Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Bigger and Stronger
Lu Shao Jing’s face flushed, but he still argued as if sheer stubbornness could make him right.
“She’s a Lu. Is she really going to hold a grudge against us for the rest of her life? Besides—entering Qi Induction Realm is a big deal. Is Lu Shao Heng really going to delay us?”
Lu Shao Jia felt like he’d swallowed a bone. He looked at his brother’s serious expression and realized, with a cold sinking in his stomach, that Lu Shao Jing wasn’t joking.
His mouth went dry. “Then you go yourself,” he snapped. “Don’t drag me into it.”
“Hmph.” Lu Shao Jing lifted his chin. “I’ll go myself, then!”
—
Shao Heng stayed quietly in her room, meditating.
Beside her cushion, the golden-furred little monkey lay curled on the floor. The scabs had shed. On the surface, it looked mostly fine—only still a little too thin, too quiet, as if it didn’t quite trust the world yet.
A pale-purple spirit stone sat in each of Shao Heng’s hands. As she drew on them, their color dulled, turning gray. When both stones finally cracked and crumbled into dust, she opened her eyes.
She flicked the powder away and cast Dust-Cleansing Technique. The room returned to spotless calm.
“Ying-ying.”
Duo Bao stirred, opened its eyes, rubbed its belly with both hands, and whined at her with an almost embarrassing eagerness.
Shao Heng glanced at the timing talisman on the wall. Not even a full day had passed.
Duo Bao pointed at its mouth.
Only then did Shao Heng remember she hadn’t given it a Fasting Pill. She took one out and popped it into the monkey’s mouth.
Duo Bao swallowed obediently.
“It really is gentle,” Shao Heng thought. “Even hungry, it didn’t disturb my cultivation.”
This session, her spiritual power had risen from 11 furnaces to 13, consuming two spirit stones.
The more she cultivated, the clearer it became: resources mattered. They mattered terribly.
And that meant her spirit field mattered.
She picked up Duo Bao, removed the formation at her doorway, and pushed the door open.
A sheet of white letter paper lay outside, pinned down with a stone.
Shao Heng didn’t even bend to pick it up.
At the bottom was a signature she recognized at a glance.
Lu Shao Jing.
Back then, when Lu Shao Heng had still been Lu Shao Heng, she’d been spoiled and willful—and Lu Shao Jing had been just as unruly, all sharp temper and louder pride. They’d fought over everything. There had never been any shortage of bickering.
And whenever Lu Shao Jing made his sister unhappy and couldn’t swallow his pride, he used the same old trick: stuff an apology letter under her door.
No matter how overbearing little Lu Shao Heng had been, she’d always been softer toward her own brother. Once she accepted the letter, she’d act bashful and awkward, and soon enough they’d be playing again.
But Shao Heng was not the little Lu Shao Heng from then.
She murmured a spell. Flame crawled along the paper’s edge, fast and bright, consuming it until it collapsed into ash.
Duo Bao sensed the shift. It tugged her sleeve gently and rubbed its fluffy head against her chest, trying to please her.
The brief surge of emotion ebbed, settling back into cold calm.
Shao Heng stepped on the ashes, ground them into nothing, and walked away.
—
Duo Bao’s injuries had healed too quickly. Shao Heng didn’t want to run into the Beast Garden disciples from yesterday and invite questions, so she wrapped it in the jade-silkworm cloth again and sent it a silent command through the contract.
Don’t make a sound.
The path was clear. Soon she reached the area shrouded in white mist. Using the Route-Pass Talisman, she entered her mu of spirit field.
The field was a wash of bright green. When the breeze swept through, the stalks whispered together, soft enough to soothe her nerves.
She marked out a small patch again and dripped the green liquid onto 31 seedlings, watching closely.
They shot upward, racing through growth: heading, flowering, grain forming. She cast Wind-Blowing Technique.
White Jade Spirit Rice bore both male and female on the same plant. There was no need for careful selection—wind alone was enough for pollination.
Then she waited, eyes fixed on the seedlings.
Seven or eight minutes passed.
Then 15.
Then 30.
A grin spread across her face. The seedlings were still thriving. No withering. No sudden collapse.
That meant the Azure Emperor spirit liquid could be reused—so long as she controlled the interval. It wasn’t a one-time miracle.
She drew on her Yellow Sprout, letting the tree-shaped rune in her sea of qi condense emerald droplets again.
As its master, she could sense it clearly: each time she used the Azure Emperor’s “Grace the Four Directions,” the rune accumulated a wisp of vitality—something hard to describe, but undeniably real. It felt like a foundation. A seed for future change.
She set the thought aside.
Once enough droplets formed, she cast Spirit Rain Technique.
Pale-green rain threaded down over the entire mu. The seedlings surged taller, leaves broadening, stalks thickening. When the rain stopped, they swayed in the wind as if pleased with themselves.
She didn’t avoid the earlier patch. Within moments, those seedlings received a second dose.
And just as before, they began to wither, failing to set grain and mature.
“One day in between,” Shao Heng murmured, excitement and calculation tangling together. “I’ll test it tomorrow. If they don’t wither…”
The Law Enforcement Pavilion disciple had said White Jade Spirit Rice ripened once every four months.
But if she confirmed she could apply the droplets again after a single day, then in her hands the growing cycle wouldn’t be four months.
It would be three days.
A 120-day harvest compressed into three.
Forty times faster.
Enough to drown her in spirit stones.
“And that’s only spirit rice,” she whispered, licking her lips. “If I can get seeds of rare spirit medicine, and the Azure Emperor spirit liquid shortens their growth cycle too…”
She could almost taste it. Resources without end. Cultivation without limits.
No days off.
Bigger. Stronger.
Duo Bao, wrapped in cloth, shivered faintly against her.
—
After the initial rush of triumph, Shao Heng forced herself back into work. She began teaching Duo Bao how to tend the spirit field.
She had plenty of theory and exactly zero hands-on experience, but Duo Bao’s execution was excellent. It learned quickly—how to spot pests, how to pull weeds without damaging the roots, how to move through the rows without snapping stalks.
Shao Heng praised it until her throat went hoarse.
“Good monkey. The most obedient, cutest, most amazing little monkey in the world.”
Duo Bao went limp with happiness, face buried in her robes, as if the compliments were more nourishing than any pill.
“From now on, the spirit field is on you,” Shao Heng said, voice bright. “When we trade in a huge pile of spirit stones, I’ll buy you the sweetest spirit bananas. We’ll eat one and toss one.”
Duo Bao whined in delight, dizzy with devotion.
And then, as Shao Heng started to leave, a cold thought slid in like a knife.
The soil.
Seedlings drew spiritual qi as they grew. The Azure Emperor spirit liquid was miraculous, yes—but it didn’t contain much spiritual qi. It was formed from her own spiritual power. Transformation didn’t escape the laws of the world.
If she forced White Jade Spirit Rice to ripen once every three days, she would be pulling spiritual qi from somewhere.
From the soil.
“The Law Enforcement Pavilion disciple warned me,” she thought grimly, “not to damage the spirit field. Compensation would be brutal.”
If she drained the field barren, the sect would notice. And if the sect noticed, eyes would follow.
Abnormalities always drew demons.
Once someone started watching her, it would be far too easy to expose the secret behind the Azure Emperor spirit liquid.
And once that divine ability was seen through, the high-realm cultivators—those old monsters who had lived for centuries, even millennia—could follow the trail and find the Gray Cocoon with ease.
Shao Heng considered herself clever, but she didn’t fool herself. She couldn’t outthink monsters like that.
Luck was the sharpest trap she could set for herself.
“I need a way to keep the soil fertile,” she said quietly.