Hands on her knees, Lin Songmei stood slouched over in the center of the training field, doing her best to catch her breath.

Every time.

Every time she breathed, it felt like a snake made of fire was ripping through her chest.

Wiping some sweat off her forehead, Songmei pushed herself upright while beginning to walk in slow circles. Unlike Yan Mingqing, who was still practicing the foundational swordsmanship of the constellation sword art, Songmei wanted a break.

She was sweaty, tired, sore, and just out of shape. Songmei knew this, of course she did, her hobbies were reading and studying, that doesn’t breed fit people, that breeds people who get run over at intersections because they were distracted.

Good thing she wasn’t ever run over! Hah! Amazing 10/10 luck as always!

Her breathing slowing down, Songmei stretched her legs a few times, patted her clothes, and re-tied her hair back before looking through the manual one more time.

At the highest level, the butterfly movement technique should let the user flit around as if they were a butterfly, disappearing and reappearing all around the battlefield. However, at her current level, the technique was a little more crude.

Songmei’s goal was simple: follow the 5 step ‘activation’ procedure and be able to do something similar to a short-range teleport. Of course, the technique wasn’t true teleportation, it was just a technique that’d allow the user to increase their speed by a crazy margin.

The problem that Songmei was running into though, was that she could only get the technique to trigger once every 8-ish times, her steps weren’t precise enough, which was frustrating as... she wasn’t a dancer! She grew up studying! As established earlier!

Even after the technique triggered though, Songmei would have a hard time coming to a stop. She had already fallen down more times than she could count, Songmei’s legs had scrapes, her knees each became a patchwork of small cuts.

The scrapes weren’t much of an issue, they’d heal after a few minutes of meditating, but the whole ‘not being able to stop after using the technique’ issue was important. She didn’t want to throw herself into a wall; she didn’t have aspirations in becoming artwork in the near future.

A strong first step, a light second step, a weave, and then two steps to ‘extend the wings of the butterfly’.

Failure.

Her legs on fire, Songmei persisted, trying time after time. Prime time for dinner came and went. Both Songmei and Mingqing didn’t care, the canteen had food until late at night anyway.

And so, after sending a text to let their master know that they’d be back late, Songmei and Mingqing continued their bone-aching practice.

As the hours passed and the sun set, Songmei was seeing progress, she could activate the technique almost every other time, and when she activated the technique, and although she wasn't a balance master, she was able to stay upright.

Small victories.

Sitting against the wall taking a break, Songmei raised her water bottle, emptying it once more. Songmei didn’t remember how many times she had emptied it, but it wasn’t that large of a bottle, so she remembered that she had made... too many journeys to refill it.

Staring off into the distance, admiring the starry night sky that could be seen through the glass ceiling that filled in the holes between the wooden weave-style roof, Songmei let out a long sigh.

Each twinkle seemed to hold its own little piece of happiness, its own uniqueness.

It was moments like this, where Songmei found her motivation either soaring, or beginning to wilt.

These days, she wasn’t using gratitude as her only motivator anymore which was good. Of course, her gratitude towards the sect, her master, and the others around her was motivation to keep pushing, but there was also an... interest, a natural sort of passion towards cultivating.

The feeling of Qi flowing through the body was... ecstasy. Well, that made it sound a lot better and a lot more addictive than Qi really was, but it got the gist of it. Songmei had begun to chase that feeling of improvement, that feeling of more Qi in her body.

Beyond these two feelings, Songmei had a touch of anxiety driving her forward. Throughout the past few weeks, through small slips in conversation, she had managed to learn more about the world situation and the common enemies that were faced by the cultivation world.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She didn’t know anything, Xueli had said it was too early for her to know, and that there wasn’t a point but Songmei still kept it in mind. She didn’t want to have a meteor fall on her head one day. She wanted to be strong enough to at least run away... how could she have her comfortable house otherwise?

Other than vague enemies though, as ashamed as she was to admit it, Songmei was also... running away in a certain sense, running away from poverty.

She didn’t want to return to it, never if she could do anything about it.

That was a great motivator...

But... At this point, with the sect and everything, it had shifted a touch, bit by bit without her noticing, shifted towards a more... fear of mediocrity.

Right now though, away from the deep thoughts, Mingqing was also taking a break, most times their breaks didn’t line up but... it was late. Songmei was worn and she could tell Mingqing was too, and although it was fun and she probably could go on, Songmei was ready to go back home...

It had been hours after all.

Shelving her thoughts and stretching out her legs as Mingqing walked over, Songmei laughed at the haphazard ponytail that Mingqing tied. “How are you? Was it fun?”

“It was,” Mingqing nodded with a languid smile, taking a seat beside Songmei, “You want to go home too?”

“...Yeah...” Songmei murmured, a little embarrassed to admit it. Although she put in so many hours of practice during the weekend, she still felt like it wasn’t enough. Songmei’s original goal was to practice until the technique became second nature... but it seemed like she still had a lot of practice ahead of her.

Rocking back before using the momentum to force herself to her feet, Songmei extended a hand to Mingqing who was drowning herself using her water bottle.

A click. Flicking her water bottle’s lid back on, Mingqing grabbed Songmei’s hand to pull herself up, keeping hold of it as the two began to walk towards the main entrance area. “We can just talk more on the way home. We can grab some food along the way too~ Anything specific that you’re thinking about getting?”

Songmei tapped her chin, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to get, but maybe... “Soup. Probably just... yeah, probably just soup.”

Squeezing Songmei’s hand like a stress ball, Mingqing pursed her lips while squinting at Songmei. “I’ll flip your bowl of soup upside down and put it on your head like a hat if you get more soup.”

“Ah...” Songmei exhaled, a shudder running down her spine as she imagined the feeling of soup running through her hair. Mingqing would do it, Songmei was sure...

“I’ll... I’ll think about it some more then,” Songmei coughed, feeling her stomach grumble and cry out for food, “Anything you’re thinking about getting?”

“Just a bowl of vegetables, rice, and chicken. I’m in a... chicken type of mood.” Mingqing pondered out loud, her words trailing off as she nodded, making a decision in the moment. “I’ve been eating a lot of pork recently, and before that I went through a bit of a beef phase, so now I’m rotating to chicken. It’s more common anyway. Although I do also like lamb and duck, there just aren’t as many dishes with lamb and duck when you compare it to chicken.”

Damn...

Mingqing’s machine-level of habit tracking with her eating stunned Songmei.

If only she could hire Mingqing to manage her own life like that...

At the same time, Songmei raised her eyebrows, nodding along to Mingqing’s little monologue. Mingqing was always talkative, but it went to a whole different level when concerning food. It was like her vocal chords were indestructible!

If Songmei talked that much she’d probably end up with vocal cord nodules after a couple of days...

“Anyway, moving on from eating,” Mingqing shrugged, finishing up her little monologue about food as they crossed a bridge to get to a small floating island home to the canteen. “How was practicing the technique? Make good progress? Have fun?”

Pushing the door open to the canteen and getting a wave of warm air blasted into her face, Songmei’s face relaxed as she held the door for Mingqing. “It was fun, yeah. The manual used some unbelievably flowery language and some diagrams that could pass for hieroglyphs. Still, even with those, I made a lot of progress. I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to my goal, But it’s fine, it’s not a big deal. What about you? Also, a rice bowl with beef stew please. Thank you.”

Ordering a plate of breaded chicken to go with a bowl of rice and vegetables herself, Mingqing nodded along as Songmei gave her answer before giving her own answer as the two walked over to a waiting area. “I enjoyed it. The foundations of the constellation sword style aren’t too different from the ones my parents made me practice as a child. I thought it’d be totally different, so the fact it was already half-familiar to me let me make a lot more progress than I’d hoped.”

“Also, on the note of flowery language and hieroglyphs... for SURE, I should’ve taken some lessons to become an archaeologist when I was younger...” Mingqing shook her head with a laugh, “In the end though, it was fun... I would say let’s do it again tomorrow, but I think Xueli has some plans.”

Moving forward with Mingqing to pick up their tray of food from the takeout counter, Songmei thanked the lady before walking back towards the doors, leaning their backs against the doors to open them. “I think she wants to take us hiking?”

“Ah... Not hiking again...” Mingqing sighed, shaking her head before using her arm to push some hair that got stuck against her mouth away. “We can always practice another time I guess...”

After Mingqing said that, letting out a long sigh while staring off at the sea of stars above-head, the two changed topics, making some random theories on what Lu Qiang and Cai Yufei were doing.

And... With lamps dotted on each of the islands, bathing each island in a warm glow under the night sky, Songmei walked along with Mingqing back to where they were living, continuing the conversation while admiring the bustling nightlife that took place on the mountains that ringed the lake.