The darkness in Yù Méi's mind gave way to a dull rumble.
It wasn't the sound of the room. The noise came from beneath her own ribs. The hollow, withered void that had condemned her to mortal weakness no longer existed. The girl's chest rose in a violent gasp, and air flooded her lungs, filling the newly forged Spiritual Veins that now pulsed thick as steel cables.
She opened her eyes. The intoxicating smell of sweet sweat and heat assaulted the youngest's nostrils.
The torpor from fainting vanished at once. Thick blood boiled in the teenager's neck. Her stomach dropped when she realized her face was resting directly on Zhì Yuǎn's firm thigh, supported by the man's thick arm. Her golden dress was still pulled down, exposing her shoulders and the chest where the Primordial Gold had struck.
Yù Méi recoiled with a sudden jolt, her shoes scraping against the limestone floor. Her trembling hands grabbed the wrinkled fabric of the dress and pulled it against her chest with force, shrinking into the center of the stone. Her face burned with shame.
Zhì Yuǎn did not change his posture. The arm that had been supporting her rested back on his own leg. He looked at the girl on the floor, evaluating his own work like a painter admiring his finished piece.
— Looks like everything went well — his deep voice broke the silence, ignoring his sister-in-law's scarlet face. — You're officially a cultivator now, Méi.
The girl swallowed the saliva that had suddenly filled her mouth.
— Now I'm going to open your pores — he continued. — This time, it's better to take off your dress. Your skin is going to vomit out the old filth from your insides. If you stay dressed, the sludge will ruin your new clothes. Keep only your undergarments.
Near the heavy redwood door, Yù Qíng said nothing.
Disgust was already twisting the eldest's stomach at the sight of her sister's sweaty head resting on her man's lap. Faced with the order to undress, Yù Qíng didn't wait for the youngest to hesitate. She slid across the stone floor and stopped behind the teenager.
Without any sisterly delicacy, Yù Qíng's cold hands grabbed the collar of the golden dress on the youngest's back. She yanked the fabric down firmly in one motion, stripping the girl with pure possessive and territorial force, making sure her sister didn't put on any seductive display in front of him.
The golden silk fell, forming a puddle on the floor. Yù Méi clenched her teeth, trembling under the cold of the room, her back and shoulders bare.
Zhì Yuǎn moved and stopped behind the teenager. He placed his hand between her shoulder blades.
He did not push energy — he pulled. Using his Will, he forced the Qi he had planted inside her to expand outward with violence, tearing open the pores that had been sealed since birth.
The pain was absolute. Yù Méi's spine stretched in a spasm. A sharp scream tore from the girl's throat. Beneath her pale skin, the millions of mortally sealed pores swelled at once, pushing fourteen years of sludge to the surface.
Crack. Sssshhhh.
The sound of flesh giving way echoed through the room. The locks burst. A thick, black, and absurdly foul sludge gushed from every pore of the teenager. It was the dregs of mortality: impure remnants and stagnant blood. The liquid ran down the young girl's back and arms, dripping onto the stone with heavy splashes.
The smell of rotten leaves and old blood swallowed the oxygen in the room. Yù Qíng wrinkled her nose in pure disgust and covered her face with the sleeve of her blue silk, looking at the sludge with contempt.
In the center of the filth, Yù Méi collapsed. Her pitch-black hands struck the stone. She coughed, spitting out the last dark clot onto the floor.
But the exhaustion lasted only a single heartbeat. The moment the black sludge left her body, the girl's newly opened pores devoured the energy from the environment all at once. The temperature around her dropped. She was finally breathing through her own skin. Weakness evaporated, and the kinetic force of a true cultivator made her small fingers crack the stone floor.
Zhì Yuǎn rubbed the soot from his fingers onto his thigh and looked at the black mess on the ground.
— It's done — he declared. He turned his face toward his wife. — Qíng. Take your sister to the water. Help her clean up.
———
The hot water in the cedar tub turned black within seconds.
Yù Qíng showed no mercy. She poured water with a copper jug and scrubbed the youngest's back with a hard brush, removing the foul sludge that clung to her skin. Yù Méi clenched her teeth and endured the burning bath without complaining.
— The worst is out — Yù Qíng said, tossing the dirty brush into the basin and turning her back. — Finish washing and get dressed.
She left the bathroom and closed the door.
Alone in the dirty water, Yù Méi sighed and rubbed her own head. When she pulled a wet lock of hair forward to rinse it, she froze. The dull brown strands had changed. Zhì Yuǎn's energy had altered her body from the inside out. Now, her hair shone in a light blonde tone, heavy and with a metallic sheen.
She smiled faintly, feeling her own foundation vibrate with strength. She stepped out of the tub, dried herself quickly, and put on the new golden dress. The cotton fabric felt tight. Her body had changed: her shoulders and hips were firmer and broader because of the new bones and muscles.
Yù Méi pushed open the bathroom door and returned to the main room.
In the center of the chamber, Zhì Yuǎn was sitting in the chair, looking at the medical scrolls. Yù Qíng was sitting on his lap, absentmindedly playing with the collar of her husband's tunic, looking bored.
When Yù Méi entered with firm steps, Zhì Yuǎn raised his eyes from the paper.
He looked at the girl from head to toe. There was no malice or lust in his gaze — only the evaluation of a master admiring his finished work of art. He lowered the scroll and gave a calm, gentle smile.
— All the filth is gone and the bones are properly aligned — Zhì Yuǎn said, his rustic voice sounding satisfied. — Your foundation is perfect. You look beautiful, Méi.
Yù Méi's breath caught.
The compliment hit her like a punch to the chest. It wasn't the comment about her foundation that shook her — it was hearing him say she looked beautiful, in that calm and sincere voice. Blood rushed hot to her cheeks. Instead of lowering her head like she always did, she raised her face and looked directly at her brother-in-law. Her eyes shone with a mixture of adoration and a courage she herself hadn't expected to feel.
For the first time, she felt that he was truly looking at her.
Yù Qíng, who was sitting on Zhì Yuǎn's lap, stopped playing with his tunic. The eldest slowly turned her head. Her gaze darkened instantly.
Yù Méi felt the weight of that look, but she did not back down. Still warm from the compliment, she turned her head toward her sister and raised her chin, holding the eye contact. A silent challenge. A small, bold victory.
Yù Qíng narrowed her eyes, her lips parting to say something sharp.
Roooonc.
Yù Méi's stomach let out a loud, prolonged growl, cutting through the tense silence of the room.
The girl's face, which was already red, turned the color of a ripe tomato. All her posture of courage collapsed in a second. She quickly lowered her head, hunched her shoulders, and crossed her arms over her stomach, as if she wanted to disappear.
Zhì Yuǎn let out a low laugh, breaking the tension.
— You haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon — he said, standing up slowly and setting Yù Qíng on the floor. — Your new body burns a lot of energy. Let's go downstairs and get you something decent to eat.
———
The midday sun fried the stones of Qīngshí's eastern square. The smell of melted lard, sweat, and animal urine saturated the open market.
The trio marched in unison. Zhì Yuǎn's dense presence cleared a path through the crowd. Peasants and mercenaries instinctively moved aside before even bumping into him.
Zhì Yuǎn tossed pure silver flakes onto the greasy wood of a stall. The vendor took the metal with trembling hands and handed over the skewers of roasted meat. The merchant's fear was visible: under the scorching sun, the skin of the three outsiders remained perfectly dry and cool, exuding an impossible freshness for that urban slaughterhouse.
Behind him, Yù Méi was already on her fifth skewer. She ate quickly, cracking the bones with force while the juice ran down her chin.
Beside her husband, Yù Qíng walked in silence. Her navy-blue silk slid impeccably. The dark veil hid her face, wrinkled in disgust at the filth of the street. Zhì Yuǎn's dense aura enveloped his wife, keeping away the dust and insects that approached.
A few stalls later, Zhì Yuǎn stopped abruptly.
— Ow — Yù Méi exclaimed, having bumped into her brother-in-law's back while distracted with a piece of meat stuck between her teeth.
The man's dark gaze turned toward a narrow alley squeezed in the shadows between two weaving tents, as if he had sensed something wrong in the air.
— There's a heavier current of Qi leaking from that crack — Zhì Yuǎn said. He turned his broad shoulders toward the shadow. — Let's take a look.
They left the strong light and crossed into the alley. The temperature dropped sharply. At the end of the narrow, moss-covered corridor, a massive, worn wooden door blocked the passage. Above the frame, a heavily rusted iron plaque displayed a deep mark: Gǔ Dào — Ancient Path.
Zhì Yuǎn stopped one step from the entrance. The young man evaluated the wood, eaten away by the cold, pathogenic air, and the rusted hinges. A cynical half-smile curved his lips.
— Cheap trick to scare off peasants and look mysterious — he remarked, his tone dry with boredom.
His calloused hand pressed directly against the old oak. With a single brutal push from the base of his arm, Zhì Yuǎn forced the doors of the past to burst inward with a violent crash, throwing them wide open without wasting a single second.