Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Li Guanqi quietly breathed a sigh of relief and simply left the conversation to Meng Wanshu.

Li Guilan assumed her daughter still wanted to have fun and wasn’t ready to settle down yet. “Not in a hurry? When I was your age, you were already running all over the house. As for your father… oh, forget it. Who knows how old he even was? That old fossil. A couple of days ago, he forged a huge furnace for himself. I told him to let me use it to roast a whole lamb, and he actually refused.”

The corner of Li Guanqi’s mouth twitched. The huge furnace Li Guilan mentioned was likely the enormous pill furnace Meng Jiangchu had forged for the alchemists.

That evening, Li Guilan refused to return to her luxurious palace residence. Instead, she insisted that Li Guanqi chop firewood and heat the kang[1].

Li Guanqi felt as though he’d returned to his youth. Without another word, he grabbed a woodcutter’s axe and headed into the mountains.

Inside the forest, he picked a small tree no thicker than his wrist. With just one swing, the axe split not only the tree but also carved a trench ten zhang long across the ground.

Li Guanqi scratched his head awkwardly. “I wasn’t even trying.”

After that, he began adjusting his strength, testing it one careful stroke at a time.

Meanwhile, Meng Wanshu and Li Guilan sat in the courtyard drinking tea. The constant chorus of chickens and ducks echoed around them, and a faint smile gradually appeared on Meng Wanshu’s face as she savored this long-lost sense of peace and warmth.

Li Guilan never once asked what the two of them had been through lately. She had never cared much about the affairs of the cultivation world. All that truly mattered to her was whether they were happy together.Meng Wanshu’s mouth twitched when she saw the rows of collapsing trees across the back mountain. She couldn’t help but send Li Guanqi a voice transmission. “Could you control yourself a little? At this rate, you’ll cut down every tree on the mountain.”

Li Guanqi could only smile awkwardly at the countless trenches scarring the ground. He took a deep breath and slowly reined in his overwhelming strength.

Crack!

The axe sank four fingers deep into the trunk. A bright gleam flashed through his eyes, and a faint smile tugged at his lips.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

He felled one tree after another, splitting each into neat pieces of firewood.

The smile never left Li Guanqi’s face. For reasons he couldn’t explain, this ordinary task left him feeling at peace. Only after filling an entire sack with firewood did he return to the courtyard and begin heating the kang. Bright flames danced inside the stove, illuminating Li Guanqi’s face.

Li Guanqi held both hands out toward the opening beneath the kang, feeling the comforting heat radiating from it. A nostalgic look came into his eyes as he murmured, “If only that winter had been this warm…”

He lay alone on the heated kang in the guest room, unable to fall asleep. Bored, he extended his divine consciousness to the other room, where Meng Wanshu and her mother lay beside each other, whispering quietly.

Then suddenly, Li Guanqi heard Meng Wanshu’s voice.

“Stop eavesdropping! Go to sleep!” she said through voice transmission.

Li Guanqi sheepishly withdrew his divine consciousness. He rested both hands behind his head and smiled faintly. With the comforting warmth beneath him, he slowly drifted off to sleep without realizing it.

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

As dawn broke, a rooster’s crow rang out clearly through the mist-covered mountains. Li Guanqi slowly opened his eyes. He had never felt so refreshed. It had been many years since he had truly slept. This was the most peaceful, most restful sleep he had experienced in a very long time.

Li Guanqi slowly opened his eyes, feeling more refreshed than ever. He hadn’t slept so peacefully or rested so well in a very long time.

When Li Guanqi got up, Li Guilan was already busy in the kitchen, kneading dough at the counter beside a steaming cauldron. She smiled when she saw him. “You’re awake? Hahaha. Wanshu said you haven’t slept in years, so I was going to let you sleep. Those two roosters woke you, didn’t they? We’re stewing them tonight.”

Li Guanqi immediately laughed. “Hahaha! Mother-in-law, don’t. We’re still counting on them to lay eggs. I’m going up the mountain for a bit.”

Li Guilan waved him away with a smile, her hands covered in flour. “Go, go. The braised meat noodles will be ready when you get back.”

Li Guanqi felt warm inside, and his eyes moistened. Once outside, he made his way up the mountain step by step, then leaped onto the crown of a towering tree and sat cross-legged.

His breathing rose and fell steadily as the surrounding spirit qi gathered into two streams resembling white dragons and flowed into his nostrils. He slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air. Vital force flowed smoothly throughout his body without the slightest obstruction, and every part of him felt light and comfortable. His mind had never been clearer.

Earlier, he had also sensed that Meng Wanshu was still asleep. It was the first time in years he had seen her sleeping so peacefully, nestled beneath the blankets.

Tiny arcs of lightning crackled through the air around Li Guanqi. After battling the Lightning Qilin, his understanding of lightning had grown considerably. He also realized he had yet to unleash lightning’s full destructive potential.

That terrifying power, capable of annihilating everything in its path… Even he found it somewhat frightening. To wield lightning as the Lightning Qilin had, he would need to reach at least the fifth level of spirit comprehension.

Against cultivators in the same cultivation realm who had yet to awaken spirit comprehension, he already held an overwhelming advantage despite being only at the third level himself. If he could push his spirit comprehension even further, his overall combat power would increase tremendously.

After cultivating for a while, Li Guanqi caught a glimmer of insight, only for it to slip away before he could grasp it. A vague impression was all that remained.

A while later, he opened his eyes and stood up. Vital force surged through his body, shaking off every speck of dust.

He looked back toward the small courtyard nestled in the mountain hollow and smiled knowingly at the smoke curling lazily from its chimney. He leaped down from the treetop with a soft laugh. “Time to go home for noodles.”

For the next couple of days, Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu stayed by Li Guilan’s side. Her smile never seemed to fade.

The two discreetly helped regulate the circulation through Li Guilan’s meridians, gradually widening and strengthening them.

One peaceful afternoon, the trio lay side by side in rocking chairs beneath the shade of a large tree. They rested with their eyes closed while listening to the chirping insects. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting shifting patches of light across their faces.

Lying between the two of them, Li Guilan slowly opened her eyes and glanced to either side. She pursed her lips into a quiet smile. “You two are so thoughtful, coming all this way just to spend time with me.”

Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu opened their eyes but said nothing.

Li Guilan folded her hands over her stomach and gently rocked in her chair. Smiling softly, she said, “I’ve been very happy these past few days. Really happy. But compared to having you two stay here with me, I’d rather my two children stay safe out there. Don’t get hurt, and don’t…”

She stopped herself. After a moment, she waved a hand dismissively. “Sigh, no more gloomy talk. If you don’t have anything else to do here, leave this afternoon. That huge furnace should be for refining Guanqi’s pills, right? Your good-for-nothing father left in such a hurry he didn’t even say goodbye. Something urgent must have come up.”

Li Guilan wrapped her arms around Meng Wanshu’s and Li Guanqi’s necks and pulled them close until their cheeks pressed against hers. With a hearty laugh, she said, “All right, you two little rascals. Off you go. Come back another day. I should get back to cultivating too. I’ve got to live a long, long life. I still have grandchildren to spoil someday.”

Li Guanqi and Meng Wanshu looked at her, surprised.

Li Guilan stood up with a knowing smile. “You two clever little brats. Did you think I wouldn’t know what’s been worrying you? Don’t worry. I actually quite like cultivating now. At the very least… I’ll live for a hundred… no, a few thousand years. Then I really will be an old hag who refuses to die. Hahaha!”

Li Guanqi took a deep breath before speaking gently, saying, “Then Wanshu and I will be on our way, Mother-in-law. We’ll be back in a few days.”

Meng Wanshu’s eyes reddened slightly as she smiled. “Mother… I’ll come back in a few days.”

Li Guilan turned toward the house without looking back. Feigning nonchalance, she waved a hand behind her and murmured, “Go on, go on. I’ve still got dishes to wash.”

Yet, as she walked away, tears rolled down her cheeks, one after another.

1. a traditional Chinese heated brick bed

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