EMERGENCY!
Early Summer was spent training Lingyue in Houtian Martial Skills and combat training.
However, two weeks into said early summer, while selling herbs to maintain their cover, the Association was in anxiety.
'What's going on?' Lingyue inquired. She was the one selling the herbs today as nobody from Qiufeng Town knows her so unlike her mother, she can go out freely.
'Ah Xiao-Ling, you see, the young Lord Feng fell off his boat on his way to Xia City through the river. Bad enough he has a Cold Constitution with occasional frost-blasting cough.' Lingyue choked at the notion.
Cold Constitution, whether natural-born or poison-induced, pretty much makes your life hell while unable to cultivate. You're also a medicine pot for life.
'I guess that's what got everyone in a tizzy.'
'Yes...he's a political guest from Beiqing Country for ten years after the two countries allied years back.' said Master Huang. 'If he dies here, we're in big trouble!' he shuddered.
'That...would be bad even if its nobody's fault?' Lingyue stammered out.
'Yes. Because it's everyone's job to treat political guests well.' said Master Huang as he looked at Lingyue's wares. 'Let's see what you got here...ooh, your mother's talent with Beast Cores and parts comes in handy, these are 7th rank Beast Cores!' he was absolutely delighted.
Since coming to Lunhui Realm, Ye Huangyu has been bringing Beast Cores for sale.
7th-rank beasts are close to Dan Realm martialists in strength. Just how strong, is Lingyue's mother and Lingyue herself is a Dan Realm martialist. This mother-daughter pair can supply Glass City with high-class wares. Naturally, they go to themselves first. They have to get stronger to refine better materials!
'You got twenty of these things, so that's 5000 gold each, and your herbs are of middle-grade as ever. Total...750 gold.' he took out strings upon strings of gold, totaling a hundred thousand and seven-hundred and fifty gold. BIG MONEY. 'These middle-grade herbs should help us out! You're a life-saver!' Lingyue looked sheepish now.
'Ehehehe...t-thanks...?'
Upon coming back home, Lingyue took a bath.
She looked at her reflection in the water.
Her form as Lingyue is beautiful with a shapely body to match.
As Sadako, she was as 'straight as a ruler', flat-chested and skinny. It took a kind-hearted Toyama-san to love her for who she is as a person when there are more attractive girls in the troupe that killed her.
As a conservative japanese, her shape now, is gorgeous in a typical japanese mind when japanese women aren't lucky to have bodies like this. Waist so tiny and flat, flared hips with shapely legs and a firm rear, smooth creamy-white skin and full, firm and close-set breasts like miso soup bowls. She also has a beautiful face with rosy lips when before, she was plain and androgynous-looking...and her self-esteem took a nose-dive when some kids in Asakusa once mistook her for a *-choke-* crossdresser.
It boosted her self-esteem now that she looks pretty. All she wants now is a man who loves her and feel that warmth of springtime again.
She created her medicinal liquid soap, mixed it into her tub and dove right in while scrubbing herself and rinsing her hair.
She decided to take a break after a day's work. Now what to do...she doesn't have friends in this city. She was an object of envy for her looks and cultivation as well as owning expensive silks, so the girls her age don't like her for having what they don't. She attracts the local boys, even that nasty guy from the Mountain Sea Gang Sha Zhen.
Since she killed half their men to protect her uncle as he traveled with a large amount of money to Qiufeng Town and she stole from them in turn, they've been quiet for a while.
However, the law of the society in this world is Hypergamy. Lingyue is a beautiful Dan Realm Master and a skilled Hunter, making her and her mother very well-off. Most boys in the city are Houtian, and very few are Xiantian. One's cultivation depends on their finances and resources available, things she and her mother can easily get. There's no way the authorities will allow them to marry her. A boy equal to her in strength or stronger as well as wealthier, is permitted. Because its the duty of the husband to provide. The mere idea of a woman providing, is ludicrous and a sign of the husband's uselessness and shame.
The only other Dan Realm Master in Glass city is General Lan and he's old enough to be her grandfather!
So yes, nice guy he may be but rules are rules, making her sigh.
No boyfriends either.
Men who would fit the bill would be in Xia City but that city is a cesspit of cruelty, use and the used, betrayer and the betrayed, all for using each other until one's usefulness ran out. Its nothing but suffering there and the good people are already taken. She got gloomy, making her wonder if she'll be single for life...
'Lingyue, you home?!' Huangyu barged into their home after being in the market.
'I just finished bathing...did something happen?' Lingyue asked her mother.
'Thanks to our wares, the Alchemist Association managed to whip up pills to make that Political VIP well again...but just to be on the safe side, can you go check?' Huangyu asked Lingyue. 'To give President Liao a little more insight.'
'Uhm, where?'
'To that Feng Mansion in Zizhu Street.'
xxx
Zizhu Street is where the wealthy live. Mostly, alchemists and their families, merchants, etc.
Its also where a vacation house of Feng Shen, the young Lord Feng of Beiqing lives. There, she came with a bag of herbs.
'Excuse me, I was sent here for this.' Lingyue showed the guards what's in her bag and a letter from the Association. They found no poisonous herbs in her wares.
'...everything checks out.' said the guard and they escorted her in to a large room that reeked strongly of incense too strong for her nose she choked at the thick, cloying smell in the air.
'Eek! W-what's this smell?' she choked as she quickly wrapped a cloth around her head.
'It's medicinal incense.'
'Too strong!' Lingyue whimpered, overwhelmed.
'Young master needs it...and we're long used to it.' upon getting to the room was General Lan and President Liao.
'President, a young girl is here with more herbs.' said a bodyguard.
'Mm. Bring it here...ah, it's Lingyue, good timing.' President Liao greeted the girl who may as well wore a makeshift head wrap on her head. 'Er...?'
'I can't stand the weird smell...sorry.' Lingyue spoke in a muffled voice. 'Uhm anyway, here.' she gave her wrapped pack pf herbs. 'Is there anything else you'd like to ask?' the elderly president.
'Mm...I heard you have wine?'
'Oh! That too...lessee...' Lingyue took out a Heaven-Class Qiankun bag much to several eyes bulging and took out two jars. 'Here, Hundred-Fruit Wine. Judging by quality we found in the mountains, it's six years old so I hope it's OK.' the bodyguards tested the wine with silverware and its fragrance would have been wonderful, if it wasn't mixed with the horrible incense, Lingyue thought.
'Oh, after drinking you can't touch feeble things for at least a day, you'll be living wreckers until it wears off.' she warned. 'You'll be as strong as a 3rd-ranked Iron Arm Ape with a six-year-old wine...and your body will ooze impurities within, purged out so after an hour from now you need a bath. Cultivation will be smoother for a few weeks before re-taking it.'
'That must be how you got to Dan Realm at just age thirteen.' President Liao chuckled much to numerous disbelief. 'A clean body indeed, makes cultivation faster and smoother in progress.'
'Dan Realm at thirteen?!' General Lan sputtered out. 'That's genius level!'
'It's safe to drink, young master.' the bodyguards declared, scooping some up for the handsome man on bed. In the meantime, Lingyue used her psychic powers to look at Feng Shen. His body was indeed weak from not much exercise, his lungs have something strange in it, like its an eternal winter inside. Then something black came out that only she can see.
Pitch black. Cold. And a menacing shroud. The 'other her' is nothing compared to this!
You can see me? Don't look further. Speak nothing of it.
That, was scary!
Scary? Fufufu...as long as you don't pry any further, it won't be. so Lingyue backed out. 'Uhm...he'll burst a cold blast in ten minutes, we better back out soon...' the president nodded at her words.
'Right...the pills I'll make will stave some of that off. The material you brought me will be sufficient for a month's worth.' President Liao informed Lingyue. 'As a precaution, you and your mother look for the same quality of supplies, alright?'
'OK.'
xxx
At home, while Lingyue threw out the trash bags while her mother cooks dinner, she felt someone watching her whom she zeroed on up at the trees.
A masked man in black clothes.
That presence.
'You.'
The man smirked, appearing before her.
'...I haven't told anyone.' said Lingyue softly. 'You're wearing his body and I don't know how many people know...if I talk, the people with you will clearly kill me if they know I know what's going on with you and Feng Shen.' she shuddered. 'Two souls...how is that body still alive?' she asked incredulously.
'How about you? You're half a soul.' the man snarked as Lingyue cringed. He knew it from when they met?
'...I died and got reborn here without the other half of me who remains alive to this day in another place.' Lingyue informed him. 'I was saved by a kind soul who truly wished for me to be saved and rescued my body from that cold well I was sealed in by my stepfather...but my other half who held much of my power and my hatred stayed behind, insistent on making everyone pay for what was done to me and my first mother. There's no convincing her. She's a step away from becoming a demon. She didn't listen to Asakawa Reiko like I did. Reiko didn't reach her heart.'
'A demon?'
Lingyue's shoulders sagged.
'...in my country in my world...there's a belief that if you died with hatred because you were horribly wronged till your death, your soul knows no rest until your quench your thirst for revenge...you become a Yuanling. An evil spirit capable of harming the mortal plane and they are at their strongest at their object of hatred.' Lingyue told him and he was interested with her tale. 'She will not stop...I am weaker than her and I have our more...friendlier powers. She has the scarier part of our heritage and the bulk of our full strength. I am the human side, she is the supernatural side from our non-human father. I am half of my soul because she will not stop, while I passed on to here...where I got the chance for a normal life with my new mother. It will take a miracle to stop her. Until then...many more will die. It has been thirteen years since my death.'
'I see...that made you sensitive to presences of spirits as you are close to death. And that's what made you sense me.' the man mused thoughtfully.
'Yes. I do not advertise my true nature to my new mother or to any human here for that matter.' said Lingyue. 'For her sake.' she touched the man's hand and showed him their past in the Hong Mansion. That Lingyue warned her mother from the womb what would happen if she barged in on her husband's wedding with Zhuge Rou after discarding his first wife on her delivery day of all days! As revenge for her mother's abuse and castigation when Hong Fang got the status he wanted. On her delivery day, she could still curse, and robbed the Hongs blind, and denied Hong Fang of what he betrayed his first wife for. She also ensured Hong Mingyue was never born with her stunt and spared the poor girl of being exploited for her genius, showing the man her future until the end of the rebellion...next year.
'I see...then...can you see a future when I'm cured of this accursed poison?' the man narrowed his eyes. This girl has unusual powers not of this world. She was too trusting of secrets about herself too when nobody in this world would do so. She can see the future as well which will come in handy...for his own sake.
'There is a cure but had it been given to you when you're young, it would have been cost-free...' this got the man double-taking at her words. '...but to protect Feng Shen, the King and Hong Chenru lied to the Feng House, and used the poison to restrain you while knowing it will also hurt Feng Shen and made him the medicine pot he is today in fear you'll destroy him and take over.' the man looked pissed at this. 'If you take the cure now...you'll have to sacrifice a good chunk of your power to make it work. From what I let you see...er...' she squirmed nervously. 'You won't like it.' she showed him that kind of future with the cure.
However, he indeed grossly-weakened after upon taking the cure as he reinforced the cure with his cultivation. He weakened to Avatar Realm! What the hell?! He, the Ghost Emperor, weakened to that extent for taking the cure late in life?!
While he is still the strongest being in this world, he didn't take losing a large chunk of his hard-earned power well.
'Blast them!' the man looked pissed. 'Deceive me, will they?!' he growled, killing intent leaking out that Huangyu rushed out of the house in alarm for her daughter, but the man left.
'Lingyue, who is that man?!' Huangyu cried, fearing for her timid daughter who's right next to that killing intent.
'His rage is not at me so I'm OK...he just found out a truth that greatly angered him.' Lingyue sighed. 'Two people will die soon.'
'I see...as long as its not at you its ok. Come on, wash your hands, dinner just cooked.' the two women then went inside their home for dinner.