By Three Rivers Lake, everyone drank tea and chatted idly, each recounting strange tales and curiosities they had seen.
They talked until dusk. With little time left, the tea gathering came to an end, and everyone gradually dispersed.
After the others had left, Chi Wanning sat alone for a while longer, staring blankly at the koi in the pond, no one knew what she was thinking.
As she sat lost in thought, an elderly woman with a weathered face and slow steps approached and stopped beside her. "Miss, it's late. You should return and cultivate."
Chi Wanning shook her head. "I want to sit a little longer."
Not only did the old woman fail to leave, she instead sneered. "Miss, it would be best not to make this old servant's task difficult."
Chi Wanning looked coldly at the old woman. "Aunt Yu, that tone of yours doesn't sound like the way one speaks to one's mistress."
Aunt Yu smiled. "You flatter this servant, Miss. A servant is a servant after all. How would I dare show disrespect to my master? But cultivation is the Patriarch's instruction. This servant would not dare disappoint the Patriarch."
Chi Wanning looked at the old woman, then suddenly smiled. "Yes, I have been slacking. Aunt Yu means well for me. Since that is so, I shall go."
As she spoke, she rose gracefully and headed toward the cultivation chamber.
The old woman watched her back and suddenly said, "Miss, your recent progress has been somewhat slow. I hope you will put more thought into it. Otherwise, when the Patriarch returns, neither you nor I will be able to answer for it."
Chi Wanning paused, then said coldly, "Understood."
Chi Wanning's cultivation chamber was a peculiar sphere of water.
It was entirely azure, its surface shimmering