《A Traveler's Record of Cultivation》


 An Ordinary Day

    In the Ruman Village.


    The sun had started reaching its boiling point but yet the farmers still working on the field. The heat of the sun was unforgiving as the farmers were sweating heavily.


    On the side road, overlooking the field, a young man sat under the shield of roof made out of hay with a middle-aged man right beside him.


    "Damn it. Why is it so hot? It''s burning today!" The youth cursed while using the fan on his hand to keep himself cool.


    Hearing the youth''s complain, the middle-aged beside him couldn''t help but snorted, "You''re still this young and you already complaining you''re tired?" The man clicked his tongue in disappointment. "And don''t keep the fan just to yourself."


    The middle-aged man pressed his body against him and sticking out his head to the side so the cool wind could graze him too. The cool sensation made the man instinctively closed his eyes and his mouth unknowingly opened.


    Faced with the man''s action, the youth reluctantly repositioned his fan so the airflow could cool them both.


    Suddenly something appeared on the youth''s mind and a grin etched deep on his lips.


    "Say, uncle." The youth said in playful manner.


    "Hmm?"


    "Why do you keep talking like you weren''t young. You''re just thirty something. That''s not old at all."


    Hearing that remark, the middle-aged man scoffed and snorted before saying, "Keep talking like that and I guarantee you your butt won''t live to see another day."


    After the man done talking, the youth started sweating profusely and tried to appease his uncle the best he could before a shout was heard coming from the field.


    "Li Kong, come here and help us!"


    "I have to go now, uncle. Bye bye!" Li Kong handed him the fan and skedaddled away.


    The older man snorted, "Go ahead. I''ve had enough of you already."


    "I hope your old age doesn''t make your back give up, uncle Zheng!" A giant cackle could be heard fading away slowly at distance.


    "You little shi-" Zheng Liyang rose up from his seat before sighing.


    He sat back and smiled a little. His eyes never leaving the Li Kong''s figure.


    Looking at Li Kong, Zheng Liyang eyes were filled with nostalgia.


    ''The little kid has grown so much now. I still remember when he was a child, he was such a rascal.''


    He still remember the time he had the opportunity to take care of the little demon and every single day the little demon kept on pranking him non-stop.


    One day, he was on the way back home after working on the field and what greeted him when he was opening the door was a water bucket from the sky.


    The other day, he was resting and Li Kong offered him a cup of water and it turned out to be a vinegar which resulted the kid''s butt became as red as a cherry.


    But even after the all-out spanking from Zheng Liyang, the little demon remained headstrong and kept on pranking him and to reciprocate the thoughts, Zheng Liyang would also kept on whooping his butt. It was some kind of pararetard relationship or something else like that.


    ''Now look at him.'' Li Kong was stalking and laughing with other farmers. ''He was an even bigger rascal now.''


    Zheng Liyang shook his head in resignation and continued to rest before returning back to the fields.


    Today too was an ordinary day.


    ...


    The work on the field had concluded and everyone hurriedly looking for a place to rest from the stinging heat of the sun.


    "Heavens! Why is it so hot today! The spring has just started!" One of the workers complained while wiping his sweats off.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    "The world is nearing its end." Another person stared blankly to somewhere and somberly replied.


    "Bah!" He slapped his mouth and said, "Could you just say something good for once?"


    The crowds were talking merrily and Li Kong was taking a nap under a tree not far away from the rest of the group.


    Not long after, the women of the village arrived and offered the tired farmers a cup of water.


    While on the other hand, Li Kong who was still enjoying his nap, suddenly sensed someone was heading toward his direction.


    He opened his eyes and the first thing that greeted him was the face of a beautiful young woman.


    "Good afternoon, Mr. Sleepy Head. How was your nap?"


    Li Kong rubbed his eyes and yawned.


    "Terrible. A certain someone disturbed my sleep."


    "And may I know who was that certain someone?" The woman inquired, obviously clueless as she blinked.


    "I don''t know who was it but one thing certain was it couldn''t be the daughter of the chief village and the proud flower of the Ruman Village, Yu Mei." Li Kong responded nonchalantly before bursting into a smile.


    Yu Mei smiled back in response and she offered him a glass of water and then sat beside with an elegant gesture.


    "Thanks!" Li Kong grabbed the cup and gulped down the water.


    "Your welcome." Her lips slightly pursed.


    After that, they went on conversations with each other. Their chatter and laughter filled the empty spaces under the tree''s shades.


    "Yu Mei, we''re done here!" A figure of a young girl around the same age as them called Yu Mei.


    "Ah, wait for me, Tang Xia!" Yu Mei hurriedly packed things up.


    Yu Mei stood up and was just about to bid farewell before she suddenly stopped to closed her eyes and creased her eyebrows while placing her finger on her chin making a funny face on the process.


    "Oh!" She jolted off and said, "I almost forgot that Uncle Ye told said today he will go hunting and he ask you to join him."


    "Really?" Li Kong stood up enthusiastically. "Tell him that I would like to go too!"


    "No way." She stuck out her tongue. "Do it yourself, you lazy. I have something else to do."


    She then departed with a smile on her face and humming a happy tune.


    Li Kong clicked his tongue. "Petty."


    Then Li Kong started to stretch his stiff body.


    "Let''s go home." He said with a yawn.


    ...


    On the outskirt of the village, a man was leaning on a tree, bored out of his mind.


    The man''s appearance was that of a robust middle-aged man with an unkempt beard. The man''s height reached to almost 190 cm tall. His body was packed with muscles. His figure comparable to a tree trunk. On his side was a bow and its arrow in the quiver and a knife wrapped in a leather pouch hanging on his waist.


    "Just how much long would this brat makes me wait? A hour almost passed!" Ye Cheng was filled with irritation and couldn''t wait to smack someone to ease his anger.


    But fortunately for Ye Cheng, the person he waiting for had finally arrived.


    A black-haired young man with a strong stature, dressed in leather garments carrying a large leather bag that he tied with a rope across his body. On his waist was a pouch with a set of daggers hanging on it.


    Although the young man''s figure couldn''t be compared to Ye Cheng''s trained body, the young man body was healthy beyond his peers. His body was anything but frail, adorned with just the right amount of muscles.


    Li Kong was out of breath. He greedily gasped for air for about a minute before his breath steadied.


    "I''m sorry I''m late, Uncle Ye. Granny Qing asked me to help her to find her wedding ring." Li Kong hurriedly explained.


    Listening to his explanation, Ye Cheng chose to let him off the hook for this time.


    Realizing that he was safe, Li Kong breathed a sigh of relief.


    "But if you were late again, I''m not asking you to come with me again." Ye Cheng said while preparing his tools.


    Li Kong struck his chest as he solemnly said, "Of course, uncle! When did I ever come late?"


    The urge to smack suddenly boiled up again in Ye Cheng but he ultimately decided to hold back and only snorted.


    "Let''s go." Ye Cheng said.


    Li Kong followed after him and soon.


    Ye Cheng assessed Li Kong for once again and after some time, he realized something was missing.


    Something that was very crucial for general activity of hunting.


    "You brat! How many times should I tell you to bring with you your bow!" Anger fueled up Ye Cheng entire being.


    Li Kong quickly cowered in fear and cautiously replied, "Bow just wasn''t suited for me, uncle Ye. We''re not fated for each other in this life!" Cold sweats rapidly formed on his forehead.


    "Not fated my ass. Do you think you''ll marry the bow or what? You were just lazy." Ye Cheng was about to explode.


    Li Kong was indignant at the accusations and replied, "I really don''t need a bow, Uncle. Haven''t you see already my throwing skills?"


    By his mention, Ye Cheng was immediately reminded by Li Kong''s throwing dagger skill at a certain evening.


    That evening, he saw Li Kong accurately landing his daggers on a flying targets, each of the dagger left mark right in the center of the target.


    He was struck of awe at that time and after that, he immediately turned Li Kong into his disciple in learning archery, albeit with a little force.


    ''That sense of accuracy is terrifying.'' Ye Cheng remarked in his head.


    ''And to waste that talent on mere throwing daggers? Such a waste of a talent.''


    Ye Cheng had asked him to learn archery from him many times but he was headstrong, insisting that his throwing daggers was more than enough.


    Ye Cheng had to brute force his way so the damned brat could finally learn archery, although reluctantly but the only result that could be said after that was Ye Cheng''s judgement was absolutely right.


    But in the end, even after learning archery from him, though not very long, Li Kong''s still insisted that using daggers was better which threw him into rage but what could he possibly do if the brat himself didn''t want to learn it?


    Resigned, Ye Cheng just shook his head and sighed.


    "I let you off hook just this time but next time you have to absolutely bring a bow with you. You hear me? Or else you won''t even left a single step from the village. You understand?"


    Li Kong wanted to refuse but he could felt that his uncle wasn''t in the mood of joking right now so he reluctantly replied, "Okay."


    Ye Cheng let out a loud whiff before saying, "Follow me," and walked slowly to the forest.


    "Alright!" Li Kong hurriedly followed after his uncle.


    "What will we hunt today, uncle?"


    "Deer."

 Troubling Mischief

    Under the shades of the trees, a rustles rang from the bush beneath.


    "It couldn''t be too far away." Li Kong said as he looked at the trail of blood on the ground.


    Ye Cheng nodded at Li Kong''s assessment.


    "Let''s quickly chase after it before it''s gone." Ye Cheng instructed.


    The pair of hunters danced their way through the wood, following closely the bloody red stains on the ground.


    The trail of blood extended deep into the forest and soon after, they found a deer laying on a pool of blood with an arrow pierced through its neck.


    "Woah, this deer is pretty strong." Li Kong said while fiddling with the arrow, causing it to wiggle wildly.


    Ye Cheng reached out towards the deer and pulled out the arrow from its hide and said to Li Kong, "Help me tie up the legs."


    Li Kong grouped the deer''s legs and tied it up with a rope.


    "Done." Li Kong wiped off his hand and then looked at his uncle.


    "Good" Ye Cheng nodded. He pulled out one of his knives and started to removing the deer''s innard.


    Ye Cheng started to opened the deer''s stomach with his knife and then, he inserted his hand to the deer''s guts before grabbing something and cutting it off. Almost immediately the innards came out easily as Ye Cheng retracted his hand back.


    Ye Cheng gave an empty hand to Li Kong and without any words being spoken, Li Kong placed a pouch of water on his uncle''s hand.


    While his uncle was washing hands, Li Kong squatted and looked inside of the deer and it was completely hollowed out. Uncle indeed skilled with knives. Not even a minute had passed and the deer completely hollowed.


    "Now let''s carry this out of the forest." Ye Cheng said while swatting his hand on the air.


    Li Kong straighten his posture and placed his right hand diagonally on his forehead.


    "Yes, sir!" Li Kong''s voice filled with vigor.


    Ye Cheng was already numbed at Li Kong''s weird action. The salute was just one of many weird things he would done on the spur of moment. As long as it didn''t annoyed him too much, he wouldn''t be bothered to smack some senses into Li Kong.


    Ye Cheng lead the way in the front while Li Kong was busy carrying the deer in the big leather bag, looking out of breath.


    "Uncle, isn''t it not fair that it was always me who carrying the spoils?"


    Ye Cheng snorted. "Just a little bit of exercise and you''re already complaining? You''re still young. Where all of those youthful muscles at? That''s why you have to move a lot so that you can grow."


    Li Kong feeling indignant and said lowly, "You and Uncle Zheng was all the same. I swear you two are just using me for free labor."


    Ye Cheng was caught off guard by Li Kong''s sudden outburst. But after that, he laughed and ruffled Li Kong''s hair.


    "Free labor, huh? I like how it sound. Don''t you like how it sound too, Li Kong?" Ye Cheng grinned.


    Li Kong was about to open his mouth before he signaled to Ye Cheng to be quiet. Li Kong let go of the leather bag and slowly walked toward a bush soundlessly while slowly withdrew one of his daggers.


    Not far behind the bush, a rabbit with a fur as white as the full moon was hopping around before it suddenly stopped and looked around for a moment. But even a moment of stillness could spelled eternal sleep to the bunny.


    Li Kong saw through that moment of stillness and shot his dagger forward. The dagger hurled toward its target and flawlessly pierced through the rabbit''s neck and planted it on the tree nearby.


    Looking at his successful attempt, Li Kong made a "yes" gesture and looked at Ye Cheng with a smile.


    Ye Cheng respond it back with another smile.


    "Quick, grab it. After that, we''re going back immediately to the village. It''s starting to get late."


    Li Kong happily pulled out his dagger. He quickly gutted the rabbit before putting it inside a leather pouch he brought with him. He quickly went back to Ye Cheng''s side and they walked toward the exit.


    "I can''t wait for Granny Qing''s rabbit stew tonight! Just thinking about it already makes me drool."


    "Just don''t forget to leave some for your old man, okay?" Ye Cheng nudged him.


    "No worries, Uncle Ye. I''ll leave you the bones later." Li Kong said while grinning.


    "It seems like you really missed my beating." Ye Cheng cracked his knuckles.


    "Beat me up and I''m telling Auntie Feng you bullied me!" Li Kong threatened him fearfully.


    Hearing the sacred word was coming out from Li Kong''s mouth, shivers ran through his back and he immediately fell silent.


    "Hahaha!" Li Kong laughed for a while before stopping to wipe off his tears.


    Ye Cheng, looking slightly disturbed, arrived on Li Kong''s side.


    "You were just joking about telling your auntie, right? " Ye Cheng probed meekly.


    "Of course not. I love my uncle after all." Li Kong flashed him another grin.


    Ye Cheng pulled him into his side and ruffled his hair once more.


    "You rascal. Now you dare to try to tease your uncle, huh?"


    "Uncle, your hand is still wet!" Li Kong pushed his uncle way but his uncle refused to release him and they continued to walk on.


    Later, despite Ye Cheng''s warning it was getting late, Li Kong managed to caught four more rabbits and they reached the village''s entrance just a moment the sun starting to set.


    ...


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    In the middle of the village, Yu Mei was walking hand-in-hand and chatting with the little children. The children were twin named Xiao Jia and Xiao Fang. Xiao Jia was a little shy and meek while Xiao Fang was the very opposite of Xiao Jia with his confident pose. It was unknown whether Xiao Fang absorbed all the bravery and confidence out of Xiao Jia when they were in the womb.


    But while chatting one of the children suddenly pulled her sleeves.


    Yu Mei looked at Xiao Jia''s big round eyes and asked with a smile. "What''s wrong, Xiao Jia? Do you want to be carried?"


    Xiao Jia shook her head then silently pointed her finger on a direction.


    Yu Mei''s eyes traced the direction where her finger pointed at and when she arrived at her destination, appeared a youthful figure. It was Li Kong.


    At the distance, Li Kong could be seen waving his hand side to side at their direction cheerfully, already cleaned up from his hunt. Yu Mei''s expression immediately soften.


    "Look who''s back. Why don''t you two go and greet him?"


    Xiao Jia was shaking his head while the other twin had rushed before Yu Mei finished her sentences.


    "Li Kong!" Xiao Fang shouted.


    "Woah, woah, careful right there!" Li Kong lowered his body and opened his arms forward.


    When Xiao Fang was within reach, Li Kong immediately carried him upwards and grinned mischievously.


    The smile was the most sinister Xiao Fang ever witnessed in his entire life. Colors faded from his face as he nervously tried to stop him.


    "Li Kong, n-" His words was cut off short.


    While Xiao Fang was still in mid-air, Li Kong pivoted and spun his body as fast as possible. The world promptly became blurry and all Xiao Fang saw were straight lines.


    "Aaaaaaaaaah! Stop! Stop!" Xiao Fang could felt that the feeling of nausea was building up inside of him.


    But rather than slowing down, Li Kong accelerated even further. The child''s scream echoed through the village for another seconds before Li Kong finally dropped him down and in an instant, they both fell on their knees.


    "Uwek!" Xiao Fang felt something was churning out his stomach but there was nothing.


    "Ugh." Li Kong hurriedly covered his mouth while staying calm with all of his vision was spinning uncontrollably.


    While on the other side, there were Yu Mei and Xiao Jia witnessing the stupidity that had just transpired with the culprit and victim desperately holding something from coming out from their stomaches.


    "Sigh. Seriously, what do you think you are? Four?" Yu Mei released Xiao Jia''s hand and slowly approached Li Kong.


    Li Kong looked at what he thought was Yu Mei and said, "Fourteen, to be exact."


    He tried to straighten his back but his attempt left his body becoming wobbly but he still managed to give "one" and "four" hand signs to Yu Mei before collapsed out of nausea.


    Yu Mei sighed again, "I couldn''t believe you still the energy to crack some jokes."


    "There, there." After that, Yu Mei didn''t say anything more and started patting Li Kong''s back.


    While on the other side, Xiao Jia observed her sister''s movement carefully and then, she shifted her gaze back to the kneeling Xiao Fang.


    Xiao Jia raised her hand and stared on it a little before raising it a little but higher and tried patting Xiao Fang.


    Unfortunately for Xiao Fang, it seemed his older sister concern was too enormous for him to bear as a "pat" from his sister slammed on his back.


    Pa!!!


    Xiao Fang let out a manly scream from his mouth and following his scream, all sense of nausea immediately dispersed from Xiao Fang as an entirely different type of pain greeted him instead.


    Xiao Fang jumped from his positions and then rubbed his back furiously. He hissed repeatedly to ease the pain and when the pain started to subside, he turned his head to looked at Xiao Jia.


    "Xiao Jia, what are you doing?" He spoke with a seething voice.


    "I- I just copied what Sister Yu do." Xiao Jia said while looking down below and fiddling with her fingers.


    "You were supposed to do it slowly. Not destroy my back!" Xiao Fang stared at his sister begrudgingly.


    Unable containing her guilt, Xiao Jia dropped drown and wailed.


    Xiao Fang cleared out any semblances of pain by the time his sister''s cry had reached him.


    "I''m sorry, Xiao Jia. I didn''t mean it that way. Don''t cry! Look at me, look at me! I''m fine now. It doesn''t hurt anymore!" Xiao Fang frantically tried to comfort her as he rubbed his back, trying to show Xiao Jia that he was fine, but unfortunately his attempt ended up in a failure as Xiao Jia continued to cry.


    Yu Mei, who had already done taking care of Li Kong, kneeled on Xiao Jia''s side. She then took Xiao Jia to her embrace and caressed her back softly.


    "Xiao Jia, it''s okay. You don''t need to cry anymore." Yu Mei whispered gently.


    "B-but... Sister Yu... Xiao Jia... Xiao Jia hurt Xiao Fang!" Xiao Jia sobbed loudly.


    "It''s okay. It''s okay." Yu Mei caressed her head before she let Xiao Jia out from her embrace and put her hands on Xiao Jia''s shoulder.


    "Xiao Jia, look at me." Yu Mei said with the gentlest voice she could utter.


    Xiao Jia''s sobs had subsides and she lifted her chin up to meet Yu Mei''s eyes. Her eyes filled with affection for the crying girl.


    "A little mistake once in a while was alright, but the most important was you should learn from that mistake and never repeat it again. Do you understand?" Yu Mei said while wiping off tears from Xiao Jia''s eyes.


    Xiao Jia''s wept had subsided and she nodded her tiny head at Yu Mei''s words.


    "And wasn''t Xiao Fang already said that it didn''t hurt anymore?"


    Xiao Jia further nodded.


    "Not only it didn''t hurt anymore, it also chase away his headaches. Am I right, Xiao Fang?" A hand patted Xiao Fang''s shoulder and he turned to the side to found the smiling Li Kong looking down at him.


    Xiao Jia''s two round jewels brighten instantaneously and with sobbing, she asked, "Is it true?"


    "Mhm, mhm." It seemed like Xiao Fang''s mind had already long gone and he was possessed by the spirit of a woodpecker as he repeatedly bang his head.


    Shortly after, Xiao Fang managed to exorcise the spirit.


    "Xiao Jia. I''m sorry for shouting to you like that."


    Xiao Jia wiped off the remaining tears from her eyes. Then, she shook her head and said, "Mhmm. I''m sorry too. I shouldn''t hurt you like that."


    She slowly walked to Xiao Fang and opened her arms wide while staring at Xiao Fang with teary eyes, asking, "Hug?"


    Xiao Fang hesitated for a bit but after a little nudge on his back, he hugged his older sister and they shared the embrace for a moment before parting.


    While the siblings still hugging, the perpetrator on the back started to whistling and clapping.


    "More happy ending for the Ruman Village! Hooray!" Li Kong whistled at the beautiful bonds between the sibling. "But unfortunately the sun has started to set. So let''s us go back each of our home and I hope you all a good night!"


    Li Kong had started retraced his steps back home but suddenly he felt something gripping his shoulder with enough force to completely rip off his shoulder.


    "I think you might be forgetting a little thing now, aren''t you Li Kong?" Yu Mei said calmly, with a crushing force behind her voice.


    Li Kong turned his head to face Yu Mei and he started to sweat a little. The grip starting to get more dangerous each seconds pass by.


    He coughed a bit before walking through the pair of twins. He lowered his body to meet the twin''s somewhat unwelcoming gaze.


    Xiao Fang was understandably mad and stood behind Xiao Jia while Xiao Jia was looking at Li Kong with an expression he never seen before.


    Li Kong felt a little bit of pinch in his heart but he ultimately resigned to his fate.


    "I''m sorry for making Xiao Fang hurt, okay? I promise I''ll never do it again."


    Xiao Jia was unconvinced.


    Li Kong was looking troubled before inspiration surged in his brain.


    "Um, how about as a payback I''ll buy you two tanghulus from uncle Qin tomorrow? Deal?"


    Xiao Jia was impressed and completely convinced.


    She nodded her head while Xiao Fang behind his sister''s back also followed his sister''s gesture.


    "It''s okay, Li Kong. Yu Mei said what''s more important is to never repeat the same mistake." Xiao Jia clearly wasn''t being bribed.


    The two sides reconciled and started to talk with each other again while Yu Mei at the distance was utterly disappointed with humanity and pondered for the future of her kind.


    Not long after that, the twins bid their farewell and went to their home and Li Kong saw them off with smile on his face but suddenly he felt something nudged him on his side.


    "Crafty, aren''t you?"


    "I prefer to call it¡ª" Li Kong pinched his clothes and pulled it forward. "Resourceful."


    Yu Mei snorted but didn''t chase him further, instead she got to his side and walked with him.


    "So how was today? Did you get scold a lot?" Yu Mei asked half-joking and curious.


    "Uncle Ye was mad at me because I didn''t bring the bow."


    "Hmph... Served you right."


    "Is that what a friend should say at their friend suffering?"


    "If the friend''s head was as hard as rock and as stubborn as you, then everything was fine." Yu Mei paused and scrutinized him.


    "And it''s not like you''ll remember it tomorrow. So..." Yu Mei easily shrugged it off.


    Li Kong felt wronged and sulkily hastened his walking pace leaving Yu Mei who was still busy giggling.


    Yu Mei pushed her body forward, mischief colored her delicate face as she walked beside him.


    "Is our promising young hunter sulking right now, hmm?"


    Li Kong''s temper finally wasn''t going to having it anymore and he flicked her nose causing an "Aiya" sound to be heard.


    Looking at Yu Mei rubbing her nose made Li Kong finally felt satisfied.


    ''Consider this a revenge for what you''ve done in the afternoon.'' Li Kong met her angry gaze triumphantly.

 How Did I Get Here?

    "So where are you going?" Yu Mei asked.


    "To auntie Feng''s house. Why do you ask?"


    "Nothing." She shook her head.


    While Li Kong was confused by her reaction, he didn''t put much thought about before Li Kong''s keen intuition caught something wrong about this "nothing".


    "Child surnamed Yu if there''s something you want say just say it." Li Kong demanded.


    Yu Mei startled by Li Kong''s sudden call but she tried to brush it off as nothing again but Li Kong was adamant.


    And by the time, she was opening her mouth to reproach him, suddenly a deafening rumble reverberated from her lower body, setting the world into a moment of silence.


    Slowly, her head dropped down and her ears turned bright red while on her side, Li Kong started nodding and mumbling.


    "I understand. I understand." Li Kong still nodding.


    ''What do you even understand?!'' Yu Mei cursed in her heart.


    Yu Mei''s already red face had reach the point of explosion and she tried to storm out of the scene but quickly stopped by Li Kong''s hand.


    She turned her head back and there, Li Kong was still nodding and his lips puckered up.


    "It''s okay. I understand. I really understand." Li Kong patted her shoulder while nodding.


    Yu Mei was a moment away from crying at this point.


    She felt like she wanted to dig a hole and buried herself in it to save her from the embarrassment.


    "It''s okay! If I were hungry, I would act like that too." Li Kong said in understanding.


    ''What..?'' Just before Yu Mei able to finish her thoughts, she was dragged by Li Kong to somewhere.


    "Li Kong, I-" Yu Mei wanted to clarify but was cut off short by Li Kong''s finger.


    "Stt, stt. It''s okay just leave it to me." Li Kong winked.


    ''And just like what I said what do you mean by that...'' Yu Mei gave up and resigned to her fate while crying silently inside of her heart.


    And just like that, Li Kong dragged her lifeless body.


    ...


    "Li Kong, where are you dragging me to?" Yu Mei had recovered a bit from the embarrassment.


    "To your house." He calmly responded.


    "My house? Didn''t you say you wanted to go to auntie Feng''s place?" Yu Mei tilted her head a bit.


    "Of course. How else do we have to ask for your old man''s permission?" He talked like it was the most obvious thing in the world.


    ''Permission? What permission?'' Yu Mei was flabbergasted and couldn''t keep the track of the conversation and when she wanted to ask further, she heard Li Kong''s voice.


    "We arrived."


    Having not recovered yet, she could only watch Li Kong as he walked to her front door and knocked on it a few times before a voice appeared coming from the house.


    "Yes. Who is it?"


    Shortly after the door opened, the figure behind it was revealed. It was the village chief, Yu Hao. His height was almost the same as someone like Ye Cheng with him being a littler shorter than the latter. But unlike Ye Cheng that couldn''t care less about his appearance, Yu Hao was well-kempt.


    "Hi, uncle Yu." Li Kong greeted him with a smile.


    "Hi, Li Kong." Yu Hao sent a smile back. "How did it go with your uncle today?"


    "It went great." Li Kong beamed his teeth and raised a thumb up.


    Yu Hao wasn''t fazed by his strange demeanor and congratulated him before getting on the point.


    Yu Hao scrutinized both Li Kong and Yu Mei and he found their hands were joint together, causing his eyebrows raising up.


    "Now, I doubt that you come in this evening only to told me that."


    "I come to ask for permission." Li Kong replied earnestly.


    "Permission?" Yu Hao tilted his head a bit.


    "Mhm." Li Kong nodded.


    Yu Hao slowly turned his head and his line of vision met with his daughter for a brief moment.


    Yu Mei consciousness came back to her at once and she immediately raised both of her arms to shape "X" and shook her head so fast it left afterimages.


    Yu Hao was confused for a moment by this interaction and redirected his attention back to Li Kong, who watching him expectantly and at that moment, he felt enlightened.


    ''Hah... The smell of youth.'' Yu Hao sighed exasperatedly and gently shaking his head.


    ''I remembered the past with Yingya. She was just like this too. She''ll pretend she doesn''t want to do anything but if you don''t do anything, she will sulk for days and berate me for not being understanding. Like mother, like daughter.'' Remembering the pain and headaches of the past made Yu Hao wanted to roll out a single tear.


    Back at the present, although Yu Hao had no problems with Yu Mei playing with Li Kong, but this matter was entirely different.


    Yu Hao recalled the pranks Li Kong pulled against his own uncle and shivered at the thoughts the same thing happened to him.


    At a smaller scale, Li Kong''s pranks could be considered harmless prank little children would do from time to time.


    But the main problem was Li Kong wasn''t doing it from time to time but every single time, at any moment and any situation.


    ''But surely, he has grow past that age right? Right?'' Yu Hao thought about it as serious as he could but in the end, he only sighed.


    ''My time had passed now.'' Yu Hao shook his head. ''Time for the youth to make decision for themselves.''


    Yu Hao got his attention back at the situation and looked back at her daughter with a warm gaze.


    ''Don''t worry, sweetheart. Father got this.'' He conveyed through his eyes.


    Yu Mei received her father''s assuring gaze and relaxed the tension inside of her body.


    ''I believe in you, dad.'' With a hopeful eyes, she replied back to her old man.


    On the other hand, Li Kong stood there silently, waiting for Yu Hao''s answer.


    Yu Hao realized that he had made the youth waited for a long time and brought himself back. He cleared his throat and met Li Kong''s eyes.


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "Li Kong." Yu Hao''s tone was solemn.


    Subconsciously, Li Kong fixed his posture and stand upright.


    "Next time..." Li Kong and Yu Mei simultaneously gulped.


    "... you don''t have to ask for any permissions." Yu Hao ended it with a smile.


    Li Kong was delighted and started to thanking his kind uncle while Yu Mei was dejected and utterly confounded by her father''s betrayal.


    "Do you hear that, Yu Mei? Now we can go to auntie Feng''s house!"


    Yu Hao was swept up by Li Kong''s cheerful voice before suddenly, he realized something was wrong.


    "Wait. Why are you going to Feng''s house?" Yu Hao visibly perplexed.


    "Hmm? I thought that you already know, uncle." Li Kong was also confused now. If his uncle didn''t know what he''s going to do, then what kind of permission that his uncle gave to him?


    Yu Hao realized he was talking about an entirely different conversation and asked for Li Kong''s explanation.


    Realizing his mistake, Yu Hao burst out into laughter while Li Kong stood like a statue, looking absolutely clueless. Behind him, Yu Mei had grabbed on some shove and started digging her own grave.


    "Oh... It was that kind of permission. I thought you..." Yu Hao played with his chin amusingly.


    "What?" Suddenly, Li Kong''s head popped out in front of his eyes.


    Yu Hao refrained from speaking any further instead he smiled a little then sent a meaningful gaze to his embarrassed daughter and winked.


    "If it''s only to have a dinner, I don''t see any problems with that."


    "Thank you, uncle!" Li Kong bowed before going to Yu Mei''s side. "Hey, what you''re doing with the shovel? We''re going to be late!" Li Kong placed his hand on Yu Mei and shaking her soul to a tour in attempt to awaken her.


    "See you later, uncle!" Li Kong waved goodbye and pulled Yu Mei with him.


    Yu Hao returned the wave before suddenly he heard footsteps coming behind him and he turned back his body.


    "It''s nothing." Yu Hao gazed back to see two persons running to somewhere. "It''s just youth thing. Now let''s get inside and let me cook for you today."


    ...


    ''How did I get here?'' Yu Mei rested her forehead on her hand.


    It felt like she just blinked and suddenly she ended up sitting in someone else''s house.


    In front of her was platter of food, line up at a certain manner to appeared pleasing to the eyes. The food''s ingredients mainly rabbit and deer meat with herb and sauce to enhanced the flavor.


    If only I didn''t skip lunch. Would all of this happen? She cried silently in her heart.


    "And for the last..." A feminine voice was heard coming from the kitchen.


    A lady, looking in her prime, entered the table with plates full of food.


    Seeing this, Li Kong, who was chatting with Ye Cheng, immediately got up from his seat.


    "Let me carry it for you, auntie." Li Kong offered his hands.


    "Oh, you don''t have to do that." Feng Rouyi said with a cheery voice and put the pan on the center of the table.


    "Yeah, listen to her Li Kong. Age haven''t caught up to her yet." Ye Cheng pointed his index finger to Li Kong and said mindlessly.


    Bang!


    The table and Yu Mei jumped in unison and Li Kong looked in horror but fortunately none of the food spilled out.


    "And what was that supposed to mean, my dear lovely husband?" Feng Rouyi gazed warmly at her husband, a bit too warm even.


    Looking to those eyes, Ye Cheng knew he messed things up and cold sweats began dripping down his back.


    But Ye Cheng didn''t just waste his entire life for nothing, years of experiences had honed him to becoming the man he was now and from the years he gone through, he had gained the most important skill to guarantee his happiness and well-being for foreseeable future and the said skill was...


    To be professional husband.


    With almost instinctual reaction, Ye Cheng arose from his seat and pushed her wife''s body downwards to leaned at the arm that he already placed at his wife''s back.


    "I meant you are still as beautiful as the first time I see you. Look at your face, there wasn''t even a wrinkle and even if there was, I would be loving you more because I''ve been blessed to be able to grow old with you." His voice gradually turned warmer and his eyes shone charmingly.


    Feng Rouyi looking as if dazed but shortly after, she blushed uncontrollably and rosy red painted her beautiful face.


    "Yes..." She replied in almost docile voice.


    While on the other side of the table, Yu Mei already gasped and covered her mouth with both of her hand while Li Kong couldn''t care less and stared at the plate in front of him


    Feng Rouyi noticed that her guests were staring at her with strange look and she immediately pushed her husband away.


    After that, she tidied herself up even though there was no need for it and sat silently which followed by Ye Cheng.


    Feng Rouyi was still hadn''t recovered from Ye Cheng''s sudden declaration and with rosy blush on her cheek, she whispered something to Ye Cheng.


    Soon after she was done whispering, Ye Cheng''s brain short-circuited for a moment before he looked in disbelief at his wife while Feng Rouyi feigned ignorance and played her poker face while her ears remained cherry red.


    Awkwardness filled the air and no one could said anything for a moment before a starve-stricken and grumbling voice appeared.


    "When will we eat the food, uncle? Yu Mei starving already!" Li Kong complained and pointed at Yu Mei.


    "Hey! I never say that!" Yu Mei glared at Li Kong.


    The awkwardness slowly dwindled as the youth''s bicker grew louder.


    Ye Cheng cleared his throat loudly, prompted Li Kong and Yu Mei to be silent.


    "Let''s eat." Ye Cheng said.


    After that, Li Kong immediately targeted the soup and everyone followed suit and they ate together.


    The atmosphere was lively with Li Kong always chatting and eating merrily and Feng Rouyi felt satisfied watching Li Kong ate with full appetite and that was where she suddenly became curious and she redirected her gaze to Yu Mei.


    "So what makes you suddenly want to join us, little Mei?" Feng Rouyi piqued. "You couldn''t be dragged here by Li Kong right?" Feng Rouyi jokingly said and laughed.


    ''You won''t believe what I''m going to tell you, auntie.'' Yu Mei recited while stuffing her mouth with food.


    "Iw bekaws Yu Mwe wa stwarvin so I brouw her hir." Li Kong stated clearly.


    "No talking while chewing!" Ye Cheng quick to berate him.


    Watching the dispirited Li Kong, Yu Mei chuckled a bit, not realizing the observing eyes placed upon her.


    "Is that so?" Feng Rouyi muttered to herself before smiling.


    Recalling the scene that happened before, Yu Mei suddenly grew curious about how Feng Rouyi and Ye Cheng came to be.


    "So, auntie. How did you and uncle Ye met?"


    Feng Rouyi was taken back by the sudden question but shortly after her expression turned warm and nostalgic.


    "Oh, you don''t want to know how I met this hunk of steel." Feng Rouyi nudged her husband side which invited bewildered look from Ye Cheng.


    Watching the bewildered look from her husband, Feng Rouyi cackled before started narrating a story.


    It all started with a naughty child that wandered deep into the forest and met with another equally disobedient child in an accident.


    The girl was always curious about the forest and one day, she decided to ventured deep into the forest and when she wanted to get back to home, she was unable to traced back her way.


    She roamed aimlessly and before she realized, the forest had dimmed.


    The girl started to sob and walked with tears in her eyes and she ended up standing in front a large boar.


    The girl broke down crying and just as she thought it was all over, an arrow whistled through the bushes and hit the boar and penetrated deeply into its skull.


    The girl stopped crying and looked at the direction where the arrow came from and from there, emerged a tall figure.


    It was a familiar face.


    She had seen the young boy''s face, he was the son of the hunter not far away from her house. Although she knew about him, but because he was too boorish, she never took the chance to approached him and neither did he too.


    The young boy asked her what she was doing and then, exasperatedly sighed.


    After that, he closely inspected the girl and found that she twisted her ankle.


    The boy sat the girl on top of the boulder and took out bandages and ointment and treated the girl''s ankle carefully.


    The cold ointment touching her skin, caused her to gasp in pain. The girl asked him to do it gentler while the boy outright ignored her and her ankles wrapped perfectly. But the girl still couldn''t walk properly.


    The boy once again sighed and carried the girl on his back wordlessly. The girl protested for a moment but in the end, she fell silent and leaned fully to his back.


    On the way back, the girl was amazed by the young boy''s wits as he seemed to able to anticipate anything and act accordingly. The young boy maneuvered through the forest, avoiding the beasts'' territory.


    The girl mustered courage and tried to strike a conversation with the boy and the girl found that the boy also went to the forest without permission. The girl and the boy talked about many things and without they noticing, they already arrived on the village''s entrance.


    A commotion was could be seen from afar and suddenly, a woman in her thirties separated herself from the crowds and ran into their direction. The young boy helped the girl to stand up properly and the woman hugged her child tightly and cried.


    Feeling her mother warmth, droplets of tears welled up from the corner of her eyes and the girl wailed in her mother''s embrace.


    After crying for a while, the girl cleared her eyes and saw that the young boy who had helped him was furiously rubbing his head while glaring tearfully at the tall muscular man besides him, his hand clasped into fist.


    Her mother gave her thanks to the boy and then dragged the girl home. There she was disciplined in the name of love by her mother meanwhile her father could only glanced at her with pity in his eyes.


    Days gone by and the girl went back to her daily life as if nothing had happened, but for some unknown reason, she couldn''t take off her eyes from the boy. The way he talked, the way he reacted, his mannerisms.


    All of them. She was completely enchanted.


    It continued tomorrow, the day after it and before she could realize, a week had passed.


    At some point, she tried to talk to the boy but when she was in front of him, she found herself unable to even string out a words.


    The boy looked at her incredulously and demanded what was she doing. The sudden words from the boy startled her and many thoughts surged on her mind but ultimately, only a thank you was came out from her mouth.


    The boy was surprised but the next moment, he laughed heartilyand said that it was what a man should''ve done.


    After that, the pair chatted with each other until the boy was called by a tall looming figure in the far. The boy packed his things and departed from the place.


    The girl looked sad but nonetheless, she waved her hand.


    The boy stopped all of a sudden and coughed for no apparent reason, then muttered, "See you again."


    The girl''s body shook and with a smile, she replied, "See you again too."


    It all started with a little talk, then a little greeting when meeting each other, a little company at random times, a little time spent together, and finally a little closer to each other''s heart.

 Shooting Star

    In the dining room.


    The food on the table had became completely empty as Feng Rouyi ended her little storytelling session and puffed up her chest.


    "How was my storytelling skill? It wasn''t half-bad, wasn''t it?"


    "It was a beautiful story." Yu Mei gaze was a bit dreamy while on the other side, Li Kong was busy teasing Ye Cheng.


    "But still, I can''t believe how dense Uncle Ye was that it took a full two years for him to realized about your feelings." Yu Mei was rather amazed by her uncle''s head density as she stared Ye Cheng dumbfoundedly.


    Ye Cheng''s expression turned black and he slowly lowered his head.


    "Hahaha. How could you be so dense, uncle? If it was me, I''d figured it out in an instant." Li Kong mustered a hearty laugh.


    "Why are you laughing so hard, you brat! You talking as if you weren''t the same." Ye Cheng snorted at his mockery.


    He could bear anyone teasing him but absolutely not Li Kong because what rights did this brat had to laugh at his dark past while himself currently living in it.


    "Hmm? What do you mean by that?" Li Kong asked with a clueless face.


    "Was I wrong then?" Ye Cheng''s gaze altered between Yu Mei and Li Kong before he fell into deep contemplation.


    Feng Rouyi sighed exasperatedly and talked to Yu Mei.


    "You see them just now right? They''re helpless."


    Yu Mei nodded slowly.


    After that, Feng Rouyi rose from her seat and started to clean the table and while doing that, she approached Yu Mei and whispered.


    "And because of that, my dear..." Feng Rouyi closed the distance between them and whispered in her ears, "...you have make the first move." Feng Rouyi winked at her and disappeared to the kitchen.


    Yu Mei turned into a statue in an instant before her rosy cheek turned into tomato red and she looked at Li Kong nervously.


    The said person was still arguing over the last meal left with Ye Cheng.


    Li Kong felt someone''s gaze was on him and returned the gaze but the sender had turned her face away.


    Li Kong stared for a while in confusion before carrying on with his conversations with his uncle while Yu Mei on the other hand was having a hard time controlling her heart rate.


    ...


    The night was getting late and the husband and wife pair were sending them off.


    After they left the house, Li Kong offered to walked Yu Mei to her house which she accepted.


    The night walk was awkward to say the least. Li Kong was busy watching the stars while Yu Mei was busy peeking at Li Kong''s face.


    For some reason, after they left Ye Cheng''s house, she felt a little fuzzy yet warm feeling each time she was seeing Li Kong.


    ''You have to make the first move.'' The words echoed deeply in her ears.


    Her heart rate immediately spiked as the blush on her face was getting redder.


    Her heart thumped gradually slowed and she took a last peek at Li Kong''s face which Li Kong noticed and asked.


    "Is there something wrong on my face?"


    Yu Mei''s heart jumped for a moment and she replied, "Nothing."


    Li Kong shrugged it off as she being weird and keep on gazing the stars before he turned his head back at the sudden question.


    "So, Li Kong..."


    "Hmm?"


    "What do you think about Auntie Feng''s story?"


    "Why did you ask?"


    "Can you just answer the question?"


    "Alright. Alright."


    "So?"


    "It''s good? But I''m sure I was surprised when I listen to it."


    "How so?"


    "I never thought that Auntie Feng was a shy girl before I heard the story. Even after listening to it, I still have a hard time believing it."


    "Oh? Are you teasing Auntie Feng right now? You know that her house was still nearby, right? I could go back there and tell her what you''ve said."


    "Madam, please have mercy!"


    "So? After that?"


    "I''m not telling you anymore."


    "Auntie Fe-"


    "Hey! Sigh... Do you really insist to lower my life expectations or what?"


    "Yes and because of that, you have to hurry or else."


    "Okay, okay! Calm down! I think that despite her shyness, auntie still tried the best to get closer to uncle and I personally thought that it was brave of her."


    "Mhm."


    "And personally, uncle''s denseness irked me when I listen to auntie''s story. "


    "I don''t think you were the right person to say that."


    "You''re talking just like uncle! Do you have some sort of agreement with him beforehand?"


    "Blehh!"


    "You!"


    "Someone help me. A dense rock is trying to kidnap me!"


    "Try screaming louder. Granny Qing on the other side of the village can''t hear you yet."


    "Kyaaaa!"


    Tap Tap Tap


    "Don''t run!"


    Tap Tap Tap


    "..."


    Tap Tap Tap


    "..."


    Tap Tap Tap


    ...


    "Stop running. I''m out of breath."


    "Li Kong, you jerk. Huff, you dare you make a lady run. In the night at that!"


    "So what if I am?"


    "Hmph."


    "Hey, wait for me!"


    "..."


    "..."


    "So, Li Kong..."


    "Yes."


    "What do you think about love?"


    "Love?"


    "Mhm."


    "Hmm... I think it would probably be a nice thing to have."


    "Why?"


    "I don''t know. It just felt like it''s comforting to have someone always by your side. Like for example, me when I was spanked by Uncle Zheng but the moment he saw you were there, he immediately lifted me down and let me go to play with you."


    "So you were admitting you just using me for a bail out?"


    "Argh! Don''t hit my head!"


    "Hmph. You deserved it."


    "..."


    "..."


    "..."


    "..."


    "So, how about now?"


    "What do you mean?"


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    "Uhhh... Do you interested in love?"


    "As of now? Not really."


    "Why?"


    "..."


    Li Kong didn''t say anything and looked at the sky. On his black eyes, reflected the light of countless stars.


    "But..." His lips moved.


    Yu Mei gazed up and looked at him.


    At this moment, Li Kong seemed to be glowing by the stars.


    "Like I said, it would be a nice thing to have." He said with a slight smile on his face.


    "So I probably won''t mind if I were to have it even though I don''t really need it now."


    Captivated, Yu Mei opened her mouth as if trying to say something but no words came out. She bit her lower lips, frustrated at her indecisiveness.


    Yu Mei calmed her mind and took a deep breath and with all of her courage, she uttered.


    "Li Kong, I-"


    She felt the weight of his stare on her and she faltered for a moment but she quickly renewed her mind and met with his eyes. She wasn''t going to waste another seconds again.


    But when she tried to convey her heart, Li Kong suddenly pointed to sky and exclaimed loudly.


    "Look! A shooting star!" Yu Mei immediately turned her attention to the sky and on the night sky, there was a strike of a line, looking as if it divided the sky into two but before she could realized what had happened, the light suddenly disappeared and the night sky turned normal.


    "Are you messing with me right now? There was nothing there!" Anger welled up from deep inside of Yu Mei as she stared at him incredulously. It felt like Li Kong was trampling with her feelings and deliberately made up a stupid excuse.


    "What do you mean there''s nothing? It literally cut the sky to two!" Li Kong felt wronged and pointed at the direction where the supposed shooting star came from and where it disappeared and when Yu Mei traced where his finger pointed at, she found that he was pointing to the forest.


    Still bamboozled and confused by his friend''s reaction, Li Kong could only stood there wordlessly and his face was in disbelief.


    Yu Mei wanted to curse at him but because she grew up with Li Kong, she could easily distinguished when he was lying and when he wasn''t and based on what face he was making right now, she could certainly tell that Li Kong wasn''t lying this time. But even though she could tell that Li Kong wasn''t lying but what about the absence of the shooting star?


    What about her feeling?


    Yu Mei desperately tried to work the gears on her brain but unfortunately, it didn''t produce anything useful and ultimately she just sighed and blamed it on the nighttime causing Li Kong to seeing things.


    "You must be so tired." Yu Mei voiced her earnest concern for him.


    She bowed at Li Kong and apologized. "I''m sorry for shouting at you."


    Li Kong was somewhat annoyed at her concern but after listening to her next words, he quickly laughed it off.


    "It''s okay. It''s not like this is the first time you did it."


    "Excuse me?" She gave him a sharp side-eye.


    Li Kong smirked before shifting his gear to running mode before he suddenly stopped and stared at the young girl.


    "You have something you want to tell me right? Before I told you I saw a shooting star."


    Yu Mei was caught off by the sudden remark and frantically spun her head to scavenge for any answers.


    "Uh, about that..." Yu Mei started fiddling around her fingers and her eyes scurried everywhere.


    Fortunately for Yu Mei, her house flashed for a moment in the corner of her vision and she instantly bid farewell to Li Kong and rushed in her house.


    Li Kong''s brain failed to comprehended what had just happened as he watched the girl slammed the front door.


    "Maybe this is what uncle Ye said while ago about women being in their period." Li Kong mumbled.


    But he paid it no mind and quickly forget about it continued to walk back to his house.


    He gazed at the night sky and wondered what might the fallen star be.


    It was the forest.


    Li Kong squinted his eyes a little before continuing his stride and the night ended peacefully.


    ...


    Morning had come and Li Kong rose from his sleep. He sat silently, staring at nothing for a good minutes and while charging up his energy, he remembered the scene from last night, the shooting star, leaving a trail that seemed like it divided the sky into two parts.


    ''I could really swear I''ve seen it. Well, I mean, how could you not see that? That shooting star was strikingly bright that it blinded me for a second right there. But why couldn''t Yu Mei see it too?''


    Li Kong ruffled his own hair in frustration before he jumped out from his bead and walked to the front door.


    ''All in all, that sure was a strange night. I wonder what Yu Mei wanted to say.'' He thought to himself as he stretched his body.


    Warmed up, Li Kong took a deep breath and he started to jog. The fresh and cold air of the morning filled Li Kong''s lung with satisfaction as he breathed in and out.


    While Li Kong was jogging, he met with a middle-aged man that was stuffing goods into his cart. The middle-aged man noticed Li Kong and called him.


    "Up early, aren''t you?" The middle-aged man grabbed Li Kong by his shoulder and patted him a few times, his voice filled with enthusiasm.


    "The air in the morning is the best, uncle An! You should try to jog a bit once in a while!" Li Kong replied with the same amount of enthusiasm.


    "I would like to but this old bone is already starting to deteriorate you know?" An Yan sighed.


    "Don''t need to be so modest, uncle. You carried these goods just fine. I believe that you are still as strong as in your youth." Li Kong replied earnestly.


    "You really know how to struck an old man''s heart, aren''t you?" He once again grabbed him by his shoulder and ruffled his hair while Li Kong laughed in response. "I''m beginning to think that my Fang''Er should follow you as an example."


    Li Kong laughed a little at An Yan''s words. An Yan then released Li Kong and Li Kong bid farewell to him and continued to jog.


    Time passed by and he finally returned to his place and slumped down on one of the chairs on his terrace. After his body had cooled down, he went inside of his house and took a bath.


    Feeling energized, Li Kong had done all of his morning routine and went to the field to help others to tend it.


    "Li Kong, come here!"


    "Right away!" Li Kong swiftly replied and plunged into the field.


    The sun had reached its peak and Li Kong was resting under the usual tree and Yu Mei came to his side with water and they chatted with each other for a while, oblivious to the insidious eyes looking at them or specifically, Li Kong.


    After chatting for a long time, Yu Mei had to go and they bid farewell to each other and as Ye Cheng wasn''t planning to went out hunting today, Li Kong suddenly had many times on his hand.


    He went back home to take a little nap before wandering the village. While walking Li Kong was occasionally called by the bystanders, whether to talk with him or ask him to do something.


    After talking with the other villager, Li Kong met the twin from yesterday with their friends.


    "Yo, Li Kong." Xiao Fang greeted him.


    "What? Do you wanted to spin like yesterday?" Li Kong said playfully.


    With a quick response, Xiao Jia immediately arrived in front of Xiao Fang and shielded him with her tiny body.


    Watching Xiao Jia''s action made Li Kong a bit uncomfortable as he hurriedly explained to Xiao Jia.


    "I was just joking, Xiao Jia! Don''t you remember that we had promised yesterday?"


    Xiao Jia without hesitation, responded with, "Promise could be broken." as she stared warily at Li Kong.


    Though there was no sound of something breaking, something within Li Kong definitely broke following Xiao Jia''s statement as he fumbled to the ground.


    "Don''t be so sad, Li Kong. Xiao Jia would forget it in no time." One of the children with the darker skin tone comforted him.


    "Rangrang was right, Li Kong." This time the voice was higher than the last.


    "I already told you not to call me with that, Wang Xi! Call me by my name, "Huang Rang"!"


    "But Rangrang is cuter. Why don''t you just use that?" Wang Xi pouted.


    "Arghh! Whatever." Now it was the time for Huang Rang to sulked.


    "Do you guys want to comfort me or make my ears bleed?" Li Kong filed a complaint.


    "Rather than that Li Kong, we want to see you do tricks!" Xiao Fang pulled his sleeves and looked at him with sparkling eyes.


    Li Kong looked at the other children and found that they all were looking at him with the same eyes as Xiao Fang. Li Kong''s heart couldn''t bear to see these children sad (and felt that this was a perfect chance to show off to these kids) and accepted their invitation.


    The group of children hooray-ed and together, they marched to the giant tree in the outskirt of the village. While marching, they met with Yu Mei, who was looking at them with eyes full of inquiry.


    "Where are you all going to?"


    "We''re going to the giant tree! Li Kong promised us that he would show us tricks." Xiao Fang was the one to respond.


    Yu Mei looked at Li Kong for explanation and Li Kong just shrugged it.


    "Then, could I join with you guys too?"


    The children looked at each other before nodding to Yu Mei.


    "Yes!"


    ...


    They had arrived at the place and there stood the absurdly large tree and a vast grassy field surrounding it.


    They immediately went to their usual spot where the tree branches peeked a little out of the ground, just enough for them to comfortably sit on top of them.


    "Quick, Li Kong. Show us your daggers!" Huang Rang urged him.


    "Alright. Alright. Geez, could you wait for a second?" Li Kong wasn''t pleased at all.


    He looked at Yu Mei and Yu Mei nodded. Yu Mei grabbed a few wooden spheres that she had brought with her from home.


    "Remember do not do this yourself, okay? Because if I ever catch someone saying you did this, even if your mom doesn''t spank your butt, I''ll do." Li Kong gave his share of warning which the children quickly nodded to.


    Li Kong was satisfied with the response and gave signal to Yu Mei to start.


    The young lady began by throwing all of the spheres in a quick succession and each of the spheres following behind the first spheres in a perfect line.


    The children gasped at Yu Mei''s expertise at throwing the wooden spheres and after that, a multiple thuds could be heard and all of the spheres flying in the air fell down.


    Li Kong ordered the children to fetch the spheres and when they collected all of them, they were more amazed than when they saw Yu Mei''s throwing skills.


    All of the wooden spheres had a marking on each of them and all of it was already scarred but the most amazing thing about the scar that all of them was right in the center of the spheres.


    The children was dumbfounded for a moment and sincerely voiced out their praise while Li Kong had his nose high in the air and let out a weird laugh.


    Unable to bear the scene anymore, Yu Mei knocked some senses back to him as an "Aiya!" came out from Li Kong''s mouth.


    After that, Li Kong and Yu Mei kept playing with the children until the end of afternoon.


    As the sun started to blended with the orange hue, Li Kong placed the last children carefully and after he done, he slumped to the ground near the children and lean to the tree''s trunk.


    "Huff... These kids are really something else. They drained me all of my energy and after all of that, I have to carry them while they''re napping. Ungrateful brats." Li Kong grumbled as he wiped the sweats off his head.


    Yu Mei laughed at him and took a seat beside him.


    "Well, aren''t they a little cute when they sleep like this?" Yu Mei caressed Xiao Jia''s sleeping cheek gently.


    "As if." Li Kong said while he plucked nearby grass and tickled Xiao Fang''s nose causing him to wiggled.


    Yu Mei watched him silently as a little smile was carved on her white face.


    "So? What happened to our brave young warrior right here?" Yu Mei asked in a playful manner.


    "What do you mean by that?"


    "Come on. Do you think no one will notice you keep on staring to the forest?" Yu Mei rolled her eyes.


    Li Kong remained silent as the pressure pushed down on him by her scrutinizing gaze became stronger with each moment, but in the end, she just sighed and leaned on the trunks.


    Right at the moment Li Kong thought she''d done asking, Yu Mei shifted her head a little to the side and rested her head on Li Kong''s shoulder.


    The act threw Li Kong off for a while but gradually his heart rate slowed down as he released the tension he keeping inside of the body.


    On his shoulder, the girl said in a gentle tone, "No matter what it is. You know you could always lean on me."


    The girl pulled her body away from him and looked at him.


    Suddenly, the evening breezes swept across them causing her hair to be fluttered in the air. The girl''s eyes traced where the wind blowing to as she brushed her hair across her ears. Then, she directed back her gaze to the boy as her hair danced unrestricted, following the wind''s guide as the orange hue of the sunset gleamed behind her.


    Li Kong''s mouth opened slightly as he watched over her. The crippling sense of uncertainty faded away as if was being washed away by the wind.


    He turned his head away and looked straight in front of him as the sunset happened before him.


    "Thank you, Yu Mei."


    He waited for her reaction but quickly confused as to why the girl hadn''t responded yet. He glanced on the girl and astonished to found that the girl had slept peacefully on his shoulder.


    Her eyes was tightly shut and her lips slightly opened. Her head occasionally bobbed front and back on his shoulder.


    Li Kong watched her in disbelief before resigning to his fate to be a pillow for the rest of evening.


    He took a last peek at her sleeping face and there lies a peaceful face sleeping as if she was unbound by all the cares in this world. He suddenly got an uncontrollable urge by watching her sleeping face and flicked her nose lightly, causing her eyebrows to furrow.


    Li Kong stopped messing with her and smiled a little at her reaction. The smile slowly faded as his expression turned serious and he directed his gaze to the forest.


    ''I''ve decided tomorrow I''ll go inside the forest!'' Li Kong resolved.


    ''But for now...'' His gaze turned soft as he caressed the hair of the sleeping girl besides him and checked at the children who was still sleeping peacefully.


    ''Let''s enjoy this moment.''


    Li Kong closed his eyes and drowned in the sea of drowsiness.


    Underneath the watch of the evening sun, the pair leaned on each other as they fell asleep on each other company.

 Weird-Looking Little Ball

    "Damn it. Where is it?" Li Kong grumpily said.


    After the work on the field, Li Kong immediately went to his house to prepare his belongings before embarking deep into the forest but here he was now, almost three hours deep in wasted time and almost insane.


    ''I''m dead if Uncle Zheng find out what am I doing here.'' Li Kong gulped at the thought.


    But the curiosity far outweigh Li Kong''s fear, a decision he would soon regret, as he continued his search and not long after, he found a cave below a cliff.


    The cave wasn''t too large but still big enough for Li Kong to pass with ease with its entrance reaching up to around 5 meters in length and 3 meters in height.


    Li Kong looked at the cave''s entrance suspiciously.


    ''It couldn''t be there, right? Hmm. What if it did fell there?'' Li Kong rubbed his chin.


    ''Wait a minute... What if it were a beast''s den?''


    Li Kong imagined the moment he entered the entrance suddenly he felt a warm breath behind him and slowly turned his head to saw a towering beast with its mouth open to chopped of his head.


    His whole body shivered at the thought as he looked at the cave''s entrance once again.


    The seemingly normal cave suddenly turned insidious as Li Kong felt like he was seeing an ominous air leaking out from the entrance.


    Li Kong instinctively gulped and thought to himself.


    ''There''s nothing wrong with being cautious, right?''


    Li Kong grabbed a nearby rock and adopted a throwing stance while simultaneously prepared to escape immediately.


    Li Kong swung his arm and the rock flew forward as it disappeared into the inside of the cave and making a ''thud'' sound as it landed to the ground.


    Li Kong''s senses heightened as he prepared his feet to move the moment his ear caught slightly unusual sounds.


    Few seconds had passed and Li Kong had yet to heard any semblances of howl.


    Li Kong carefully treaded his way forward to the wall beside the entrance and peek a little to the inside of the cave.


    The cave was medium-sized at best with no particular distinctions.


    Li Kong heaved a sigh of relief and went inside of the cave. Li Kong''s eyes roamed for a while, inspecting every nook and cranny of the cave. He couldn''t find where the rock he threw was at but suddenly something caught his eyes.


    He went deeper inside and found an odd-looking little white ball on the ground. The ball looked like it was made from a pristine white marble and an unfamiliar pattern etched on its surface. But except the pleasing marble-looking texture, there was hardly anything worth mentioning.


    "Was this weird-looking ball the fallen star I saw?" Li Kong having a hard time believing that he spent hours only to found this odd white ball.


    He wasn''t impressed at all.


    In the end, he sighed in disappointment at the time wasted for this weird-ball.


    "I guess it still can fetch quite some price if I sell it to uncle An." Li Kong further sank into disappointment as he reached for the exit.


    But suddenly...


    "Who dared to call this Venerable weird?" An unknown and ancient voice echoed in his head.


    The moment the voice uttered its first word, Li Kong immediately went to full alert. He pulled out his dagger and warily scanned all of his surroundings.


    "Hoh, not a bad reaction." The voice expressed his genuine amazement.


    Li Kong gave no response and continued to observe his surroundings. His heart beat furiously as adrenaline surged through his whole body, further heightening his sense but no matter how, he couldn''t detect the slightest presence of a person.


    "For a mortal, that is." The voice turned cold.


    As the voice''s tone dropped, colors faded from Li Kong''s appearance.


    Li Kong''s senses immediately peaked and the whole world appeared to be in a slow motion.


    He spun his body to gain momentum and readied to brandish his knife but alas...


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    ''Ah...''


    In the slowed world, Li Kong watched powerlessly as the incoming attack aimed for his heart.


    ''I''m dead.''


    A thud sound was heard coming from the inside of the cave.


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    Li Kong opened his eyes and gasped greedily for airs as his palm gripped his chest tightly.


    His face contorted in pain and he gritted his teeth to lessen the pain.


    After a while, his breathing had stabilized and he took the chance to observed his surroundings. He was still in the same cave.


    ''I''m not dead?'' Still quite in a shock, Li Kong sweated profusely.


    He suddenly jolted and quickly turned his gaze to where his heart laid and heaved a sigh of relief looking at his still intact chest.


    "What was that thing before? I thought that I was dead." Li Kong recalled the seemingly almost transparent attack aimed at his heart.


    Li Kong shivered at the sheer terror that attack gave to his entire being.


    "Oh, you''re wake up." Suddenly an ethereal voice rang inside of his head.


    Li Kong''s face immediately turn pale and he screamed on top of his lung.


    "Aahhhhh!"


    "Shut up, won''t you? You''re hurting my ear!"


    Li Kong''s mouth instantly shut and he felt his mouth was blocked with something and he couldn''t open it. Li Kong fell on his back and rolled on the ground as he struggled to open his mouth with his hands.


    Li Kong rolled for a good amount of time, but suddenly he realized that his life wasn''t taken yet and he finally stopped rolling and looked around him in disbelief.


    "Finally calmed down now?" The voice sounded exhausted.


    Fear struck Li Kong but he hold his entire being from trying to escape and just nodded.


    "Now you can open your mouth." The voice once again said.


    Li Kong tried to open his mouth but to no avail, his mouth remain shut.


    "Huh?" The voice sounded confused.


    Listening to the confusion in the voice, Li Kong''s face turned pale.


    "Hey, wait, wait! Don''t panic! Damn it, this is the problem being with no body."


    Li Kong inhaled air like he was drinking water and sweats started to form again on his forehead.


    ''Am I gonna be mute for the rest of my life?''


    Li Kong felt like fainting but he persevered and listened half hopeful and half desperate at the voice.


    "Listen carefully, child. Look for the white bead you had with you before."


    Li Kong immediately stood up and reached to his pouch but the ball was nowhere to found. He didn''t lose his temper and calmly looked around the cave. He finally found it and held it tightly.


    "Don''t squeeze it too tight!" The voice seemed in a little pain.


    Li Kong confused but still loosened his clasp.


    "Don''t do that again." The voice sounded irritated.


    Li Kong didn''t get why the voice sounded so much in pain and he decided to did an experiment and squeezed the ball again but this time not too hard.


    "You brat, what I told you before?"


    As the voice finished its words, Li Kong suddenly felt something struck his head and he gasped in pain from the impact.


    The ball rolled off from his grip and to the ground while Li Kong protected his head from further attack.


    Li Kong rubbed his head a few times before staring right at the white ball and with a quivering voice, he pointed.


    "You... You''re a ball!"


    Li Kong''s perception of reality was warped at the incredulity of the situation.


    ''I was almost killed by a ball? A ball? A weird-looking little ball?'' Li Kong felt the world was spinning with this one.


    "I''m a bead! What the hell did you mean by a ball?" The ball sounded annoyed.


    The ball or the so-called "bead" sighed at the sight of Li Kong who still in shock and mumbling something in a low voice.


    "I know it must be hard for you to comprehend this but I mean you no harm so listen carefully." The voice in serious tone.


    Li Kong regained his consciousness and without hesitation, he sat right in front of the bead.


    Afterall the bead could kill him at any given moment, but it didn''t and that was enough to convinced Li Kong.


    Li Kong gave a full score to his mental calculation and raised his hand before the white bead.


    "Before that can I ask something first?" Li Kong watched his manner carefully and uttered in the politest tone he could voiced.


    "Speak." That was his cue.


    "Why was you trying to kill me before?" Li Kong asked with the deepest part of his heart.


    "Kill? That was just an illusion but your senses were too sharp for your own good and it caused you to perceived it as a genuine threat."


    "Why would you do that?" Li Kong said with unhappy voice.


    "It was a test." The bead refused to elaborate any further.


    Li Kong was speechless.


    After the bead had finished its words, the voice resounded once again in Li Kong''s head, "Place the bead on your palm."


    Li Kong jolted off from his daze and quickly did what the voice told.


    Suddenly, a surges of information flooded Li Kong''s brain as many scenes quickly formed in his head.


    He saw the scene of group of people flying in the sky carefreely.


    He saw the scene of the sea of clouds and mountains piercing through it.


    He saw the scene of brave warriors fighting fiercely with a beast cladded in blazing flame.


    He saw the scene of people partying and laughing glamorously.


    He saw the scene of a blooming oath of a pair underneath the cherry tree.


    He saw the scene of the broken oath in front of the burning tree.


    He saw the scene of the pouring rain washing everything away from the surface of the earth.


    Li Kong saw the many facade of the memories and right at the end of the memories, an inaudible voice from somewhere seemed to call for him but he couldn''t understand what the voice was saying and after that, the memories stopped and it all went away like a dream, a fleeting one.


    Li Kong closed his eyes and a single droplet of tear flowed out.


    He wiped off his face with one hand and desperately gritted his teeth as hard as he could because if he didn''t, he surely would broke down crying.


    Something intense and foreign was welling up in Li Kong''s psyche but weirdly, he couldn''t told himself to reject the foreign feeling inside of him.


    The foreign feeling started to creeping in his body and embracing him before Li Kong felt something else, warm and somewhat gooey, coursing through his palm and flowing gently to his head and the intense feeling slowly disseminated.


    After that, he stayed silent for a moment before looking at the bead.


    "What... What was that?" Li Kong asked in hoarse voice while making sniffing sound.


    The bead didn''t answered him and finally after a moment of silence, the bead spoke, "I am the remnants of once a great cultivator and I''ve been tasked to roamed around the world to gave an opportunity to those who were chosen and you..." The bead paused.


    Although the bead didn''t have any eyes, Li Kong could felt that it was staring right into his entire being.


    "This encounter was fated."

 Fated

    "Fated?" Li Kong asked.


    "Right." The bead replied swiftly.


    "And what this "remnants" even mean?" He further questioned.


    "It meant exactly how it sound. I was a remnants of a once great cultivator." The bead explained in a flat tone.


    ''Yeah. That totally explained everything.'' Although he was pissed, Li Kong dared not to voice his words openly lest he heard "off with your head" but still grumpily complained in his heart.


    Li Kong thought he had done a good job, hiding his face but his crooked lips, shown clearly to the world, couldn''t be further from the truth.


    The bead sighed silently.


    "Imagine a ball of glass. That ball of glass was the great cultivator. Now imagine the ball shattered by a hammer. After it shattered, it would leave behind little pieces. Pick up one of the pieces and that is what I am."


    Li Kong was enlightened and clapped at the explanation.


    "What''s the name of the great cultivator?" He asked curiously.


    "Learning it now will bring you more harm than good." The bead flat out refused.


    "Oh..." Li Kong felt a little disappointed.


    "But you can call him White." The bead continued its words.


    "Great cultivator White." Li Kong murmured the name almost reverently.


    Suddenly, he remembered something and tried to recall his memories of that something but for some unknown reason, he seemed to unable recall the memories and his expression changed into confused look.


    "Why I can''t remember?" Li Kong felt something strange. Something very strange. How come he couldn''t remember anything but not even five minutes had passed since he awoke from that vivid dream.


    Li Kong felt like a part of his heart had gone with that dream. He gripped his chest at the sense of nothingness.


    "The "scenes" you have seen before was the memories of White and I''ve sealed the memories deep inside of your mind." The bead calmly responded.


    "Why?" His voice shaky.


    "Because if I don''t, the great cultivator''s will will awaken inside of you and replaces you." The bead stated plainly.


    What? was what Li Kong wanted to spoke out but his state of mind now was too shocked to even uttered any single word.


    "Sigh... From all of the memories and you just so happened to saw the memories of that day." The voice inside of the bead mumbled in a low voice so Li Kong couldn''t hear it.


    "Now after hearing all of that, do you still want to remember?"


    Li Kong was immediately roused from his trance and shook his head as fast as he possibly could then he thought of something and immediately asked it.


    "Why did you let me saw those memories in the first place?"


    "I wanted to show you the outside world but it seemed you happened to bump into some memories you shouldn''t see."


    "The outside?" Li Kong''s eyes glimmered at the thought. Although he couldn''t remember what the scenes were clearly, he could still feel it in his heart that what he had seen was nothing but extraordinary.


    The bead coughed and continued his words.


    "Now back at what I was saying."


    Li Kong didn''t interrupt this time and let the bead continued its words.


    "I was tasked by the great cultivator to roam around the world to find the fated person and to gave them an opportunity.


    "I''ve roamed for hundreds of years and still yet to find someone fated to this encounter until now."


    Li Kong subconsciously held his breath as he felt the bead staring at him.


    "You are the fated one. The one who was chosen by the ¡ö¡ö¡ö."


    Suddenly, Li Kong felt like something just passed by his mind but couldn''t made what it out exactly. He shrugged it off as nothing and raised his hand.


    "I wanted to ask something." The bead gleamed before dimmed. Li Kong''s eyes widened at the spectacle but quickly regained his self control and coughed.


    "You said that you''ve been roaming for hundreds of years, right?"


    "That''s right."


    "How come there was no one ever noticed you then?"


    Li Kong recalled the scene of the bright falling star. It pierced through the dark sky of the night and left a trail of light as it divided the sky partly into two.


    ''I don''t think someone could ever miss that scene.'' Li Kong had a very hard time believing that someone could miss that practically begged-to-be-seen spectacle.


    "Bright falling star? Trail of light?" The bead sounded even more confused than the one asking the question.


    Li Kong, perplexed by the ball''s reaction, now was staring at the ball with a slight questioning look.


    ''Could this be an arrangement from him? No, it couldn''t be... The others hadn''t said anything about it. Then what is this child talking about?'' The bead fell into contemplation and after a while, it realized that Li Kong was already staring at him with a full expectant eyes.


    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    It gulped at the child''s expectation and coughed before saying, "That might be the secret arrangement by White for the chosen one."


    Li Kong couldn''t contain his excitement and jumped up and cheered at the thought being the fated person before something inside of his head clicked and he abruptly turned quiet and gazed at the bead.


    "Hold up. What''s this opportunity?" Li Kong tilted his head.


    Watching the puzzlement in his face, the bead smiled silently and commanded him to sit down.


    "As a great cultivator, naturally White had many treasures at his disposal. Each of them could make even the most untalented people soared like a dragon and became the bravest warrior under the sky.


    "Not too mention that White had personally prepared something special for the chosen. With such treasure even you yourself could easily become a fierce warrior." The bead stopped speaking and from the bead, Li Kong felt like the bead was letting out a grin.


    "Now, don''t you feel excited after listening to it?" The bead spoke with a teasing voice.


    Li Kong nodded energetically.


    The moment he heard "personally prepared" excitement already tinged inside of Li Kong ready to explode and he already fantasized about what treasure would he got.


    ''Would I be able to fly on a sword? Or maybe slaying a monster in one single slash? Better if it was some ancient technique.'' Li Kong couldn''t held back his excitement and giggled like a little children that just received a new toys.


    Looking at the excited Li Kong, the voice inside of the bead smiled.


    There was no greed in those glittering eyes, only pure curiosity with a tinge of impatience. It was refreshing to saw such pure unadulterated happiness after hundreds of years of life experience.


    "Now." It spoke in a round manner.


    "Would you rather take it yourself or let me take it for you?"


    "I can take it myself?" Li Kong spoke in disbelief while pointing at himself and the bead responded with a gleam.


    Li Kong''s expression brighten and he nodded repeatedly in clear excitement.


    "Put me on your palm and bring your other hand closer to me."


    Li Kong did just what he had been told to and his hand was directly on top of the bead.


    Li Kong once again observed the bead and it still looked like a pretty marble but aside from that nothing worth mentioning. That was before all of a sudden the bead turned pitch black and clusters of stars emerged from the deep of the bead''s inside, trapping an entire cosmos in it.


    Li Kong''s mouth gaped at the sudden change of the bead as he felt like the entire night sky was right on top of his palm.


    He rolled the bead around his palm and each time the bead rotated, Li Kong saw the stars inside of it move too. Li Kong''s mouth was wide open as he played around with the bead.


    The bead didn''t interfere with his fun and waited for a little bit before explaining.


    "Before the great cultivator felled, the great cultivator had connected this bead to his hidden spatial storage effectively making me a portable door to his treasury and as a door, naturally I can open it and by sticking in your hand to me, you should be able to grab the treasure."


    Although Li Kong didn''t fully understand what the bead was talking about, he knew that it was something extraordinary and nodded enthusiastically before he realized something important.


    "How will I receive the treasure? It''s not like I can stick my head inside you, right?"


    "Well technically you could but the result won''t be pretty."


    After listening to the explanation, Li Kong dared not to ask further about what the result was and decided to forgot the matter at once.


    The bead glowed brilliantly and the gleam of resplendent stars inside of it followed the bead and shone brighter than before. Myriad colors flooded Li Kong''s vision and Li Kong was placed into a trance at the radiant beauty of the cosmos.


    "Now stick in your hand." As he heard the calm voice instructed, Li Kong couldn''t help but tensed his body and reached his hand toward the radiant cosmos nervously.


    "Don''t worry about messing up. The spatial storage didn''t work like the storage your familiar with. Just let yourself flow with it and you''ll find it." The bead''s voice suddenly turned warm.


    Li Kong ceased his nervousness and braced for anything that would waiting him as he pushed his arm forward but he suddenly stopped.


    "Why do you stop?" The bead befuddled.


    "I just remembered that I haven''t introduced myself yet." Li Kong facepalmed.


    The bead fell silent and Li Kong could feel it saying "Now you''ve just think about that now?" by the stare he received.


    Li Kong scratched his head in embarrassment before calmly declared.


    "My name is Li Kong. Nice to meet you, White!"


    Although the bead was silent, Li Kong could tell that it was taken back by his words.


    "Was White no good then?" Li Kong asked with concern.


    "No, not at all." The bead spoke but for some reason, this time Li Kong felt that the voice became a little warmer than before.


    "My name is White. Nice to meet you too, Li Kong." White replied with a warm voice.


    "Now shall we continue?"


    Li Kong nodded and reached his arm to the bead.


    "Woah!" Li Kong exclaimed in surprise as he watched half of his arm was swallowed by the bead in amusement.


    Although he couldn''t see the other half, he could sense that it was still attached to his arm but just in somewhere and honestly, his half an arm on the other side of the bead felt a little weird. No. It wasn''t that he felt something that it became weird but it because he felt nothing at all on the other side.


    Li Kong tried opening and closing his palm repeatedly and his face turned weird before he done the same thing with his palm that was holding the bead.


    "It''s different." Li Kong''s voice ridden with puzzlement.


    "It''s because your other arm was in a vacuum of space meaning that there are no air in there. That''s what make it feel so weird." White explained coolly.


    "Ohh." Li Kong opened his mouth in acknowledgement.


    "Now try looking around with your hand."


    Li Kong reached around the empty space for a while before he suddenly felt something grazed one of his fingers.


    Within a fraction of second, his arm immediately reacted and snatched it away.


    "I got something! I got something! White, I got something!" Li Kong''s voice full of excitement.


    "Pull it out quickly!"


    ''I wonder what he would received. Maybe ancient cultivation technique? At the very least it should be heavenly-grade. Knowing about "Him", he might even gave his personal cultivation technique...'' White mused.


    ''Hearing the others replies, it seemed to be some kind of things like that. But something that was certain was that it would be heaven-defying...''


    All kind of possibilities was forming inside of White''s mind as he watched Li Kong tried pulling the treasure out.


    The awaited moment had finally came as Li Kong successfully pulled the treasure out of the bead and it shone brightly, blinding Li Kong for a moment while the bead turned back to white.


    The light slowly subsided and Li Kong slowly opened his eyelids and it seemed like Li Kong had pulled something akin to a book.


    While on the other hand, White was filled with shock.


    ''It won''t be what I think it is, is it?''


    Li Kong and White slowly directed their gaze to the characters inscribed on the book cover. Nervousness came back to strike at Li Kong and he gulped.


    "The fuck?" White inadvertently let out a curse while Li Kong blinked for quite a few times before rubbing his eyes for a few times.


    On top of the book, inscribed the words of "A Basic Cultivation Manual and Qi Methods" and right at the very bottom-right of the title, written a tiny characters, "Advanced Version by yours truly, White :D".


    Li Kong looked at the book at his hand with huge incredulity before turning his head to face the bead.


    White couldn''t blame Li Kong for feeling that way because he, himself, too was shocked at the revelation.


    Slowly, anger was building up inside of the bead as it turned into pitch black of cosmos with countless resplendent stars swirling inside.


    ''Again!'' A bright light shone through the darkness, blinding everything on the vicinity.


    "My eyes!" Li Kong cried out while covering his eyes.


    After the blinding light was gone, Li Kong opened his eyes slightly and saw another item that looked like a book floating in the air before fell and hit the ground.


    "Read the words, Li Kong!" White urged him.


    Li Kong instantly seized the book and read the words on top of it.


    "Uh... Wind Steps?" Li Kong tilted his head.


    "Tch." Li Kong heard White clicking his tongue before hearing him saying,


    "Again!"


    Li Kong was caught off guard and asked White to wait but unfortunately,


    "No! White wai-" Light immediately filled Li Kong''s vision once again and throwing him into the state of blindness.


    A book emerged out again and the bead took it in front of him as the book floated.


    "Flame Fist? Again!" The blinding light filled the entire cave again.


    "Again!"


    "Again!"


    "Again!"


    After that, the cave blinked out light for a few more times before stopping.

 Manuals

    In the dimmed cave.


    Li Kong sat silently while looking absentmindedly at the spectacles before him and blinking occasionally. His left hand was lifted up with palm facing to the ceiling and a white bead rested on top of it.


    In front of him, there was a total of four books on the ground, each having the cover facing up to the ceiling.


    After staring for a long time and the cover of the manuals hadn''t changed yet, a defeated sigh coming out from the bead, followed by a dejected voice, "I''m sorry, Li Kong. It shouldn''t have been like this."


    Looking at these manuals, White felt his blood scorching. Half of these manuals wasn''t worth more than a pile of dirt to White.


    If he recalled correctly, these were the trash he randomly put in inside of the storage because he was too lazy to do something about it so he just put it away to rot in the storage and who would''ve thought they made an appearance back in here? The other one was decent at best while the last was infuriating to even glance.


    Hearing that, Li Kong simply smiled and said, "It''s okay, White. I don''t mind and to my perspective, these book are still a treasure. I don''t recall anyone in the village nor nearby town having something like this."


    Li Kong put the bead down to the ground and stood tall. He lifted his chin up to the sky and strike a brave pose.


    "And who said I couldn''t be a fierce warrior just because of this? Uncle told me that the most important thing for a man is his heart and I sure do have the biggest heart inside of the village." He ended his declaration with a loud harrumph, his eyes bearing a resolute look.


    "So, you don''t need to feel so bad, White. I know that you''ve tried your best."


    White remained silent and shortly after, the bead suddenly launched on its own and a crater soon created on the surface of the cavern wall.


    Dusts flew everywhere, blinding Li Kong''s vision and some of them even ended up sucked by Li Kong''s nose causing him to cough wildly as he swatted the dust and cleared his vision.


    "White! Are you okay?" Li Kong picked up the bead worriedly .


    "Don''t worry. I''m unscathed." White replied.


    After he discovered that there was no cracks on the surface of the white bead, he breathed out a sight of relief.


    "What happened? It''s like some kid flicked you like a marble."


    "It''s okay. I just feel the need to stretch myself after hundreds of years not moving properly." White assured him.


    "Uh, okay." Li Kong''s mind failed to fully comprehend the meaning behind the bead''s action so he shutdown his remaining brain activity and erased it from his memory storage.


    While Li Kong was rebooting, White complained to himself, Wake up, White! The boy doesn''t even bat an eyes so how come I was the one who was more upset than him?


    After taking moment to clear his mind, White made a clapping sound, drawing the half-functioning Li Kong''s attention.


    "Let''s not waste any more moment."


    A certain manual floated in the air, inviting a "Woah!" from Li Kong.


    "Firstly we got this manual¡ª" White suddenly paused and not long after, an insidious grit echoed in the cave.


    Li Kong peeked at the manual and thought to himself, ''Whatever is it. I don''t think White like it.''


    "You know what? Let''s leave this one for later." After that, White told Li Kong to pick up another one.


    Li Kong picked up another manual and carefully inspected it. The manual''s cover was plain as a bread, it was just a plain paper on the cover and a little ink to write the technique''s name. There wasn''t any pattern nor distinguishable color either. All in all, it simply plain and stale.


    "This book is called Wind Steps and it does just like what the name suggest. You able to move like the wind when finished practicing." White calmly explained, the tone was as enthusiastic as a corpse, before continuing.


    "The next book is..."


    Li Kong put Wind Steps aside and picked up another manual from the ground.


    This time the cover was painted in a shabby color of red.


    ''At least they colored the cover.'' Li Kong commented.


    "...Flame Fist. You able to shoot out fire after you learn this." White smoothly glossed over the manual and instructed Li Kong to pick up the next.


    ''At least put some effort onto naming your technique, author!'' Li Kong smiled wryly.


    "Now on to the next."


    Li Kong stacked the book on top of the plain manual and picked up the last remaining book.


    Personally, Li Kong was drawn to this book more than the others because of what was written on top of it resonated deeply with him.


    "Thousand-Illusory Daggers." Li Kong murmured as he examined the entire book thoroughly.


    The book was different from the rest with a vibrant purple color coated the whole cover and intricate pattern ran through the front of the cover vertically.


    "It''s okay, I guess." Finally, a tone shift on White''s voice.


    "What''s so special about this one?" Li Kong said while he opened the book and lifted it up high.


    "It was the secret technique of an assassin clan, somewhere in the Lower Realms. The great cultivator happened to encounter them at some point in his life but something happened and they turned out to be an enemy for the great cultivator and so they engaged in a great fight and the clan perished. Later the great cultivator found this book in their library hidden in the deepest corner."


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Li Kong''s eyes sparkled at the mention of the great cultivator name and he eagerly listened to the story before his eyes turned gloomy out of nowhere.


    "Hmm? Was there something wrong?" White noticed the change in his complexion and asked.


    "Isn''t it too ruthless to kill an entire clan just because some bad blood?" Li Kong said with troubled expression.


    Hearing that, White fell silent for a moment, causing Li Kong''s mind disarrayed as he hurriedly weaved out some words to calm the bead''s heart.


    "Uh, I didn''t mean the great cultivator is evil or something! I just think that wasn''t it cruel to slaughter a whole clan? I mean not all of them is evil right?" But White remained silent.


    Li Kong''s heart rate dropped even further thinking he had caused a great offense to the bead and sincerely prayed to the heaven before accepting his fate.


    Instead of the quick relief of death, Li Kong experienced a weight of a cow pressing down right on top of his head.


    "Argh!!!" Immediately Li Kong started rolling around the ground and screamed.


    "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!" Li Kong felt like his head would shatter from the sheer impact as a blunt pain coursing through his head.


    "You fool." The voice was cold.


    The words caught by Li Kong''s ears and he persevered through the pain and looked at the flying bead in the air.


    "An enemy is an enemy, Li Kong. They won''t care about your feelings or your beliefs. What matter is you''re dead to them and if they weren''t able to kill you, then your loved ones will be killed." A sharp gaze weighed heavily on him.


    "The world you''re about to enter wasn''t so forgiving, Li Kong. Not everyone will like to be friend with you and many will curse you out of spite. So remember this, it''s either killed or be killed." White ended his talk with a cold warning to the boy.


    The boy lowered down his head, his lower lip hung low and slowly his eyes turned weak.


    The white, pristine bead observed the gloomy figure with solemn look but the inside couldn''t be more farther than what was projected on the outside.


    White had to admit to himself that he was being strict to the youth, too strict even. But he didn''t regret what he had said.


    The outside world was too cruel for the naive boy in front of him and if he hadn''t warned him, then who knew what would happened to him when he finally stepped outside his nest?


    He would rather tell the boy the cruel truth and let the boy stayed inside the village and spent a peaceful life here than wasting his life dying a pointless death on the outside world. He had seen too much of it and he wasn''t going to led another one falling into the same pit.


    But all being said, this child surely made sure White feeling like the biggest bastard in the universe in this very moment.


    White felt like numerous needles pricking on his heart each time he put his gaze on the youth in front of him but he gathered his resolve and refused to say anything. The boy needed a time to reconsider his choice, White thought and turned his vision away from the boy.


    He gave up after a minute.


    "Sigh... How do I say this?" The voice sounded weary.


    Li Kong slowly lifted his head back up and watched as the pristine bead floated in front of him.


    Out of a blue, a cough was heard coming from the bead and followed by strings of words.


    "But even the great cultivator had forgiven his enemy at some point and he even became best friend with one of his enemy and spent a party drinking all night." At this point, White peeked a little and then, he sighed in relief, watching the light slowly brightened inside of the boy''s eyes.


    "But!" White emphasized the word loudly.


    "That only possible because the great cultivator had a broad heart and most important, He was stronger than everyone else." White paused and smiled.


    "Strength is everything, Li Kong. No one would hear anything you spoke about if you weren''t strong. Word without any power backing it was as worthless as the mud puddling up on the ground. So be powerful, Li Kong. More than anyone, more than everybody. Be so powerful that no one can say anything about what you want to do and when you reached that point, you''re free to do anything." White ended his explanation accordingly.


    After listening to speech, Li Kong slowly lifted his right arm and stared on the his palm lines.


    "Strength." Li Kong muttered quickly before he gradually clenched his palm into a dist.


    Li Kong took a deep breath and hopped up, exclaiming, "Alright! I''ll be so strong that no one could defeat me!" Li Kong felt his blood was boiling vigorously as he continued to stared at his fist.


    "That''s the spirit!" White''s voice turned brighter. "But remember! Strength without compassion is cruelty so you must keep balance between the two of them, understand?"


    Li Kong straightened his spine and shouted, "Roger!"


    Hearing the loud noise, White seethed in annoyance and said grumpily, "Can you not be so loud and what is this "roger" supposed to mean?"


    Li Kong didn''t know how to reply to the question and scratched his cheek awkwardly as he let out an awkward laugh.


    "I don''t really know it too. Sometimes, I just feel like saying it."


    "Forget it." The bead rolled his imaginary eyes. "Let''s continue to the next one."


    As White spoke, Li Kong fixed his sitting posture and picked up the bead again.


    "The main point about Thousand-Illusory Daggers is the unique throwing technique used and the ability to make countless daggers illusions."


    Li Kong raised his hand at White''s explanation.


    "Can I ask something, master White?"


    "What is it, Li Kong?" White replied.


    "What do you mean by unique throwing technique?"


    "In the Thousand-Illusory Daggers, there are manuals about how to throw the daggers which is further divided to three stage according to your degree of mastery of the technique.


    "Besides that, there are the illusion technique which utilizes Qi to use..." White suddenly stopped explaining.


    "Li Kong." The voice called out him calmly.


    "Here."


    "Do you know what being cultivator mean?" White asked.


    Li Kong tilted his head at the foreign term and with an innocent smile, he said, "No."


    Hearing there was no response after his answer, Li Kong frantically searched for answers inside of his brain and without a though, he blurted out, "I-I remember about a story from my uncle about someone flying using a sword. Does that count?"


    Li Kong nervously waited for a reply from the bead.


    "Yes. That was one of the application of Qi."


    Immediately after, Li Kong relaxed his body and slouched down, alleviated from the pressure.


    The boy''s weird action didn''t bother White and he continued his explanation.


    "This world is filled with energy called Qi and this energy is used by cultivator to strengthened themselves and was abundant everywhere. Every living being inside of this world have Qi inside of their body whether they realized it or not.


    "Even though every living being have Qi coursing inside their body, but that doesn''t mean they necessarily can see the Qi flowing in the air. For example, can you see something in the air, Li Kong?"


    Li Kong squinted as hard as he possibly could but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t see anything else in the air beside the cavern wall and the darkness surrounding him.


    After that, Li Kong shook his head in resignation and stared back at the white bead,


    "You might not be able to see it. But to me, it''s like countless thread of golden vapor-like substance flowing in the air."


    Li Kong was shocked and tried to find the thing White described but to no avail, he failed.


    White continued his explanations, "To be able to sense Qi. That was the first step of becoming cultivator and then, you can absorb the Qi in the air and make yourself more powerful.


    "There are still many explanations about Qi but for now, let''s end it here. "


    As White stopped explaining, Li Kong raised his eyebrows and looked puzzlingly at the bead.


    "Why are we stopping?" Li Kong inquired, bewildered.


    "Li Kong." White called out his name.


    "As much as I like to explain the concept to you, I think you have more important thing to do than this."


    ''More important thing?'' Li Kong thought for a moment.


    Then his eyes widened at the realization and horror quickly drawn in his face. He swiftly jumped from his sitting position and stormed to the cave''s exit.


    A slight sting penetrated Li Kong''s eyes as he looked to the sky and his mouth opened wide in shock.


    "I''m dead." Voices full of fear dripping out from his lips.


    Li Kong rushed back to the cave to pick up the bead and darted out from the mouth of the cave with maximum speed.


    "The manuals, Li Kong! The manuals!"


    "Oh, damn. I almost forgot about it."


    Li Kong made one hundred eighty degrees turn and got back inside of the cave and quickly stashed the manuals into his leather pouch but the manuals were too big to fit in.


    "Screw this!" Li Kong returned the leather pouch to its former position and he forcibly inserted the manuals on the gap between his clothes and immediately took off from the place as he continued his mad rush through the forest.

 Have Mercy!

    While Li Kong was racing with the time, in the village, in a house of a certain hunter, Ye Cheng suddenly sneezed and he rubbed his nose after that.


    "So cold." Ye Cheng said while rubbing his hands.


    "Oh, you''re going out?" Feng Rouyi''s head could be seen peeking a little at what his husband doing from the hallway.


    "Yeah. I heard from Zheng that damned brat hadn''t went back home yet since afternoon and knowing that little brat, heaven knows what he''s doing right now."


    Ye Cheng temper immediately flared out of the roof out of the mention of Li Kong''s name.


    ''That brat was begging for his ass to be spanked. Did years gone by without spanking taught this child to be like this? Hmph, If Zheng didn''t take any action, I''ll be the one who would gladly take on his role.'' Ye Cheng was itching to beat some sense into Li Kong.


    While Ye Cheng was thinking about spanking Li Kong, his wife slid in his vision and wore him a leather jacket.


    "You said it yourself that today is getting cold, right? So wear this jacket when you''re going out." Feng Rouyi said, a little smile hanging up from her face as she tidied her husband''s coat.


    "I''m really blessed to have such a caring wife." All thoughts of Li Kong had been dispersed entirely from his mind and the only thing left was love for his wife.


    "Flattery wouldn''t get you anywhere, you know." She done the last part and met her husband''s eyes with a smile.


    "Oh, really?" Ye Cheng squinted his eyes and let out a little grin.


    "Ye Cheng, I''m telling you, you c- Kyaa!" Feng Rouyi words was cut off short as Ye Cheng pulled her into his embrace and spin her a few times before stopping and looked at his wife with playful smile.


    "What about now?" He looked at his wife with a playful gaze.


    Feng Rouyi pouted a little at her husband antics. "Geez, how long you''re going to act like this. You''re acting like a child."


    "Aren''t you smiling too when we spin?"


    Feng Rouyi refused to respond and only turned her head away from him, pouting.


    Ye Cheng laughed loudly at his wife''s response while Feng Rouyi looked at him with unhappy look.


    "What are you waiting now? Aren''t you going to find that boy, Li Kong? Shoo shoo." Feng Rouyi said with an unhappy tone.


    Ye Cheng was heartbroken hearing his wife "shoo shoo" and made his way out dispiritedly.


    After that, she stayed silent for a while as if pondering about something before leaving a last note to Ye Cheng.


    "Don''t go too hard on him, you hear me?" Then she disappeared into the living room.


    "Alright, ma''am." Ye Cheng couldn''t reject his wife''s request and toned down the plan he had in mind as he opened the door.


    ...


    "Huff, huff, huff..." Li Kong was sweating profusely right and his breath was all over anywhere.


    "Finally.... I arrived..." Li Kong leaned on the nearby tree and tried to calm his breath.


    "That was dangerous." Li Kong muttered under his breath as he looked at the now orange sky.


    Li Kong looked around him and when he found nothing, he dropped down his caution and loudly sighed out a relief.


    "It seemed uncle Ye hadn''t come to find me yet."


    "Hadn''t found who yet?" A deep voice rang in his ear.


    "Ahhhh!" Li Kong''s heart jumped in unison with him.


    "U-Uncle Ye?" Li Kong said while holding his beating heart tightly and maintaining a safe distance between him and his uncle.


    "Oh? You smart enough to know the one talking is your uncle but not smart enough to know when to go home?" Ye Cheng''s vein bulged as he closed the gap between him and Li Kong.


    "Uncle! Have mercy please! I know I was wrong!" Li Kong was at the point of begging.


    He kneeled in front his uncle and pleaded with both of his palms clapped in front of his forehead.


    Seconds passed by but his uncle seemed to not responding so he peeked a little at his uncle''s expression and it only needed a glance for tears formed on the corner of his eyes and streams started flowing out from his eyes.


    ''I''m done for.'' Li Kong resigned to his fate.


    Even though Li Kong couldn''t exactly see his uncle''s expression right now but the seething and bull-like breath was already a dead giveaway.


    His legs gave up and gravity pulled his body to the ground. But unfortunately for Li Kong, his misery hadn''t ended here yet.


    As his body fell backwards, Ye Cheng thought he was running away and snatched one of his arm and then pulled him to his side.


    "You''re not going anywhere!"


    Ye Cheng lifted Li Kong''s arm like he was lifting a dead fish from the tail and he dragged his boneless body to the village''s direction.


    "If Zheng Liyang didn''t beat some senses into you today, I would. You hear me? What you were actually thinking staying in the forest until this late? Did you took a nap or something in the forest, huh? I''m asking you! This is why you can''t be soft on kids, Zheng! Especially if it was kid like you." At his last words, Ye Cheng glared at Li Kong.


    ''Actually I passed out.'' Li Kong saved his reply only for himself in hope of seeing the light of the day tomorrow.


    While Li Kong was kindly educated by his beloved uncle, White, who was safely stored in the pouch, nodded in agreement, fully supporting Ye Cheng''s claim.


    ''Listen carefully to what your uncle said, Li Kong.'' White sent a message directly to his mind.


    Li Kong was dumbfounded and looked incredulously at his waist pouch, ''Aren''t you the reason why I was this late?''


    And just like that, Ye Cheng continued to drag the lifeless Li Kong.


    After a few minute being dragged, Li Kong finally felt Ye Cheng''s stopping.


    They arrived at his own house and on the terrace, a well-built man was sipping his water calmly from a cup.


    Ye Cheng dropped Li Kong in front of the man and Li Kong mustered his courage to lifted his chin up.


    "Uncle Zheng..." Li Kong was unsure about what to do as his uncle was still sipping calmly.


    Zheng Liyang put his cup away on the table and then looked at Li Kong while shoving something away from the youth line of sight.


    "Do you know what are your mistakes, Li Kong?" Zheng Liyang asked in a low voice.


    Li Kong immediately went to kneeling position and looked straight at his uncle then bowed deeply.


    "I''m sorry, Uncle Zheng. I was wrong! I shouldn''t wander in the forest until this late!" Li Kong replied as sincere as he could.


    "Good. Make sure not to repeat it again, okay?"


    Li Kong''s sense picked something was wrong with the situation as he straightened his spine.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "Then, does that mean that you won''t beat me?" Li Kong said hesitantly.


    Ye Cheng, who was watching the scenes happening at distance, shook his head and snorted at Zheng Liyang''s actions and thought to himself.


    ''Because you were like this that this kid grew up to be such a troublemaker. Sigh... It seems I have to do this myself.''


    Right as Ye Cheng started to roll his sleeves up, Zheng Liyang smiled at Li Kong''s question and silently reached out for something he had shoved before and replied.


    "Of course... Not!" His tone immediately changed as fast as flipping a page from a book.


    He then picked up Li Kong and placed him on top of the table, his butt facing outward.


    Li Kong paled at the sudden change and in terror, he watched Zheng Liyang raised his hands up high, in his hand was a rod made out of bamboo.


    Zheng Liyang swung the rod straight to Li Kong''s butt. The impact hit Li Kong''s butt and sent his nerves into frenzy as he screamed.


    "You brat! How. Many. Times. Do. I. Have. To. Say. To. You! Don''t play inside the forest!" The rhythm of his swing became more erratic as the rod continued to swing.


    "If you really want to die that much, then let me be the one to kill you!" Zheng Liyang finally lost it all and went into wild frenzy.


    Pa!


    Pa!


    Pa!


    Each strike stronger than before and all of them directed to the bum of the now screaming youth as Li Kong continued to scream in agony and tears of pain flowed out.


    On the other side of the situation, Ye Cheng was having a pleasant time watching Li Kong finally getting his punishment but as the time went on, his face slowly changed into pity and terror.


    He saw the bamboo rod broke in half and right as Li Kong came to check what was going on, Zheng Liyang pulled out another bamboo rod and continued the whooping.


    Seeing the heated scene, Ye Cheng took a giant step back and silently recited prayer to the youth, ''You brought this to yourself, Li Kong.''


    ''I don''t think I''ve ever seen Zheng Liyang this furious.'' Ye Cheng observed his friend who was spanking Li Kong with all of his might. He could even hear the sound of the air moving as the whooping continued.


    To be honest, Zheng Liyang was never the one to easily lost his temper since he was a child but unfortunately, it seemed the years spent taking care of Li Kong had awakened something inside of him.


    Ye Cheng shuddered at the the severity of the situation before him. ''This brat really made me think twice before having a children.''


    Even his well-tempered friend turned to be like this after taking care of a child, so what made he thought that when he had a child that the child won''t grow up to be like Li Kong?


    As he imagined that, shivers ran down through his spine and he quickly ceased all of the bad thoughts from his head.


    Then, Ye Cheng decided he had done watching and turned back to his home.


    Li Kong screams of pain continued to ring throughout the village for another ten minutes before gradually disappeared.


    ...


    The moon had taken its turn and shining brightly in the night sky.


    Inside of Li Kong''s house, in the bedroom, Li Kong was on all four on the bed, pants down.


    "Ouch!" Li Kong gasped in pain.


    He bit his lip and readied himself as he rubbed the ointment on the surface of his cherry-red bum.


    "Ouch! It hurts! It hurts!" Li Kong groaned at the stinging pain.


    Tears started forming in the corner of his eyes as he mustered all of his strength to endure the pain.


    As he rubbed the ointment, Li Kong recalled the memories of this evening.


    Zheng Liyang furiously spanked Li Kong with the bamboo rod until he was couldn''t contain his tears.


    Each swing of Zheng Liyang''s arm left a glaring red mark on the surface of Li Kong''s butt and Li Kong felt that with each strike, the force behind it only increased more and more.


    After an unknown amount of swings, the bamboo rod that Zheng Liyang wielded broke into two as it sent the last pang of pain to Li Kong.


    When Li Kong saw Zheng Liyang watching his broken bamboo rod in silent, Li Kong''s body immediately relaxed and with a tearful eyes, he looked at the distance in a trance, thinking the pain was over before he noticed an unusual thing was leaning beside the chair.


    Li Kong''s hope was broken in half just like the first bamboo rod as he watched Zheng Liyang unsheathed the second bamboo rod.


    The second rod ended up snapping in half too and the beating was over with Zheng Liyang sending last words to Li Kong before going back to his home, leaving the butthurt Li Kong alone on the terrace.


    While reminiscing of the not-so fun evening, he resentfully muttered. "Would it kill you to hold back just a little, uncle?"


    After a few groans and misery, Li Kong finally done rubbing the ointment and listlessly dropped his body to sat on the bed.


    But unfortunately, his body hadn''t forget yet the state of his bum and sent a signals of pain straight to Li Kong''s brain as he groaned once again and dropped completely to the bed while holding his bum.


    While Li Kong was trying to desperately suppressed the pain, he suddenly heard a light voice rang in his head.


    "May this occasion teaches you to be more thoughtful next time." White offered his blessing.


    "Aren''t you the cause of all of this, White?" Li Kong feeling wronged, he reached out for the white bead and glared.


    "Well, um..." White was startled by Li Kong''s response and struggled to gave a clear answer.


    "Ahem." He cleared his nonexistent throat.


    "Isn''t this the right time to discuss from where we left before?" The bead shone repeatedly at each words.


    "That''s right! The cultivation manuals!" All of the scrutiny disappeared from his mind.


    He immediately pushed his body with his left arm while slowly positioned his butt.


    "Careful, careful."


    Li Kong successfully took a seat without causing any major pain and after that, Li Kong grabbed out the manuals he received from White and spread the manuals in a curve line then he carefully placed the bead in front of the manuals.


    "Tonight you will learn how to sense Qi." White declared.


    Li Kong''s eyes sparkled brightly as he nodded over and over.


    "But before that... We need to check your talent first."


    Li Kong tilted his head off to the side a bit.


    "How will we do that?"


    "Pick me up."


    Li Kong picked up the bead and placed on top of his palm.


    "A talent of a cultivator is usually classified based on their spirit root. If you wondering what spirit root is, think of it as a tree and the meridian in your body is the root of the tree to absorbs the water called Qi."


    Li Kong expressed his amazement and signaled to White to continue.


    "Without a spirit root, someone could never hope to sense Qi. Let alone dreaming of becoming cultivator."


    At White''s explanation, Li Kong gulped.


    ''What if I didn''t have it? Did that meant I''m screwed?'' Worries filled Li Kong''s expression.


    White looked at the worried Li Kong and couldn''t help but smile a little in his heart.


    "Silly child. Do you think that the great cultivator will choose someone without a spirit root?"


    Li Kong thought about it for a moment and he found that the statement was reasonable and started nodding as if he was possessed by a woodpecker.


    Seeing that there was no further problem, White continued his explanation.


    "Continuing where we left, each spirit root brought elemental attributes with them. The examples are the five main elements such as fire, earth, metal, water, and wood. Beside that, there also spirit root that differed from the basic elements such as lightning, wind, ice, and many more.


    "Now about talent. People usually categorized who was talented based on the purity of their spirit root. What I meant by this was how many elements did someone have on their spirit root and how strong their affinity to a certain element."


    Li Kong, who was listening to the explanation closely, fell into deep thought and muttered under his breath.


    "Then doesn''t it mean the fewer element you have, the better it is?"


    "Correct." White replied with a warm voice.


    "The fewer element you have in your spirit root, the faster it is for you to progress through your cultivation. But... This wasn''t always the case."


    Li Kong frowned at White seemingly contradicting and fell into deep contemplation.


    ''Good. Always keep your thoughts running, Li Kong.'' White thought as he watched Li Kong''s complexion.


    White was very satisfied with his current student. The student not only had a good sense and discipline but he also never stopped to use his brain.


    What more could a teacher asked from a student than this?


    White remembered the content of Zheng Liyang''s speech while spanking Li Kong and in his speech, Zheng Liyang listed all of the pranks Li Kong had done.


    As he recalled, White subconsciously made a gulp sound and thought to himself.


    ''Well... Maybe if he was less mischievous, he would be the perfect student.'' White mused for a moment before continuing the explanation.


    "Although I said before that talent was classified based on the spirit root, but that wasn''t all of it and personally, the great cultivator bore a certain degree of rejection to this classification."


    "Hmm?" Li Kong raised one of his eyebrows. "Why is that?"


    "In the great cultivator''s words, it was too limiting."


    Limiting? Li Kong pondered about the choice of words.


    "The great cultivator believed that there was an even more important point than your spirit root, the most important aspect you needed in cultivation and that is, understanding."


    "Understanding?" Li Kong tilted his head.


    "Well, enough chit-chat for now. You''ll learn what I mean later." The bead glowed and dimmed.


    "Now let''s get to the chase and see what kind of spirit root that you have. Aren''t you curious?"


    Li Kong''s eyes immediately brightened up and he nodded excitedly.


    "There are special item that people used when testing for spirit root but because my entry to the spatial storage had been blocked, we''ll figure out using another method. Remember that you will feel a warm and somewhat liquid sensation coursing through your veins. Do not reject this energy and let it flow freely in your body. Do you understand?"


    Li Kong replied using nod and without further ado, White started the procedures.


    "Let''s start now."


    Li Kong observed the bead closely, looking for a single change on the smooth surface before he suddenly felt a warm and foreign energy entering his body.


    Li Kong was startled and subconsciously his body tensed in retaliation.


    "Take a deep breath and breathe it out from the mouth. Relax your body."


    Li Kong closed his eyes and draw in air to his nose then guided it to exit through his mouth.


    As Li Kong''s tense muscle finally relaxed, the warm energy started to coursing through his body again.


    ''It was a weird feeling. It''s like I''m taking a warm bath but the water is inside of my body? What am I even saying...''


    He focused all of his senses and followed the warm energy''s path while controlling his muscles from contracting and finally the warm energy stopped right in the center of his lower body and gathered there, making a spherical shape as it fill Li Kong''s dantian and in the process making he feeling a little bloated.


    "Let''s see what you got in here." White said calmly as he carefully guided the energy inside of Li Kong''s body.


    ''A person who was chosen should at least have at least Heaven-grade spirit root, right?''


    White guided his energy carefully, inspecting every nook and cranny before suddenly he sensed something touching his energy.


    ''Found you.''


    White took a closer look at the tiny amount of energy that Li Kong''s spirit root emitted.


    "This..."


    Tension filled Li Kong and he desperately held down his hand from coming together as the act would definitely disturbed the bead.


    "This..." White muttered once again.


    "What the actual fuck?"


    The room fell silent as question marks formed on top of Li Kong''s head and dropped on his head.

 Blank

    "What the actual fuck?"


    White''s loud exclamation filled the entire room.


    "How could this even be possible? No, no, no. It couldn''t be... No matter how untalented you are, you should at least have it but this? How and why did something like this happened to this child? This is logically impossible..."


    White continued to mumble without a care to his surroundings and soon after, the room was filled with nothing but jumbled mess of words protruded from the bead.


    The effect of the words thrown out freely had dizzied Li Kong enough that he couldn''t even comprehended a single thing coming out from the bead.


    "Umm, White." A shaky voice entered the bead''s nonexistent ears.


    White immediately awakened from his long ponder and then he saw Li Kong, swaying like grasses blew by the wind.


    "I think my head would explode if you talk further." Li Kong was at point of nausea. He felt the world around him spun and he struggled to even uttered the sentence out.


    "Ah, sorry. My bad habit started acting up again." White quickly organized his thoughts and stopped mumbling while on the other hand, Li Kong could only raised his hand and sent his thumb up to the sky.


    After a quick recovery, the pair returned to their former position and Li Kong stared at the bead with a shaky gaze.


    ''Did I mess up my assessment? Would I die? Would I explode at any moment?''


    "Li Kong..." The voice sounded hesitant. "How should I say this?"


    Li Kong''s heart rate immediately dropped and he braced himself for the worst.


    ''Would I really explode? It can''t be right? I still have a long future in front of me.'' Li Kong mulled the thoughts over and over again in his mind.


    "Li Kong..." The voice called out once again.


    Li Kong instinctively gulped and prepared for the worst.


    "You, indeed, have a spirit root of some sort."


    Strength instantly left his body as his muscles simultaneously relaxed, lowering his back by centimeters.


    "Huff... Thought I''ll explode." Li Kong leaned on the wall and wiped off the cold sweats he had collected on his forehead.


    "But what did you mean by "some sort"?"


    "Your spirit root is... a little special, if it can be called that."


    "Special? Do you mean that I can shoot out lightning? Oh, oh! Or maybe I can conjure ice from thin air? That''d be so cool!" Li Kong jumped excitedly.


    But unfortunately the excitement was short-lived, he realized that White''s tone was a little bit off and couldn''t help but ask to himself.


    ''If I really got that kind of spirit root won''t White be at least a bit happy, no?'' Li Kong mused silently.


    "It''s neither of them." Li Kong could imagined the voice inside of the bead shaking his head.


    "It''s blank."


    Li Kong blinked a few times.


    "Hah??"


    ...


    "As you know, spirit root mainly consists of the elements of the five main element and when trying to assess them, the elements usually represented themselves by a specific color commonly paired with the physical attribute of each of the elements.


    "The example was fire would be appeared as red, earth as brown, metal as gray or golden, water as blue, and wood as green. This is the five most common element someone could have.


    "Beside the five most common element, there were also spirit root that deviated from them such as lightning, ice, wind, and many more. But even the color was ambiguous, you can still easily figure out what elements they truly are.


    "For example, lightning spirit root would send an electrical current on top of the Revelation Orb and ice spirit root would freeze the orb by a little.


    "But you, Li Kong, are an anomaly because you had neither the five colors nor the unique spirit root. Well, yours was certainly unique just not in the exact same definition.


    "But don''t worry. I can definitely still sense Qi inside of you so it should be functioning normally but I can''t sense even a sliver of elemental energy flowing in your spirit root."


    Li Kong thought for a moment before speaking.


    "Then does that mean my spirit root is too pure? If I remember correctly, the fewer the elements, the purer the spirit root, isn''t it?"


    "Normally, it is." White nodded in agreement and then continuing his words. "But your case is abnormal one. The purity of someone''s spirit root was seen by how many attribute did the spirit root have. The lesser it is, the purer it is. But never did in my long years of living did I''ve seen someone having not a single attribute."


    "Hmm, what could it be then?" It seemed as if Li Kong''s musing had completely suppressed his pain receptor as he swayed from right to left, ignoring his delicate bum''s state, with his thumb and index finger pinching his chin.


    "Well, at least now we know that you have a spirit root inside of you. Now let''s see if it''s functioning properly."


    Li Kong was a bit worried at the "functioning properly" part but he quickly dispersed the thoughts.


    "So what am I supposed to do to sense Qi, master White?" Li Kong raised his hand.


    "Glad you asked that disciple Li Kong." Li Kong imagined the voice inside of the bead nodding.


    "And for that, that''s the time for this... thing." A long pause inserted between the words.


    As White said that, suddenly one of the book floated and showed the manual''s cover directly to Li Kong''s face.


    "Woah!" He jumped backwards and then dumbfoundedly looked at the bead on his palm before alternated back to the floating book as he watched the manual amusedly.


    ''I wonder what will happen if I try to poke at it.''


    Li Kong inspected the manual carefully and the large characters written in ink was saying "A Basic Cultivation Manual and Qi Methods" and the little "Advanced Version by yours truly White :D" right beneath the title.


    He pointed his index finger toward the floating book and hesitating for a moment before he took the initiative and to his surprise the book was wobbling around the air like it was hanging from a thread as it spun.


    "Haha! It wobbled!" Li Kong giggled a little before he unleashed a series of pokes at the floating passage.


    "Stop it! I''m losing control of the manual!" White quickly scolded him.


    Li Kong let out an "Ah" sound and stopped poking the floating manual.


    White sent out a sharp gaze to which Li Kong replied with a wry smile.


    "Now open the manual and read it."


    Li Kong reached out for the book in the air and to his amazement, the book stopped floating the moment he tried to let it go of his palm.


    The book wasn''t really that thick and the content of the book was exactly just like what it advertised, basic information about cultivation.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Even though Li Kong didn''t know a slightest bit about cultivation before, but he could clearly tell that the topics discussed in the manuals was written for people like him who was unfamiliar with the new world of cultivation.


    Besides that, the manual also show a drawing of beautiful scenery with a man riding a sword and flying through the sky and underneath each of the drawing had the aforementioned location.


    Even though, the quality of the ink was bad but it was drawn good enough to lightly piqued Li Kong''s curiosity.


    Hmm... I''ve almost read all of it and I hadn''t found anything special yet. Is there really something special about this book? Li Kong silently recited in his heart as he skimmed through the book.


    The manual discussed many topics such as what Qi is, the foundation of cultivation, and ultimately, how to senses Qi and absorbs it.


    Although the manual was discussing about how to sense Qi, the manual never explicitly told the reader how to did it actually and only vaguely explaining it like "find a suitable cultivation methods for you" and even blatantly saying something like, "It''ll be written in the next edition!"


    ''Am I not trying to find a cultivation method now?'' For some reason, Li Kong felt very pissed at whoever writing this book.


    As if sensing Li Kong''s frustration, White took a look at the content of the book and voiced his thought.


    "Oh, just skip that part entirely, the next page is what you really searching for." White stated calmly.


    "I- Ahem... The great cultivator was too lazy to revised that part so he left it unchanged and the original author''s thought still remained there." White explained hurriedly.


    "The original version was a trick by the author to sell copy of another book which contain the cultivation method and even though, you''d purchased the cultivation method, it isn''t safe to be practiced as it have many complications with the circulation of Qi that could cause the unaware practitioner to explode from the inside."


    Li Kong was agape and he slowly turned his head to observe at the manual on top of his palm that was now shining in ominous red light in his vision.


    ''Are you really sure that this is really safe for use? And it seems scammer never really disappeared no matter what world is it, huh?'' Li Kong thought amusingly as he was reminded of the time where his uncle, An Yan, stories about how someone tried to scam him with leftover goods.


    But all things being said, the "explode from within" thing was really tickling the backside of Li Kong''s brain as it sent constant danger signals to Li Kong.


    Ultimately, he chose to believe at the great cultivator that had revised the book and labeled it as the advanced version.


    ''O'' Great Cultivator blessed me as I''ve believed in you.'' Li Kong prayed sincerely in his heart.


    After he was done praying, he took a deep breath before looking at the wide open book in front of him.


    ''Well, here goes nothing.''


    "Oh." Li Kong suddenly voiced out.


    "Hmm? What?" White asked lightly.


    "If the great cultivator know this book was a scam, why the great cultivator still chose to buy it?"


    "Oh... About that... I just thought at the moment that the book''s title had a nice ring to it and so I chose to keep it and later in my life, I suddenly remembered about the book when I was bored and having no better things to do, I read the book and revised it based on my understanding." White clarified clearly.


    Li Kong was opening his mouth and clapping in admiration. But he couldn''t help to notice that his teacher suddenly changed his way of addressing the great cultivator and referred himself.


    ''White is the great cultivator after all. Well, a remnants to be exact but isn''t remnant the same too as the complete one? Sigh, I''m too stupid for this. I''ll just forget about this.''


    After clearing his mind, Li Kong focused back at the manual and true to White''s words, the content of the manual immediately changed and the manual quickly turned into more professional looking.


    If the page before this was created in a way that it would piqued the reader''s curiosity while shying away from the main point, then this point of the manual was the polar opposite.


    It was full of detailed explanation and even an illustration of a person and incomprehensible lines that was unknown to Li Kong what the meaning was.


    Li Kong''s brain started to overheating at the many information that suddenly forced in his brain.


    "Focus on the part below the drawing." A helping voice rang.


    Li Kong directed his focus to the part White''s mentioned and on there was a line of words written neatly.


    "The importance of meditation... blah blah blah... How to sense Qi. Oh, here it is."


    A set of instructions written in ink engraved on top of the worn-down paper detailing every single steps to executed the method.


    After a few minutes, Li Kong closed the manual and soon after White''s light voice chimed inside of his ears.


    "Now after you''d read it, take the correct posture as written in the manual."


    Li Kong fixed his sitting posture and looked straight in front of him.


    "Now close your eyes and control your breath."


    Li Kong closed his eyes in respond and started to breath rhythmically as his chest went up and down.


    "Too fast. Hold your breath for a little longer and let it out slowly. Yes, just like that. Keep that rhythm steady. Now it is too slow. Don''t take too much air but rather take just the right amount and breathe the air out in a smooth single breath."


    Li Kong was facing difficulty to carrying out White''s instruction properly but he persevered and experimenting many ways to breathe.


    Li Kong continued to breath calmly and without he consciously thought, his body was starting to relax and his chest moving up and down following the correct rhythm.


    "Now keep the rhythm steady as you empty your mind slowly." White further instructed.


    Although Li Kong was looking unfazed on the outside, but in the inside he had trouble trying to keep his breath steady while pondering how to empty his mind as White requested.


    He imagined that his head was full of scenery and voices and then filled all of it slowly with a black ink. At first, he painted the center, then he continued to the right and from there he slowly painted all of those imageries in black until there was nothing left beside White''s voices as he entered a state that similar to a trance.


    White, who was put right in front of Li Kong, watched his student''s complexion with a slight smile.


    "What do you feel like right now?"


    ''What I''m feeling right now?'' Li Kong repeated in his mind.


    Li Kong felt that his body had turned into a lake. A lake with still water, unobstructed by outside interference.


    Suddenly he became more aware at the the sound of his breath, the feeling of slight change in the air as it brushed his face ever-so-slightly.


    It was as though as all of those small things that he usually wouldn''t noticed suddenly became a large rock that was thrown to the surface of the still lake and sending ripples throughout the lake''s surface making him fully aware of all of them.


    Amidst the void, all of a sudden something touched the surface of his lake. The thing that was touching his lake was about the size a grain of sand. The ripple effect was so small that if he didn''t happen to find about it by chance, he wouldn''t had the hope to detect it if he actively tried to seek for it.


    Li Kong in the state was a little confused at the size of the thing as even the slightest change in the wind felt like a large rock was thrown to him but this unknown thing was just a size of a grain of sand.


    ''Could this little sand be Qi?'' Li Kong gathered all of his focus to sensing the unknown thing.


    At first, Li Kong couldn''t find anything. But as he continued to recall the sensation of the grain of sand, he continuously scanned through the whole lake and soon he found another small ripple.


    Then, it turned to few. Twelve. Thirty. One hundred. Three hundred. The numbers kept increasing until Li Kong lost the count and all of his senses was overwhelmed by the barrages of ripples.


    ''I can feel it.'' Li Kong''s voice rang in the void.


    ''This tiny ripples. It must be it! This must be Qi!''


    But unfortunately for him, the ripples was too much for him to handle.


    He struggled to maintain his concentration and his breath started to show a sign of shaking. He gritted his teeth and desperately maintaining his degree of concentration but to no avail, his concentration was still disturbed by the constant ripples.


    As his concentration wavered, he could felt that the ripples reduced rapidly in numbers and ultimately, he couldn''t sense any of it again.


    As he failed to sense the small ripples, Li Kong broke from his meditation and greedily gasping the air while sweats started trickling down from his forehead to his chin.


    "Drink this water first." A light voice was picked up by Li Kong''s ears and true to the voice''s words, a cup of water was delivered and arrived right in front of his face.


    He pulled the cup toward him and gulped down all of the content and put the cup on the desk, not far away from the bed, then collapsed as he leaned toward the wall for support.


    White waited for Li Kong to rest for a bit and after he found that Li Kong''s breathing had considerably calmed down, he asked his student about his progress.


    "So how was that? Do you feel anything weird?" White asked with a hint of concern of his voice.


    Li Kong calmly explained to his teacher about he becoming like a lake and the uncountable ripples he felt.


    "Was what I felt before Qi?"


    "Yes, what you feel was definitely Qi, the sheer volume of Qi in the air is innumerable. You could even say that the amount of Qi is infinite." White replied calmly.


    Li Kong once again opened his mouth in admiration to the world of cultivator. There was just too many thing that was beyond his comprehension to understand.


    ''But in the future, I''ll grasp it all.'' He looked at the moon through his window with a resolute and reaching out his hand to the moon before clenching into a fist.


    "But there''s something interesting that I''d like to point out from your explanation." White interjected his thoughts.


    At the sudden remark, Li Kong directed his vision at the bead with a clear confused gaze.


    "I think it is interesting that you chose to be a lake to sense Qi. Not to say that the method is wrong, but it''s just unusual. Although people usually visualized it in many ways, but I think this is the first time that I''ve heard someone using a lake to visualized sensing Qi but this isn''t something you should worried about." White assured Li Kong.


    Li Kong fell into deep thought and let out a little "hmm" sound while he was pinching his chin and swayed his body right and left.


    "Then what''s the usual then?"


    "Most people was told Qi was like flying small orb in the air. For reference, the great cultivator sensed Qi this way too. But there are no noticeable drawbacks even if you do it differently, so rest assured.


    "Okay, enough chit-chat now. You''re able to sense Qi now albeit not complete. But at least there we know your spirit root functioning well. You''ve done good. Now rest your body and sleep. Rest is as equally important to exercise when you are training."


    Then, White lectured Li Kong about the important of having a healthy sleep schedule and the consequences of being sleep-deprived.


    Li Kong was already lied on the bed as White lectured him nodded absentmindedly before finally taking a residence at the dream world.


    The night ended peacefully...


    ...


    ...


    ...


    A blurry figure suddenly emerged from a thin air besides the sleeping Li Kong. The figure looked at Li Kong''s carefree sleeping face and a smile formed on its thin lips.


    After observing Li Kong for a while, the blurry figure looked at the lunar and countless thoughts created in his mind.


    "What were you actually thinking, ''White''?" White muttered under his breath before shaking his head a few times and disappeared from the sight as if he was never there in the first place.


    And thus, the night finally ended peacefully.

 Not a Bad Thing

    In the quiet morning where even the bird hadn''t risen yet to chirped, Li Kong woke up from his sleep, feeling more energized than usual except for the numbing pain permeated on his lower back.


    He stared blankly at nothingness for a while before something hit him suddenly and he checked the top of his table on the side of his bed and there he found the smooth white bead placed on top of a fabric.


    ''It''s real...''


    Yesterday really felt like a wild fever dream to him. From the near-death encounter with White, the fact that he was someone fated to met White, the lingering feelings left behind by White''s memories and most importantly, the fact he would be cultivator soon.


    All of that happened in a span of a single day and it completely destroyed Li Kong''s whole worldview and he even doubted it for a second before but here was the evidence, the white bead right before his eyes.


    After that, Li Kong jumped out from the bed and washed his face before doing his morning routines.


    On his way while jogging, he met with his neighbors and they all asked about the state of his bum after being spanked by Zheng Liyang which Li Kong could only respond with an awkward smile.


    Having circling the village, Li Kong slumped down on the chair on his terrace and let the breeze of morning cooled his body.


    After that, he cleaned himself and dressed up to welcome the new day and then he went to the field and chatting with people there before the time to work came and they worked on the field together.


    Soon, noon befell and all of the workers avoided the heat of the sun.


    Li Kong, who was in his usual spot, found that Yu Mei was coming and after a few friendly banters, they sat besides each other and talked.


    "What''s going on? Something good happened?" Yu Mei asked.


    "Oh, about that..." Li Kong formed the biggest grin he possibly could. "You won''t believe this but I-" Li Kong stopped all of a sudden.


    ''I don''t know yet if I can tell other people about White...'' Li Kong was torn whether to tell Yu Mei about the truth.


    While on the other side, Li Kong''s internal struggle was evident to the naked eyes as he unconsciously pinched his chin and creased his eyebrows, habits Yu Mei was fully aware.


    After a few moments trying to ransacked for every ideas to escaped this predicament, Li Kong had concocted a brilliant plan as he looked at the glaring Yu Mei.


    "You know what? It''s nothing."


    "Nothing? What do you mean by nothing!" Yu Mei wasn''t happy at all.


    "You''d draw my attention so you better take the responsibility and tell me what is it right now!" Her tone sounded demanding.


    "..." Li Kong exercised his right to remain silent and refrained from answering any further questions.


    "Oh, you''re doing that? Then take this!" Yu Mei reached out her fingers to the side of Li Kong''s ribs and tickled it.


    Li Kong remained steadfast even in front of the constant tickling like a rock unfazed by the hit of the rain''s droplets.


    Seeing the expressionless Li Kong, Yu Mei realized that her effort was futile but she didn''t lose hope and rather redirecting her area of tickling to somewhere else, to the sole of Li Kong''s feet.


    The moment her fingers touched the sole, Li Kong immediately broke out laughing and was wriggling on the ground like a worm having a meeting with salt.


    In his laughing, Li Kong desperately trying to get out from Yu Mei''s hand but seemingly anticipating the move, Yu Mei had already locked down Li Kong''s feet in place before he could escape.


    "Stop! Please, stop!" Li Kong''s words was unclear because of the laughing and tears started to coming from the corner of his eyes.


    "Hah! You dare to leave me in silent! Do you still dare to leave me in silent again" Yu Mei repeated those words to Li Kong''s ears to listen as she pinned down Li Kong''s feet and mercilessly tickled the sole.


    Although Yu Mei was smaller than Li Kong but somehow Li Kong found himself pinned down to the ground by the young girl with ease.


    Li Kong struggled between holding his laugh and trying to control his strength so that he wouldn''t kick Yu Mei on the face which undoubtedly would make the situation far worse than what is it now.


    After few seconds, Yu Mei finally feeling satisfied and let the exhausted Li Kong lied on the ground tiredly.


    After that, she departed from the place and as she took a last glance at Li Kong, she let out a loud  "Hmph" sound before saying, "You better tell me what it is later."


    Li Kong still hadn''t recovered yet from the tickling torture he had experienced. His chest heaved up and down and the traces of tears still evident on the corner of his eyes.


    "That crazy woman..." His breath shaky.


    "She''s trying to kill me for real!" Li Kong looked at the young girl''s back with great resentment before leaning onto the nearby tree and heaved out loudly.


    "Hah... I''m dying right now..."


    ...


    After Li Kong arrived at his home, he instantly plunged to the bathroom and cleaned himself before going to his bedroom to finally submerged himself into a deep slumber before something inadvertently crossed his mind.


    "Oh, right! I should continue my practice."


    With great effort, he reluctantly jumped out of the sweet embrace of his comfy bed and reached out for the shelf nearby and took out a ordinary-looking book from shelf.


    "Mhm... Mhm... Mhm..." Li Kong mumbled in a low voice.


    Done reading, he closed his book and placed it on top of the shelf beside his bed and pulled his buttocks backwards to the soft side of the bed.


    After that, Li Kong crossed his legs and with a closed eyes, he did a short, rhythmic breath and gradually his body was relieved from any kind of tension as he slowly submerged in the meditation.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Once again, Li Kong arrived at the lake and he immediately went to search for the ripples.


    After a long time, Li Kong finally sensed a tiny ripple on the surface of his lake and he memorized and etched the feeling deep within his heart and following that feeling, he began noticing the countless ripples on the lake.


    The numbers grew quickly from tens and then hundreds and finally, innumerable.


    This time, Li Kong was prepared and didn''t get overwhelmed by the sensation. He kept his breathing steady and willed his mind to stay focused.


    After the number of ripples stop growing, Li Kong unconsciously knew that he already on the verge of success and at this moment, the content of the book that he had read earlier flashed through his mind.


    ''Guide the Qi to the lower abdomen area...'' He muttered the content of the book quietly in his mind.


    ''But how do I guide it?'' He asked himself.


    ''Although the Qi was touching the lake and manifested itself in ripples, I never actually felt it directly on my skin...'' Li Kong pondered deeply in his meditation.


    ''Then what is the lake?''


    ''The lake is not my body. I don''t feel the sensation of Qi touching my body and if so, what is it then?''


    He tried recalling his memories of "A Basic Cultivation Manual and Qi Methods" book.


    ''Then is the lake a part of my heart?''


    ''No... The heart couldn''t sense Qi...''


    ''Then is it my consciousness?''


    ''You''re not even a cultivator yet... How could you already utilize your consciousness outside of your body?''


    ''Then what is it?''


    ''...''


    He racked his entire brain for a long time but still couldn''t mustered a single satisfactory answer.


    Feeling frustrated at the situation, his concentration began to crumble as the sensation of the countless ripples quickly overwhelmed his mind, threatening to break the meditation but fortunately, Li Kong managed to successfully control the situation.


    ''Calm down, Li Kong. There must something in your mind.''


    Li Kong dwelled deeper to his mind.


    ''Xiao Jia crying? No... Then what about this? Yu Mei embarrassed after burping and immediately rushed in her room? Haha, that face of her was so funny but no. Uncle Zheng spanking me when I replaced his water with vinegar? I think I went too far...''


    Li Kong continued to search for any clues inside of his mind but rather than useful information, the only thing he saw was his mildly interesting past.


    ''Hoh, not a bad reaction.'' Suddenly that flashed through his memories.


    ''Reaction?'' Li Kong felt something ticked in his brain.


    ''What''s related to reaction? Instinct or maybe, intuition? Intuition, hmm... Wait. Could the lake be my senses?!''


    Li Kong felt something in his mind clicked.


    ''It makes sense now why I know there is Qi but I can''t feel it.''


    ''But still. How do I guide the Qi into my body?''


    Li Kong dwelled back to his mind and pondered for a long time before he realized something was unusual.


    ''Now I think about it, I feel like my senses was sharper on some part than the other.''


    The more Li Kong paid it more attention, the more he felt something strange was happening with his senses.


    Li Kong found that he was able to discern and react more sharply to the thing farther away from him than the thing closer to him.


    But it didn''t mean Li Kong''s senses was failing detected anything nearby him but rather his body was subconsciously shaped his senses to be more perceptive to the things far from him.


    It felt like there was an invisible boundary around his body, dividing into inner and outer parts where his senses was more focused on the outer part.


    Li Kong wondered what might be the cause of this situation but that could be a question for another occasion.


    ''What if I try to pull my senses inside?'' Li Kong considered the method for a while before deciding to give it a try.


    Although Li Kong said it was pulling, in actuality he just tried to sense the area inside of the invisible boundary.


    Unknowingly, his eyebrows creased and burrowed deeply between his eyebrows, creating a deep valley through.


    But the method seemed to be failing as no notable change was being made and before long, Li Kong couldn''t hold the meditation any longer.


    "Damn it!" Li Kong cursed out while entrusting his body to the comfy side of the bed.


    As his body sinking in further to the bed, Li Kong saw a white bead floated in front of his eyes.


    "Ghost!" Li Kong frantically tried to get away.


    "Who did you call ghost, you disrespectful brat!" A light voice filled with raging fury resounded through the room.


    "Oh, it was you White." Li Kong had reached the bedroom''s door at this point and he walked back slowly while wiping his forehead.


    "You don''t have to scare my heart like that, White!" Li Kong complained.


    White was reaching his breaking point but when he saw the manual on top of the bed, he decided to let the youth go for this time.


    "Did your attempt successful?" White asked.


    Li Kong shook his head and explained everything to White.


    "Hmm... I think I''ve heard something like this before."


    "Really?" Li Kong''s eyes was sparkling. "Where did you hear about it?"


    "Please don''t stick your face too close to me." Li Kong felt invisible energy pushing him away from the white bead.


    "I have a friend who happened to encounter the same problem. He spent years as a hunter and perhaps the experiences had shaped his sharp senses to becoming like that which caused his senses to be sharper the farther away. After all, a hunter should be constantly aware of his surrounding."


    "Woah. You know so many things, White!"


    "Of course I am. Who do you think I am?" White was feeling a little prideful at the moment but he quickly chased it away.


    "For your case, Li Kong. I think the hunter training provided by your uncle had ingrained a habit to your body which transformed your senses."


    Li Kong remembered about the past few months where he was just recruited by Ye Cheng to join him in hunting but he quickly shut it down as he spent the next few minutes shuddering,


    ''I don''t want to go back to that time ever again.'' The experience had left a giant mark on Li Kong''s life.


    Li Kong quickly forgot about it and asked, "So how did your friend did it, White?"


    "Oh it was..." White began his explanation while Li Kong was seriously listening to him and even taking a note and asking a few questions and the explanation seemed to be going well that was before Li Kong decided to ask White about some tales about the outside world and even details of his own adventure.


    Basking in the glory of the past, White began to boast his journey and for some reason, Li Kong was even more focused than before as he gasped, clapped, whistled, and cheered.


    As White continued telling his share of stories, the sky had darkened and the somber yet serene light of the moon had shone down the world.


    "It''s night already?!" Li Kong was shocked beyond recognition.


    "I need to take a bath now!" Li Kong left the room in hurry, leaving the white bead behind.


    For quite sometimes, the room was filled with silence before a blurry white figure emerged out of thin air and took a seat on the window''s frame while watching the moon. The moon was beautiful as always.


    "I wonder what''s wrong with me... I never been this distracted before." The blurry figure mumbled.


    For some reasons, the blurry figure couldn''t concentrate at all when he was with the young boy and when they needed to discussed something important, they always ended up having a conversation with an entirely different topic.


    "But it''s not necessarily a bad thing." A hazy curve appeared on the figure''s almost transparent lips.


    How long was it since the last time he ever had conversation with other people like this?


    For a hundreds of years, he had roamed aimlessly and crossed through a thousand worlds all for the purpose of fulfilling the task that was given to him and the years before he was separated by his "real" weren''t a good thing too especially towards the end of his life.


    But was it really centuries of isolation that lead him to the state he was now?


    "No." The blurry figure firmly shook his head.


    Before he was a remnants, he once was a great cultivator, what a thousand years for someone with an almost infinite lifespan? It would be lucky that those thousand years were worth even a grain of sand to him.


    "That child was different from the others had met." The blurry figure recalled the child''s unwavering eyes.


    On those big round eyes reflected only pure curiosity and compassion for others while bearing the resolute gaze of someone destined for greatness.


    "Or maybe it was because the others disappeared immediately after giving out the inheritances so they never felt this way." The blurry figure let out a little chuckle at the end of his words.


    "No matter what is it." The blurry figure stared at the moon before a curve appeared on the corner of his lips. "I''ll take care of this child to my best capability."


    Suddenly a sound was heard from the outside of the bedroom and as the door opened, the blurry figure promptly disappeared, leaving the white bead mysteriously glowing under the moonlight.


    Li Kong had arrived back at the room with wet hair and a towel to his name at the moment.


    "How come you take so long to take a bath? Are you a woman?" White snickered.


    "I have my mighty rod with me. How can I be a woman? It''s because the water was too cold, I have to boil it first." Li Kong wasn''t at all happy with the accusation as he replied grumpily while putting on his clothes.


    White sent a loud whiff, "Sure you do."


    Li Kong was feeling indignant and refuted White''s claim furiously while White calmly countered it all with his lifelong wisdoms.


    ''But it''s not a bad thing.'' A smile formed deep inside of White''s heart

 The First Step

    After Li Kong had dressed properly, they found themselves sitting back on top of the soft bed and White briefed Li Kong once again before Li Kong submerged himself deep within the meditation.


    Maybe it was because he had already done it for a few times, he entered the state of deep meditation with ease.


    While Li Kong was performing his meditation, White silently watched upon the figure of young boy with an observing eyes.


    ''His growth surely is shocking.'' White mused to himself.


    ''As if it''s already not absurd enough for someone with basically zero knowledge about cultivation to learn how to sense Qi in just one night. But now he is able to enter the meditation state on whim...''


    Although White couldn''t be sure yet but from the youth he had seen the inkling of what he might be and that was...


    ''A genius''


    A genius. Someone who was outside of the norm of the ordinary, refusing to follow what others perceived as common sense and embarked on a path of their own.


    ''A genius, huh?'' White smiled through his words.


    ''There''s not a single thing lacking about him, aside from his strange spirit root.'' At the mention of the spirit root, the cogs inside of White''s mind began to spin.


    ''It''s fundamentally impossible for a spirit root to not had an elemental attribute, whether it is a common element or unique, but here it is, the living embodiment of such contradiction.''


    Throughout the hundreds of years of life as the great cultivator and as well the long years following being a remnants, there was nothing that even remotely resembled the peculiarity of Li Kong''s spirit root which made White very intrigued of what was causing it to happen..


    ''Was it his constitution?'' White gazed at Li Kong''s body.


    ''If it''s the Great Absorption constitution then perhaps it''s possible that his own constitution absorbed his spirit root''s element attribute. No... If that was the case, then I shouldn''t even be able to sent my memories to him...


    ''But if it''s not his constitution then what it could be?'' White contemplated before ultimately heaving out a deep sigh.


    ''Sigh... Let''s just accept this as a new thing. Afterall this world is vast and even I hadn''t explored the world at its fullest yet.''


    While White was debating himself, Li Kong on the other hand was struggling desperately to carrying out his teacher''s order as countless beads of sweat was rolling down over his forehead and his eyebrows were creased deeply as he continued to keep his rhythmic breath steady.


    ''How am I supposed to do this?''


    He recalled the story White had told before and the solution that was given to him was...


    ''Just flip it.'' A simple statement without any flaw in the making of the statement but the glaring question was how do you supposed to flip it?!


    ''The boundary is caused by my mind unconsciously working my senses in such way because of my training with uncle Ye...


    ''Then, perhaps if I tried to sense the area close to my boundary, it''ll work?''


    The boundary was his the fruit of his labor after the hard training he had with his Ye Cheng and Ye Cheng built it in a way that would benefited a hunter the most but unfortunately, to Ye Cheng''s dismay, Li Kong wasn''t going to be hunter as the senses his uncle honed proved to be more of an obstacle to him.


    After that, Li Kong focused all of his attention on the inner area around his boundary.


    ''This is... hard...'' Li Kong creased his eyebrows even deeper.


    Li Kong attempted to forcibly flipped his senses to fill the inner of the boundary but the attempt ended prematurely as Li Kong couldn''t bear the mental burden of the action and dropped down to his bed while breathing raggedly.


    "Ahh!!! This is too hard!" Li Kong exclaimed while still laying down on the bed, trying to stabilized his ragged breath.


    "You''ve only done it once and you already complained?" White clicked his tongues many times.


    Li Kong hadn''t had the energy to argue with the bead yet as he looked straight up at the ceiling.


    After a moment, his breathing finally stabilized and he propelled his back upwards and took a seat in front of the white bead.


    "You''d recovered? Thought you''re going to lay down until sunrise." White''s teasing voice resounded on Li Kong''s ears.


    "Time waits for no one." Li Kong replied with solemn expression.


    "How come you suddenly become smarter?" White scoffed.


    Li Kong chuckled a little at White''s response.


    "Stop laughing now. Now do you know what your mistake was before?"


    Li Kong thought for a moment and replied.


    "Is it because I was too forcing?"


    "Good. At least you know that." White gave nod to the answer.


    "Just like exercising your muscles, forcing your way won''t gave you a pretty result. Cultivation is also like that, there will be things that you might be found difficult at first but if you continuously retried, it would become easier.


    "There is still many ways to do it without forcing and if you still try to force it anyway... I mean what could go wrong? At worst, you will only ended up crippled for life or loses your life in the process. Not much to consider, right?" The bead sent a sharp gaze to the youth.


    Li Kong''s throat subconsciously moved downward as he carved the bead''s warning deep within his mind so he could never forget about it ever.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    After memorizing White''s warning, Li Kong performed his breath routine and gradually, his consciousness blended in with the surrounding as his senses became crystal clear.


    "Sense the area around your boundary. One step at a time. Don''t be greedy and do it steadily and when you feel you have taken a good grasp of the area, continue deeper until you finally reached your body." White instructed with a soothing voice.


    Hearing the voice, Li Kong''s nervousness dispersed and he nodded in response.


    ''Slow and steady.'' He recited White''s words deep within his consciousness.


    He then extended his senses outwards from his body and it didn''t took too long before he could felt a boundary subconsciously formed, trapping him inside like a bubble.


    After that, he focused his attention to his inner boundary. Although he could sense the thing inside of his boundary, the feeling was so hazy that he couldn''t made the thing out clearly on his mind.


    After he done trying to sensing the thing inside of his inner boundary, he shifted his focus towards the border separating the outside and the inside.


    There he could clearly felt the difference with one of the side was much clearer to his mind than the other.


    ''This is the place.'' Li Kong thought silently.


    Li Kong recalled White''s words once again.


    ''Slow and steady... Slow and steady...'' With an extreme focus. he tried to pull his senses slowly to the inner side of the boundary.


    Li Kong couldn''t exactly described what the feeling of "pulling" his senses felt like but the closest explanation he got was...


    ''It''s like something was pushing me in from the outwards and I received their pushing?'' Li Kong lost his words halfway through and decided to abandon trying to describe the feeling.


    As he tried to "pull" his senses, he felt the tension was becoming strong as if the string connecting him and his outside senses would snapped at any given moment.


    But Li Kong was adamant about giving up halfway as he recalled White''s words and recited it repeatedly in his mind.


    ''Slow and steady. Remember, Li Kong. Do it slow and steady.''


    The tension gradually built up and Li Kong could felt that it wouldn''t took a long time before the "string" snapped but he wasn''t ready to giving up yet.


    ''No... Not yet!''


    In this moment, Li Kong''s body unconsciously tensed as he exerted all of his strength right at this moment.


    Sweats started dripping from Li Kong''s forehead and his breathing became unclear.


    ''Almost... Almost! I almost see it! Come on, now..!'' Li Kong desperately tried to maintain his focus as he slowly pulled his senses inwards.


    But towards the end...


    ''Ah...'' Li Kong inadvertently let out a sound.


    As the he sensed the "string" snapped, Li Kong''s mind was snapped out from the meditation state and wariness immediately attacked him as his body dropped down once again to the soft embrace of the bed.


    "What did I just said about not forcing it, you damned brat! Not even a hour had passed and you already forgot about it? Do you really want to be crippled?" White was beyond pissed now.


    White silently waited for Li Kong to got up from the bed but shortly after, he feeling a little bit uneasy as to why the young man didn''t show his face after a moment had passed now.


    ''He must be quite disappointed at the result.'' White thought to himself.


    White remembered when he was a young cultivator still learning under his master''s guidance and there were many times that he would felt so frustrated at himself because he couldn''t do what his other senior brother and sister do.


    White let out a loud cough.


    "It''s okay to feel disappointed about it. It was fine to fail sometimes on the contrary failing is good because with each fail it would bring you closer to success so there is nothing to be sad about failing..."


    "I did it..." Li Kong murmured.


    "Hah?" White didn''t quite catch what he was saying.


    "I did it! I did it! I did it, White!" Li Kong got out of the bed while snatching the bead in the process and proceed to jump around cheerfully around his room.


    "I did it! I did it! Hahaha! I did it!" Each Li Kong''s words was more joyful and louder than before.


    "Good! Good, Li Kong!" White was infected by Li Kong''s enthusiasm as he let himself to be spun around following Li Kong''s body motion.


    "But didn''t you realize that it''s late already!"


    All of a sudden, Li Kong''s head was struck by an invisible force and his movement turned wobbly after the impact had hit him.


    He struggled to maintain his balance as he walked back to the bed before slumped down on the bed and clutching his head while grunting.


    "You didn''t have to hit it that hard." Li Kong was feeling a little resentful.


    "If I didn''t stop you, you would get another spank tomorrow because your neighbor''s complaints to your uncle."


    Remembering the beating that he took before, his body was filled with shudders as he ceased any further arguments with White.


    "So how is your progress?" White asked.


    Hearing White''s question immediately brought back Li Kong''s smile, he lifted his arms and raised his index and middle finger, making a reversed triangle shape at the bead''s direction.


    "I successfully pulled it in! Even though it was just a little." Li Kong smiled weakly and scratched the side of his head with embarrassed look on his face.


    Looking at Li Kong''s figure now, a warm feeling formed inside of White''s heart.


    "What''s there to be embarrassed? Did I ever say that you could do it in one sitting? Rather I''m surprised you can do it."


    Hearing the words from White motivated Li Kong for a bit as his posture turned straight again.


    "But just because I say that it isn''t bad, doesn''t mean it is good. Now try it again!"


    "Yes!"


    ...


    It was unknown to Li Kong how many time had passed since his first attempt but since the first attempt, he had failed many attempts but with failure came improvement as each times he failed, he only got better and better.


    Li Kong could felt that this attempt was nearing its end but he responded calmly. He used all of his knowledge that he had gained by the process of trials and errors he had done before and maintained his focus and breath carefully.


    Something was coming...


    Li Kong sensed that something else was within his grasp, hovering somewhere between his senses but no matter how hard he tried, that something seemed so out of touch.


    ''No...''


    Would he fail again this time? When the thing he sought was right before him?


    ''No!''


    Li Kong gathered his breath and focus once more and pushed himself through the limit.


    ''I refuse!'' The words resonated through his whole body.


    ''This time...'' The door opened. ''I will not fail!''


    And finally...


    "Finally... I can see it." Li Kong muttered under his breath before collapsing to the bed.


    Li Kong felt like his sense of vision was renewed as he saw many particles dancing aimlessly in the air as if going to somewhere.


    "Li Kong!" White sounded worried.


    "White..." Li Kong weakly mumbled. "I did it." He let out a small smile and raised his two fingers and sent it to the floating bead on top of him.


    "Congratulations, Li Kong. You''ve done the first step. You''re officially a cultivator now." For some unknown reasons, Li Kong was starting to perceived a blurry figure cladded in a white robe looking down on him and on the corner of his lips, a little curve was formed.


    As White''s words arrived at Li Kong''s ears, they heard the crow of a rooster resounded through the whole village to welcomed the rising sun.


    "Uh, that''s not good." Li Kong blurted out. "I think I''m started to seeing things, White..."


    "What do you mean by "things"?" White asked but received no response.


    White looked down at the already closed eyes of Li Kong and let out a sound of a little breath coming out from his nose.


    A blanket floated up and enveloped Li Kong on its embrace as Li Kong snuggled around the bed.


    ...


    In the mid day, in front of Li Kong''s house, Yu Mei was walking in to the house and when she opened the door to his bedroom, she found her suspect laying peacefully on the bed.


    "There you are." Yu Mei sat on the corner of the bed and shook Li Kong''s body a few times.


    "Hey, wake up. The sun''s already up for long time, you know?"


    But  Li Kong remained unfazed at the disturbance and dwelled deeply in the realm of dreams.


    Seeing her action was doing nothing to the dead as log Li Kong, Yu Mei ultimately sigh and observed Li Kong''s sleeping face.


    "Although uncle Zheng told me to wake you up..." Yu Mei looked at Li Kong''s nose and pulled out a feather she had specially prepared for the occasion and waved it just a little in front Li Kong''s nose.


    Even though Li Kong was still not awake yet but his face contorted and his nose flailed around to dodge the ticklish sensation.


    After waving it around for a while, Yu Mei finally had her fill and stopped tickling Li Kong''s nose as she rested her chin on the top of the palm that was carrying the feather.


    ''You should deserve about this much.'' She thought to herself as she watched Li Kong''s free-of-any-worries sleeping face.


    "Sleep well, Li Kong." She whispered.


    Yu Mei stayed for a little longer before leaving the bedroom altogether while the bead on top of the shelf beside the bed glimmering ever-so-slightly.

 Constitution

    The world had just starting to welcome the coming of the sun.The earth basked in the warm light, wait a minute, why was the sky orangeish? Li Kong raised from his bed and looked out of the window.


    "Wake up yet?" A light voice resounded right inside of his ears.


    "Woah!" Li Kong''s body jumped out of surprise. "Oh, that''s you White. How long did I sleep?"


    "Not too long. Just around twelve hours." White said nonchalantly.


    "Twelve hours?!"Hearing that, Li Kong''s mouth was agape.


    "That''s what you get for not listening to me." White snorted. "I told you to rest and you kept on meditating as if there was no tomorrow. At this point, I''m rather amazed that your brain hadn''t shut down yet from the sheer mental burden you put on it."


    "I''m sorry, White. I promise I''ll never do it again." Sensing the great displeasure, Li Kong uttered in the most sincere manners he could think of.


    "Bah. As if a brat like you know how to keep a promise." White whiffed out of his nose.


    Li Kong peeked a little at the bead and when he sensed no projectiles was coming after his head, he heaved out a relief.


    After a little talk they had after Li Kong awoke, the clarity of Li Kong''s mind had come back as the memories of the last night struck Li Kong like a lighting and he jumped around the room.


    "I did it! I did it! I can''t believe I did it!" Li Kong throwed several quick jabs to the air.


    "I succeed, White! I actually did it! Isn''t that awesome?" Li Kong jumped back to the bed and grabbed the bead and tossed in the air a few times.


    "I know, I know. Stop throwing me in the air!" White voiced a complaint which fell on deaf ears.


    An imaginary bulge formed on top of the bead''s surfaces as an invisible projectile suddenly hit Li Kong''s head in full force which made him bit his own tongue.


    "Argh!" Li Kong screamed in pain as he desperately tried to ease the pain by sticking out his tongue to the air and frantically blowing out air from his mouth.


    "Whaa wha dat?" Li Kong said in resentful tone while keeping his mouth open like a dead fish.


    "Something you deserve." White refused to elaborate any further.


    Li Kong couldn''t care less about anything else and trying his best to ease the pain of his swelling tongue.


    "Do you feel anything different?" White asked.


    "What do you mean by that?"


    "Anything different from the usual?"


    "Hmm..?" Li Kong pulled of his clothes forward and took a peek at his body. Same old thing.


    After that, Li Kong looked at the white bead with a confused expression and said, "I don''t think there''s anything different."


    "Of course, you won''t feel anything with your body. I mean your senses. Your vision. Can you see anything different?"


    ''Anything different?'' Li Kong thought to himself.


    Following White''s instructions, he tried to observe his surroundings but he didn''t notice anything different from usual.


    Questions started piling up in his head but he refrained from asking White.


    ''Maybe if I focus my senses on my eyes?''


    Li Kong closed his eyes tightly and carefully managed his breathings and soon, he entered a meditation-like state.


    The overnight training he had done before had given him a quite peculiar skill and that was the ability to manipulate his senses to his liking. He was able to chose his area of focus by "pushing" or "pulling" his senses in the boundary but the skill put too much mental burden on himself so he needed to


    After a while, Li Kong finally opened his eyes and to his shock suddenly the world around him changed leaving him beyond shocked.


    "You can see it, don''t you?" White''s light voice went through his ears but it didn''t managed to get to Li Kong''s mind.


    "Wow." Li Kong unconsciously let out a word of admiration.


    Countless golden particles that was invisible to his eyes before had revealed itself right before his eyes and swirling through the air continuously as if following the path of the wind.


    Li Kong tried to grasp the particles but his hand phased through it like the particles was never there at the first place and quickly dispersed out of sight leaving behind Li Kong who was still yet to processed what had just happened.


    "What?"


    "Of course, it''ll phase through your hands. You hadn''t reach the proper stage yet." White explained shortly.


    "Oh..." Li Kong was a bit disappointed but quickly dispersed the negative thoughts.


    "I will train even harder from now on!" Flames blazing through his eyes, determined to advance even further..


    "Good, that''s the spirit and..." Li Kong looked at the bead on top of his palm. "...Congratulation, Li Kong! You are a cultivator now."


    Li Kong blinked for a few times, "What?"


    ...


    "I''m already a cultivator? How?" Li Kong started shaking the bead around in his clasped hand.


    He raised his palms in front of his face and stared at them intently in disbelief.


    "But how? I never done the absorption step and circulate Qi in my body. Isn''t that the requirement to enter the first stage?"


    "It all happened when you collapsed from fatigue, a surge of Qi suddenly sucked into your body and by the time I realized something was wrong, a huge amount of Qi was already sucked into your body.


    "After that, I checked your body and to my surprise, there was nothing wrong with your body. All of your meridian has opened and the streams of Qi had circulated in your body without any problem. Shocking really. I thought that you would explode from the amount of Qi you absorbed."


    "Explode?" Li Kong gulped down.


    ''What happened when I was asleep?''


    "It was as though the Qi was trying to fill in the empty space." White added.


    "Filling in an empty space? Empty..." Li Kong''s eyes suddenly widened. "Empty!"


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The bead glowed amicably as if smiling.


    "Could it be my spirit root doing?"


    "It seems that we''ve come up with the same conclusion." White nodded.


    "Now, try to sense the Qi inside of your body."


    Li Kong didn''t waste even a single breath as he nodded at the instructions and immediately went into meditation state.


    ''I can feel it. A warm feeling slowly coursing through my entire body and somehow becoming aware of it makes me feel kind of stronger?'' Li Kong didn''t really get it either and decided to abandoned the thoughts.


    "Can you sense it, Li Kong?" He heard the familiar light voice ringing in his ears.


    "Yeah, it slowly flowing through my entire body! I feel like I''m bathing in a warm water." As Li Kong''s words progressed, his tone gradually becoming more soft.


    Li Kong heard a chuckle and the light voice continued to talk.


    "Just be careful not to be too immersed or else you will piss yourself." .


    Li Kong immediately turned pale and he pulled himself out from the meditation state.


    "What was that for?" Li Kong sent an annoyed look to the white bead.


    "Just reminding you before you actually doing it and wetting the bed in the process. After all, if the bed ever wet, then we may have a problem because I''m not going to touch it ever again."


    Li Kong was left completely speechless.


    "Now let''s end the jest and get serious."


    Li Kong immediately fixed his posture and put both of his hands on top of his lap and looked at the bead with a serious look.


    "After last night, we finally learned something new about your spirit root or perhaps, constitution."


    "Constitution?" Li Kong raised his eyebrows at the new terms.


    "You heard that right. Last night when I''ve checked your body, I found that something was wrong and I sensed that my Qi was disappearing slowly that was the moment I came to the realization.


    "A spirit root only affected your talent in cultivation such as how fast can you progress and the element you most attracted to and it never done anything other than that."


    "So because of that you think that the cause of my spirit root is my constitution? My body?"


    "Correct."


    "I think I roughly understand what this "constitution" means now." Li Kong nodded.


    "And the important talk must be what kind of constitution I have. Am I right, White?" Li Kong looked at the bead as he finished his words.


    "I couldn''t ask for a better student." The bead let out a warm voice.


    Li Kong immediately scratched the back of his head and let out an embarrassed smile.


    "What you embarrassed for, huh?"


    "Nothing. Hehe." The curved on lips hadn''t straightened yet.


    White let out a huff before continuing. "To be honest Li Kong, in my thousands years of living, I''ve seen only one case that loosely resembled yours."


    "Is it that rare?" Although Li Kong couldn''t fully comprehend how long was thousands of years truly was but he knew that wisdom came with long age.


    ''Um, grandfather Zheng was 80 years old and he was already very smart and White was around more than a thousand years. So White must be hundreds times more smarter than grandfather right? Wow, White was so old.''


    For some reason, White felt very pissed all of a sudden but he didn''t let the feeling ruled over him and went back to explaining.


    "Now back to the main point. Although I''ve never see anything exactly like yours but there was that similar, the Great Absorption constitution."


    "What does it does?" Li Kong asked.


    "Well the name as pretty self-explanatory, the bearer of this constitution have amazing absorption capability. They can absorbs their enemies attack, completely nullifying it and then use it to strengthened their attacks."


    "Isn''t that unfair? How do you even defeat someone like that?"


    Li Kong imagined a scenario where he met the bearer of the Great Absorption constitutions and the moment he threw his daggers, his daggers would just be disappeared in thin air leaving the terrified Li Kong behind and the bearer triumphantly stepped on Li Kong''s body.


    By the time he done imagining, shivers ran down his spine. ''I hope I never see someone like that.''


    "It was strong but it wasn''t like there weren''t ways to hurt the. The bearer still susceptible to physical attack."


    The scenario inside of Li Kong''s head immediately changed and now he was the one standing triumphantly as his opponent turned to hedgehog by his daggers.


    "But even that still poses some problem because your lifeforce would be absorbed too if you were standing near the bearer."


    The scenario turned back to grim as suddenly Li Kong''s flesh slowly being washed down his bones and leaving the lone figure of skeleton.


    "No!!!" Li Kong screamed.


    Li Kong regained his clarity and when he found himself with still perfectly fleshed body, he breathed a relief and wiped off the sweats from his forehead while White in front of him was startled by his sudden screaming and observed Li Kong''s figure in puzzlement.


    "What are you doing?" The scrutinizing gaze, full of annoyance and dissatisfaction dawned over him.


    Embarrassment caught up to Li Kong as his face quickly turned into stone and in the end, he only could let his head down and with a low voice, he muttered.


    "Please continue."


    White gave a side look to the youth for the last time before continuing.


    "But you don''t need to panic because your constitution isn''t the Great Absorption though it was undeniable they have some similiraty."


    "Then what is it?" Li Kong asked.


    "Both was keenly related to absorption in some way but your constitution was on the weaker side of absorption. Everything standing near the bearer of the Great Absorption constitution would quickly faced an inevitable death and if left alone, sooner or later a disaster would struck if the bearer stay alive.


    "Fortunately, the last bearer of the constitution had been taken down and hundreds of years after that, it seemed there won''t be any coming soon and besides that, the person who had the Great Absorption constitution was recorded to have elemental attribute.


    "While the Great Absorption, absorbed everything and leave nothing behind but your constitution seemed to only boost your absorption rate so fast it might be the reason why you loses your elemental affinity."


    Li Kong gradually regained his composure as White continued to explain and back to his usual self, but the moment he heard the last words, his face dropped a little and White couldn''t help but notice the strangeness in Li Kong.


    "What''s wrong?" White asked concerningly.


    "Isn''t it just too unfair for the bearer? Everything near him would die. How would he even make friend? And it isn''t like they chose to have that constitution."


    White didn''t answer him immediately and remained silent for time being before spoke solemnly to Li Kong.


    "There are many injustice in this world, Li Kong. A child starving. A wife left behind by his husband to go to war. Person who was born with weak body and lived a short life. A healthy man suddenly caught a deadly illness and die. Weak people exploited by the strong. There are too many to count Li Kong. There are just too many to take care of. Even if you collected every person in this world to take care of every unfairness, no matter how many you have it wouldn''t be enough.


    "That was¨C" White paused for a moment. "¨CJust how the world works."


    Li Kong bit his lip and stayed silent during White''s speech.


    "Which one are the better choice? One man death that resulted in the lives of many or one man life that caused a whole destruction of a world?


    "The choices were clear."


    After that, White stopped talking and observed the boy in front of him.


    The boy was still too young. He hadn''t even experienced the outside world yet. He was still too naive. But White remained tall on his position, no matter what happened, he must guided this child correctly after all he couldn''t be with the boy forever.


    In the end, a remnant would only be a remnant, destined to be washed by the relentless marching of time and while he was still lingering in this world, he would done everything he could do to guided the boy in front of him to the best path he possibly could.


    But the boy was still just a boy after all.


    Seeing the boy''s dispirited figure, White could only sighed inside of his heart.


    ''Well, what am I expecting?'' He shook his head inwardly in his heart.


    After a long moment of silence, White finally continued to talk.


    "But everything didn''t matter in the end."


    Li Kong silently looked at the bead in front of him.


    "Do you still remember, Li Kong? What I''ve said before to you?"


    Li Kong tried to recall the conversations he had with White and when he arrived at that point, his eyes slowly turned bright again.


    "Be strong?"


    White unknowingly let out a smile.


    "Yes. Be strong. Be so strong that even the world can''t do a single thing against your will. Be strong so that not even injustices means nothing to you. And when you already that strong, do what you want to do. That''s why you should work hard in your cultivation from now, understand?"


    "Yeah!" Li Kong answered passionately.


    "Good. Now you know about your constitution, I suppose that our session has ended for now."


    Li Kong got up from the bed and stretched his body.


    "Oh, and I almost forget."


    "What is it?" Li Kong''s head appeared right in front of the bead but he suddenly felt something was pushing him away and he fell straight to the floor.


    "Aw! My butt!"


    "Don''t stick your face too close to me." White let out a breath from his nose.


    "Aye, aye, captain." Li Kong said while rubbing his butt.


    "When you was sleeping, there was this little girl coming to see you." White saying while the piece of clothing on top of the shelf beside the bed suddenly shifted around and seemingly making a space in the center while the bead started levitating to the center of the piece of clothing.


    "Little girl? Is the little girl this small?" A figure of a little girl shielding her little brother appeared on Li Kong''s mind and he pointed around the area of his waist.


    "No, she''s just around your shoulder."


    "Wait, is the girl using a purple butterfly hairpin?" A figure of a girl in her youth appeared on Li Kong''s mind while sticking out her tongue.


    "Yes."


    "How can that be a little girl? It''s my shoulder size!"


    "Doesn''t make any difference at all. All of you look like the same brat to me. Now, isn''t there something else you should do? If there isn''t anything else, please leave. I will sleep now." And then the bead stopped glowing, leaving the speechless Li Kong behind with no chance of replying.


    Li Kong stayed silent for a while before letting out a light sigh and made his way to the outside.

 Cultivation Stages

    The sky had turned bluish and near the middle of the village, Yu Mei was walking, both of her hands were occupied by tiny hands. They were Xiao Jia and Xiao Fang.


    "Oh, we''ve arrived already." Yu Mei could see a middle-aged woman was waving politely at her which she replied with a small smile as she urged the twins to move and after a great deal of effort, Xiao Jia reluctantly released Yu Mei''s hand while Xiao Fang already stormed out first.


    Yu Mei couldn''t help but smile a little when she saw the young girl''s sad expression.


    "Don''t be so sad, Xiao Jia. We''ll play again tomorrow."


    Hearing that, Xiao Jia changed her expression into a cheerful one before following Xiao Fang into the house.


    ''I don''t have anything more to do.'' Yu Mei turned back and was about to go directly to her house before...


    "Yu Mei!" A familiar and deafening shout was calling her out from the distance.


    Yu Mei traced the source of the loud sound and found Li Kong who was approaching her with unprecedented speed.


    ''Is it just me or Li Kong is running faster than before?'' For once, Yu Mei was doubting her ability to see properly.


    It didn''t take Li Kong a long time before he arrived in front of Yu Mei.


    After that, he stopped and calmed down his breath first which invited a worried look from Yu Mei who was asking is he okay.


    "What are you doing after this?" Li Kong said.


    "I was just about to go home." Yu Mei replied casually before turning her gaze into questioning as she scrutinized Li Kong.


    "So? Why did you sleep till this late? Don''t you know people was worried about you when they don''t see you in the field today? Uncle Zheng even asked me to check on you but seeing you right now, I guess the beating didn''t left a deep mark.?" Her expression slowly bloomed into a wide grin.


    "Shut up." Li Kong whiffed and turning his eyes away from her while Yu Mei was shoving her face onto his vision with her big and stupid grin.


    But suddenly, out of nowhere, a nasty growl resounded through the vicinity, shaking the world into silent.


    By the time the growl reached to their ears, Yu Mei immediately made a gesture to Li Kong and proclaimed, "It wasn''t me!"


    "Yeah, I know. It was me." Li Kong admitted without any shame before holding his stomach as he seethed in grimace. "Damn, I haven''t eaten anything since yesterday."


    "That''s why you shouldn''t up so late in the night. Why didn''t you eat when you woke up?" Yu Mei asked while patting his back.


    "Ugh..." Li Kong was powerless to answer.


    "Sigh... Why did you never think first before doing something?" Yu Mei was both amazed and appalled on her dearest friend''s thought process.


    "Food... I need to eat food..." Li Kong muttered weakly under his breath.


    ''He was beyond help.'' The young girl thought to herself.


    Yu Mei placed both of her fists at her hip and sighed while shaking his head before suddenly an idea popped out on top of her mind.


    ''Li Kong was starving at this time, right? I know him and he know me and I know that he had almost to zero energy when he was like this so big chance he probably couldn''t cook for himself, right?'' Yu Mei tried convincing her own self.


    ''If he can''t cook properly, he was risk at being sick, right? So maybe. A big maybe. Maybe I could invite him for a dinner, right?''


    Yu Mei stole a glance at Li Kong, who was already kneeling on all four on the ground looking like he suffered a great amount of pain and occasionally letting out a small grunt.


    ''Yeah... Just look at him. Could you imagine someone like that cooking a proper meal? No! Come on, Yu Mei, this is your chance! It''s just a normal dinner. A perfectly normal dinner without any other intent. Yeah, a perfectly normal dinner...''


    "Ahem." Yu Mei coughed, directing Li Kong focus at her.


    "It was getting annoying to see you writhing like that so maybe we could..." Yu Mei''s complexion slowly turned to red and her voice slowly lost its strength as she fidgeted with her fingers.


    "Uh, maybe we could go to my ¨C" Before Yu Mei could finish her words, her fingers was snatched away by Li Kong and he held her hands tightly inside of the clasp of him.


    "I''ve been waiting for you to say that." Li Kong wore a big grin.


    "Ah?" Yu Mei blinked for a few times before looking at her hands that was clasped by Li Kong before shifting her focus to his face. A grin was etched on a full display for her to look at.


    "What? Wait, wait, wait. What''s going on? Why you''re holding my hand? Why?" Yu Mei''s brain short-circuited as any functional senses she had left was thrown out of the window.


    "Let''s go!" As Li Kong said it, Yu Mei could feel that her body was pulled and before she could fully process what was happening, the both of them had already running.


    Feeling her clarity was coming back to her, Yu Mei looked at the joint between her palm dan Li Kong''s before she asked.


    "Are you really sure about this?"


    "Hah?" Li Kong replied without looking back.


    "Are you sure about this?" Yu Mei said louder than before.


    "Hah?" But Li Kong response hadn''t changed yet.


    By this time now, frustration was building up inside Yu Mei and she decided just to shout.


    "I say, are you sure!"


    "What are you talking about? Of course, I''m sure!"


    ''What''s wrong with this guy today? Usually he don''t want to come inside my house, so why is he this energetic now? Could it be that he had realized?!''


    At the likely realization, Yu Mei screamed loudly in her mind.


    ''No way, right? He finally realized after all this time? This couldn''t be happening, right? Or maybe it could?'' Yu Mei was at a battle with herself.


    This was unknown to Yu Mei but back when Li Kong was still quite a prankster few years ago, his antics was well-known through the village and of course, Yu Hao, as the village chief at that time knew about what Li Kong has been doing. So each time Yu Mei invited Li Kong to play at her house, Yu Hao stared on Li Kong for almost the whole time they were playing.


    Even though Li Kong was usually a blockhead but his instinct was unusually sharp at the most random moment. Following his sharp instinct, he decided to behave well in Yu Mei''s house and everything seemed to be going fine before Yu Mei asked him to play house with her.


    Yu Mei invited Li Kong and their other friend, Tang Xia, and played house. Li Kong was given the role of the father and Yu Mei was the mother and naturally Tang Xia was the daughter.


    They were playing casually but for the entire time, they were playing Li Kong could feel the strong gaze behind his back. The feeling that the gaze brought was the same as when his dearest uncle was mad.


    Li Kong proceed with extra caution and didn''t dare to cause any ruckus. But all was going down when Yu Mei look at him who was silent for almost all of the time.


    "Li Kong, is something wrong? Why don''t you play with us? You are my husband, you know? Daddy said to me that a husband should always care for his wife so hurry! Help me now!"


    Crack


    Li Kong flinched at the sudden sound and his body tensed instinctively. Sweats started to formed rapidly around his body.


    Yu Mei and Tang Xia was looking worriedly at the statue of Li Kong and on the background, a deep "Ah!" sound and a soft voice could be heard at the back, the tone was filled with displeasure.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    Not long after that, the gaze that felt like it tried to bore a hole on Li Kong''s back had disappeared and Li Kong heaved a sigh of relief and they continued to play.


    After that, Li Kong kept the secret deep inside of his heart, too deep even as he had already forgotten what happened now but he instinctually knew that he had to avoid getting in Yu Mei''s house at all cost.


    After pondering for a moment, she looked at Li Kong''s profile and she could listen her heart was beating fast.


    They continued running and when they almost reached her house, Yu Mei smelled something was fishy as Li Kong hadn''t slowed himself yet even though her house was only a few footsteps away from them.


    To Yu Mei''s acute deduction, it turned out that something was indeed wrong as they already passed her house.


    Bewildered, Yu Mei looked at Li Kong with clear confusion on her eyes.


    "Li Kong." She spoke.


    "What?" This time there wasn''t anything blocking his ear''s passage.


    "We already passed my house."


    "Yeah, I know. Why did you ask?"


    "So, why aren''t you stopping?"


    "Hmm? What are you talking about? We''re going to Uncle Zheng house, no?" He innocently asked.


    At that response, any of Yu Mei''s fantasy and thoughts immediately shattered into countless piece of dust as she lowered her head in defeat.


    ''Of course it was like that.'' Yu Mei facepalmed. ''What did I exactly expect from him?'' Yu Mei desperately held back her tears as she let herself dragged by Li Kong.


    Mistaking her misery for fear, Li Kong slowed his pace and talked to Yu Mei.


    "Are you worried about your parent? No worries, I already said to your mother that we''ll be going to Uncle Zheng''s tonight! So, rest assured!" Li Kong said confidently while striking his chest.


    "Mhm." Yu Mei weakly replied with a little nod and smile on her face.


    By the time they reached their destination, without further ado, Li Kong immediately opened the door and stepped inside.


    "Yo, Uncle. How are you doing?" He raised his hand up as he barged through the door.


    "Next time knock on the damn door first, you brat! Didn''t I teach you about manners years ago?" A voice full of fury berating Li Kong was coming out from the hallway.


    Yu Mei was used to the uncle-nephew pair way of communications and didn''t pay it much thought. She straighten her clothes and ready to greet Zheng Liyang before she discovered that he wasn''t anywhere to seen.


    "Ah, is Yu Mei there with you?"


    "Yeah, she''s right here." Li Kong replied.


    "Come in fast."


    She felt Li Kong urged her to went deeper as Zheng Liyang finished talking and she followed him and after they passed the hallway, they found Zheng Liyang standing in front of the stove.


    The sound of steel clashing filled the room and the aroma of spices tickled Yu Mei''s nose making her unknowingly salivate but she quickly realized what happened and gulped down.


    "Good evening, uncle." She greeted politely.


    "Good evening too. Take a seat. I''ll be done with this in a few minutes."


    Yu Mei pulled out a chair and sat amicably while on the other hand, Li Kong was already nowhere to found beside her and with a quick scan, she found him standing right beside the still cooking Zheng Liyang.


    "Uncle, what will you make today?" Li Kong asked in a soft tone.


    "Don''t you have eyes? Use it. Now get out of my way. Shoo shoo." Zheng Liyang replied swiftly and pushed him away with one of his legs.


    Yu Mei was looking at the indignant Li Kong walking slowly with a face as sour as grape and chuckled a little.


    "Why are you laughing?" Li Kong squinted his eyes at her.


    "Nothing. I just found a puppy that had been shunned away by his parent." An unimaginable huge grin planted on her face.


    It was safe to say that Li Kong wasn''t the slightest bit fascinated by Yu Mei''s action and silently sat beside her.


    "Hot stuff coming." Zheng Liyang said while putting a pot on top of the table.


    He then continued bringing more food on top of the table until the center of table was almost full of plates and bowls.


    After that, Zheng Liyang take a seat on the opposite side of the table and started bringing food onto his plate.


    Yu Mei, who was watching her uncle bringing more and more food to the table, stared the table with a dumbfounded look and then, she turned her gaze to her uncle.


    "Hmm?" Zheng Liyang noticed her staring. "Why don''t you start eating?"


    "Don''t you think you made too much, uncle?"


    "Ah... Don''t worry. I''ve made this specially for that brat beside you." Zheng Liyang explained to her in a soft manner before redirecting his gaze to Li Kong who had been eating since the food came to the table.


    Li Kong overheard their conversation a little and looked at his uncle with a heartfelt expression.


    "Twankyu, unkle." He said with a mouth full of food.


    "Swallow your food before talking!" Yu Mei noticed Zheng Liyang''s tone immediately changed each time he held a conversation with Li Kong.


    She remembered her father''s statement that the pair of uncle and nephew was two peas in the same pod and the key difference was one of the pea already matured while the other was still flourishing in youth.


    After berating Li Kong, Zheng Liyang shifted back his focus at Yu Mei and found that Yu Mei hadn''t brought anything to her plate yet.


    "Why haven''t you take anything yet? Is the food not to your liking?" Zheng Liyang asked worriedly.


    "Oh, I''m sorry, uncle. I dozed off for a moment." Yu Mei hurriedly responded and started joining them eating.


    Yu Mei took a spoonful of the chicken and her eyes immediately opened.


    "Delicious." She unknowingly muttered.


    "I''m glad that you like the food." Zheng Liyang spoke with a smile.


    Yu Mei nodded and continued to eat before suddenly she heard Zheng Liyang''s voice.


    "Oh right. Yu Mei, how''s your mother condition?" Zheng Liyang asked.


    "I think auntie was fine, uncle. I''ve met her this afternoon." Li Kong voiced his statement and then continuing eating his food.


    "Yeah, but did I ask you?" Zheng Liyang squinted at him.


    Li Kong was shot down speechless and continued to eat with low-hung head while Yu Mei was busy chuckling beside him.


    "Thank you for asking uncle. My mother''s health had gradually improved since the doctor came to our village." Yu Mei calmly responded.


    "Thank goodness that the doctor came to our village." Zheng Liyang offered his gratefulness.


    "Me too and everyone in the village. Ever since the doctor come, the people of our village had gradually gotten better." Yu Mei was thinking the same as Zheng Liyang and offered her gratefulness.


    "Speaking of the doctor, did you know that Uncle Ye didn''t like that doctor?" Li Kong chimed in.


    "Hmm?" Yu Mei raised her eyebrows on Li Kong. "Why?"


    "I don''t know." Li Kong shrugged. "Even I only guessed it after he grumbled about it during the time we went hunting in the forest."


    "Well, it''s probably nothing much. Since he was young, Ye Cheng already adamant of having outsider living in our village. So don''t think about it too much." Zheng Liyang shook his head.


    "Hmm... I know that too but something just feel different with how uncle Ye was looking at the doctor." Li Kong pondered for a moment before continuing his eating spree.


    ''That''s new. I don''t know that uncle Ye dislike the doctor. I wonder why... I''ll ask father when I get home later.'' Yu Mei thought to herself.


    ''But before that...'' Yu Mei shifted her focus back onto the table, specifically at the center of the table, the plate that contained fish.


    "Uncle, did you eat my chicken leg?"


    "What do you mean by "your chicken leg"? It was still on the bowl."


    "And I was planning to get it later."


    "Too bad then." Zheng Liyang paid Li Kong no more mind.


    "Where''s my drumstick?" Zheng Liyang observed the entirety of the table and found that the drumstick was on Li Kong''s hand.


    "It was still on the bowl." Li Kong said nonchalantly.


    Zheng Liyang''s blood flow increased and commotion happened in the dinner table.


    ''I have to somehow navigate throughout this mess.'' She really wanted that fish.


    ...


    Li Kong had walked Yu Mei through her house safely and bid farewell before going back at his home.


    By the time he was finally inside of his home, he immediately charged to the bathroom and after done bathing, he entered the door to his bedroom where he was greeted by the self-proclaimed bead hovering in the air.


    "Were you having fun today, Li Kong?" The bead asked.


    "Yeah. You know when I arrived at the large tree at the outskirt of the village, I..." White and Li Kong talked for a moment.


    "It''s assuring to know that you have many good people around you." White said.


    "Is that so?" Li Kong scratched the back of his bed in embarrassment.


    "How come you were the one embarrassed?" White stared at him with questioning gaze. "Well, let''s quickly forgot about it but before we discuss about what you would do from now on. We have to discuss about something else first. The Cultivation Stages."


    Without any instructions, Li Kong took a seat in front of the bead and stared at it intently.


    "As you already knew, we, cultivator, utilize Qi in our livelihood and through process of absorption and thorough refining, we able to cross a threshold and entered a new state of being. That''s what we called the Cultivation Stages.


    "Some might called it Ascension''s Path or Path of Enlightenment or whatnot but the point remain the same. There are many stages in cultivation but I believe you only need to know a few of them for now."


    "Why can''t you just tell all of them at once, White?" Li Kong asked.


    "Because it useless for you to know that many at the moment. Be patient, Li Kong. When you ventured out the world, the answer will come to you by yourself." White spoke in a composed manner.


    "Alright."


    "Continuing where we left before, cultivation was started by Meridian Opening stage. At this stage, you will try to sense Qi for the first time and absorbed it to your body then guide it carefully through your body and opened your meridian slowly as you guide it. You already went past this stage when you collapsed of exhaustion last night."


    Li Kong nodded a little before White continued his explanation.


    "After that comes Body Tempering, using the Qi you have successfully gathered in the Meridian Opening stage, you will thoroughly strengthen the body to make it strong enough to properly contain the Qi inside before going to the next stage.


    "After your body is strong enough, you will enter Qi Building stage. You could think of this stage as Body Tempering for Qi. The Qi you already gathered before would be refined even further and turned the gaseous Qi to liquid form, making your body and Qi even stronger than before.


    "And after that, you have to solidify the liquid Qi in your dantian to a solid core and then you refine the core further and when you already perfected it, you will collapse it and with that come a tribulation before you can advance to the next stage and after you''ve passed the tribulation, a sprout would appear from your collapsed core and bring forth your intangible soul to tangible. This is the Nascent Soul stage.


    "At this point, killing a cultivator would be increasingly more difficult as their soul wasn''t fully attached to their body anymore so even if their body was destroyed, they could always just ran to build their body from scratch or possess other people and took their body."


    Li Kong caught up on something and asked White, "Wait, doesn''t that mean that the story of ghost possessing people was..."


    "It could be a tale of a Nascent Soul cultivator seeking for another body to possess." White replied ominously.


    Li Kong''s mouth was wide open at the realization and he gulped without realizing it.


    "But it could just be a ghost and not a Nascent Soul cultivator trying to possess you, so don''t worry too much about it." White said calmly.


    "Um, White." His voice was shaky. "By that statement, are you indirectly saying that ghost is real?"


    White scoffed and asked, "What? Are you scared now?" He then saw Li Kong nodded.


    "Sigh... Don''t worry. Ghost don''t usually wander far from their territories so maybe it would do you much good if you asked for where the place people usually saw ghost before venturing in the near future."


    Hearing White''s words, Li Kong immediately heaved a sigh of relief and nodded repeatedly. After that, he repeatedly write the word "Don''t forget" on his palm and then stick his palm to his forehead.


    Seeing Li Kong''s antic, White once again let out a sigh, deeper than ever before.


    ''I think this is perfect time to take a short break.'' Headaches came to probed at his nonexistent head as he watched Li Kong kept sticking his palm to his forehead.


    Sigh...

 Training

    "Now lets talk about your training. I''ve prepared your training schedules since this afternoon. Now grab a piece of paper and write down what I''m saying."


    Li Kong nodded and grabbed a piece of paper from his shelves and wrote down everything White said.


    ...


    "That''s all from me. Do you have any qualms?" White asked.


    Li Kong looked carefully at the sheet of paper and after reading the entirety of paper, he grimly looked at the bead and asked, "Are you sure there''s nothing wrong about this, White?"


    "What? Let me see the paper once again."


    Li Kong released the paper out of his hand and the paper floated freely and found its way to the bead.


    "What do you mean? There''s nothing wrong here. "


    Li Kong snatched the paper and pointed at the paper.


    "What do even you mean by carrying buckets full of water up and down the mountain? Three times?!" Li Kong exclaimed hysterically.


    "So that''s what are you talking about. It''s really a shame there''s only one mountain surrounding us and it isn''t that tall either but I guess it''ll suffice for your training at the moment." White ended his sentences with a deep sigh. Disappointment evident from his tone.


    I''m screwed.


    Only after fully processing his master''s speech, did Li Kong finally figure out the world difference of understanding between him and his own master.


    While Li Kong was sincerely weeping out of the bleak future, a black shadow loomed over Li Kong and as he lifted his head, he found the white bead, ominously hovering in the air and for a moment, he saw a sinister smile flashed.


    "Sleep well for tonight, Li Kong. You''ll miss it dearly." Voices of insurmountable amount of malice whispered on his ears.


    Li Kong held back his tears, To be cultivator!


    ...


    The next morning.


    "A cultivator must have a huge amount of stamina and resilience! A cultivator shan''t spend their time doing whatever so today we''ll build up your stamina!" White shouted.


    Unfortunately, Li Kong hadn''t had the privilege to pay attention to White as veins bulged from his neck while trying to dragged himself up to the mountaintop.


    "I... I don''t think I can do this, White..." His breathing was hazard.


    "Nonsense. Now quit complaining and keep climbing up!"


    The night before when he had collapsed had somehow strengthen his body to be much stronger than before but even with the newfound body of a cultivator, the weight on his back paired with the steep angle of the mountain proven to be a huge obstacles to got through and by a slight loss of focus, he slipped out of his tracks and trundling down the steep mountain.


    "Ah!!!" Li Kong screamed.


    An invisible hand caught up the collar of his clothes and lifted him up.


    "What did I say before about being resilient?" White sighed. "Now get some rest and we''ll continue again tomorrow." White threw Li Kong off to the ground and disappeared into somewhere else.


    Li Kong''s vision was filled with roof of green leaves, shielding him from the heat of the sun and his nostrils was enamored with the refreshing scent of grasses as he greedily sucked in the air to his lungs.


    "This... This is what I have to go to every day?" Li Kong said, completely out of breath.


    Only one session had passed, but his legs were nearing giving up on him. Even contracting it a little bit caused pain to his leg and don''t even talk about the state of his back.


    "Hah... Hah... I don''t want to know anymore." Li Kong closed his eyes in hope to shut down the numbing pain and his consciousness slowly faded in as the time passed by.


    "What are you doing? Wake up!" A loud voice was calling out for him.


    "Hah?" Li Kong still half-asleep rose from his laying position and looked at his left and right before the faint glow of the bead caught his eyes.


    "Oh, it''s you, White."


    "Yeah. Now let''s hurry back to the village or stay if you want to be spanked again."


    The mention of spank doused his mind with a complete clarity as he stood up almost instantly and hurriedly packed his belongings before trudging his sore legs back to the village.


    Finally arrived at the village, Li Kong was completely out of energy at this point and about to crash out immediately on his bed before sudden a man dressed in white came after him.


    "Hello, Li Kong. How are you doing?"


    "Oh, hello, doctor Yan." Li Kong turned his head to see the man and tried to keep a polite smile. "I felt a little bit tired but besides that everything else is fine."


    The doctor is in his late-twenties and completely dressed in white. His build was average and there was nothing really remarkable about his face beside his squinty, fox-like eyes.


    Hearing Li Kong''s reply, Yan Dangxin laughed and said while slapping Li Kong''s shoulder, "Hahaha. You should, you should."


    His body trembled at the as the pain came coursing through his whole body, sending his pain receptors into frenzy.


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "If there isn''t anything else, then please excuse myself." Yan Dangxin said.


    "Where are you going, doctor?" Li Kong asked.


    Yan Dangxin smiled a little while lifting the bamboo basket in his right palm, "I have to pick up some herbs in the forest today. Did you worried about me, Li Kong? It''s okay. Even though, I may look like this, I still have some kind of strength, you know."


    Li Kong didn''t really know why the doctor explained in such a long manner but he didn''t pay too much thoughts on it, instead he waved his hand to the doctor and began continuing his way back home.


    "Then have a safe trip, doc!"


    The doctor watched the youth disappearing to the distance and for a moment, the smile on top of the doctor dropped but he quickly smiled again.


    "Doc, huh?" The doctor muttered to no one and then, he continued his stride to the forest.


    A moment after Li Kong''s encounter with the doctor, all of a sudden an ancient and light voice chimed inside of Li Kong''s head.


    "So that''s the doctor you are talking about."


    Li Kong immediately burst into a smile. "Yeah, isn''t he kind? Do you know, White? Since the doctor came, they said there weren''t anymore sick people!"


    "Hmm..." White mumbled while he stared at the doctor''s back.


    "Is there something wrong with the doctor?" The youth asked curiously.


    "No, there''s nothing. Let''s get back home and take a break for an hour before we continue with cultivation session."


    "Aye, aye, captain!" Li Kong regained his spirit and ran to his house.


    "Seriously. Where did you learn that weird phrases?" White asked but the questions was carried by the passing winds.


    ...


    As the sky had turned dark bluish, Li Kong sat down on top of his bedsheet and breathed rhythmically.


    "Remember this Li Kong. Body Tempering realm is further divided into 3 sub-realms. The first one being Bone Refining, then followed by Vein Strengthening and at last, Muscle Forging."


    As Li Kong plunged deep into the meditation state, the light voices appeared to be fainter and the warm energy inside of him circulated orderly.


    ''Slowly basked the body with the Qi.'' He recalled the instructions White had given him.


    Li Kong consciously controlled the flow of Qi within him and seeped them slowly to his bones.


    ''It''s like watering a plant.'' Li Kong mused amusingly.


    While Li Kong was deep inside of his meditation, on the other side, White saw surges of Qi was being absorbed at an unprecedented rate to Li Kong''s body.


    Since Li Kong first entered meditation, White had started monitoring every inch of Li Kong''s body looking for any signs of abnormalities inside of his disciple''s body and fortunately, until now there weren''t any problems.


    ''It''s reassuring that his spirit root was functioning just like any other spirit root.'' The main worry that had been gnawing at White''s mind was Li Kong''s unique and unfathomable spirit root.


    This was the first time White had ever encountered something like this, his mind was full of doubt on whether Li Kong was able to cultivation properly but now he had seen that there was nothing to worry about, he could finally take the worry out of his mind.


    ''But I think this spirit root is doing its job too well.''


    The amount of Qi Li Kong had absorbed was abnormal for a cultivator at his caliber.


    The amount was so absurd that Li Kong could compete with three other people in the same realm as him and still coming up on top with huge margin.


    ''Although advancing fast is the most desirable but too fast also could bring their shares of problems...'' Thoughts and speculations began to bubbling up inside White''s mind.


    ''But all thing being said, I still don''t know much about his spirit root so maybe it will be wiser to take a step back and see how it goes.''


    After that, White wiped off the unnecessary thoughts and looked after Li Kong.


    ...


    Near the afternoon, somewhere inside of the forest.


    Li Kong was standing in front of a tree, his eyes shut.


    A single bucket containing water was stationed near the tree, tons of other essentials was placed not far from him and a bow and its quiver also lied on the ground.


    On top of the tree, a white bead looked down at the young man.


    The surrounding was silent and throughout them only Li Kong''s breaths could be heard.


    Then, Li Kong opened his eyes and took a stance before he took a step and throw his fist forward and as the fist going forward, Li Kong concentrated his Qi on the tip of his knuckles and...


    Puff


    A tiny flame, size more than a marble, erupted out from his fist before disappearing into thin air like it was never there.


    Li Kong stood right there completely stoic before dropping down his body on the ground and furiously scratched his head.


    "Ah!!! Why is it so hard?" Li Kong couldn''t contain his frustration and rolled his body around.


    "Well, didn''t you release a tiny flame right at the end of your training? That''s good enough for beginner." White slowly floated down below.


    Li Kong went to sitting position and opened his palm wide to received the bead.


    "But it''s so lame! I want a bigger flame to appear."


    Hearing that, White immediately sent a side-eye to Li Kong. ''What''s lame or not having to with cultivation?''


    "Sigh... You young folks sure only looking at the wrong aspect of cultivation. You have to know the fundamental of something first before you could do it properly and do you know what you must done to achieve that?"


    "Yeah. I have to train even harder!" Li Kong gathered his fingers to a fist and looked at it with a burning passion.


    White smiled wryly. "I guess that could work. Now let''s get on the next training."


    "On your command, sir!"


    "But seriously where did you learn all of this weird phrases..."


    Still at the same place.


    "This time we''ll be learning the Wind Steps." White calmly said.


    "The principle behind it was simple as it only a footwork and only a minimal amount of Qi was involved."


    Li Kong nodded and read the manual intently.


    After he memorized all of the instructions, he focused Qi on his leg as he started running. Not long after that, Li Kong crashed onto bushes and sent flying until he landed near a tree.


    "Li Kong, are you okay?" White''s concerned voice reached out.


    He arrived at Li Kong''s landing point and found Li Kong had taken a sleep, head buried in soil.


    White then hurriedly picked him up and lifted him in the air. He took a good look at his body and fortunately, there weren''t any damages besides a few scratches.


    After he checked Li Kong was fine, White gently lied down his body on the ground and waited for him to woke up.


    "Uh, White? Are you there?" His voice weak.


    "It''s fortunate that there isn''t anything broke." White sighed. "You put too much Qi when you''re doing the footwork for what you want to do. Try to consciously control the amount of the Qi you letting out and find the perfect balance and most importantly, try to imagine yourself being the wind. Feel what the wind feels like and move like the wind."


    "O-okay." Li Kong, still dizzy, replied.


    After recuperating for a few minutes, Li Kong got back up at his feet again and decided to do it once again.


    Li Kong took a deep breath and recalled White''s advice. ''Control the amount of Qi and imagine myself being the wind.''


    Li Kong began to move and...


    "Ah!!!" Li Kong went flying like a bird and went out cold as he landed head first to a nearby tree.


    ...


    After recuperating from the head-splitting moment, Li Kong was sitting in the same place as before.


    White instructed Li Kong to pull out the last manual which Li Kong answered by nodding and then, he inserted his arm to his bag and pulled out something.


    "Thousand Illusory Daggers..." Li Kong looked carefully at the purple-colored cover. To be honest, this was the one Li Kong most excited to learn.


    White smiled inwardly at the youth with shining look at his eyes.


    "The manuals on how to throw the daggers is already written in the book though you can''t learn the illusion part."


    Li Kong''s eyes lost a little of its sparkle. "Wait. Why?"


    "It requires you to be at least Qi Building cultivator before you can make the illusion so cease the thoughts and start practicing."


    "Aw... What a bummer." Li Kong perked up his lips, disappointment painted clear on his face.


    "Whatever at least I still have the other manuals." Li Kong regained his spirit and cheerfully skipped to the training ground.


    Li Kong scanned through at the Thousand-Illusory Daggers manual for a while before taking out the knives on his waist''s numerous pouch and throwing them one by one.


    White commented no further and watched him trained for a hour and they both went back to the village.

 Asking for Permission

    Li Kong was walking back from his training and arrived on the village with listless expression.


    "I''m so tired."


    White snorted before saying, "Today was just an introduction. Things would only get harder and harder from now on. After this, we''ll take a break for two hours before continuing with cultivation session."


    "It will only get harder from now?!" Li Kong eyes wide opened.


    "Yes and that''s why you better rest your body and refrain from staying up to late."


    "Aye, aye, captain." Li Kong said, head hanging low.


    Completely numb at this point, White brushed off Li Kong''s weird remark as a special condition he had and carried on.


    "Li Kong! There''s someone approaching!" White alerted.


    Li Kong jolted off and observed his surroundings with caution before a thump sound heard, coming from in front.


    "You goddamn brat!" Li Kong''s heartbeat stopped.


    "Didn''t I tell you to not go to the forest until this late?!" A furious stride coming from the distance and to Li Kong''s demise, it was Zheng Liyang.


    As Zheng Liyang approached, Li Kong went into defensive stance. "W-Wait, uncle! Look! Look!"


    Li Kong pointed at the sky. "The sun''s still up! It''s not that late yet!"


    With a deep voice, Zheng Liyang asked, "What did you do?"


    "I practiced archery! Yeah, archery! Y-you know that I made uncle Ye mad because I didn''t bring my bow when we are hunting right? Right? So-so I thought that maybe.... Maybe I practiced archery in the forest to s-s-surprise him." Li Kong conveyed.


    ''Clever brat. I was wondering why he took the bow with him so that was the reason...'' White watched over the youth with amusement.


    Listening to his explanation, Zheng Liyang bull-like breath gradually subsided. After that, he took a quick look at Li Kong''s clothes and found traces of sweats on it.


    Li Kong was unsure of what was going to happened as he glanced at his uncle''s complexion fearfully and breathed out a sigh of relief after assuring that the demonic face had disappeared.


    That all before Zheng Liyang raised his arm and swung it downward, landing his knuckles perfectly at Li Kong''s head.


    "Ah!!!" Li Kong immediately crouched and held his head tightly.


    "You stupid brat. Tell me beforehand if you wanted to do something. Sigh... Now, quickly scram! Go home and take a bath! You reek of sweats." Zheng Liyang pinched his nose and walked away, leaving behind Li Kong who was still holding his head.


    While still seething through the pain, he heard loud laugh coming from in front of him and quickly lifted his head up. There he found two familiar faces, busily cackling and laughing.


    One of them was his familiar friend, Yu Mei, and the other was Tang Xia...


    While Yu Mei carried her action with grace, most of the time without Li Kong in the nearby vicinity, Tang Xia was the opposite of her showing free-spirited and playful attitude..


    "You deserve it." Tang Xia grinned.


    "Try laugh again and see if my fist don''t land on your head." Li Kong stood up and raised his fist.


    "Oh no! I''m so scared!" Tang Xia retreated and shielded behind Yu Mei. "Sister Yu, please help me. Li Kong tried to bull- At!" Yu Mei hit her head with her palm.


    "Wai du yu du det, swiste?" Tang Xia sticked her red tongue out and tearfully looked at Yu Mei.


    "That''s what you get for mocking me." Li Kong snickered.


    "You!" Tang Xia glared at him.


    "What? Do you think I''m scared of you? Come here!" Li Kong raised both of his arms and took a stance.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "Stop both of you! Geez." Yu Mei stood between them. "Could you two not fight each time you met?"


    ""He/She started it first."" They both pointed at each other.


    "The heck you mean I started it first? You''re the one laughing at me." Feeling wronged, Li Kong pointed back at her.


    "Yeah. If you weren''t that stupid, I wouldn''t laugh." Tang Xia replied swiftly and turned her face away.


    "How does that even make sense?" Li Kong was taken back at the logic.


    "Maybe, if you weren''t that stupid maybe it would''ve made se- At!"


    "Enough you two!" Yu Mei sent a huge blow at both of their head.


    "Aim stwating tu tink yu dan dis on pupos, swiste Yu!" Tears flashed in Tang Xia''s eyes as she stared at Yu Mei and on the other hand, Li Kong was holding his head and rolling on the ground like a worm dancing after a pinch of salt.


    "Ah..." Yu Mei covered her mouth and helped both of them got on their feet.


    After that, not even a minute had passed, and both of them had talked like nothing had happened before.


    "So what did you do these days? Don''t you know that uncle Zheng was fuming over you this afternoon, you know? If look can kill, you''ll be already dead!" Tang Xia said.


    "Hehe. I was busy training in the forest, you know? Bows and arrows. Stuffs like that." Li Kong rubbed his nose and spoke with confidence.


    Tang Xia arrived beside him and nudged him lightly on his side. "You? Training archery?" She inspected at him for a moment before continuing, "Don''t make me laugh! Didn''t you just get scolded a few days before because you didn''t bring your bow?"


    Tang Xia squinted her eyes on him. "I bet that you are up to no good so you better tell me what you do in there in full detail then I might be able to cooperate."


    "And why do I have to tell you the detail of what I''m doing there?"


    "Because I was curious?" Tang Xia raised the both of his arms and stared at him incredulously. "Did you really have to ask that question?"


    "No answers for you." Li Kong closed his eyes.


    "Three tanghulus?"


    Li Kong took a quick peek at her, let out a whiff before closing his eyes again. "You wish."


    "Five?" Tang Xia asked again.


    Li Kong shook his head.


    "Six? Seven? Ten? You greedy pig! How much tanghulus did you want?"


    Blood rushed to Li Kong''s head. "I already told you that I''m not saying anything! What''s wrong with you?"


    While the pair was bantering each other, Yu Mei was busy figuring out what Li Kong was doing inside of the forest before something flashed in her mind.


    "Could it be about what you told me about days ago, Li Kong?" Yu Mei asked.


    The question went to deaf ears as they continued to bicker.


    "Do you two..." Yu Mei smiled and tilted her head to the side.


    "Want to die?" Her whole expression dropped.


    The bickering pair had reached for each other face and all of a sudden they froze at the same exact moment as icy field entered their vision.


    They turned their head silently only to found Yu Mei casted down a chilling gaze at the both of them.


    They released each other grip and returned to their former position then tidied their clothes before silence commenced.


    Feeling the silence was uncomfortable, Tang Xia cleared her throat before asking. "Um, I remember that sister Yu said something like it was related to your talk with him or something. Would you mind repeating that, sister Yu? Wait, where is Li Kong?"


    Confusion filled their entire complexion and by the time they realized it, the figure of the young man had already distanced considerably from them.


    "I remember I had to do something! See you later everyone!"


    "That sneaky head." Tang Xia said.


    "Sigh... Whatever. Let''s go, Tang Xia. At least we know that he was fine."


    "Did his absence leave your heart desolate, sister Yu?" Tang Xia closed their distance and nudged on her a little.


    "It''s not like that!" Red immediately filled Yu Mei''s complexion as she swatted Tang Xia away.


    "Oh... Did I make you embarrassed sister?" Tang Xia grin becoming even wider than before.


    "Shut up!" Yu Mei couldn''t take it anymore and stormed off somewhere else.


    "Eh? Where you going sister? Why are you so fast? Wait! Don''t leave me behind sister!"


    ...


    Inside of his house, Li Kong walked into his bedroom with towel on his waist and reached to his wardrobes.


    "That girl is driving me crazy!"


    "That girl Yu Mei?" White asked.


    "No! Tang Xia! That little mongrel." Li Kong went into full yapping mode which White wasn''t planning to hear all of that.


    "Sigh... just talking about her made me angrier. I better forget about this. Right, White?" Li Kong, already wearing clothes, glanced at the bead and asked.


    "White?" Li Kong said again.


    "Oh? What? Yes, yes, yes. I agree." White sounded he just like woken up from a sleep.


    "Now you already washed out your sweats. Let''s continue with the next session." Before Li Kong could talk again, White already cut off his words and continuing with something else.


    Speechless, Li Kong could only resigned himself to fate and said, "Okay."


    ...


    The next morning.


    In front of Zheng Liyang''s house, Li Kong knocked on the door for a few times and not long after, a tall figure emerged from inside of the house. His hair and clothes still messy.


    "What are you doing in my house this early?" Zheng Liyang asked while scratching his stomach and yawning.


    "I want to ask permission to not go to the field for a long period of time."


    Zheng Liyang yawned and scratched his stomach before asking, "Reasons?"


    "I want to go on a training." His eyes shone with sparkles and he gripped tightly on the bow on his chest.


    The light of the youth was too blinding for Zheng Liyang who had just woken up.


    "Alright, alright. Stop looking at me like that." Zheng Liyang swatted him away and warned him. "But remember you can''t go too deep inside of the forest. You understand?"


    Li Kong''s eyes filled with even more sparkles as grabbed on Zheng Liyang''s arm and shaking it causing his body to swayed.


    After shaking his uncle arm for a while, Li Kong gave his thank to Zheng Liyang and disappeared into somewhere else.


    A cold wind brushed off him, sending chills to his entire body and as he shivered, then he closed his door shut and thought to himself.


    ''I want to go back to sleep.''

 Education and Threat

    On the mountain.


    "Come on, Li Kong, you almost did it. Just a little more." Li Kong grunted and pulled his body toward his chin.


    Suddenly, a butterfly landed on his nose.


    "You almost scared me to death. What are you doing here? Get off from me. Huff, huff." Li Kong blew up air from his mouth.


    Accepting his command, the butterfly got off from him and flew directly toward his eyes and covered his vision with its wings.


    "Ah! Ah! Ah!" He tried to lean his body forward and hardened his leg muscles while using his arms as a stabilizer. While stabilizing himself, his shoulders shifted a little and the buckets he had carrying on top of his back fell down and dragged him down with it and once again, he tumbling down the mountain.


    "Ah!!!" Li Kong screamed before something caught his collar and hang him up in the air.


    "How many times should I tell you to not be distracted?" Disappointment apparent in his voice.


    "Wh-White." Li Kong''s voice a little squeezed.


    White then looked carefully at Li Kong and found that his face already swelled up as he tapped his own chest a few times.


    White quickly released his grip on him and then he continued to tumbling down the mountain.


    "White, help me!" The youth screamed once again as the bead hurriedly chased him down.


    The next day.


    Li Kong once again was faced with the tree. A bucket of water, placed not far from him.


    Li Kong then took a stance and unleased a fist toward the tree.


    Puff


    A tiny flame materialized in front of his fist before disappearing.


    "Argh!!!" Li Kong dropped his body down and rolled on the ground.


    The next day.


    Li Kong was practicing with his steps and immersed himself with the feeling of becoming a wind.


    ''Become like a wind.'' Li Kong recited the words.


    Li Kong began stepping and carefully controlled the Qi around his leg.


    At this point, he had already tried Wind Steps for dozens of times, each attempt ended up in a big failure but this time, he could feel something was different.


    As the Qi started accumulating on his feet, Li Kong began doing the set of movements recorded inside of the manual.


    Slowly, he picked up his pace.


    Breezily, he started to accelerate.


    And finally...


    Li Kong felt like he was flowing through the air. His feet was light as he felt the air was brushing his cheek with a gentle caress as he breezed through distance and by the time he opened his eyes, he had already travelled 20 meters in 3 seconds.


    Li Kong dumbstruck for a moment before he regained back his consciousness as he started to cry out, "White, white! I did it! I did it!"


    The white bead peeked out one of the nearby bushes, "You did it? Let me try and see it."


    Li Kong nodded and started immersing himself with the wind and began to step.


    Everything was looking fine before he miscalculated the amount of the Qi and then he launched forward like an arrow to infinity and beyond.


    "Ah!!!" He screamed before landing on top of bushes and coming out with bugs on his hair and quickly shook it all off.


    "Damn it! Again!"


    Not long after that, Li Kong flew like a bird and landed right on his face.


    While the white bead stood there, floating, absolutely out of words.


    The next day.


    Li Kong closed his eyes before unleashing the knives on his hand and throwing it all simultaneously to the mark in front of him and all of them hit the mark.


    Right before Li Kong wanted to brag, something heavy hit his head.


    "Practice properly!" White sternly scolded.


    The impact caused him to crouched down and seethed his teeth to held the pain at bay.


    Days continued to pass by and at a peaceful evening, Li Kong lied on the grassy field near the giant tree and looked up at the clouds absentmindedly.


    ''It almost a week by now but I still can''t figure out how to do Flame Fist properly.''


    Li Kong had even snuck out late at night and practiced on his backyard but no matter how hard he trained, he couldn''t make sense about how to enlarge the flame he emitted.


    ''I tried the same trick as the one I did with Wind Steps but it just didn''t work at all.''


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    He closed his eyes and pinched his chin ''Hmm... What could be the different between Wind Steps and Flame Fist. They both are technique that have elemental attribute. Wind Steps generated wind to push off my body and the footwork is a way to make use of the push properly. Wait!''


    Li Kong jumped off and struck his forehead with his palm.


    "Aiya! Why am I so stupid?" He couldn''t believe he realized it only now.


    ''If Wind Steps have its own footwork to do it correctly, then Flame Fist must be the same! But I don''t recall seeing anything like that in the manual.''


    Li Kong dropped himself back at the ground.


    ''Am I screwed then?'' Li Kong asked himself. ''No, it can''t be! There must be something else but what could it be? Hmm... Maybe learning how to throw a punch? Yeah. Maybe that could work!''


    Clarity came to filled Li Kong''s mind but as he answered a questions, another appeared.


    ''Now how do I learn how to throw a punch?''


    ...


    "So you came here to ask me to teach you how to throw a punch?" Ye Cheng calmly asked.


    "Yes, uncle. Please teach me!" Li Kong clapped his hand above his head and sincerely begged.


    "Sigh... I''ve heard from Zheng Liyang that you''re up to something. Saying you practiced your bow in the forest or some bullshit like that." Ye Cheng glared at him for a second.


    He sucked in his lips and trembled as a cold wind brushed through Li Kong and drops of sweat formed on top of his forehead.


    "But I figured that maybe it won''t hurt much teaching you. Come in." Ye Cheng turned back and entered his house.


    Li Kong gritted his teeth as he waited for his uncle strike to reached his head but shortly after, he took a quick peek at his uncle and quickly followed his uncle suit.


    "Who was that hus- Oh, Li Kong. What are you doing here?" Feng Rouyi peeked her head out of the hallway and noticed Li Kong following not far behind from Ye Cheng.


    "Hello, Auntie." Li Kong smiled politely.


    "Hello too, Li Kong." Feng Rouyi replied back with a smile.


    "This brat asked me to do something. So I told him to come in." Ye Cheng said.


    "Oh. Then don''t mind me." Feng Rouyi stepped out from her husband way and Ye Cheng continued walking to the backyard.


    As the breezy wind of evening greeted them, Li Kong was about to asked Ye Cheng on what are they doing here before suddenly his uncle threw a bow and its quiver at him and he grabbed it.


    Without uttering a single word, Ye Cheng loaded his bow with an arrow and aimed forward. On there was a mark made of a wood, stood silently about twenty meters away from them. The mark filled with innumerable amount of scars.


    After a while, his uncle released the arrow and it whistled through the wind as it made its final destination at the center of the mark.


    "Your turn." Ye Cheng said.


    Li Kong took the place where his uncle was before and recalled his uncle''s teaching at him. He fixed his posture to suit a stance and steadied his breath as he focused his attention to the wooden mark. He put the arrow on the string and pulled slowly until it reached the perfect spot. After that, he affixed the arrow position for a while before...


    Swoosh


    The arrow traveled through the wind and leaving a silent sound trailing behind it and landed on the mark and missed the center by few centimeters.


    Li Kong recovered from his position and shifted his attention to his uncle who had been waiting for him.


    "What did you use when you shoot that arrow?" Ye Cheng asked.


    "I use my feet to hold the ground and my hand to draw the string." Li Kong answered.


    "Correct but that''s not all of it." Ye Cheng grabbed the bow and took a stance before drawing back the strings. "When you shoot an arrow, you didn''t just use your feet and arms but you use your whole body at it."


    After saying that, Ye Cheng released the string and put the bow back at its place before looking at Li Kong, "The same applies when you are punching something."


    Ye Cheng raised his palm and told Li Kong to punch it.


    Li Kong punched it as instructed but the blow was weak as it barely fazed Ye Cheng''s palm.


    "See? If you just using your hand the blow would be weak but what if you make use of your entire body?"


    Ye Cheng prepared a stance Li Kong had never seen before and took a step forward at him. He shifted his left shoulder behind, making a forward way for his right arm and then, he shot his fist straight at Li Kong but before it reached Li Kong''s face, the fist stopped at its track.


    Right as the fist stopped, a crisp sound sounded.


    Just by the sound Li Kong knew if that fist ever reached his cheek, he would immediately knocked out into a deep sleep, possibly for eternity.


    "This is what will happen." Ye Cheng stated calmly.


    Sweat rolled down as Li Kong looked nervously at the fist. The fist was too close to his face for his own safety.


    Shortly after, Ye Cheng draw back his fist and packed up while Li Kong praised the heaven for letting him live for another day.


    Ye Cheng packed the bow and the quiver and sauntered back to the house. "Get in and have some dinner first before you go home and..." Ye Cheng sent an ambiguous smile to Li Kong.


    "And don''t think I forget what you said to Zheng Liyang before!" Li Kong''s face immediately contorted ugly in response.


    "You better prepare yourself tomorrow for practice! You didn''t go to field again, right? Then come as early as possible." Ye Cheng added on before disappearing into the house.


    "Okay." Li Kong reluctantly agreed and dragged himself inside of the house.


    ...


    After having dinner at Ye Cheng''s house, Li Kong told White about everything happened and about the change in the schedule which White quickly approved saying, "There''s not much thing to lose to learn something new," which killed any last resemblances of hope inside of Li Kong and they continued their cultivation session before the light dimmed and they both went to a rest.


    At the middle of the night, Li Kong opened his eyes and checked at the bead beside him, laying down on the fabrics peacefully and when he finally checked White wasn''t going to awake. He jumped out from his bed and sneakily treaded his way to the backyard as the cold wind of the night welcomed him.


    "Use your whole body." Li Kong recited before following Ye Cheng''s step before.


    He took a step forward, rotated his body and at last, shot his fist forward.


    "It should''ve been like this right?" Li Kong assured himself before doing it again and again and again.


    After he had accustomed himself with the new feeling, Li Kong emptied his mind and recalled the content of the Flame Fist. It wasn''t that much but one thing stuck strongly at his mind.


    Beside introductions and unclear instructions the manual contained, on it also written some kind of sentence. Li Kong read the sentence and couldn''t make what it meant before he practiced the Flame Fist and frustrated because no matter how hard he tried, flame wouldn''t come out even though he already controlled his Qi to his fist.


    At that time, he recalled a strange and long sentence and he decided to recite the sentence while doing the Flame Fist and to his surprise, a tiny flame erupted from the tip of his knuckles. He rejoiced and jumped around before grumpily frustrated of stuck at the same place for days after.


    But throughout the days he spent practicing, he found out you didn''t need to recite the whole sentences for the flame to erupted as long as the meaning stayed the same, the flame would come out fine and after series of experimentation, Li Kong had shortened the sentence to its shortest form.


    ''O'' Flame, heed my call.'' Li Kong recited and unleashed his fist forward.


    Blazing red fire flared through the air, sending heatwaves everywhere as it burned down the air before disappearing.


    Li Kong stood there utterly dumbfounded and his mouth unknowingly opened up before he gathered his fist and thrusted it up high in the sky.


    "Yes!!!" He landed on his feet and pulled his both of his elbow backward and started laughing and jumping around.


    On the rooftop, while watching all of this happening, a smile appeared on a blurry figure cladded in white clothing.


    ''You stupid kid. You didn''t think that I would notice you sneaking out here?''


    I guess it all worked out. The blurry figure watched the youth smiling and warm filled his heart before disappearing altogether as if someone was never there.


    Li Kong suddenly realized that he was making too much commotion as he frightfully treading his way back carefully and peeked at bead, who still lied peacefully on top of a piece of fabric.


    Fortunately for him, the bead didn''t seem to be awaken yet as he breathed a relief. He silently went into his bed and slept until the next morning.

 An Ominous Altar

    Deep inside of the woods, a streaming river relentlessly flowing through the passage and on the riverbank, Li Kong was dipping his feet in the water as he wiped off sweats from his body using a towel.


    Nearly a month had passed by since he''d first trained and his body had shown some differences since the last time he checked. His muscles on his body had been more defined.


    After a few minutes, he retracted back his feet and stretched his body for a while before standing up before a light voice rang and asked, "What you''ll do after this?"


    "Hmm... I don''t know maybe I''ll take a stroll around the forest? When I was hunting with uncle Ye, he told me that somewhere in the forest it smelled so bad so I''m thinking of searching it. What do you think about this, White?" He gazed at the white bead on his palm.


    "Sure, why not? But don''t push yourself too much. Tomorrow you''ll be carrying those buckets up the mountain again. Last week, you finally successfully carried it up and down the mountain once so tomorrow we''re going to up the difficulty to two times so save your energy as much as you could."


    "Two?!" Li Kong widened his eyes. His voices shook from utter disbelief. "My legs nearly snapped in half doing it once and now you want me to do it twice?"


    "And did your legs snapped afterwards?" White snorted. "And before, I planned you do it at least three times but when I see you barely making it halfway the first time you did it, I changed my mind and made it so that you just have to carry it once. Consider it my goodwill." White stated like it was the most normal thing to said.


    "It was supposed to be three times?!" Li Kong raised three of his finger and looked at it with utter disbelief before shifting back to the bead and saying, "Let''s just forget about this and investigate the weird smell. On to the deep forest we go!"


    Li Kong cheerfully exclaimed as if the talk before never happened while White kept his silent and followed him from behind.


    ...


    "Should be around here right?" Li Kong popped out his head from the bush and observed the surroundings.


    Li Kong recalled that his uncle wasn''t someone who would travel deep into the woods and being his uncle''s most trusted henchmen, he could more or less guess where his uncle went to.


    Something weird is definitely happening here. Li Kong thought to himself. Where do all the animals go?


    The forest was unusually silent. The constant noises usually present all disappeared as the sound being left was the leaves swayed by the wind.


    Frown creased between his eyebrows and by the time he finished scanning through the trees and bushes, something entered his nostrils and as he sniffed at it, almost immediately, his body was thrown into disorient and he jumped backward.


    "Li Kong! What''s wrong?" Sound filled with concern entered Li Kong''s ears but he couldn''t care less about it for now.


    His eyes teared up and gastric juices threatened to knock on his throat but no matter how hard his body tried to force, nothing expelled from within his body.


    Li Kong was on all four as saliva continuously dripping down from his mouth. He closed his eyes and recollected his thoughts before pulling his body backward and let it fell to the gravity, landing on his tailbone.


    ''What is that smell?'' Li Kong wasn''t completely recovered as his chest sank and resurfaced along with his breath.


    The smell was akin to something rotten. It was sticky, pungent, and nauseating. It was nothing like Li Kong ever smelled in his entire life.


    After a period of a time, Li Kong planted his palm onto the ground and pushed himself then he wiped off the remaining saliva on his lips before reaching to the bead inside of his waist pouch and shortly after, his ears filled with a voice of concern as the bead glowed increasingly.


    "Li Kong! Are you alright?"


    "I''m okay." Li Kong said.


    "What''s happening? Why did you suddenly choke like that?"


    "The smell was so bad." Li Kong explained shortly to White and after that, he stopped talking and waited for the bead''s response.


    "Rotten. Is it a corpse then? Dead animals perhaps? But if it was carcasses, how come the smell able to overwhelm you?" White asked.


    Li Kong shook his head, "I don''t know but we have to find out what it is."


    White replied no further and after a moment catching his breath, Li Kong started to move again.


    "Cover your noses with something." White advised.


    Li Kong nodded and draw out the towel he had used before, pushing it deep against his nose. After that, he slowly proceed and recalled where the smell coming from.


    While treading his path, he looked again at his surroundings and no signs of life detected near him. Even the tiny insects disappeared from sight, everything was silent.


    Something slowly building up and creeping upwards his spine but he swallowed it down and continued further.


    The stench becoming more intense each time they walked and after a while, they arrived in front of giant bushes.


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Li Kong observed the giant bushes with suspicion and looked at the white bead on top of his palm and as the bead glowed, Li Kong ceased his hesitation and walked past the bushes and right off the bat, Li Kong''s sense of smell was overwhelmed by a putrid scent but he braved through the sensation and opened his eyes and in front of his eyes, lied a mountain of red.


    The mountain was built upon Moon Rabbit corpses.


    In front of the mountain, heads with the red eyes flickering by the ray of the sun, arranged in a specific manner, circling the mountain of corpses, dyeing the ground beneath them red and behind the mountain, stood an old wooden sign, ordained by many heads of Moon Rabbits, a full body nailed to the sign with its guts spilling out everywhere.


    Li Kong froze at the sight of the mountain. His whole body put into a stop and unknowingly, the towel slipped from his hand, exposing his nose to the air.


    And as the putrid smell began invading, Li Kong couldn''t contain his stomach any longer and he stormed out as fast as he could and spilled out everything out of his guts while the bead floated still in the air and observed the scene with attentively.


    ''What kind of sick mind made this?'' White grimly said within his heart and floated close to the mountain of corpses.


    He looked at the heads circling in front of the mountain of corpses and after seeing it and didn''t reach to any conclusion, White ignored the head and moved onto the next part, the mountain.


    Upon further inspection, he found many of headless bunny mingled in the group and all of them had its stomach opened up, revealing the bloody guts within. Then he discovered beneath the mountain, there was something else of a distinct color beside red and white stood out from his vision.


    He emitted out an invisible energy out of the bead and slowly pushed the pile of corpses aside and he took a look at what might be it and it turned out to be slab of some stone, roughly carved to be sphere.


    After that, he set aside the whole mountain, causing it to tumbling down to the side and revealing the full size of the sphere.


    ''Now I look more of it, it looked more like some kind of plate than a simple sphere.'' White thought to himself.


    The edges of the sphere sticking out a little from the rest, perhaps to prevent the mountain from collapsing.


    After inspecting the sphere, White shifted his focus back at the ominous wooden sign. The sign was stained with the crimson color and signs of decay apparent on the wooden surface. On the surface, some kind of strange symbols carved on top of it.


    ''What language could this be?'' White tried to make sense of the symbols but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t figure out the meaning behind of the symbols and he set it aside for now.


    Then White slowly inspected all of the head etched deep but found no profound meaning behind them and slowly went up to the only bunny who its head still attached. The bunny was nailed through the back of his mouth, its mouth facing up as if it was pleading to the heaven.


    And at last, White arrived at the last piece of the bloody scene, the butchered head standing on the very top of the wooden sign, the very defining feature of a head wasn''t even present anymore on it as everything turned into a mess. It was like whoever did this forcefully thrusted the head onto the sharp edges of the sign.


    White raised the head with his invisible hand and throw it far into somewhere before looking back at the sign once again and there he found a symbol of a twisted eye looking upwards to the heaven.


    ''This...''


    A rustles coming out from his behind and he immediately shouted, "Who''s there!"


    "It''s me, White." A weak and youthful voice spoke.


    White turned all of his attention to the source of the voice and flied to his side hurriedly.


    "Are you okay, Li Kong?"


    "I''m fine, I think. Rather..." Li Kong replied weakly before gazing at the bloody mess in front of him.


    "What... What is this?" His voice filled with apparent disgust.


    The scene had changed considerably since the last time he seen it.


    "Did you do all of this, White?"


    "Yes. I inspected it before you come back." White stated calmly.


    "Did you figure it out what this mess was?"


    "Not yet. But it was probably an altar of some sort."


    "An altar?" Li Kong asked.


    "I''ve seen some civilizations build an altar like this to sacrifice to what they perceived as their ''gods''."


    "Why?"


    "To grant them wishes. Some think that with offering animal or in some extreme cases, human sacrifices, the gods will showered them with whatever the want. Fortune, fertility, good weather and whatnot but most of the times, their sacrifices went in vain as their ''gods'' didn''t listen or maybe they couldn''t." White scoffed. Each of his words was filled with contempt.


    Li Kong noticed the change of White''s tone but refrain from asking about it any further and instead asking, "Then is it the same with... this?"


    "It''s similar but this one grotesque do stick out from the rest."


    At White''s words, Li Kong looked back at the red scene before him and unknowingly nausea knocked on his throat again but this time, he swallowed it forcefully and strengthened his hold of the ground.


    "Will anything happen to the village?" Li Kong asked.


    White stayed silent for a moment before saying, "I don''t know. But it''s impossible to say that someone in the village didn''t have a role in the making of this altar."


    "What should we do now?" Li Kong''s voice appeared lost.


    "We burn them."


    White collected the corpses and carefully placed it so that the fire wouldn''t spread to anywhere.


    After White had arranged them, Li Kong, eyes closed, stood before the pile of corpses, then he opened his eyes and glanced at the pile of corpses with pity in his eyes before he readied his stance and took a step forward.


    ''O'' Flame, heed my call.''


    Following his command, flame flaring up from his knuckles went straight to the pile of corpses. Smokes slowly made their way up and the corpses was swallowed whole by the flame.


    In front of the burning ember, Li Kong stood silently before clapping his hand into one and prayed with his eyes closed.


    White took a glance at his student before looking at the burning mountain for the last time.


    "Let''s go home, Li Kong." Li Kong felt something entered the pouch he carried on his waist.


    Li Kong nodded without uttering single words and made his way back home.


    The sound of fire crackling filled his ears before gradually disappeared.


    ...


    Li Kong parted with White midway. White told him to gathered his thoughts and the usual cultivation session would be put on hold for tonight. And so without any places to be at, Li Kong mindlessly wandered through the village.


    He met with many people in his way and politely greeted them like the usual but for some reason, worries started to weigh on his heart even more as he smiled at the passing familiar faces and the scene of their face ended up at the same place as those bunnies flashed on his mind and made him sick in the stomach.


    The usual crowdy voices he heard dimmed in volume and static voice rang deep inside of his brain but still, he continued to walk.


    After an unknown amount of time, Li Kong found himself standing in front of the giant tree once again. He trudged his body forward and leaned on the strong trunk before dropping himself to the ground.


    He opened his eyes and rays of light shooting through the shroud of leaves entered Li Kong''s pupil but shortly after, a dark looming thing overshadowed him.


    The thing was looking spherical with a curtain surrounding its and as Li Kong squinted his eyes to made out what covering his field vision and a voice akin to a bell began to ring.


    Slowly, the shadow retracted back, revealing the face beneath it. It was a familiar face, a face he had grown bored to look at, a face he had trusted since the beginning of time and a face who was now smiling at him.


    "What are you doing here, Mr. Sleepyhead?" Yu Mei said with pure smile.

 Theres Only One Way

    "What are you doing here, Mr. Sleepyhead?" Through the shadows of the tree, Yu Mei''s smiling face revealed.


    "Leave me alone, Yu Mei."


    "You''re not answering my questions..." Li Kong sensed her sharp gaze piercing through him and without any notices, she lowered her stance and taken a residence right beside him. Her eyes discerned his whole body before wandering somewhere else to the front.


    She closed her eyes and supported her chin with her palm, rambling. "You know when I was walking in the village, everyone there was worrying about this person. They said this person had a pale complexion and walked like a living corpse so naturally I get curious and looked after this said person and I ended up on this place."


    Li Kong peeked at her face and found her discerning eyes was staring straight at him.


    Feeling uncomfortable, he immediately turned his face away from her.


    "Now, Li Kong." Her calm voice rang in his ears. "Care to guess for me who this person is?"


    "Go away, Yu Mei. I need sometime alone." Li Kong reached his hand toward her and shooed her away.


    Yu Mei sneered. "Since when did the chatterbox of the Ruman Village, renowned even to the city folks, become this antisocial?"


    "Whatever." Li Kong looked up and closed his eyes.


    "Fine. If you don''t want to talk, then I''ll wait here until you want to talk. Hmph." Yu Mei pouted and remained steadfast on her place.


    A few minutes passed by.


    "You talking yet?" Yu Mei asked.


    "..." Li Kong''s eyes remained shut.


    Another minute passed.


    "Are you talking yet?" Yu Mei once again asked.


    "..." Li Kong''s forehead trembled as he creased his eyebrows in attempt to kept his eyes shut.


    "Are you talking ye-" Right before Yu Mei able to finished her words, Li Kong jumped off from his former position and let out a scream.


    "Argh!!!" Li Kong scratched his head furiously and then redirected his frustration directly to the source. "You crazy girl. You''re going to drive me insane!"


    Yu Mei bewilderedly stared at Li Kong before bursting into a laugh.


    "Why are you laughing now?" Did this woman had finally lose her mind?


    Yu Mei continued her laugh for a few more seconds before calming down her ragged breath, making a breathy sound as her chest moved up and down. Tears glistening on the corner of her eyes.


    "That''s more like it." She said while wiping tears off from her eyes.


    "What?" Li Kong asked.


    "That''s the Li Kong I know." A beautiful flower blossomed on her face.


    Caught off guard, Li Kong stared absentmindedly at the her.


    Seemingly not noticing his stare, Yu Mei continued to open her mouth. Her voice filled with happiness and joy even as she continued to rambled on.


    "The Li Kong that I know would never back down when someone was annoying him. If you weren''t replying for the third time, I would already informed uncle Ye that maybe our Li Kong had been replaced by monsters of the forest and we had to save the real one."


    After a long time of talking, she paused for moment and looked back at Li Kong only to found him staring at her.


    "So, are you talking yet?" Yu Mei asked.


    Hearing her repeated questions, Li Kong jolted out from his daze only to found a fair hand patting the ground where he once sat continuously.


    Li Kong glanced on Yu Mei then sighed before he walked back to his former position and as he settled down, Yu Mei happily made way for him and after sitting properly and hugging his knees, he heard her talking again.


    "So? What happened?"


    "There''s a problem."


    "Can you tell me about it?"


    Li Kong shook his head.


    Yu Mei stayed silent before leaned her body against him and let out a giant deep breath.


    "Here I thought that it will be something big." Her voice sounded a bit relaxed after that. "So what is the problem? Did you get a scolding by uncle Zheng? A few strike at the chrysanthemum, perhaps?" She let out a little smirk.


    Li Kong shook his head once again.


    "Hmm? Then are you bullied by uncle Ye during your training? You know you could always sell him out to auntie Feng right?"


    Li Kong kept on shaking his head.


    "Oh, I got it! Is Tang Xia making you mad again? No? Then, my father? My mother? Granny Qing? No, that''s taking it too far..." Yu Mei pinched on her chin and continued to list few more people but no matter who she listed Li Kong''s head was moving in almost automatic state.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Suddenly realization light up in her mind, she got up from leaning against Li Kong and asked, "Could it be related to what you wanted to tell me a month before?"


    As she finished her words, Yu Mei noticed Li Kong''s eyes twitched slightly and his eyes dropped down to the ground.


    "You won''t tell me what is it?" Her tone shifted down by the end.


    "..."


    Yu Mei sighed and leaned her body against Li Kong once more.


    "I gave up. You win. I''ll just leave it to you. I''m sure you can take care of whatever it was." Yu Mei closed her eyes and snuggled her head around, trying to find the perfect position to lied on Li Kong''s shoulder.


    While she still trying to look for the most comfortable position, Li Kong released his knees out of his hug and stared at the person who was in process of invading his shoulder with clear confusion.


    Sensing the sudden light shift of the shoulder, the invader raised her chin up and met his gaze directly.


    "Why are you looking at me like that?" Yu Mei asked.


    "Why?" Li Kong opened his mouth.


    "Hmm?"


    "Why did you trust me so much?"


    Li Kong observed her complexion carefully while Yu Mei was taken aback by his question and stared at him dumbfoundedly before pulling her knees and hid half of her face deep within it, revealing only her eyes.


    Li Kong looked carefully at those eyes before the gaze of the eyes gradually turned warmer.


    "Do you still remember about when I was lost in the forest, Li Kong?" Yu Mei looked to somewhere faraway. Her gaze seemed fleeting and out of the present.


    Li Kong leaned his body more to the tree behind and replied. "The one where you got lost and cry until your snots was everywhere on your face?"


    Yu Mei lifted her head up and glared Li Kong with dissatisfaction. "Did you really have to mention that?"


    Li Kong shrugged which prompted even stronger glare staring out of Yu Mei but she decided to not chase the issue any further and buried her face deep inside of her knees again.


    "I was so scared at that time you know? It seemed like I was stuck in a never-ending maze and I''ve wandered for a long time until my legs gave up. I cried and I cried until suddenly a hand reached out to me and would you kindly guess it for me about who was it."


    Li Kong answered, "It was me."


    "Yes. It was you." Her eyes smiled. "It was you who rescued me. It was you who found me at the time where no one could. After you returned to the village with me, I heard from my mother that you endured a punishment from uncle Zheng because you went deep inside of the forest. She even said you received a spanking until you could no longer cry and your bum completely cherry-red."


    After Yu Mei finished his sentences, Li Kong unknowingly slightly opened his mouth and looked at her with a "Did you really have to include that little pieces of information at the end?" look in his eyes.


    "That''s my payback to you." Yu Mei stuck out her tongue at him.


    After that, she shifted her head a little to the side until a smile could be seen peeking at the corner of her mouth. "And that''s why I trusted you because since that day, no matter how stupid you may be. Because since that day, you''ve become¡ª" A smile fully blossomed as her eyes. "¡ªmy hero."


    "My sole hero. My most stupid hero. It''s silly really." She let out a little chuckle.


    "And so that''s why, cheer up won''t you? Didn''t you said that you would a brave young warrior not long ago? Would a brave warrior really stuck up in place like this? Stand up and do what you should do!"


    Then she took both of his hand and enveloped them in her warm embrace. "And always remember that I''m always here for you." She opened up his palms and traced her fingers on top of them before she looked back at him, smile never once leaving her face.


    She retracted her hand back and after a moment processing what she had done, realization struck her on the face as her complexion immediately becoming steaming hot.


    Out of a blue, she suddenly stood up and fanned herself with both of her hand rapidly.


    "Ooh. The weather outside is so hot, don''t you also think so, Li Kong? I''m practically burning right here. Haha." Her face facing miles away from Li Kong.


    Shortly after, she shifted back her focus at Li Kong and although Li Kong still remained silent, she could see the usual luster coming back to his eyes and she silently took a breath of relief.


    She wanted to remain by his side but the embarrassment had caught up to her and it was honestly too much for her to bear so without any choices left, she hurriedly bid farewell to Li Kong and instantly vanished from the place. An inaudible screech could be heard from afar.


    "Hero..." Li Kong muttered.


    After watching dumbfoundedly at the flickering figure, Li Kong turned his head down to looked at his palm and faintly he could still felt the warm feeling of another finger caressing it.


    He recalled what the girl had told him before and grasped his hand tightly. He stood up and looked at the direction of the forest. His gaze was resolute.


    I''ve decided. I will become a hero! The young lad had got rid of his fear and to achieve this newfound dream of him, there were only one way.


    Like a flying dagger, Li Kong immediately departed and darted through the village with a breeze.


    At the village, An Yan was loading his cart with his chubby son before he saw something coming from the distance in an unprecedented speed.


    "What is that?" His son, An Lihan, tried to made sense of what was coming.


    "Uh." An Yan squinted his eyes hard. He focused his sight at the coming figure and after a moment, the image became clearer and by the time they realized it was Li Kong, Li Kong had already blitzed through them but before passing by he greeted An Yan with, "Hello, uncle!" Unfortunately, his words was carried by the passing wind and failed to enter An Yan''s ears/


    "L-Li Kong?"


    After a set of nonstop sprint, Li Kong had arrived at the terrace of his house. He quickly took off his shoes and slammed open the bedroom door.


    "White!" Li Kong said.


    Having noticed the commotion since afar, White slowly floated to his direction.


    "It seems like you''ve gat¨C" His words was cut off short as Li Kong snatched him mid-air.


    "White!" Li Kong shouted.


    "What?" White replied, annoyed.


    "I''ve decided!" White listened and raised his nonexistent eyebrows.


    "I will become a hero!"


    White froze for a moment before replying, "Hmm?"


    "Since the talk I have with Yu Mei before, I''ve decided I will be a hero and solved whatever problem the village has so to achieve that I decided that I will train even harder from now on! I''ll train so hard so when I see the sick bastard who made that altar, I will instantly kick his ass." Burning passion ablaze in his eyes.


    "I don''t really get it but it''s good that you''ve regained your spirit. Good. Good. That''s how youth should be! We shall continue our cultivation session this day." White, seemingly infected by Li Kong, exclaimed in passionate voice.


    Without anyone noticing, the teacher-student duo together burned their passions underneath the unsuspecting wooden roof.


    "You better not cry to me when it get too hard, okay?"


    "Yes, I won''t."


    "Alright. Tomorrow, we''ll travel the mountain up and down three times in a row!"


    "Are you trying to kill me, White?"


    "You said you won''t cry about it."


    "I don''t want to die!"


    "You''re overexaggerating."


    "You''re underexaggerating!"


    The pair argued continuously and without finding any middle ground, the pair refused to see each other but still continuing their usual activities.


    ''A hero, huh?'' White thought to himself while watching the numerous amount of Qi being absorbed in by Li Kong.


    ''That''s not a bad dream, Li Kong.'' White''s lips began to curve as he recalled the memories of the past.


    He recalled that there was someone there too like Li Kong dreaming to be a hero and to that person, White only had sincere admiration for him.


    ''Just you wait Li Kong.'' The figure inside of the bead smiled at the youthful figure.


    ''I''ll make you into the greatest hero this world, no, the universe ever seen!''

 Caught Red-handed

    Somewhere inside of the forest, on a spot without any trees blocking the sunlight.


    "Damn it! I almost reached the mountain for the second time but I slipped! Argh!!!" Li Kong scratched his head and rolled on the grassy field while White couldn''t care less about what Li Kong was doing anymore and calmly waited for him to end his frustration.


    The pair, master and disciple, had done their routine like usual one day after they had found the altar.


    "Listen here, Li Kong. Now you already calmed down, let''s talk more about yesterday."


    Li Kong nodded and sat with an upright posture.


    After affirming the situation, White proceed to talk.


    "I''ve think about it since last night and I believe that the purpose of the altar was some sort of a plea."


    "A plea?" Li Kong asked. "To who?"


    "A higher being it seems. But I don''t know the exact one." Disappointment was apparent on the voice. "But from others I have knowledge on, even the evil one, no one met the criteria of the being who was mentioned in the altar."


    "But how can you tell them apart, White?"


    "It''s because of this." The ground in front of parted from each other and wriggled around in a specific manner and shortly after, a symbol of an eyes drew on the surface of the soil.


    The eyes sclera were dark as represented by the darker soil and his pupil bore no color in it. The fold in its eyelids twisted on the corner of its eyes as if mocking and looking in utter disdain to the one seen it.


    Li Kong hissed at the twisted drawing of an eyes.


    "What''s wrong with this ugly eyes? Why is it looking at me like that?" Li Kong felt violated and disgusted.


    "That''s the symbol of the being which the ritual pointed at."


    Li Kong confusingly looked at White and pointed at the eyes before asking.


    "Why trying to communicate with ''that'' thing? Even I know it''s evil as hell!"


    "That, we may never know." White''s voice sounded distant.


    Li Kong didn''t catch the shift in White''s tone and continued asking.


    "So..." Li Kong raised his index finger at the ground and started to drawing. "We got this person building this altar, deep inside the forest, to sent a plea at this higher being which was very evil and could also do harm to the village." Li Kong lifted his chin up to looked at his creation and thought to himself.


    ''Woah, it''s so ugly.'' He even took a glance at the ''ugly eyes'' and compared it side to side with his drawing.


    ''Great. Somehow my drawing is even uglier than the eyes.''


    Perhaps realizing the sharp gaze directed to him, Li Kong jolted off from his daydream and cleared his throat before meeting the bead''s gaze.


    "Is it right?"


    "Correct. But please don''t be distracted next time." The bead squinted his nonexistent eyes while Li Kong awkwardly scratched the back of his head.


    "Now continuing to the main point, because of the altar appeared not far from the village, we can conclude that..." A line suddenly appeared at the ground not far from his drawing of village and extended deep into the forest then circled around the altar.


    "Someone from the village was the one building this altar." White stated calmly.


    Li Kong had prepared himself beforehand but hearing it directly from his mentor''s mouth, he now couldn''t face himself away from the reality.


    Li Kong licked his lips and bit on them lightly. He couldn''t even fathom the very notion that someone from the village wanted to harm the others. He thought that they were one big family.


    "Wake up! You''re being distracted again!" A loud voice snapped him back.


    "Remember, Li Kong. There are no time to being sad now."


    Li Kong lost in thought for a moment before suddenly he struck his cheeks and shook his head.


    "Please continue, White."


    The bead continued its speech.


    "Our task now is to figure out who the culprit is as soon as possible. Now, do you know anyone else who regularly visit the forest beside you?"


    "There''s uncle Ye. Then, the doctor. And lastly, the lumberjack living outside of the village I think?"


    "Lumberjack outside of the village? You never mentioned this person before."


    "Oh, I shouldn''t say he lived outside of the village. He just live far away from the other people but he''s technically still live inside of the village. I''ve asked uncle Zheng about him many times and he said he was the son of a once close friend.


    "Uncle said that he lost his parent at a young age and after that, he build that house far away from other people and live there alone for years now." Li Kong pinched his chin and looked up while his body swayed like grass blown by the wind.


    "Man... It''s really a shame whenever I visit his house, he always seems to be away. I really wanted to be friend with him!" Li Kong leaned his body backward and exclaimed, "What a bummer!"


    "Alright!" Li Kong sprung his body to a standing position.


    "Where are you going?" White asked.


    Li Kong grinned before replying, "Training."


    ...


    The sun was nearing its peak and within the reaches of the forest, Yu Mei calmly navigated to the woods while carrying basket full of meals.


    "I didn''t forget anything, didn''t I?" Yu Mei checked the basket just to be sure and breathed out a relief.


    "Remember, keep your composure, Yu Mei. Don''t overthink. You here just to give a meal to cheer him up. You got this." Yu Mei reassured herself.


    "But yesterday, he acted really weird. Well he always weird but this time it''s even weirder than before..."


    ''Yesterday...'' A certain scene underneath a tree crossed her mind.


    Since that day, you''ve become my... The words from yester continued to haunt her mind infinitely.


    "Ah!!!" Her face immediately burst into flaming hot red.


    Her body couldn''t endured the embarrassment and collapsed as she crouched while desperately hiding her face away.


    ''No, Yu Mei! Why did you do that? Why did you do that?!!'' She was seconds away from hitting the tree using her head.


    Since that day, you''ve become my...


    "Ah!!! Get out of my head!"


    Stolen novel; please report.


    After unknown amount of dying from her embarrassment, Yu Mei slapped her own face and forcefully calmed down her breathing.


    ''Don''t worry, Yu Mei. It''s Li Kong after all. It''s not like when I see her later, he would realize anything right?.'' Although the thoughts did indeed brought some peace to her mind but for an entirely unknown reason, she still felt like crying.


    After her heavy breathing had subsided, she treaded her way deeper into the forest.


    ''But I really wonder what Li Kong did when he meant training days before.'' Yu Mei closed her eyes but no matter how hard she tried, nothing came to mind.


    She shook the unnecessary thought from her head.


    ''I''ll just somehow squeeze out the information out of him.''


    Yu Mei hummed as she continued her stride and not long after, she heard a human talking and realized her destination wasn''t far.


    ''It''s Li Kong! But wait... Who''s he talking to?"


    Yu Mei silently took a cover behind a tree and listened closely to their conversations.


    "You know, White, I''ve been wanting to try something new today." A voice with a hint of youthfulness was heard.


    ''Is there someone named White in our village?'' Yu Mei pondered.


    After that, another set of entirely different voice was caught by her ears. This time the voice was light but yet for some reason, Yu Mei felt something old from the voice.


    "What is it?"


    "I''m thinking of using Flame Fist with my feet. Do you think I can do it?"


    ''Flame Fist? What are they talking about?'' Yu Mei was quite confused with the flow of conversation but she refrained from making any sound and continued to eavesdrop.


    "In theory, you could but I doubt you can do it."


    "Well, watch this!"


    Curious about what they were talking about, Yu Mei left her cover and she finally had a good look of her surrounding.


    It was an open field in front of her and when she saw the young man standing in the center, her heart immediately became light.


    "Li Kong, I brought you¨C" Just as right she was about to finished her words, a swirl of flame surged from Li Kong''s sole and aired to the direction his feet pointed.


    Yu Mei smiled froze as she turned into a statue and the basket unknowingly dropped from her palm and landed safely on the ground.


    Li Kong released a deep breath before he opened his eyes and right after, he saw his friend standing not far away from his.


    "Yo, Yu Mei. What are you doing here?" He walked to her and greeted her like usual.


    "Why do you got that look in your face? You look funny, you know?" Li Kong tried to tease her but she remained still in her position.


    "Why are you..." Li Kong realized her eyes was fixated to something and tried to trace her line of sight and as he worked his eyes to its wonder, realization struck him hard and he instantly turned his head.


    "Oh no..." Li Kong messed up.


    ...


    A few minutes after Yu Mei defrosted.


    Li Kong kneeled and holding up his hand high up in the air. His face was on the verge of tears.


    In front of him, Yu Mei was tapping her foot rapidly as she massaged her eyebrows.


    "So the thing you avoided to talk was this ''cultivation'' thingy?"


    "Yes." Li Kong admitted rather easily.


    ''So he really wasn''t lying when he said there was a falling star there.'' Now she felt a little embarrassed and bad for berating him.


    "So where''s this bead you mentioned?"


    "This is what you seek, my highness." Li Kong started to rummage the place before an ivory and pristine white bead was readily served in front of her.


    Yu Mei took upon the bead and observed it carefully.


    "It''s certainly not something from here and why do you even calling it a bead? It looks more like a pearl than a bead."


    "You may want to be more careful when touching the bead, lass." A light voice suddenly rang in her ear.


    Scream escaped Yu Mei''s mouth as she immediately took a shield behind of Li Kong and scanned through her surroundings frightfully while the bead fell out from her fingers and rolled somewhere else.


    "Was it you, Li Kong?" Yu Mei asked hastily. Her lips quivering.


    "No." But instead of Li Kong, it was the unfamiliar voice who answered her question.


    "Eek!" Yu Mei jumped even further backward.


    Li Kong walked forward and picked up the white bead from the ground, blowing any dirt away from the pristine surface and then wiped clean the surface before pulling in Yu Mei and introduced the bead to her.


    "Come here. Meet my master in cultivation, White. And White say hi to Yu Mei."


    "Nice to meet you, lass."


    "N-Nice to meet you too?" Yu Mei was unsure of how to respond as she stared the bead on top of Li Kong''s palm in disbelief.


    "White teach me many things you know? You''ve seen my Flame Fi-, uh, Flame Feet, right? It''s all thanks to White that I can do it! Do you want to see something even cooler? Watch this!"


    Yu Mei watched Li Kong started running and before she realized it, like the passing wind, Li Kong looked as if he blinked through the air and three seconds hadn''t passed yet and he already arrived at the other end of the empty spot. After that, he blinked again but this time fortune didn''t favor him.


    "Oh crap." Li Kong braced for the impact and raised his hand to protect his head before he rolled on the ground like a marble being thrown before ultimately stopping right before Yu Mei.


    With Yu Mei face being right in front of him, Li Kong wryly smiled and awkwardly tried to explain.


    "I swear it was supposed to be cooler than this."


    "Huh?" Finally snapped from her daze, Yu Mei realized Li Kong suddenly appeared in front of him and she hurriedly helped Li Kong.


    "Li Kong, are you okay?" Yu Mei circled through him and thoroughly searched for any sign of wounds.


    "It''s okay. I''m fine really." Li Kong said, dusting his clothes.


    "That''s what you get for trying to look cool." The voice inside of the bead sniffed as its traveled through the air and picked up by Li Kong as he complacently placed it on top of his palm.


    "And also it seems like you got some explaining to do." White let out a sincere sigh.


    Li Kong slowly lifted his head up only to found Yu Mei staring directly into his eyes.


    "Can we at least do it while eating please?"


    A nasty growl reverberated throughout the whole forest.


    "I hadn''t eat since this morning." Li Kong let out an innocent smile.


    ...


    "So you found a sacrificial altar deep inside of the forest, full of dead bunnies, and you think that the culprit behind that altar was someone from the village." Yu Mei said.


    "Ye, samting waik det." Li Kong said while chewing down a piece of meat.


    "Could you at least swallow the food first before you talk?" Yu Mei sent a side-eye to Li Kong.


    Li Kong gulped down every single food he had left in his mouth and leaned backward.


    "Bah... I''m completely full." He tapped his stomach a few times.


    "So who do you think the culprit was?" Yu Mei asked curiously.


    Li Kong fixed his position and wiped off any traces of food from his lips before looking solemnly at Yu Mei.


    "There are at least three person we can think about. First was uncle Ye. Second, the doctor and at last was the lumberjack."


    "The lumberjack? You mean Xin Qiangdu?" Yu Mei said.


    "You know him?" Li Kong shoved in his face to Yu Mei which the girl responded by pushing the face away from her.


    "I don''t. But Tang Xia do!"


    "Tang Xia?" Li Kong voiced out his distaste. "What does that little mongrel has to do with him?"


    "Not much I think. Tang Xia just checking on him occasionally though I''ve seen them talking."


    "Then it isn''t the lumberjack?" Li Kong creased his eyebrows and started to sway right-left.


    "It''s too early to be saying that." The light and ancient voice stepped in.


    Yu Mei wholly agreed with the statement and went into a state of focus and she unknowingly pinched her chin as she stared over nothing and mumbled.


    "Uncle Ye is unlikely, he was too afraid of his wife. The doctor is a good person." Something suddenly clicked on her mind.


    "Then it might just be the lumberjack!"


    But before Yu Mei could continue her words, White cut off her words and taken her place to speak.


    "Don''t jump onto conclusions before we even do anything."


    "Right..." Yu Mei realized she was too hasty and stopped talking.


    "We''ll investigate every suspect and asked them a few questions before we can conclude who is the culprit and for you lass..." A sharp gaze coming straight to her from the bead''s direction.


    "Are you sure you want to join us?" The light and aloof voice changed serious and subconsciously, Yu Mei felt a pressure pressing on her whole body from hearing him speaking.


    "You are only an ordinary human and the enemy we looking for might be a cultivator like Li Kong. Do you think someone who took countless rabbits life like that would care about a human life? He won''t even bat a single eye when killing you and the other people.


    "So even after knowing this, what make you think you won''t drag us down? This isn''t a game for you to play. If you can''t do anything, you better wait at your home and pray or forget about this thing altogether and do something else than wasting your life here."


    "White calm down. Aren''t you being too harsh?" Although it was faint, Li Kong could felt the pressure being exuded just being near the bead but White wasn''t hearing any of Li Kong words and continued to wait for the young girl''s answer.


    Yu Mei struggled to kept her breath steady as her body suddenly became heavy but she persisted through the pressure and pulled her chin up with a force and there she found the bead floating on top of her.


    "I, I know it''s not a game." Yu Mei spoke with a great difficulty.


    "I know I''m not like Li Kong. I know it will be dangerous but!" The bead looked at her with great attention.


    "I have a duty to uphold!" She placed her palm on her chest and gazed directly at the bead.


    "I am the daughter of the village''s chief! The people inside of my village trusted my family to lead them and this is the duty that I, as the chief''s daughter, must take as well!"


    She stared at the floating bead with a resolute gaze and before long, the pressure alleviated from her and following that, her posture broke and she dropped to the ground and gasped greedily for air.


    "Do as you like." White said before disappearing into Li Kong''s waist pouch.


    After that, Yu Mei coughed a few times before Li Kong arrived at her place and tried helping her stand.


    "Can you stand?" Li Kong offered his hand to her.


    "Thank you." Yu Mei grabbed on the hand and pulled herself upward.


    After she stood up, she calmed down her breathing and by the time she''d done, Li Kong''s eyes was all on her.


    "Why are you looking me like that?" Yu Mei cautiously looked at him and maintained a distance.


    "Nothing. It''s just I never thought White would test you like that. Good thing you passed." Li Kong gave a thumb up on her.


    "So how do we investigate?" Li Kong asked.


    Yu Mei thought for a moment before saying, "Leave the doctor to me. My mother had an appointment with him tomorrow."


    Li Kong immediately nodded and replied, "Alright. I''ll leave it to you."


    "Then after taking a bath, I''ll go to check the lumberjack''s house and after that, I will also check on uncle Ye. We''ll meet again tomorrow at the giant tree, okay?"


    "Mhm." Yu Mei nodded.


    "Then let''s get back home!" Li Kong smiled and energetically said.


    "Yeah, let''s go." Yu Mei replied back with a smile.


    Li Kong helped Yu Mei with tidying before they walked through the forest together.

 Xin Qiangdu

    "We have arrived." Li Kong said.


    "You really wasn''t kidding about him being an outcast." White remarked in a rather weird manner.


    In front of them was a house. It was a simple medium-sized wooden house, neither big nor small. The house was built slightly above the ground with wooden pillars supporting the house from below and a stairs was built into the house.


    Li Kong carefully observed the house''s surrounding and found a tree stump sticking out from the ground with an axe pinned on the side of it and in front of the house, stacks of chopped woods aligned in orderly manner besides the stairs.


    ''It look like an ordinary house.'' Li Kong mused to himself while he slowly walked to the house.


    He grabbed on the stairs handle and rubbed his fingers on it.


    "Woah! It''s so smooth." The wooden surface of the handle almost felt silky-like but remembering his mission, Li Kong cleared out his mind and continued his steps.


    When he arrived at the front door, Li Kong gathered his courage before stretching out his hand and knocked on the door for a few times.


    "Hello. Is there anybody home?" Li Kong spoked loudly only to be followed by silent.


    Li Kong knocked on the door again but once again, there were no noises coming out from the house.


    "Is he out again?" Li Kong felt a little troubled and grabbed the handle before he realized he could move it. He pulled the handle a little and to his surprise, the door wasn''t locked as a gap created on the corner of the door.


    "What if I..." Li Kong cautiously checked his left and right and after ascertaining the situation, he took a last look at the open door with hesitation before ultimately he decided to swallow his fear and pushed the door gently.


    A creaking sound travelled to his ear as the door slowly opened itself, revealing the scenery hidden inside.


    As the door opened, allowing a sliver light to entered the house, the house was filled with darkness to the point where Li Kong could barely see anything.


    He further peeked in his head to see everything clearer but even with the help of the light from the outside, the interior was still to dark for him to see anything.


    "Seriously what are you waiting?" An impatient voice rang in his ears.


    "It''s not appropriate to enter someone''s house without their permission." Li Kong was adamant of stepping in.


    "Since when did you become law-abiding? Less chat and get yourself inside the damn house! Here let me help you." White was sick of him at this point and decided to intervene.


    "What do you mean by hel¨C" Before Li Kong could even finished his words, an invisible energy pushed his back, making him lose his center of balance.


    Li Kong reached his hands out and aligned his head and spine to performed a roll to mitigated the impact throughout his body before landing safely on his feet.


    "Safe!" Li Kong exclaimed before he grabbed his pouch and shook it.


    "Why did you do that, White? What if my head hit the floor?" Li Kong bore a hole through the pouch.


    "And did you hit your head?" White asked.


    "I''m not! But that''s not the point!"


    "Then, there''s nothing worth to be argued."


    Hearing no words coming from the bead, Li Kong grumbled but still proceed to inspect inside the house.


    The living room consist of two wooden couch positioned on the corner of the room next to the walls and a huge wooden table in front of the couches. At the corner between the couches, a little wooden table place and a vase standing calmly on top of it.


    Li Kong continued to inspect the room and he found the source of the darkness. All of the windows in the house was shut tight and to see clearer, Li Kong walked to the window behind one of the couches and opened it widely, allowing the light to graced the room with brightness.


    Now that the room had lighten up, everything in the room became crystal clear to Li Kong.


    He looked again at the wooden couch and couldn''t help but widened his eyes at the handiworks in front of him.


    The details that was hidden by the darkness, now being seen clear by Li Kong. Everything from the handle to the back carved in an intricate wavy pattern and the other couches even had a head of a lion carved in front of the handles.


    "This is amazing." Li Kong sincerely praised and touched the couch and watched as his fingers traced the surface of the wooden furniture like gliding his finger through a clear water.


    "Focus on your objective." A stern voice reminded him.


    "Oh right." Li Kong awakened from his dazed and leave the couches and proceeding deeper into the house where he found a wooden rack and inside of it was a weird block of wood but Li Kong couldn''t figure out of the exact detail because the lack of light but it suspiciously looked similar like a human figure.


    ''Is that...'' Li Kong tried squinting his eyes. ''...Tang Xia?''


    Although the detail of the face was blurry, Li Kong could tell that the statue had a feminine touch in the creation.


    Refusing to believe what he had seen, Li Kong turned back his body and tried to open the window before suddenly his nose collided with something.


    "Ow!" He landed on his bum and took a quick look in front of him.


    "Since where is there a wall here?" Li Kong put his hand on the wall and for some reason, the wall seemed to be a little fleshy.


    "What are you doing in my house?" A deep and hoarse voice resonated.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Li Kong slowly raised his head and to his horror, someone was standing in front of him. The man was easily a head taller than him and his arms bulked up with muscles he only every seen from his uncle, perhaps even bigger.


    "I asked. What are you doing here?" The voice turned more aggressive.


    The shift of tone caused Li Kong''s complexion turned pale.


    "I- I can explain! I didn''t come here to steal anything!" Li Kong pushed his body backward with his legs and opened his palms toward the person standing.


    The man raised his hand and Li Kong gritted his teeth and braced with his hand for any strike that may come but to his shock, nothing happened.


    Li Kong slowly opened his eyes and saw a bulky hand, reaching him with an open palm.


    "Ah?" Li Kong let out a little sound in confusion as he continued to watched the open palm.


    "Stand up." The man spoke rather calmly.


    "Oh! Yes, yes. Thank you." Li Kong hurriedly grabbed on the man''s palm and feeling him pulled him upward.


    After that Li Kong brushed off any dusts from his clothes before taking a look at the man''s giant stature.


    "Woah, you''re so big." Words unknowingly slipped out from his mouth before he realized what he had said and covered his mouth tightly.


    "What?" The man turned back.


    "Mmm." Li Kong sealed his mouth shut and shook his head frantically.


    The man didn''t chase any further and instead lead him back to the living room.


    "Take a seat." The man said.


    Li Kong sat himself down, his hands sat peacefully on top of his thighs and watched as the man slowly walked to the inside. Li Kong heard the familiar sound of crackle and after a few minutes, the man had arrived back at the living room, carrying with him cups of glass.


    The man offered Li Kong one of them cup and asked, "Take it."


    "Oh, right." Li Kong nodded his head and politely grabbed the glass cup handle from the man.


    Li Kong took a quick look of the cup and found that it was tea.


    After that, the man take a seat on the other couch and sipped his tea calmly.


    Li Kong observed the man mannerisms and found himself confused at what he should do in this kind of situation.


    ''Now that I can see his face clearly. Honestly he''s isn''t as bad as people described.'' Li Kong had heard his peers talking about the man and every time, they put it like they were seeing some sort of monster rather than a human being. But now he had seen the person himself, in Li Kong''s humble opinion, he thought he wasn''t bad at all, just a little too bulky.


    The man had a stern face, the type you would think to never smile at all. Other than that, his other attributes wasn''t bad at all. His face was wide but symmetrical and paired with his well-defined jawline, Li Kong honestly thought that he would made a great warrior with his stature and serious face.


    ''Altogether he looked like another uncle Ye! But younger and slightly bigger.''


    After a moment like an eternity, the man put his cup down and directly stared at Li Kong.


    At the sudden gaze, Li Kong jumped a bit and observed the man''s doing with great caution.


    "You''re Li Kong right?" The man asked.


    "Yes." Li Kong hurriedly replied before noticing something. "Wait. How did you know my name?"


    "You are..." The man appeared to be in a deep thought. "Famous."


    The man fixed his posture before looking directly to Li Kong.


    "So why you are in my house?" HIs gaze settled deeply at Li Kong.


    Sweats started to running crazily on his back as he desperately tried to maintain his calm face.


    ''Damn, what do I do now? Maybe say something like I saw your door opened and decided to go in? On a whim? Even if he didn''t beat me, if uncle Zheng ever catch this news out, he''ll be the one to beat me. But what other excuses do I have?'' Times continued to tick down and the gaze became sharper each seconds passed.


    ''White! What should I do?'' Li Kong shook his waist pouch and waited for the bead''s usual voice to chimed in but to no avail, the bead stayed silent.


    Li Kong felt like a boat, stranded in the middle of stormy ocean, helplessly tried to maintain the ship''s balance while his master slacking off in the side.


    ''There''s no other way then...'' Li Kong closed his eyes and took a deep breath before meeting the gaze who had been staring at him this whole time.


    "Uncle! Please listen to this." Li Kong exclaimed.


    The man was undisturbed by Li Kong''s sudden loud exclamation and cued him to continue.


    Li Kong started to narrating slowly to the man about the altar he found in the forest and details of it.


    After Li Kong done explaining, the man leaned his back to the couch and seemingly deep within his mind while on the other side of the couch, Li Kong tracked every single of his movement.


    ''If he shows any weird movement, I''ll immediately use my Flame Fist.'' Li Kong hid his hand beneath the conceal of the table, ready to unleash the technique at any given moment.


    After a moment of thoughts, the man suddenly moved which throwing Li Kong off balance for a bit but he decided to hold his hand in place and continued to observe the man.


    "Regarding the altar you mentioned..." The man finally uttered something.


    At the mention of the word "altar", Li Kong gulped down his saliva and his body tensed as he waited for any sudden movement for the man.


    "I''ve seen another one not a long time ago." The man stated calmly.


    "Huh?" Li Kong''s mind was thrown out of chaos. He strike the wooden table and said with a open eyes. "There''s another one out there?"


    The man wasn''t bothered by Li Kong''s action and nodded casually before continuing, "But the one I found had deer on it rather than bunnies."


    ''Deer?'' Li Kong went into contemplation. ''Why is it one of them was bunnies and the other was deer?''


    Amidst his contemplation, Li Kong felt that something was missing and couldn''t help himself to asked further about the altar.


    "When and where did you find the altar uncle?"


    "Three weeks ago. Not far from the place I usually gathered woods."


    ''Three weeks? White said the altar was made only one or two day before we discovered it but now this uncle said that there was an altar in the forest three weeks ago? Then doesn''t that mean someone had been doing this for a long time?'' Li Kong tried to figured something more from the man''s expression but he really wasn''t looking like he was lying.


    "So what you did to that altar, uncle?" Li Kong asked.


    "I destroyed it." The man replied swiftly.


    "What about the deers?"


    "I buried them not far from the altar."


    "Why do you didn''t tell anyone about finding the altar, uncle?" Li Kong asked while staring observantly at the man''s expression.


    Faced with Li Kong''s sharp gaze, the man didn''t panicked and maintained his calm composure.


    "I felt uncomfortable walking in the village and you already know what''s my reputation inside of the village. Did you think people will believe me?" The man''s gaze resided down, staring into the table with a lonely look in his eyes.


    Li Kong thought about his question for a while and finding it logical.


    "Hmm." The man mummed while rubbing his chin. "So does this mean the reason you break into my house was because you think I made the altar?"


    Li Kong completely caught off guard by the sudden statement and started trembling like crazy.


    "Uh... T-That''s... Haha..." Li Kong stuttered as he tried to let the words flowing out from his mouth and slowly turned his face away from him.


    The man let out a whiff before a curve formed on the corner of the mouth.


    "I don''t mind it."


    For the first time since their meeting, the man had show another emotion beside stone cold face.


    Li Kong feeling like tearing up soon as he looked at the man with star-like eyes.


    "Thank you, uncle! And please don''t tell uncle Zheng about all of this. Please! He''ll beat the living out of me if he ever catch this." Li Kong sincerely begged.


    "I won''t" The man promised.


    "And why did you keep calling me uncle? I should be only 5 years older than you."


    ''5 years?!'' Li Kong felt like his eyes was popping off. ''This was even more surprising than knowing that there''s another altar.''


    After that, Li Kong raised his arms and compared both of their body to each other and safe to assume that the result was an automatic win for the man.


    ''Holy crap. The difference is big!'' Li Kong exclaimed inwardly.


    "If not uncle, then big brother? Yeah, that sounds nice." Li Kong nodded to himself before striking himself on the forehead.


    "What''s wrong?"


    "I haven''t asked for your name yet." Li Kong said.


    "It''s Xin Qiangdu."


    "Then big brother Qiang it is!" Li Kong smiled.


    Xin Qiandu was taken aback by the sudden smile of Li Kong before replying back with another smile.


    "Yeah."


    After that, they began to talk to each other and discussed about their daily lives.


    "So brother Qiang!"


    "Hmm?"


    "Is that Tang Xia inside of that shelf."


    "...No."


    "Why are you turning slightly red, big brother? You look silly just like Yu Mei! Hahaha!"


    "Whoever this Yu Mei is, I feel sorry for her."


    "But why though? Have you met her?"


    "Sigh..." Xin Qiangdu already tired of speaking now.

 The Second Altar

    It was a moment after Li Kong bid farewell to Xin Qiangdu.


    "Li Kong. Let''s get back to the forest." White''s solemn voice rang in his ears, prompting him to make a detour to the forest.


    After Li Kong successfully arrived at the forest, Li Kong brought out the pearly white bead and said, "Why are we here, White?"


    "Let''s search for the altar he mentioned."


    Li Kong simply nodded and he started to navigate through the forest.


    After a moment of searching, Li Kong finally stopped on his tracks and gave a good look to his surrounding.


    "Should be around here." Li Kong said.


    There were many chopped-down trees in the vicinity, the labor of the lumberjack''s works, leaving behind only the remaining stump still sticking out from the ground.


    Li Kong roamed around the area for another minutes before a charred black texture lied before his eyes on top of the ground and what seemed like the remained of burned wood was scattered through the scene.


    Li Kong touched and rubbed his fingers on the ground and commented, "It seems big brother Qiang wasn''t lying when he said there''s a second altar in the forest."


    "Don''t be so quick to be convinced. Go look for where he buried the deer." The bead reminded him to be careful.


    "Aye, aye," Li Kong replied.


    It didn''t took long for Li Kong to found the place where Xin Qiangdu buried the animal as it was located only a few dozen of steps away from it.


    In front of Li Kong was a mountain of dirt that sticking out from the rest of the ground like a sore thumb. There weren''t any commemorations nor symbols, only a simple burial mound sticking out from the ground.


    Li Kong picked up nearby fallen branches and poked the branches into the burial mound. He lifted up the dirt and trying to peek the inside of the burial and surely enough, a heavy pungent smell encroached his senses with overwhelming odor which threw his entire body balance into disarray.


    Li Kong jumped out from his position and started gagging.


    ''This kid never learns, doesn''t he?'' White was getting tired of Li Kong.


    Completely out of breath, Li Kong uttered out a complain while still prostrating on the ground, "Damn it! Why does every one of them smell terrible?"


    "Maybe if you weren''t so keen on smelling them, you won''t end up like this." White said exasperatedly.


    "Now hurry up and stand up. Our business here is over." The pouch hanging on Li Kong''s waist opened and the white bead flew inside before closing.


    Not wanting to smell the horrendous scent anymore, Li Kong quickly got up and left the area as quick as he could.


    As he navigated his way out, Li Kong silently gazed his waist pouch with meaningful gaze.


    The pair of master and disciple had spent practically a month without ever leaving each other side and right now, Li Kong could clearly sense that White was holding something to himself.


    Right inside of his brother Qiang''s house, White was uncharacteristically silent for the whole time, even when Li Kong had stirred the conversation away from the main focus but White never correct him and let him keep on talking.


    "Did you realized something, White? You''ve been unusually silent today since we met big brother Qiang."


    "..."


    Hearing no response, Li Kong decided to forget the matter altogether and focusing finding his way out of the forest before a familiar light voice rang.


    "I''ll tell you tomorrow." The voice said faintly.


    Li Kong was surprised but he quickly went back to his usual smile before replying with a soft voice, "Yeah."


    "But before that!" Li Kong hastened his pace. "We have to go to uncle Ye''s house first!"


    ...


    "Now, what are you exactly doing in front of my house?" Ye Cheng clicked his tongue at the uninvited guest.


    "Uh..." Li Kong avoided contact with his eyes and his lips trembling as he tried to mustered out the words.


    "U-Uncle... D-Do you know something about the smell coming out of the forest?" Li Kong chose his tone carefully.


    For a brief moment, Li Kong saw something else flashed on his uncle''s face before returning to his usual annoyed face but he couldn''t exactly pinpoint what it was.


    "What is this brat blabbering out in the daylight? Shoo shoo! Go home!" Ye Cheng kicked him out from the terrace and closed his door shut.


    "Aw!" Li Kong tended his back before looking back and grumbled. "What''s wrong with uncle today?"


    Li Kong stood up and dusted himself clean.


    ''Nothing unusual about his temper, I guess. Whatever. Tomorrow I have archery training due. I can just ask him at that time.'' Li Kong shrugged and departed from the place.


    Behind the door, Ye Cheng stood still, a cold and sharp glint glowed in his eyes.


    ...


    On the dusk of the night, Li Kong was sitting tranquil on his bed and absorbing the Qi in the air while White, as usual, observed him silently.


    ''Something definitely is wrong with this kid''s body.'' White murmured.


    ''When someone see his absorption speed, one would''ve think that he would''ve broken through the first realm of Body Tempering already but not only he wasn''t in the second realm, this kid hasn''t even near breakthrough yet!'' It was such an absurdity to White''s knowledge.


    Li Kong''s absorption speed greatly exceeded the geniuses White ever met and those geniuses already could absorbed with three times the speed of normal folks, sometimes even managing to four of five time faster.


    But even if White picked the fastest of those geniuses, Li Kong still managed to beat them by a large margin, at least when they were still in Body Tempering stage.


    Granted that Li Kong directly skyrocketed to the Body Tempering stage from never cultivating, people may said he was proceeding at a record-breaking speed but compared to his fellow peers in Body Tempering stage, Li Kong''s speed was above-average at best when cultivating in the Body Tempering stage.


    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The disconnect between his absorption speed and his cultivation progress had trouble White since the first Li Kong had started cultivating. If he was currently in his human form, he would already lose bunch of hairs from the constant worry and went bald already.


    It was only a week since Li Kong cultivating and White decided to check what was exactly going on inside of his body that made Li Kong cultivation progress abysmally slow compared to his absorption speed.


    Turned out the kid''s body refined the Qi to its possible purest form. The most inefficient thing a cultivator could do through their lifetime practices of cultivation.


    Usually when people absorbed and refined Qi, they only refined the Qi to the minimal extent as long as their foundation wasn''t shaken and because the difference between a normal refined Qi and a purer Qi was minimal at best, sometime they didn''t even have any noticeable differences.


    For example, a technique used with purer Qi might shown a slight increase of power and one might thought that this was good but the main problem was refining Qi to such extent was simply a waste of time.


    If there were two cultivators starting at the same point but one was refining Qi normally and the other kept on refining it to the purest extent, the former might had ascended to the highest peak of heaven while the latter had died tens of thousand years ago because of old age. It was just that time-consuming.


    No sane person would done that but here it was, for whatever reason, Li Kong''s body seemed to be refusing to do the normal way and kept on trying to refine the Qi into its possible purest form.


    White had even instructed and directly help Li Kong to consciously control all of the refining process but when he detected there was an instability in Li Kong''s body, his nonexistent heart started to pumping out blood like there was no tomorrow and he immediately ceased the activity and since then, he dared not to disturb whatever the hell was going on inside of his disciple''s body.


    ''But at the very least his absorption speed seemed to balance out with his refining. So all was fine.'' White sighed inwardly.


    His current student really had myriads of problems coming in pack with him. As if, his suffering from enduring his mischievousness and countless nonsensical behaviors wasn''t enough, now the universe had decided that he had to constantly monitor the brat''s body because of his peculiar circumstances.


    Sometimes, White couldn''t help but lied down and pondered deep to himself and felt he really wasn''t paid enough by his main body to do all of this.


    But even though there were many complains, White didn''t regret ever picking him up and instead he gazed silently on his pupil as many thoughts crossed his mind.


    ''I wonder what you will encounter on your journey later.'' A smile unknowingly appeared on the corner of the figure inside of the bead.


    ''I bet it won''t be something ordinary.'' White chuckled.


    A blurry figure appeared out of thin air, standing in front of him with a warm look on his face.


    After that, the figure raised both of his palms and held it in the air. The hands was flickering and detail of them slowly disappearing before reappearing again.


    ''I am gradually dispersing.'' White grasped both of his hands before looking at the youthful figure in front of him.


    The figure reached out his hand to the youth''s hair before his hand ultimately stopped and he withheld back his hand.


    ''A month...'' White counted the time he had left.


    ''I have a month at most before I completely disappeared...'' His gaze landed once again on the youthful figure before a smile bloomed again on his face.


    Watching the relaxed expression of the youth, countless memories began to flash before his eyes.


    The antics he''d do, the stories he told, the laugh they share, the joy that they both felt.


    Everything passed by before the figure eyes as his eyes slowly turned soft. It was really strange that a just a month with this puny brat managed to make him feel something like this.


    ''Really, what will be of you if I wasn''t there to constantly watch you?'' The figure shook his head in exasperation.


    ''Yes, this spirit of mine will disappear.'' The figure said calmly


    ''But before that...'' A cold light gleamed from the figure''s eyes. ''I will get rid of whoever tried to put my disciple in danger.''


    By the time Li Kong had filled his cultivation quota of the day, the blurry figure was no longer there and then, Li Kong went to sleep peacefully.


    ...


    Early in the morning, Li Kong woke up before the roosters'' crow and decided to jog around the village while waiting his usual training to began. But the moment he arrived near the animal farm, suddenly a loud moo rang throughout the air and caught by his ears.


    Curiosity took the greater of him and he took a slight detour on his route and arrived at the farm where he noticed someone was standing near the fence while rubbing his eyebrows.


    Li Kong walked closer to see who it was before realizing he knew the person and cheerfully greeted the person.


    "Good morning, uncle Wang! How are you doing?"


    The person was frightened at the sudden voice and let out a noise before he shifted his head to the direction where the sound coming from and found Li Kong there.


    "Please don''t do it again, Li Kong. My heart... I can''t no longer take anything like that." Wang Lan said while clutching his heart.


    "I''m sorry, uncle." Li Kong stepped back awkwardly and sincerely apologized.


    "Just don''t sneak like that again the next time." Wang Lan released the clutch on his chest before his eyes wandered back to his frontside.


    Li Kong nodded in response before redirecting his focus back to the farm.


    "So what''s happening, uncle? Why Manman mooed so loud in the morning?" Li Kong pointed at the brown cattle.


    The cow, Manman, was running uncontrollably and continuously to mooed loudly. Even when the cow was visibly tired and collapsed from exhaustion, it kept mooing and mooing until it couldn''t moo again. The cow trembled furiously and finally fainted in place.


    The cow who was mooing was his friend since childhood. Li Kong usually sneaked in with his friend while Yu Mei usually waited near the fence. He personally was fond of Manman as Manman would continuously rubbed her own head to his palm affectionately. Tang Xia even joked at time that Manman was his girl which prompted Yu Mei to attack Tang Xia for some unknown reason.


    When the cow collapsed from fatigue, Li Kong creased his eyebrows further and stared at Wang Lan.


    "Uncle! What''s happening with Manman? Is she sick?" Li Kong grabbed his uncle''s shoulder and asked.


    "I don''t know." Wang Lan shook his head. "Since a month ago, almost every day in the morning, she started to running like that and mooed all over the place until she collapsed just like this."


    Wang Lan continued, "Even when I took her to rest at her place, she kept mooing for the rest of the morning and only stopped when the sun had finally dawned."


    ''When the sun dawned?'' Li Kong creased his eyebrows as he wondered what the sentence could mean.


    "Uncle, could you explain more why she stop mooing when the sun come?" Li Kong asked.


    "I truly don''t know, Li Kong." Wang Lan shook his head and answered sincerely.


    After that, they talk for a short time before the time for departure arrived and Li Kong bid farewell to his uncle and made his way straight to his house.


    The sun had made its grand entrance, proclaiming the ownership of the morning sky as the golden light emerged out from the horizon, illuminating the whole world with the warm light.


    With the golden light shining behind his back, a black silhouette loomed on the horizon, slowly walking to Li Kong and the light slowly shed the murky black silhouette, revealing the figure hiding behind it.


    It was the doctor, Yan Dangxin. The doctor was holding a basket made out of bamboo, herbs packed up the whole basket to the point of overflowing.


    "Good morning, Li Kong." Yan Dangxin smiled at the youth and rummaged the basket in his hand.


    "Woah, that is a lot of herbs. Did you just pick all of this, doc?" Li Kong leaned his head forward to the basket.


    Watching the doctor''s hand trying to grab something, Li Kong retracted his head back and watched the basket before he noticed an unusual color on one of the herbs.


    While he was dazed, Li Kong noticed something green was offered to him by the doctor and he immediately woke up and looked at what it was.


    "Here take it. It''s for you Li Kong. Grind these herbs and then drink them with water. I heard that you trained hard since last month so make sure to drink it a lot, okay? It''ll help lessen muscles sore and boost muscles recovery." Yan Dangxin kept his smile afloat while talking.


    Li Kong grabbed the herbs out of Yan Dangxin''s hand and observed them closely.


    ''These look exactly like what White told me to get when he told me to make a remedy so I guess it''s okay if I take them?'' Li Kong pondered before shoving them inside one of his pouch.


    "Alright, I''ll take them. Thank you, doc!" Li Kong bowed down his head.


    "Hahaha. You don''t need to do that." Yan Dangxin told him to raise his head. "Just make sure you grow stronger okay? That''s enough for me." Yan Dangxin said while pressing his fingers against his bicep.


    Hearing the doctor''s words of encouragement, Li Kong''s eyes beamed. After that, he straightened his spine and placed his right hand diagonally on his eyebrows.


    "I won''t disappoint, sir!" Li Kong said with serious tone and decisively.


    Yan Dangxin laughed in response and bid farewell while Li Kong still maintained his salute to Yan Dangxin for a few more seconds before getting in his house and prepared his bows and arrows before departing again from the house.


    "I''ll be going, White." Li Kong said but no response was being given.


    After that, he reluctantly trudged his body to the house of a certain hunter.


    ''Sigh... Why did I have to do this?'' Li Kong complained and even considering ditching but the consequences far outweigh the benefit so without any choices left, he continued his lonely trudge.