A Sudden Premonition

"You have a premonition? Something bad is going to happen?" Li Qi frowned, then asked, "How reliable are your premonitions?"

"N-Not very reliable... It's just a sudden feeling, but I think it must be hinting at something. Before I destroyed my own cultivation, I was fifth-rank. My premonitions should count for something." Shen Shuibi spoke timidly.

Fifth-rank!

Li Qi was left speechless.

Well then... just what kind of person was Lady Luofu? Even one of her maidservants was fifth-rank.

One day, I'll be fifth-rank too!

Li Qi gritted his teeth, then composed himself.

After thinking for a moment, he replied, "Better to believe it exists than believe it doesn't. Let's go. We won't stay here."

Though he had spent the whole day building good relations, all so they could borrow a place to stay in the village rather than sleep in the mountains and suffer the cold, if there truly was danger, then sleeping in the mountains would still be better.

Li Qi had always been decisive. Once he said they were leaving, he immediately led Old Ma over, took Shen Shuibi with him, bid the villagers farewell, and set off at once.

Old Ma said nothing. Though he was already extremely weak, he showed no hesitation when it came time to leave, even taking the initiative to rub against Li Qi.

"Old Ma is asking if you want him to carry the things while we travel. He can't run very far, but he's fast," Shen Shuibi promptly translated from beside them.

Li Qi pondered briefly, then nodded. "That would be best. Old Ma, carry us another two hundred li away from here. Find somewhere secluded, preferably near water, and we'll rest there."

Old Ma gave a neigh and immediately crouched down, allowing Shen Shuibi and Li Qi to climb onto his back.

Li Qi held the wicker basket and sat in front. There was no saddle or stirrups, but Old Ma knew how to adjust his gait to soften the jolts. Riding him was easy enough, and there was no danger of falling off.

Li Qi did not carry Shen Shuibi on his back because she had to sit behind him. Though she had once been a formidable fifth-rank cultivator, she had now lost all her cultivation and was no different from a delicate, frail young woman. She could not keep a stable riding stance, and being small with short arms, she could not sit in front and hold Old Ma's neck. She could only sit behind Li Qi and wrap her arms around his back.

Once everything was arranged, one man, one rabbit, and one horse set off.

Old Ma was aged, feeble, and still seriously injured, yet he was, after all, a Dragon Steed. Carrying two people and their luggage, he still ran as swiftly as if flying. Clouds of qi sprang beneath his hooves; rather than running, it was more accurate to say he was flying.

The cloud qi was thin and weak, however. It could only lighten his body and could not carry him through the air outright.

Even so, it opened Li Qi's eyes.

What a fast horse! And when he leaped through the air, the cloud qi shielded them from the wind. There was not the slightest bumping, and he did not even need level ground. Old Ma could leap ten zhang at a time; ordinary mountain ravines could not hinder him at all.

Aside from Old Ma stopping every so often to rest, their journey remained very safe. His speed was astonishing. They had set out at sunset, yet before night had even fallen, they had already traveled more than one hundred and eighty li and found a pool of water.

"All right, here it is." Li Qi surveyed the surrounding terrain and decided this would be where they spent the night.

Old Ma quickly let them down, panting heavily.

He was drenched in sweat from exhaustion, his body temperature soaring; he was nearly sticking out his tongue.

Making him carry two people and gallop nonstop for one hundred and eighty li in this condition had truly been asking too much of him.

Seeing this, Li Qi took the pot he normally used to cook rice cakes, filled it with water from the pool, and splashed two potfuls over Old Ma, finally bringing his temperature down.

Then Li Qi put three or four jin of beans into the pot, sprinkled in some coarse salt, added water and mixed it well, then set it in front of Old Ma, who was lying on the ground. "Eat up and restore your strength. Oh, and don't spit into the pot. I'll still need it later—I eat from it too!"

Old Ma gave a soft whinny and nodded repeatedly. He rubbed his face against Li Qi, then lowered his head and began crunching the beans.

Li Qi watched for a while. Seeing Old Ma take a mouthful of beans followed by a mouthful of fresh wild grass, eating to his heart's content, he figured he had added the right amount of salt. He turned and walked over to Shen Shuibi.

"Miss Shen, do you still have that feeling?" he asked cautiously.

Old Ma could not run any farther. Racing over a hundred li in a straight line through mountain roads was already the limit for his aged and injured body.

If she still had that feeling, they would need to make other preparations.

"It's much weaker now. We should have avoided it already." Shen Shuibi closed her eyes, sensed for a while, then said this.

Li Qi nodded. "That's good."

With a definite answer, he was still somewhat uneasy. But it was already late. Once Old Ma finished eating, Li Qi planned to retrieve the pot and cook some rice cakes. After eating, he would continue studying the book of "Zhu" in his mind.

"Yesterday, I got to the part about distinguishing cloud qi. Old Ma had cloud qi under his hooves earlier too. Let's see... the book says..." Li Qi flipped through the book of "Zhu" in his mind.

The book stated: "Use the things of the Five Clouds to distinguish fortune from misfortune; inspect flood and drought, descend upon the baleful signs of abundance and famine; observe the twelve winds, discern Heaven and Earth's harmonious mandates, and distinguish ominous portents from auspicious ones."

If that was the case...

"At the two solstices and two equinoxes, observe the color of the clouds: green means insects, white means mourning, red means soldiers and famine, black means water, yellow means abundance..." Li Qi recited the records in the book while comparing them to reality, trying to observe the celestial signs.

He looked toward the sun.

He looked for a long while.

There did not seem to be anything unusual.

Could diviners truly distinguish fortune and misfortune by the colors of clouds?

Perhaps... he was looking from the wrong perspective?

With that thought, Li Qi opened his vision for observing qi.

Then the scene before him suddenly opened up!

Taiji tangled in chaos, Primal Qi clear and refined; earth qi rising, heaven qi entwining; rainwater below and mist above, poisonous qi steaming and spreading!

In these mountains, he had not noticed it before.

There was actually miasma and poisonous qi here!

"Has it entered my body?" Li Qi looked at his own body.

Then he saw it—within his body, surging qi kept the poisonous vapors and miasma outside.

These qi were varied: some were vital qi, some nutritive qi, some defensive qi, some blood qi.

Yet these things formed something like a wall, firmly resisting everything from outside.

"Immunity? Or something else?" This was the first time Li Qi had noticed them.

Why had he never seen them before?

What was the reason?

Even as he puzzled over it, he continued observing his body.

He discovered that although the poisonous vapors and miasma were kept at bay, some things could not be warded off.

Li Qi carefully identified what he was unable to resist. Drawing on the knowledge from the books, he expended considerable effort before finally distinguishing them: they were in fact cold qi and heat qi.

Cold qi and heat qi...

In other words, the cold and warmth he sensed—and the illnesses, heatstroke, or colds caused by cold qi entering his body—were all because of these?

At that thought, something suddenly occurred to him.

He looked again at the rabbit crouching not far away, Shen Shuibi.

"As expected..." he sighed.

Other than the weak nutritive qi and defensive qi on this rabbit, he could see nothing at all.

But every kind of qi—heat qi, cold qi, poisonous vapors, miasma—was completely shut out.

Shen Shuibi was immune to heat and cold, untouched by a hundred poisons...?