The earthquake that shook the entire Central State finally subsided just as dawn broke.
Because of the tremor, it rained throughout the night in the mountain range and continued into the morning. Yan Hanque slowly brought the boat to rest at Yanwen Mountain. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t catastrophic—the spiritual residences could be repaired.
Yan Hanque consulted with people from the other minor sects, but since the earthquake originated from Central State City, there were no traces to follow.
When Yan Hanque returned, Lady Chao frantically grabbed his hand and pulled him into the boat, speaking urgently: “Hanque, something’s wrong with A-Ling.”
Yan Hanque’s face darkened as he quickly went inside.
In the boat’s cramped cabin, Yan Yue sat at the bed’s edge, sobbing with a small face full of panic and fear.
Yan Ling was curled up on the small couch, his body wrapped in blankets trembling constantly. He wiped his forehead and it was drenched in cold sweat. It seemed accumulated pain had nowhere to vent inside him, only rushing wildly through his fragile meridians, striking him with convulsive tremors of agony.
Yan Hanque lifted Yan Ling’s thin frame and held him against his chest. The moment he touched him, he felt Yan Ling’s body was burning hot.
“A-Ling?”
Yan Ling barely maintained consciousness, his brow furrowed as he gave a pained, indistinct groan: “Hm? Father?”
Yan Hanque slowly extended his spiritual force into Yan Ling’s meridians. Warm, flowing spiritual force eased Yan Ling’s suffering.
Yan Ling finally managed to open his eyes and gasped out in confusion: “Father, am I going to die?”
Yan Hanque held him tighter and said softly: “No.”
“I’m cold.” Yan Ling whimpered. “I’m scared.”
Yan Hanque: “Don’t be scared. Father is here.”
Yan Ling’s face was streaked with tears from the pain as he desperately buried himself in Yan Hanque’s embrace.
Quickly, Yan Hanque completed his examination of Yan Ling’s meridians and his expression changed instantly.
He suddenly looked up and met Lady Chao’s gaze.
Lady Chao had already examined Yan Ling before Yan Hanque arrived. She had thought the child was simply frightened and had developed a fever. A healer’s cultivation force had probed through Yan Ling’s meridians, but discovered that the meridians seemed to be undergoing transformation by some strange spiritual force.
A golden vine-like spiritual force was slowly taking root inch by inch within Yan Ling’s body.
Yan Hanque said nothing. He wrapped Yan Ling in his wide robes and held him against his chest as he swiftly descended from the boat.
Yan Yue cried so hard he nearly lost his breath, hugging Lady Chao’s neck as he choked out: “Senior brother, don’t die…”
A child of only seven or eight didn’t understand what “death” meant. He simply felt instinctive terror of something he had never encountered.
Lady Chao gently patted his back and said softly: “A-Yue, don’t be afraid. It will be fine.”
Though she spoke thus, Lady Chao’s heart was uncertain. She had begun to form a suspicion, and her usually gentle face now bore an unusual weight.
Though Yan Hanque and Lady Chao were merely ordinary cultivators who hadn’t awakened xiangwen, they had once witnessed the aura that cultivators with xiangwen emanated when using their spiritual force.
The strange golden vines within Yan Ling’s body resembled those of cultivators who had awakened xiangwen extremely closely.
Lady Chao’s brow furrowed deeper.
Not only did Yanwen Mountain have no Tianyan earth vein, but xiangwen awakening across the thirteen states only occurred on one’s twelfth birthday. Yan Ling wouldn’t reach ten for several more days—how could he suddenly awaken a xiangwen?
Yan Hanque’s face remained expressionless as he opened a cave dwelling in the back mountain of Yanwen. It was a place where cultivators of past generations had entered seclusion, with layers of intricately woven barriers that slightly concealed the aura Yan Ling’s body was emitting.
The cave was extremely frigid. Yan Hanque placed Yan Ling’s burning hot body on a mystical ice jade bed. Biting cold seeped in from the back of his neck, temporarily suppressing that wave of heat.
Yan Ling opened his eyes weakly: “Father, Mother…”
Yan Hanque said: “It’s fine now.”
Yan Ling’s gaze was unfocused. Confused and half-conscious, he suddenly said: “Mother, it’s raining outside. Did you bring in the medicinal herbs you were drying?”
Lady Chao froze.
Just moments ago, Yan Ling had been burning up with no consciousness at all. The cave was filled with barriers—how could he possibly know it was raining outside?
Lady Chao said gently: “They’ve all been brought in.”
Yan Ling said “oh” and tilted his head slightly before finally drifting into deep sleep.
Seeing Yan Ling delirious and talking nonsense, Yan Yue nearly burst into sobs, but fearing he would disturb his senior brother, he desperately held back, tears streaming down his face.
“A-Yue, don’t cry.” Lady Chao stroked Yan Yue’s head. “It truly will be fine. Teacher and Shimu are here, aren’t we?”
Yan Yue looked at Yan Hanque through his tears. His blind faith in his teacher finally allowed him to stop crying, nodding through his sobs.
Yan Ling ran a fever for an entire day and night. Ordinarily, such heat would have burned someone senseless, but whether due to the xiangwen’s spiritual force or not, the pain on Yan Ling’s face during sleep grew weaker and weaker. By the second evening, he was sleeping soundly.
The scalding heat completely subsided. The golden vines, which had been waving menacingly, finally took complete root in Yan Ling’s still-too-young meridians. Tianyan spiritual force flowed gently through his body.
Yan Hanque examined his meridians and, however reluctant to accept it, finally confirmed—the ten-year-old Yan Ling had awakened a Tianyan xiangwen.
Though the grade of the xiangwen was unknown, it was certainly not ordinary.
In other great families of the thirteen states, this would be announced with fanfare and celebration. But for a small sect like Yanwen Mountain with no family patronage, it was akin to carrying jade through danger. One misstep could bring calamity and destruction to the entire sect.
The two remained silent in the dead-quiet cave.
Suddenly, Lady Chao said: “The Medicinal Sect.”
Yan Hanque: “What?”
“Lady Wan of the Medicinal Sect.” Lady Chao said. “We were close friends from youth. The Lezheng family of the Medicinal Sect has a Tianyan earth vein. If A-Ling has truly awakened a xiangwen, she will certainly be able to discern it.”
Yan Hanque asked: “Trustworthy?”
Lady Chao said nothing more, only nodded.
Trustworthy.
Yan Hanque deliberated at length, then lowered his gaze to look at Yan Ling sleeping peacefully. After a long moment, he finally said: “Very well.”
From Yanwen Mountain to the Medicinal Sect in Central State City was a day’s journey round trip. Lady Chao found a rhino horn lamp and located Lady Wan’s rhino horn spiritual pathway, sending a message through it.
In mere moments, Lady Wan’s warm, gentle voice came through, tinged with laughter: “Chao-er, how many years has it been since you sought me out?”
The two hadn’t seen each other for a long time since marrying and having children. At the last Qiaoqi Festival, they had barely missed each other.
Lady Chao smiled slightly. Because the matter was urgent, she didn’t exchange pleasantries at length, speaking succinctly about the strangeness in Yan Ling’s meridians.
Lady Wan frowned: “Central State did indeed have anomalies these past days. Are you certain A-Ling’s meridians are awakening a xiangwen?”
“Nine times out of ten.”
“Good.” Lady Wan was decisive. “I’m coming right now.”
With that, she wasted no time leaving the spiritual pathway, heading toward Yanwen Mountain.
As night fell, a Xi family elder rushed urgently to the Tianyan Shrine.
Xi Ze stood alone amid candlelight filling the room, and upon seeing him, he turned slightly, his face expressionless.
“What is it?”
These past days, the Xi family had been privately handling the matter of Tianyan earth vein spiritual force leaking, but even after restraining Xi Jue, the Tianyan spiritual force kept flowing throughout the thirteen states.
After a day and night of searching, they still hadn’t found the final crack in the earth vein’s breach.
The elder panted: “Found, found the end of the crack. It’s at…”
Xi Ze’s eyes suddenly turned cold.
“…at the mountain range on the boundary between Central State and Northern Territory—Yanwen Mountain.”
***
Yan Ling felt as though he had been burned into ash by a golden flame. Half-conscious, he seemed to break through from that pile of ash and sprout tender buds toward the sunlight.
He stretched comfortably and rolled over on the bed. After some half-awake moments, he finally realized he was in a sealed cave dwelling.
Yan Ling couldn’t remember what had happened while he was unconscious. Confused, he felt around on the jade bed, and in the flickering candlelight, he vaguely recognized it as the mystical ice jade bed from his father’s seclusion chamber.
“Why am I here?” Yan Ling wondered and bounced down, but he had been running a fever for so long that he stumbled and knelt on the ground.
A ten-year-old child was resilient enough not to feel pain from a fall like that. Just as he was about to get up skillfully, he heard a strange sound in his ears.
No, rather, it seemed that after waking, the sounds his ears could hear were as if he had entered a different world.
The candlelight in the cave sighed with the resignation of the dying, flickering faintly before growing increasingly dim.
Water droplets clung to the stone points jutting from the mountain above, dripping down cheerfully one by one, as if singing a little tune.
It was as if everything in existence had gained life in his hearing.
Yan Ling confused reached up to touch his ear.
Just then, the cave’s door opened and Lady Chao walked in slowly. Seeing him awake, a shimmer of light flickered in her eyes: “A-Ling.”
Yan Ling quickly scrambled up and ran to Lady Chao, throwing his arms around her. For some reason, as if he’d been wronged: “Mother.”
Lady Chao touched his cheek and smiled: “The older you get, the more you like to act spoiled. Get up—are you hungry? I’ve made medicinal broth for you.”
Yan Ling caught the scent of medicinal broth and nearly leaned backward. Instinctively, he ran outside, but Lady Chao grabbed his small braid.
Lady Chao smiled sweetly: “Where are you going? Don’t think you can escape until you finish eating.”
Seeing there was nowhere to run, Yan Ling could only say aggrievedly: “Then let’s eat outside. This cave is so strange.”
The “sounds” around him seemed alive somehow, and it frightened him.
Lady Chao’s eyes dimmed slightly. She forced a smile: “Let’s eat first. We’ll talk after.”
Yan Ling vaguely sensed something was off with Lady Chao. He gave a flat “okay” and didn’t throw a tantrum like he usually did over medicinal broth. Instead, he obediently ate it bite by bite.
Yan Hanque stood at the cave entrance at some point, watching quietly. Small rain condensed in his dark hair into misty white water droplets.
He glanced at Lady Chao and gave a light nod.
Lady Chao, silent, turned to leave.
Yan Ling quickly wiped his mouth. Thinking he could leave too, he happily followed Lady Chao out.
But Yan Hanque said: “A-Ling, you stay here for now.”
Yan Ling froze: “Why? I want to go play.”
Yan Hanque said: “Not yet.”
Perhaps because Yan Hanque’s expression was too complex, Yan Ling was stunned for a long moment and, breaking his usual habit, didn’t whine or throw a tantrum: “Okay, I’ll stay here obediently.”
Lady Chao smiled: “Good boy.”
Seeing Lady Chao leave the cave, just as Yan Hanque was about to seal the stone door, Yan Ling suddenly panicked inexplicably and stepped forward quickly: “Father! Mother!”
Lady Chao turned back to look at him.
Yan Ling said hesitantly: “When can I come out?”
Night fell completely. Yan Hanque and Lady Chao stood in the gentle drizzle, behind them a darkness so heavy it seemed to devour everything.
Yan Ling’s heart raced, his hands gripping the partially-sealed barrier as he looked at them with fear on his face.
Yan Hanque’s hand paused. He suddenly opened the sealed barrier, walked forward slowly a few steps, and gestured for Yan Ling to come.
Yan Ling immediately ran forward and threw himself into his arms.
Yan Hanque touched the back of his head softly and said quietly: “Don’t be afraid.”
Before Yan Ling could react, Yan Hanque had already pulled him away.
Lady Chao bent down gently and wiped away tears from Yan Ling’s face that had fallen at some point, and answered his question with a smile.
“Be good. When the rain stops, Mother will come get you out.”
Yan Ling caught the faint medicinal scent on her, nodded dully: “Okay.”
***
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wannaberecluse On SRTT Chapter 50.1