After their meal, the old woman urged her to go back to her room and take a rest, while the poor Zou Jia was intructed to go to the field. Annoyance was evidently seen on the boy's eyes. The old woman sat on the far corner of a sofa and took a piece of paper, some quills and ink to start writing. Old age has not been a weakness for the lively woman to write so fast. Rou Lang pushed her hair which covers most of her face. She wasn't able to take a bath since when and she decided a warm shower was all she needed. She entered the room and closed the door. The whole room was plain. Aside from the bedside and a small cabinet, is a small corner veiled for bathing. There were only a bucket of water and a coconut husk as a pail. Then she remembered about the blade.
Under the bed is a black saber. She grabbed it, carefully weighing its value and appearance, doubt emerged from her eyes. It was definitely lighter and has shorter hilt. No trace of any array is present. When she tried feeding her qi, the saber heated and cracked. She couldn't feel any connection to the saber at all.
"Tsk! This is definitely fake." She stared at the direction of the door, wondering why they have to lie.
Rou Lang sat cross-legged on the bed. She tried to contact her Master to assess the situation, yet wouldn't receive a reply. Master Levi must be doing something important so she wasn't obliged to disturb him anytime she wanted. She understand, the path of cultivation is lonely and hard. She can only rely on herself if she must improve.
The art of inner cultivation has to start with a strong foundation, of mastery of inner perception and conscious guiding. There is one main type of natural qi circulating a person's body, and that is the water qi. Since water is most abundant in human body, the cost of cultivating such qi is not that huge a risk compared to other elements such as flame. Given enough time, Rou Lang can definitely master the correct way of breathing.
She wondered, if she can control water qi in her blood, maybe she can also do it externally. Wisdom comes from wonder, she decided to do some experiment. Filling a bamboo cup with clear water, she dipped her fingers on it.
She starts meditation. After a full minute of complete concentration state, she can feel her consciousness slowly entering her system. The consciousness shows the path of qi to flow to her arm. She released the qi to the water. Nothing. No reaction at all. She guided more qi towards the liquid and after a minute, she can feel it heating up and starting to boil. What a new discovery. But Rou Lang is not satisfied. She wants to do something else, like trying to manipulate water.
She changed her method. Using her consciousness surrounding her arm, she tried to suck the qi out of the water. It was hard and without a lot of concentration, she wouldn't be able to recognize a bit of energy given off by the water. Still a failure.
She gives off qi. She sucked the qi. This continuous manner of releasing and absorbing qi, finally triggered some reaction from the water surface. Ripples and bubbles were clearly evident to the methods effect. These small reactions are enough to prove that qi can indeed affect waters. She has to do it again. This time, she coated her conciousness with lots of her natural qi then released them simultaneously through her fingers.
As soon as they touched with water, they dissolved like powder in a hot coffee. But accompanied by the solvent, is her own consciousness mixed within as well. As far as she knows, consciousness can only stay within the body. But as unbelievable as is, her consciousness actually was released outside her and she can still sense it. Although their connection is faint, Rou Lang was certain it enveloped the whole volume of water in an invisible bubble!
This part really excites her and she wants to know if she can levitate water. Still tightly connected to her conciousness in the form of bubble, she slowly pulled back her fingers from the cup. Visible to the naked eye, the water actually floated out of the cup. They did not spill however, but they seem to be inside an invisible bubble that prevents them from falling off.
Due to her excitement, she lost focus, cutting off the connection with her consciousness. The bubble vanished and the water was once again pulled by gravity. She grinned. "I was right. I can use my consciousness to manipulate things out of my body. If only I have a lot of willpower, maybe I can directly send it out of me to move things, make them float, or possibly bend them. Nice! I discovered an art. I will have to learn this art on my own. So that my master will be proud when he finds out!"
Acieving a perfect state of enlightenment is almost impossible. And her master always taught that it is more important to build a solid foundation before reaching higher levels of power. Even though she was eager to learn this new art, she dared not do something crazy, or else it might cause trouble. The most important thing to do now is to recover. Her wounds are definitely not light. If she must train, she must first return to her peak condition, or atleast her normal state.
When the night descended, a knock on the door awakened Rou Lang in her meditation. In fact, she sensed someone lingering behind the door for long before he/she knocked. She doesn't know their purpose for letting her stay here but she got a hunch she will figure out tonight.
She roused from her bed and went to open the door. Someone was standing in there she doesn't know. He is a man of about late teens or early twenties, has a nice decent appearance of a simple yet kind man. She can tell he was shy especially when she looks at him eye to eye. The man avoided her gaze and cleared his throat.
"Kuhum.. Good evening, miss Lang. I uhm... want to..."
"A'wu, are you finished yet?", the old woman shouted. "Hurry up and do it!"
He smiled wryly. "Uh... can I enter?"
"Sure." Suspicion aroused from her mind but since this is not her house, she just let him in. She smelled wine and a slight perfume along with the dried sweat. He must have came from the fields.
"May I help you?"
The man gazed across the room, speechless for a long time. When the silence reached its climax, he finally blurted, "I'm sorry for intruding. But I have to do this."
He turned to Rou Lang and walked closer. His expression changed from a kind person to a vile one. Rou Lang could clearly see lust in those eyes. It was the kind of gaze a man would give on a woman he will do something bad with. But she was not intimidated at least. She did not even back down, and did not try to escape through the door. After all, she sensed the vile woman just behind the door, silently hearspying them. She was even holding a pan, maybe to use in smashing her head when she tries to escape.
A'wu finally cornered her with his arms. They stared at each other. Hostile grows on her facade. What she hates the most is people batraying her, and using her like a toy. She wasn't a thing to begin with. And even though she was a woman, she would never stoop so low in front of a mere man's desire. His and the old woman's actions were just getting on her nerves and she wants to rip then right away.
"Why are you doing this?", she spoke unintimidated.
"Because I was forced to. And besides, I want you when I first saw you in the forest. You were badly injured but you were the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Since I saved you, and brought you home, you'll naturally be my wife from now on. This night will be our first night, and our future son will be the evidence of our love." He neared her and was about to press his dirty lips against her.
She sent a punch to his cheek. "How dare you!"
Of course, he catched her fist in midair and laughed. "You can't defy me. You are a woman. And all woman are weak. They have no right in this world than to submit to men. What? Can you do anything about it?"
Strangely, she smiled. And it brought great chill down his spine.
"Of course I can." With a great twist, his wrist was cracked and he shouted in pain. But the pain is just the beginning. The real suffering starts with slow torture.
She let go of his arm and lightly pressed her palm on his chest. Her anger is blazing which brought forth great willpower and determination. With calm meditation, she instantly formed a peak concentration state. She controlled her consciousness out of her palm and towards his chest. It penetrated his system and dissolved among his blood.
Among the richest element in a human's body is water. And it was also the easiest to control. With her own consciousness as a net, she enveloped the blood cells from within.
Through concentrated force, she pulled the 'net' as hard as she can. The blood cells on his veins compacted, dilluted, and became as thick as lotion.
Rou Lang did not stop. She even further drove more concentrated force on the blood which sucked all blood cells to the heart. The concentrated force tightened its grip around the heart until all twenty liters of blood are gathered, condensed into a very tight ball.
Poor A'wu feels his heart going to crush itself. He can't do anything but watch in horror the girl who is no different than a grim reaper.
Then burst! His heart cannot take anymore the amount of pressure and it exploded. Blood spurted from his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears and he fell down in a thud.
Rou Lang exhaled loudly.
"What can I say? You messed with the wrong guy. Or girl."