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013 - Advent of the First Night
🕑 Added 2024-07-03 21:46:35 +0000 UTCQin Yun chuckled slightly as he heard her say those words. He couldn't help but appreciate the decisiveness with which she came to this conclusion once she learned that Qin Yun possessed the means to help her. Still, the process would be laborious and time-consuming. Such deep-seated injuries couldn't be healed that easily.
Still, it gave her hope, at least. Hope she was severely lacking at the moment. So much so that she didn’t think twice to propose to this man, despite her slight aversion to the terms of this contract. She would agree if she could finally escape from this nightmare. Anything was better than to live in this state.
Yun Jingfei looked at her arm, relishing the feeling that came with it returning to its former state. Her scarred visage produced a joyful smile that seemed eerily creepy. Qin Yun couldn't help but burst out in laughter, which only puzzled her. She had no idea what brought this on. Still, she was eager to recover her former features, and her expression said as much.
While Qin Yun still had reservations concerning her current state, he opted not to make her wait too long lest she change her mind. He approached her and placed his hand on her face. While she couldn't feel much of his touch, Yun Jingfei still fought the urge to recoil from the hand pressing on her damaged skin. Yet, she knew that doing so would only seem like a rejection of his offer. She allowed herself to be touched and Qin Yun to proceed.
Still, after waiting for a few minutes, nothing seemed to happen. She frowned and looked to Qin Yun for answers, yet all she saw was that man deep in thought with his eyes closed. Suddenly, his hand left her face without much change having happened. She opened her mouth to protest, but he was the first to speak.
“Even if I were to heal you right now, it would only be a matter of time until history repeats itself,” he said calmly.
"Are you going back on your words?!" she said with almost a shout. Her emotions fluctuated wildly, from intense joy to deep anger. While she had learned to control her feelings from a young age, it was as if all she had learned had been erased all at once. Her emotions were so intense that she lost all self-control, and she lashed out with impunity. "Are you going back on your word!?"
"Did you ever ask yourself how it came to this in the first place?" he asked calmly, ignoring her outburst of emotions. "Your talent is rarely seen in a generation and your Spiritual Roots are among the highest classes, yet you still failed to reach even mere Void Core Realm. Did you ever think this was abnormal?"
While his voice was calm, it shook her to her core and alleviated some of her frustrations. While saying she didn't have doubts would be a lie, her sect had investigated her failed breakthrough, and no foul play was found. They attributed her failure to simple bad luck; no one could fully understand the Heavens' whims.
Sometimes, even the most outstanding geniuses were bound to fall before their times. It wasn't a rare occurrence. Still, Qin Yun spoke of it as if he had seen what so many had missed. Noticing this, she did her best to calm down and waited for him to explain himself.
Qin Yun was quite satisfied with his new wife's attitude. Despite her current state, he wouldn't forget to test her, wishing to know if she could cope with being in a relationship with him and whether she could bear learning of some of his secrets. Qin Yun wasn’t the reckless type, rushing ahead without any assurances.
“Returning your skin to its former state is easy, as you saw,” Qin Yun said as he poured another cup of tea for the both of them. “Even healing your Qi Channels and Spiritual Roots would only be slightly more straining.”
Yun Jingfei took the tea she was offered in an effort to calm herself. She slowly sipped on it as she sat back down and waited for him to finish. While his statement brought her great relief, she also knew that much was still left unsaid.
"The only real difficulty lies in the source of it all," he added. "How much do you know about your cultivation technique’s origins.”
Yun Jingfei frowned. While she had some doubts in the past concerning her technique, she had put them aside as the cause since her own master utilized the same unaltered technique in her cultivation, and she had had no problems thus far. She had concluded that she was the problem and not the method. Still, Qin Yun had further insights to provide.
"I checked your Qi Channels, and they were indeed destroyed by your own Qi due to the backlash of your failed breakthrough," he said. Yun Jingfei also nodded, as this was consistent with what she had concluded herself. "Still, your cultivation technique is high-level enough that breaking through to the Void Core Realm should have posed no problem. I am even confident enough to say that the chances of someone in your situation suffering backlash in this realm are virtually zero."
“What does that entail?" Yun Jingfei asked as her eyes narrowed somewhat.
“I would need to examine further to discover the cause. Even if I were to restore your cultivation to its peak, the same would be bound to repeat itself."
“Is there no hope?" she asked, slightly dejected. Still, she felt somewhat more confident than before, as this was much better than what she had previously.
“There’s no need to be discouraged,” Qin Yun replied as he sipped his tea. “It isn’t as if there is nothing we can do about it to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen again. There are many preventative measures we can use.”
Yun Jingfei let out a long sigh, knowing that not all hope was lost. Still, she felt slightly impatient. Even if she couldn’t recover her cultivation, she wished to rid herself of those scars as soon as she could. That thought, however, shook her to her core. She had believed herself to be fully dedicated to the Dao, that reaching the peak of cultivation was her life’s calling.
Yet, she was ready to forgo it all for simple vanity. It wasn't until one lost something that one would finally find its value. Yun Jingfei felt her Dao Heart waver. She wondered how far she could still go, even if she were to recover and fix the problem that afflicted her.
While the first few realms of cultivation were based on the accumulation of Qi within the Qi Centre, the later stages were based on the accumulation of insights within the Dao Heart. Once the Dao Heart wavers and collapses, it would mark the upper limit of what a cultivator could accomplish. As such, most cultivators rejected anything that could affect their Dao Hearts for fear of finding faults.
While it came with its own drawbacks, as everything always did, it was by far the safer method. Few were brave enough to face the world in its entirety with open hearts. Still, those were usually the ones to reach the peaks or fall prematurely. It was nothing more than a gamble, and Yun Jingfei wasn't a gambler by nature.
She had tried countless times to forge her Dao Heart to be unmarred by the world's filth, but such a thing was easier said than done. As long as one was alive, the world's Dao would always imprint itself onto the hearts of living beings. Besides, her recent ventures into despair had left an indelible mark on her Dao Heart.
The path she had walked up to this point was already gone for her. She would need to thread a brand new path through untold darkness. Still, Qin Yun believed she had the tenacity to see it through. This was one of the reasons he chose to help her. Without this will to go on, she would be nothing more than a corpse at this point.
Looking at her shifting expression, Qin Yun knew what decision she had reached. She couldn't go on while hating herself and what she had become. The only way for her to fix what was broken inside was to restore the exterior first, and Qin Yun agreed with her. Besides, he had no desire to share his bed with her disfigured self. Of course, he would want her to be attractive.
This wasn't him being superficial but simply the needs of the heart. While standards might differ depending on the individual, every living being is a slave to aesthetics. Qin Yun felt no shame in affirming so—well, he mostly never felt shame at all.
Without the need for words, Qin Yun took her by the hand and made her rise, which she did without resisting, but she felt slightly puzzled. He then brought her to the large bed, which spanned over half the room. Without waiting for her input, he pushed her onto it before standing next to her.
She opened her mouth to speak, questioning his motives for doing so, but before a sound could come out, he pressed his fingers on her lips, silencing her. With delicate but steady motions, he exposed the skin of her limbs, revealing the scars hidden beneath.
At first, she felt a slight urge to resist as she felt shame being seen so vulnerable. Still, she already saw this man as her husband and knew this day would come eventually when she had chosen to propose to him. She wasn't one to speak such words with frivolity or suddenly go back on her word. Once she had decided to go through something, she would see it through to the end.
Qin Yun carefully examined her body. He could see her nervousness and embarrassment, but he paid it no mind as he was much too absorbed in figuring out the origin of those burns. His hands traced the contours of those injuries, sporadically injecting his Innate Qi into her body, prodding for anything that felt out of place.
He could see her squirm under his touch, trying to resist the urge to cover herself as those scars were much too horrid to be displayed. Still, Qin Yun felt nothing as he gazed upon her. How could he when she looked nothing like the woman she once was? Still, he reigned himself in to show no disgust as this would be a blow she wouldn't be able to recover from.
He had been a scientist for a long time; what hadn't he seen? He had travelled far and wide, seen much of the world beyond this dimension. Some of the creatures he had encountered would make her look like a sweet rose in contrast. Only by judging her against other human women did she fall far behind in her current state.
Still, Qin Yun was entirely devoted to changing that. Even he couldn't bear to look at her in this state for too long. She had burns on nearly 80% of her body, leaving not many places where her skin was intact. As he expected, he noticed that those burns originated inside her body, probably due to her fire element Spiritual Roots spewing much too potent Qi into her Qi Channels.
As for why the Qi was so strong, Qin Yun had a few guesses but nothing conclusive without delving deeper. Still, he chose to conquer one problem at a time. He reckoned that as long as she didn’t exert her Qi or try to breakthrough, the chances of the same happening again were almost zero.
Once he was done examining her, Qin Yun raised his gaze and looked her in the eyes. Yet he couldn't help but chuckle once he saw that her face had become as red as a tomato. It was a shame it happened then since he would have liked to see it on her original face. Still, he knew such a day would come eventually.
Noticing his laughter, Yun Jingfei wished to reprimand him, to imprint her shame in his mind, yet his hand came much too quickly. She felt the soft touch of his palm over her eyes, blocking her sight. Then came a slight dizziness and the lull of sleep. Within seconds, she had lost consciousness.
