Day broke.
But Bai Shuangshuang still felt it hard to breathe, still felt as if someone was choking her.
What was happening?
She looked down and laughed in exasperation.
Zhao Qingyue had somehow entangled herself around her, her two arms tightly encircling her, squeezing the breath out of her.
“I’m… I’m dying, can’t breathe——”
Bai Shuangshuang shouted hoarsely.
The moment she glimpsed Zhao Qingyue waking up and opening her eyes, she tilted her head and stuck out her tongue.
“Ugh——”
In Zhao Qingyue’s eyes, it looked like she had just woken up and, upon opening her eyes, had strangled Bai Shuangshuang to death.
The Eldest Miss’s face turned pale, and tears gushed out instantly.
She grabbed Bai Shuangshuang’s shoulders and shook her hard.
“Bai Shuangshuang! How can I live without you?!”
Tears pattered onto Bai Shuangshuang’s face, tickling her.
She couldn’t hold it anymore, opened her eyes, and looked at Zhao Qingyue with a face full of mockery.
“Just kidding~”
Zhao Qingyue’s expression changed instantly, and her tears stopped as if turned off.
“What a coincidence, me too.”
Bai Shuangshuang was stunned.
Fine.
A worthy opponent indeed.
After messing around for a while, the two finished washing up and left the room.
Today, both were unusually idle.
Zhao Qingyue didn’t have to go to the National Academy for classes, and Bai Shuangshuang, though eager to take up her new role, had to wait for the Prince’s Mansion to negotiate with the Immortal Sects.
Although the Prince’s Mansion had sent people to negotiate with the various sects yesterday, they still had to wait a day or two.
As for condensing the Dao Seed?
She’d have to wait until night, when it was quiet and peaceful.
The mistress and servant sat in the courtyard in a daze, and Bai Shuangshuang couldn’t help thinking about what she had seen in her dream last night.
Who that mysterious girl in the black dress was, she still didn’t know, but at least she had a name now.
Mo Zhuozhuo.
She repeated the name silently, but obviously couldn’t deduce anything from it.
As for the other party’s claim, “I’ll go kill Luo Zhiwei now,” Bai Shuangshuang actually didn’t quite believe it.
No matter how high Mo Zhuozhuo’s cultivation level was, from the looks of it, she could only influence Bai in dreams, and couldn’t affect reality, let alone travel a thousand miles to cause trouble for Senior Sister.
She was just bluffing.
Thinking of this, Bai Shuangshuang rubbed her neck.
That state of impending death and utter despair was still vivid before her eyes.
As for the matter of Mo Zhuozhuo being able to kill her, she no longer doubted it at all.
But the shock on Mo Zhuozhuo’s face when she stopped at the end—that was the most thought-provoking part.
‘How come I… also sensed the aura of death?’
What did that mean? Clearly she was the one about to be crushed to death, so how could Mo Zhuozhuo also die? That expression didn’t seem fake.
“I don’t understand…”
Bai Shuangshuang muttered softly.
Shaking her head, she stopped dwelling on it and began calculating how to condense the Dao Seed.
She already had a plan.
By a twist of fate, she had been fed the so-called “Soul-Calming Decoction” for over a decade.
That mild poison hadn’t killed her, but instead had tempered her meridians to a certain extent.
Although it was somewhat akin to a demonic cultivation path, the benefits were substantial—her meridians were broader and more resilient than ordinary people’s.
To condense a Dao Seed, one needed to absorb a large amount of Spiritual Qi from heaven and earth in a short time, gather it in the Dantian, and compress it into a seed.
The broader the meridians, the more Spiritual Qi one could absorb, and the higher the rank of the condensed Dao Seed.
Dao Seeds were divided into four grades: Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow.
In her past life, Bai Shuangshuang’s was Earth grade, and a high-grade Earth at that, enough to trigger certain Heaven and Earth phenomena, which made her a renowned prodigy of the Great Yan Dynasty.
With her past life experience, plus this tempered body of meridians, and the Azure Cloud Fragment Formation that could accelerate Spiritual Qi flow—she had eighty to ninety percent confidence in condensing a Profound grade Dao Seed.
Don’t underestimate the Profound grade; over ninety-five percent of cultivators were stuck at Yellow grade.
For example, Zhao Qingyue was the most ordinary Yellow grade.
A Profound grade among the younger generation of cultivators in the Southern Region was already considered outstanding.
Moreover, the grade of a Dao Seed was not fixed; there were opportunities to upgrade before breaking through.
First condense a Profound grade, then find an opportunity to join a large sect, use the advantage of experience and sect resources to advance to Earth grade—then Senior Brother Bai’s return would only be a matter of time.
“Miss Bai, the Prince requests your presence——”
A maidservant came trotting over, interrupting Bai Shuangshuang’s daydream.
In the Council Hall, Zhao Qingchuan was already waiting there.
On the table were several letters, the ink still wet, clearly just delivered.
Hengyang Xiansheng sat to one side, still holding a tea cup, appearing to have just arrived as well.
“Sit.”
Zhao Qingchuan tapped the opposite chair with his fan.
Bai Shuangshuang obediently sat down.
It was the same chair, and her feet still couldn’t reach the ground.
She swung them twice, then simply gave up caring.
“The people we sent out yesterday had replies by this morning.”
Zhao Qingchuan pushed the letters over, a hint of surprise in his tone.
“Guess what? Those sects in the Southern Region were even more proactive than I expected!”
Bai Shuangshuang took them and glanced through.
The letters were replies from several Immortal Sects, each with different wording, but the core message was surprisingly consistent.
“Willing to serve the Prince’s Mansion, specific terms to be discussed in person.”
Politely put, but translated: If you want us to work, you need to pay more.
Zhao Qingchuan leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table.
“Their enthusiasm is high; it seems Spirit Rice and Spirit Stones are very attractive to them. But now the problem is, how do we set the price?”
Hengyang Xiansheng chimed in.
“What ratio should the Prince’s Mansion and the sects share? How much distribution is appropriate? I’ve discussed this with the Prince, but we’re not very familiar with the market of the Cultivation World…”
Bai Shuangshuang blinked.
She understood.
They called her here not to ask how to negotiate, but to ask how much things were worth.
It was somewhat bizarre that such a large Jingnan Prince Manor couldn’t find a single person who understood the customs of the Cultivation World? It seemed that the Mo Mo who had previously accompanied Zhao Qingyue on outings was already the most knowledgeable person in the Prince’s Mansion.
Zhao Qingchuan picked up his tea cup and said seemingly casually.
“I was thinking, giving them twenty percent, would that be enough?”
“Twenty percent?”
Hengyang Xiansheng shook his head.
“Twenty percent might be too little; they may not be willing to come. In my opinion, thirty percent is about right.”
Bai Shuangshuang didn’t reply, her mind wandering.
Zhao Qingchuan and Hengyang Xiansheng exchanged a glance, thinking she was choosing her words, so they didn’t rush her.
The Council Hall fell silent for a moment.
Bai Shuangshuang’s gaze inadvertently fell on a huge map hanging on the wall, and she was captivated.
Last time she came here, she was too nervous to look around, so she hadn’t noticed this map.
That map wasn’t of the Three Southern Prefectures, but of the entire territory of the Great Xia Dynasty, even including several neighboring countries.
Mountains, rivers, cities, passes—all meticulously marked in dense detail, along with detailed topographical drawings.
At the easternmost part of the map, a place name was marked—Soul-severing River.
Bai Shuangshuang’s breath caught for a moment.
That was the former site of the Qingyun Sword Sect.
She remembered very clearly that in her past life, the Soul-severing River was a long, narrow rift valley, with mountain ranges on both sides like dragons, and peaks like swords.
But on the map, the Soul-severing River was now drawn as a circular depression, like a giant pot.
The terrain had changed?
And so drastically?
She squinted, trying to discern more details from the topography’s contours.
Was the map wrong, or had such a drastic change really occurred in these eighteen years?
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