Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

The days by the Spirit Lake passed both faster and slower than Su Ming had imagined.

The spiritual energy lake in his Dantian had grown to nearly twice the size it was when he entered the secret realm. The color of the liquid spiritual energy had shifted from light blue to deep blue—not because of impurities, but because repeated compression and purification had raised its density. The faint vestiges of formation lines he had gleaned from the Spirit Gathering Array in the hollow were also gradually coming into clearer focus instead of remaining blurred.

Su Ming opened his eyes.

Morning light filtered through the treetops and fell across the hollow’s water, turning that pool of deep blue so that its edges flashed silver.

The formation lines beneath the water were still slowly rotating, flashing on and off, their rhythm almost synchronized with the rise and fall of the spiritual energy lake inside his Dantian.

This synchronization wasn’t the result of deliberate effort. It happened because he had sat there long enough for his body to naturally fall into tune with that hollow.

Ying lay on his right knee, burying her head under her wings, breathing evenly. She had been sleeping more and more lately. At first Su Ming worried, but after sensing through the blood contract—Ying’s vitality was more vigorous than before, and the glow of the three law-brand marks within her had brightened compared to when they first entered the secret realm.

Lin Yu said this was called charging power.

So Su Ming stopped worrying about it.

He stood up and brushed dew off his robe. Nearly two months had passed since entering the secret realm. The leaves on the treetops had changed from deep green to a slightly withered dark green—this Ancient Path seemed to have its own seasons, only much slower than the outside world.In one month, he had done three things.

The first was cultivation. Thanks to the concentration of spiritual energy in the lake and the support of the Spirit Gathering Array, the operational efficiency of the Like Water Art increased by nearly thirty percent. His Foundation Establishment mid-stage cultivation became as stable as a rock, faintly brushing the edge of mid-stage peak.

The second was studying formation runes. The Spirit Gathering Array at the lakebed was like an open textbook, running before him every day. Those concentric formation line structures, the processes of spiritual energy converging, compressing, and releasing, repeated day after day. The more he watched, the more they collided with the rune knowledge already in his mind—the seventh variant of the “Gather” rune, the description of which he had read in Three Thousand Questions on the Path of Formations but never fully understood. The third ring of the lakebed’s patterns happened to demonstrate that concept in an extremely ancient way. After watching for five days, he suddenly understood.

Not a sudden enlightenment, but a quieter understanding—like a seed in soil that, after waiting a long time, sprouts its first leaf. You can’t say exactly when it germinated, but it has indeed grown.

Those vague insights accumulated along the way—the flow of spiritual energy under the stone path, the active formation line structures on the ancient trees—had originally been scattered fragments. At the Spirit Lake’s edge, they suddenly began to gather themselves into a coherent whole.

By today, the number of formation runes he had fully mastered had risen from just over three hundred when he entered the secret realm to about three hundred and fifty. And for every newly mastered rune, he could clearly tell why it operated that way.

The third thing had nothing to do with cultivation. Every day he spent some time squatting on the patch of muddy ground at the hollow’s edge, drawing diagrams—drawing the formation lines on the ancient trees along the path. From the first tree to every subsequent tree with patterns, he recorded them one by one, lining them up to see if there were commonalities.

He found three: all the trees’ formation lines grew from the inside out; although each tree’s formation structure differed, their breathing rhythms were the same; the third—and the one that puzzled him most—was that those formation lines seemed to have some connection with the spiritual energy fluctuations in the stone path beneath his feet, a connection he couldn’t yet put into words.

He set that third point aside for now. Xuanheng had said that not being able to see something is also part of the path.

He cupped a handful of water and washed his face. The liquid spiritual energy chilled him to the bone the instant it touched skin. Ying was awakened by his movement. She leaped off his knee and let out a disgruntled call.

Then she lowered her head and inspected her own claws attentively.

Ying lifted her right claw and made a motion in the air, then lowered it. She made the motion again, then lowered it again.

Su Ming crouched nearby and watched without making a sound. Ying’s movements were odd, as if trying to grasp something invisible. The three faint rune marks on her brow—Edge, Concealment, Obliterate—flickered in the morning light.

“She seems to be attempting to manipulate the laws,” Lin Yu’s voice came from his Consciousness Sea.

“Which one?” Su Ming asked.

“I can’t tell.” Lin Yu’s tone carried a rare curiosity. “A spirit beast cub’s law awakening isn’t orderly—like when you were a child learning to walk. After falling a few times, one day you suddenly could.”

Ying made a few more gestures but nothing happened. She drooped her head in mild disappointment, ruffled her feathers, then hopped to the water to snatch those little “fish” of condensed spiritual energy.

Su Ming shook his head, returned to the stone, sat down, and resumed cultivation.

Spiritual energy flowed through his meridians, the lake inside his Dantian rising and falling. One hundred breaths per cycle.

Just as he settled into the first quarter-hour of cultivation—

Su Ming sensed Ying through the blood contract.

Ying’s heartbeat accelerated. Not fear, but an extremely excited quickening, as if she were about to break from a shell. Her vitality surged, and the glow of the three law-brand marks within her flared simultaneously—

Su Ming snapped his eyes open.

Ying was standing at the water’s edge. She had stopped pouncing on fish. Her whole body froze, golden eyes wide, pupils constricted to pinpricks of gold.

Then the three rune marks on her brow brightened at once.

Edge. Concealment. Obliterate.

Three lights flared simultaneously, so brief they seemed like an illusion.

The next instant, Ying vanished. Not flying away, not running off—she disappeared into thin air. Su Ming’s divine sense spread out and covered fifty zhang around the hollow—there was nothing. Ying’s aura had been extinguished cleanly, like a candle snuffed by a hand.

The blood contract remained. He could sense Ying was alive, vitality strong. But he couldn’t find her.

“Ying?”

No response. The hollow around them was so quiet only the water’s faint flashes could be heard.

One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. Four breaths. Five breaths. Su Ming’s right hand had already touched the survival formation plate tucked in his sleeve.

On the sixth breath—his left shoulder suddenly felt a weight.

A black fluff ball appeared out of nowhere on his shoulder.

“Chiu—!”

Ying let out a triumphant cry, the same proud tone she used when teasing the white crane on Spirit Beast Peak.

Su Ming froze for two breaths, then reached up to flick her forehead. “You scared me.”

Ying was displeased. She spread her wings, hovered in midair for a moment—then vanished again.

This time Su Ming watched the spot where she disappeared like a hawk. He couldn’t see anything, divine sense detected nothing, not even a ripple in spiritual energy. After seven breaths, Ying reappeared on his right shoulder.

From his Consciousness Sea, Su Ming heard the vibration in Lin Yu’s voice: “The Concealment character rune—she activated it on her own.”

Su Ming exhaled slowly. Ying hadn’t just become “invisible”—she had actually disappeared from the perception layer. This wasn’t ordinary invisibility. Invisibility hides, but Ying’s previous state prevented even her owner’s divine sense from detecting her.

Lin Yu drifted out and looked down at Ying with a complex expression—relief, surprise, and a pride even he hadn’t fully recognized. The three laws he had burned onto her at the risk of his own soul power when she hatched were finally bearing fruit.

“Not bad.” Lin Yu restrained his emotions and issued only two words. “This bird can now actively use the Concealment Technique. She’ll be qualified as a stealth scout.”

Ying didn’t understand stealth scout, but she clearly understood praise and lifted her little head proudly.