It had been too long; far longer than when he had promised that he would have finished.
‘Is there a problem? Had something happened?’ Chu Mingxi could not help but think in such a manner. Her nervous impatience could barely be kept hidden as she found herself checking the watch on her wrist every few seconds.
The Derivation Array had been kept operating for a whole THIRTY-THREE HOURS without letting up even once.
During this period, the female disciples of the Scared Snow Heart Sect who helped in the derivation of the cure by playing the role of the ‘calculators’ had exchanged their places in the array with the other waiting disciples every few hours as the burden that was placed on the mind by being in the array proved too great to not necessitate a swapping.
However, the person who acted as the core of this formation, Wuzhi, who was also the person with the heaviest load to bear, had never so much so as twitched a finger during the entire duration. He continued to sit at the centre; serene, staid, and peaceful. It was only through the sounds of his shallow breaths and routine compressions and decompressions of his chest that Chu Mingxi retained her knowledge that her nephew still lived.
However, with each passing second, her growing anxiety strained against her reason to break into the formation to check on him herself.
While Chu Mingxi drowned in worry, the sect disciples who had finished participating in the derivation and had had some time to process their gains were beyond ecstatic.
“Breakthrough! I’ve had a breakthrough!!”
“My Path Understanding has broken into the ‘Accomplished’ realm!”
“Pah! Only Accomplished? It seems like I was right when I said that none of the food that you are eating is reaching your head. Look at me, I’m only a foots-breadth away from reaching the Masterful realm!”
“M-M-Masterful!? Impossible!”
“Hahaha! Witness and despair!”
“Ignore that washing board and listen to this. Remember when I told you that I was struck by a certain problem in a Path Technique that I was practising?”
“Yeah! It was a problem that even confounded the teachers and elders, right?”
“Exactly! Well, guess what? I got the answer! I can progress along my Path once again! I don’t have to switch paths and restart my cultivation!”
“That’s… AMAZING! I’m so happy for you!!”
Joyous roars of boasting, heartfelt tears of happiness, and many, many other emotions equally intense coursed through the bodies of the Sacred Snow Heart Sect’s disciples. Never would they have thought that the willfully arrogant declaration of a beautiful youth would turn out to be the biggest windfall fortune of their entire lives.
Once their emotional highs settled, the disciples turned their burning gazes towards the centre of the Derivation Array, where the architect of their fortune sat.
Mu Wuzhi.
Previously, he had simply been a subject of interest and appreciation for these girls. Now, however, he was an object of reverence. Due to their peculiar cultivation technique, the disciples of the Sacred Snow Heart Sect were more than a little earnest in their feelings. This meant that the gift that Wuzhi had bestowed upon these women would be seen repaid a hundred times over in the future.
Such was the nature of the Sacred Snow Heart.
While the girls positively burned with passion and enthusiasm to return the favour to their benefactor, a change finally occurred at the centre of the Derivation Array. Chu Mingxi, having been waiting for a long time for this, immediately readied herself in reaction.
Wuzhi’s still body suddenly began to tremble and quake. His peaceful features twisted into an ominous-looking frown while his narrow throat suddenly bulged with weight. In an unexpected display, the young scholar opened his mouth and spat out an orb of black-coloured blood. His figure then suddenly stiffened before loosely collapsing akin to a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Chu Mingxi did not give a damn about the formation anymore and broke past the wards to dash towards the centre. Just as her arms reached to catch and cradle her unconscious nephew, a blast of psychic energy impacted her mind, catching her off guard.
The Everfrost Fairy stilled, her eyes turning blank and lost for a moment. An instant later, clarity returned to her pupils as she immediately turned around and screamed at the gathering in the hall.
“SOMEONE BRING ME THE PERMAFROST LOTUS FROM THE SECT’S TREASURY RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”
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1? D?y of ?he Si?t? M?nt? i? th? Ye?r 7?? NC?
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“I’m hungry…” whispered the voice next to me. I was startled and immediately turned to fearfully look toward the top.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Fortunately, the door remained closed. It seemed that IT hadn’t heard the boy.
Heaving an inaudible sigh of relief, I turned around and looked at the boy with all the anger that I could muster. It was dark where we lived; however, having stayed here long enough, the boy and I were accustomed to barely seeing within this darkness.
Seeing him look towards me, I signed with my fingers. ‘Are you mad!? Why did you talk!? Do you want to anger IT further?”
The boy quickly shook his head, traces of fear still evident on his face. It was nice to see that. For a moment, I thought that he had forgotten the fear and the pain wrought by IT's anger.
Oh, what terrible pain IT wrought.
‘Why did you speak then?’ I asked. It was not like the boy to grow careless. We couldn’t afford to be careless. Carelessness came with a cost. A heavy cost.
The boy stretched his bony, meatless fingers and signed his answer. ‘I did not think that I was speaking out loud. I thought I was speaking in my mind.’
That was a dangerous sign of carelessness. It wouldn’t do for him to be so careless.
‘Don’t speak even in your thoughts. Better yet, stop thinking at all,’ I advised. It is what I did. Mistakes couldn’t be made if you never did anything in the first place.
‘But I AM hungry,’ rebuffed the boy. ‘I need to distract myself by doing something if I do not want to be hungry.’
I quietly scoffed. He was a fool, this boy. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before he was taken away by IT, never to return.
He was not the first boy to be taken away by IT. There were others before him. I wasn’t sure exactly how many as I had long since run out of fingers and toes to keep count of them, but I was sure that there had been lots.
The others had been much like this boy. Wary, careful, accustomed to the dark. However, with enough passage of time, they all ended up growing careless and angered IT.
I wasn’t like them though. I was better. Smarter. Careful. That is why I still remained while the others disappeared one after the other.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ asked the boy, using the sign language that I had taught him; just like I had taught the others like him before him.
‘No,’ I shook my head. Those who are hungry are taken away by IT; therefore, I had learned how to not be hungry.
‘How?’ signed the boy, surprise evident in his face. His dull eyes then glimmered as a thought emerged in his head. ‘Teach me! So that I too can not be hungry!’
I stilled and quietly stared at the boy. I then shook my head, denying his request.
At my denial, his face was coloured with betrayal. ‘Why?’ he asked.
I paused for a moment before eventually signing with my thin fingers. ’Because then you wouldn’t be taken away by IT. And I would lose my only advantage.’
The boy’s mouth hung loose at seeing my answer. Using this moment of momentary dullness, I quickly lunged at him and pinched the stretched skin near his ribs with my fingers. I then pulled and twisted.
“ARRRGHHHH!!!” screamed the boy, pain rippling across his entire body. He then suddenly stopped and slapped his hands over his mouth, horror and terror colouring his face as he realized his mistake.
I slunk away to the back of the darkened room as quickly and quietly as I had struck. With my fear-ridden eyes, I looked towards the top.
Click! The bolt on the door had been removed.
IT was coming.
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Sacred Snow Heart Sect.
Everfrost Region. North Aislu Continent.
Chu Mingxi watched the sleeping humanoid figure on the bed with equal parts of relief and worry colouring her face. It had been three days since her nephew’s self-proclaimed ‘death-hour’ had passed. He had lived.
Wuzhi had survived. His cure had worked.
The Everfrost Fairy still felt a bit giddy when she recalled the absolute chaos of three days ago. In that final moment of the Derivation Array when she had watched her nephew throw up a mouthful of foul-smelling, black-coloured blood, Chu Mingxi had cast all reservations aside to immediately rush to his aid. Just as her hands were mere inches from touching him, a burst of psychic energy impacted her mind, causing her everything to be still.
It had not been an attack to stall her. On the contrary, that psychic energy carried with it the instructions to make the cure that would rescue her nephew from the clutches of certain death.
It was Wuzhi’s final move before slipping into the abyss of unconsciousness. A move that both worried her and also filled her with endless warmth and gratitude. It signified that he had finally come to fully trust this aunt of his.
As a Rank 8 cultivator with Pseudo-Sovereign strength, Chu Mingxi naturally possessed unnaturally sharp senses. As such, it would have been very strange of her to not notice the guarded fear and reserved terror that Wuzhi desperately tried to hide whenever he was in her company. She was quite literally able to smell these emotions from him.
Such fear and terror had confused her for the longest time. Sure, she could understand the feeling of wariness and caution. It was natural for a person to feel wary and cautious while meeting a stranger who proclaimed themselves to be their long-lost family.
However, the emotions that Wuzhi expressed upon their meeting weren’t caution or wariness. Instead, it was terror. Pure, unadulterated terror.
It was the emotion that a prey would feel upon being cornered by its predator.
And Wuzhi had expressed this same emotion upon meeting her; a person who should have been a complete stranger to him.
Why had he been terrified? Why had he continued to feel terrified? Just what about her was it that made him feel so fearful? Chu Mingxi did not know the answer to any of these questions. Sure, she could attempt asking him outright for the answers; however, she doubted that she would receive any from the boy. If anything, her attempt would only serve to fortify his terror against her.
Still, with everything said and done, Chu Mingxi felt glad that her nephew finally saw it in himself to trust her with the cure in that final moment. The boy had finally decided to lean on her instead of taking everything into his own hands.
Whenever she thought about this, a smile naturally formed on the Everfrost Fairy’s face.
It was always the first step that was the hardest to take. Now that her nephew had overcome his terror to trust her, she reckoned that it wouldn’t take long before they could genuinely grow close as a family. Chu Mingxi had no real children of her own but with Wuzhi here, she had long since decided to treat him as her own son. It was the least she could do for this boy who had faced the world alone.
“Mhm…” A quiet groan snapped Chu Mingxi from her musings. In a flash, she arrived next to the bed and placed her warm, calloused palm on the forehead of the groaning Wuzhi.
“Shh, it’s alright. I’m here,” she gently whispered.
Under her gentle placations, Wuzhi eventually settled. He then slowly opened his bleary eyes, stared at her face with hazy confusion and quietly spoke. “Mother?”
Caught off guard by his question, Chu Mingxi did not know what to reply.
Just as she was pondering on her answer, the semi-conscious scholar continued, “Aren’t you dead yet?”