Jiang Lan froze, searching through her memories to identify the stranger in her bed. A name, Gao Yawen, appeared.
This junior sister had entered the sect a year after Liu Lan and had ended up as Liu Lan's roommate, unintentionally crushing her fantasies of having a private room. In the year prior to Gao Yawen's arrival, Liu Lan had been ostracized by the other disciples who found her an easy target, due to the lethal combination of having no backing, a plain appearance, and an exceedingly average talent.
With Gao Yawen's arrival, for the first time in her lonely life, Liu Lan found someone she was willing to call a friend.
Although Gao Yawen was a few months older than Liu Lan, she had a baby-face that matched her naive personality. As the former pampered young miss of a merchant family, she was unused to the fierce and cutthroat atmosphere of the outer sect and quickly dropped to the bottom of the food chain. Despite her tri-element spirit roots, she fell behind fellow disciples with similar cultivation talent and was being harassed by an older disciple when Liu Lan rescued her in exchange for some qi condensation pills.
What initially began as an alliance based on the mutual exchange of benefits, gradually transformed into a tentative friendship, and soon evolved into a tight bond of sisterhood. Liu Lan's thirst for a family was sated by this junior sister who desperately needed someone to rely on.
Jiang Lan decided to continue this relationship for Liu Lan's sake. If the sincerity of her fellow disciple proved true, then to deny this sister her trust would be disadvantageous to both. She slowly fell back asleep after forcing her body to relax, basking in the warmth of the hot water bottle stuck to her back.
"Xiao Lan? Are you awake?"
Jiang Lan's eyes quickly opened, instantly on alert. She sat up, and turned to see the worried face of Gao Yawen.
"You seemed tired, so I let you sleep and saved you some breakfast." She handed over two meat buns.
Jiang Lan smiled and began to eat under the concerned gaze of Gao Yawen.
"What happened? I was so worried. You should have returned to the sect a week ago. I...I could not help but assume the worst." Gao Yawen looked down at her hands, tightly clenched together.
Jiang Lan patted her shoulder reassuringly, "Wenwen, I am fine. I was simply unlucky and ran into a Poisonous Devil Wasp nest. I hid in a cave for a week, but am unharmed. You know, I have the survival skills of a cockroach. No matter what happens to me, I always manage to keep my life!" A pang of guilt ran through her mind.
Gao Yawen's hands relaxed as she smiled in relief, "I am just glad you have returned."
Jiang Lan teasingly retorted, "I know you enjoyed having the room to yourself while I was away. Are you certain those insects were not sent by you?"
Gao Yawen pouted, "Hmph! So this is how you repay the selfless one who brought you breakfast. See if I ever save anything for you again!"
"I missed you too, Wenwen."
After familiarizing herself with Liu Lan's cultivation base, Jiang Lan continued to cultivate, using the basic method described by the Qi Condensation manual given to all outer disciples of the Cursed Ghost Sect.
Unfortunately, Liu Lan was born with four-element spirit roots, superior only to the worst five-element spirit roots in terms of potential, and, at the time of her death, had only just reached the fifth level of qi condensation at the age of fifteen. In comparison, outer sect disciples with tri-element spirit roots typically reached the sixth level by thirteen, inner sect disciples were expected to reach the eleventh level by age thirteen, and core disciples were required to break through to foundation establishment before twenty.
Despite her dreams of becoming a powerful cultivator, Liu Lan's hopes had surrendered to the mediocrity of her own talent. However, as Jiang Lan settled down in her room to cultivate, she noticed something strange. Her speed of cultivation felt significantly faster than before.
Every night as she journeyed back to the sect, she had expanded her senses and absorbed the spiritual qi of the natural world, circulating the energy through her body and condensing it into the strand of Qi in her dantian. With each night that passed, her speed of condensation had grown imperceptibly faster. Though it had not been noticeable after a single night of cultivation, the difference was clear after a fortnight of accumulation.
In addition, she could sense that her control over the circulation of Qi had also grown increasingly effortless. Jiang Lan was pleasantly surprised, but was wary of this inexplicable change. She knew her body held too many mysteries and to leave them unsolved could result in a hidden danger.
She decisively investigated her dantian for any abnormalities. At a first glance, everything seemed normal; the strand of Qi was still firmly planted in the middle of her empty dantian. However, as she investigated further, tracing through her meridians and away from her dantian, she found something strange in the middle of her brow.
It was a small, red petal, floating innocuously in her head. It seemed to exist in a space separate from her body, and yet also seemed to be the source of her abnormal increase in cultivation speed.
Jiang Lan kept her focus on the petal as she activated the qi condensation technique. There was no visible movement, but as her mind focused more and more on the petal, an indescribable feeling swelled.
A sense of familiarity, as if this type of cultivation was something she had done before and was something she was already intimately familiar with. Accompanying this feeling was an increasing strand of grievance and rage as Jiang Lan became entranced by the bloody red of the petal.
Captivated by the vivid color that slowly seeped into her mind, Jiang Lan failed to notice her cultivation rapidly increase to the peak of fifth level before smoothly breaking through the sixth level. Her meridians bloated as her cultivation continued to increase, disregarding the limits of her body.
"XIAO LAN!"
A voice finally broke through Jiang Lan's trance as Gao Yawen entered the room. Jiang Lan coughed up a mouthful of black blood and opened her eyes to see the shocked face of her friend. She took stock of her own body and was frightened by her own advancement. In one night, she had managed to not only break the barrier between early and mid qi condensation but also advance a step beyond to reach the seventh level.
Covered head to toe in black sludge, with a body cleansed of impurities, she grinned gratefully at Gao Yawen.
"Wenwen, you have the best timing."