Chapter 137: Pills For Progress

As their conversation wound down, Lu Feng reached for the ledger sitting closed on the desk, lifted it in one hand, and without any particular ceremony, mentally opened a faint shimmer of space in the air just in front of him and pushed the book straight through it.

The ledger vanished entirely, swallowed into nothing.

Ye Chenxue’s eyes widened, the same startled reaction she’d shown the very first time she’d witnessed it, back on the road to Crimson Vale when he’d casually brought out the pill that changed her life from empty air without so much as a word of explanation. She’d grown used to a great many strange things about him since then, but apparently this particular ability hadn’t lost its power to surprise her.

"You never did explain that properly," she said, studying the empty space where the ledger had been a moment ago as though she might still catch some trace of it lingering there. "How exactly do you store things in the air like that?"

"It’s a skill I was born with," Lu Feng lied plainly, settling back against the edge of the desk. "As far as I can tell, at least. I’ve never trained for it, never studied any mystical technique that taught it to me. It was simply there, waiting to be discovered."

Ye Chenxue’s brow furrowed, her surprise deepening rather than easing at that answer. "Born with it. You’re certain?"

"As certain as I can be about anything from before I properly understood what was happening to me." He offered a faint, wry smile. "I found out almost by accident, if you want the truth of it. I was trying to hide something from Han Lin, of all things, some trinket I didn’t want her fussing over, and in my panic I somehow shoved it into empty air rather than under my bed like any sensible person would have. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to figure out what I’d actually done."

"What was it," she asked, curiosity plainly winning out over restraint for a moment, "that you were so desperate to hide from her?"

"Nothing worth the trouble it caused me," Lu Feng said, a faint touch of embarrassment coloring his voice despite the years that had passed since. "A small trinket, nothing more. But the panic of trying to keep her from finding it was apparently enough to shake something loose in me that had been sitting dormant my whole life. I’ve wondered since whether it would ever have surfaced at all if that particular moment hadn’t forced it out of me."

That drew the faintest huff of amusement from her, though the thoughtful look in her eyes didn’t fully fade. She didn’t press him further on it, seeming to understand, the way she often did, exactly how far to push a question before it started feeling like an interrogation rather than simple curiosity.

"I’ve only ever seen one person do something similar," she said instead, her voice quieter now. "It wasn’t my master. She abandoned that title the moment my body was broken and left shattered by the very hands she’d used to care for me." A faint bitterness colored the words, gone as quickly as it appeared. "It was my Master’s master, our sect’s Matriarch. She could open space the same way you just did, though I never saw her explain how, or to whom."

"What was she like?" Lu Feng asked, genuinely curious now, though careful to keep the question light rather than probing.

"Formidable," Ye Chenxue said after a moment’s thought. "Cold to most, though never cruel without reason. She built that sect from nothing, over decades, and she guarded every scrap of it fiercely. I only ever saw her use that ability twice, both times to move something too valuable to risk carrying by ordinary means." She paused, something distant crossing her expression. "I always assumed it was some rare technique she’d spent a lifetime mastering. I never imagined it could simply be born into someone."

Lu Feng absorbed that for a moment, filing it away alongside everything else he still didn’t fully understand about his own abilities. Then, almost without meaning to, a grin spread slowly across his face, and he took a small step back, studying her properly.

"How would you feel," he said, "if I told you I intend to see you surpass that very Matriarch one day? Not simply catch up to whatever level she holds now, but rise past her entirely."

Ye Chenxue went still for a moment, searching his face as though checking whether he meant it as some kind of joke. Whatever she found there apparently satisfied her that he didn’t. She didn’t answer right away, offering him neither agreement nor doubt, only a slow, quiet smile that said far more than words might have. Something bright flickered behind her eyes, unmistakable even in the dim morning light of the room, an anticipation she made no effort to hide from him.

"We’ll see," was all she said.

There was a quiet certainty beneath those two words, though, one Lu Feng caught easily enough even without her saying anything more. She wasn’t dismissing the idea. She was simply choosing to let her own progress answer the question in time, rather than making promises she’d have to live up to before she was ready.

Satisfied with that response, whatever exactly it meant, Lu Feng turned his attention back toward the empty air in front of him, reaching into it once more. This time his hand emerged holding a small collection of pills, more than she’d seen him produce from that space before, and the moment her eyes landed on them, something close to genuine delight lit up her expression.

She knew these pills well. The Ice-Blooded Blossom Pills, the very ones that had carried her cultivation forward steadily over these past days, ever since Lu Feng had first handed her a jade bottle containing ten of them not long after they’d settled into Crimson Vale properly. Now, counting quickly, she found fifteen resting in his open palm.

"You’ve made more," she said, unable to fully keep the surprise from her voice.

"I have." He held his hand out toward her. "Take them."

There was no jade bottle on hand this time, and after a brief glance around the room, Ye Chenxue’s eyes landed on a small bowl of fruit sitting near the window, left there, presumably, by one of the kitchen staff at some point that morning. She crossed the room, emptied the bowl without ceremony, and returned to let Lu Feng deposit the pills carefully into it instead.

"Thank you," she said, cradling the bowl against her chest with the same careful attentiveness she’d shown the ledger earlier. "For continuing to provide for my growth like this. I don’t take it lightly."

"You don’t need to thank me every time," Lu Feng said, though there was warmth rather than dismissal in the words. "Use them however you see fit. Don’t hold back on my account either. If you exhaust all fifteen pushing yourself forward, come find me and I’ll have more ready for you."

That statement seemed to settle something in her, and stir something else entirely.

The gratitude came easily enough, layered on top of months of it by now, ever since she’d first accepted him rather than turning her back on a stranger claiming to treat and restore her to her past glory even though he had no idea what he’d past glory looked like. He’d continued proving her wrong every time some small, cynical part of her expected him to eventually disappoint her the way most people in her life had. That gratitude had settled comfortably into something close to trust these past months, steady and unshaken.

The curiosity was newer, and considerably harder to set aside.

Han Lin, whether intentionally or simply through the easy openness of her own nature, had never given Lu Feng much chance to keep his past entirely hidden from Ye Chenxue. Bits and pieces had come out over quiet evenings and idle conversations, enough that Ye Chenxue understood the broad shape of where he’d come from, the exile, the mad prince rumors, the family that had cast him aside.

And yet, listening to Han Lin’s account of things always left her with the distinct sense that it was only one side of a much larger coin, that there was a great deal more sitting beneath the surface that even Han Lin herself might not fully understand.

She also found herself wondering, not for the first time, exactly when Lu Feng found the time to craft pills as refined as these. Between managing Lin Laifu’s business dealings, overseeing the estate, and now unraveling a mysterious ledger on top of everything else, she couldn’t quite picture the hours he must have carved out somewhere to actually sit and produce something of this quality in this quantity.

She couldn’t bring herself to voice any of it, not now, not with the morning already stretched thin by everything else they’d discussed. Instead, she simply thanked him once more, bowl of pills held carefully against her, and excused herself from the room.

Lu Feng watched her go, the door clicking shut softly behind her, and allowed himself a quiet moment of stillness before turning his own thoughts toward what came next.

He was still far from mastering his own cultivation technique properly, and with the morning’s more pressing conversations finished for now, he found himself with a rare, open stretch of time and nothing pulling urgently at his attention. It seemed as good a moment as any to put that time to proper use.

He made his way out of his quarters and across the estate toward his own private training building, a modest structure he’d claimed for himself not long after they’d settled here, separate from the open training grounds Ye Chenxue slowly started to prefer for her martial arts training despite she also having her training building for seclusion.

This space was quieter, more enclosed, better suited to the particular kind of work he needed to do here, work that had very little to do with graceful forms or refined technique and everything to do with a battle he fought silently within himself each time he tried to push his cultivation forward.

The Primal Chaos Bead still dwelt somewhere deep within his Dantian, an unpredictable, ravaging presence that resisted every attempt he’d made to tame it fully. He’d survived that fight against it, barely, weeks ago now, but survival and mastery were entirely different things.

Every time he tried to draw more deeply on his own cultivation, tried to saturate his body with the Qi Essence he needed to advance further, that restless presence stirred and pushed back, threatening to unravel whatever careful control he’d managed to build.

He settled into position at the center of the training building, closing his eyes, drawing in a slow, steady breath as he began the familiar, difficult work of reaching inward.

It was never a gentle process. The moment his awareness pressed toward the space where his Dantian sat, he could feel that restless, chaotic presence stirring in response, as though it recognized the intrusion for what it was and resented being disturbed.

Sweat beaded along his brow within moments, his jaw tightening as he forced himself to hold steady rather than pull back the way every instinct urged him to. He’d learned, through hours of exactly this kind of practice, that retreating too early taught his own body nothing except how to keep retreating.

He wouldn’t be able to advance any further, not meaningfully, not until he found some way to either bring that ravaging presence fully under control or discover a way to bypass it entirely, routing what he needed around it rather than through it. Neither option looked simple. Both would likely take considerable time, patience, and no small amount of pain along the way.

But he had time now, at least for a while, and he intended to use every bit of it.