The night had never been so still.
Only the faint chirp of moon-beetles echoed across the towering forest canopy. The wind had quieted, as if Heaven and Earth themselves were holding their breath.
Lin Shuhan lay sprawled across the smooth wooden platform, his body steaming faintly. The silver luminescence that had once covered him had faded, replaced by a faint afterglow that shimmered across his veins.
He had also been cleaned thoroughly while he was unconscious.
He twitched once.
Twice.
Then drew in a breath so deep it felt like the forest exhaled with him.
"Shuhan," his mother's voice trembled. "You… you actually cleared all seven stages of Body Purification… in one night…"
Her tone hovered between disbelief and reverence.
Shuhan opened his eyes. They were no longer silver — but a strange, silvery-gray threaded with pale blue, like moonlight mixed with still water.
He smiled faintly. "Feels like I shed a thousand lives."
The air around him felt clearer — sharper — alive. Every sound, every vibration, every droplet of moisture in the air resonated with an unfamiliar precision. He could hear the blood in his own veins, sense the faint rhythm of his mother's breathing, even the pulse of the tree beneath him.
Lin Shuhan sat up slowly, his body still thrumming with quiet, residual power. Steam rose faintly from his pores, carrying away the last traces of impurities. He felt… light. Not in the poetic sense — truly weightless, as though gravity had grown reluctant to bind him.
His mother, however, was silent.
She stood at the platform's edge, her robes fluttering softly in the windless air. The night pressed around them, dense and still, but Lin Hualan's presence had begun to distort it. Thin rings of Qi pulsed outward from her body — invisible to most eyes, but in the wake of Shuhan's transformation, he could now faintly feel it.
Each pulse was a circulation.
Slow. Methodical. Divine.
He watched as the pulses sped up. Once every breath. Once every heartbeat. Then twice in the same blink.
"Mother?" he called softly. "What are you—"
She opened her eyes.
They glowed faintly crimson, then dimmed back to calm azure.
"I am going to cultivate more Circles. But if I let you absorb them, you might have more of such forced breakthroughs. So, I won't finish the circles, I will create a lot of nearly finished circles and finish them together."
Since the Qi was not harming him and just benefitting him, the more Qi, the more his benefits.
The moment she met his gaze, he understood.
She was planning on abusing the bond.
By circulating her Qi inside her body — without letting the loop complete — she kept the system from registering a "finished cycle."
That meant the [Triple Binding] would not yet send him the amplified reward. Smart. Ruthless. Motherly.
He smiled faintly, shaking his head.
Hours passed. The stars dimmed. The silver moon slipped beyond the horizon.
She didn't move. Not a flinch.
Her hands rested on her knees, her expression serene — yet the air around her vibrated like the bowstring of a drawn celestial weapon.
At one point, he tried to speak again. "Mother, if you keep going—"
She turned her eyes toward him for the briefest second. Just one glance.
He stopped.
Her focus didn't waver. Her presence didn't ripple. It was like speaking to a goddess locked in trance.
And so, Lin Shuhan did what any dutiful son would do — he stayed by her side.
He cleaned the platform. Checked the rope bridge. Watched the faint mist that hung between the colossal trees. He didn't feel bored — that emotion didn't exist for him. But somewhere inside, he knew he would have been, if not for the subtle hum of his mother's Qi washing through the air like music.
When the sun began rising beyond the sea of leaves, Lin Mei'er stirred awake.
The girl was chaos but also the sweetest and silent thing at the same time. But for him, it was easy to control her.
So, while they played and enjoyed together, their mother kept silently cultivating.
She began to use the enormous amounts of Qi she had long devoured but never truly absorbed to finish more cycles.
The maximum amount needed for a Nascent Soul cultivator's body was just 1000 cycles. One cannot cultivate more than that. After that, they would have to breakthrough to the Soul Transformation level.
And with her store of energy, recultivating all thousand cycles today itself was no problem.
Meanwhile, Lin Mei'er and Lin Shuhan looked at each other.
The girl sat beside her brother, imitating his cross-legged posture. For a few moments, she watched the birds flitting between branches, then began poking his arm, giggling when he reacted faintly.
9 hours passed.
She opened her eyes. Then she took out a talisman from her sleeves. "This is a High Healing Talisman. It is even more powerful than Intermediate Healing. This was my father's final gift to me when I was kicked out."
Shuhan blinked.
"If something happens to you, I will use this Talisman to heal myself. With 10x healing, nothing should kill you."
He nodded. Ready.
Lin Hualan… didn't move.
Not once.
Her hair fluttered in unseen wind, her robes whispering with rhythm. From her seated figure emanated a quiet divinity — a pressure that made even the insects steer away from their platform.
And beneath her serene expression, her body raged like a storm.
Qi churned within her meridians — not ten, not twenty — a hundred circulations intertwined, woven together like a living tapestry of divine energy.
One thousand complete circulations of Nascent Soul Qi. The last wave of it crashed outward like thunder muffled by silk.
[Lin Hualan has circulated one thousand Full Circles of Nascent Soul Qi throughout her body]
[Ten Thousand Circles Worth of Nascent Qi gained!]
Last time, Lin Shuhan had only felt pleasure. This time, he felt…
What did he feel?
He felt an explosive erratic sensation full of pain, pleasure, and familiarity. Then, his body started vaporizing.
All he saw then was a message from the system.
[Lin Hualan has used a High Healing Talisman on her body]
[10x reward claiming]
[Half-Immortal Healing Talisman!]