Chapter 23 – The Secret (Patreon)

When Scarface Qing saw Lynn Naya, he was a little surprised and was about to ask what she was doing there. He quickly remembered he wasn’t the owner of the house and raised his voice. “Lady Zhou, Healer Lynn is here.”

Then, a beautiful young woman came out of the house. It was Zhou Feibai’s sister, Zhou Yuan.

Like her brother, Zhou Yuan had also changed. She was no longer skinny and looked healthy, from the inside out. It was clear she had been well taken care of.

Besides her newfound health, there was a faint blush on her face, which was a sign of embarrassment.

“Healer Lynn?” Zhou Yuan was genuinely surprised to see Lynn Naya. Aside from the four straw mattress from the previous year, they had no other interactions.

However, Zhou Yuan obviously still remembered Lynn Naya’s kindness and enthusiastically invited her in. “Please come in, please come in.”

Lynn Naya smiled as she walked in. “I have something I want to talk to you about privately.”

The word “privately” made Zhou Yuan realize that Scarface Qing shouldn’t be there. She glanced at him, forcing herself to be less shy. “I will consider what you said, but please go back for now. I need to tend to Healer Lynn.”

“Alright, I’ll leave then.” Scarface Qing nodded at Lynn Naya as a greeting.

As soon as he left, Zhou Yuan covered her face with her hands to cool down her burning cheeks. Lynn Naya didn’t expose her and just walked into the house.

As soon as they were inside, she got straight to the point. “I’m here because your brother asked me to give you something.”

Handing over the Fasting Pills only took a few moments. Lynn Naya didn’t waste any time.

After she completed her task, Zhou Yuan, whose eyes were a little red, wanted to ask her if she could help her deliver something to her brother.

However, Lynn Naya refused. The leather robe Zhou Yuan wanted her to take was too big and conspicuous, making it hard to conceal.

In Lynn Naya’s mind, it was fine to help people, as long as it didn’t affect her.

After leaving the Zhou family, Lynn Naya went back to her house and poured the cold water she had brought from the cold pond into the wooden tub. To her disappointment, the water was no different from regular water. The coldness was gone.

Lynn Naya was certain the water had been fine in her storage bag when she came down the mountain.

Can this water not be taken down the mountain, or does it have an expiration date?

She thought about it. An hour had passed since she got the water. She decided to go down the mountain earlier next time.

The next day, Lynn Naya fetched the water from the cold pond and immediately watered the Cold Moon Grass before heading back down the mountain.

This time, the cold water in her storage bag was normal. As soon as she poured it into the wooden tub, a cold mist filled the air, and frost started to form around the tub.

Seeing that the water still worked, Lynn Naya felt a sense of relief.

Without wasting any time, she took a deep breath and took off her clothes before getting into the cold water.

The first time she got into the cold water, Lynn Naya instinctively wanted to jump out, but her rational mind stopped her. She gritted her teeth and stayed put.

It wasn’t like the cold of winter when you could hide under a blanket. The cold water was a biting, bone-chilling cold that felt like thousands of needles stabbing her bones. The spiritual energy in her body froze the moment she got into the water, and without it, she had to endure the first wave of pain.

She furiously circulated her Evergreen Technique. Because of the suppression from the cold water, the technique was much harder to run.

Lynn Naya gritted her teeth and circulated her spiritual energy for one cycle. Only then did she feel a little better. By then, her whole body was blue, and the cold poison was eating away at her meridians.

She had to get rid of the cold poison as soon as possible, or it would damage her foundation over time.

Lynn Naya calmed down and used her spiritual energy to remove the cold poison little by little. The process was painful. Her spiritual energy would burst her delicate meridians, and in a moment, the cold water in the tub turned red.

Lynn Naya endured the pain, her face twisted in agony as she circulated her energy. Her skin cracked quickly, and the moment she touched it, she was in so much pain that her face twisted.

When she finally got rid of all the cold poison, she was a limp mess. The coldness in the tub had disappeared, and the water was no different from regular water, just a little cool.

Fortunately, the pain was not for nothing. After Lynn Naya recovered, she checked her body and found a pleasant surprise. Her meridians, which had been damaged by the cold poison, were slightly widened from the spiritual energy washing through them.

But it was only the first day. The feeling wasn’t very obvious. She had to try it again.

This body-tempering method is so painful.

Lynn Naya didn’t sleep well that night. No matter how she slept, she would put pressure on her wounds. The torn skin didn’t hurt enough to make her scream, but it was just enough to make her unable to ignore the pain.

After a night of tossing and turning, Lynn Naya decided to continue the body tempering without waiting for her wounds to heal.

The water was basically harmless to her. The worst that could happen was she would suffer some physical pain. But tempering the body was supposed to be a painful process. If she avoided it today, she would still have to face it tomorrow. She might as well get it over with.

After making her decision, Lynn Naya started calculating the time. Yesterday, it took her no more than thirty minutes to water the Cold Moon Grass, and it took her no more than thirty minutes to go down the mountain. It took her less than one hour to soak in the water. That meant the coldness in the water would disappear within two hour after leaving the cold pond.

This meant she had to come back earlier.

Zhou Feibai said that the water flowing from the cold pond was colder the closer it was to the source. The old woman only told her to fetch water from a fixed spot. Does that mean that if she gets used to the water at the edge, she can go further in?

Too bad I can’t use this water whenever I want… Oh, wait. Maybe I can try to soak in it on the mountain.

After breakfast, she went to the herb forest. She first did her work as usual, then went into the tree hollow and started to dig.

The tree hollow was small. A tub would barely fit, and it would be easy to be found. But if Lynn Naya dug out a space below, she would have a second home.

When she sensed someone was coming, she could go back to the tree hollow. When no one was around, she could cultivate in her underground space.

Even if someone found the hole, she could just say the tree hollow was too small, and she wanted a bigger space to put things in.

A Qi Condensation second-layer cultivator had a lot of strength. She focused her spiritual energy on her hoe, and each swing created a big hole. She threw the soil into the forest, and the dense trees would hide it easily.

By the end of the morning, she had created a ten-square-meter space. After eating lunch, Lynn Naya began her second round of painful body tempering.

This time, it was even more painful than last night. The scabs on her body were torn open by the cold poison, and the old and new wounds combined, making the pain unbearable.

The moment the cold water lost its effect, Lynn Naya lay on the side of the tub, gasping in pain, and asked herself if she really had to be so hard on herself.

Her lifespan was infinite, so she could just take her time. Maybe one day she would wake up and become the strongest in the world. Then she wouldn’t have to temper her body, she could just crush everything with a single finger.

But she knew that if she was too weak, she might not even get the chance to sleep and be easily killed with a single finger.

“Ugh, just bear with the pain in the beginning. It’s my fault for not being stronger.” She struggled to get up and pour out the water. The water was already red. She needed a clean tub to wash her body.

For four hours a day, she endured the pain for about half a month. Lynn Naya’s body started to get used to the cold water.

At the same time, her meridians were widened by about one-third. The surface of her skin had no scars, and it even had a translucent, icy feeling. When she pressed on it with her nail, it wouldn’t even leave a mark.

“Looks like all the pain was worth it.” Lynn Naya was very satisfied.

After she cleaned herself up, a guest came.

After sensing who it was, Lynn Naya raised an eyebrow. She walked out of her wooden hut and closed the door behind her.

“Healer Lynn.” Zhou Yuan and Scarface Qing said, greeting her politely.

“We’re here to give you a wedding invitation,” Zhou Yuan said, handing her a red invitation card. “If it weren’t for you, I don’t know if I would even be alive right now. On the eighth day of next month, I hope you can come to my wedding.”

When Lynn Naya saw the blush on Zhou Yuan’s face in the Zhou family’s courtyard that day, she wasn’t surprised by this moment. She took the invitation and opened it. After reading it, she said, “Alright, I’ll be there.”

“Then it’s settled.” Zhou Yuan said, a hint of expectation in her eyes.

Lynn Naya knew what she was thinking. Of course, she wanted to share the most important day of her life with her closest family.

“I’ll tell your brother about the good news, but the Dao Palace is strict, so he won’t be able to come down in the near future. He might not be able to attend your wedding, so don’t be sad.” It was a good thing they were close. If it was like before, once he was taken away, it would have been a separation between immortals and mortals forever.

“I know.” Hearing her words, Zhou Yuan’s eyes turned red. Of course, she was disappointed, but she also understood. “I came to you for something else. It’s getting cold now, so I sewed two pairs of deerskin gloves. One is for you, and I was wondering if you could give the other to my brother. It’s okay if you can’t. I just…” she choked up, “I’m afraid he’ll forget about me.”

Sigh.

Lynn Naya took the gloves. She tried to sound casual. “The gloves are small, so they’ll be easy to carry. I’ll just keep them on me until I see him and give them to him. He’ll be very happy to get something from you.”

Zhou Yuan thanked her tearfully. “Thank you, thank you. You’re a good person. I’ve always known that.”

After comforting Zhou Yuan for a little, Lynn Naya motioned for Xue Yong’s wife to take over. She wasn’t good at comforting people.

Luckily, Xue Yong’s wife was. She soon made Zhou Yuan smile through her tears, which made Lynn Naya feel a little relieved.

Since she had promised Zhou Yuan, Lynn Naya kept the gloves in her sleeve. The sleeves were wide, and she was wearing a lot of layers because of the cold weather, so it wasn’t obvious that she was hiding something.

Every day, Lynn Naya would go to the cold pond to try to run into him. Ten days later, she went to get water as usual and saw Zhou Feibai curled up with his knees to his chest.

“Feibai?” Lynn Naya was a little surprised. Had he been waiting for her?

Zhou Feibai, who had his head on his knees, looked up when he heard her voice. His eyes were red with grievances.

“What’s wrong?”

“My senior brother took my spiritual stones,” Zhou Feibai said in a hoarse voice. “I’m supposed to get ten spiritual stones a month, but he only gave me five this month. He said it was because I didn’t sweep the floor properly, so he was punishing me. But there are servants who are supposed to sweep, so we don’t have to do it. I swept every day, so I don’t know why there were so many dead leaves in the courtyard on the last day.”

Lynn Naya understood. This was the cultivation world’s version of bullying the weak.

He had servants to sweep the floor, but he still made Zhou Feibai do it. She had a suspicion that he was just using it as an excuse to take his spiritual stones.