[Young Master Xian]—❈—76:: There's Nothing Quite Like A Punch To The Face

A/N:: Happy New Year, everyone. Here's to hoping this one turns out better than the shit-show the last one turned out to be.

Wish you the best.

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Meng Yi

She sat with Qigang and Xiuying in the divine cultivation circle of the Honoured Matriarch, the venerable woman seated before them.

Three small storage boxes, two noble and one divine, rested on the ground between them, and they all knew what they contained without the Matriarch needing to say.

“Your rewards from Empress Lingxian,” she said needlessly, then added to Xiuying: “You will delay eating yours until you’ve improved your cultivation. The Ironwood Berry’s boost to your constitution will make the process excruciating and potentially fatal.”

Xiuying looked confused, an emotion that Meng Yi mirrored.

“Oh, right,” Qigang said, smacking his forehead. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I convinced my mother to give you a sage rank method and a noble rank technique. I was thinking we could stick to the tiger theme you’ve got going. Though if you’re not interested, I’m sure we can find a different theme to work with.”

Xiuying sat staring at Qigang blankly, like she couldn’t quite comprehend what she was hearing.

Meng Yi reached out and pat her leg consolingly. Telling someone they were getting a sage rank method and noble rank technique was definitely the sort of news that could leave them part-catatonic. She could barely wrap her head around it herself.

Meng Yi’s touch seemed to shake Xiuying from her fugue, and she looked from Qigang to the Matriarch.

Wordlessly, she moved to her knees, head pressed to the ground.

“I swear to be worth it,” she said simply. No meaningless thanks, no pointless platitudes of gratitude, just a heavy oath that bound harder than steel. Good.

If this was a gift from Qigang, then a simple thank you (and perhaps a hug) would be more than enough. He was unique like that. But this wasn’t a gift from Qigang, and The Matriarch didn’t much care for gratitude. What she cared for was the understanding that a debt needed to be repaid.

Xiuying kept her head pressed to the ground until the Matriarch bid her rise, and after she did and Xiuying has settled back into a seated position, Qigang asked, “When will she get them?”

“In a week,” the Matriarch said. “The family has no tiger themed manuals, they will need to be rented.”

“Ah,” Qigang said. “Didn’t think of that. Thank you for all the work you’ve put into this.”

The Matriarch gave him a look that Meng Yi found difficult to decode.

Finally, she nodded quietly.

“So, what now?” Qigang asked her and Xiuying. “Do we just wait until Xiuying is ready before we eat them, or do we eat ours now and Xiuying can eat hers when she’s ready?”

“Yi will eat hers now,” the Matriarch said. “There’s no need to delay any longer. She will eat it and properly activate her cultivation.”

Meng Yi’s heart skipped a beat. She knew what that meant.

Over the week or so since they’d been here, Meng Yi had had three lessons with the Matriarch, and during those lessons, she’d come to truly grasp the incredible gift that Qigang had left in her cultivation that night she entered Weaving phase.

Congruence, something that was like a myth to her, so rare and impossible that she never even bothered to dream of it. Now, here she sat with it at her fingertips.

The news had been so incredible when she received it from the Matriarch, that Meng Yi still hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her friends about it.

Though, to be fair, there was really only one friend she was worried about telling.

Qigang was almost certainly going to attain congruence very soon, and even in the unlikely event that he didn’t, he almost certainly wouldn’t care.

His greatest desire in life was peace and quiet, not power. Power was something that seemed to chase him, not the other way around.

It was a safe bet that his reaction to finding out that his servant is congruent would be nothing but joy at her good fortune, especially knowing that he was the one who helped it happen.

Xiuying, on the other hand, was the opposite of Qigang in that regard. While power chased Qigang, it seemed to elude Xiuying.

Before she came into Qigang’s circle, the opportunity for power had long evaded Xiuying, despite her ambition and desire for it.

Finding out that Meng Yi was on the cusp of congruence, because it was handed to her by Qigang no less... Meng Yi had no idea how the other woman would react.

She didn’t quite think it would cause bad blood between them, but a part of her did worry that Xiuying might not take the news well. The both of them owed Qigang so much, and it was obvious to them that they were his confidants, his friends, his primary servants. Where Qigang went they followed, what he commanded they fulfilled, what he wanted they provided. They were his arms, his will, his sword, and, if it was ever needed, his shield.

He may not see them that way, but it didn’t change the truth.

If Qigang was congruent, and Meng Yi was congruent, Xiuying would be the odd one out. Even with a sage rank method, her cultivation would be the weakest of theirs by a lot.

It mattered to Xiuying that she was strong. Strong enough at least to ensure that Qigang didn’t need to bother himself with anyone who wasn't at a certain level of power.

As it was, she was nowhere near that level of power.

This wasn't to say that she wasn't an impressive cultivator, because she was, but the harsh reality was that there were easily a hundred thousand cultivators in this city alone who could boast the kind of talent that Xiuying had. And many of them had gotten three times the training that she’d gotten.

So again, while Meng Yi wasn't really worried about jealousy or something along those lines souring her relationship with Xiuying, she was worried about what the news might do to her.

In hindsight though, keeping it to herself probably wasn't the best idea, because now here she was, inevitably having to deal with Xiuying finding out.

“Give her some space,” the Honoured Matriarch commanded Qigang and Xiuying, and they both moved several paces to side.

Displaying her near impossible control, the matriarch reached to one of the noble rank storage boxes with her qi, lifting and depositing it onto Meng Yi’s outstretched hands.

Meng Yi almost dropped it.

While the box was small enough to easily fit on one of her palms, it weighed as much as a small bucket of water.

“Eat it,” the Matriarch commanded.

Meng Yi opened the box, and an explosion of qi slammed into her face, so potent and dense it hit with the force of a heavy gust, blowing her hair wildly and forcing her to blink.

The interior of the small, wooden box was lined with a soft, white cloth, and nestled in a divot in the middle was a single grape with skin so black it reflected the light of the room.

Meng Yi reached in and picked it up, confirming what she already suspected that all that unnatural weight came from the berry and not the box.

Holding the berry in one hand, Meng Yi closed the box and set it down, then, with one last glance at her friends, she put the Ironwood Berry in her mouth and swallowed it whole.

Meng Yi sensed and felt the berry slide down her throat and settle into her stomach, and while her body gladly drank the qi radiating from it, the actual explosive effect that should follow the consumption of qi food of such power was notably absent.

A quiet second passed. Then two. Then three.

The Matriarch sighed. “You were supposed to chew it,” she said.

“Oh.”

Qigang tried unsuccessfully to hold back a snort, and Meng Yi’s cheeks warmed with light embarrassment.

“How long will it take before it dissolves in her stomach?” Qigang asked.

“A few minutes at most,” the Matriarch said.

“Oh? That’s not bad at all. I thought it would take hours or something.”

“If it took that long I would have made her vomit it back up and chew it,” the Matriarch said.

Qigang laughed. He either failed to realize that she wasn't joking, or he refused to believe it.

“You know, I’m surprised you didn’t make an elixir or something with the berries,” he said. “Something to boost the effect.”

“There is no way to boost the effect of qi foods,” the Matriarch lectured. “Not truly. There are several elixirs I could make with the berries, and while they would be powerful and useful, the best way to get the desired effect we want is to eat the raw fruit in its entirety. Qi foods almost always lose potency if they undergo any processing.”

Qigang nodded in understanding. “I guess even alchemy has its limits.”

The Matriarch’s face soured, like her son had just touched on a subject that upset her greatly. “Don’t remind me.”

Qigang laughed at her expression. “Makes sense. Fields like alchemy, chemistry, for all their awesomeness, they tend to have hard limitations that even the greatest experts labour un—”

Qi exploded out of Meng Yi so hard she blacked out.

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In its most basic definition, cultivation is the multiplication of what you are.

It is why a talented person gets more talented the farther they walk on the path to Heaven. It’s why a naturally strong person gets stronger; a durable person gets tougher.

It is also why, when you get the opportunity to eat an incredible treasure, like a noble rank Ironwood Berry, for instance, or a noble rank Golden Mango, it is always best to do it immediately. Because the lower in cultivation you are when these incredible treasures do their work on you, the farther each step will take you as you advance in your cultivation.

This was the simple reason why the Matriarch had told Meng Yi to wait before properly activating the seed Qigang had placed within her cultivation. Activating that seed meant an instant, massive growth to her cultivation. It meant congruence. And it would be best if the Ironwood Berry had already done its work before that happened.

Well, the berry had done its work. Its qi had sunk into her meridians, her cells, even her soul. It had changed and altered, improved and enhanced. Now, it was time for the next step.

Locating the seed where it nested in her soul was easy. She had learnt to identify it under the guidance of the Matriarch.

This would be the first time she interacted with it however, and Meng Yi tried to prepare herself for anything, even though she had little idea what to expect.

Qigang’s seed manifested itself in the first layer of her soul as a little sapling with roots clinging to one of the countless threads on the infinite spiderweb that made up this space.

Meng Yi walked up to it, and crouching beside it, she pulsed her qi into it.

Immediately, she found herself in a different world.

It was a throne room; affluent and extravagant, and on a massive throne of solid gold before her, sat someone whose face she would recognize anywhere.

He wore an incredibly fine, layered robe made entirely of golden spider silk, and on his head sat a simple golden crown that burned with the sun’s fire.

Pressing down on her shoulders was a familiar weight, that of Qigang’s technique, the Weight of The Emperor’s Will.

Unlike it always felt to her though, it didn’t feel warm and caring now. It didn’t feel like it bolstered her with strength. No, this aimed to push her down. To suppress and subdue.

Meng Yi forced herself to stand with her back straight and head held high.

She frowned staring at the man on the throne. The face was Qigang’s, but the expression on it, the behaviour, the environment, none of that was Qigang.

“You are the Sun Emperor,” Meng Yi said.

His lips curled in distaste, and Meng Yi had an unpleasant flashback to a different man with Qigang’s face who was also fond of making expressions like that.

“You are the snivelling leech that has latched herself onto Qigang’s overly generous teat,” the Sun Emperor said.

Meng Yi scowled at the entity. “Qigang was right,” she said. “You are an asshole.”

The Sun Emperor’s eyes flashed in anger, and in the blink of an eye he was before her.

Pain bloomed across her right cheek as the back of his hand connected with it hard enough to send her flying.

Meng Yi landed hard, her world spinning, but then, slowly, she picked herself up and walked back to him.

She looked the Sun Emperor straight in the eye and decked him in the nose as hard as she possibly could.

He staggered back, looking more surprised than hurt.

Meng Yi ignored the pain in her hand with all the grace she could muster.

“You are a fragment of a man I respect, and the only reason he has put you here is for you to give me the power I need to better serve him. Now do that.”

The fragment of the Sun Emperor looked at her with open hate. “Taking a power like this when you know you have not earned it. That you will never earn it. Have you no pride?” he asked.

“I have pride in my ability to serve him,” Meng Yi said. “Now give me what is mine.”

There was a moment when Meng Yi worried that the fragment would disobey, and she wondered if she would have to hit him again, but then, finally, he sighed.

“The things I put up with for that bastard,” he muttered.

Meng Yi let the insult slide.

With one final stink eye at her, the fragment of the Sun Emperor and his palace burst into a swirl of golden silk threads, and they rushed down like a wave to swallow Meng Yi whole.

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She laid on a bed, her bed, the sun sat beside her, keeping her company.

She had been unconscious for three days, and she knew this because she knew that it had been three days since she became congruent.

The sun noticed her conscious state.

He leaned in, taking her hand, and Meng Yi’s world rejoiced at his touch, every speck of her being lighting up at the feel of his qi.

She looked at his perfect face as he stared down at her, his perfect eyes looking down with worry and joy.

“Hey, you’re finally awake.” He smiled. “How does congruence feel?”

“Hold me,” she said, and when he didn’t obey immediately, she decided to just go right ahead and wrap her arms around him and pull him down to the bed with her.

Not wanting to crush her, he rolled with her, putting her much smaller body on top of his.

Meng Yi wouldn’t have minded being buried under his warmth, but with how her brain was melting right now, she couldn’t deny that this was great too.

“Meng Yi, are you drunk on qi again?” Qigang asked.

“Talk less, hug more,” she said, squeezing tighter against him.

He laughed, and the rumble of it set off fireworks through all of her being.

He kissed her on the top of her head, arms wrapped around her waist.

When she could string a sentence together again, she said, “I’m glad I met you, Qigang.”

Pressed against him as she was, she heard his heart skip a beat. Then, after a few moments, he said, “You’re the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”

She pressed tighter against him, even though she was already so close the only place left to go was into him, and, listening to the lullaby of his heartbeat, she drifted back into sleep.

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A/N:: Thanks for reading.

For all those who might still be interested, here's the Amazon link for book one Kindle/KU.

PS: we're coming up on the end of book two, if everything goes to plan, we might even get there in five chapters, give or take a couple. Okay, give. Definitely give a couple. Maybe even a triple.

Regardless though, we're close.

Take care.