Zi Moyan, seeing the fox's expression as he returned to the farm, immediately noticed something wrong:
"Did something happen?" she asked.
"I… no, nothing happened, miss Zi" Ye Mu replied. "It's just… I don't think I'll be able to take part in Hanchen's capture once he reaches Qi Building. It's just… too much for me"
He crouched on the ground, using paws to cover his face.
"It's okay, you won't have to participate: once he reaches Qi Building, he won't be able to use spells in the village, so Baotian and I will be enough to catch him" Zi Moyan said.
"..."
"I'm not helping, am I?"
"No, you are not, miss Zi"
"Ahh… Of course, I was never good for words after all"
She sat down beside him:
"Listen, I don't want to hurt Hanchen either" she said. "Matter of fact, I'm sure that if I talked it out with Baotian instead, and tried to convince him to keep him as an ally instead, he would cede and agree. But do you know why I didn't?"
"Tell me, please, miss Zi"
"Baotian… he's suffering" she said. "He thinks I don't notice it, but I do. Everytime the two of us interact with Hanchen or with each other, I see this light in his eyes, this fear that we would get closer to each other than we are to him and end up leaving him. I have lived with him for decades, so I know better than you, I can't pretend I know everything about him but at the very least, I know that if I choose to save Hanchen, he will probably live it as the worst betrayal of his life. I can't do that to him"
"So you choose to sacrifice our junior instead?"
The human cultivator laughed:
"I walk the demonic path after all" she said with a bitter smile. "If sacrificing a saint is enough to help the one person that supported me so many times, then what hesitation is there to have?"
"Hmm… I see" Ye Mu sighed. "I shouldn't have talked to you"
"Indeed, you shouldn't have. Instead, you should have discreetly warned Hanchen, asked him to escape only a few days after your passage so Baotian wouldn't suspect you, and then played dumb. That would have worked perfectly"
"I should probably have done so, indeed, I thank Miss Zi for showing me Mount Tai. Though, with my poor talents in hiding and twisting the truth, I would have definitely been found out"
"Well, either way, I'll make sure not to leave you alone with him, now, so you should abandon the idea"
"Very well, I will"
Zi Moyan leaned closer to him:
"Can I pat your head?"
"I am not a dog"
"You spent a day chasing after your own tail"
"I was affected by the elixir"
"But your fur looks soft to the touch"
"If I let you do that, will you let me rest peacefully afterward? I need to sleep for a bit to clear my mind"
"It's a deal then"
Zi Moyan started scratching the back of the fox's head and, barely five minutes in, he had already fallen asleep, growling softly.
'So he does like being scratched behind the ears' she thought, amused.
Getting up, she flew to the top of the farm, looking at the vast fields all around from up there. Looking inside of her middle dantian, she confirmed that the core Baotian had given her had been fully integrated into her own, bringing her much closer to the mid stage of Core Formation.
"I'll miss this place" she thought out loud.
A day later, Baotian was ready to break through. Sitting in the depths of his improvised cave, he focused his spiritual sense inside of his middle dantian, and shifted every bit of his attention to the Qi Cube sitting inside. Instead of directly trying to control it with spiritual energy, he instead immersed himself in the memories of his previous battles, remembering the feeling of the cube standing on its corner as it spun. Then, following the method he had trained for the last few years, he slowly made the cube rise, steadily, controlling it carefully with his spiritual energy.
Not yet, not perfectly aligned. Not enough. It should be more. It wasn't a question of nanometers, but micrometers instead. Yes, he should feel it aligns with his entire being.
'I understand now. The reason why the Qi Cube needs to stand on its end to reach the late stage… In truth, it's not truly about making it stand, but about aligning it with oneself, creating an harmony between the body and the Qi Cube, and then using the corners of the cube as 'anchors' to tie them permanently'
Through this understanding, Baotian once again realized just how well-crafted the system of cultivation, whereas every step was nothing less than preparations for the next step. For twenty-four hours, as he harmonized with his Qi Cube, he tried endlessly to use this logic, which seemed to govern the cultivation system, to calculate how the next realms would unfold, and try to grasp their principle through the enlightenment granted by his advancement.
He already knew all the formulas until the Void Ascension realm after all, so it should be possible, right?
However, as the twenty-fourth hour was nearing his end, Baotian had barely managed to grasp the essence of the formula to reach grand perfection Qi Building. Of course, there was a possibility that grasping the principles of a higher major realm was simply impossible, but Baotian didn't believe it was the case: he could feel it, the reason why he could not see further… was simply due to his lack of talent.
Sighing, Baotian simply maintained his Qi Cube in this position for a few more seconds, reaching the late stage that way. After solidifying his advancement for an hour or so, he got up, stretched for a bit, and exited his cave.
"Congratulations for your advancement, fellow Zhang"
"You deserve it, junior brother"
Though accepting their praises, Baotian didn't feel particularly better after hearing them, especially knowing that both Ye Mu and Zi Moyan were much more remarkable than himself. More than this, he actually felt bad about something. Without thinking much, he walked to Red Bean Village, and knocked at the door of Hanchen's habitation.
"Hmm? Oh, it's you, senior Ba?" Hanchen realized.
"Yes, I just… came here to notify you that I reached the late stage" Baotian said. "And if a dullard like me could reach this point, then surely a bright young man like you can reach the early stage in a breeze"
"Haha, thank you for your compliments, senior Ba, and congratulations for your advancement" the young man said sincerely.
Seeing the trust and friendliness in his eyes, a thought that Baotian had repressed until now crept up into his mind:
'During these years, we all got so close, enough that he would have probably left Red Bean Village with me if I came up with a good excuse to convince him' he realized. 'Why… why didn't I just do that?'
But in truth, he already knew. It wasn't that he couldn't think of that, but rather that he wouldn't. Because he understood that when he did truly refine Hanchen, this peaceful period would end, and so he pushed it back as much as possible.
"I hope I will soon be able to congratulate you as well" Baotian said.
"Haha, don't worry about that, senior, I believe that you will not have to wait another month for this"
"Great. I am really happy for you. It'll be hard to make these two lazy Core Formation seniors move, but I will make sure that we're there, to congratulate you right after you reach Qi Building"
"Ahh, that's too nice of you senior!"
Baotian smiled fakely. Yes, in the end, others were others, they would all abandon him, eventually, so he had to prioritize the only one for whom he would always be the most important: himself.
And so, three weeks later, Hanchen began his advancement. Baotian and Zi Moyan were both positioned near, ready to capture him the moment he had passed the tribulation and was exhausted. Ye Mu, under the pretense of watching for unexpected events, had not joined, and though Baotian understood that he simply did not want to take part in the capture, he didn't have it to heart to force him since his presence wasn't really necessary.
Rapidly, Baotian and Zi Moyan saw a streak of lightning falling from the sky. They waited, not moving, listening to their surroundings. And a minute later, they heard cheers begin to echo all around.
"That's our sign that he succeed" Zi Moyan said.
"Then let's go capture him" Baotian replied.
However, as they were about to make a move, they saw a large fox running toward them at large speed:
"Stop! Now is not the moment to do this! We must go, quickly!" Ye Mu shouted as he rushed toward them.
Baotian frowned: in the end, was the fox feeling too guilty and trying to stop them? Baotian was about to activate the move he left in the Spirit Beast's core to immobilize him, as a measure of precaution, however, the fox's next words made him pause:
"Fellow Zhang, your junior brother! He's here! He's coming!"
Hearing this, not only Baotian, but even Zi Moyan paled.
"Ahh…" Baotian exhaled, lost for words.
For the last forty months or so, he had wondered when this strange fortune of his would end. And it seemed that the answer was today.
'Curse you, heavens'