The immortal admitted that most of his days without Xifeng around, he pondered about whether he had the right to even keep her as a disciple. It was a blasphemous idea even think of discarding a once-in-a-million-year talent, but regardless of how convenient the child was to teach, a promise with anyone— especially with her, should not be broken.
The immortal hadn't any time to specify clauses or rules with his old friend; as they spoke, they could hear the marching of the Celestial soldiers and the shouts of his whereabouts.
He sighed, the memories coming back, and decided to exit his room for fresh air. As he took his first step into what was normally a calm courtyard, he felt a sudden gust of air that pushed him ever so slightly back. The environment around him displayed a much more exaggerated reaction— the normally firm imperial bonsai tree strengthened with spiritual ki was waving like a willow in the wind. The gold etchings into the framework of the house glowed and flickered, an ancient array searching for any incoming threats. If it felt like any other air, he would have assumed that the world was signaling something big about to happen, or the celestials were still looking for him after all this time. However, the air was too crisp. Too sharp, and too strong— and he felt her in this air.
The wind did not feel like soldiers marching forward, pushing past him, nor gentle breezes like the caress of an edelweiss bloom. No, it didn't feel like the ones Tengliu sent upon the northern lands at all, but rather the warm hand of a friend. He felt the familiar sensation of heat pushing upon his shoulders, dispelling the cold that grew in him ever so slightly, and it was because of this that he was pushed forward. He felt the wind from the North against his face, unusually warm and floating along with the rays of the sun— that was the final confirmation. The Herald of Light was here.
What do you need me to do? He thought to himself, and the wind did not answer. Instead, it blew harder, faster; stirring inside the small courtyard like a torrent of a gale. After a while, the wind finally stopped blowing in all directions, and turned into a southern wind, flowing into the north— the gates of his home opened with a bang.
And he saw two figures in the center of it all, wind flowing above their heads and catching the light, making it seem like there were halos hovering above both of their heads. One was Xifeng, and the other...
Her. The immortal's eyes widened. It was her, in all of her glory. The argent eyes glowed with silvern pearl; and he found her husband in the ebony hair that flowed in thick streams of straight black. Then, the blinding light receded, and the immortal came back to his senses. The spiritual sense glowed above the immortal's head. Xifeng brought back the heir, and in his hand was the lotus seal.
How could it ever be her? The immortal sighed at such a silly notion and shook his head. He smiled as the wind calmed, welcoming both of his disciples home.
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A day before the heir presumptive of the deposed Xia Dynasty and a nameless peasant girl were accepted as direct disciples of the Nameless Saint.
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Excruciating pain was something Xie Qi had experienced many times. Not in this lifetime, but in his later lifetime, which had steeled him for anything that might come his way. It was useful during mental training with Xia Tai, but it was especially useful when he woke up this morning feeling pure agony.
As soon as he woke up, his skin burned red with rashes. His pores felt like they were wriggling with impure worms and bugs of all kinds, and they were all trying to make a home underneath his skin. His eyes blurred with crimson red; and despite his outwardly calm, sleeping appearance, he was only lying still because he couldn't move his limbs an inch without the pain spiking exponentially.
He thought to himself; was this karma? Perhaps one of the judges of the Underworld was taking out their anger on him? Or was it poison? A greater plot. Maybe he shouldn't have trusted Xifeng that much, shouldn't have eaten with her at the same table. He grimaced, probing for the poison inside of his dantian. But he found nothing. Only an endless pool of qi that was rapidly running through his body like honed needles flowing along with the blood in his veins and ripping up his meridians— Oh.
So that's what it was. Xie Qi would have laughed to himself if it wasn't so painful to even open his mouth. So even nature was turning against him, refusing to obey his will for just one more moment.
He was being forced to break through.
He groaned in pain, and immediately regretted it; his voicebox felt like it was near to tearing apart, and the strings inside his throat refused to work any longer. He closed his mouth and tried his best to sit up in order to circulate the qi properly. However, gravity seemed to work ever so slightly stronger today, pulling his body back down onto his futon.
Was he really gonna die from qi deviation this early into his new life? That would be embarrassing. The thought of it was so embarrassing to Xie Qi that he was set on not dying. He swallowed the blood back down his throat and tried to keep his eyes open for as long as he possibly could. His body lurched forward as a sign of his exertion, and his muscles slowly untensed. He let himself breathe slowly, circulating and dividing the qi from his blood, strengthening and healing his breaking meridians. The heat in his dantian slowly cooled down, evening into a slow warmth that beat with life. It felt unusual, the sensation of life inside a heart and body that wasn't able to feel.
He breathed in and out, feeling the waste exit his body and drip down his skin. His skin burned ever-so-slightly, but it felt more like herbal steam than infernal fire bathing his body. The pin-like sensation in his meridians began to dull.
And when Xie Qi opened his eyes from squeezing them shut, he felt more human than he ever had before.
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Xifeng smelled the room before she even got the chance to see it. It smelled of concentrated evil, of unspeakable atrocity; like poisonous bile, vomit, and rotten blood mixed into a scent that was oddly reminiscent of mashed-up and fermented venomous bugs and snakes. She made a thin layer of purifying spiritual ki cover her mouth and nose, hoping it was enough to keep the rancid smell out of her orifices.
She and Xia Song were like siblings. They shared the same room and had two futons beside each other in case there was any urgent or immediate problem which each other. However, she didn't smell this rotten scent this morning (and was rightly thankful for it.) This meant that this smell had probably occurred when she woke up earlier than Xia Song in order to eat his serving of breakfast. A cold, nervous sweat ran down her neck as she opened the door with a loud bang.
Had Song perhaps died in his sleep? Maybe it was food poisoning? He threw up, perhaps? Or maybe... Xifeng sweated significantly more at the thought, her sweat staining the back of her shirt and freezing slightly from the cold; He shit his g*@*^%&^ pants!?
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She looked around the room and met the eyes of a figure in the middle, standing on the futon. The silhouette looked familiar, and the morning light hit the blinds behind the figure, bathing the whole room in the morning light. Xifeng squinted her eyes to see through the filth particles in the air. It was a deadpan Xia Song, looking at her as if she had just been wrongly released from some kind of mental facility.
"What is it." Xia Song remarked, his face like stone. It looked oddly like he was trying to hold himself back from his own anger. Xifeng looked him up and down, noticing something different about him. They were both the same age, just 8 years old, but Xia Song looked... taller. Stronger, and his features were much more developed than before. Xifeng nodded to herself and looked up at Xia Song's face. An immeasurable blow of grief hit her like one of the sacks of stone that swung in the training array the ghosts set up for the both of them.
He— He–!? Xifeng's eyes widened as she fell to her knees in utter lament. He broke through, but his girlish beauty's turned just a little bit more manly!?!
Xia Song only looked at her like she was some sort of loon. But Xifeng regained her composure, and put both of her firm hands on Xia Song's shoulders, like a worried father or perhaps a guiding elder.
"Song," She said, her voice shaking. "Song, what have you done?"
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Xie Qi thought that Xifeng would be more proud of his breakthrough, but he saw only grief on her face. He began thinking to himself about it. Was it perhaps, jealousy? Envy? Or maybe Xifeng felt like she was getting left behind. His expression softened at the thought and lifted one of his free hands to pat Xifeng on the shoulder comfortingly.
"Don't worry, I'll wait for you to break through too." Xie Qi said sympathetically as if he understood exactly what Xifeng was going through. But he did not understand the depth of Xifeng's grief at that moment. Xifeng only drooped, released his shoulders from her hands, and silently put them both covering her face.
She looked more disappointed than anything. But not with herself; rather with Xie Qi. Xie Qi frowned, touching his face. Perhaps something changed during the Body Tempering? It could be that he had screwed up somewhere in the qi circulating, leading to an imbalance on his face.
"What's wrong, Feng?" He asked. Xifeng only sighed and shook her head, slinging her arm around Song's shoulders and bringing him outside into the courtyard.
"It's nothing, Song." She said, silently mourning the death of Xie Qi's feminine, kingdom-toppling, bird-falling, girlish beauty. Now only the beauty of a girly boy was there, to her great and utter disappointment. She sighed shakily, forcing herself to deal with it. This kind of beauty was not bad either. At least Song didn't morph into some sort of manly man in the span of a few hours.
Unknowingly, the ki mask around her nose and mouth weakened. She took another breath and immediately felt bile rising in her throat. She retched, but nothing came out (she silently thanked the gods for that.) She looked back to Xia Song, which was sitting completely unaware of the foul scent that floated around him like some sort of malevolent aura.
She was about to tell Xia Song to eat with her, but with this scent, the taste of food would turn like poison in her mouth. She immediately recoiled her hand back from Xia Song's shoulder and slapped his back. "Go take a damn bath!" She shouted, plugging her nose and slapping Song's back repeatedly, pushing him to the bathing area of the stronghold. "You smell like shit, man!"
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The sages had witnessed many a talent and cultivated several cases of pure genius in their day. Talents like the first Heavenly Demon, that Spear Devil, tortured geniuses, and starry-eyed ones, like the Nameless Saint and the Herald of Light; for years and years, they had all seen what mortals and immortals alike called "unprecedented talent."
Perhaps their view was quite biased since Song was family, but they had never seen a pair of talents like Song and his friend Han Xifeng ever before. Not even the first Heavenly Demon nor the 13th Sword Saint had the level of Xifeng's physical prowess at such a young age. They admitted; for a time, they had thought their Song was the usually expected descendant of the Xia bloodline. A talented and hardworking boy, something that was quite normal in the Xia bloodline, perhaps below the standard of normal. Since, of course; Song was weaker than most in their bloodline and hadn't broken through yet even though he had such a good spiritual root and innate talent.
They were forced to eat their words and their previous thoughts about Xia Song today. All of the ghosts, even Xia Yingjie, gaped in shock as their (relievingly, freshly washed) descendant ate peacefully at the dinner table with his friend Xifeng.
He broke through an entire domain in one sitting. He was now at the doorstep of Qi Purification. The ghosts refused to believe it when they heard it from Xifeng, but the truth was right in front of their eyes, and how it burned their eyes with shame about their own talent.
'A whole realm, broken through in the span of hours.!' A number of ghosts had whispered together in awe.
Xia Cheng shook his head and waved his fan, seemingly disapproving– but behind his fan, he was holding back a proud chuckle. 'Ridiculous! He comes from a sage bloodline, his cultivation shouldn't be so fast!?'
One of the ghosts in the crowd shifted a bit, weighing out and reasoning to himself, vocalizing his theory. 'Well, his mother was a foreign woman... You know how those bronzed brown men and sun-kissed women from the West are, with their armies and blasphemous technology. I daresay they're the only ones that can match us.' He remarked. A large group of the sages nodded, agreeing. The West was indeed a worthy rival. It was a shame that the late patriarch had opted for peace between them. The sages were looking forward to an enemy that could fight on equal terms against them.
'But that would mean that our bloodline is the recessive one! Shameful, how shameful, not to inherit his own father's genes.' A ghost whispered, tsking under his breath as he shook his head in disapproval.
'Come now, be reasonable.' Another sage ghost remarked, settling down the argument. 'If he did inherit more of his mother's blood, why is his stamina so weak now? His mother was a strong one, one that could match up to our Xia Zian in a fight. It's not likely that someone who shares more of her blood would have a lack of strong will.'
"Can you stop talking about my mother, please?" Xia Song asked, setting down his fork and crossing his arms. The food was delicious, courtesy of Xia Tai, but it felt less enjoyable when they were talking about his supposedly dead mother and how strong she was and how he didn't take after her at all.
Xifeng patted him on the back awkwardly. "Hey, it's okay, Song. I don't know about all this royal stuff, but I'm sure your mother was a great per-"
"Not helping." Song interrupted and was promptly slapped on the back once more by Xifeng, knocking the breath out of his lungs and a large red mark appearing in the center of his back.
Xifeng tsked, muttering to herself about her friend not being grateful enough as Xia Song stroked his back, trying to soothe the aching red mark rapidly appearing. The ghosts in the background seemed to be conversing with each other on their own, talking and arguing amongst themselves. Xia Song didn't notice the moment they came to a collective agreement but remembered the line that came after.
'Song, Xifeng. It's about time you fledglings spread your wings,' Xia Cheng said, clearing his throat and closing his fan. His face looked more serious than Xia Song had ever seen it. 'So we've decided to send you to that immortal teacher your friend Xifeng has.'
Xifeng beamed, while Song just seemed confused. He pulled Xia Tai to the side with him while Xifeng was distracted with raving about the generous immortal to the other ghosts.
"What happened to eventually 'killing all immortals?'" Xia Song whispered under his breath, visibly confused. Xia Tai only smiled slightly at that, holding back a chuckle that grew in his throat. He gave Xia Song a pat on the back that passed right through him.
'If anything, the immortal would want you to kill him. Perhaps he'll even ask you to once you get strong enough!' Xia Tai answered, and then laughed uncontrollably, not being able to resist anymore. It had been centuries since he had last seen the Nameless Saint, with those cold eyes of his and that terribly glacial appearance. Who knew that such an apathetic-looking person would be such a crybaby?
Xia Song scowled. He didn't expect that even Xia Tai would be so unserious one of these days. He felt the words form on his tongue, a protest, a statement, a question, but he could get none of it out of his mouth. Instead, he sighed.
"He won't hate me, right? We have a lot of enemies, from the historical records in the library." Xia Song finally asked. Xia Tai shook his head.
'Quite the opposite. Since you look so much like her, he'll probably recognize you immediately, but–' Xia Tai cut off, rummaging in Xia Song's pockets for something. His hand passed through, and in the translucent hand was a low-quality lotus seal made of weathered wood. Xia Song had seen it before when that kid in the carriage had given it to him. Xia Tai put it in Xia Song's hand. 'Just in case, bring this for verification.'
Xia Song looked down at the familiar trinket. "...What is this?"
'Family heirloom. Don't lose it, else all of the sages will never let you live– it down.' Xia Tai joked. Xia Song scoffed. He was looking for more answers to his question, but he supposed he was satisfied with this for the time being. He held the lotus seal tightly in his hand and walked back to his seat together with Xifeng.
"Where were you? Well, never mind. We're leaving tomorrow, so pack up your bags, Song'er! I've already got mine packed." Xifeng commented amicably, laughing along with the ghosts.
His fist around the lotus seal only tightened at the friendly tone of his friend. He swallowed the guilt in order to muster up the voice to agree with her words. "Alright. Tomorrow, then."