"Hey, brat! Call me boss!"
At this point of time, the world had stopped. Yin had frozen the entire memory, and no one was able to move except for her and the good seedling with a frail body who she remembered to have introduced himself as Young Master Qing.
"Come follow me and I will teach you the best way to land a solid smack on the people who called you trash. I assure you, the smack will be so painful they will not dare raise their faces in front of you again!"
Yin harrumphed as she leaped off the elevated ground near the throne. Now she had come closer, she admired the young boy's beautiful looks. That long silky hair, those limpid eyes, skin that looks dewy and soft to touch…
Really delicate, ah!
She was tempted to call him Fairy Qing, but she was smart enough to know that this wasn't the right time to jest. The poor boy looked like he was about to burst to tears right now.
Drats, even his aggrieved expression like now looked way too girly ah!
How could she bully such a pretty sister?
"Y-Young Miss Yin, no, Fairy Yin, what are you doing here?" Young Master Qing asked with a much steadier voice. He took a deep breath and bowed like a courteous gentleman. "This young master apologizes that you have sullied your eyes with this kind of embarrassing thing."
"Really a good seedling!" she exclaimed.
Another point she had come to admire was his ability to be calm. Although she found the way he talked to be as funny as Ye Mo's future wifey, it showed that he was quick to gather his wits. It had only been several seconds since she showed herself, and he had been ready to flee a while ago to escape the humiliation of being a 'cripple'. However, the moment he found out he wasn't alone, he was able to swallow back his emotions to the extent that he looked outwardly normal.
This was pretty impressive, considering he's a mortal with no qi in his body.
Such a mindset was very favorable to cultivation, normally mastered by experienced warriors and wizened men who had met all walks of life and had decades of experience in the jianghu under their belts. However, it was something earned with time and wasn't something a person was born with.
This kind of mature and steady Dao heart ought to have been polished by countless sufferings. One had to remember that this Young Master Qing was a child and couldn't be older than ten years old. Also, judging from this snippet of a memory, he was not just an ordinary young master of some prestigious clan. He was part of the ruling family of Qing Blessed Lands!
What things had he suffered through for his Dao heart to be this strong?
Yin was burning with curiosity at the moment. "What are you called?"
"This…" Hesitation flashed across his face before he lifted his chin with a determined look. "Fairy Yin, this young master is born with the given name Qing Wu You, the Qing character for 'wood' and the WuYou character for 'without worry'. I am the first grandson of His Majesty the Qing Emperor and the only male heir of the Qing Imperial Family of my generation. As you have seen in my Awakening ceremony, I am deemed a cultivation cripple. If..If Fairy Yin really has a way for me to cultivate, then the Imperial Family will owe you a huge favor!"
By the time he had finished his words, excitement could be seen bursting in his gaze.
This mysterious Fairy Yin from beyond the borders held a way for him to enter the path he thought he would never be able to walk in. This was his chance.
Cultivate!
He really wanted to cultivate!
"Ha, Wu You, no, You'er, don't try to awe me with your background. It might sound impressive in this land, but my horizon is much bigger than what you can ever imagine," Yin laughed, her voice sounding like tinkling bells. She eyed him from head to toe, appreciating his appearance to the point it gave him goosebumps. She licked her lips. "What I want is your loyalty. Call me boss, and I will take you in as a member of my Church!"
Qing Wu You blinked, a little confused. "Boss? Not a master?"
She eyed him weirdly. "Are you even worthy? Not even that, you're willing to take a four- five- year old girl as your master? Wow. You must be really desperate."
His face immediately turned crimson, and because of his delicate appearance, he looked like a blushing shy wife. "I-I… can I truly be a cultivator if I call you boss? Will the seniors of your...Church...be willing to take in a cripple like me?"
"Brat, you are not even crippled. Not to mention, even if you are truly crippled, so what? Rocks can cultivate and become sentient, what more a human?"
"Impossible!" Qing Wu You exclaimed. "Fairy Yin, not only did the Awakening artifact not respond to my body, even the several tests that followed after yielded the same results. My Lord Father did not give up until the famed doctors and renowned alchemists throughout the empire had examined my body, and all of them arrived at the same conclusion. No matter how much qi was poured inside my body, it all dissipates!"
Yin shook her head. With the ease of Chef Ding carving an ox (1), she waved her tiny hand, and Qing Wu You found himself extricated from the illusion created by the soul-suppressing array. Seeing the familiar scenery of the tall ancient trees around him, he realized that the two of them were back inside the forest behind the Ye Sect.
"Your people are all frogs viewing the sky from the bottom of the well (2). Believe me when I say you are not a cultivation cripple. In fact, you have a Spiritual Body! How can you be a cripple? Don't you cultivators call people with spiritual bodies geniuses?" she asked as she gestured for him to follow her deeper into the forest.
Qing Wu You could not believe the things he was hearing, but deep in his heart, fire was already burning, and the heat was spreading all throughout his body. He badly, badly wanted to roar out to the whole world.
'I am not a cripple!!!'
"Besides, bloodlines and spiritual bodies can only make your initial station higher compared with an average person, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee success. If you truly want to arrive at the peak of cultivation, it relies on how crazy you are!"
Qing Wu You smelled blood the further they walked. He did not even realize that Yin had stopped walking because his attention was grabbed by the two unconscious bodies on the forest floor. One was a young boy about his age, and the other was a bloody piece of meat that resembled a human. He wanted to puke.
Seeing his reaction, Yin gave him a smile that was not a smile.
Other people would have already turned weak in the knees, but this young boy, though already terrified with his body shaking, only paled at her bloody masterpiece. Such a temper was indeed a rarely seen gem!
"Do you think calling me boss is enough for me to teach you ways to cultivate? You first have to prove to me how crazy you are!" Her eyes glittered with darkness darker than the night. "Do you think you can throw out whatever shackles are binding you in order to achieve immortality? Are you willing to give up everything to become a powerhouse? Say, are you mad enough to bite someone's head off when I order you to?"
(1) Chef Ding carving the Ox (páo dīng jiě niú) - means performing a task effortlessly and with great skill. This idiom comes from a story about the Daoist concept of Ziran, where Chef Ding's careful yet effortlessly spontaneous way of cutting up the ox became an example of the cognitive state of mind Zhuangzi associated with the Tao and the assertion that this state is accessible in everyday life
(2) A Frog in a Well (jǐngdǐ zhī wā), View the Sky from the Bottom of a Well (zuò jǐng guān tiān) - means to be ignorant or narrow-minded; to have a myopic perspective