My father's farm was in view after the sun had rose.
Unwilling for me to continue the walk back during the night, Chu Qiang insisted I sleep in the forest under his watchful eye. He was kind enough to set up a small camp and stayed awake all the time so that nothing would ambush us unnoticed.
Chu Qiang was also generous enough to reduce Shui Cai's remains to ashes and stored them in an urn. I saw him cast a monstrously gluttonous flame out of his palm which in turn devoured the flesh within seconds and left behind nothing but grey grim ashes.
When he asked for the reason, I simply shrugged and told him it would definitely come in handy later.
Approaching the lands owned by the Ke family, I saw my mother and father open the door and head out in quite a rush, as if they knew I had arrived at this very precise moment.
I also noticed that Qiang was no longer beside me upon which I presume he has already left.
"I alerted your parents. I will take my leave now!"
His voice passed through my head even though I knew he was not around anymore. It must have been a telepathically transmitted message or something.
"LEI BA!" my mother wrapped her arms around me and cried as soon as she saw me.
My father came over and gave me a hug too, lifting me from the ground with relief. He was not crying right now, but his red face and eyes suggested he had done so during the night.
I must have caused them quite the worry.
He let me down and looked at me carefully before speaking. I knew he would notice the scratches and bruises on me and the limp I developed.
"Son! Where have you been?" he rubbed my hair furiously checking for any other injuries and thankfully he could not know that I had a broken rib. "We've been worried sick."
"I'm sorry, father. I'm sorry, mother" was the only thing I managed to say in that moment.
I had worked up quite the apology on my way here, but now, facing them, I had forgotten the words I rehearsed in order to earn my quick forgiveness. Them being this sad had channelled quite the emotions out of me, making me reminisce about some of my past family memories.
How I wish things were different.
"Where were you? Where did you stay overnight?" she wiped the tears off her face and sniffed. Her hug tightened and I felt her wet face sliding down my neck.
(So sorry mom.)
"I stayed at Ling's house. They didn't want me to return this late while the road was dangerous, so they told me they would send someone to notify you."
"How kind of them" father drew a smile accompanied with a few nods of appreciation to the Shuis.
"We didn't receive any notice though!"
(Don't make it this hard on me mom…)
I scratched the back of my head, still held tightly by my mother's fearsome strength and gave a slight chuckle to appease the atmosphere.
"I guess the messenger got lost in the forest!" I was making up lies faster than I could breathe at this point. I hadn't imagined this much loopholes in my supposedly elaborate and fake story.
"Poor man!" she finally released her grip over me.
I breathed comfortably again.
We walked back to the house where I immediately stopped and excused myself to my room as my pretence was that I was pretty tired and worn down.
"I will go meditate. I participated in a friendly fight and got some bruises that I need to heal."
"Very well, dear."
"Cultivate well."
As always, even when I made them worry this much, my parents did not scold me, punish me or anything and accepted my decisions and wishes.
(I was undeservingly lucky.)
I retreated to my room, sat down on the floor in a lotus position to begin my meditation and heal my injuries. From what Chu Qiang told me on the way back, I should be able to fully recover in a few days of constant qi absorption.
Silently meditating, I thought back on what I should do in order to improve myself.
First, I needed to ask my father about some movement technique, as Qiang called it, to greatly improve my speed and agility.
Second, I needed to cultivate faster, breakthrough the first layer and meet this mysterious benefactor called Gudu Xing Chen. And in order to do so, my breathing technique required a thorough practice. I read that in the last pages of the technique, I could meditate instead of sleeping to recover injuries and to rest as well.
One last thing I needed to do, was to figure out how to channel qi through my hands in order to activate the Temporal Bell and increase my survivability against Demonic's pawns.
(These were my current agendas. Off to work!)
Someone knocked on my door.
"Dear?" my mother called me.
She wouldn't disturb my retreat if there wasn't something urgent or important. I was glad I had no deep progress or lest I would have received a severe setback as a result.
"Yes? What is it mother?"
"You have guests" she cracked the door slightly open and peered in with nothing but her eye visible. "They say that they're from the Feng family."
The Feng family?
Why would they come here? There should be no grievance between us since Qiang only acted against the Shuis this time…so why show up here?
"Should I invite them in?"
Why not. I suppose no harm could come from hearing whatever they had to say.
I got up and wrapped around myself a robe to hide the few stains on my current clothes. I also set up a small tea table and some pillows inside my quasi-spacious room to afford a few guests.
"En, invite them" I went to the door and whispered to her ear. "Can you please brew some tea?"
She was affronted to have even heard me say that. Even if the guests were not going to join me in my room, she was naturally going to invite them for some tea herself as the clans were quite far and the road tiring.
Out of the three people that I saw waiting at the edge of the door, there was only one familiar face I could recognize.
"Feng Shuai?" I remembered him from his fight with the Xiao boy.
"It seems junior remembers me" he cupped his fist in greeting. "I'm glad introductions were not necessary."
Someone noticeably older than the children stepped forward to me and greeted in turn. A copy of his son, he had the same honeyed hair and blueish eyes which by now I presume most Fengs had in common.
Behind both of them, a strangely eye-catching girl stood with a fan before her face. Even with most of her figure concealed, I distinguished her blue eyes and the slightly darker colour of her long silky hair.
"Young Lei Ba! My name is Feng Tai, an elder of the family and this is my son" he ushered to Shuai at his right, "and my daughter Ai" he turned to the left.
Ai let down her fan, clipped it shut with a rattle of metal and clasped her hands to greet me. That item looked like a weapon to my eyes (and I was rarely mistaken!)
So this was the sister that Shuai fought and humiliated the other boy for. She was quite beautiful I must confess.
Although I held no feelings for a girl I just met, my stupid child body caused me to blush when her face was fully revealed.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance" her voice was symphony to my ears for some reason.
There was something wrong. I was fairly certain that I didn't like her, yet, but I was flustering for no apparent reason…something was definitely amiss.
"It is a pleasure to meet you too—"
"Don't look into her eyes…" Chu Qiang's voice sprung into my head again. I do wonder from where he observed me. "That's a seducing technique."
So that's what it is, huh!
I did as he instructed me and only looked at the other two Fengs. Stepping aside for them to walk in, we entered my room and found seat on the pillow cases.
My mom later came in, a tray, a teapot and few cups in her possession,
"Thank you, mom."
I waited until she left and closed the door behind her to pour them their cups.
I was still avoiding Ai's gaze and did not turn any moment to meet her eyes.
"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Elder Tai?" I grabbed my cup, added sugar and stirred.
The elder signalled to his son with a nod and the latter reached into his bag. He pulled out some sort of bottle. It was green and emitted a certain energy that was akin to qi.
"In lights of yesterday's incident, we have come on behalf of the Feng clan to apologize for the offense and present you with this humble gift."
"What is it?" I looked at the bottle with curious eyes seeing nothing special from the outside.
Feng Tai grabbed it, plucked the cork open and shook it upside down to let its contents fall. A blue pebble, the size of a cherry slid down his palm and revealed a pill.
Until now, I had seen quite enough of them to know that they were some miracle drugs that were shaped into these pebbles in order to be stashed far more efficiently and give them further improvement.
But this one right here; let out an aura that was far greater than the others. Mind you, it was not that strong, but stronger than the medicinal one Chu Qiang gave me yesterday.
"This" the Feng elder caught it between his two fingers and raised it to eye level, "is a Layer Alteration pill. Here, take it."
"What does it do?" I inspected it and took a whiff of its relaxing aroma.
"This is a pill that is only consumed when one is yet in the Corporeal Alteration realm and has reached a bottleneck in his cultivation" since he no longer carried the pill, Tai delved into his cup of tea. "Once you do take it, you can breakthrough to any of the six layers."
That was…seriously very important right now.
If I remember correctly, cultivators always find difficulty after reaching the peak of a layer and sometimes require external factors to help them breakthrough. Pills such as these are such items and said to be extremely valuable.
Was I worth this much for them to give it to me as a gift?
"But why offer it to me esteemed elder? Yun told me that senior Shuai has reached a bottleneck of his own and is unable to breakthrough to the Qi Harvesting realm."
"This pill helps you breakthrough between layers of the first realm and therefore you cannot use it to ascend to another realm" Shuai himself explained why he was denied this treasure.
I thought about it for a minute.
What possible reason prompted them to seek my consent?
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to think straight as Ai's attempt at locking eyes with me became very obvious even when I made sure to not look at her. I imagined two bulging eyes, fixing me intently from the side.
(Don't look…don't look…)
"Then I won't be polite and accept this gesture" I divided my attention on the gift.
"Good, good. We can now call ourselves good acquaintances and perhaps possibly friends in the near future!"
I forced an awkward grin and bowed my head in thanks.
"I'm sure we will be."
My mother knocked again at the door and slipped her eye like before.
"Dear. You have another guest."
"Hm. Who is it mother?" I frowned marvellously.
When was I this famous to receive so many guests the same day? Then I remembered that Chu Qiang trashed their place and possibly killed somebody.
Perhaps they've come for revenge.
Or perhaps to apologize as this group has come to do.
"He says his name is Shui Jie."
Him…
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*Check the very first chapters at the very beginning for the Index*