One shot, and she was pregnant!
There was no way to predict something like that.
Life came too fast, like a tornado.
Meng Nan was indeed a little surprised.
But now that it had happened, he would be ready to welcome it. It wasn't a big deal.
He was a good-for-nothing.
Zhao Xiaoshuang's aptitude was ordinary too.
As for the child in her belly, barring any surprises, it would be Meng Xingzhe. At eighteen, the eldest would still only have been at the Fetal Breath Qi Sensing stage, with lousy aptitude to boot.
But luckily, there were still sixteen or seventeen years before Meng Xingzhe grew up and officially began cultivating.
"Sixteen or seventeen years!"
"By then, I might already have become a Qi Refining Immortal Master!"
Meng Nan encouraged himself, while also trying to reassure Zhao Xiaoshuang.
He had said earlier that he didn't want children, but now Zhao Xiaoshuang had discovered she was already pregnant. She couldn't decide whether to tell him, and her heart was tangled with unease.
She was not yet as composed as she would be twelve years later.
It had taken her all night to find the right moment to bring it up. Seeing that Meng Nan even seemed a little delighted, she finally let go of the worry weighing on her heart.
"What's there to be afraid of?"
"This is good news."
"You'll have to be careful from now on. Don't do any heavy work. Tomorrow, go ask your sister-in-law about it. She has experience, so let her tell you what to expect."
Worried Zhao Xiaoshuang might overthink things, Meng Nan put on a delighted expression and rambled on about all sorts of caring little things. His concern was genuine, though—pregnancy and childbirth were like passing through the gates of hell.
His mother in this life, for example, had died in childbirth while giving birth to him. They couldn't afford to be careless.
But after rambling for a while,
Meng Nan remembered, "In the future, Xiaoshuang gave birth to three children and had no problems with her health."
That was the way worry muddled a person's thoughts.
At least he felt a little more at ease now.
Meng Nan rested a hand on Zhao Xiaoshuang's belly, then thought of himself—
Marriage.
Wedding night.
A child.
His path to immortality had only just begun, yet he already had a wife and child. Who else could say the same?
"That's pretty nice, too."
Meng Nan had always been optimistic. Grinning, he began looking forward to the day the little life would arrive.
Time had no meaning in the South Frontier.
In his heart, Meng Nan counted the year of his birth as Year One of the Immortal Era.
This year marked Meng Nan's eighteenth birthday: Year Eighteen of the Immortal Era.
The third day of the ninth month, Year Eighteen of the Immortal Era.
Estimating when the Suoluo Seeds would ripen, Meng Nan went for the second time to a mountain hollow south of Yinlian Village.
He rounded a bend, crossed a ridge, and passed several clumps of brambles.
There, he saw a Suoluo Seed tree, resembling a tea tree. It was already laden with fruit, each one flat and round, like a chestnut. Their surfaces were brown, deeply wrinkled, uneven, and faintly glossy.
These were Suoluo Seeds!
Meng Nan had come once at the end of the eighth month. This was his second visit, and he had timed it just right—the fruit had ripened.
"Everything went smoothly!"
Without wasting time on sighs, Meng Nan swiftly picked all the Suoluo Seeds—more than a hundred—and stuffed them into the cloth bag he carried. Then he made a little effort to deal with his footprints and other traces. He didn't bother with any further precautions and headed straight home.
Qian Yu wouldn't discover this place by accident until four years later. Until then, no one else would come here, so Meng Nan had no reason to gild the lily.
"I'll see how things look four years from now and decide whether to move them."
If he had reached the True Essence Stage by then, he wouldn't need to go to any trouble. But if he hadn't, he could move and hide the seeds, claiming as many as he could.
His plan was clear.
His pace was steady.
During the eight years in his future life, Meng Nan had had very little time or energy. Besides cultivating the Thunder Illumination Scripture, he had only managed to study one other technique: the Spirit Wandering Steps. It was said that when a Qi Refining Immortal Master used it with their magical power, they moved like a spirit wandering by day and night, able to travel thousands upon thousands of miles.
It was perfect for traveling.
After eight years of hard cultivation, he had achieved a little proficiency.
The Spirit Wandering Steps were a very low-level technique. In Yinlian Village, like the Thunder Illumination Scripture, they were common as dirt and easy to learn anywhere.
They called it a spell technique.
In truth, it could hardly be called one at all. It was more like a mundane martial art.
Still, once cultivated, it made him faster than simply sprinting wildly. More importantly, it was light on the feet and left no trace.
Meng Nan ran only for a while, then stopped once he was farther from the Suoluo Seed tree. He conserved his strength, stayed alert to the jungle around him, and continued toward Yinlian Village.
Careful and cautious!
Tense and wary!
Fortunately, nothing went wrong along the way, and Meng Nan made it home safely.
He set down the Suoluo Seeds. At last, the first major task after returning from his future life was done.
During the day, Meng Nan had sent Zhao Xiaoshuang to her sister-in-law's home. She had no idea he had slipped out for a while.
That evening,
before beginning their cultivation,
Meng Nan took out the wooden box he had prepared earlier from beneath the bed. When he opened it, it was filled to the brim with Suoluo Seeds.
"What's this?"
"They look like chestnuts."
Zhao Xiaoshuang assumed they were ordinary fruit. She picked one up and examined it, only to realize she had never seen one before.
"These are called Suoluo Seeds. I came across them outside the village a few days ago."
Meng Nan skirted around the details and told Zhao Xiaoshuang about the Suoluo Seeds' effects.
Zhao Xiaoshuang's eyes widened. "These are spirit fruits?"
"Calling them spirit fruits would be giving them too much credit."
"Even prospective cultivators at the True Essence Stage wouldn't give these fruit a second glance, let alone Qi Refining Immortal Masters."
"But for people at our level, they couldn't be more suitable."
Meng Nan carefully picked up a seed, then just as carefully closed the wooden box. This season, he had harvested 114 Suoluo Seeds in all. They should be enough to support their cultivation for a while.
But he wouldn't know for sure until they tried them.
"Don't tell anyone about this. We'll cultivate in secret."
Meng Nan reminded Zhao Xiaoshuang, who nodded like a pecking chick. "Got it."
According to Meng Nan, Qi Refining Immortal Masters and those at the True Essence Stage had no interest in these spirit fruits. Put another way, even people at the True Qi Stage would be green with envy if they saw them.
Of course they had to keep the seeds under lock and key!
And now,
remembering how Meng Nan had told her a month ago that he hoped to reach the Inner Qi Stage by the end of the year, then looking at the Suoluo Seed in her hand, Zhao Xiaoshuang suddenly understood.
"So he had spirit fruits."
That was what Zhao Xiaoshuang thought. Then Meng Nan drew her into a seated cultivation posture.
The practice flowed through its cycle.
Twenty-four breaths.
When Meng Nan opened his eyes, Zhao Xiaoshuang was looking at him with delight. "I think I've reached the Visualization Realm!"
There was no clear threshold between the Qi Sensing Realm and the Visualization Realm.
In Meng Nan's experience, once the Inner Breath accumulated to ten points, one had reached the peak of the Qi Sensing Realm. At eleven points, one entered the Visualization Realm.
At that point, one could cultivate the third layer of the Thunder Illumination Scripture and try to form a Visualization Diagram.
But the change was subtle; one could only feel it carefully.
However—
Name: Meng Nan
Lifespan: 18/80
Faction: Chashan Cave
Cultivation: Fetal Breath Contemplation
Inner Breath: 15
Root Bone: 1
Cultivation Method: Thunder Illumination Scripture, Third Layer
Spell Technique: Spirit Wandering Steps (Second Layer)
Skills: None
Progress: Viewable
"One Suoluo Seed gave me nine points of Inner Breath and brought me into the Visualization Realm."
"No wonder even Xiaoshuang could feel herself breaking through."
Meng Nan was pleasantly surprised.
The Suoluo Seed's effects had surpassed his expectations. A single fruit had already brought him to the peak of his cultivation in his future life.
Nine points from one seed.
At most, he'd need ten more to complete the "basic progress." It was almost too easy.
"That makes sense."
"Suoluo Seeds work even on people at the True Qi Stage, so of course they're even more effective for people like us in the Qi Sensing Realm."
Meng Nan suppressed his excitement and looked at Zhao Xiaoshuang. "The Qi Sensing Realm is just a matter of accumulating Inner Breath. Eat one Suoluo Seed, and you can immediately reach the limit and break through. But in the Visualization Realm, besides Inner Breath, you also have to visualize a complete Qi Circulation Diagram. It's not as simple as just increasing your Inner Breath. The Suoluo Seeds can save us the time it would take to build up our reserves, but we still have to carefully figure out the key points of cultivation."
Meng Nan said this for Zhao Xiaoshuang's sake, but also to remind himself.
He had only just entered the Visualization Realm himself. At the time, he had only just encountered the Qi Circulation Diagram and had barely begun constructing it when his time was up and he returned to reality.
So from now on, he and Zhao Xiaoshuang were starting from roughly the same point.
The only advantage he had over her was that he could complete twenty-four breaths of practice in a single cycle. While constructing the Qi Circulation Diagram, he could keep going longer each time, which naturally made him more efficient.
That was all.
"My reserves are completely depleted now."
"Now that my basic progress is nearly complete, I can also start thinking about the 'sacrifice' stage."
As Meng Nan spoke with Zhao Xiaoshuang, he was thinking about killing someone.
Amitabha!
What a sin!
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