Spring is Coming

This meditation session lasted for half a month, time flying by like a fleeting stream of light.

The accumulated spiritual energy was simply too vast.

Even with Lu Qiancha exerting her utmost effort, she could still only absorb the majority of it into her dantian through breathing exercises.

On this day, an inexplicable, restless, and scorching sensation surged from her chest without warning.

Like ignited oil, it instantly swept through her sea of consciousness.

“?”

Lu Qiancha’s willow-like brows furrowed tightly.

She immediately formed a hand seal, chanting in a low, clear voice, “Ice Heart Jade Soul, Suppress!”

A stream of cold, crystal-clear spiritual energy, like jade marrow or nectar, gently brushed over her agitated spiritual platform.

Yet, this scorching restlessness merely paused for a fleeting moment before roaring back like an enraged volcano.

‘Could it be that something went wrong with my cultivation?’

‘Cultivation deviation?’

Lu Qiancha’s heart trembled violently.

She immediately ceased her circulation of energy, her divine sense acting like fine silk threads to scan every inch of her meridians, qi sea, sea of consciousness, and Violet Palace.

However, her spiritual energy flowed smoothly, her meridians were free of obstruction, her divine soul in the Violet Palace was clear, and her dantian’s qi sea was stable.

She could not find the slightest abnormality.

Only that heart-scorching heat remained, becoming like maggots in the bone, gnawing at her sanity.

Even her limbs and bones began to faintly emanate a strange, aching itch and a sense of weakness.

Lu Qiancha cast the Heart-Clearing Spell again, but this time, it failed to produce any effect.

‘No… I can’t go on like this…’

Lu Qiancha forced herself to stand, wanting to go outside for some fresh air.

Her feet had barely left the floor when an intense wave of weakness washed over her like a tide.

“Thud!”

With a heavy sound, Lu Qiancha collapsed onto the floorboards, completely unable to resist, as if all the strength in her body had been instantly drained away.

“This is bad!”

Lu Qiancha’s heart skipped a beat.

‘I might have been poisoned!’

She hurriedly swallowed a Detoxification Pill and quickly scanned her whole body with spiritual energy, yet the restlessness showed no sign of dissipating.

‘Could it be… a shamanic curse?’

Lu Qiancha panted slightly, feeling powerless and confused.

‘I haven’t provoked anyone recently, have I?’

Gritting her teeth, Lu Qiancha took out her Jade Signet to contact Gan Tang, then deactivated the formation inside the room.

“Thump!”

Gan Tang arrived immediately, looking in panic at Lu Qiancha, who was lying on the ground gasping for breath.

“Senior Brother?!”

Gan Tang was scared out of her wits.

She scrambled over to Lu Qiancha’s side, her voice pitching up in hysteria: “Senior Brother, what’s wrong? What do I do? What can I do?”

“…I’m fine.”

Lu Qiancha clenched her jaw, squeezing the words out through her teeth.

Suppressing the scorching heat that threatened to incinerate her consciousness, she pointed a trembling paw at the top shelf of the bedside table: “Pass me… the bottle of medicine on the top shelf.”

“Okay!”

Gan Tang’s gaze swept across like lightning, and she hurriedly dug out a bottle of milk-like potion from the bedside table. “Is it this one?”

“Yes.”

Lu Qiancha spoke weakly.

She took the potion from Gan Tang, but she had absolutely no strength to twist open the stopper.

Resigned, Lu Qiancha could only say to Gan Tang, “Twist the stopper open… feed it to me.”

“Oh, oh, okay, Senior Brother.”

Gan Tang agreed hurriedly.

She quickly pulled out the stopper and carefully brought the cool bottle rim to Lu Qiancha’s pink, tender lips.

Like a traveler in the desert meeting sweet rain, Lu Qiancha strained to open her mouth—”Gulp, gulp.”

With more than half the bottle down, the stifling heat showed no sign of alleviating; instead, it became even more severe.

‘What a potent poison.’

“Ngh…!”

Lu Qiancha’s eyes grew hazy.

Her body gave a violent, uncontrolled spasm, and she collapsed to the side, gasping for air in great heaves.

“Senior Brother!”

Gan Tang’s scream tore through the silence of the room.

Casting aside all else, she scooped the deeply unconscious little wolf cub up into her arms and rushed madly toward Xun Xue’s door.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!!”

“Auntie! Auntie, open the door! Something’s happened to Senior Brother Qiancha! Save her!”

Gan Tang’s tearful cries hit the door panel like a heavy hammer.

All was silent; inside the room, it was dead quiet…

“Creak—”

After a wait that felt as long as half a lifetime, the door finally slid inward.

Xun Xue’s figure stood in the shadows behind the door like a serene jade statue, her expression indifferent, carrying a trace of cool impatience at being disturbed.

“What is all this commotion?”

Her voice was flat and waveless.

“Auntie, it’s Senior Brother! Senior Brother Qiancha, she…”

Gan Tang was incoherent, trembling as she offered the little wolf in her arms forward, her voice thick with sobs. “She’s fading fast, please, take a look!”

“Something happened to Little Qiancha?”

Xun Xue’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly as she hurriedly looked at the little wolf cub in Gan Tang’s arms.

She saw Lu Qiancha lying listlessly in Gan Tang’s arms, her eyes hazy and her small face flushed red.

“Give Little Qiancha to me.”

Her voice suddenly carried an unquestionable authority.

“Okay, okay.”

Gan Tang felt as if granted a great amnesty, clumsily stuffing Lu Qiancha into Xun Xue’s soft, warm embrace.

Xun Xue held her daughter’s small body steadily.

Her immortal power, warm and thick as jade, acted like the most precise probe, instantly penetrating Lu Qiancha’s limbs, bones, and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

From shallow to deep, from the surface to the interior, every wisp of qi and blood, every inch of spiritual meridian, and every minute throb of the divine soul was revealed in minute detail under her immense immortal sense.

Xun Xue’s expression also shifted from its initial gravity to something more subtle.

“Auntie?”

Gan Tang gazed heart-wrenchingly at Xun Xue’s unreadable face and asked cautiously, “Senior… Senior Brother… what exactly is wrong with her?”

Cradling Lu Qiancha, Xun Xue slowly raised her eyelids.

Her gaze drifted past Gan Tang’s anxious face, as if penetrating the thick courtyard walls to look at the distant mountains and wilds…

The corners of her lips curled into an extremely helpless yet somewhat amused arc, and she softly uttered three words: “Spring has come.”

“Huh?”

Gan Tang was instantly dumbfounded, her eyes widening into perfect circles.

She followed Xun Xue’s gaze blankly toward the window—the cold wind was still swirling with scattered snow foam.

It was clearly the dead of winter, cold enough to freeze dripping water into ice.

“But… but it’s winter right now, Auntie?”

Gan Tang asked foolishly.

Xun Xue gave her a deep look, a gaze that seemed to say: Child, you are too young.

Then, her voice returned to that composure of one in total control: “Now, immediately, lock all the doors and windows in the room tight.”

“Then,” Xun Xue added, “come with me!”

“Oh, oh.”

Although Gan Tang was completely confused, her extreme worry for her senior brother overrode everything else.

She banged and clattered around, sealing Xun Xue’s doors and windows tight, then ran back like a gust of wind to stand nervously before Xun Xue.

Xun Xue nodded and walked steadily toward her own bed, cradling Lu Qiancha.

She gently laid the scalding hot little wolf flat upon the soft brocade quilt.

Under Gan Tang’s astonished gaze—

Xun Xue’s slender fingers flew.

Like unwrapping the most exquisite work of art, she efficiently and without a hint of impropriety unbuttoned Lu Qiancha’s cotton-fleece top and deftly removed the pair of white tights.

In the blink of an eye.

The little wolf girl’s petite body—already flushed with a faint pink hue, possessing soft lines yet still retaining a youthful tenderness—was almost completely revealed to the air of the warm chamber, save for her undergarments.

“Eh? Eh? Eh?”

Gan Tang’s face turned as red as a cooked shrimp with a “swish,” and her whole head seemed to start steaming.

She spun around abruptly, yet couldn’t resist sneaking a peek back through the gaps in her fingers…

At the same time, alarm bells exploded in Gan Tang’s heart: It’s over! It’s over! It’s over! If Senior Brother wakes up and finds out she was seen like this, will she kill me to silence the witness?!