Most spirit arts practitioners, once they cultivated to a certain stage, no longer needed sleep. It was just that, in this world, no one yet existed who could cultivate to that stage.
Working backward from the fact that the longest-lived spirit arts practitioners currently alive were not even two hundred years old, Han Jie was probably the only one with that kind of strength.
But as the saying went: nothing tasted better than dumplings, and lying down beat sitting up. With a soft, comfortable mattress available, he was perfectly willing to adjust his meditation posture into lying down.
He did not enter a true meditative state. While continuously sorting through and digesting the information in his sea of consciousness, he also kept a thread of attention on the movements of his companion across from him.
After all, overdrawing the soul was not a risk-free method of cultivation.
If muscles could be injured from excessive fatigue, then naturally, the soul was the same.
However, Meng Qingtong had clearly relied on her many years of experience to grasp the right degree. After more than an hour, she finally dragged her utterly exhausted body off to shower and sleep.
Not only did she control the degree of training very precisely, she did the same with rest.
Roughly three hours later, she climbed out of bed, took a rush cushion inscribed with spirit patterns from the cabinet, opened the window, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating. The spiritual power she had naturally recovered was just reaching fullness at this time; not the slightest bit of the spiritual energy she absorbed was wasted, all of it used to assault her own upper limit of spiritual power.
Han Jie nodded in approval, very satisfied with this partner.
With both approaches working in tandem like this, the effect was by no means as simple as direct addition. Ordinary cultivation methods, while increasing spiritual power, could also strengthen one’s control over external spiritual energy. Overdrawing the soul, besides digging deeper into one’s potential, could also temper the strength of one’s own soul and body, and the speed at which one recovered spiritual power would grow faster and faster.
If an ordinary cultivator overdrew themselves to the extent she had last night, they probably would not be able to get out of bed even after sleeping for thirty hours.
That compact, solid, resilient figure of hers was likely thanks to this as well.
Having developed no small amount of curiosity about her, Han Jie used his phone to contact her divine sense as they hurried toward the place called the train station against the morning light, and asked, “Your training method last night was rather unusual. Did you research it yourself?”
Meng Qingtong held a vegetable-stuffed jianbing roll, a milk straw between her teeth, and hugged a bulging large backpack as she ate and replied, “It’s not some special secret. You don’t need to be so furtive about it. I taught my roommates back in my introductory class, but they all complained it hurt, that it was tiring and troublesome. Later, they even complained I was disturbing their rest, so back then I had to go practice in the washroom.”
Probably feeling that chatting like this, though mentally taxing, did not interfere with breakfast, she continued while wolfing down her food without the slightest concern for appearances. “No one else taught me. I just figured it out blindly on my own. I had no choice. The introductory cultivation method improved me too slowly. If I trained at that speed, when would I ever be able to seal that strange constitution by myself? Director Fang and Auntie Huang didn’t owe me anything. If I kept troubling them, how could I have the nerve?”
In the midst of all this, she even split her attention to reach out and pat the back of the driver’s seat, urging indistinctly, “Master, please go a little faster. We’re catching a train.”
Han Jie murmured, “After you were strong enough to seal it, you still didn’t stop.”
“Because I’m still not strong enough. If I’m not strong enough, I have to work hard. A kid like me, with no father, no mother, and no one to look after me—what right do I have to stop? Besides… I owe this wonderful world so much. If I don’t risk my life, I’ll never be able to pay it back.”
“Don’t you feel pain?”
“I’m not afraid. I have a high tolerance for pain. I can endure it. Come on, women are naturally better at enduring pain. You big men who’ll never give birth wouldn’t understand.” Her divine sense responded lightly, even tossing in a little joke along the way, but her clear gaze flickered several times.
It seemed she was not very good at lying.
What she was good at was sensing the thoughts of others.
Glancing at Han Jie, she conveyed her doubt through both her gaze and her mind. “What’s wrong? Are you in a bad mood?”
Han Jie picked up his breakfast—the bread he had chosen himself—and took a bite. The filling was chocolate cream, bitter within its sweetness, then sweet again after the bitterness, a flavor that had not existed in his era. “Once, I risked my life like you as well…”
Unconsciously, he began slowly recounting his past. Within the frequency of divine sense, he blocked out others’ hearing and spoke only to Meng Qingtong, briefly and concisely, yet in an unhurried flow.
The story was very long, but the telling was very short. Countless twists and turns, now that he looked back on them, were truly monotonous to the point of despair.
“…After that, I remained in that cave, as though without end, slowly, slowly condensing and forging my body anew. Until that senior brother of yours came to survey the place and startled me awake.”
Just as expected, after recounting it, Han Jie felt a subtle sense of lightness, as though some tiny burden pressing on his heart had been shared out a little.
Meng Qingtong listened silently to the end, stuffed the remaining breakfast wrappers into a trash bag, tied it tightly, took out a small tube of lip balm from her backpack, applied a little, and pressed her lips together. Then, the emotion in her divine sense was like a sigh. “So you… weren’t originally from this world.”
“How should that be counted?” Han Jie’s reply still carried bewilderment. “I stayed in that cave for more than eighteen hundred years. That is already… more than a dozen times longer than my original life. And I’m afraid I can never go back.”
With the level of spiritual energy in this world, even if he recovered to his peak, it would still be difficult to split the heavens with a single sword strike. Moreover, even if he could open the heavens and break through realms, judging from those incomprehensible words of the fairy from the upper realm, there was absolutely no way he could find the path back on his own.
However, he had never had much attachment to his original world to begin with. Recalling those hundred-plus years of nearly numb repetition, he only felt an indescribable exhaustion. If he had not seen in Meng Qingtong the possibility of tracing things back to their root and truly taking revenge, he might not even have had the energy to leave that mountain after emerging from seclusion.
Meng Qingtong let out a breath of relief. “If you can’t go back, then you can’t go back. What was so good about the past? Did it have flush toilets, air conditioners, washing machines, and toilet paper? Life is so convenient now. If it were me, even if they begged me to ascend to immortality, I wouldn’t go. Besides, you’re this amazing. If that fairy looked down on you, she was blind. She ignored you before; one day, we’ll make sure she can’t afford to look down on you.”
Han Jie gazed at the buildings flashing past outside the car window and remembered what he had originally intended to say. “Qingtong, I risked my life back then because I bore a blood feud as deep as the sea. After you gained the power to protect yourself, you still refused to slack off in the slightest. What was it for?”
“Then I’m exactly the opposite of you.” Her divine sense carried a few traces of subtle emotion, as if she felt somewhat embarrassed by what she was about to express. “It’s because I love this world. I want to become stronger, so I can do more and make the world better. Looking at it that way, I’ll definitely risk my life even more than you did.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Because love has more power than hate.” Her face suddenly reddened a little. “You’re not allowed to say I’m being cheesy. I truly believe that.”
Han Jie did not believe it. But he only shook his head inwardly.
He felt that he could disbelieve it, but he ought to respect those who did believe it.
As for the reason he did not believe it… it was because he knew exactly how powerful the heart-sword hidden in his chest—Great Hatred—truly was.
For thousands of years, the highest grade produced by Three Stars Cradling Moon Mountain had been immortal swords, while Great Hatred could already be called a divine weapon.
Love was far more common than hatred. Even setting aside the factor of talent, among so many of his fellow disciples back then, there should have been one or two immortal swords condensed from love, right?
Unfortunately, from what he had seen, none of the heart-swords in the name of love were of any use.
He could not help thinking that heart-swords did not have high requirements for the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Perhaps, in the future, he should find an opportunity to teach her and see whether she could truly refine a heart-sword that would make him look at her in a new light.
Before that, he still had to help make her foundation more solid.
“Qingtong, I have a cultivation method more suited to you. Do you want to learn it?”
No matter how little Three Stars Cradling Moon Mountain emphasized spiritual power cultivation, it was still far superior to this barren world that had never accumulated any heritage since ancient times. Even if he took out an introductory cultivation method, it would be stronger than what Meng Qingtong was currently using. If he taught her everything he knew, even if limited by the spiritual energy environment and unable to display its original power, it could still raise her conversion efficiency by at least twenty percent.
Unexpectedly, Meng Qingtong pondered for a moment, then shook her head. “Let’s not for now. With your strength, that cultivation method must be precious. I’m going to cooperate with you long-term, and splitting the profits fifty-fifty already counts as me taking advantage. I can’t owe you even more. I hate the feeling of being unable to repay favors. I really hate it.”
“And if you teach me, wouldn’t that make you my teacher? That’s practically a whole generation apart. It feels so awkward. No, no, absolutely not.”
Han Jie was rather curious. “When you met me, I saw that you were quite delighted. Was it not because you wanted a better cultivation method to learn?”
“No. I already told you why I was happy. First, I needed a partner strong enough and willing to work with me. Second, I like your looks. It’s rare for me to meet in real life an ancient-style pretty boy who fits my aesthetic and whom I can look at every day, and you’re actually plotting to make me serve you tea and call you Master?”
He did not deny it. “I did indeed have that intention. I admit, you truly are fine jade of good material. I had never intended to take a disciple before. Making an exception for you counts as a special case. If you have the heart, you would be my first and final disciple.”
“Nope. I completely don’t have that heart.” Meng Qingtong refused without hesitation. “You can leave your mountain gate for someone else to open and close. Mm… no, that’s not right. It would be best to give up that idea entirely. Sectarian thinking has been rather taboo these past few decades, and factional prejudice is the least beneficial to the development of the world. If you want to pass on the Dao and teach, then either contribute it to the research institute and see whether it can be popularized, or go to an academy as a teacher. When you teach classes, you can be a little biased toward the disciples you like and give them some extra lessons or something.”
So she was this resistant because of the ideas formed since childhood? Han Jie was somewhat puzzled. He kept feeling it was not only that, but for the moment, he could not think it through. He only found it rather a pity.
After getting out of the taxi and looking toward the station entrance some distance away, Han Jie glanced at the huge backpack in Meng Qingtong’s hand and could not help reaching out to take it for her.
She had just thrown the trash bag into the bin when she froze. “Huh? Do you need something? I’ll get it for you.”
“I’m just carrying it for you. You look tired.” He frowned slightly. The bag was even heavier than he had imagined. Who knew how much she had stuffed inside?
“No need, no need. I’m your partner, not your girlfriend.” Meng Qingtong hurriedly took it back and slung it directly over her shoulders. “Besides, all my emergency resources are inside. If something really happens, won’t reaching toward you for them delay things?”
After taking two steps, she suddenly turned back and looked at him suspiciously. “Han Jie, you’re an otherworldly expert. How did you suddenly learn to do this?”
He raised his phone and waved it, for the time being using this modern tool to conceal the secret of his sea of consciousness. It was not that he was especially on guard against Meng Qingtong, but rather that he had discovered there was truly everything in that heap of things he had swallowed whole. Dragons and snakes were mixed together, good and bad intermingled, truth and falsehood hard to distinguish, to the point that he was ashamed to speak of it.
In any case, the information source accessed by the phone and that lump inside his sea of consciousness were essentially the same thing, leading to the same destination by different paths. He felt it did not count as deception.
Sure enough, Meng Qingtong immediately warned him earnestly, “You’ve just arrived, so you have to learn to distinguish things on the internet. You can’t believe everything. A while ago, there was a news story. Someone had already passed the most suitable age for cultivation, bought some netizen’s ‘ancestral secret manual,’ and insisted on undergoing initiation. In the end, he suffered qi deviation and was sent to the hospital. They even had to invite spirit arts practitioners over for joint treatment.”
Han Jie nodded, but seeing her carrying that big bag, he still felt displeased.
This was the first partner of his life. Could he not even solve such a minor matter?
Very soon, however, his thoughts were drawn away by the high-speed train before him.
It could carry so many mortals, possess a speed like riding clouds and mist, and cover almost all settlements across the nine great regions. It could even operate without the assistance of spirit patterns, only with slightly reduced safety and slower speed.
Once they reached their seats and sat down, Han Jie came back from his amazement and glanced at Meng Qingtong—the backpack had not been placed on the luggage rack, but was instead held tightly in her arms. It truly did not leave her side unless necessary.
Meng Qingtong took out a bag of sunflower seeds, placed it on the fold-out tray table, grabbed a small handful, set it in front of him, and said, “If you want to learn useful common sense, you mainly have to rely on daily life. Look, preparing snacks before getting on a train is one of those things, because the ones on the train are very expensive. One bag here can almost buy three online.”
Han Jie composed the words in his mind, then said calmly, “One should not accept rewards without merit. Miss Meng, our cooperation has already been settled. I will do my utmost to assist you in what you want to do. My food, clothing, housing, and travel will be handled by you. As for the rest, let us keep things clearly divided according to your wishes.”
“Huh?” She froze, hesitated, then said in a small voice, “Are you angry? Because I wouldn’t let you carry my bag? Or because I don’t want to acknowledge you as my master?”
“I merely feel you are being overly distant.”
“Hah?” She was even more surprised. “Didn’t we only meet yesterday? This counts as being distant?”
“Giving one-sidedly and refusing to accept my repayment—is that not also a disguised form of distance? Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire. You fear being unable to repay me, and you do not even dare let me carry your bag. Since you calculate things so clearly, how would I dare eat your sunflower seeds?”
She blinked her large eyes, revealing a rare expression of not knowing what to do.
But her thoughts were indeed sharp. Very quickly, she realized something, bit her lip, and said, “Anyway, I won’t acknowledge you as my master. If you really want to teach me something, I’ll judge the situation when the time comes, okay? Bite off more than you can chew, and you’ll choke. I haven’t even finished learning all the public courses at the Second Academy yet.”
“That is not urgent.” Han Jie’s gaze shifted and fixed on the large backpack. “I have another method that can help you with immediate results. It is just that the process will be somewhat painful. Are you willing?”
“You at least have to tell me what you want to help me with first, right?” Meng Qingtong shrank back. “Just from hearing you describe it, I’d think you were planning something improper with me.”
He said slowly, “I will open a hole in your soul. After that, as long as the things in your backpack are not living beings, they can all be placed inside. If you want to put in more, either rely on yourself, or I will help you and enlarge it again.”
Meng Qingtong licked her lips and muttered with a slightly red face, “I suspect you’re making a dirty joke…”