Worse still, she wore no embroidered shoes at all. Her two fair, delicate little feet rested casually on the snowy-white wool rug, all ten pearl-round toes glowing a healthy pink, dazzling enough to make one's head spin!
Chen Xuan felt a wicked flame shoot straight into his lower abdomen. He hurriedly bit the tip of his tongue and, before Xiao Ling'er could notice the predatory look in his eyes, abruptly dropped to one knee again and cupped his fists, his face instantly flooding with irrepressible delight and excitement:
"Reporting to Third Miss! After receiving my reward in the main hall this morning and returning to the stables, I dared not waste a single moment. I immediately took the Blood-Gathering Pill bestowed by First Madam! Thanks to First Madam's and Third Miss's great blessings, I... I actually managed, by sheer good fortune, to clear my blocked meridians and break through!"
What?!
At those words, the air in the quiet, cozy inner bedchamber seemed to freeze solid!
Standing beside the dressing table, Qiu Yue had been about to put away the hairpins when her wrist shook violently. A jeweled hairpin clattered onto the table, and she turned toward Chen Xuan with wide eyes. "Chen Xuan, you... what did you just say? You broke through?!"
"What realm did you say you broke through to?!"
Xiao Ling'er sprang straight up from her dressing chair, her clear, dark-and-white almond eyes wide and round as she stared at Chen Xuan in disbelief. "Didn't you spend three whole years practicing the Boulder Art in the stables without stirring even the slightest ripple of blood Qi? How could you swallow a Blood-Gathering Pill this morning and break through by noon?!"
"I wouldn't dare deceive Third Miss! Even if I died ten thousand times, I would never dare lie before you!"
Chen Xuan raised his head and, at just the right moment, released the early-stage Bright Force blood Qi he had suppressed at the surface of his body. He clenched his right fist and gave it a slight shake, producing a crisp crack from his bones and sinews, his voice trembling violently with excitement. "Though I couldn't sense Qi during those first three years, I chopped wood, carried water, groomed horses, and trained my stances every day. I never dared slack off for even half a day! After I took that Blood-Gathering Pill this morning, its medicinal power exploded inside me like boiling oil and raging fire, completely igniting the brute strength I'd stored in my flesh over three years. I sat cross-legged and circulated my cultivation for four full hours, and actually broke through the barriers in my meridians in one stroke, stepping into early-stage Bright Force!"
Reaching the emotional part, Chen Xuan's eyes reddened, and he knocked his head heavily against the floor, choking out, "Without First Madam's gift of medicine, without Third Miss overcoming every objection to pull me out of the mire of those stables, I would have remained a wretched groom for the rest of my life, beaten and cursed at by anyone who pleased! Even if my body were smashed and my bones ground to dust, I could never repay Third Miss's immense kindness!"
Watching Chen Xuan sob and weep with gratitude like a loyal hound, Xiao Ling'er's heart gave two heavy thumps.
Without bothering to put on shoes, she hurried across the wool rug on her small, snowy-white bare feet, pattering up to Chen Xuan. Looking down at him, she commanded urgently:
"Enough of that empty boasting! Hold out your right hand!"
"Yes! Please examine me, Third Miss!"
Chen Xuan obediently raised his right hand, wrapped in strips of rag, exposing the pulse point on the inside of his wrist.
Xiao Ling'er bent down and, without the slightest reservation, extended three slender fingers like tender white scallions and laid them directly over Chen Xuan's pulse!
Slightly cool, silky smooth, and soft as though boneless.
The instant the girl's fingertips touched the skin of his wrist, her delicate orchid fragrance mingled with her warm breath and brushed across Chen Xuan's forehead from mere inches away.
And as Xiao Ling'er bent over to examine his pulse, the neckline of her already loose, pale-blue gauzy silk dress inevitably fell open in a breathtaking curve-from Chen Xuan's half-kneeling, upward-looking angle, he did not even need to deliberately raise his eyes for his peripheral vision to catch the dazzlingly white fullness beneath the edge of her rose-red chest wrap!
Look not upon what is improper, look not upon what is improper... if my blood Qi gets disturbed now and she detects something wrong with my pulse, it'll all be over!
Chen Xuan secretly swallowed, keeping his eyes firmly lowered. He sank his awareness into his dantian, sealing away his middle stage of Ming Jin and yang force presence without the slightest leak, allowing only that early-stage Bright Force blood Qi to flow steadily through his wrist pulse.
Xiao Ling'er closed her almond eyes and separated a strand of True Qi from her middle stage of Ming Jin cultivation, sending it through her fingertips into Chen Xuan's meridians.
One breath, two breaths, three breaths.
When she sensed the surging blood Qi in Chen Xuan's meridians, still somewhat immature yet far denser and weightier than that of an ordinary newcomer, Xiao Ling'er's tightly closed long lashes abruptly fluttered twice, and her eyes flew open!
"Good heavens... blood Qi reaching all four extremities, skin taut as a drum. This... this really is genuine early-stage Bright Force cultivation?!"
Seeing her young mistress's expression change dramatically, Qiu Yue covered her little mouth and cried out, "Miss, did Chen Xuan truly break through in just half a day, relying on a single Blood-Gathering Pill?!"
"Absolutely! And his foundation of Boulder Art blood Qi is actually a good measure more solid than those third-class guards in the front courtyard who've trained for four or five years!"
Xiao Ling'er released Chen Xuan's wrist as though she had touched a hot potato and retreated two steps across the wool rug before sitting back down at the dressing table. Her gaze toward Chen Xuan grew incomparably complicated, holding both the delight of having stumbled upon a treasure and a trace of bewilderment even she herself could not make sense of.
"Four hours... just four hours..." Xiao Ling'er unconsciously wound a damp strand of hair beside her ear around her finger, murmuring, "I remember when Eldest Brother's personal attendant took a Blood-Gathering Pill to break through the year before last, he lay in bed for three whole days and nights before barely managing to sense Qi. How did this horse-feeder manage it in four hours, as though he were eating candy? Could this be what the instructors always call 'deep reserves yielding a sudden surge'?"
"Third Miss sees clearly. I'm stupid, and during those three years in the stables, I knew nothing except stubbornly grinding away at those few stances. Perhaps Heaven found me truly pitiful and borrowed Third Miss's noble fortune to open my eyes!"
Chen Xuan raised his head again, staring straight at Xiao Ling'er with eyes washed utterly clear and filled with fervent worship and gratitude. His words rang out with unshakable conviction. "Third Miss saved this worthless life of mine from beneath a maddened horse's hooves and from the young lord's blade. Even this Ming Jin cultivation was bestowed by Third Miss! From this day forth, these fists of mine will swing for Third Miss alone. Even through mountains of blades and seas of fire, I won't so much as furrow my brow!"
Meeting Chen Xuan's burning gaze, as though he revered her as a deity, Xiao Ling'er's heart inexplicably trembled once again.