When Zhu Xuelian opened the door, after a lengthy cultivation session, she was surprised to find Mu Jingyu in front of it, crouched down and holding several wrapped packages.

  Mu Jingyu was just as surprised to find Zhu Xuelian suddenly there, and she looked at the lavishly wrapped packages, with perfumed letters attached, and then back at Zhu Xuelian.

  “This…” Mu Jingyu began, her cheeks turning pink. “This is not what it looks like.”

  Zhu Xuelian sucked in her lower lip, eyes twinkling with amusement. “What is it then?” she asked.

  “S… Sister Zhu is really popular… with the other disciples,” Mu Jingyu said.

  Zhu Xuelian’s smile faded a little, and she noticed a couple of disciples peering at them from around the corner, and then quickly running away when they were noticed.

  Zhu Xuelian blushed. “… me?” she asked in disbelief.

  Mu Jingyu nodded, now her turn to fail at hiding her amusement. “Does this surprise you?” she asked. “Everyone thinks you are a cool and refined beauty, Sister Zhu, and they admire your swordsmanship.”

  The particular tone Mu Jingyu used implied that these disciples who thought this way couldn’t see the forest from the trees.

  “I am cool,” Zhu Xuelian said, pursing her lips.

  “Mhmm,” Mu Jingyu hummed. “My big sister Xuelian would definitely not pick a fight with every sect on the continent because they crossed her.”

  Zhu Xuelian’s jaw slacked, and she stared at her little sister. “You… this and that are completely different!”

  Mu Jingyu smiled — the way a tiger might when crossing paths with a lamb. She offered the many packages to Zhu Xuelian.

  “My big sister Xuelian would definitely never rush into a large group of cultivators, and fight them to the death, mere moments after being told to not get separated,” Mu Jingyu said, wearing the brightest smile she could find in her arsenal.

  Zhu Xuelian’s eyes widened. “That… that was a calm and reasonable decision!”

  Mu Jingyu giggled. “I know; I am just teasing you.”

  “Why are you bullying me?” Zhu Xuelian asked, pretending to be hurt.

  “Because you are fun to bully,” Mu Jingyu said. “You are always so straightforward and earnest; this Mu Jingyu cannot help but admire you.”

  Zhu Xuelian smiled. “Thank you for the kind words… Yuyu.”

  Hearing the nickname, Mu Jingyu blushed flat-red immediately. Her Sect Master called her that, and Zhu Xuelian must’ve noticed the effect it had on the sword maiden of the Frozen Peak Palace.

  The sword genius didn’t even retort.

  “This Zhu Xuelian also admires Yuyu’s straightforwardness,” Zhu Xuelian whispered.

  Mu Jingyu practically bounced on the balls of her feet, and she shot a heated, embarrassed glare down the hallways, before stepping into Zhu Xuelian’s room and forcefully closing the door behind her.

  She leaned against the door and kept her gaze on the floor.

  “If… if this Mu Jingyu promises to not tease big si— Sister Xuelian anymore, will you promi—“

  “Not a chance, Yuyu,” Zhu Xuelian said.

  Mu Jingyu covered her cheeks with her hands. She covered her eyes, but after a moment, her fingers opened slightly, and she peered through them at Zhu Xuelian.

  “S… Sister Zhu… this…” Mu Jingyu whispered.

  Zhu Xuelian chuckled. Mu Jingyu looked like she might melt and die if she kept teasing the poor girl.

  “Sister Mu, isn’t it against the sect’s rules to admire others?” Zhu Xuelian asked, looking at the packages in her hand.

  Mu Jingyu shook her head. It took her a moment to be able to speak.

  “Not at all, Sister Zhu,” she said, happy and nervous. “We are only forbidden from having relations with men.”

  Zhu Xuelian blinked. “What about…?”

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  Mu Jingyu shook her head again. “That is an unspoken rule, Sister Zhu. We are all sword cultivators, and harboring those kinds of emotions, usually, do not benefit us.”

  Usually.

  Zhu Xuelian did not even have to ask whether they did or did not benefit Mu Jingyu. It was very obvious.

  After a moment, Mu Jingyu spoke again.

  “Master sent me to tell you that everything is ready for you,” Mu Jingyu said. “As soon as you reach the peak of…”

  Mu Jingyu trailed off as she realized that Zhu Xuelian had already crossed from the upper middle stage of Core Formation to nearly the bottleneck. In less than a week.

  No matter how much she admired Zhu Xuelian, and how amazing she thought she was, this still shocked Mu Jingyu. It was too unreasonable. It wasn’t just this, but Zhu Xuelian fought a Dao Palace Formation cultivator and won — sure, maybe Wu Yulan did all the work, but how did Zhu Xuelian even manage to move a muscle under the suppression?

  It wasn’t they that were in the wrong — they had thousands of years of tradition, research and experimentation. Nascent Soul cultivators are stronger than Core Formation cultivators. This was written law. Certainly, martial arts can sometimes make up for a difference in Essential Qi. However, that man was not a Nascent Soul cultivator; he was two entire realms ahead of Wu Yulan and three ahead of Zhu Xuelian.

  By pure coincidence, the answer came to Mu Jingyu via Zhu Xuelian’s comment.

  “I am one step closer to waking Yaoyue,” Zhu Xuelian said, more than excited at the news that the Sect Master has prepared the treasures for her cultivation method.

  Yaoyue.

  Mu Jingyu no longer had any doubts about Zhu Xuelian’s praise for the mysterious entity. If Yaoyue was not a god, then the gods should all hide when Zhu Xuelian succeeds in waking it.

  “Xuelian,” Mu Jingyu whispered. “Your cultivation method. Do you remember that day on the Ark when you said you would teach me?”

  For Mu Jingyu, this happened a year ago. To Zhu Xuelian it was like it all happened yesterday, as barely a few months had passed for her.

  “Do you want to learn now?” Zhu Xuelian asked. “I could use some help to reach the peak of Core Formation.”

  “Y-y-you want to… c-c-cultivate together…?” Mu Jingyu asked, face turning red again.

  “Of course!” Zhu Xuelian exclaimed. “Why are you all shy all of a sudden? You had the guts to bully me; you should take responsibility!”

  Zhu Xuelian walked to the center of the room, which served as an isolated cultivation chamber, and thankfully, did not take off her clothes, which was generally the norm for dual cultivation.

  Not that it mattered; the intense intimacy of dual cultivation did not come from appearance, but the merging of two hearts. The deepest secrets; the most obscene obsessions; the purest emotions; all laid bare before each other.

  Mu Jingyu nervously made her way over and sat across from Zhu Xuelian. She tried to put up a brave front, but her whole body trembled. It wasn’t fear. It was excitement. The opportunity to finally show the one she admired so deeply her true feelings. Here, the sword could fall on her and sever her from Zhu Xuelian forever, but it could also… it could also…

  “Relax,” Zhu Xuelian hummed.

  Mu Jingyu nodded and closed her eyes. She circulated her internal martial art, and her heart cooled quickly. Flashes of light appeared in her Dao Heart, where thoughts of Zhu Xuelian sparked into existence and threatened to overflow, but she controlled herself.

  Slowly, Mu Jingyu breathed out, and the cold, pure ice energy of the Frozen Peak Sect began to gather around her, falling like immaterial snow.

  Zhu Xuelian also breathed out, and embers and ash appeared around her.

  In the haze of hot and cold air, something like a vortex appeared between them. Then the vortex widened as they opened their dantians, and countless liters of air rushed into their lungs and into their pores. Breathing with one’s pores — natal breathing, as it was known — was an advanced cultivation technique, and not everyone was capable of it.

  Slowly, Zhu Xuelian took Mu Jingyu’s hand and held it between them, underneath the center of the vortex. Mu Jingyu’s palm was turned upwards, toward the ceiling.

  “Confine the natural qi with your energy — ice or sword, either works,” Zhu Xuelian said.

  Mu Jingyu nodded.

  A ripple appeared above her hand, and the flow of qi found an obstruction, and the translucent flow of air diverted around it.

  “More,” Zhu Xuelian said.

  The ripple widened, and the surrounding disturbance intensified.

  “A lot more,” Zhu Xuelian said.

  The vortex practically unraveled, separating into several distinct flows as Mu Jingyu poured her ice and sword energy above her hand, crushing the natural qi trapped there.

  Then, the flow rippled and stabilized, passing through where the obstruction was as if there was nothing there.

  A warm, refreshing scent filled the room, and a gentle feeling enveloped their bodies.

  “This is vitality,” Zhu Xuelian said, releasing Mu Jingyu’s hand.

  “This is…” Mu Jingyu whispered. “It is very gentle.”

  Mu Jingyu found the energy to be extremely potent. It had a better effect at nourishing the body and spirit than just ordinary qi. She suspected that this transformation happened because her sword reached the limit of natural Law. Her domain practically opened, right above her hand, and suddenly, the resistance dropped to nothing, and this qi emerged.

  “Don’t lose your focus,” Zhu Xuelian said, and smiled. “Now we will start cultivating.”

  “We didn’t start y—“ Mu Jingyu couldn’t finish her question. She suddenly felt the qi of the entire mountain descend on them. The output suddenly spiked to ten — no, more than ten times — and the qi became so dense it appeared as a mist.

  As the room temperature dropped to far below freezing, despite the sect’s Formations to prevent that, Zhu Xuelian’s flames sprung into being and crashed into the qi.

  The temperature immediately burst to above water-boiling, and without thinking twice about it, Mu Jingyu unleashed all the ice attribute of her qi into the room.

  Fire and qi clashed, like Yin and Yang, and tempered each other spontaneously. The dust of pure vitality that fell from the point where they intersect flowed between them.

  Then, Zhu Xuelian’s sword force emerged, around Mu Jingyu’s qi-trap, and crushed the vitality into an even finer substance and energy type that was even more potent. Not only did it nourish her spirit and body, but it also refined her Sword Attainment.

  Completely bewildered at Zhu Xuelian’s obscene cultivation method — breaking Laws of nature on many levels — Mu Jingyu was no longer confused about Zhu Xuelian’s cultivation speed, even though she had more questions than before.

  Then her heart opened to Zhu Xuelian, and the two clashing qi — fire and ice — became gentle, and even more cooperative than before.

  Mu Jingyu immersed herself in Zhu Xuelian’s warm and light emotions that accepted her.