Chapter 12 – The New Dawn (Patreon)

The pill went down. At first, Lynn Naya didn’t feel anything, but after she drank some water to wash her mouth, a sudden warmth surged in her stomach.

It felt like she had just drunk a bowl of hot soup on a snowy day. The warmth spread throughout her frozen body, and her mind felt hazy, making her want to sleep until morning.

She knew the pill was taking effect, so Lynn Naya closed the doors and windows and lay on her bed. She fell asleep faster than ever before. The warmth made her feel completely at ease, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

That night, Lynn Naya had a wonderful dream.

She was a fish in a hot spring. No matter how the seasons changed around her, she was always comfortable in the warm water. But then one day, a dirty pipe upstream broke, and a huge wave of sewage rushed into her spring. She cried out in alarm and woke up.

Even though she was awake, the foul stench from her dream lingered. She sniffed, and finally found the source of the smell: her blanket and the clothes she was wearing.

She felt her clothes, which were still a little damp. Lynn Naya realized that the Blood-Vitality Pill had made her sweat all night, cleansing her body in the process.

With that thought, Lynn Naya didn’t even bother to change her clothes. She quickly closed her eyes and circulated the spiritual energy in her body.

This time, she felt absolutely no pain as the spiritual energy flowed through her meridians!

It worked!

For the past few months, Lynn Naya had not been able to fix her qi and blood deficiency. When she received a sudden windfall, her first thought was to get medicine, since eating well hadn’t been enough.

She had decided that if she was going to use medicine, she might as well use the best. That was why she put on that show in front of Qian Baolin.

Now, it seemed that 70 contribution points for a flawless body was more than a fair trade.

After circulating her spiritual energy through her meridians and feeling no pain, Lynn Naya remembered how the DaoPalace disciples had controlled their swords on the day of the autumn harvest. She picked up a small stone from the corner and tried to control it with her spiritual energy.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t control her strength, and the stone immediately shattered in her hand.

Her first attempt was a failure, but Lynn Naya tried again. The second time, the stone didn’t break. But the result of her toss was a lot more effective: the stone went straight through her stone stool.

Lynn Naya immediately crouched down to see how far the stone had gone, only to find that it had gone straight through the stool and left a small hole in the wooden wall across from it.

Lynn Naya was dumbfounded.

Not even a bullet has this kind of power.

If I can master this and be able to hit whatever I want, couldn’t I be as deadly as a gunslinger?

Now this is getting interesting.

As Lynn Naya was about to continue her practice, someone knocked on her door.

It was Xue Yong’s wife.

Lynn Naya looked up at the wooden door. She had heard them say it was going to be a sunny day, so she figured XueYong’s wife was here to ask her to watch the houses.

She opened the door, and sure enough, Xue Yong’s wife said, “Lynn Naya, I have to ask you to please watch the houses today…” But she stopped mid-sentence, her eyes wide with shock. “Lynn Naya, your hair…”

My hair?

Lynn Naya looked down at her chest. Her hair, which used to be dry and brittle, now looked healthy and shiny.

She realized that the Blood-Vitality Pill had changed more than just her insides, so she immediately used the excuse she had prepared. “Oh, I had a breakthrough with my cultivation last night. The body-strengthening technique is meant to strengthen the body, and I didn’t think the change would be so big.”

The excuse didn’t quite convince Xue Yong’s wife, but she was a smart woman and knew not to ask too many questions. “I see. Congratulations.”

“Just a fluke,” Lynn Naya said, changing the subject. “Are you all heading out?”

“Yes, we’re almost ready. We’ll be leaving the houses to you again.”

“No problem. You can rest assured with me here.”

“Great.”

After a brief chat, Lynn Naya went back inside when Xue Yong called his wife. She picked up her bronze mirror and looked at herself.

The face in the mirror looked reborn. Her previously gaunt cheeks were now full and rosy, her eyes were clear, and her lips were a healthy pink. No wonder Xue Yong’s wife was so shocked.

The change was a bit too big.

After looking at herself for a moment, Lynn Naya took a small knife and cut a bit of her hair to create a thick fringe. The fringe covered most of her face and hid her appearance.

It’s a shame I don’t have any shapeshifting techniques. That would be a lot more convenient.

After she was done with her hair, her neighbors had already left. Lynn Naya heated some water and took a bath. After she washed her clothes and bedding and hung them out to dry, she sat on her bed and began to cultivate the Evergreen Technique.

Her body was stronger, and she could feel the Evergreen Technique circulating much faster. After one full cycle, it was almost twice as fast as it used to be.

The increase in her cultivation speed made Lynn Naya ecstatic. Based on her experience, she could now gain one experience point every three days, instead of five.

She pulled up her status panel.

[Name: Lynn Naya]

[Cultivation: Qi Condensation Level 1 (23/100)]

[Martial Arts: Finger Flick: Mastered (99/100)]

[Cultivation Method: Evergreen Technique: Beginner (18/100)]

[Skills: Medicinal Farming: Initiated (2/100), Healing: Not Started (91/100)]

[Exclusive Trait: Everlasting Life]

She still needed 77 more experience points. At 10 points a month, she would be able to break through in about seven or eight months, which was half the time it would have taken her before.

Not bad at all.

A happy occasion lifts the spirits. For the rest of the day, Lynn Naya devoted herself to her cultivation. She only stopped when Xue Yong and his team returned in the evening.

Today, they came back empty-handed again. Everyone looked frustrated and gloomy. The moment they returned, ZhaoLaoer began to curse under his breath. Fan Shi was even worse. Even the usually silent Uncle Wang said to Xue Yong, “We can’t keep doing this.”

This wasn’t the first time they had returned with nothing.

The leader of the group, Xue Yong, didn’t say anything. He just squatted under the eaves, his face filled with sorrow.

Lynn Naya knew the atmosphere was tense, so she didn’t go out to greet them and continued to cultivate.

After dark, when everything was quiet, Xue Yong’s wife suddenly knocked on her door and said her daughter wasn’t feeling well and asked Lynn Naya to come and take a look.

In this era, a small illness could kill a person, so Lynn Naya didn’t waste any time. But when she got there, she realized it wasn’t Xue Yong’s daughter who was sick. It was Xue Yong himself.

Xue Yong was honest with Lynn Naya about why he wasn’t feeling well. “I might have drawn some attention by bringing back so much jerky before. People have been following us every time we go out into the wild. We can’t shake them off. We only have so much daylight. If we can’t go to the farm in the morning, the whole day is wasted.”

“We don’t want them to find out about the secrets of the Peach Blossom Forest, so we won’t go in there if we’re being followed. But it’s not a good idea for us to keep being followed, either. So I wanted to ask what you think.”

“What do you want me to think?” Lynn Naya asked.

Under the dim tung oil lamp, Xue Yong looked at her black hair. After a moment of thought, he decided to voice his true feelings. “Do you want to come out to the wild with us?”

He didn’t know why Lynn Naya had changed so much. The sight of what she had done that snowy night still shocked him.

Crushing someone’s throat with one hand… that was not something an ordinary girl could do. Based on her family background, he thought Lynn Naya might have followed her parents down the path of a martial artist and had already achieved something. Otherwise, the change wouldn’t have been so drastic.

Their small group didn’t have a significant advantage in martial strength. But if a martial artist joined them, they wouldn’t have to worry about the small-time thugs anymore. They might even be able to deter the people who were after them.

“Me coming won’t change anything,” Lynn Naya said, analyzing the situation frankly. “Two fists can’t defeat four hands. When we have a piece of meat, there will be many who want to take it from us. You know very well that we can’t protect it alone.”

She wouldn’t and didn’t want to expose herself for a small benefit.

Xue Yong knew what she was talking about. He gave a bitter smile. “If we can’t protect it, does that mean we just give it away?”

“The meat is big, so big that we usually only dare to take a small bite and chew it in secret. Now that we’ve been found out, we might as well find a partner who can protect it and let us keep eating from it.” Lynn Naya believed Xue Yong had similar thoughts, but he came to test her because he wasn’t in a position to take the lead.

He wanted to test her, so Lynn Naya decided to be completely honest with him. “When the sky falls, a tall person will hold it up. Since we’re not tall people, we should find one.”

“But that also means the farm no longer belongs only to us,” Xue Yong said, looking her in the eyes. “In the future, we might even need someone else’s permission to go there.”

To that, Lynn Naya only said, “Being weak is a crime.”

Xue Yong fell silent.

Being followed was just the beginning. When the people behind the scenes ran out of patience, they might just resort to murder.

After a moment, he said, “I know what to do. But what should I tell them if they ask where the Detoxification Pills came from?”

“How should you answer?” Lynn Naya looked up at him. “If they can come to me directly, there’s no need for you to be the middleman anymore.” With that, she stood up. “Alright, Little Lingmin is fine. I’ll be going now.”

She had to hurry up and cultivate.

“Okay, I’ll walk you out.”

After that night, Xue Yong never came to see Lynn Naya again. But the amount of medicine he asked for increased significantly.

After a few more empty-handed trips on sunny days, Xue Yong and his group began to bring back meat again. But this time, it wasn’t just rabbits. Sometimes, it was venison, roe deer, and once, even wolf meat.

Wolves were ferocious animals, and there was never just one of them. So Lynn Naya guessed that Xue Yong had found someone to take refuge in.

Sure enough, she overheard Zhao Laoer talking to his wife one night and learned that Xue Yong had led their small group to join the Spirit Snake Gang.

Thinking about the scarred young man she had met at the library before, Lynn Naya quietly added him to her list of people to observe…