Pine and cypress trees blurred past behind him, earthen mounds and scattered rocks flashed by as Liu Xiaolou leapt over them in his headlong rush through Qingxia Valley. At his back he could sense the sword-light of Steward Zhan, clinging to him like a shadow. Sometimes he veered left, sometimes right, carving out a path so erratic that even he couldn’t predict where his feet would take him next.

All at once, a memory rose in his mind. Back when he was only at the second stage of Qi Refinement, he had been hunted down by Han Wuwang of the Dongyang Sect. Compared with that time, his speed now had increased by nearly half.

Like this he burst out of Qingxia Valley, out of the Luofu mountain range, running without pause for four straight hours. Only when his true qi could no longer sustain such intense circulation did he slow his pace. Spotting a dense patch of forest nearby, he dove straight in.

He found a tree four or five zhang tall, sprang up into its crown, and hid among the branches. Peering back the way he had come, he saw no sign of pursuit. He waited a little longer, and at last the tension in his chest began to ease. He let out a long breath.

Had he really shaken him off?

Looking back, he never knew what that steward Zhan was actually in charge of.

He was odd, and he probably had some kind of grudge against Zhao Ruyu.

Luckily, Liu Xiaolou was quick to catch on and didn’t hesitate to run, and in the end, he managed to get away from that nest of trouble.

But the more he thought about it, the more something felt off. Even with the progress he had made in cultivation, it should have been almost impossible to slip from Steward Zhan’s grasp. What had held him back? Did he change his mind? Or was he hiding something himself. Maybe once Liu Xiaolou broke free of Qingxia Valley, he didn’t dare pursue any further for fear of drawing attention?

He couldn’t figure it out, and in the end he didn’t care to. More often than not, getting to the bottom of something came at a price, and he had no interest in taking that risk.

The path he was on now was the same one he had taken coming here, so when he fled, he had followed it almost by instinct. Looking back on it, he realized he was already more than a hundred li away from Mount Luofu. It was mountain road, not flat open ground, so to have covered such a distance in just four hours filled him with both satisfaction and a slight sense of yearning.

When he reached the late stage of Qi Refinement, he thought, he would be even faster. By then, he would no longer have to fear pursuit from the stewards of these so-called great sects.

Without delay, Liu Xiaolou continued north. Seven days later, he finally returned to Wulong Mountain.

The first thing he did upon returning was to head deep into the bamboo grove, where he found a sheltered spot beneath the cliff to hang the hive. Golden Ring Bees had a long growth cycle. More than two months had passed since he had taken the hive, yet the seven larvae inside still hadn’t broken free of their cocoons. Only small cracks had appeared at their heads, through which they occasionally stretched their mouths to gnaw at the honey around the edges. Living off the honey within the hive, they had managed to survive for over two months.

Perhaps it was precisely because of their long growth cycle that their vitality was so tenacious. For more than two months they had been without fresh nectar, carried thousands of li through constant upheaval, battered by wind and rain who knew how many times, yet the queen and the seven larvae remained safe and sound inside the hive.

It was a pity that in the three years he had spent as a son-in-law in the Su family, he had never learned a single skill in raising spirit beasts or spirit insects. The Thousandfold Formulas Manual did contain notes on Golden Ring Bees, but only about their uses, with not a word on how to raise them. Liu Xiaolou had no idea what to do. Still, hanging the hive on the cliff and letting them grow naturally seemed like the safest bet.

While hanging the hive, he made a point of calling Big White and Little Black over. He sternly warned them not to fool around or try to eat it. He wore all the seriousness he could muster on his face, hoping those two wouldn’t be so blind as to disobey.

For cultivators, it was perfectly normal to go down the mountain to travel or retreat to the mountains for secluded cultivation, sometimes for ten days, half a month, or even a whole year. So Fang Bu’ai of Half-Pine Plateau wasn’t the least bit surprised. After coming up to check in on him and telling Liu Xiaolou that nothing major had happened on Wulong Mountain these past two months, he went back down to Half-Pine Plateau.

In truth, though, a few small things had happened.

After the brutal battles at Zhuoshui a year ago, many of Liu Xiaolou’s fellow cultivators on Wulong Mountain had reaped great rewards. Beyond the insights they had gained into the Dao while walking the edge of life and death, they had also amassed considerable wealth.

Take Tan Bajhang, for example. No one knew exactly how many spirit stones he earned, but just last month his cultivation advanced a layer, bringing him to the seventh layer of Qi Refinement. Even now, he was cultivating diligently at his Dragon Horse Falls, striving to make his foundation at this layer steadier and stronger.

Or Zuo Gaofeng, who had gone into seclusion seven days ago to attempt a breakthrough to the ninth layer of Qi Refinement.

There were many such cases on Wulong Mountain. Fang Bu’ai alone had heard of more than a dozen. When he told Liu Xiaolou about them, he couldn’t help but sound a little downcast, for he belonged to the other majority. The ones who had fought with everything they had yet gained nothing. No insights, no spirit stones.

Everyone was working hard.

Hearing this, Liu Xiaolou felt a twinge of urgency. He gathered his spirit stones and his most important belongings, packed some food, and at midnight left Qianzhu Ridge. He made his way toward the hidden tree cave at the foot of the mountain to the northeast. The secluded cultivation site of the Sanxuan Sect.

As usual, he slipped in through the hollow of the tree and followed the tunnel, winding around six or seven bends until he reached the cavern. He sat cross-legged by the small pool connected to the Wuchao River, steadied his breathing for an hour, gathered his mind, and shifted into seclusion.

Out of the forty-four acupoints along the Foot Lesser Yang (Gallbladder) Meridian, he had already opened eighteen. Now he began to strike at the Zhengying acupoint.

The Zhengying acupoint lies just above the hairline. Once it is cleared, dizziness and lightheadedness usually stop appearing on their own. In truth, the whole path of a Qi cultivator is the opening of every acupoint. When that is completed, all illnesses fall away. Even without reaching Foundation Establishment, you can live to a hundred years or more. Sometimes even a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty.

On the Gallbladder Meridian, Zhengying is an ordinary, minor acupoint, and it has no primordial pool to store true qi. Because of that, Liu Xiaolou managed to blast it open in only nine days, spending just a single spirit stone.

After a brief adjustment, he pressed on to the Chengling acupoint. Like Zhengying, it is located in the head, and it governs conditions such as ringing in the ears. With Chengling open, if he were to face a duel between Golden Core cultivators like the one at the Danxia Sect’s millennial ceremony three years ago, the ringing would no longer overwhelm him.

Chengling also lacks a primordial pool, so he cleared it with a single spirit stone.

Liu Xiaolou pressed on, striking at the Naokong, Fengchi, Jianjing, and Yuanye acupoints in one go. Among them, Fengchi and Jianjing were major acupoints, each with a primordial pool. In the Fengchi acupoint, he stored the energy of three spirit stones, and in Jianjing, two and a half.

Summer slipped by while he remained in seclusion, and autumn followed close behind as the weather grew cooler. By the tenth month, after five months in retreat, Liu Xiaolou had broken through fifteen more acupoints.

Once he cleared the Fengshi acupoint, three-quarters of the Gallbladder Meridian was complete. For the time being, he stepped out of seclusion and returned to Qianzhu Ridge.

Deep in the bamboo grove, Fang Bu’ai was clinging to a cliff face, focused entirely on feeding the queen bee. He put the pollen he had collected from the mountainside near her mandibles. The queen’s two antennae curled around it, guiding it right into her mouth.

Above his head, one or two Golden Ring Bees circled now and then, their wings buzzing as they darted off and came back again.

Suddenly a voice called from behind him: “Junior Fang, you know how to raise bees?”

Fang Bu’ai turned his head and quickly bowed. “Senior Liu, you’ve finished your seclusion? I once helped my master raise a nest of venomous bees, so I know a little… Senior, these Golden Ring Bees are easy to keep. They’re not delicate at all, though they grow a bit slowly. Oh, and the seven young bees have all emerged from their cocoons. Two died, but the remaining five are doing very well. They’ve been gathering nectar to strengthen the hive. The queen has laid another clutch of twelve eggs. I expect they’ll hatch before the end of the year.”

Climbing up onto the cliff, Liu Xiaolou looked for a while. He saw that the hive really did have more small pupae inside, and he nodded in approval. “Very good… and the hive itself has grown larger?”

“Yes,” replied Fang Bu’ai. “It’s more stable now. By next year you should be able to harvest honey, about two taels’ worth.”

After watching Fang Bu’ai finish feeding the queen, Liu Xiaolou called him down from the cliff. “It’s almost time to harvest the spirit rice in Ewe Ram Mountain. The Zang family will be hiring hands to work the fields, and there’s usually decent pay. Would you like to go?”

Fang Bu’ai scratched his head. “Of course I’d like to, but I heard there are plenty of others competing for the job…”

Liu Xiaolou patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll write you a letter of recommendation. Go give it a try.”