Under Liu Dongqing's calm gaze.
Meinu slowly began to speak.
Her voice carried an exceedingly rare tangle of emotions, a complexity Liu Dongqing had sensed only on that first day when he had subdued and imprisoned her.
"For ordinary cultivators, cultivation at the Rising Mist Dao Academy was actually far harder than at the Sunward Dao Academy.
Back then, I managed to reach the stage of competing for an inner sect position partly through my own natural gifts, and partly by relying on this pill formula-
This pill is called the Nine Ganoderma Fire Dew Pill. It is a treasured pill that aids cultivation of the Yang Fire Path, and it did not come from Departure Peak's own inheritance. My father found it years ago in an ancient cultivator's cave abode out in the wilds.
For this pill formula, several wicked cultivators from the same market town attacked and grievously wounded him. He did not survive that month, dying sick in his bed.
To give myself a different future, and simply to stay alive, I took this pill formula with me and entered the Holy Cult.
But when I reached the stage of competing for an inner sect position, I discovered, to my helpless dismay,
That the pill formula which had once cost my father his life fell short of the cultivation-aiding treasured pills passed down in those aristocratic clans by far more than a single tier.
In the end, my foundations were too shallow. Struggling on through natural gifts alone could no longer carry me any farther..."
At this point.
Meinu seemed to want to let out a long sigh at these reflections.
She had even drawn a deep breath.
But the next moment, Liu Dongqing's deeply rueful sigh came first.
"Your late father at least left you a