The beginning became routine.
And then the routine became obsession.
After her first breakthrough, Yueying expected fatigue—expected her body, even in this strange inner realm, to protest. But the spirit garden held her like a cradle. The air was rich with quiet vitality. The grass beneath her stayed cool. The stream's gentle trickle never changed.
Only she did.
She sat cross-legged at the center of the island and returned again and again to the same sequence Bai Xuan demanded: refine, circulate, absorb—never skipping a step, never allowing greed to thicken her qi into something clumsy.
At first, she counted.
Ten cycles. Twenty. Fifty.
But numbers lost meaning here.
The sky above the island did not darken into night. The light did not shift the way it should. There were no meals, no hunger, no aching muscles that forced her to stop. Even when strain crept into her focus, the spirit garden seemed to press coolness into her thoughts, steadying her like a hand on the back of her neck.
She absorbed thread by thread, each strand narrowed to a hair's breadth before it entered her dantian. She circulated until the flow became smooth. Then she did it again.
And again.
Bai Xuan rarely interrupted.
Sometimes he corrected her posture with a sharp word. Sometimes he flicked her ear with his tail when her attention wandered.
Once, when she grew impatient and tried to draw in more than she could refine, he bit the air in front of her nose.
"Do that again," he warned, "and you will spend the next ten years rebuilding the foundation you destroy in a moment."
She stopped immediately.
After that, she didn't rush.
She simply… continued.
Days seemed to pass.
Long stretches of learning her own rhythm, of slowly widening her capacity without ever losing refinement. Yueying began to recognize subtle shifts in her qi the way she once recognized subtle changes in a patient's breathing—tiny deviations that told her everything if she listened closely enough.
Sometimes the qi felt warm and smooth, flowing like silk through her body.
Sometimes it felt prickly at the edges, as if warning her that a meridian was still stiff from disuse.
She adjusted. She refined. She corrected.
At some point, without realizing when, the ember in her dantian stopped feeling like an ember at all.
It became a steady flame.
And then—
It became a small, dense whirlpool of warmth that spun quietly at her center, compact and controlled.
The first time she broke through again, it was so seamless she didn't notice until Bai Xuan spoke.
"Second level," he said.
Yueying opened her eyes, startled. "Already?"
Bai Xuan's expression was unreadable. "Do not ask foolish questions. Continue."
So she did.
She absorbed until the whirlpool thickened. She circulated until it stabilized. She refined until the flow was so thin and obedient it moved like a thought.
Then the pressure returned.
That subtle, internal tightening.
That soft click.
Third level.
The next breakthrough came harder. Not painful—just demanding. As if her meridians, newly awakened, were stretching toward something they had never been allowed to become.
She grit her teeth and kept her breathing even. Thread-thin qi circulated through her channels, pressing gently against resistance until the resistance began to yield.
Fourth level.
By the time she reached the fifth breakthrough, it felt like she had lived on the island for a lifetime.
Her mind was quiet in a way it had never been before. Focused. Clear. She could sit for hours with nothing but her breath and the whisper of qi moving through her body and feel… steady.
When the fifth level locked into place, the change was undeniable.
The entire spirit garden seemed to inhale.
The herbs shimmered faintly, their leaves catching light that wasn't there before. The stream brightened, water glinting like liquid glass. Yueying felt her spiritual sea expand—not dramatically, but decisively, like a room that suddenly revealed it had hidden space behind the walls.
She opened her eyes.
Bai Xuan was watching her, coiled atop a stone, blue eyes faintly luminous.
"…Fifth level," he said.
Yueying swallowed, stunned by the ease of her breath, by the way her body felt whole now—no longer fragile, no longer constrained. Even her senses felt sharper, as if the world had been slightly blurred before and only now came into focus.
"How long?" she asked, voice rough with disbelief. "How long have I been here?"
Bai Xuan blinked slowly.
"To you?" he said. "Several days."
Relief flooded her—quickly followed by panic.
"My body—"
"One day," Bai Xuan cut in.
Yueying froze. "What?"
"Time moves differently here," he said with the faintest edge of impatience, as if this were obvious. "This is within your spiritual sea. It is not bound by the same rhythm as the outside world."
Her thoughts raced.
A day.
Only a day had passed while she cultivated for what felt like days.
That was…
That was impossible.
And yet she was sitting on a floating island in her mind with a talking divine beast, so perhaps impossibility had become her normal.
Bai Xuan's tail tapped the stone once.
"Do not be greedy," he warned. "This advantage is precious, but it will not protect you if you forget the world you live in."
Yueying's throat tightened. "Then… how do I go back?"
Bai Xuan slid down from the stone and approached her, stopping close enough that his cool breath brushed her wrist.
"Your consciousness is here," he said. "Your body is there. When you wish to return, you simply withdraw."
"Withdraw?" she repeated.
He flicked his tongue. "Close your eyes. Focus on your heartbeat—your physical heartbeat. Feel the weight of flesh. The pull of gravity. The boundary of skin."
Yueying's brows knit. She did as he said.
At once, she became aware of something distant but real—like hearing a sound through thick walls. A slow pulse. A heaviness. The faint ache of lying too long on a bed.
Her stomach flipped.
"That's me," she whispered.
"Yes," Bai Xuan said. "When you grasp it, you will fall back into your body."
Yueying opened her eyes quickly. "And if I want to come back here?"
Bai Xuan's gaze sharpened. "You will return the same way you arrived."
"The jade?" she asked.
"The bond," he corrected. "The spirit garden is anchored within you now. Once you establish your spiritual sea more firmly, you will be able to enter through meditation."
He paused, then added bluntly, "If you are not interrupted."
Yueying frowned. "Interrupted by what?"
Bai Xuan's head turned toward the edge of the floating island, as if he could hear something beyond it.
Then his eyes narrowed.
"…Company," he said.
The single word cut through Yueying's lingering awe like a blade through silk.
Yueying's spine straightened instinctively. "Outside?"
Bai Xuan's gaze remained fixed on nothing in particular—past the herbs, past the edge of the floating island, as if the spirit garden's sky were a thin curtain and he could see the world beyond it.
"They are near your room," he said. "Close enough that if you remain here, your absence will need to be explained."
Yueying's throat tightened. The calm she'd built over days of cultivation wavered, the reality of her situation surging back in—walls, servants, rumors, a household that watched weakness the way wolves watched blood.
"What do I do?" she asked.
Bai Xuan's tail tapped the grass once, brisk. "Return. Now."
She hesitated only long enough to steady her breathing.
Then she closed her eyes and reached—past the clean air and the soft grass—toward weight, toward gravity, toward the dull heaviness of flesh.
She found it immediately this time.
A slow heartbeat.
A real pulse.
The faint ache in her back from lying too long.
Yueying inhaled.
And withdrew.
-x-
Sound returned first.
The muted hush of a small room. The creak of wood somewhere beyond the walls. The distant rhythm of footsteps that did not belong to a dream.
Her eyelids fluttered open.
Ceiling beams—low and plain, familiar now. A shuttered window with a thin line of afternoon light leaking through. The faint scent of dried herbs and old cloth.
Her body felt… strange.
Not weak.
Not heavy.
She lay still for a breath, testing sensation with the same clinical calm she'd once used in trauma bays. Fingers—responsive. Toes—responsive. Breath—full. Her abdomen held warmth, dense and steady, the whirlpool of qi turning quietly as if it had always been there.
Fifth level.
The thought landed with a tremor of disbelief and satisfaction.
Then—
A soft rustle outside her door.
Voices, low and cautious.
Yueying's heart kicked once. She pushed herself upright with slow care, forcing her expression into neutrality. She had no idea how long she'd been "unconscious" in the eyes of this household—or what they'd assumed in the meantime.
The door slid open.
And for a moment, Yueying thought she had misseen.
A man stepped in—tall, broad-shouldered, his dark robe edged with restrained embroidery that spoke of status without arrogance. His hair was tied back neatly, not a single strand out of place. Even the way he crossed the threshold carried the quiet authority of someone used to being obeyed.
Her memories supplied his face a heartbeat late, as if reluctant.
Shen Jinzhao.
Her father.
Yueying froze.
In the old Yueying's memories, he existed like a distant mountain—visible, unavoidable, but never close enough to touch. He was always surrounded by petitioners and injured martial artists, by elders of sects and disciples with bowed heads. When he looked at her, his expression was always unreadable—something sharp and searching that she never understood, and never wanted to provoke.
He had never once stepped into this small side room on his own.
Not like this.
Not without being summoned.
And yet here he was.
He paused a fraction too long, as if uncertain whether he should take another step. For someone so revered, the hesitation looked almost… awkward.
His gaze swept over her quickly—her face, her posture, the way she was already sitting up.
He seemed to take in the details like a physician, not a parent.
Then his eyes flicked to the maid hovering near the door.
"You may leave," he said quietly.
The maid bowed and slipped out at once, shutting the door with careful reverence.
Silence filled the room.
Yueying's hands tightened beneath the blanket. She forced herself not to shrink.
Shen Jinzhao cleared his throat.
It was a small sound, but it struck her as strange—because it made him sound human.
"I received word," he began, voice controlled, "that you were unwell again."
He stopped, as if the next words were difficult to choose.
"…That you passed out."
Yueying stared at him.
Was he… concerned? A plan began to form in her mind at how she could solidify her position here.
"Fa…ther." The word was foreign in her mouth. Being an orphan in her past life and never calling her father out loud in this life, it was a strange word to be saying.
His fathers eyes widened slightly as his eyes zeroed in on his daughters mouth. "You… you can talk?"
"I can." She smiled softly and his father seemed to forget his awkwardness and stride forward, grasping her wrist and stretching his senses out for her pulse.
"And you have cultivated?" He murmered in disbelief. "How… how did this happen?"
Tell him, Bai Xuan spoke through her mind then, Tell him a mysterious master has claimed you as his disciple.
"A mysterious master visited me before I passed out, he told me my meridians and vocal cords had been sealed. He unsealed them but it took a toll on my body so I passed out. I'm sorry for worrying you… father."
Yueying looked at him closely.
For the first time, she wondered if that unreadable expression she remembered so well had never been indifference at all.
Was he… worried?
The realization settled heavily in her chest—and with it, a quiet calculation. If she was to survive in this household, if she was to cultivate in peace, she needed more than silence and obscurity. She needed footing.
She lifted her gaze.
"Fa…ther."
The word felt strange on her tongue—unused, unfamiliar. In her previous life, she had been an orphan. In this one, she had never once spoken it aloud. Saying it now felt like stepping onto thin ice.
Shen Jinzhao froze.
His eyes fixed on her mouth, sharp and disbelieving. For a heartbeat, the composed physician vanished, replaced by a man staring at something he had never expected to see.
"Y-you…" His voice faltered before he caught it. "You can speak?"
"I can," Yueying said softly.
She offered a small, careful smile.
Whatever restraint he had been clinging to slipped. He moved forward in two long strides, taking her wrist in his hand without thinking, fingers already settling over her pulse. His spiritual sense brushed against her like a cool tide, precise and practiced.
Yueying stayed still.
Her father's breath caught.
"…You have cultivated," he murmured, disbelief bleeding through his control. "This pulse—this rhythm—how is this possible?"
Before panic or suspicion could take root, Bai Xuan's voice stirred calmly within her mind.
Tell him. A mysterious master claimed you.
Yueying inhaled once, steadying herself.
"Before I collapsed," she said carefully, "someone came to see me. A cultivator."
Shen Jinzhao's gaze snapped back to her face.
"He said my meridians and vocal cords had been sealed since birth," she continued. "He removed the seals—but it placed too much strain on my body. That's why I lost consciousness."
She lowered her eyes, fingers curling lightly in the blanket.
"I'm sorry," she added quietly. "I didn't mean to worry you… Father."
For a long moment, Shen Jinzhao said nothing.
His grip on her wrist tightened just slightly—not painful, but unmistakably real.
Then, slowly, his expression changed—not to anger, not to doubt, but to something far more dangerous.
Grim focus.
"A master," he said at last, voice low. "Did you see his face?"
The game had begun.