Xiaomeng tried to open her eyes and felt an invisible force press down on her. She felt a connection from a place far away pertaining to her power. But suddenly the connection disappeared, as if someone had pinched it into nothingness. With great effort, she barely opened her tightly knit eyes. The familiar white ceiling of Tian Yao's room greeted her.
She tried to lift her hand but felt a heaviness she had only felt during the time of her childhood in this body. Her head moved to look at the neat surroundings with no sign of Tian Yao. At that time, the door slid open, and a tall girl in her youth entered. Looking at the open eyes of Xiaomeng, the girl's own eyes went wide.
The girl hurriedly rushed to the bed and picked up Xiaomeng's hand, examining it carefully. Xiaomeng tried to pull her hand back but due to her lack of strength, could only struggle like a fish out of water. When she opened her mouth to speak, she felt a sharp pain from her parched throat and a loud grumbling sound came from her stomach. The girl made a thoughtful expression and went out once again, leaving Xiaomeng all alone.
Some moments later, the girl came back carrying in her hand a small bowl of soup with steam curling above it. She placed the warm soup on the table beside the bed and giving Xiaomeng one final look, once again went outside. "I will call on Senior Sister Tian Yao," the girl's voice came from outside. Xiaomeng's mind was a little foggy, so she could only be a passenger in this rocking girl's narrative.
Making her way toward the small room at the side where Xiaomeng used to live, the tall girl knocked on the closed wooden door. A few moments later, the door clicked open, and Tian Yao stood inside, looking at the girl standing before her. "What happened, Shen Yao?"
Shen Yao's lips curled up into a smile. "Senior Sister Xiaomeng has woken up." The next instant, Tian Yao had disappeared from her place, leaving only a gust of wind behind. Shen Yao extended her hand and was about to close the door when her eyes went to the small protrusion coming out from under the pillow on the small bed. She looked toward her right where Tian Yao had gone and then back inside the small room.
Unable to stifle her curiosity, Shen Yao went inside the room and slowly lifted the pillow. Her hands reached for a small handwritten book, the kind that was popular among a few disciples in the sect. With a slight frown, she opened the book and started reading it. As time passed, her fair face gradually turned red. She hurriedly closed the book and placed it back, taking care to put it just as it had been before. She quickly rushed out of the room and closed the door behind her. Then she made her way back to Xiaomeng.
Back in Xiaomeng's room, a tense situation was going on. Tian Yao had raised the porcelain spoon to Xiaomeng's mouth, who was refusing to drink. Tian Yao pushed the spoon a little ahead and it touched the lips of Xiaomeng who was sitting up with her back against the pillow. Xiaomeng moved her head to the side with a humph. Finally, after several tries Tian Yao was fed up. So, extending her left hand, she caught Xiaomeng's jaw. Due to the pain from the applied pressure, Xiaomeng opened her mouth, and a hard object entered inside. Now she had to forcibly drink the bitter soup with her eyes tightly knit and face scrunched up.
With a satisfied nod, Tian Yao pulled the spoon back and filled it up with another serving of the bitter soup. Xiaomeng, with her resistance completely crushed, had to obediently drink up the medicinal soup which for some reason, had a sweet smell wafting from it. It was the biggest betrayal she had experienced from any food.
Shen Yao arrived at her destination and opened the door to find Tian Yao holding an empty bowl and the aggrieved look of Xiaomeng as she was chewed on a small piece of a red spiritual fruit most likely given by Tian Yao.
"You should rest for now. You have been asleep for quite a long while." Tian Yao got up and advised Xiaomeng.
With a slight tilt of her head, Xiaomeng asked, "How long was I unconscious? I properly sealed the poison inside, so it would have been just a couple of days."
Tian Yao gazed at the now bright face of Xiaomeng after getting her stomach filled and raised three fingers. "Three weeks?" Xiaomeng asked with a pleasant smile.
Shaking her head, Tian Yao raised the three fingers a little higher. "Three months?" Xiaomeng furrowed her brow. Although it was a little longer than expected, it was still okay. But Tian Yao shattered her expectations pretty soon.
"No," Tian Yao shook her head and said in her cold, emotionless voice, "Three years."
Xiaomeng's mind blanked. She observed Tian Yao from head to toe. Tian Yao was still the same as before. It definitely didn't seem like three years had passed. Then she observed her own body, which also did not seem to have aged a day. Was Tian Yao playing a prank on her? She decided to go along with it as the truth would become clear soon.
"It's okay," Xiaomeng said after a pause. "I still have a lot of time ahead of me."
Tian Yao nodded at that. "Would you like to meet your parents?"
"Sure. Sure." Xiaomeng waved her hands. She felt that Tian Yao was just getting too much into the play that it was starting to feel real. She had an uneasy feeling. Moreover, what reason would there be for her aunt and uncle to be here?
Tian Yao said to Shen Yao standing at the door, "Bring her parents to her. They will be happy after hearing that Xiaomeng has woken up." Shen Yao hurried out of the door. Tian Yao also went back after giving Xiaomeng a final lingering look.
With the large room empty, Xiaomeng let out the small burp she was holding back. She was feeling unusually healthy right now, so with nothing else to do she decided to observe her internal state after absorbing the poison. Her brows furrowed. Her cultivation had now risen to the seventh layer of Foundation Establishment, with the respective meridians opened. She had jumped several minor realms in this short time.
As she checked her nine acupoints, she discovered that the energy she had extracted from the poison had accumulated in them and was nearly overflowing. It was several times more than what she had imagined. And as Tian Yao's words were gaining more merit, the door to her room was thrown open, and the two people who had raised her since childhood rushed toward her with relief visible on their faces.
Xiaomeng was completely dumbfounded and could only be hugged tightly in Xiao Cao and Chen Bao's embrace. How did they get here? If they were really here, then was she truly asleep for a whole three years?
Xiaomeng's thoughts did not get time to wander as Xiao Cao cupped her face and cried further, "My little girl… I thought… I thought… I would not see you again." Her voice was muffled and cracked several times between the sobs. As for Chen Bao, he was just a big bear making weird sounds, his words hard to decipher even for her. Xiaomeng tried to reassure them but her words were completely drowned out. Shen Yao stood at the door with a few drops appearing at the corners of her eyes.
It took some time for the situation to calm down. After talking with her uncle and aunt, Xiaomeng learned that three years ago, after she had fallen unconscious, her parents were brought to the Jade River Sect and allowed to stay here. She would have to ask Tian Yao about this later. After consoling and sending back the aging couple who had more worry lines than she remembered, Xiaomeng was left with Shen Yao. She felt that this girl was familiar but couldn't quite remember where she had seen her. "So, what are you doing here?"
"Ah," Shen Yao was at a loss for words on how to describe her situation. She bowed slightly and said, "I was assigned the task of looking after Senior Sister Xiaomeng's health by Senior Sister Tian Yao."
"Senior Sister?" Xiaomeng made a puzzled face. When did she become such a big senior sister that others had to bow down to her? "Why are you calling me senior sister?"
Shen Yao bowed further. "Answering Senior Sister Xiaomeng, when Senior Sister Tian Yao formed her golden core, she defeated everyone else and became the Senior Sister of the First Peak. Also, she has told everyone to treat you the same way as her."
Xiaomeng couldn't describe her feelings. But one thing was true: she was a little, no, very much, mad. She was now a senior sister she would normally have very much wanted to be. And yet it was just because she rode the coattails of someone else. She vowed in her heart to never let Tian Yao find out that she had absorbed all the poison to refine it and boost her own cultivation, lest her senior sister position be revoked.
The sound of rumbling thunder suddenly deafened Xiaomeng. She stared outside the window to see the gathering of dark clouds above the mountains behind. From the looks of it, they did not seem natural.
"What is happening?" she asked while looking at the bolts of lightning falling down one by one. She had an inkling, and Shen Yao confirmed it. "Senior Sister Lan Xue of the Pill Refinement Peak is undergoing her Nascent Soul Tribulation."
Senior Sister Lan? Xiaomeng remembered the kind senior sister who had taken care of her at the beginning and wished for her to safely cross the tribulation. If someone else interfered in this tribulation, the intensity of the tribulation would increase and attack both people involved, so Lan Xue had to face it alone.
The intensity of the blue and white lightning increased along with their frequency. In no time, the back mountains had become a forest of raining lightning. Suddenly the lightning stopped and the clouds started to churn faster and gain momentum, as if accumulating strength for a final strike. The world went completely silent. After some time had passed, a single final lightning bolt bathed in blood red fell down. Its speed seemed slower than the previous ones, but wherever it passed, the space tore, leaving behind dark tears.
A small golden sphere flew up from the mountains and into the air to meet the red disaster. The lightning and the sphere clashed in midair, unleashing furious winds in all directions just from their aftermath. The sphere cracked, but the lightning had also started to die down. In the end, the lightning ended and the clouds dispersed, leaving behind a thoroughly cracked golden sphere. The cracks started to fall away, and a hand came out of the broken sphere. As more cracks fell, a leg also jutted out from below. As the golden sphere completely disintegrated, only a small baby made of translucent blue was left behind.
The spiritual energy of the whole sect rushed towards the newborn, who devoured it like an endless pit. The Fourth Elder took out dozens of glowing pills from his storage ring and crushed them, releasing abundant spiritual energy into the air. The baby gradually grew more and more opaque finally solidifying into a figure of complete blue.
The baby slowly opened its eyes. Having the likeness of Lan Xue, it looked around with intelligent eyes, taking in the sight of the sect below. Its eyes focused on Xiaomeng for an extra moment as it waved happily toward her and quickly went down below to its owner. Xiaomeng was able to see everything clearly, and so were the Elders residing at their peaks.
Soon, congratulatory transmissions filled the ears of the Fourth Elder. The smile on his face couldn't grow any larger. A few weird sounds also escaped his lips and spread throughout the Fourth Peak, scaring the disciples out of their wits. That was the origin of the ghost stories of the Fourth Peak.
Sitting inside what used to be Tian Yao's room, Xiaomeng raised her hand to cover her mouth, trying to stifle a yawn. The tribulation had lasted till the evening silently crawled in. Even though she had not done anything today, she was still feeling very exhausted. After the bitter breakfast this morning, she also didn't feel like eating anything else. "You can go back. I am going to sleep." Finishing her words, she lay down on the soft bed with a thin white cloth covering her body. For being unconscious for three years, she didn't feel any stickiness. Oh well, she would just think about these things later.
Shen Yao also bowed her head one last time and went out, closing the door behind her. She went to check on Tian Yao and found her missing from the small room. The last rays of light were about to be extinguished and the spirit lamps began to be lit beside the roads of the sect. Even under the dark night, the sect felt like a world of its own.
Hopping on the cobblestone road, Shen Yao made her way toward the Disciplinary Hall. Even at night, disciples were still coming in and going out of this place. Shen Yao made her way toward the inner part. As soon as the disciple guarding the door to the inner area saw her, he stepped aside and opened the door. "I will call the higher-ups," he said with a disguised voice. Shen Yao nodded and stepped inside.
There were four wooden doors in front of her, two on each side of the wall, all identical, placed quite a distance away. Shen Yao walked ahead and opened the one at the rightmost end. There were four chairs in the room. Shen Yao went and sat on the one directly opposite the other three in a familiar gait. For some time, nothing happened.
The spirit lamps illuminating the room suddenly went out, but Shen Yao did not panic. She never figured out why there was ever a need to be so secretive. But she did not voice her thoughts, as the pay was too good. A small glob of light lit up in front of her, illuminating the three people wearing white masks.
"What news have you brought today?" the one on the extreme right asked. His voice was stoic, but after interacting so many times, Shen Yao could easily spot the excitement in them.
"Senior Sister Xiaomeng has woken up," Shen Yao replied. What followed was pin-drop silence, just with the unusually heavy breathing of the three people in front.
The one in the middle began to sob. "Finally, we won't have to deal with her atrocities going ahead. Although I will miss it, I really don't want it anymore." The mask muffled and disguised the voice, so it was unknown whether the speaker was male or female. The one on the right and the left also patted his back and consoled him.
"Anything more to report?" the one on the left asked.
Shen Yao showed a hesitant look on her face. "Go on, don't be afraid. The matter will not leak outside these walls," the one on the right assured her.
Finally, Shen Yao relented. "I saw a book Senior Sister Tian Yao was trying to hide when I knocked on the door. Luckily, I was able to read the title of the book."
The three people strained their ears but Shen Yao did not speak further. How could she say the name of that book without blushing again. But with the intense gazes boring deep into her, she spoke in a mosquito like voice. "The title said 'A Practical Guide to Raising my Runaway Maid'."
Once again, silence enveloped the room. "You can go back," the one in the middle said in a soft but trembling voice, as if holding something back.
Noticing the strange atmosphere, Shen Yao got up and quickly went outside. With her weekly task done, she walked back to her small room among the inner disciples' quarters. Her work was just too tiring, but she also liked the pay too much.
Shen Yao did not know what her words had wrought upon the male disciples of the sect.