Begonia Asks the Heart · Creation Leaves a Seed

Ye Lingling sought Nan Feng out for an assessment once every week.

The habit had carried over from Nuoding Academy. Back then, she had been a transfer student in the intermediate division, and Nan Feng had just enrolled as a work-study student. Every few days, she found a reason to see him. Sometimes she needed help gathering herbs; other times she needed a partner to practice Soul Power control.

Later, those reasons became a regular routine. Once a week, they sat down in a quiet corner of the academy. Ye Lingling asked, and Nan Feng answered.

On the evening of their third day after settling in at Heaven Dou Royal Academy, Ye Lingling knocked on Nan Feng's door.

She held a scroll covered in writing and a small porcelain bottle. The evening breeze lifted a corner of her plain white dress.

"Do you have time?"

Nan Feng stepped aside to let her in. Ye Lingling sat down at the table and unrolled the paper.

It contained the assessment records she had compiled, written in neat, delicate script. Each line listed a date, Soul Power fluctuation readings, perceptual characteristics, and notes. From the first assessment in Nuoding to the present, the thick stack covered seven years.

"You've been keeping records all this time?" Nan Feng sat down on the edge of the bed.

"It's a habit." Ye Lingling turned to the latest page and pointed to a blank line. "I need to add a record of your Soul Power fluctuations since you arrived in Heaven Dou City. My readings over the past few days were only cursory. Today I'll do a complete assessment."

Nan Feng nodded.

Ye Lingling walked over to him and held her right hand three inches in front of his dantian. A pinkish-white halo appeared in her palm, spinning as it seeped into the outer layer of his Soul Power.

Nan Feng felt a coolness seep from her palm, touch the suppressive force around the outside of his Soul Power, and continue probing inward.

Her perception paused when it encountered the suppressive force. Ye Lingling did not withdraw. She lightened her touch and probed inward, skirting the suppressed area.

Her brow twitched on the third breath.

"The walls of your meridians are nearly thirty percent thicker than they were in Gengxin City," Ye Lingling said as she continued sensing. "Your Soul Power density has increased too. You're level thirty-four, but your Soul Power is nearly twice as dense as a Soul Master of the same level's."

"The doors to the first and second floors of the tower have been pushed all the way open. The Power of Mountain Suppression and the Power of Devouring are continuously transforming your meridians. Your bone density has increased too. Your Gravity Field is more than twice as strong as it was in Nuoding."

Nan Feng looked at her. What she described matched the changes in his body that he had sensed inside the tower's space.

Ye Lingling withdrew her hand, stepped back, and returned to the table. She took a fine brush from her sleeve, dipped it in ink, and wrote several lines.

When she finished, she set the brush down, spread out the scroll, and pointed out a line to Nan Feng.

"These are the characteristics of your Soul Power fluctuations. I recorded them when I first sensed you in Nuoding. Back then, there was only a suppressed sense of heaviness in the fluctuations."

"Later, I recorded them again in Gengxin City. That heaviness had grown stronger, and there was a dark trailing trace of 'Devouring.'"

"Now this is the third record, in Heaven Dou City. Both of those layers are still there, but there's something else."

She raised her head.

"A warm-colored halo, at the very bottom of the fluctuations. It's faint, but it's definitely there. It seeps from the deepest part of your soul, and it's different from both the Power of Mountain Suppression and the Power of Devouring. It's gentler and more continuous."

Nan Feng was silent for a breath. That was the Power of Creation seeping through the crack in the third-floor door. Ye Lingling's Nine Heart Begonia could already detect the signs of it leaking out.

"This warm light is different from the other two layers," Ye Lingling said. "The Power of Mountain Suppression is heavy, and the Power of Devouring is dark. This warm light is alive. It flows through your meridians, and wherever it passes, hidden injuries heal faster and the resistance to your Soul Power's circulation decreases."

"When I sensed that ancient power deep in your soul in Nuoding, its color was gold, and it had the same texture as this warm light. That power is growing, and it's being released through the tower's third floor."

Nan Feng looked at her. Ye Lingling's assessments never contained judgments; she only stated the facts. Today, her observations went deeper than ever before.

"What do you want to ask?" Nan Feng said.

Ye Lingling rolled up the record and put it away, then tucked the fine brush into her sleeve. She did not speak immediately. She walked to the window and pushed it open a crack.

The evening breeze poured in, stirring the loose strands of hair at her temples. She stood there for a few breaths, then turned to look at Nan Feng.

"I won't ask what your secret is." Her voice was soft, but every word landed steadily.

"Before my mother died, she told me that inheritors of the Nine Heart Begonia are born able to perceive the deep structure of life energy. That ability is both a gift and a burden. When you see more than others, you have to bear more weight than they do."

"She also said that if I met someone with a golden power in their soul, that person should either stay farther away from me or let me come closer. There was no middle choice."

The flame of the oil lamp flickered. From the corridor came the footsteps of students leaving the distant training ground.

Nan Feng sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her. The evening breeze lifted and lowered her plain white dress.

He had known back at Nuoding Academy that Ye Lingling treated him differently. But she had never said or done anything that crossed the line.

"I choose to come closer," Ye Lingling said.

Nan Feng was silent for several breaths. Ye Lingling stood motionless by the window, her fingers pressed against the sill, her knuckles turning white.

Nan Feng walked up to her. They stood one step apart. Moonlight slipped through the gap and fell across half her face.

"Your Nine Heart Begonia is evolving," Nan Feng said.

Ye Lingling froze for a moment and looked down at her right palm. A pinkish-white begonia halo pulsed there, no different from usual.

Nan Feng raised his right hand, bringing the deep black Soul Ring's underlying glow in his palm close to hers.

Ye Lingling's hand trembled. When the Nine Heart Begonia's halo touched the Power of Creation, it brightened a shade, and a layer of warm light appeared around the edges of its petals.

"The Power of Creation on the tower's third floor can evolve Martial Souls," Nan Feng said. "Your Nine Heart Begonia has already picked up a trace of the Power of Creation. The amount is tiny, but it really is evolving. Once the third-floor door is fully open, I can actively help you evolve it."

Ye Lingling looked at her palm for a long time, then drew back her right hand and clenched it.

The begonia's halo returned to its usual color. The warm underlying glow did not fade completely, leaving an exceptionally fine trace deep in the lines of her palm.

"So this is what you've been doing all along. You've been helping the people around you evolve their Martial Souls."

"Mm."

Ye Lingling took half a step forward, closing the distance between them from one step to less than half a foot. She looked up at Nan Feng, her light amber eyes almost impossibly bright in the moonlight.

"I'll wait for you," she said. "I'll wait until you've pushed the third-floor door all the way open. I'll wait for you to help me evolve. I'll wait for you to finish walking this path."

Nan Feng looked at her. Ye Lingling's gaze neither wavered nor pressed him.

Her fingers touched the red hair ribbon around his wrist. They lingered for a beat, then withdrew. She did not ask who had braided it.

Outside the window, a night breeze passed, and the leaves of the old locust tree rustled for a while. In the distance, the lights at the training ground went out one by one.

Nan Feng looked down at the exceptionally fine warm-colored trace in her palm and held out his right hand, palm up.

Ye Lingling did not take his hand. She rested her right hand in his palm.

Their hands lay together. The begonia's halo and the underlying glow of the tower's Soul Ring mingled where they met. The Power of Creation seeped along the lines of her palm, leaving an extremely small, seedlike point of warm light in the core of her Nine Heart Begonia Martial Soul.

"When the third-floor door is fully open," Nan Feng said, "this seed will sprout."

Ye Lingling nodded, drew back her right hand, and clenched it.

"Tomorrow morning, I'll go to the library and help you look up information on Soul Beast distribution," she said. "You can't absorb your fourth Soul Ring until level forty, and it has to be thirty-two thousand years old. Soul Beasts of that level aren't easy to find. There might be clues in old journals."

Nan Feng nodded.

Ye Lingling opened the door and left, her plain white figure receding beneath the corridor lights.

Nan Feng stood by the window, watching her back disappear around the corner of the corridor.

The Power of Creation in the crack of the third-floor door had grown a shade brighter again. The warmth from just now had traveled around the core of her Martial Soul, and when it returned, it was a little denser than before.

When the Power of Creation came into contact with outside life energy, it produced feedback. Each time, the feedback widened the crack in the door a fraction.

He shut the window, sat cross-legged on the bed, and sank into the space inside the tower.

Old Huai poked his head out of the crack, a flash of green light passing through his cloudy eyes.

"That girl left a seed in your palm?"

"Mm."

"The Martial Soul Core of her Nine Heart Begonia has picked up the Power of Creation. That seed will slowly sprout. Once the third-floor door is fully open, her Martial Soul can evolve to God Level." Old Huai retreated into the crack. "Those people around you, one at a time. You can't rush it."

Nan Feng closed his eyes and circulated the Primordial World Qi Refining Art. The Soul Power in his dantian traveled through his meridians in cycle after cycle, warm and steady.

His Soul Power was at level thirty-four, and the crack in the third-floor door continued to widen.

The night in Heaven Dou City was quiet. A long bell sounded from the distant bell tower, and then all fell silent.