadn't expected was that this "proper opening" would evade him for three full days, without a single chance presenting itself.
During those three days, Bai Yiyi seemed like a completely different person. She answered his questions about cultivation, but in daily interactions she never initiated conversation.
Several times, he saw her part her lips as if to speak, only to swallow the words back. That finally convinced him of his suspicion—
She's testing me!
Although Ye Ling had already forgotten what Bai Yiyi had done to him that night, everything he observed during the day pointed to his Master "tempting" him.
Not leaving the bathhouse, guiding the circulation of energy with her own hands… all the signs suggested this was part of Bai Yiyi's test.
Yet these actions were probably inherited from his Grandmaster, or from Martial Aunts he had never met.
After all, judging by Bai Yiyi's temperament and what she actually did, Ye Ling felt no sense of "temptation" at all—only that he had been taken advantage of by a female rogue.
If not for his ability to "Deconstruct Difficulty," peeling things apart layer by layer, he would never have seen through to this so-called "truth."
It was worth noting that "Deconstruct Difficulty" only broke a problem down. The direction of that breakdown, however, was guided by Ye Ling's own personality.
As an orphan, he was naturally more sensitive, and the "truth" he arrived at was correspondingly cautious.
What was more, he already harbored improper thoughts about Bai Yiyi, waiting for the day his cultivation succeeded so he could challenge his Master. He simply could not imagine that Bai Yiyi herself would walk straight into the trap.
So whether it was being used as a pillow by Bai Yiyi at night, or being taken advantage of afterward, he interpreted it all as her probing him.
Talent and character were not bound together. In Azeroth, Ye Ling had seen humans who were despicable yet extraordinarily gifted, and orcs who were noble yet simple-minded and slow. Bai Yiyi being wary of him was only natural.
Moreover, these actions were likely not her own idea at all, but the result of someone else's influence.
For example, the strip of white cloth hidden in Bai Yiyi's sleeve. It probably bore maxims from the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden, or sayings left behind by her junior sisters.
Unfortunately, she clearly hadn't memorized them. Or perhaps she hadn't even tried. Otherwise, she wouldn't have had to pull it out and read it on the spot whenever she saw Ye Ling.
Ye Ling seriously doubted whether she had ever read the contents carefully at all. This girl was very likely just cramming at the last minute.
In any case, the fact that Bai Yiyi stopped testing him meant he had passed.
The problem was that without any casual conversation, he couldn't steer the topic in that direction during cultivation. As a result, his progress temporarily slowed.
Still, these three days were not without gains.
First, Bai Yiyi gave him the Fasting Pill. One pill could sustain him for an entire day. The taste was unremarkable, but at least he would no longer wake up from hunger.
Second, relying on "Deconstruct Difficulty," he had truly sorted out the entire Qi Cultivation stage into clear, distinct layers.
His current goal was to completely "fill" the Qi Cultivation stage. When he reached its peak, the Great Perfection of Qi Cultivation, he would be truly complete.
If cultivation were like building a tower, other cultivators might make all kinds of mistakes at the foundation stage. Later, they would pay dearly for those oversights.
At best, they would have to spend far more effort to cross each bottleneck. At worst, they would be stuck in place, unable to advance an inch for the rest of their lives.
A thousand-mile dike can collapse from an ant's burrow.
While many cultivators focused their efforts on Foundation Establishment, Ye Ling set his sights directly on Qi Cultivation. Once he advanced from there, he would possess a foundation no one else could match.
By then, even without relying on "Deconstruct Difficulty," the road ahead would be wide open, with no bottleneck left to bar his way.
The only drawback was that the amount of Spiritual Qi his method required was several times, even dozens of times, that of other cultivators. The higher the realm, the wider the gap in flaws, and the more Spiritual Qi it demanded.
In other words, the time he needed to cultivate would be several times longer than that of ordinary cultivators. That meant he either had to come up with more efficient "unorthodox methods" and get Bai Yiyi to approve them, or learn directly from her a Secret Technique for acquiring pure Spiritual Qi.
As for one last matter, over the past few nights, Bai Yiyi seemed to have tied him directly to the bed when she slept. Ye Ling had no idea what that was about, and he couldn't even remember whether she had tied him up on the first night. He only knew that, late at night, he could faintly hear the sound of metal rubbing against metal.
By the way, he had once asked Bai Yiyi why she even needed to sleep, and the answer he got was—
"Sixth Junior Sister said that lack of sleep is a woman's greatest enemy!"
Bai Yiyi's Sixth Junior Sister specialized in Alchemical Pills. In modern terms, she would have been a bona fide traditional Chinese physician.
Listening to a doctor's advice was perfectly reasonable, but Ye Ling still wanted to complain—did a Nascent Soul Stage great expert really need to sleep?
What surprised him even more was that Bai Yiyi not only slept at night, she also took a short nap at noon.
All in all, this Nascent Soul Stage great expert named Bai Yiyi was full of unreliable vibes.
Ye Ling also realized that he had never once seen Bai Yiyi cultivate. Every time he asked about it, she would awkwardly change the subject.
Only after he pressed her hard did he get an answer that left him half furious—
"Your master cultivates too fast. If I keep going, your Martial Aunts won't be able to keep up."
You're really something else!
Since he had never met his Martial Aunts, Ye Ling couldn't judge whether Bai Yiyi was telling the truth. But after spending these past few days with her, he gradually got used to her style of "boasting."
Even so, he was still annoyed. Without the System's support, his cultivation speed had slowed quite a bit. It had taken him a full three days just to reach the Fourth Level of Qi Cultivation.
Objectively speaking, that pace was already enough to make most cultivators outside turn green with envy.
But going from frugality to luxury is easy, and from luxury back to frugality is hard. How could someone who once leapt three levels in a single day be satisfied with advancing only one level in three days?
Just as he was laying his plans to obtain a Secret Technique from Bai Yiyi, the Qiuqiu Monkeys halfway up the mountain fell into a restless agitation.