Xiao Yan's fan snapped shut with a clack, and he tapped it against the desk a few times. "A bit over a year."
Seeing Li Nanzhu's brow relax slightly, he added, "If converted to time in the outside world, it's only about a month."
Suisui suddenly hopped onto the desk, its bone claws gesturing a large circle before pointing insistently at itself.
"With the little skeleton's help," Xiao Yan was also amused by its behavior and rubbed Suisui's head, "it can be sustained."
Li Nanzhu's tense shoulders finally slumped, her fingertips unconsciously stroking her teacup. "There's still a year..." she muttered softly. "Master was so frantic just now, it was as if he were going to dissipate tomorrow."
The tips of Xiao Yan's ears turned red, and he flicked his fan open to cover half his face. "Ahem! That was my teaching enthusiasm!"
Suisui tilted its head, unable to understand why Xiao Yan had suddenly hidden his face again.
The morning light filtered through the window lattice, casting mottled shadows on the bluestone floor.
Watching the faint green light flowing within Suisui's skull, Li Nanzhu sighed inwardly—the life force of the Life-Giving Creation Pearl was truly immense, capable of sustaining the operation of a secret realm for over a year.
Or rather, it could grant a divine soul so much power, allowing it to maintain its current form.
Just as he had promised, Xiao Yan was indeed no longer impatient, though adding two extra hours of study time was a very real consequence.
In the days that followed, a strange tacit understanding formed between the two. Every day during the hour of Mao, Li Nanzhu would practice her sword in the bamboo grove clearing, and after the hour of Chen, Xiao Yan would begin his lectures.
During her sword practice, Xiao Yan would prepare breakfast in various ways—sometimes a bowl of spiritual rice porridge with glowing lotus seeds hidden at the bottom, other times hundred-flower honey brewed from morning dew.
Occasionally, Suisui would get excited and mimic Li Nanzhu's sword practice, often causing its ribs to fall all over the ground from overexertion. At such times, Xiao Yan would suddenly appear to piece Suisui back together.
When she encountered something she didn't understand while practicing swordplay, Xiao Yan would also offer a pointer or two.
When Li Nanzhu wondered why he, a pill cultivator, knew swordplay, Xiao Yan replied as follows.
"Your master is a peerless genius. What's wrong with knowing a few sword moves?"
Li Nanzhu expressed her doubts about this, and the result was that she was forced to study for an extra half-hour that day.
Though the person involved didn't actually feel it was forced; instead, she enjoyed it.
Time passed in this manner. Every day, Xiao Yan would produce three to five types of spiritual plants from somewhere—sometimes fresh herbs dripping with morning dew, other times ancient specimens sealed in amber.
On this day, while Xiao Yan was explaining the properties of the fire-patterned orchid, the small plant suddenly spat out a cluster of flames with a puff, startling Li Nanzhu so much that she leaned back.
"Hahaha!" Xiao Yan burst out laughing. "That's its temper! A mature fire-patterned orchid will spit fire for self-defense."
Suisui leaned in curiously, only to have its finger bones singed. It waved its hands in a panic as Li Nanzhu rushed to help extinguish the flame, saying helplessly, "Master, you could have given me a heads-up."
"That would take the fun out of it." Xiao Yan produced a specimen. "Come, look at this ten-thousand-year Snow Lingzhi..."
Suisui squatted to the side, holding a jade slip between its bone claws as it carefully took notes.
Although it had once protested, 'Why does a skeleton need to learn to write?', it was quickly convinced by Xiao Yan's reasoning that 'only by knowing how to write can you understand alchemy recipes and help Li Nanzhu.'
However, its way of holding the brush was truly bizarre—its entire bone claw gripped the brush tightly, splattering ink everywhere. The final result was a crooked mess that bore no resemblance to the original characters.
Xiao Yan had no choice but to give up on this underachieving student. Yet Suisui had developed an interest itself, often clutching the jade slip and scribbling away in its free time, though the resulting work was likely something only it could understand.
Another afternoon, while Xiao Yan was napping on a bamboo couch, Li Nanzhu noticed that his form was almost transparent in the sunlight. Only when Suisui sat beside him would the green light nourish him, making him appear a bit more solid.
"Master," Li Nanzhu couldn't help but ask, "do divine souls also need to sleep?"
Xiao Yan opened his eyes lazily. "It's not sleeping; it's adjusting the spiritual energy circulation." He pointed to the surrounding bamboo forest. "Every single leaf is transformed from my divine soul power."
Li Nanzhu: "..."
Only then did she recall that the density of the bamboo leaves was indeed closely related to Xiao Yan's state. She also realized that whenever she had previously memorized a medicinal property incorrectly, the entire bamboo forest would rustle without any wind. She had wondered at the time why the leaves were moving on their own when there was clearly no breeze.
No wonder he caught her every single time she made a mistake!
Occasionally, the three would use a water mirror to observe the situation of the others.
On this day, as soon as the image of Zhu Yinxi opened, a piercing flute sound blasted through, vibrating so strongly that the water mirror nearly dissipated.
"He's alive." Xiao Yan decisively closed the image, rubbing his temples. "Is that kid trying to shake the secret realm down?"
Progress on Duan Xianxing's side was smooth; about a third of the little mushrooms on his body had already fallen off.
When they reached Liu Qingyang, the style suddenly changed. His hair was still a vibrant green, perhaps after coming into contact with something else, and he was frantically chasing a headscarf that had been blown away by the wind...
Although Li Nanzhu didn't particularly want to watch the Sword Heart Sect, she knew this was the best choice for understanding their strength and hidden cards. They would inevitably face each other one day, and the information she gathered today might be the key to her victory then.
As the sun and moon rotated, Li Nanzhu finally memorized everything in the Introduction to a Hundred Herbs. The bamboo forest outside shed its leaves with a rustle, as if celebrating her success.
Over these past two months, she had carved the contents of every page into her mind—from the most common hemostatic grass to the rare Nine Nether Phantom Orchid. She even remembered the obscure aliases perfectly, and Xiao Yan's occasional questions had only deepened her impression.
Li Nanzhu had always felt that although the book was called an introduction, it actually contained all the spiritual plants currently known to the cultivation world. It would be more appropriate to call it the Encyclopedia of a Hundred Herbs.
Suisui suddenly tugged at her sleeve, pointing its bone claw toward the courtyard.
Xiao Yan was already standing by the stone table at some unknown point. The eighteen leaves within a glazed cup were glowing faintly.
Li Nanzhu knew this was the examination she and Xiao Yan had agreed upon long ago. Only after passing this assessment could she begin the next stage of her studies.
Taking a deep breath, she walked slowly toward Xiao Yan.
"You look quite confident?" Xiao Yan raised his hand and produced a glazed cup, inside of which floated eighteen similar-looking leaves.
"Of course. After all, whose disciple am I?" Li Nanzhu smiled slyly, and Xiao Yan nodded in satisfaction.
"Then, the examination begins." Xiao Yan pointed at the leaves. "Describe the differences in each one."
Li Nanzhu's fingertips lightly touched the leaves as she began her observation. After a moment, she answered rapidly.
"Green-patterned willow, hooked leaf tips. Crescent knotweed, silver lines on the back. This one is..."
Just as she reached the fifth kind, Suisui suddenly tried to secretly swap the positions of two leaves. Li Nanzhu was quick, pinning its bone claw down instantly. "No causing trouble!"
Suisui tilted its head with feigned innocence, its soul fire flickering.
"The eighteenth leaf..." Her fingertips suddenly stopped. The leaf glinted with an eerie blue-purple hue under the sunlight. This was clearly a variety that had never been recorded in the Introduction to a Hundred Herbs!
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