The sky had turned bluish and near the middle of the village, Yu Mei was walking, both of her hands were occupied by tiny hands. They were Xiao Jia and Xiao Fang.
"Oh, we've arrived already." Yu Mei could see a middle-aged woman was waving politely at her which she replied with a small smile as she urged the twins to move and after a great deal of effort, Xiao Jia reluctantly released Yu Mei's hand while Xiao Fang already stormed out first.
Yu Mei couldn't help but smile a little when she saw the young girl's sad expression.
"Don't be so sad, Xiao Jia. We'll play again tomorrow."
Hearing that, Xiao Jia changed her expression into a cheerful one before following Xiao Fang into the house.
'I don't have anything more to do.' Yu Mei turned back and was about to go directly to her house before...
"Yu Mei!" A familiar and deafening shout was calling her out from the distance.
Yu Mei traced the source of the loud sound and found Li Kong who was approaching her with unprecedented speed.
'Is it just me or Li Kong is running faster than before?' For once, Yu Mei was doubting her ability to see properly.
It didn't take Li Kong a long time before he arrived in front of Yu Mei.
After that, he stopped and calmed down his breath first which invited a worried look from Yu Mei who was asking is he okay.
"What are you doing after this?" Li Kong said.
"I was just about to go home." Yu Mei replied casually before turning her gaze into questioning as she scrutinized Li Kong.
"So? Why did you sleep till this late? Don't you know people was worried about you when they don't see you in the field today? Uncle Zheng even asked me to check on you but seeing you right now, I guess the beating didn't left a deep mark.?" Her expression slowly bloomed into a wide grin.
"Shut up." Li Kong whiffed and turning his eyes away from her while Yu Mei was shoving her face onto his vision with her big and stupid grin.
But suddenly, out of nowhere, a nasty growl resounded through the vicinity, shaking the world into silent.
By the time the growl reached to their ears, Yu Mei immediately made a gesture to Li Kong and proclaimed, "It wasn't me!"
"Yeah, I know. It was me." Li Kong admitted without any shame before holding his stomach as he seethed in grimace. "Damn, I haven't eaten anything since yesterday."
"That's why you shouldn't up so late in the night. Why didn't you eat when you woke up?" Yu Mei asked while patting his back.
"Ugh..." Li Kong was powerless to answer.
"Sigh... Why did you never think first before doing something?" Yu Mei was both amazed and appalled on her dearest friend's thought process.
"Food... I need to eat food..." Li Kong muttered weakly under his breath.
'He was beyond help.' The young girl thought to herself.
Yu Mei placed both of her fists at her hip and sighed while shaking his head before suddenly an idea popped out on top of her mind.
'Li Kong was starving at this time, right? I know him and he know me and I know that he had almost to zero energy when he was like this so big chance he probably couldn't cook for himself, right?' Yu Mei tried convincing her own self.
'If he can't cook properly, he was risk at being sick, right? So maybe. A big maybe. Maybe I could invite him for a dinner, right?'
Yu Mei stole a glance at Li Kong, who was already kneeling on all four on the ground looking like he suffered a great amount of pain and occasionally letting out a small grunt.
'Yeah... Just look at him. Could you imagine someone like that cooking a proper meal? No! Come on, Yu Mei, this is your chance! It's just a normal dinner. A perfectly normal dinner without any other intent. Yeah, a perfectly normal dinner...'
"Ahem." Yu Mei coughed, directing Li Kong focus at her.
"It was getting annoying to see you writhing like that so maybe we could..." Yu Mei's complexion slowly turned to red and her voice slowly lost its strength as she fidgeted with her fingers.
"Uh, maybe we could go to my –" Before Yu Mei could finish her words, her fingers was snatched away by Li Kong and he held her hands tightly inside of the clasp of him.
"I've been waiting for you to say that." Li Kong wore a big grin.
"Ah?" Yu Mei blinked for a few times before looking at her hands that was clasped by Li Kong before shifting her focus to his face. A grin was etched on a full display for her to look at.
"What? Wait, wait, wait. What's going on? Why you're holding my hand? Why?" Yu Mei's brain short-circuited as any functional senses she had left was thrown out of the window.
"Let's go!" As Li Kong said it, Yu Mei could feel that her body was pulled and before she could fully process what was happening, the both of them had already running.
Feeling her clarity was coming back to her, Yu Mei looked at the joint between her palm dan Li Kong's before she asked.
"Are you really sure about this?"
"Hah?" Li Kong replied without looking back.
"Are you sure about this?" Yu Mei said louder than before.
"Hah?" But Li Kong response hadn't changed yet.
By this time now, frustration was building up inside Yu Mei and she decided just to shout.
"I say, are you sure!"
"What are you talking about? Of course, I'm sure!"
'What's wrong with this guy today? Usually he don't want to come inside my house, so why is he this energetic now? Could it be that he had realized?!'
At the likely realization, Yu Mei screamed loudly in her mind.
'No way, right? He finally realized after all this time? This couldn't be happening, right? Or maybe it could?' Yu Mei was at a battle with herself.
This was unknown to Yu Mei but back when Li Kong was still quite a prankster few years ago, his antics was well-known through the village and of course, Yu Hao, as the village chief at that time knew about what Li Kong has been doing. So each time Yu Mei invited Li Kong to play at her house, Yu Hao stared on Li Kong for almost the whole time they were playing.
Even though Li Kong was usually a blockhead but his instinct was unusually sharp at the most random moment. Following his sharp instinct, he decided to behave well in Yu Mei's house and everything seemed to be going fine before Yu Mei asked him to play house with her.
Yu Mei invited Li Kong and their other friend, Tang Xia, and played house. Li Kong was given the role of the father and Yu Mei was the mother and naturally Tang Xia was the daughter.
They were playing casually but for the entire time, they were playing Li Kong could feel the strong gaze behind his back. The feeling that the gaze brought was the same as when his dearest uncle was mad.
Li Kong proceed with extra caution and didn't dare to cause any ruckus. But all was going down when Yu Mei look at him who was silent for almost all of the time.
"Li Kong, is something wrong? Why don't you play with us? You are my husband, you know? Daddy said to me that a husband should always care for his wife so hurry! Help me now!"
Crack
Li Kong flinched at the sudden sound and his body tensed instinctively. Sweats started to formed rapidly around his body.
Yu Mei and Tang Xia was looking worriedly at the statue of Li Kong and on the background, a deep "Ah!" sound and a soft voice could be heard at the back, the tone was filled with displeasure.
Not long after that, the gaze that felt like it tried to bore a hole on Li Kong's back had disappeared and Li Kong heaved a sigh of relief and they continued to play.
After that, Li Kong kept the secret deep inside of his heart, too deep even as he had already forgotten what happened now but he instinctually knew that he had to avoid getting in Yu Mei's house at all cost.
After pondering for a moment, she looked at Li Kong's profile and she could listen her heart was beating fast.
They continued running and when they almost reached her house, Yu Mei smelled something was fishy as Li Kong hadn't slowed himself yet even though her house was only a few footsteps away from them.
To Yu Mei's acute deduction, it turned out that something was indeed wrong as they already passed her house.
Bewildered, Yu Mei looked at Li Kong with clear confusion on her eyes.
"Li Kong." She spoke.
"What?" This time there wasn't anything blocking his ear's passage.
"We already passed my house."
"Yeah, I know. Why did you ask?"
"So, why aren't you stopping?"
"Hmm? What are you talking about? We're going to Uncle Zheng house, no?" He innocently asked.
At that response, any of Yu Mei's fantasy and thoughts immediately shattered into countless piece of dust as she lowered her head in defeat.
'Of course it was like that.' Yu Mei facepalmed. 'What did I exactly expect from him?' Yu Mei desperately held back her tears as she let herself dragged by Li Kong.
Mistaking her misery for fear, Li Kong slowed his pace and talked to Yu Mei.
"Are you worried about your parent? No worries, I already said to your mother that we'll be going to Uncle Zheng's tonight! So, rest assured!" Li Kong said confidently while striking his chest.
"Mhm." Yu Mei weakly replied with a little nod and smile on her face.
By the time they reached their destination, without further ado, Li Kong immediately opened the door and stepped inside.
"Yo, Uncle. How are you doing?" He raised his hand up as he barged through the door.
"Next time knock on the damn door first, you brat! Didn't I teach you about manners years ago?" A voice full of fury berating Li Kong was coming out from the hallway.
Yu Mei was used to the uncle-nephew pair way of communications and didn't pay it much thought. She straighten her clothes and ready to greet Zheng Liyang before she discovered that he wasn't anywhere to seen.
"Ah, is Yu Mei there with you?"
"Yeah, she's right here." Li Kong replied.
"Come in fast."
She felt Li Kong urged her to went deeper as Zheng Liyang finished talking and she followed him and after they passed the hallway, they found Zheng Liyang standing in front of the stove.
The sound of steel clashing filled the room and the aroma of spices tickled Yu Mei's nose making her unknowingly salivate but she quickly realized what happened and gulped down.
"Good evening, uncle." She greeted politely.
"Good evening too. Take a seat. I'll be done with this in a few minutes."
Yu Mei pulled out a chair and sat amicably while on the other hand, Li Kong was already nowhere to found beside her and with a quick scan, she found him standing right beside the still cooking Zheng Liyang.
"Uncle, what will you make today?" Li Kong asked in a soft tone.
"Don't you have eyes? Use it. Now get out of my way. Shoo shoo." Zheng Liyang replied swiftly and pushed him away with one of his legs.
Yu Mei was looking at the indignant Li Kong walking slowly with a face as sour as grape and chuckled a little.
"Why are you laughing?" Li Kong squinted his eyes at her.
"Nothing. I just found a puppy that had been shunned away by his parent." An unimaginable huge grin planted on her face.
It was safe to say that Li Kong wasn't the slightest bit fascinated by Yu Mei's action and silently sat beside her.
"Hot stuff coming." Zheng Liyang said while putting a pot on top of the table.
He then continued bringing more food on top of the table until the center of table was almost full of plates and bowls.
After that, Zheng Liyang take a seat on the opposite side of the table and started bringing food onto his plate.
Yu Mei, who was watching her uncle bringing more and more food to the table, stared the table with a dumbfounded look and then, she turned her gaze to her uncle.
"Hmm?" Zheng Liyang noticed her staring. "Why don't you start eating?"
"Don't you think you made too much, uncle?"
"Ah... Don't worry. I've made this specially for that brat beside you." Zheng Liyang explained to her in a soft manner before redirecting his gaze to Li Kong who had been eating since the food came to the table.
Li Kong overheard their conversation a little and looked at his uncle with a heartfelt expression.
"Twankyu, unkle." He said with a mouth full of food.
"Swallow your food before talking!" Yu Mei noticed Zheng Liyang's tone immediately changed each time he held a conversation with Li Kong.
She remembered her father's statement that the pair of uncle and nephew was two peas in the same pod and the key difference was one of the pea already matured while the other was still flourishing in youth.
After berating Li Kong, Zheng Liyang shifted back his focus at Yu Mei and found that Yu Mei hadn't brought anything to her plate yet.
"Why haven't you take anything yet? Is the food not to your liking?" Zheng Liyang asked worriedly.
"Oh, I'm sorry, uncle. I dozed off for a moment." Yu Mei hurriedly responded and started joining them eating.
Yu Mei took a spoonful of the chicken and her eyes immediately opened.
"Delicious." She unknowingly muttered.
"I'm glad that you like the food." Zheng Liyang spoke with a smile.
Yu Mei nodded and continued to eat before suddenly she heard Zheng Liyang's voice.
"Oh right. Yu Mei, how's your mother condition?" Zheng Liyang asked.
"I think auntie was fine, uncle. I've met her this afternoon." Li Kong voiced his statement and then continuing eating his food.
"Yeah, but did I ask you?" Zheng Liyang squinted at him.
Li Kong was shot down speechless and continued to eat with low-hung head while Yu Mei was busy chuckling beside him.
"Thank you for asking uncle. My mother's health had gradually improved since the doctor came to our village." Yu Mei calmly responded.
"Thank goodness that the doctor came to our village." Zheng Liyang offered his gratefulness.
"Me too and everyone in the village. Ever since the doctor come, the people of our village had gradually gotten better." Yu Mei was thinking the same as Zheng Liyang and offered her gratefulness.
"Speaking of the doctor, did you know that Uncle Ye didn't like that doctor?" Li Kong chimed in.
"Hmm?" Yu Mei raised her eyebrows on Li Kong. "Why?"
"I don't know." Li Kong shrugged. "Even I only guessed it after he grumbled about it during the time we went hunting in the forest."
"Well, it's probably nothing much. Since he was young, Ye Cheng already adamant of having outsider living in our village. So don't think about it too much." Zheng Liyang shook his head.
"Hmm... I know that too but something just feel different with how uncle Ye was looking at the doctor." Li Kong pondered for a moment before continuing his eating spree.
'That's new. I don't know that uncle Ye dislike the doctor. I wonder why... I'll ask father when I get home later.' Yu Mei thought to herself.
'But before that...' Yu Mei shifted her focus back onto the table, specifically at the center of the table, the plate that contained fish.
"Uncle, did you eat my chicken leg?"
"What do you mean by "your chicken leg"? It was still on the bowl."
"And I was planning to get it later."
"Too bad then." Zheng Liyang paid Li Kong no more mind.
"Where's my drumstick?" Zheng Liyang observed the entirety of the table and found that the drumstick was on Li Kong's hand.
"It was still on the bowl." Li Kong said nonchalantly.
Zheng Liyang's blood flow increased and commotion happened in the dinner table.
'I have to somehow navigate throughout this mess.' She really wanted that fish.
...
Li Kong had walked Yu Mei through her house safely and bid farewell before going back at his home.
By the time he was finally inside of his home, he immediately charged to the bathroom and after done bathing, he entered the door to his bedroom where he was greeted by the self-proclaimed bead hovering in the air.
"Were you having fun today, Li Kong?" The bead asked.
"Yeah. You know when I arrived at the large tree at the outskirt of the village, I..." White and Li Kong talked for a moment.
"It's assuring to know that you have many good people around you." White said.
"Is that so?" Li Kong scratched the back of his bed in embarrassment.
"How come you were the one embarrassed?" White stared at him with questioning gaze. "Well, let's quickly forgot about it but before we discuss about what you would do from now on. We have to discuss about something else first. The Cultivation Stages."
Without any instructions, Li Kong took a seat in front of the bead and stared at it intently.
"As you already knew, we, cultivator, utilize Qi in our livelihood and through process of absorption and thorough refining, we able to cross a threshold and entered a new state of being. That's what we called the Cultivation Stages.
"Some might called it Ascension's Path or Path of Enlightenment or whatnot but the point remain the same. There are many stages in cultivation but I believe you only need to know a few of them for now."
"Why can't you just tell all of them at once, White?" Li Kong asked.
"Because it useless for you to know that many at the moment. Be patient, Li Kong. When you ventured out the world, the answer will come to you by yourself." White spoke in a composed manner.
"Alright."
"Continuing where we left before, cultivation was started by Meridian Opening stage. At this stage, you will try to sense Qi for the first time and absorbed it to your body then guide it carefully through your body and opened your meridian slowly as you guide it. You already went past this stage when you collapsed of exhaustion last night."
Li Kong nodded a little before White continued his explanation.
"After that comes Body Tempering, using the Qi you have successfully gathered in the Meridian Opening stage, you will thoroughly strengthen the body to make it strong enough to properly contain the Qi inside before going to the next stage.
"After your body is strong enough, you will enter Qi Building stage. You could think of this stage as Body Tempering for Qi. The Qi you already gathered before would be refined even further and turned the gaseous Qi to liquid form, making your body and Qi even stronger than before.
"And after that, you have to solidify the liquid Qi in your dantian to a solid core and then you refine the core further and when you already perfected it, you will collapse it and with that come a tribulation before you can advance to the next stage and after you've passed the tribulation, a sprout would appear from your collapsed core and bring forth your intangible soul to tangible. This is the Nascent Soul stage.
"At this point, killing a cultivator would be increasingly more difficult as their soul wasn't fully attached to their body anymore so even if their body was destroyed, they could always just ran to build their body from scratch or possess other people and took their body."
Li Kong caught up on something and asked White, "Wait, doesn't that mean that the story of ghost possessing people was..."
"It could be a tale of a Nascent Soul cultivator seeking for another body to possess." White replied ominously.
Li Kong's mouth was wide open at the realization and he gulped without realizing it.
"But it could just be a ghost and not a Nascent Soul cultivator trying to possess you, so don't worry too much about it." White said calmly.
"Um, White." His voice was shaky. "By that statement, are you indirectly saying that ghost is real?"
White scoffed and asked, "What? Are you scared now?" He then saw Li Kong nodded.
"Sigh... Don't worry. Ghost don't usually wander far from their territories so maybe it would do you much good if you asked for where the place people usually saw ghost before venturing in the near future."
Hearing White's words, Li Kong immediately heaved a sigh of relief and nodded repeatedly. After that, he repeatedly write the word "Don't forget" on his palm and then stick his palm to his forehead.
Seeing Li Kong's antic, White once again let out a sigh, deeper than ever before.
'I think this is perfect time to take a short break.' Headaches came to probed at his nonexistent head as he watched Li Kong kept sticking his palm to his forehead.
Sigh...