The next morning, the soul-guiding array in the rear garden had yet to fully awaken. The air was filled with a damp stillness suspended between night and day.
When Yun Zhiyu emerged from meditation, fine dewdrops clung to the strands of hair between her brows, glimmering faintly in the hazy morning light as though someone had scattered crushed diamonds over her while she slept.
She slowly exhaled a breath of stale air. It condensed into a fleeting white mist in the cool air, only to be shredded by the breeze stirred up by the array. After a night of meditation, the Soul Power in her meridians had recovered to seventy or eighty percent.
The hidden injuries left behind by yesterday's cultivation deviation had also been soothed by the gentle aura of the Northern Nether Black Tortoise. Only a faint, almost imperceptible sting remained deep in her sea of consciousness, like silk pricked by a fine needle—intact on the surface, yet hiding an undetectable fracture within.
She shook her hair, her black strands tracing a messy arc through the air as dew scattered in all directions. A few droplets landed on her cheeks, bringing a trace of coolness. Then she raised a hand and slapped her own face hard—
"Slap, slap."
The two crisp sounds were especially clear in the silent rear garden, like a ritual of self-awakening. Beneath her dark-brown contact lenses, her purple vertical pupils refocused, thoroughly dispelling the daze left by meditation and replacing it with an almost razor-sharp clarity.
She stood, straightened her clothes, and stepped forward.
Faint commotion drifted over from the training ground. Zero Class had arrived early. Yun Zhiyu walked along the path winding through flowers and trees, while cherry blossoms simulated by the soul-guiding array drifted down behind her like a silent farewell.