Terminal-Stage Cringe Cancer

For Mao Zimiao, life had actually been pretty good lately. She had just completed five years of cultivation in the sect, her mana had steadily reached Foundation Establishment Late Stage, and she was currently in a "buffering and adjustment" phase of Mundane World Refining Heart. It could be said that she was in the most leisurely stretch of her cultivation career.

—It was like the eve of graduating from college on Earth.

Ai Qinglan's arrival had brought her a relatively easy opportunity to earn merit points. Ai Qinglan could also guide her cultivation. Now, Mao Zimiao could be considered someone capable of standing on her own, and her work region was close to home. She was no longer like back then, when she had to travel thousands of miles away from home to study alone.

Still, there was one thing that had been bothering her lately. She always felt that something was off.

"Meow!"

That feeling! It was back!

Mao Zimiao felt as though an electric current had shot through her spine. Her ears sprang upright, and she hurriedly turned around to look.

Sure enough, a petite girl in white was walking expressionlessly out of Ai Qinglan's house and heading toward Land City.

"Sister Ai..." Mao Zimiao tugged at Ai Qinglan, who was sprawled over a rock with absolutely no regard for her image. "Just now... did Sister Chen look at me...? So scary..."

That girl was also one of Sister Ai's partners in the empirical department. It was said that she was a friend of Sister Ai's husband. Unlike Sister Ai and Senior Brother Chen, who oversaw a great many projects and researchers, that girl often stayed alone in a study beside the empirical department, working by herself. Occasionally, she would follow Ai Qinglan to this rocky beach. Mao