The courtyard gate opened with a faint sound.
Yi Yang's right hand still rested on the Tiger Roar Saber's hilt as his left foot crossed the threshold.
He stepped into the little courtyard and saw two figures inside.
Beneath the old jujube tree by the wall, a slender figure held a horse stance, arms extended level and back straight.
Beside her stood a young woman in dark gray training clothes, hands clasped behind her back. Every so often, she raised a hand to correct the angle of the other girl's shoulders or elbows.
Yi Yang stopped at the sight of them.
It wasn't because of Liu Qing. He had sensed her aura of third inner qi completion from outside the courtyard wall.
She was Yan Wuyuan's personal maid. Her presence in his courtyard was unexpected, but not impossible.
What stopped him was the other aura.
Qi-blood fifth level.
Organ refining realm.
That aura radiated from the girl holding the horse stance, steady and sustained. The rhythm of her circulating qi and blood had already settled into a fixed cycle.
This wasn't the awkwardness of a beginner. She had already established a firm foothold in this realm.
Yi Yang stared at the girl's back, his mind struggling to make sense of it.
Because that was Jiang Yuexin.
His own granddaughter.
Before Yi Yang left, Jiang Yuexin had been a little girl without even the strength to truss a chicken.
His trip to White Fish City had lasted less than three months in total.
Three months, and qi-blood fifth level?
What did that even mean?
With a sixtyfold Heavenly Mandate boost, pills poured into him, and precious fruits accelerating his progress, Yi Yang had fought with everything his old bones had to finish the qi-blood realm in six months.
But Jiang Yuexin