“Alright, I’ll leave early and come back early. I won’t make you wait too long for me, my dear consort.” Li Mo gave Yun Ruoyan a quick peck on the lips.

Yun Ruoyan’s eyes widened. When she regained her senses, she quickly checked her surroundings—this was the southern tower, and it would hardly be appropriate for them to be caught out here!

But Li Mo only cackled like a mischievous child. A green aura appeared by his feet, and he flew off into the horizon.

Yun Ruoyan watched his silhouette until he was swallowed up by the sea of clouds surrounding Kongming Academy. Only then did she head to Lin Qingchen’s small bamboo garden. When she arrived, the Lin sisters were talking. They both waved at her when they saw her, as though they had something to talk to her about.

“What’s the matter?” Yun Ruoyan walked toward them. “Shouldn’t the two of you be preparing to meditate?”

“Sister Ruoyan,” Lin Qingxue began, “Sister Qingchen brought Whitey over here, but I suppose calling it Big White might be more appropriate now…”

“What?” Yun Ruoyan exclaimed. “You brought Whitey over? Where is it?” She glanced all around the bamboo garden, but she didn’t see any spot suitable for Whitey. 

“It’s over here.” Lin Qingchen raised a hand, showing two rings. Yun Ruoyan recognized one of them as a simple extradimensional storage ring. The other one was far more ancient, but it too looked familiar. After a few moments of thought, she finally recognized it as a ring she had seen on Lin Zainan’s finger before.

“Is this from Grandfather?” Yun Ruoyan asked.

“Yes, it’s a family heirloom,” Lin Qingchen replied. “Grandfather passed it on to me.”

The Lin family was an established family of pillmakers, and sourcing ingredients for their pills would require significant interaction with magical beasts. This ring, which possessed an extradimensional space suitable even for living creatures, was something that an ancestor of the Lins had obtained with great effort.

“Whitey’s currently inside this ring,” Lin Qingxue explained. “Sister Ruoyan, it’s been a long time since you’ve last seen Whitey, hasn’t it? It’s grown so big now!”

“Let me see.” Yun Ruoyan touched Lin Qingchen’s ring with a finger, then infused a shred of mental energy within it, transporting her into the extradimensional space. Just like Yun Ruoyan’s silver bracelet, the interior of the space was vague and indistinct at the edges. Yun Ruoyan turned around in a circle, trying to find Whitey’s whereabouts.

“Qingchen, why don’t I see Whitey?” Yun Ruoyan asked mentally. Only after a while did Lin Qingchen reply, “I don’t know where it is, either. My mental energy isn’t sufficient to enter the interior of the ring, but Whitey’s in there for sure. Try calling out its name.”

Just as Yun Ruoyan was about to do so, a huge splash filled the room, and what seemed to be a gigantic, snowy-white dragon appeared in front of Yun Ruoyan. Not three steps away from her was a deep pool, and Whitey had been hiding within it.

Yun Ruoyan remembered that, the last time she had seen Whitey, it had already assumed the shape of a giant serpent. Now, it had grown even larger. Given how dim the space was, if Yun Ruoyan didn’t know that it was a magical serpent, she would surely have thought it a silver dragon. 

More shocking than its size was Whitey’s two expressive eyes. They had always been large; as a little serpent, they were adorable, but now, they were the size of two brass cymbals, pitch-black but also with a reflective coating. It was staring at Yun Ruoyan, giving her a curious sensation that she didn’t quite know how to explain.

“Whitey, do you still remember me?” Yun Ruoyan extended a hand to Whitey, who hesitated for a moment before moving toward her.

Just as Whitey touched Yun Ruoyan, the demonic eye hidden deep within Yun Ruoyan’s soul suddenly opened. As though electrocuted, Whitey immediately ducked back from her, then stared at Yun Ruoyan even more suspiciously.

“Whitey, don’t you recognize me?” Yun Ruoyan seemed rather disappointed. “But it’s only been a few months! I suppose it’s true that snake-type beasts don’t have good long-term memory, but you have to remember to protect your mistress, you hear me?”

Yun Ruoyan extracted her mental energy from the ring as she returned to the real world.

“Well? Isn’t Whitey more like Big White by now?” Lin Qingxue asked. “It used to be so small it could fit in my palm—and now it’s growing larger and larger, day by day! It’s only been a year, but it can’t even fit in the pond that Sister Qingchen specially constructed for it anymore. My catfish trembles every time it sees it.”

Yun Ruoyan frowned as she looked toward Lin Qingxue. “You brought that strange catfish over here as well?” That catfish had been Lin Qingchen’s, but because it was so afraid of Whitey, Lin Qingxue had kept it in her own cottage instead.

“Heh heh.” Lin Qingxue smiled somewhat embarrassedly. “I didn’t intend on bringing it initially, but it seemed so lonely all by itself in the Lin manor. By the time I checked up on it over New Year’s, it had stopped laughing entirely! I was worried that it had gotten depressed, so I decided to keep it by my side.”

Initially, Lin Qingxue had hated and was deathly afraid of that catfish, but for some reason, she had had a change of heart. Now, she had even brought it over to Kongming Academy.

“You’re not intending on bringing it with you to the otherworld, are you? I’m afraid it’ll be even more depressed there,” Yun Ruoyan asked skeptically.

“No, I won’t! It only knows how to cry and laugh, and it won’t be any help to me there! I’ve entrusted it to one of my friends,” Lin Qingxue replied.

She frowned, then clutched her abdomen. “I feel a sudden pulse of heat from my stomach…”

“Me too,” Lin Qingchen added.

“The gathering-spirit pill must be activating. Quick, hurry into your rooms and begin to cultivate. I’ll guard you both,” Yun Ruoyan replied anxiously.

The three of them rushed into the cottage, where the Lin siblings sat cross-legged on Lin Qingchen’s bed. Because she had experienced eating the heavenly spirit fruit for herself, she knew that failing to absorb the spiritual energy it released had potentially disastrous consequences.

Although this heavenly spirit fruit had already been made into a pill, and the spiritual energy it could provide was similarly limited, it took the Lin sisters their entire concentration and effort to absorb and refine the spiritual energy it granted them. In the end, under Yun Ruoyan’s guidance and assistance, they managed to absorb the entire pill’s worth of energy during the night. As dawn broke, Lin Qingchen was the first to open her eyes.

“Sister Ruoyan, I feel like I’m right at the cusp of becoming an eighth-rank blademaster!” Lin Qingchen exclaimed in excitement. She had been a peak seventh-rank blademaster, and now she felt like she could break through at any moment.

“Sister Ruoyan!” Lin Qingxue woke up not too long after. “I’m… I’m at the peak of seventh rank!”

Lin Qingxue was excited, but also in disbelief: in the past, it had always taken months, even years, of concerted effort to raise her cultivation even a little, but she had gone from early seventh-rank to peak seventh-rank in a single night!

“This is the potency of sage-grade spiritual pills,” Yun Ruoyan remarked. She had been stalled at the peak of seventh-rank for quite a few months, and a single heavenly spirit fruit had allowed her to break through, so she knew of the potency of such spiritual pills and treasures for herself.

It had taken her and Li Mo a week of careful, coordinated planning to obtain just a single heavenly spirit fruit, but the first elder had obtained four in the otherworld seemingly without much effort. Clearly, the otherworld was filled with as much danger as treasures and opportunities,

It seemed that there were potential upsides to bringing the Lin sisters to the otherworld with her, after all.

After the entire night’s worth of cultivation, the three girls were all somewhat tired. Lin Qingxue lay down in Lin Qingchen’s bed and began to sleep, while Yun Ruoyan returned to her own cottage by the cliff. What she most wanted to do was to take a hot bath, but she didn’t know where to get warm water in the middle of the day. She was so tired that, the moment she lay down in bed, she fell asleep.

Yun Ruoyan woke up to find herself wrapped up in a warm embrace. She turned her head, only to come into contact with Li Mo’s lower jaw. 

“You’re awake,” Li Mo murmured.

“When did you return? I didn’t even notice!” Yun Ruoyan buried her head in Li Mo’s lap,and then her stomach began to growl. She had done so so many times in front of Li Mo that her initial embarrassment had turned to calm indifference. “Ah, I’m so hungry!”

“Guarding someone is truly taxing work.” Li Mo smiled. “What do you want to eat? I’ll have some food brought to you from the cafeteria.”

“Meat, all sorts of meat!”

“Alright, give me a moment.” Li Mo got up, a green aura flashed by his feet, and his shadow vanished from sight.

“Ah, get some for Qingchen and Qinxue as well!” Yun Ruoyan shouted, but she didn’t know if Li Mo had heard her. Moments later, Li Mo once again appeared in front of Yun Ruoyan, pulling her up from her sleep.

“Let me sleep a little more, a little more,” Yun Ruoyan mumbled.

“Get up first—I have something to show you. Once you’ve seen it, I promise you’ll be so excited you won’t want to sleep anymore…”

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