A place to belong

"The Heavenly Dao is unjust! Truly, the Heavenly Dao is unjust!"

Ling Shuanghua tossed her teacup onto the stone table, and the snow-tip tea inside vanished in an instant.

"When I was twelve, I was still going in circles at the tenth level of Qi Refining!"

Ye Wuhen smiled and refilled his junior sister's cup. "When you broke through to the twelfth level of Qi Refining, Master gave you a gift to mark the occasion."

He turned to Feng Zhuo and said warmly, "Junior Brother has a solid foundation. This breakthrough came as naturally as water flowing into a channel."

Feng Zhuo held the spirit tea his senior brother had handed him, the tips of his ears turning slightly red.

He had only managed it thanks to his life-bound Spirit Flame.

Ling Shuanghua's face suddenly appeared in his cup's reflection as she leaned close.

Second Senior Sister was a Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator, yet she was squatting on a stone stool without a shred of decorum. She formed an ice flower at her fingertip and dropped it into his tea.

"Drink! This is cold-pool ice dew, specially made by your senior sister."

Ling Shuanghua lifted her chin proudly. "Even Junior Brother Cang didn't get this treatment when he broke through."

At the other end of the courtyard, twelve-year-old Cang Wuya silently slid his sword back into its sheath.

The boy's slender figure paused. He walked over, took a piece of image-recording jade from his robes, and placed it on the stone table.

The recording clearly showed Ling Shuanghua chasing him around and feeding him ice dew a few months earlier.

"Pfft-"

Ye Wuhen sprayed out a mouthful of tea.

Ling Shuanghua's face instantly flushed red, and her Foundation Establishment Realm spiritual pressure burst out of control, shattering the fallen leaves covering the ground. "You little brat! You'll practice your sword techniques for four extra hours tonight!"

That suited Cang Wuya perfectly.

Feng Zhuo lowered his head and sipped the ice dew. Sweet, bracing Spiritual Qi slid down his throat and into his Dantian.

When he looked up, he met Cang Wuya's gaze. His junior senior brother gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

"Anyway, that's how it is!"

Ling Shuanghua slapped the bluestone table, making the tea set rattle and jump.

Feng Zhuo stared at his senior sister for a long while, then turned to his eldest senior brother. "So... the situation on Carefree Peak is: 'Master is a Body Integration Realm sword cultivator, Eldest Senior Brother is a Peak Foundation Establishment artifact cultivator, Senior Sister is a Peak Foundation Establishment body cultivator, and Junior Senior Brother is a twelfth-level Qi Refining sword cultivator.'"

"Senior Sister, you spent two hours saying what could be said in just a few words?"

Ye Wuhen's hand paused as he poured tea, and he gave a gentle smile. "Junior Sister Shuanghua repeated everyone's Spirit Root attributes seven times."

"I was afraid Junior Brother wouldn't remember!"

Ling Shuanghua was in the wrong, but her voice was as bold as ever. "Besides, I explained everyone's cultivation traits in detail!"

Feng Zhuo silently held out a piece of image-recording jade. He had prepared it to record more useful information.

In the recording, Ling Shuanghua gestured animatedly. "Our master is in the Body Integration Realm! You know the Body Integration Realm, right? It's the realm one level above Void Refinement and one level below Mahayana..."

Feng Zhuo held his forehead. "Senior Sister, I knew that common knowledge when I was three."

Ling Shuanghua grabbed Ye Wuhen's sleeve. "Then, then let me tell you about Eldest Senior Brother!"

"He may look like a cook now, but he's a genius who can control multiple cauldrons while refining artifacts!"

As she spoke, Ling Shuanghua suddenly lowered her voice. "It's just that last year he blew up seven cauldrons and Master's spirit medicine garden..."

"Junior Sister!"

Ye Wuhen scrambled to cover her mouth.

Feng Zhuo watched his senior brother and senior sister making a racket before him.

He turned to the only normal one, his junior senior brother. "Junior Senior Brother, has Carefree Peak... always been like this?"

Cang Wuya nodded expressionlessly. Between swings of his sword, he pulled a copy of the Heart-Calming Incantation from his sleeve and pushed it toward him.

"Oh, come on! Those who accomplish great things don't fuss over trifles!"

Ling Shuanghua grabbed Feng Zhuo's arm. "We've been talking for so long. You must be hungry, Junior Brother, right? Come on, I'll take you to try your Senior Brother Wuhen's beggar's chicken!"

Feng Zhuo remembered the beggar's chicken that had looked like black charcoal in his previous life and was about to decline, but Ling Shuanghua had already formed a Breeze Instruction hand seal and swept him off toward the back mountain.

Ye Wuhen shook his head with a smile and casually picked up Cang Wuya, who was still practicing his sword. "Let's go. We'll spread on some extra spirit honey today."

Under an old locust tree on the back mountain, the fragrance of earth mingled with the aroma of rich fat and greeted them.

Ye Wuhen flicked his sword fingers, and a beggar's chicken wrapped in spirit mud burst out of the ground. Golden fat dripped from the cracks.

"Here."

Ye Wuhen tore off a drumstick and handed it to Feng Zhuo. "Though it can't compare with Heavenly Treasures Pavilion's..."

Ling Shuanghua's eyes instantly glued themselves to the drumstick.

Feng Zhuo saw her swallow and heard her muttering with forced composure, "That's for Junior Brother... I have to let Junior Brother have it..."

"Junior Brother Cang,"

Ling Shuanghua suddenly turned to Cang Wuya, who was gnawing on a chicken wing. "About the time you broke Master's vase while practicing your sword..."

"Senior Sister, you broke it while sparring with me."

Cang Wuya calmly wiped his mouth, then used his Movement Method to leap into the air the instant Ling Shuanghua lunged at him. "Senior Sister, the drumstick smells too good. Forgive me, but I can't let you have it!"

Feng Zhuo watched the two figures chase each other into the distance. Suddenly, Ye Wuhen slipped another vermilion fruit into his hand. "Eat up. They'll snatch it when they get back."

Crisp skin enclosed the tender, juicy spirit fowl. The moment Feng Zhuo bit into it, a warm current flowed from his stomach into his limbs and bones.

Ling Shuanghua's shouts and curses and Cang Wuya's rare laughter drifted from the distance, while Ye Wuhen secretly slipped a second drumstick into his hand.

Feng Zhuo suddenly felt that Carefree Peak in this life might be the place to belong that he had sought but never found in his previous life.

Amid curling wisps of blue smoke, Feng Zhuo extinguished the last thread of Spirit Flame.

The newly carved cave abode carried the crisp scent peculiar to mountain stone. The crooked characters on the curtains over the three stone chambers were plainly Ling Shuanghua's handiwork.

Yesterday, Senior Sister had insisted on helping "decorate the cave abode," but Eldest Senior Brother had ended up taking over halfway through the writing.

Feng Zhuo sat cross-legged on a blue jade cushion that glowed with a lustrous sheen. This was the "Spirit-Concentrating, Spirit-Gathering Cushion," a supreme-grade Law Artifact personally refined by his eldest senior brother Ye Wuhen. Not only could it help a cultivator quickly enter a meditative state, but it also contained a small Spirit Gathering Formation, making it a mobile cultivation room.

A wooden sword rested diagonally against the stone wall to his right, lightning patterns faintly visible along its blade.

His junior senior brother Cang Wuya had spent three days and nights refining it from the heartwood of a fine peach tree. It was a high-grade Law Artifact that specialized in countering yin and evil forces, named "Awakening of Insects."

The image-recording jade hanging from its sword tassel still held a recording of Ling Shuanghua baring her teeth and brandishing her claws as she threatened, "If you dare lose it, Junior Brother Cang will definitely freeze you into an ice sculpture!"

Thinking of Second Senior Sister's gift, Feng Zhuo's mouth twitched.

Several third-tier spirit herbs disguised as weeds were mixed into the basket of "first- and second-tier spirit herbs," and at the very bottom was a "self-created Pill Formula" covered in hasty scrawl: "'Twin Heavens of Ice and Fire'-your senior sister's original creation. Don't come looking for me if the cauldron explodes!"

The gifts from the other peaks' Peak Masters were piled in a corner of the cave abode.

The most eye-catching was the middle-grade Spirit Artifact "Crimson Flame Flowing Fire Fan," a gift from Artifact Peak's Peak Master. The pattern of a phoenix spreading its wings on its gold-and-red ribs faintly resonated with the Spirit Flame in his body.

Unfortunately, artifacts were divided into five tiers: Law Artifacts, Spirit Artifacts, Spirit Treasures, Immortal Artifacts, and Divine Artifacts. The first three were further divided into four grades: low, middle, high, and supreme.

Spirit Artifacts could only be used upon reaching the Golden Core Realm. With the amount of spiritual power he had at the Qi Refining Stage, half a sweep of the fan would drain his Dantian dry.

He could only put it away for now.

With that thought, Feng Zhuo weighed the Storage Bag containing twenty thousand middle-grade Spirit Stones and thought, Chixiao really is stingy.

By comparison, the fourth-tier "Thunder Slaughter Formation" and "Golden Lock Formation" plates given by Formation Peak's Dao Lord Xuanji were hanging at the entrance to the cave abode as door gods.

The Storage Bag sent by Law Peak's Dao Lord Taisu contained three thousand-year-old black ginseng plants sealed in ice jade boxes.

Body Peak's Dao Lord Bayue had been more practical still, giving him a whole piece of "beast blood amber" that could temper the body.

"That was more thoughtful than in my previous life."

Feng Zhuo chuckled and placed the jade talisman containing the Nirvana Heaven-Burning Instruction against his forehead. It was time to experience the mysteries of the Feng Household's secret cultivation method.