Chapter Sixty-Six: Still a Bit Happy...

“Welcome, Master, upon your return from seclusion.”
In front of the small wooden cabin, Fang Ruo bowed toward the door that had been sliced open by a blade’s energy.
No sooner had Fang Ruo finished speaking than a woman stepped out, her movements calm and unhurried.
She wore a long black dress. Her flowing hair, smooth as silk, was loosely pinned up with a simple hairpin made of ordinary material—a birthday gift crafted by Jiang Lin when he was a child.
Her eyes were limpid as water, yet held a cool, piercing clarity, as if nothing could be hidden from her gaze. Her fingers were slender and delicate, her skin fair and lustrous with a touch of rosy hue, almost dewy in its softness, and her lips were as red as cherries.
A subtle, queenly aura emanated from her, and the sword energy surrounding her was an invisible pressure, making it seem as though a single step closer would leave one cut into countless pieces.
“All right, Fang Ruo, enough with the formalities.”
The woman, Jiang Yuni, cast a sidelong glance at her friend, who was always unserious and seemed to enjoy playing the part of an ‘NPC’ in the task hall, as Xiao Lin would say.
Fang Ruo smiled softly and stuck out her tongue in a playful gesture at the cool and distant woman before her.
“How long was I in seclusion?”
Her eyes, as clear as polished obsidian, swept over the small world around her as she asked.
Though Jiang Yuni’s appearance remained serene, her heart was pounding with nervousness.
For a cultivator who had just entered the Jade Soul Realm, time had long since lost its meaning.
After all, stepping into the Upper Five Realms meant that even the initial stage of the Jade Soul Realm would grant one a lifespan of at least ten thousand years.
Similarly, when a practitioner at the Jade Soul Realm entered seclusion, they would become wholly immersed in their spiritual consciousness, losing all sense of the outside world’s passage of time. Many such cultivators would close their eyes in meditation, and when they opened them again, a thousand years would have passed.
Moreover, this small world left behind by generations of Sect Masters was completely cut off from the outside.
“Master, a hundred years have already passed,” Fang Ruo replied with a bow.
“What! A hundred years! Then Xiao Lin, he…”
Jiang Yuni’s eyes went blank at Fang Ruo’s reply, her heart wavering.
She had always had immense confidence in her talent, certain that she would never need hundreds of years, but a hundred years was not impossible…
And in a hundred years, so much could change.
Had anything happened to Xiao Lin?
Had Xiao Lin found someone else he liked?
Had he already chosen a Dao companion?
Had those vixens managed to seduce Xiao Lin?
A thousand wild thoughts flooded her mind, and Jiang Yuni began to regret her retreat—what was the point of consolidating her realm? Nothing was more important than Xiao Lin!
She blamed herself even more, for she’d thought it would take, at most, three months—who could have guessed it would be a hundred years?
“No! I must leave!”
Steeling herself, Jiang Yuni moved to fly out by sword, intent on sensing Xiao Lin the moment she left the secret realm.
But before she could even step forward, Fang Ruo grabbed her hand. Standing so close, the sword energy emanating from Jiang Yuni’s body shredded her own dress, yet left her skin unscathed.
“Ruo Ruo, stop it! Let go of me! It’s been a hundred years! If something really happened to Xiao Lin, I’ll make the entire sect pay!”
“Oh, Yuni, I was just teasing you. It hasn’t even been a month since you entered seclusion. Xiao Lin is alive and well—he even won a good sum at Spring Breeze House recently and spent a few days enjoying himself there.”
Fang Ruo could hardly help laughing and crying at once. They were both mighty cultivators in the Jade Soul Realm, and nothing had happened to Xiao Lin. How could this girl be so easily frightened by her own imagination?
“What did you say?” The stunning woman froze in shock.
“I mean I was joking,” Fang Ruo sighed lightly. “I heard that Jade Soul practitioners often change temperament, becoming obsessed with cultivation to the exclusion of all else. I was worried you’d become like that, so I teased you a little. I never said anything happened to Xiao Lin.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
Jiang Yuni reined in her wild sword energy, her beautiful eyes sharp as flying swords as she stared at Fang Ruo.
“You mean… those harlots at Spring Breeze House actually dared to seduce Xiao Lin?”
[Wait, did I actually say that just now?]
“No, it’s not what you think, Yuni, it’s just that—”
“Just what?” Jiang Yuni’s slender, fair fingers traced gently over Fang Ruo’s willow brows. “Ruo Ruo, you’d better think carefully before you answer.”
Boom—
As her words fell, her fingertip brushed Fang Ruo’s brow, and in the distance, a mountain peak in the small world was sliced cleanly in half as if by a blade through tofu, the summit crashing down to the earth…
...
“I’ll get you!”
“Ah!”
“Wait! Ah…”
“Damn! Why are you using your mouth again… ah…”
“Wait! Not the kidneys! Ah… and not the face either!”
On the open ground at the summit of Twin Pearl Peaks, Jiang Lin had sealed away all his spiritual power and was taking Chen Jia’s punches head-on with only his physical body.
That’s right.
As Chen Jia’s fists pounded against his chest, Jiang Lin wondered if he’d gone mad to agree to her bizarre training method.
It all began half an hour ago.
When Jiang Lin asked Chen Jia if there was a way to train quickly, and Chen Jia shyly replied there was “that kind of training,” he had immediately refused!
What a joke! He was a gentleman—how could he ask someone to do that sort of thing with him just for his own benefit?
But when Chen Jia said she didn’t mind…
Well, if a girl said she didn’t mind, it would be awkward to insist otherwise…
So, with much reluctance, Jiang Lin agreed, admitting he had no experience.
Chen Jia, blushing fiercely, confessed she had no experience either.
But who would have thought that “that kind of training” was the legendary “Pain Memory Tempering”!
Jiang Lin had sealed all his spiritual energy, handed Chuxue to little Nian Nian to hold, and then, like a fool, he practiced the boxing form Chen Jia taught him, punching at her again and again.
And then…
And then he was promptly beaten up by Chen Jia, who used the same form.
Each of Chen Jia’s punches and kicks made Jiang Lin feel as though his bones were shattering, yet they always fell just short of actually breaking. Every strike made him want to cry out, but he forced himself to hold it in.
It hurt, certainly, but for some reason, after each round, Jiang Lin felt wonderfully refreshed!
He started to worry that he’d awakened some strange proclivity.
And so, little Nian Nian watched as her mother beat her father up all afternoon.
And her father… actually seemed to be enjoying it...