36. The Pride of Heaven (Part 8)

◎"Won't die" "Get lost"◎

Feiyan continued to knock on her window at the same time every day, tap, tap, tap, with a kind of stubborn concern.

She resisted the urge to pluck and roast the swallow, and instead removed the small jade bottle from its claws. Holding the bottle tightly with her fingertips, she resignedly poured out a pill and swallowed it. The warm current of spiritual energy soothed her meridians, but she felt even more agitated.

"You won't die!"

She tied a note to the swallow and watched it flutter its wings and disappear before she felt the pent-up frustration in her heart dissipate slightly.

Later, she felt that three words were too many, so she simply wrote down the short word "get lost".

She nodded in satisfaction, feeling that her words were very concise and to the point.

Inside the confinement room, Lou Tinglan slowly unrolled the note. Although the handwriting was wild and unruly, the strokes were strong and powerful, indicating that the person who wrote the note should be safe and sound for the time being.

He quietly put the note away, placing it together with the previous ones that said "I won't die".

Ran Qinghe was indeed safe and sound. With the high-grade spirit stones she had taken from Xi Qi, and the daily nourishment from the pills Lou Tinglan sent, the resentment mixed in her dantian had been completely cleared away in half a month.

However, new troubles followed. With the resentment removed, the drawbacks of being born with a spiritual body became fully apparent.

Within his dantian, spiritual energy had already reached an almost explosive level. Although a naturally born spiritual body can freely absorb spiritual energy, it is extremely difficult to control. If one is not careful, their spiritual energy will explode and they will die.

She had never encountered this situation before, let alone in the Mortal Valley. The Mortal Valley was lacking in spiritual energy, and it was already difficult to absorb spiritual energy for cultivation. When she was in Qingxiao, she was often injured due to missions, and even if there was abundant spiritual energy, she spent most of her time healing her wounds.

She keenly sensed that the spiritual energy in the Discipline Hall seemed to be thicker and purer than elsewhere, but then she thought that it might just be an illusion caused by her recent comfortable life.

Tomorrow is the selection for Yunya Academy, and she must regulate her spiritual energy again tonight. Last time she went out in the middle of the night, she used her spiritual power to blast the swallow grass in an entire valley of the Discipline Hall. The next day, everyone was focused on the fact that the spiritual vein had been blown up, and no one noticed this incident for a while.

She thought to herself, "Why don't I go and quietly straighten those crooked larkspurs tonight?"

The night was as still as water, and the moonlight as bright as silk. Almost all the disciples of the various sects on Snowfall Peak were closing their eyes and meditating, preparing for tomorrow's selection exam.

She rarely changed into black, blending into the night. In the valley, the once tall and upright larkspur was now leaning precariously, its blue petals trembling slightly in the night wind, looking particularly pitiful.

She bent down, sat cross-legged, and gathered spiritual energy at her fingertips, about to cast a spell, when she caught the sound of footsteps approaching and hushed conversations.

Someone's coming!

Her heart tightened, and she cast a concealment spell, waiting to see what would happen. Unexpectedly, the two stopped a short distance away from her. Then, their breathing became increasingly rapid, as if they were using the sky as their blanket and the ground as their mat, right there in the swallowtail grass…

*

All was quiet. Lou Tinglan sat in meditation in the confinement room, trying to calm her restless mind from the daytime.

Ran Qinghe didn't tell him to "get lost" today; to be precise, she didn't reply with a single word.

When Feiyan fluttered back, her claws were empty. He suspected that Feiyan had lost the note, but Feiyan from the Discipline Hall was no ordinary Feiyan. He suppressed this absurd idea as soon as it popped into his head.

He wondered if resentment had been lingering in her dantian for a long time, finally erupting at this moment. With an indescribable pull, he couldn't calm himself.

Tomorrow is the selection exam for Yunya Academy, so Lou Yi has to end his confinement period early.

Just as midnight arrived, he frowned and, without the slightest hesitation, headed straight for Ran Qinghe's residence, only to find it empty. His unease grew stronger, and following a faint trace of spiritual energy in the courtyard, he went there.

However, the closer one got to the Flying Swallow Grass Valley, the more...viscous and ambiguous the surrounding spiritual energy became. A spiritual energy fluctuation, unlike that of ordinary cultivation, permeated the air, carrying a hint of disorder and heat.

Lou Tinglan paused slightly, but still hesitated before moving forward. He concealed his aura and approached the source of spiritual energy silently, like a gentle night breeze.

A small patch of open space, roughly hidden by the tall stems of larkspur.

However, before he could get very close, the sound coming from inside made him freeze in place.

A suppressed, intermittent panting and groaning, mixed with the rustling of clothes, entered his ears, and even occasionally, a man's low, indistinct soothing words were interspersed.

He almost immediately understood what was happening in the flowerbed.

Spiritual meditation.

Moreover, it is an extremely intimate dual cultivation method where the soul and body are completely integrated.

His usually aloof and expressionless face momentarily went blank, and then a very faint blush involuntarily rose on his neck, only to be quickly covered by the chill.

Ran Qinghe...she's here, with people...?

impossible.

He subconsciously rejected the answer.

No, that's not right. Although the spiritual aura belonging to Ran Qinghe was nearby, the two intertwined and inseparable auras in the flower bushes clearly belonged to two other people. She should have just been standing to the side?

He subtly extended his divine sense, deliberately avoiding the two people, and immediately detected the faint spiritual energy of the concealment talisman not far away.

He flashed and silently appeared behind her.

Ran Qinghe had already closed her five senses, and the spiritual power in her dantian gradually spread to her meridians. The surging spiritual power in her body steamed her entire skin, and the redness did not diminish at all.

She endured the commotion nearby, the blushing and arguing going on for as long as it lasted. She wanted to leave, but was afraid of making a sound that would disturb the couple, which would only make things more awkward. So she could only grit her teeth and stay to the side, praying that they would finish soon.

Suddenly, a cool hand gently rested on her shoulder.

She was startled and almost jumped up. She turned around abruptly, only to meet a pair of familiar eyes filled with complex emotions.

Lou Tinglan!

How did he get here! When did he arrive? Did he... hear it too?

Fortunately, the spiritual energy temporarily concealed her burning red cheeks. Forgetting about being discovered, she hurriedly tried to get up and leave, but her body had reached its limit and was completely out of control.

Her body went limp, and she stumbled forward. Lou Tinglan reacted quickly, stretching out his long arm to catch her waist and pull her into his embrace.

His arm, through the thin night clothes, exuded a cool body temperature, like the fragrance of bamboo after rain, which slightly relieved the burning sensation on her skin.

Almost simultaneously, the sounds from the flowerbed abruptly ceased.

Lou Tinglan's expression hardened, and without hesitation, he pulled Ran Qinghe close, his spiritual energy surging slightly as he silently disappeared from the spot.

A moment later, a man with slightly disheveled clothes peeked out from the flower bushes and looked warily toward the spot where the two had stood, but found only silence.

Several miles away, Lou Tinglan almost immediately released his arm from Ran Qinghe's, his movements so quick they carried a barely perceptible urgency. The two stood facing each other, a step apart, the atmosphere heavy with an unspoken tension.

The embarrassing sounds still seemed to echo in my ears, and the close contact just now only intensified the awkward atmosphere.

Finally, Lou Tinglan broke the silence between them: "Your spiritual power is abnormal, restless and unstable, why didn't you tell me?" He paused, then added, "Next time you need to disperse your spiritual power, avoid... places like that."

Ran Qinghe: ...

She couldn't help but look up and glare at him, only to see that he deliberately avoided her gaze.

Seeing his obviously embarrassed yet insistently serious demeanor, her embarrassment and annoyance suddenly dissipated, and she even had a wicked thought of exposing his pretense.

"So you saw it all just now?" Ran Qinghe raised an eyebrow and deliberately asked.

Lou Tinglan seemed to stiffen for a moment, raising her eyes to look at the bright moon hidden in the clouds. Her tone was calm and even, yet it carried a hint of trying to cover something up:

"No, I was so focused on looking for you that I didn't notice the sounds around me."

Ran Qinghe: ...

But seeing him pretend to be nonchalant, her mischievous little thoughts were satisfied, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but turn up slightly, which she quickly suppressed.

"Alright," Lou Tinglan seemed unwilling to continue the topic and changed the subject, saying, "Your spiritual energy has been stagnant for a long time. If left unchecked, it will inevitably go out of control. There is no one here, so I will guide your spiritual energy."

He didn't say anything more, but gestured for Ran Qinghe to sit down. He then sat cross-legged opposite her, and a pure and gentle spiritual energy condensed in his palm, which he then placed on her hand.

Ran Qinghe opened her eyes suddenly, then resignedly closed them again.

Their spiritual energies intertwined, creating an indescribable harmony in the tranquil night. A surge of energy, like the icy snow of winter, flowed into her nearly boiling meridians, drawing out the rampant spiritual energy within her body, which eventually dissipated slowly from her body.

This process was extremely intimate, as if their souls were being touched by each other's power. Ran Qinghe could clearly feel every flow of his spiritual energy, and the shiver that ran through her body with each touch.

After circulating her spiritual energy throughout her body, it was already the hour of Yin (3-5 AM). Last time, when she forcibly pushed out the spiritual energy in her body, she lost control and almost exhausted it. But now, the spiritual energy in her dantian was like water that was full but not overflowing.

She withdrew her hand, the cool touch gone, leaving a slight lingering sensation on her palm. She lowered her eyes and honestly thanked him.

His voice was as calm as ever, “If you have any problems, you can come to me.”

Ran Qinghe asked, "And what about you?"

Lou Tinglan was puzzled: "You have already incurred my wrath, but I am now fine. My uncle lifted my confinement period ahead of schedule, which ended yesterday."

He spoke in detail, seemingly to avoid worrying her.

But that wasn't what Ran Qinghe was referring to. She had wanted to ask this ever since they first met: "Since your injuries have healed, why hasn't the Dao Heart Tribulation Mark on your forehead reappeared?"

As dawn breaks and the morning light pierces through the clouds, something quietly growing gradually becomes clear, just like the breaking light of day.