It must be the sheer exhaustion from so long without a proper night's sleep that caused Long Ping and Long Ting to cling to Nie Kong’s arm, sobbing themselves into slumber.
Carrying the two young maids upstairs to the sleeping quarters, Nie Kong looked at their eyes, swollen like walnuts, and felt a surge of emotion, yet a faint, wry smile touched the corner of his lips.
Looking at them, it seemed they would never leave him for the rest of their lives. While it was manageable now that they were young, figuring out how to arrange their lives once they grew into women was a troublesome prospect. Could he really end up treating them as mere maids, just as Long Xuechan suggested?
Unbidden, Hua Mei’s image resurfaced in Nie Kong’s mind. By his reckoning, it had been over half a year since Hua Yanlian took her away...
In a mysterious locale within the middle section of the Nu Cang Mountain Range, in the Shatu Empire, hundreds of flowers bloomed, competing in splendor, the very air saturated with floral scents, some rich, others delicate.
At the heart of this sea of blossoms lay a shallow pool, spanning several zhang, its water gently rippling as if dyed crimson, emanating a magnificent, blood-red, ethereal glow.
Hua Mei's ** body sat perfectly still, cross-legged in the center of the pool. The water only covered her buttocks and her tightly clasped **; everything from the waist up was exposed to the void.
At this moment, dense, blood-red threads began to separate from the surrounding pool water, tracing their way up her smooth, tender skin...
Crawling over the two full, proud mounds of her chest, then gliding past her swan-like, beautifully slender jade neck...
After almost completely enveloping Hua Mei's delicate countenance, all the blood-red threads converged upon the center of her brow. At that spot, a small pattern shimmered with a brilliant red radiance, resembling a tiny butterfly with spread, gently fluttering wings.
Suddenly, a muffled groan escaped Hua Mei’s lips; her soft chest rose and fell sharply, her graceful figure trembling intensely with it. Her beautiful face contorted and shuddered, and the sound of her quick, heavy breaths carried far away, as if she were enduring an ineffable, violent agony.
Simultaneously, the blood in the pool churned upward, rising higher and higher, until in the blink of an eye, it surged from her waist to her bosom.
With subtle sounds of air being displaced, Hua Yanjian’s figure, flushed crimson, materialized at the pool’s edge. A red light flickered between her brows, and a small red flower shot forth from the center of her forehead, spiraling rapidly above Hua Mei’s head. This flower also expanded swiftly, growing to several zhang in size within a moment, entirely obscuring the shallow pool below.
With a soft cry, Hua Yanjian pointed her delicate, crystalline jade finger—as slender as a young onion—into the distance. Vaguely, an invisible force projected from her fingertip, plunging directly into the center of the massive flower. Immediately following, a deafening boom echoed outward:
The flower, spanning several zhang, suddenly burst apart, transforming into flecks of red light that merged into the blood pool beneath. In an instant, the rising, surging water strangely calmed. The water level began to recede, and shortly after, the two proud, submerged peaks of Hua Mei’s chest were exposed once more.
However, as soon as the water dropped below the tips of her breasts, the pool began to churn and rise again.
In less than two seconds, the water level once more submerged Hua Mei’s chest.
Hua Yanjian’s expression darkened. Another red flower shot out from between her brows, exploding violently above the blood pool, scattering layers of red light onto the water. Just as before, the water level dropped back below the level of Hua Mei’s chest, but after only a short while, the water rose again...
With Hua Yanjian’s sharp cries, the water level rose and fell, cycling through the process nine times. Finally, it subsided to its original position. Hua Mei’s delicate body calmed, and her breathing eased. But a trace of clear fatigue appeared on Hua Yanjian’s enchanting face.
Even the pattern between Hua Yanjian’s brows had noticeably dimmed.
“It’s the final day!”
A sigh sounded nearby, its tone melodious and pleasant, yet imbued with a certain ethereal quality. Though the voice was right beside her, it seemed impossibly distant.
“Your Majesty, the Empress!”
Hua Yanjian turned slightly, a subtle reverence in her eyes. Floating serenely in the void two meters before her was a flower of dazzling, variegated colors, the size of a washbasin. From afar, it resembled a vividly beautiful, fluttering colored butterfly, shimmering with an alluring, brilliant glow.
The color and shape of this flower were strikingly similar to the pattern on Hua Mei’s brow in the blood pool.
The only difference was that this celestial flower possessed eight petals, while the pattern on Hua Mei’s brow had only four—exactly half the number.
An ethereal, pleasing lament drifted from the butterfly-like flower: “Eighty-one days! The little girl entered the Imperial Flower Pool eighty-one days ago. If there is still no sign of bloodline awakening today, I fear my Flower Spirit Clan will lose another royal descendant. Alas!”
A bitter twist involuntarily played upon Hua Yanjian’s lips: “In nearly twenty years, only four royal descendants have been added to our Flower Spirit Clan. If this little girl, Hua Mei, cannot awaken her bloodline and cultivate the Royal Heart Aspect, the Flower Spirit Imperial Ceremony four years from now might be impossible to complete. At that time...”
The voice sighed softly, “If it is not completed, the Flower Spirit Clan will face a great crisis.”
“Thousands of years ago, the bloodlines of the Flower Spirit Clan were so rich that any member could cultivate the Royal Heart Aspect. Who would have thought that the royal bloodline would wither to this extent today? If you hadn't visited the Dacheng Empire six months ago, this child would never have returned to the Flower Butterfly Secret Realm. It is a pity her age exceeds the optimal period for bloodline awakening...”
Hua Yanjian gazed intently at Hua Mei’s blood-stained figure in the pool, remaining silent.
After a slight pause, the voice suddenly grew serious: “Yanjian, have you managed to ascertain why this little girl ended up in Jiyang City in the Dacheng Empire?”
“Not yet.”
Hua Yanjian shook her head with a wry smile. “I have traced the clan registry back five hundred years and found no record of any clansmen being stranded outside. Beyond the Flower Butterfly Secret Realm, it is impossible for our Flower Spirit bloodline to have continued until now. Furthermore, the concentration of royal blood in Hua Mei’s body has reached a level sufficient to cultivate the Royal Heart Aspect. If she were the descendant of a clansman stranded hundreds of years ago and interbred with humans, the Flower Spirit bloodline would likely have been severed long ago.”
“If she is not a clansman stranded from the Flower Butterfly Secret Realm, yet she possesses the royal bloodline, that is indeed strange... Could it be that outside the Flower Butterfly Secret Realm, our ancestors left descendants elsewhere?” the flower murmured to itself, a hint of doubt in its voice.
Hua Yanjian replied with a degree of helplessness, “Besides that, I fear there is no other explanation for the existence of this little girl, Hua Mei.”
“If that is the case, perhaps...”
The voice stopped abruptly mid-sentence, for the blood pool, which had been still for some time, began to churn violently again, the waves splashing loudly.
“The daily Flower Devouring ritual should be over! What is this?”
Hua Yanjian’s delicate face shifted. A red light shot from between her brows and rapidly expanded above Hua Mei’s head. As she was about to utter a word, pointing her jade finger into the air, she was interrupted by the sound from the flower beside her: “Wait, what is appearing this time is not the Flower Devouring!”
Hua Yanjian froze and peered closely at the pool. She observed that although the blood-red water was churning fiercely, it showed no tendency to rise.
With a sharp cry, Hua Yanjian recalled the immense, proudly blooming red flower. It rapidly shrank before vanishing back into her brow like lightning.
At that moment, the scene in the blood pool shifted again. The blood-red threads, which had been clinging to Hua Mei’s skin like vines, instantly thickened severalfold, slithering rapidly across her body like small serpents before rushing madly into the intensely flashing pattern at her brow.
“It’s coming! Finally, it’s here! Your Majesty, Hua Mei’s royal bloodline is awakening!” Hua Yanjian’s voice trembled with unmistakable excitement.
Most members of the Flower Spirit Clan possessed the royal bloodline, but the concentration in the vast majority was pitifully low, showing no signs of the royal essence. While they could still awaken the Flower Spirit bloodline, they could not cultivate the Royal Heart Aspect.
To this day, only when the royal blood concentration reaches a certain level can someone be considered a true royal descendant. For the small Flower Spirit Clan, as the royal bloodline becomes increasingly dilute, the awakening of every royal descendant is cause for celebration.
Hearing Hua Yanjian’s words, the colorful flower trembled slightly, as if nodding, but immediately after, a delighted gasp emerged from within the flower:
These two syllables pierced the air. Hua Yanjian covered her mouth, her beautiful eyes widening in disbelief as she looked at Hua Mei’s brow.
Under the fierce assault of countless spirit-serpent-like blood-red threads, the pattern on Hua Mei’s brow shone with increasingly vibrant, dazzling, and magnificent colors. Most strangely, two even smaller petals abruptly began to sprout from the center of the existing petals and were slowly growing.
Hua Yanjian muttered dazedly, “Awakening with six petals immediately... The Fluttering Jade Butterfly Technique... Is this little girl to be the next Empress of our Flower Spirit Clan?”
“Yes, I can finally rest assured...”
“Spirit Fusion Ninth Grade! Hahaha...”
In the inner city of Ling Yu City, within the pavilion lodging, Nie Kong sprang to his feet. After letting out a couple of hearty laughs, he quickly clamped his mouth shut to avoid waking the two little maids sleeping soundly, tangled together in the room upstairs. But feeling the surging, abundant spiritual energy within him, the excitement in Nie Kong’s chest was irrepressible.
When he was still undergoing the ‘Six Halls Grand Competition’ in the illusionary space, Luo Sheng’s cultivation of ‘Spirit Fusion Ninth Grade’ had left Nie Kong with no thought of resisting head-on. In the end, he only managed to force that fellow Luo Sheng out by relying on an endless barrage of spirit beasts swarming him.
At that time, how could Nie Kong have imagined that in just over a month, his own cultivation would break through to the realm he once had to look up to?
The two breakthroughs in the Spirit Cultivation Illusory Realm, coupled with a highly integrated ‘Spring Flower, Autumn Dream’ pill, forcefully elevated Nie Kong’s cultivation from Spirit Fusion Fifth Grade to Spirit Fusion Ninth Grade. At Spirit Fusion Ninth Grade, if he could achieve further comprehension, he could be called a true Spirit Transformation Master.
“Spirit Transformation—not far now!”
After a long while, Nie Kong finally calmed his spirit, tucked the quilts around the two maids, and quietly slipped downstairs. Ten days of visiting...
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