The last trace of summer heat quietly faded with a pattering autumn rain.
The sky had been washed a brilliant blue, lofty and boundless.
An autumn breeze swept through Helsing City, carrying the fragrance of plants and the dry scent of grain, heralding the arrival of a bountiful season.
Calm winds, still waters.
Those words best captured what Ning Chuan had felt over the past two months.
Ever since the City Guard withdrew all its covert spies, the Ning Family Courtyard in Elm Forest Alley had once again been enveloped in a long-absent tranquility.
Without those prying eyes clinging to them like maggots to bone, life seemed to have returned to what it had been before the Blackwater Gang's destruction-perhaps even more peaceful.
Ning Chuan's life had settled into a steady rhythm as well.
During the day, he went to the herb plot in the backyard and used his soul power to nourish the medicinal plants.
The blood ginseng's leaves were thick and glossy, their veins flowing with a faint azure radiance; honeysuckle vines had covered the newly erected bamboo trellises, and white buds the size of rice grains waited to bloom amid the emerald foliage.
Ning Chuan had formed a wondrous symbiotic relationship with the plants in the backyard. He could clearly sense their "hunger and thirst" and their "joy." This communion, rooted in the very essence of life, brought him endless pleasure.
Nighttime, meanwhile, was reserved for cultivation without fail.
The Azure Emperor Longevity Art circulated slowly within him, his soul power flowing like gentle streams, coursing ceaselessly through his broad, resilient meridians.
After two months of settling and consolidation, his Level 43 soul power had grown increasingly dense and robust. He could feel that the next bottleneck no longer seemed very far away.
Yet beneath that outward