Using her spiritual powers once more, Feng Huang again materialized a trail of flame inside Li Meirong's consciousness. She followed the warm qi, and discovered the girl's soul about to tear itself to shreds.
"Have you gone mad?! You are killing yourself! Stop, stop, stop!" Feng Huang's voice was almost a banshee screech as she yelled at the girl. "I will be your strength. You don't need to do it this way, there are other ways besides cultivation to gain immortality. I will just give you a few years' worth of my spiritual powers." Seeing Li Meirong's soul nearly evaporate was tremendously stressful.
'I just discovered my draught of life,' she thought, 'there is no way I will let it get away!'
Feng Huang waited, expectant, inside Li Meirong's consciousness, for the girl to turn back and resurface. She had the power to reach into a person's essence, but she still had limits, and could not delve all the way through.
She had to convince the girl to turn back, yet the girl chose that moment, of all times, to defy her expectations!
"N-no," Li Meirong stammered from the strain as she stubbornly pushed herself against her body's energy current. "I'm s-sick of relying on others. I always end up getting used, and in the end, the one who stays helpless is me."
Feng Huang couldn't help but wonder what type of encounters Li Meirong had experienced to feel that way. Perhaps the human girl was not as much an airhead as she had originally thought.
Could it be, possibly, that her plans to use Li Meirong's special life essence for cultivation were that obvious?
"Let's talk this through, alright?" Feng Huang responded nervously. "Come back here, now."
Li Meirong shook her head. Her body felt strained, as if it was tearing into pieces. She wanted to give up, but she was so close! The light was right there in front of her, so why couldn't she reach it?
Outside of Li Meirong's spiritual essence, Feng Huang could feel the dimension straining, cracking. It was as if an earthquake strong enough to consume the entire place was occurring.
A deafening, rumbling roar reverberated through the library, as several scrolls rattled and plummeted from shelves to floor.
It was obvious to the turtle demoness, now, that this was no simple interspatial ring. This dimension was the creation of Li Meirong. Somehow, this useless girl who couldn't cultivate had produced a grand treasure. And, as she was dying, the dimension would soon die with her.
Seeing how the stubborn girl was ignoring the attempts to save her life, Feng Huang sighed in frustration. Oh, the mess she had put herself in!
Naturally, if the human girl died, she would too, as she was stuck inside her metaphysical dimension!
"You must have a goal! What do you want most in life? What is it you strive for?" Feng Huang demanded, though she remained as calm as she could under the circumstances. "Maybe there's an injustice to correct or revenge to seek." Despite her projected calm, Feng Huang wanted to strangle the girl for jeopardizing her precious life.
Li Meirong was busying herself with extending her arms before her, palms outstretched, ready to seize the flames as soon as she came close enough to do so.
"What's the point in asking this now?" Li Meirong grumbled aloud. She really didn't need a psychology lesson at that particular moment!
Still, she couldn't help but wonder: what was it she wanted most in life?
The world was filled with injustice, but who could she possibly place the blame on for that? How could she right injustices even if she knew who to blame?
Not to mention... she had no grand revenge to seek, not really. She simply wanted to no longer be alone. She didn't want to be discarded.
She wanted a family, someone who would always stay by her side, and never let her go.
Every day, she woke up because she needed to. She worked hard because she had to.
Even in her previous life, she couldn't think of anything she had actually wanted to do. She was always just searching for ways to keep the loneliness at bay.
In an instant, a familiar image suddenly appeared before her limpid eyes. It was a tall, silver-haired man with a foreboding air about him, cloaked in smoky shadows. Li Meirong recognised him instantly as that same beautiful man she had met years ago.
He stood in front of her as a mere apparition of the mind. His thin lips parted as he spoke, but she couldn't hear what he was saying.
Then slowly he reached out towards her, and she reached back; a rosy hand connected with a ghostly one, and their fingers immediately intertwined.
A pleasant warmth spread through Li Meirong's soul, washing away pain and filling her with a sensation of the utmost comfort.
Just as their fingers fully crossed over each other, his ethereal form disappeared. He almost vanished as quickly as he had arrived.
In her hands lingered the same blue flame she had tried so hard to reach and grasp.
Li Meirong panted heavily; her muscles were sore, aching. The small azure flame in her hands grew larger, and larger, and larger, until she was engulfed from head to toe in a fierce inferno. Yet, she felt not an ounce of discomfort from it. At first, the flame's warmth could only be felt on the outside, covering her skin, but soon she sensed it coursing through her limbs. The heat remained gentle, soft, warming rather than harming.
The blue fire merged into her flesh, and was absorbed into her meridians.
As the fire coursed through her body, Li Meirong felt refreshed, revitalized. In fact, she had never felt as good in her life. Her body remade itself anew, all ailments disappearing as if never existing.
Turning back, she slowly made her way up out of her consciousness, returning to a waking state.
Along the way, she passed the same empty pond she had seen before… but it was empty no longer.
Li Meirong's eyes widened in wonder. The pond was full to the brim!
The barren pond had become a clear, translucent spring. The waters were coloured an every-changing gradient; the lightest shade of a summer's sky shifted to the aqua of a tropical island's sea, and merging into the deep blue of the Pacific.
Even the clever Feng Huang had been stunned speechless. After cultivating for a thousand years, her own demonic dantian had still not filled more than one-quarter of its capacity. And worse yet, her own 'pond' was much smaller!
'Yet this girl, this Li Meirong, in a single instant she… just how many cheats is this girl capable of?!' Feng Huang mused. For a moment there, she was certain they would both die, but then suddenly this trash human had turned into a genius!
Whatever Li Meirong had been eating, the turtle demoness wanted some of it!