Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

In his previous life, Xu Yuan had seen plenty of luxury mansions built inside wetland parks, but he had never seen a wetland park built inside a luxury mansion. It really was the kind of place where the old joke about needing to drive just to go to the bathroom came true.

As he walked through the gardens, Xu Yuan saw house servants and maidservants bustling about everywhere. Just like in the Third Young Master’s memories, quite a few of the prettier maids in the Xu residence at Stillwater showed no fear at all toward this infamous young wastrel.

As he passed by, a few of them even seemed faintly inclined to press themselves against him. To them, probably, no matter how it ended, latching onto the Third Young Master of the Chancellor’s household was the only chance they would ever have to rise in life.

After crossing the garden, Xu Yuan entered the manor’s reception hall. The great hall was quiet and still. Bright-patterned lamps hung on the walls, spilling out soft waves of light.

In his memory, this place was idle most of the time. Only on the rare occasions when important officials came calling with gifts would one of the estate stewards personally receive them here. Even the doorman before the Chancellor’s gate ranked like a seventh-grade official, let alone a steward. Matters like accepting gifts were naturally left to men like them.

After entering the hall, Xu Yuan did not hurry into the inner chambers. Instead, he first went behind a hanging painting on the wall and took out some banknotes. Not much, just two notes, each worth 1,000 taels.

This enormous Xu estate was full of treasure caches, all hidden by the Third Young Master. His father could not be bothered with his nonsense, but his two elder brothers, Xu Changge and Xu Changan, certainly could. Sometimes even that fourth sister of his joined in.

The Third Young Master could not beat those three bandits. As long as they found out, every bit of silver he had painstakingly scraped together by selling off family property would be snatched away. After enough of that, he had very cleverly learned to break the whole into pieces.

This time, Xu Yuan had deliberately taken a detour through the outer gardens of the estate to collect the money he had not had time to retrieve last time.

After subtracting the 5,000 taels he had earlier rewarded Zhou Chen with, he still had almost 20,000 taels left over. If his memory was right, the residence back in the Imperial Capital still held several tens of thousands more in hidden banknotes.

Of course, there had been cases before of servants skimming some of the money while dusting, but after the steward tracked them down and had them hung up and beaten to death in public, even those who knew about the hidden cash rarely dared touch it. Human life, especially the life of an ordinary person, truly was worth very little in this transcendent world.

Now that all the money had been gathered back up, the only thing left was cultivation. The Xu residence had a dedicated training chamber built into the estate. Inside it was a spirit spring, with its source qi locked in place by a spirit-locking array so it would not leak away.

The training grounds were divided into an inner and outer courtyard. The source qi in the outer courtyard was comparatively thin, and the guards and servants of the estate could use it freely in their spare time. The source qi in the inner courtyard was far denser, but access required payment in silver on a timed basis, or else an exchange of contribution merits from within the Chancellor’s estate for a limited-use reward.

Xu Yuan, naturally, had no need to follow such rules. With the gate attendant respectfully leading the way, he went straight into the innermost room, where the spirit spring was located.

After the attendant withdrew, he took out the source crystal that Xu Changge had given him, swallowed a few pills, closed his eyes, and began circulating his cultivation art, breathing in and refining source qi.

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Zhou Chen arrived the next day. After settling all the matters Xu Yuan had ordered him to investigate, he came at once to the cultivation chamber to aid the Third Young Master. He had said before that his cultivation art could assist Xu Yuan’s training. That, at least, he had not forgotten.

Time vanished in cultivation.

Xu Yuan soon discovered that Zhou Chen’s skill was absurdly effective in helping his progress.

Even with a top-tier art like the Blood Origin Heartfall Art, once the soul sense guided qi into the acupoints and meridians, it still had to be circulated through them a dozen or more times before that natural qi could be converted into his own source qi.

But with Zhou Chen at his side helping refine it, Xu Yuan only needed to run his cultivation art one or two cycles for complete refinement, and he no longer had to split his focus to control his soul sense and gather qi inward.

His cultivation speed had increased nearly tenfold. Xu Yuan was half stunned at first, and then, once the shock wore off, wildly delighted. After all, the reason an Innate Dao Physique was called an Innate Dao Physique was because before reaching the Grandmaster Realm, it had almost no bottlenecks at all.

At this rate, his strength would grow at a terrifying pace.

With every possible buff stacked on top of him, top-grade pills, a source crystal, the spirit-locking array, and Zhou Chen’s refining support, the cultivation speed of the Innate Dao Physique could only be described as covering ten thousand miles in a single day.

Xu Yuan had no idea how much time passed. Inside the sealed chamber lit by bright-patterned lamps, all was silent.

The finely robed young master seated cross-legged in the center remained motionless, eyes closed, steadily breathing and refining qi. Beside him, however, the bearded brute already had sweat faintly beading on his forehead.

Zhou Chen looked at Xu Yuan, who was cultivating with eyes shut, with a thoroughly constipated expression. He opened his mouth several times as if to speak, only to swallow the words back down every time. For a full ten days, the Third Young Master had not moved from that spot.

When hungry, he would take a cup from his Sumeru Ring and sip a little spirit spring water. The moment the medicinal effects of his pills ran dry, he would immediately pull out a few small jade bottles, shake several pellets into his mouth, and swallow them down.

As a Grandmaster, Zhou Chen naturally recognized what kind of pills were inside those jade bottles. The raw materials used to make those pills were already enough to refine spirit medicines and powders that could improve even his own cultivation. But now all those top-grade ingredients had actually been turned into pills meant to assist low-level cultivators.

More importantly, Zhou Chen realized he was starting to hit his limit. The Third Young Master’s breathing and refinement speed was simply too fast. Refining source qi outside the body and refining it within the body’s acupoints and meridians were two completely different things.

The gap between the two was not just tenfold. It was 100 times harder, at the very least.

And yet he, Zhou Chen, was a Grandmaster. No matter what, the Third Young Master was only at the ninth rank Body Tempering Realm. Even with pills and a source crystal supporting him, he should not have been able to breathe in and refine qi this quickly.

It seemed the Third Young Master not only possessed an Innate Dao Physique. The cultivation art he practiced was likely also one of the supreme arts of the age.

The thought flickered through Zhou Chen’s mind for a moment before he steadied himself and focused once more on circulating his art to assist Xu Yuan’s cultivation. Maybe, just maybe, the Third Young Master was finally someone worth betting heavily on.

The training chamber remained silent as source qi drifted and flowed soundlessly through the room.

Cycle after cycle, the cultivation art turned. Xu Yuan was like a greedy sponge, endlessly drawing in the pure source qi surging around him.

Time itself seemed to lose all meaning inside this cramped training chamber.

Finally, a soft pop sounded from within his body.

Just like the previous two times, Xu Yuan felt as though something inside him had suddenly broken apart without warning.

Have I broken through again...? Sensing the change in the fluctuations of source qi within himself, Xu Yuan slowly stopped circulating his cultivation art and lifted his eyes toward Zhou Chen across from him.

Before he could speak, Zhou Chen smiled and said first, “Congratulations, Young Master, on breaking through to the eighth rank Meridian Tempering Realm.”

His voice was light, but in the silent training room it carried with perfect clarity.

Hearing that, Xu Yuan finally confirmed it. He really had broken through to the eighth rank. Since he had encountered no difficulty at all, there was naturally not much excitement to speak of. Still, a breakthrough meant greater strength, and that was always a good thing.

After a brief pause, Xu Yuan gave a slight nod. “Thank you for your hard work.”

“It is nothing. I’m only a bit tired.” Zhou Chen shook his head with a smile, though his face looked faintly pale.

Of course, he was putting on airs. Helping a ninth rank cultivator was nowhere near enough to injure the inner qi of a Grandmaster like him. At most, it had been a little exhausting. But anyone with a brain could see what this meant. After going through this once, the Third Young Master would definitely have him assist with cultivation again in the future.

For work this tiring, he needed to get something in return. Xu Yuan understood that perfectly well, though he did not mind. If a subordinate truly wanted nothing at all, that was when one ought to worry.

And besides, helping another person refine source qi surely came with many restrictions. The fact that Zhou Chen’s cultivation art could overcome those limits was already something rare.

Still, other than silver, Xu Yuan could not yet give Zhou Chen the thing he truly wanted.

After thinking for a moment, Xu Yuan cupped his hands slightly and said in a clear voice, “I’ll report this matter truthfully to my father. Many thanks for your help this time.”