Things had reached this point. She could no longer bring herself to say that she had not actually transmigrated to the Hongmeng Continent, and that her reading of the Dao De Jing just now had all been made up.
She had only spent the whole summer reading novels, fantasizing that she had transmigrated into a world of immortal cultivation.
But could there really be a coincidence this neat—that the moment she expounded the Way to Zhou You, Zhou You could cultivate?
Chu Xiaoyao was exceptionally clever. After a little thought, she had the reason worked out.
First she ruled out the highly unreliable possibility that Zhou You's talent was so astonishing he could comprehend a cultivation method from hearing the Dao De Jing a single time.
Then what remained was the answer.
The truth was that she really had transmigrated to the Hongmeng Continent and become the Carefree Empress.
It was only that she was a mere mortal now. Her mind could not bear the impact of ten thousand years of memory. If those ten thousand years appeared all at once, the light consequence would be turning into a simpleton, and the heavy one her brain exploding.
And so, seeking to protect herself, she had taken the initiative to seal her memories.
Though the memories were sealed, her experiences of the Hongmeng Continent still remained in the depths of her consciousness. The reading of the Dao De Jing just now had looked like nonsense, but in truth she had, without meaning to, dug up the memories sealed in the depths of her consciousness.
Seen this way, the transmigration experiences she had recounted just now were not born of fantasy. The sealed memories had loosened, and her subconscious had spoken the truth.
Reasonable. It held together. Sure enough, she was the Carefree Empress!
At this thought, Chu Xiaoyao grew even more confident than when she had first arrived.
Zhou You, running into a friend like her—one who had not forgotten where she came from, and who had helped him cultivate the moment she transmigrated back—he had better be secretly pleased.
"Able to float in so short a time? Not bad." Hands clasped behind her back, Chu Xiaoyao gazed out the window and offered the remark in a lukewarm tone.
Zhou You's change had not gone beyond what she expected.
"Does this mean I've become an immortal cultivator now?" Zhou You had yet to recover from his shock, and plopped back down onto the bed.
His mind felt clear. Inexhaustible strength filled him from head to foot. His body was light, his joints felt much more limber, and he was in better shape than ever before.
Zhou You still felt a sense of unreality. He looked at Chu Xiaoyao in disbelief, feeling that she was unfathomable in this moment—the Carefree Empress who had cultivated across ten thousand years into an Immortal Emperor.
"Do you think you count as an immortal cultivator?" Chu Xiaoyao asked.
Zhou You carefully sensed for a moment, then shook his head. "I just feel full of strength, but the upper limit of my strength hasn't grown. I probably... don't count, right?"
His voice rose on the last words. Zhou You was not certain of his own situation.
Chu Xiaoyao gave a steady nod. She was full of confidence now, and her whole bearing was different from a moment before. "What you just did was guiding qi into the body, letting spiritual qi enter you and nourish body and mind. That is why you feel in such excellent condition."
"Right now you have one foot over the threshold. If it must be given a name, you currently count as the half-step Qi Refining stage."
Although, as far as Chu Xiaoyao could recall, she had never heard of any half-step Qi Refining stage, who was she? The august Carefree Empress, foremost person of the Hongmeng Continent—opening a realm was effortless!
In the past, Zhou You would certainly not have believed Chu Xiaoyao. He would have thought her middle-school delusions had only gotten worse.
But now, in Zhou You's eyes, her every word and deed was extraordinary, and he thoroughly trusted what she said.
"Half-step Qi Refining stage..." Zhou You repeated the realm over and over, feeling the name was a good one. It gave him the sense that he was somebody in the world of immortal cultivation.
"Master, what should I do next?"
"Call me Great Emperor."
"Great Emperor."
Chu Xiaoyao nodded, very satisfied with Zhou You's attitude. It felt like being back in junior high.
"Recall the feeling from just now. Keep cultivating. Guide qi into the body."
"Granted, with this seat teaching you, guiding qi into the body was only a matter of time. But you got started so quickly—clearly you have talent. Cultivate well."
"All right."
Before leaving, Chu Xiaoyao patted Zhou You's shoulder in encouragement, like a senior showing concern for a junior.
It would have looked even more the part if she had not been gathering up the summer homework she had copied.
"Want to have dinner before you go?" Zhou You tried to keep her.
"No."
Chu Xiaoyao had no mind for eating. She wanted to go back and sort through her memories, to see whether she could tease anything out.
...
The next day, in the blazing summer, Chang'an No. 2 High School started early, right on schedule.
The third-year students walked into the school drenched in sweat, without a trace of a smile. Their bodies swayed like zombies besieging a city, resentment soaring to the sky.
"Vacation on July 1, school on July 15. Half a month of summer break. Third-years are people too."
"Damn this school, starting class in weather this hot. Not a human thing to do."
"The forecast said today's high was thirty-nine degrees."
"How come I'm measuring forty-two?"
"Who's going to the Education Bureau to report the school?"
"If nothing else, they could at least put air conditioning in the classrooms."
Zhou You was sweating from the heat as well. In weather like this, forget walking—even standing in the shade of a tree was stifling enough to make you sweat.
But he had only just become able to cultivate, as if he had touched a new world. His mood was excellent. A little heat did not bother him, and even his steps were light.
On the stairs going up, Zhou You saw Chu Xiaoyao ahead of him. Her back was straight. An autumn school-uniform jacket was draped over her shoulders, as if a peerlessly elegant empress were walking the mortal world in a cloak, looking down on all living beings. She was easy to pick out in the crowd.
Suddenly Chu Xiaoyao leaned against the wall, clutched her wrist in a death grip, and showed a look of pain. Seeing this, Zhou You hurriedly cleared three steps in one stride and caught up.
"Are you all right?"
Chu Xiaoyao raised her right hand. It would not stop trembling. Gripping the wrist did no good; it was still shaking. "It's the black dragon. The black dragon inside me is breaking through the seal!"
"...If you've got nothing else going on, how about taking a look at my condition? After I cultivated yesterday, my body changed in a new way."
Encouraged by the Carefree Empress the night before, he had quit games and quit scrolling short videos, cultivating hard until he fell asleep. His body underwent a strange change. Considering that the Empress would have been asleep at that hour, he had waited until this morning to ask.
Chu Xiaoyao lowered her right hand and cast the matter of the black dragon to the back of her mind. "What kind of change?"
"Like sleepwalking? Or floating? It's hard to describe. I'll show you in a bit."
The two walked into the classroom. The room was in an uproar.
"Quick, quick, quick—who did the summer homework? Let me copy!" This was someone desperate to copy homework.
"What summer homework? Does half a month off even count as summer vacation? No summer vacation, so how can there be summer homework?" This was self-deception.
"The old dormitory building is haunted. If I say I lost my homework in the old dormitory building, will the teacher believe me?" This was taking the teacher for a fool.
"Who said they lost their summer homework?" This was the homeroom teacher, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway.
What was the homeroom teacher doing here?
The whole class went silent at once. Even the sound of Zhou You and Chu Xiaoyao's footsteps unconsciously grew much lighter.
The homeroom teacher was a middle-aged man in his fifties who taught math, surname Gao. He sported a beer belly, rarely smiled, and had a heavy local accent. On an ordinary day, even with nothing guilty on their consciences, everyone was afraid at the sight of him—let alone now, in the middle of a frantic homework-copying spree.
Chu Xiaoyao went further and pulled in the autumn uniform jacket tied around her neck, wadded it into a ball, and clutched it to her chest.
Zhou You glanced up at the clock hung on the rear blackboard, confirmed they were not late and that the homeroom teacher had simply come early, and only then relaxed a good deal.
The two tiptoed in through the back door to their seats. Even shifting their stools, they held their strength in check and did not dare make a sound.
The homeroom teacher stood on the platform with his briefcase in hand. Clearly, the moment he arrived at school he had come by the classroom for a circuit, and had not even put the briefcase in the office.
"The whole corridor was full of your voices."
The homeroom teacher swept his gaze over everyone. The students kept their heads down, wishing they could press their faces to the desktops, terrified of being noticed. Those with steadier nerves carefully studied last semester's final-exam papers, pretending to study.
On so hot a day, they actually felt a touch of chill.
"Class representatives, collect the homework. Have it all in before class." With that, the homeroom teacher left the classroom.
Even after he was gone, the students did not dare speak, worried he would double back. There was precedent.
After a while, once they were sure the homeroom teacher would not return, they finally dared to talk, though much more quietly than before.
After he left, someone noticed Chu Xiaoyao, who had come in through the back door.
"Xiaoyao, you're here." As a well-known beauty at No. 2 High, Chu Xiaoyao naturally drew more attention than Zhou You.
Thanks to Chu Xiaoyao, some classmates noticed Zhou You's arrival. Their eyes lit up, and they lowered their voices to plead, "Brother You, you're finally here. Let me copy your homework!"
Ordinarily everyone called him "Zhou You." Only when homework was due did Zhou You's status in the class rise half a notch, and he became "Brother You."
"Brother You, kindly regard this Zhiyin Manke." There were also those offering up comics in exchange for homework.
In no time, Zhou You's homework had been snatched clean.
"You said just now your body had a new change?" Chu Xiaoyao picked up the earlier topic.
"Watch me show you something." Zhou You closed his eyes and pressed his palms together. That way he could focus better.
He felt his body lighten, airy as if he were shedding his form to ascend as an immortal. When he opened his eyes again, his line of sight had risen more than half a meter—higher even than if he were standing. He could look down over the whole class, the crowd small beneath him.
He looked down. Another half of a body had risen out of his own.
The half-body that had emerged was nearly transparent, and his consciousness now rested in it.
He could not hold this state for long, and drew back in.
"Well? Did you make anything out?" Zhou You asked expectantly.
After going home the night before, Chu Xiaoyao had not sorted out any memories. From her point of view, Zhou You had simply closed his eyes, pressed his palms together, opened his eyes, and asked whether she had seen anything. It was rather a lot to ask of her.
"...Did you forget I can't cultivate right now, and I'm still an ordinary person? Some changes can't be seen."
"Oh, right. That makes sense."
Talking and gesturing, Zhou You acted out what had just happened for a long while. At last Chu Xiaoyao suddenly understood, and reached a conclusion. "This is your soul leaving the body."
"Soul leaving the body? Just now, that was a soul state?" Zhou You was astonished. Folk legends were full of tales of ghosts and souls, but there had never been actual proof that they truly existed. This time, certified by the Empress, souls were real.
Thinking it over, it was reasonable too. He could already cultivate; having a soul was perfectly normal.
Did that mean ghosts existed as well?
"Precisely so." Chu Xiaoyao spoke with certainty. Although she still had not recalled her memories of the Carefree Empress, she believed everything she said was correct.
"One of the marks of reaching the Qi Refining stage is being able to have your soul leave the body."
"Half your soul came out, which means you are not far from the Qi Refining stage."
Hearing Chu Xiaoyao say this, Zhou You's confidence in cultivation surged.
"After you transmigrated to the Hongmeng Continent, what else happened?" A living Immortal Emperor was sitting right beside him, and Zhou You was especially curious about Chu Xiaoyao's experiences.
At this, Chu Xiaoyao grew excited. "Now then—back then, by cultivating the Dao De Jing, I ground my stepmother and my legitimate elder sister under my heel. It just so happened my father returned from the campaign, saw the scene, and berated me harshly..."
...
By evening self-study, it had not grown any cooler. Instead it was muggy and damp, reminding Zhou You of the Amazon rainforest in documentaries. All that was missing was two tongue-flicking pythons sprawled atop the big electric fan overhead. It was even less a place for humans.
The classroom had no air conditioning. Even at its highest speed, the big electric fan could not ease the heat.
"Turn the speed down." A classmate called to the student sitting beside the fan switch.
When the big electric fan spun, it was like a meat grinder, and at maximum speed that feeling was even clearer. It seemed ready to fall at any moment. The thought alone was frightening.
Some hung wet towels around their necks. Some kept palm-sized spray bottles and misted themselves now and then. Others ran to the restroom between classes to wash their faces over and over, all for one brief cool minute.
Homeroom Teacher Gao sat on the platform, holding a steaming cup of tea. He took a small sip, an expression of pure enjoyment on his face as he savored the fragrance.
The students looked as if they had seen a ghost. Drinking boiled water in heat like this?
Zhou You keenly felt that his cultivation was lacking. The homeroom teacher had already reached the realm of being untouched by cold or heat. He could not even compare with the homeroom teacher.
He passed Chu Xiaoyao a note: "Is there a spell for getting cooler?"
Chu Xiaoyao quickly wrote back: "What spells would someone at half-step Qi Refining learn?"
Zhou You drew an angry fist.
Chu Xiaoyao drew paper.
A student worked up the nerve to complain to Homeroom Teacher Old Gao that this was simply no life for a person. "Teacher, when can our school install air conditioning? It's so hot we can't study."
"Yeah, the test papers are sticking to our arms." Another classmate displayed the writing on his arm. The papers had just been printed and the ink was not dry; rest an arm on them, and the characters stuck easily.
Old Gao, a man who drank hot water in summer, naturally did not care about air conditioning. As usual, he replied with the same old line: "A calm heart is naturally cool."
Then came the students' rising and falling complaints, but under Old Gao's forceful sweep of the room they quickly died away. No one even dared meet his eyes.
Zhou You furtively conferred with Chu Xiaoyao, curiosity stirring. "I hear the old dormitory building is haunted, and especially cool. After evening self-study, do you dare go take a look?"
No. 2 High was an old school. The air conditioning the students never stopped complaining about could never be installed, precisely because the wiring was too old.
Ever since he enrolled, Zhou You had heard that the school was built on a graveyard, that the government wanted to use the students' yang energy to suppress the yin energy of the burial ground, and that the old dormitory building was often haunted and so had been abandoned. On ordinary days, no one dared go near it.
Zhou You had always been intensely curious, but he had never dared approach. Now he was a proper half-step Qi Refining cultivator, and with the Carefree Empress escorting him, he wanted to see for himself.
Chu Xiaoyao gave a scornful laugh, seeing through Zhou You's clumsy attempt to goad her.
"What has this seat to fear?"
Chapter 2