Veyon swallowed the roasted pagoda flower. Warmth spread through her stomach, bright and sun-like, radiating into her very marrow.
The Yuan family claimed the world's finest divine-consciousness arts. They had secret body-tempering methods. Yet a single flower achieved similar effects. Astonishing.
Worse, her elemental energy stirred. Her cultivation advanced. She finally understood what Su Yan and Yuan Qi had gained from their days of "lazing about."
The two youths and the snake devoured the branch in minutes. Heat steamed from their bodies. Veyon's forehead beaded with sweat as yang energy surged through her, cleansing marrow and meridians.
Su Yan stood and practiced the Grand Yin Origin-Nurturing Art's eight forms. Yuan Qi wriggled beside him, mimicking the poses with his serpent body—sometimes shaping a curve, sometimes a hollow, then a ridge.
Veyon sat watching. She heard the flow of qi and divine consciousness within them. Faint soul-whispers. The whisper of marrow reforming.
Light gathered inside them, rising to their acupuncture points. Divine radiance leaked from each point, projecting their internal structures into the air. Every point resembled a natural grotto or palace.
"This art is extraordinary. The longer one trains, the more transformations occur. Superior to the Tuo Scripture indeed."
Veyon watched the projections and had an epiphany. "From these point-projections, I can combine our Cosmic Sensing with inner-visualization to create a divine-storehouse method. Three hundred sixty-five divine storehouses, one in each point."
Inspiration blazed. The Grand Yin Art suddenly seemed less crucial.
"Still, I need clearer internal structures to perfect it."
* * *
"My mouth's dry, Brother Yuan. Let's catch mud-eels!"
Su Yan grabbed Veyon and ran toward the river flowing along a massive branch. She stumbled after him.
"Mud-eels up here?" Veyon stared at the stream.
"Yuan Qi, block the upstream! We'll dig from downstream. Extra share for you!"
Yuan Qi swam upstream, his massive body damming the flow.
The water wasn't rapid, but the slope drained a section quickly, leaving ankle-deep water. The mud ran deeper.
Su Yan rolled up his pants. "Roll yours like this, Brother Yuan, or you'll ruin your clothes. Huh—your legs are pale!"
Veyon bent to roll her pants. Fair, delicate skin showed. Su Yan brushed her leg without thinking. "Smooth as silk."
Veyon's heart skipped. Thankfully he'd already withdrawn his hand.
Su Yan demonstrated how to roll sleeves so they wouldn't fall. Then he leaped into the stream. Mud reached his knees.
Veyon followed carefully, watching him dig with both hands. "Are there really mud-eels here? We're higher than most mountains."
"Big ones. Delicious. Nothing like what you'd find below... Got one!"
He grabbed her hands and pressed them into the mud. "Feel it. Gently—don't startle it."
Veyon bent down, reaching carefully. "Where... Oh! It's huge!"
She yelped. "So thick... too slippery! I can't hold it!"
The more she tried, the more it slipped free.
Suddenly mud erupted. A six-foot "mud-eel" burst from the sludge, jaws gaping, teeth like iron nails. It lunged at them.
Against two young experts, the creature never had a chance. They knocked it unconscious. Mud splattered them both.
"A dragon loach!" Veyon examined it, breathless. "I read about them in Yuan family records. Four whiskers on each side of its jaw. Dragon head, loach body. Impossibly slippery. Rare beast! The Thousand Methods Record, the Imperial Dao Chronicle, the Martial Saint Annals—all mention them!"
Su Yan tossed it onto the bank, eyes gleaming. "Do the books say how to cook it?"
Veyon gaped. "N-no."
"Then your books weren't serious ones. Serious books always explain whether something's edible and how to prepare it."
Veyon fumed. "Ridiculous!"
Su Yan changed topics. "When you feel for them, watch for air bubbles on the mud. Don't reach there—that's where their heads are. Slightly sunken spots mark their tails."
He demonstrated, catching another, then let Veyon try alone.
Her heart pounded. She was vastly stronger than any dragon loach, but the thrill of digging, the uncertainty, the fear of losing her catch—it was intoxicating. Nothing she'd ever experienced.
They caught seven. Upstream, water pressure mounted against Yuan Qi's dam. He couldn't hold it much longer. They scrambled to shore.
Yuan Qi released the river. Current rushed past.
Su Yan looked at the mud covering them. "Brother Yuan, let's wash in the river!"
Veyon startled. "Wash? How?"
"Strip and jump in. How else? City folk are strange. I'll turn around while you scrub my back, then you turn around while I scrub yours."
He tore off his shirt, then his pants.
Veyon's face burned scarlet. Su Yan stopped at his undergarments, then—kept going.
She shrieked. "How can you strip completely?"
Su Yan looked down, annoyed. "Grew another one!" He yanked something.
Veyon stared, too shocked to cover her eyes. The Demon King streaked bare past her and dove into the water with a tremendous splash.
She stood frozen. The image seared into her mind.
Su Yan surfaced, splashing her. "Brother Yuan, come play!"
Veyon, face crimson, marched upstream. "I'll wash up there. I'm not used to... bathing with others."
She walked faster, then ran.
"City people have strange rules. In the countryside we all wash together." Su Yan shook his head.
Veyon walked several miles upstream, near the source. She checked with divine consciousness. No one around.
She thought of Su Yan stripping without warning. Her face flamed. She thought of him racing naked into the water. Hotter still.
She undressed, folding each garment with mechanical precision. Naked, arms crossed, she suddenly looked down. Pinched a hair. Yanked. Giggled.
Then she ran for the river, shouting with abandon, and leaped in. Water exploded around her.
A girl splashed and spun in the current, laughing. "So free!"
Eventually she remembered to wash. She scrubbed carefully, checking every hidden spot—under her arms, behind her knees, between her toes, under her nails. Satisfied, she dressed.
Before the mirror, she combed her hair. The girl vanished. The handsome young lord returned.
Veyon walked back. Su Yan and the snake were gone, but a savory aroma drifted from somewhere.
She followed it. Su Yan and Yuan Qi had propped up the great bell like a cooking pot. Water filled its interior. Dragon loaches boiled within.
The bell shouted, "Those who eat my cooking keep secrets! Anyone blabs, I'll crack their skull!"
Veyon approached, equal parts horrified and amused.
This bell possessed autonomous consciousness, could cultivate, could communicate—clearly a peak-tier treasure. And they'd turned it into a cooking pot.
"Bell, are your wounds healed?" she asked.
"At least Brother Yuan asks. Unlike these two—eat first, ask never. External wounds healed. Internal injuries remain. That witch's mark still burns. Need more borrowed vitality. And diligent practice."
"Stolen vitality," Yuan Qi muttered.
The bell rang with fury. "To steal is not to rob! To steal, heh—"
The loach broth was heavenly. Energy surged like living fish through her meridians, unblocking channels, soothing every tension. The meat was tender, succulent.
Su Yan fashioned bowls from leaves. Veyon had never imagined she could eat so much. She'd consumed more in this single meal than in her entire previous fifteen years.
Full, the two youths and the snake collapsed on the ground, limbs sprawled, motionless.
The bell demanded they scrub him clean. They were too stuffed to lift a finger.
The bell cursed and rolled himself into the river to wash.
A while later, Su Yan, Yuan Qi, and Veyon leaped up simultaneously and began cultivating.
The bell cursed louder, unaware they'd eaten so much loach that energy flooded their bodies. They had to cultivate or burst—not diligence, but survival.
Su Yan and Yuan Qi channeled their Daoyin arts while holding strange poses. Both arts ran simultaneously without interference. Veyon practiced Cosmic Sensing while studying Su Yan's acupuncture point projections, gradually conceiving a new cultivation method.
When the loach energy finally dispersed, Su Yan's soul and consciousness soared, ascending to the first celestial realm beyond the Inner Realm's boundary gate.
He stood upon it, gazing across heaven and earth. The world grew chaotic. Would a snake catcher from Yongzhou find his place in it?
They tossed the branch and loach bones into the fire pit, erased all evidence, and descended.
Su Yan and Veyon jumped from branch to branch, landing on bark, rebounding, drifting down like paired foxes or butterflies.
Yuan Qi slithered through bark crevices. "A-Yan, I've eaten too much good stuff. I'm going to break through the gate! Worse, I might undergo another transformation!"
Su Yan stopped. "Last time took days. This time you'll need longer. Stay in the tree. Bell will protect you. Come find me when it's done."
The bell flew from behind Su Yan's head to Yuan Qi's side.
Su Yan turned and caught up with Veyon.
"Brother Yuan, the Zhou patriarch isn't a good man. When you and Elder Xiao have a chance, flee."
Veyon started, looking at him with questions in her eyes.
Su Yan told her about the Qinyan Cave scripture chamber. "What he couldn't take, he burned. If he treats scriptures thus, how will he treat people? Once we've finished deciphering the Tuo Scripture, we'll become scriptures he can't take."
Veyon understood. "Leaving us alive is the same as leaving books he can't carry. He'll burn us too."
At the tree's base, Elder Xiao stood waiting, face severe.
Veyon masked herself instantly, becoming the elegant young noble again. "Elder Xiao, have you waited long?"
She turned back to Su Yan, smiling. "Demon King Su, until next time. I look forward to exchanging insights."
They bowed to each other.
Elder Xiao glared at Su Yan and followed Veyon away. He didn't know that a caged nature, once released, could never truly be locked away again.