"Oh! Exactly!" Only then did Yan Qinglian realize it. Covering her mouth, she said, "That's what I thought! True Person Jinglü's reputation is so terrible—how could she possibly have let Junior Brother Xiao go so easily? She must have some formidable trick up her sleeve!"
"But... what can we do?" Xiangyang became even more certain. After all, Xiao Hua had said that even Wunai had been helpless. If it was not True Person Jinglü's handiwork, what else could it be?
"Alas..." Yan Qinglian sighed, her eyes once again turning toward Xiao Hua's cave abode, filled with boundless desolation.
"Let's go!" Xiangyang waved his hand. "Handle this as we did before. Do not tell Master's wife the details; just say Junior Brother Xiao is entering seclusion! Do not mention another word, lest loose lips bring disaster."
"I understand! Let Master's wife tell Master." Yan Qinglian flew away, answering softly.
After Xiao Hua sealed the entrance to his cave abode, he sat down cross-legged and circulated his cultivation method. True yuan flowed incomparably smoothly through his meridians, yet no matter how he urged the method, the earth-attributed Heaven and Earth spiritual energy deposited within them would not budge in the slightest, much less be refined!
Next, Xiao Hua sensed the faint soundless thunder within the cave abode. Yet although that thunder could stir the deposited spiritual energy somewhat, it only stirred it; it was still insufficient to drive the spiritual energy.
This did not exceed Xiao Hua's expectations. After pondering for a moment, he thought to himself, *The way forward is to refine the Heaven and Earth spiritual energy accumulated in my meridians and flesh. But if I advance on both fronts at once, I'll need to divide my attention in two! Otherwise, I'll lose sight of one while attending to the