SFS Chapter 29 Change and Improvement
Chapter 29 Change and Improvement
"Fellow Daoist, you possess such abilities at such a young age. Why ruin your future for a widow with no relatives or friends?"
He added another sentence, his tone carrying a hint of deeper meaning.
Chen Bai looked at him without saying a word.
Silence weighed heavily on Xue Zhen's words, like a stone pressing down on the end.
"Are you done talking?" Chen Bai asked.
Xue Zhen's expression froze completely.
"Now that you've said your piece, get out of here."
Xue Zhen's face twitched violently twice: "You! Very...very well! Just you wait and see..."
He gritted his teeth and spat out a sentence, clutching his chest as he staggered toward the alley entrance, his steps heavy and disheveled.
Chen Bai turned and walked towards the mud-brick house, then knocked on the door.
"Squeak—"
Perhaps hearing that there was no more movement outside, the door opened, and Wei Bo was helping Qi's widow out of the house.
The woman was in her early thirties, with a gentle face, and her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
She held a seven or eight-year-old girl tightly in her arms. The girl had two pigtails and her face was buried in her mother's chest, with only her timid eyes peeking out.
Chen Bai glanced at the little girl, who was secretly watching him with a look of fear and curiosity in her eyes.
"Brother Bai, just now—"
Wei Bo was interrupted by Chen Bai waving his hand halfway through his sentence.
"First, go to Ruoshui Town to find out the address of your uncle's house and settle him in properly."
Remember to come find me later; I need your help here.
Wei Bo nodded vigorously: "Don't worry, I'll take Madam Qi and her daughter there and then come back. It'll be three to five days at most."
Chen Bai took out a cloth bag from his pouch and handed it over: "Fifty spirit stones. That should be enough for settling down."
Just as Wei Bo was about to decline, Chen Bai stuffed the cloth bag into his arms, saying, "It's not for you, it's for the mother and daughter."
Wei Bo clutched the cloth bag, his round face trembled slightly, and his eyes reddened a little.
He opened his mouth, but in the end only managed to utter one sentence: "Brother Bai, I will remember your kindness for the rest of my life."
"Alright, stop being so long-winded."
I will speak with Fairy Yueyi and ask her to secretly look after you.
Chen Bai waved his hand, "Leave before dark, and don't go through the main gate. Xue Zhen is vindictive; he might send people after us tonight."
Wei Bo nodded and helped the woman walk to the other end of the alley.
After walking a few steps, the woman suddenly turned around, holding the child, and gave Chen Bai a slight curtsy.
Her lips moved, but she ultimately said nothing. She turned around, took Wei Bo's arm, and quickly disappeared at the end of the alley.
The alleyway quieted down.
Scattered on the ground were wood chips and broken knives, and the two burly men remained unconscious.
Chen Bai withdrew his gaze and walked straight towards Mingzhenfang.
"After we get back, we should find another place to stay as soon as possible."
He pondered to himself, "Xue Zhen wouldn't dare to act openly in the market, but it's hard to say whether he'd resort to underhanded tactics."
It would be safer to rent a courtyard near Fairy Yueyi.
That area is close to Xuanzhenfang, so I imagine Xue Zhen wouldn't dare to act recklessly there.
It was dusk when we returned to Mingzhenfang.
Chen Bai tidied up the things in the wooden house: a few changes of clothes, talisman brushes and spiritual ink for drawing talismans, the pure jade and refined gold altar, and the three spirit stones and note left by Wei Bo on the table, all of which were stuffed into his Sumeru storage bag.
He glanced back at the cramped wooden cabin where he had lived for most of the year, without much emotion, closed the door, and left without looking back.
That evening, he found a secluded courtyard near Xuanzhenfang.
The courtyard is not large, with one main house, one side room, and a crooked jujube tree in the middle.
Its advantage lies in its good location.
It was only two alleys away from Fairy Leyi's residence, and if there was any disturbance, it was only a few steps away.
The rent isn't expensive either, only two spirit stones a month, which is many times cheaper than a Class A cave dwelling.
Chen Bai paid six months' rent and spent a few spirit stones to purchase some daily necessities.
After finishing all that, he sat cross-legged on the bed in the main room, poured out all the remaining spirit stones from his storage bag, piled them in front of him, and carefully counted them.
"One thousand two hundred and sixty spirit stones. Eight hundred were spent on the cultivation technique, sixty on spells, one hundred on renting the secluded cultivation cave, ten on the fasting pills and miscellaneous expenses for treating Wei Bo to a meal, fifty were given to Wei Bo, and twelve were spent on renting the courtyard..."
After calculating with his fingers, he let out a long breath, "There are still 228 left."
Less than expected. But it's enough for now.
He put the spirit stone back into his pouch and closed his eyes to meditate.
His dantian, which had been full of qi, was now completely empty. This battle was still too much for him.
The initially condensed spiritual energy has not yet completely transformed into a [Dan Miao], and is therefore not as durable as embryonic breathing.
Chen Bai was able to defeat Xue Zhen, a genuine early-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, entirely because he used the unexpected attack of Spirit Crow Xiao Liu as a means of defeating his enemy.
"Fortunately, it wasn't completely exhausted; a seed was still left." Chen Bai was somewhat relieved. If he had exhausted the spiritual energy accumulated in his body before truly mastering embryonic breathing...
That means one's cultivation will decline and the alchemy furnace will collapse; at best, one will fall seriously ill, and at worst, one will die suddenly.
Within his depleted dantian, only a single drop of spiritual energy remained, yet it was as condensed as golden liquid, quietly suspended in the very center of his dantian.
Xiao Liu was curled up next to the ball of spiritual energy, still fast asleep. The blue flames on his body were dimmer than before, but they were recovering at an extremely slow pace.
Chen Bai observed carefully for a moment and suddenly noticed a detail he had not paid attention to before.
It seemed that this last drop of spiritual energy resonated subtly with the innate spiritual light between his brows, and both seemed to undergo some subtle, unknowable changes.
This change is more like a more subtle and refined qualitative leap, rather than a mere accumulation of quantity.
"I estimate that in another half month, after circulating the energy in a step-by-step manner, we will be able to cultivate the [Dan Seedling]."
Chen Bai carefully considered the differences and couldn't help but ponder.
Within the divine palace between the eyebrows.
The primordial spiritual light had grown nearly twice as large as it had been three months ago, increasing from the size of a fist to one and a half fists, and its color had become even more lustrous.
He clearly remembered Fairy Yueyi saying that innate spiritual light would not naturally increase before spiritual consciousness was formed.
Only at the moment when the seedling of elixir is born and embryonic breathing is achieved will there be a qualitative leap.
But his spiritual light surged even before he mastered the embryonic breathing technique.
"After thinking it over, there are only two reasons," Chen Bai muttered to himself, concluding:
"Firstly, each time the small cauldron recycles and extracts knowledge, it feeds back into the spiritual light."
Secondly, the *Taixi Jing* directly points to the concept of "innate." Although I haven't fully grasped that level yet, my daily contemplation has tempered my spiritual insight to some extent.
If things continue like this, by the time the seedling is born, his innate spiritual light will likely break through to a considerable level. At that time, it will transform into spiritual consciousness, far surpassing that of ordinary early-stage embryonic breathing cultivators.
Thinking of this, he turned his attention to Xiao Liu in the corner of his dantian.
The birth of this raven was completely accidental.
The Six-Si Spirit Fire is a type of True Fire among spirit fires, while the Black Crow Essence is a remnant soul of a demon beast. Neither of them is particularly rare when they exist alone.
These two at most fall within the scope of the fetal breathing period.