Ming Li only intended to trick Jiang Ying into revealing the origin of the silver bracelet, but unexpectedly, Jiang Ying admitted it.
But where had it come from?
Coincidentally, other disciples passing by greeted them both, breaking the subtle atmosphere. Jiang Ying left with the other disciples, and Ming Li didn’t linger either, turning to go to Li Yansi’s main residence.
The Wing Constellation Academy Master’s main residence wasn’t set as a forbidden area. Originally a dwelling surrounded by verdant mountain bamboo, perpetually serene and elegant, it had now become deeply covered in snow due to the chaos of the Four Seasons Formation, appearing bleakly white.
When Ming Li arrived, Li Yansi was arranging several straw-man-styled spirit substitutes in the courtyard. Unlike those from the mountain challenge, the faces of the three spirit substitutes in the courtyard were drawn beautifully, resembling three happy, joyful children.
Li Yansi said, “Coming so late, you couldn’t have been stumped by Star Constellation’s class assignment, could you?”
Star Constellation loved teaching introductory courses to newcomers and also loved assigning homework. Only newcomers in all of Nan Que were unaware of his hobby.
But Ming Li said, “I met Sister Jiang Ying on the way here, so we chatted for a while, which delayed me.”
“Jiang Ying?” Li Yansi turned to look at her in surprise. “You two get along?”
Ming Li: “Sister Jiang initiated conversation with me, so I suppose so.”
She paused and continued: “Sister Jiang is so understanding and gentle with people. She probably gets along with everyone. Why does Master seem surprised?”
Li Yansi patted the spirit substitute beside her, gesturing for Ming Li to come over, while saying: “Your Sister Jiang has very high standards. Anyone who receives her goodwill is no ordinary person. I wonder what about you has caught your Sister Jiang’s eye.”
Ming Li said, “Perhaps because I almost killed her sister.”
Li Yansi: “…”
Ming Li: “And I took the bracelet Sister Jiang gave to her sister.”
Li Yansi looked at her in shock.
But Ming Li said frankly: “No wonder Sister Jiang said she couldn’t be magnanimous enough to watch me live comfortably at Nan Que.”
After her initial shock, Li Yansi burst into laughter, pointing at Ming Li and asking: “Little girl, you’re quite bold, aren’t you?”
Ming Li stood before the spirit substitute, channeling her star power. Though seemingly focused on cultivation, she responded to Li Yansi’s half-mocking smile with a troubled expression: “At that time, I didn’t know Jiang Wuyue was Sister Jiang’s sister. Because she ambushed me and Qian Li on our way to Nan Que for the mountain challenge, I had to fight back to save my life. Master, I heard Sister Jiang is about to marry the young master of Nan Que. Since I’ve offended her, will my future days be difficult?”
Li Yansi nodded: “Indeed.”
Ming Li turned to look at her, blinking her eyes.
Most people couldn’t resist such a small gesture. Li Yansi already found Ming Li likable and compatible, and seeing her make such a coquettish small movement, she immediately softened, involuntarily wanting to stroke and comfort a pet.
Ming Li: “Are they very much in love? Has it been decided that Sister Jiang will be the young master of Nan Que’s wife?”
Her asking such a question was quite understandable in the current situation. Li Yansi didn’t suspect or overthink it at all. She sat down at the table and explained: “Cui Yuanxi and Jiang Ying grew up together like childhood sweethearts. Their feelings run deep. In previous years, Jiang Ying was in poor health, bedridden all day. Yuanxi went out seeking medicine for her, suffering many injuries in exchange for her health.”
“They should be considered mutually fond of each other. These past two years, after Jiang Ying’s health stabilized, Yuanxi immediately went to the Jiang Clan to propose. Now that you’ve offended Jiang Ying, you’ve offended the young master of Nan Que.” Li Yansi covered her mouth and laughed, “But I’m also quite curious what will become of someone like you, so let your master watch the show for a while before deciding whether to save you.”
Ming Li said, “Would they directly expel me from Nan Que?”
Li Yansi shook her head: “It wouldn’t go that far.”
Ming Li: “Have me killed in Nan Que?”
Li Yansi laughed heartily: “Not that far, not that far.”
Ming Li also laughed, “If Master wants to watch without intervening, why not tell me more about Sister Jiang so I can make some preparations?”
Li Yansi was pleased by her calling her “Master” and generously said: “What do you want to know?”
Ming Li said: “Was Sister Jiang’s poor health due to some illness? If it comes to a fight, I should know what to be mindful of, where not to strike.”
After hearing this, Li Yansi couldn’t stop laughing. This little girl had even thought about where to hit and not hit if they came to blows.
“I don’t know the details. Jiang Ying said that period was very difficult for her, full of painful memories, so no one brings it up with her.” Li Yansi recalled, “I only heard Saint Cui mention that her condition was congenital reverse-flowing star meridians. Her constitution would be worse than ordinary people. She could sense star power, but as long as she didn’t attempt Eight Meridians cultivation, she would be fine.”
People with reverse-flowing star meridians are merely excluded from cultivation. This condition isn’t extremely serious, as it doesn’t threaten life, nor is it too painful.
But being born into a cultivation family, the inability to cultivate was a serious matter for Jiang Ying.
Jiang Ying didn’t want to remain an ordinary person, so she chose to defy the heavens and cultivate the Eight Meridians, resulting in all eight meridians breaking. Each day, she suffered unbearable pain, yet clung to life, unable to die.
Ming Li turned her head curiously: “Reverse-flowing star meridians is an incurable condition. How did Sister Jiang cure it?”
But Li Yansi shook her head and said, “No one knows how Yuanxi managed it. At that time, the situation was critical. He was severely injured somehow, covered in blood when he begged Saint Cui to help.”
Cui Yaocen intervened to cure Jiang Ying’s reverse-flowing star meridians.
Hearing this, Ming Li’s eyelids twitched, giving her a bad premonition.
After breaking through to become a pilgrim, one’s understanding of this world would surpass all others. Those mysterious, ancient powers and voices would speak only to them, automatically bestowing the gifts this continent grants to pilgrims, including countless inherited knowledge and power.
Reverse-flowing star meridians were incurable, yet pilgrims knew what to do.
Li Yansi looked up at Ming Li. After she composed herself, Ming Li turned her gaze back to the spirit substitute, sighing: “As expected of a pilgrim, able to solve such a difficult condition.”
Ming Li asked: “Can Sister Jiang now cultivate the Eight Meridians? What level has she reached?”
Li Yansi also sighed: “After her reverse-flowing star meridians were cured, her cultivation speed was very fast. Not only is she a good candidate for Eight Meridians Awakening, but she has now reached Six Meridians Full Boundary.”
Ming Li smiled: “Sister Jiang is truly a genius.”
Her junior sister was also Eight Meridians Awakened, Six Meridians Full Boundary.
“Those words coming from your mouth somehow seem off.” Li Yansi pointed at her, “I’ve been wanting to ask, why are you so reluctant to use your star power, precisely controlling its release even for a low-level spirit technique?”
Ming Li answered honestly: “Because using star power is rather taxing for me.”
Li Yansi began to focus on her star meridian power and cultivation method, concluding the topic about Jiang Ying.
She had Ming Li use the Yin Meridian on the spirit substitute and discovered that Ming Li’s control of star power required for spirit technique abilities was not so much precise as it was miserly.
Ming Li explained it was taxing to use star power. Initially, Li Yansi didn’t believe her, having witnessed her performance during the mountain challenge. Each time she used a spirit technique, it seemed clean and efficient, hitting the target with one strike, showing no sign of being taxing.
But after watching Ming Li use the Yin Meridian spirit technique all evening, she believed it.
Li Yansi, worthy of her position as one of Nan Que’s Seven Sect Academy Masters, immediately identified the problem: “Your star power consumption is indeed higher than normal. For the same spirit technique, you need twice as much star power as others.”
“No wonder your cultivation speed is so slow, still only at Circulation Qi Meridian Full Boundary.”
Ming Li blinked but did not explain.
Li Yansi mistakenly believed she had cultivated for over ten years to reach only Single Meridian Full Boundary. But Ming Li could hardly say she had been cultivating for less than a month, could she?
It wasn’t until late at night that Li Yansi let her go rest, supporting her head with one hand and thoughtfully saying: “I need to think carefully about how to improve your double star power problem. It’s quite interesting.”
Ming Li also breathed a sigh of relief and then left.
While gathering information, she had practiced the Yin Meridian spirit technique all evening. She didn’t feel tired, but the pilgrim’s fire within her was very agitated, making her want to rest for a while.
*
When she returned to the new dormitory outside the courtyard, she found that although many lights were still on on various floors, it was extremely quiet. It was now rest time, and noise and disturbances were prohibited.
Ming Li returned to her room and lay down on the small bed in the corner, her gaze fixed blankly on the door through which light was penetrating. She raised her hand to set up a sound-isolating formation. Almost every room of the disciples living in the new dormitory had such a formation.
She closed her eyes and said softly: “Junior Brother.”
“You gave the Seven Star Command to Qian Li because you knew his father was also a ground ghost, didn’t you?”
Apart from pilgrims, ground ghosts could only die at the hands of their kind.
So Zhou Zixi said killing someone like Qian Li’s father wouldn’t trouble his senior sister.
“Jiang Ying looks exactly like Qing Ying. If not for the silver bracelet I gave, I would have thought they merely looked alike. But today I heard that Jiang Ying had congenital reverse-flowing star meridians, was bedridden for years without waking, yet has been cured in recent years and is now an Eight Meridians Awakened, Six Meridians Full Boundary genius.”
“To cure reverse-flowing star meridians, one must use another’s blood to nourish the reversed star meridians, making them flow correctly.”
The result of such a procedure would inevitably be one death and one life.
The survivor needed to be Eight Meridians Awakened, with star meridians highly compatible with the patient.
Just the high compatibility would eliminate many people. In this world, everyone’s star meridian pathways had subtle differences, each with its characteristics, and the Eight Meridians Awakening had only a one-in-ten-thousand chance.
The survivor’s Spiritual Court Meridian also needed to be exceptionally strong, allowing them to live longer, and the blood they nourished would be more effective.
At this point, the probability was already one in ten million.
The Eight Meridians could materialize and travel throughout the body’s channels. Each meridian represented a certain power in the human body, so the human blood connecting them could also carry this power and transfer it outside the body.
After the reversed star meridians were corrected, the patient would immediately gain the power of the blood donor.
Even knowing the method, only those at the pilgrim level could perform the blood nourishment technique for the patient. It sounded simple, as if just bleeding into a bath for the patient would suffice, but it involved complex Eight Meridians powers and was difficult to master.
Yet how fortunate was Jiang Ying?
Every seemingly impossible requirement was fulfilled.
The dying patient received blood containing Eight Meridians power to nourish and correct her star meridians, while the donor would die from blood loss.
“But Senior Brother said Qing Ying died in the Northern Border Ghost Plains, so she couldn’t possibly have been used as a catalyst for the blood nourishment technique.”
Ming Li paused after speaking, her tone ethereal: “Unless someone secretly switched them, taking Junior Sister away from the Northern Border Ghost Plains.”
Only a pilgrim could accomplish this.
If Cui Yaocen had entered the north, she would certainly have detected it. If she hadn’t sensed it, it meant this happened after her death.
The only reason Cui Yaocen would go to such lengths to seize someone from the Northern Border would be at her brother Cui Yuanxi’s request.
Otherwise, Ming Li found it hard to understand why Qing Ying’s bracelet would appear in the hands of the Jiang sisters in the south.
But if her suspicions were correct, it meant Qing Ying, used as a catalyst for the blood nourishment technique, was already dead.
Ming Li opened her eyes. The doorway remained empty, with no sign of the ground ghost.
She said somewhat helplessly: “I’ll keep your secret about being a ground ghost.”
Ming Li closed her eyes again, hoping perhaps she might see her junior brother in her dreams tonight.
After Ming Li fell asleep, the lanterns outside gradually extinguished. The light in the room dimmed, and the scattered light and shadows gradually coalesced into form—a shadow that couldn’t bear the light, standing silently at the door, thoughtfully gazing at the sleeping person on the bed.