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CHAPTER 3: Easing the Pain
"I won't take anyone's word for it. His identity can only be confirmed by the Verification Stone." Elder Wen beckoned to Chu Li. "You first."
Chu Li reached out and pressed her palm against the Verification Stone, feeling only a faint warmth, the sign of spiritual energy passing through it.
A moment later, at Elder Wen's signal, she withdrew her hand, and a line of glowing text appeared above the stone. "Chu Li, twenty years old, dual Water-Wood spirit roots, Qi refining stage. Verified."
"This sect's Verification Stone can't examine the soul directly, but it can determine the age, spirit roots, and cultivation level tied to a physical body," Elder Wen explained. "As for your name, the sect master registered it herself when you joined."
Understanding dawned on Chu Li.
The Verification Stone was essentially the cultivation world's version of an identification system, capable of reading off a cultivator's basic information with a single touch.
But a new concern quickly occurred to her. "If someone were to seize another person's body, couldn't they use that body to slip past this test?"
Elder Wen seemed to have anticipated the question. "That's precisely the second layer of the stone's examination, the compatibility between body and soul. A person's original body and soul are perfectly matched from birth. A stolen body will inevitably show signs of friction as the soul settles in. No matter how faint that friction might be, no trace of it can escape a treasure like the Verification Stone."
She added, "If you were someone who'd seized this body, you wouldn't have received the word 'Verified' just now."
A cold sweat broke out across Chu Li's back.
She'd only just transmigrated into this body today. In theory, her soul shouldn't be a perfect match for it either...
So this was what it meant to transmigrate into a novel: a dimensional advantage that let a soul from outside this world settle seamlessly into its host body.
"Your turn." Elder Wen flicked a finger, and another spiritual thread wound around the boy's wrist, pressing his palm firmly against the Verification Stone.
Chu Li wasn't worried about the outcome. She had faith in him.
But the moment her eyes met his, her heart leapt into her throat.
The rims of the boy's eyes had gone red, his doe-like eyes downcast with wounded sorrow, his small face crumpling slightly, his pale lips trembling.
Over and over, silently, he seemed to be pleading the same words.
Sister, I'm scared.
Chu Li spoke to him gently. "Don't be scared. It's going to be fine."
The Verification Stone, which had remained perfectly calm until then, began to flicker the moment it touched the boy's palm, its white glow pulsing unevenly, as if the spiritual energy within it were in turmoil.
At the same time, the boy's hand turned red almost instantly, as though he'd pressed it against a burning iron.
Elder Wen acted at once, tugging the spiritual thread to pull his hand away.
Chu Li carefully lifted the boy's wrist and saw that his entire hand had turned an angry red. Without even looking up, she asked, "Elder Wen, what's happening to him?"
Elder Wen ignored the question, focused entirely on reciting the result. "Unidentified, seventeen years old, Metal spirit root, no cultivation... Verified."
At the word "Verified," Chu Li's first reaction was relief.
This meant the boy's body and soul shared the same origin. Even though he had a single Metal spirit root, the same as the villain, there was no way the villain, even having crippled his own cultivation, could possibly be a mere seventeen years old.
He truly was innocent.
But almost immediately, her relief gave way to a fresh wave of concern for him. How had the Verification Stone burned his hand like that?
When she'd touched it herself, nothing had happened at all.
The boy pressed his lips together and looked at her, his tear-flecked lashes trembling, his expression that of someone who'd suffered some enormous injustice.
Chu Li cradled his hand and blew gently on it, trying to ease his pain.
She'd never had any particular feelings about the Verification Stone before, but now she found herself half wishing for some miraculous power that would let her crush the wretched thing to dust, just to avenge him.
Nursing that petty grudge, she glanced away toward the stone, only to notice it had gone completely dark, without the faintest trace of spiritual energy stirring within it.
As a spiritual treasure, the Verification Stone channeled a considerable amount of energy at all times, which was precisely why it glowed year-round.
For a perfectly functional treasure to suddenly lose its signature glow seemed deeply wrong no matter how she looked at it.
Noticing Chu Li's confused expression, Elder Wen simply made the stone vanish with a flick of her wrist, then summoned two bells, one large and one small. She handed the larger one directly to Chu Li, while the smaller one was fastened to the boy's ankle with a spiritual thread.
"I'm giving you this pair of linked bells, mother and child. The mother bell is bound to the child bell, and under normal circumstances, neither will make a sound. But should the wearer of the child bell show any unusual behavior, the mother bell will ring."
Chu Li gave the golden bell in her hand a shake, and sure enough, it made no sound at all. She glanced at the small silver bell now fastened to the boy's ankle and felt a twinge of awkwardness, unable to help herself from asking, "Is this really necessary?"
Elder Wen's gaze swept coldly over the boy. "He passed the Verification Stone's examination, so I have nothing further to say on that. But his aptitude is remarkable, and his origins remain unknown. Since you've chosen him as your partner, you are responsible for his every action. Should he cause any trouble, I will hold you accountable."
Chu Li clutched the mother bell eagerly. "So you're allowing me to bring him into the sect?"
"Go get him changed into proper clothes." Elder Wen gave no clear answer, tossing off the remark with cool indifference before sweeping away.
The illusion realm around them dissolved along with her.
When Chu Li came back to her senses, she found herself and the boy standing just inside the gates of the Bliss Sect, the spiritual threads that had bound his hands and feet earlier now nowhere to be seen.
Only the small bell remained fastened to his ankle, an inexplicably unsettling sight against the delicate, fragile line of his ankle bone.
Chu Li wanted to help him remove it, but the spiritual thread securing the child bell had been cast by someone at the Nascent Soul stage, a level of power far beyond her own to undo.
She rubbed her brow and began to draw a teleportation array on the spot, but the moment the incantation touched the ground, it fizzled out entirely.
Only then did she remember that teleportation was forbidden within the Bliss Sect's grounds. She had no choice but to tell the boy, "It's still a bit of a walk to where I stay, and you're not really in a state to manage it. Let me find someone to carry you back."
"There's no need to trouble anyone, Sister." He was staring thoughtfully at his own palm. "I'd like to try walking on my own."
Chu Li eyed him doubtfully. "Weren't you in a lot of pain before?"
The boy slowly closed his hands into fists, his gaze skittering away like a lost fawn's. "When I touched that stone just now, I felt a rush of warmth flow into my palm. It burned my hand, yes, but afterward, the pain all over my body actually eased quite a bit."
"A rush of warmth?" Chu Li propped her chin on one hand, deep in thought.
Could he have meant the spiritual energy within the Verification Stone?
The novel had mentioned that the Verification Stone continuously drew in ambient spiritual energy to sustain its own function, but it had never once suggested that a person could draw energy back out of the stone.
Before she could puzzle out any explanation, the boy had already taken several steps forward on his own. Though he still stood slightly hunched, his footing had grown noticeably steadier.
He walked about ten feet away, then turned and walked slowly back to stand in front of her, stopping and lowering his head with a timid voice. "Sister, I really do feel much better now."
Chu Li was quiet for a moment before reaching out to pat the top of his head. As she drew her hand back, an unexpected sting made her fingers flinch reflexively.
She hadn't even had time to examine her hand properly when the boy took it into both of his own without hesitation.
Though his own right hand still bore the vivid, alarming redness of a recent burn, he seemed entirely unbothered by it, focused only on her hand instead.
His fingertips moved over her skin with the precision of the finest instrument, tracing every inch of unbroken flesh, until he stopped just beside her ring finger. "This is cut. It's bleeding."
Only then did Chu Li notice, following his gaze, a thin line among the seeping blood, as if sliced by a fine blade. It wasn't obvious, but it ran fairly deep. "It must have happened earlier, when I blocked Qin Yuxi's fan with her spiritual power still on it."
The boy's brow knit tightly. "Doesn't it hurt, Sister?"
"I didn't notice it before, so I didn't feel it." Chu Li shook her hand lightly, deciding it wasn't serious. "I'll just stop the bleeding myself."
She had no training in medicine, but a wound this minor was well within her ability to handle.
Chu Li raised her other hand, about to cast a healing spell on herself, when the boy suddenly, without any warning, bent his head and took her fingertip into his mouth.
His warm lips enveloped her fingertip in an instant, the soft, damp tip of his tongue brushing faintly over the wound.
The pain vanished entirely, replaced by a tingling sensation that spread from her ring finger through her whole body like an electric current.
She was in no way prepared for a sensation like that. She stared at him, wide-eyed, and it was a long moment before she managed to force a few words out of her throat. "...What are you doing?"
The boy stopped instantly at her words, parting his lips and releasing her finger, then lifted his head calmly, watching her with an entirely innocent expression. "This way it won't hurt anymore, Sister."
Chu Li began to suspect he was, in fact, some kind of puppy wearing human skin. What kind of person told someone, with a perfectly straight face, that licking a wound would make the pain go away?
She blinked rapidly, thoroughly flustered. "Who told you that would make it stop hurting?"
"Does it still hurt, Sister?" The boy seemed to have misread something in her words. He paused for a moment, considering, and before she could react, lowered his head once more to take her fingertip back into his mouth.
This time, he even closed his eyes, his thick lashes trembling faintly, his expression so absorbed it looked less like he was holding her fingertip in his mouth and more like he was offering a prayer to some deity.
Chu Li felt something inside her about to snap entirely. "Stop, stop, it doesn't hurt anymore!"
She felt as though a current were running through her entire body, leaving her trembling all over.
The boy opened his eyes, her fingertip still held gently between his lips, his gaze faintly dazed beneath half-lowered lashes.
Chu Li's cheeks twitched slightly as she pulled her ring finger free and clasped her hands behind her back, clearing her throat several times without quite meaning to. "Don't do that again, understand?"
The boy said nothing for a moment, gazing at her, then lowered his head like a child caught doing something wrong. "I won't do anything to upset you again, Sister."
He sounded so genuinely dejected that Chu Li rushed to reassure him. "I'm not upset with you, I just..."
"You just don't like it?" The boy bowed his head even further. "If I can't make you happy, Sister, then I'm just a burden to you no matter what."
Three "Sisters" in a row proved, once again, utterly devastating. Panic got the better of Chu Li, and she blurted out recklessly, "Who said I don't like you!"
The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them instantly.
Was that really something she should be saying so carelessly?
Someone as innocent as him would almost certainly take it at face value, which meant she was digging herself deeper and deeper into the business of swindling an upstanding young man.
The boy glanced up at her, then quickly lowered his eyes again, though the corners of his eyes, tilted slightly upward, betrayed the faintest hint of a smile.
Chu Li felt, deep down, that she was accumulating some serious karmic debt.
For the rest of the walk, she made a point of staying a step ahead of him, avoiding his gaze entirely.
The boy, meanwhile, kept quickening his pace now and then, drifting close to her side as if by accident.
Every time he did, Chu Li would raise a hand to her forehead and turn her face pointedly toward the other side.
Beneath the setting sun, the red oleanders lining the path were in full, vivid bloom.
When Chu Li noticed the boy had fallen behind, she found he'd been drawn in by the flowers' vivid, showy blossoms, standing beneath an oleander tree with his hand reaching out to touch the leaves and petals.
She remembered suddenly: the more beautiful a flower, the more likely it was poisonous.
Every part of the oleander carried toxins, and its sap could irritate the skin badly, even cause paralysis.
She quickly pulled him away from the tree and hurried him down a side path.
Because the original owner of this body had never managed to establish her foundation despite years in the sect, she'd been assigned to live in the western courtyard, crowded together with the other outer-sect disciples.
Still, she at least had her own private space.
The moment Chu Li pushed open the door, a wave of fragrance hit her.
Disciples of the Bliss Sect were skilled in the art of enchantment, and the use of incense was an important part of achieving that effect.
Though the scent in the room didn't carry any suspiciously cloying sweetness, it was simply far too strong. Chu Li's head began to spin from the intensity of it, and she crossed the room in a few quick steps to throw open the small window.
While letting the room air out, she pinched her nose and did a quick circuit of the space.
An outer-sect disciple's quarters weren't large, roughly divided into a small sitting room and an inner chamber.
The inner chamber had a separate corner partitioned off, set aside specifically for a partner to sleep. It had no window, only a bamboo door for entry and exit.
The layout existed because, although Bliss Sect disciples relied on partners to cultivate, they rarely shared a bed with them outside of actual dual cultivation. Except during those sessions, partners were expected to remain in their own small, dark room.
Compared to the relatively tidy inner chamber, this little room was thoroughly shabby. Aside from a bamboo cot, there was nothing else at all, the cot itself layered with dust, clearly never having housed a partner before.
Chu Li cast a spell to clear away the dust, and once she'd finished inspecting the space, waved the boy inside.
He stood beneath the bamboo doorway, his pale fingers fidgeting awkwardly with the hem of his robe, looking thoroughly uneasy.
Chu Li cast another cleansing spell on him, sweeping away the dirt and grime from head to toe in one smooth motion.
Life as a cultivator had its conveniences; a simple gesture was enough to make both a living space and a person spotless.
But no matter how clean his tattered clothes became, they were still tattered clothes, and the cultivation world had little patience for a boy dressed as shabbily as he was.
Chu Li rested her chin in her hand, studying him for a moment, then bent down and dragged a camphor-wood chest out from beneath the cot. Inside sat a gray-blue robe with wide sleeves, along with a matching plain white inner garment.
Every partner newly brought into the sect received a set of clothing just like this one. Compared to the relatively revealing attire worn by the sect's female disciples, a partner's clothing was deliberately conservative, not only in its muted colors but in how thoroughly it covered everything from neck to ankle.
Chu Li pressed the clothes into the boy's hands and beat a quick retreat out of the little room, pulling the bamboo door shut behind her. "Get changed first, then call for me when you're done."
But quite a while passed without a sound from inside, and she couldn't help glancing back.
Through the thin paper covering the door's lattice window, she could faintly make out the boy holding up his new clothes, seeming to measure them against himself over and over.
Then he set the clothes down on the cot and reached up to undo the front of his robe.
The moment his collar slipped off his shoulder, revealing the pale expanse of his back, Chu Li quickly covered her eyes.
She was, after all, a person of principle.
She had no idea how long passed before the bamboo door finally creaked open. She'd expected to see the boy properly dressed, but the instant she lowered her hand, she found herself unexpectedly face to face with his half-open robe.
She looked away in a rush. "Why did you come out without even finishing dressing!"
His answer came out entirely innocent. "I've never worn anything this complicated before. I couldn't manage the ties no matter how long I tried, so I wanted to ask Sister for help."
Realizing he'd likely suffered a great deal, never even having owned a proper set of clothes, all of Chu Li's irritation melted away at once.
She beckoned him closer, and only then did she let herself look at him directly again.
Compared to the absurd number of ties along the front of his robe, what truly caught her attention were the faint, crisscrossing scars visible across his chest.
Rather than tying his robe closed right away, Chu Li found herself staring at the dense web of scars, and it was a long moment before she finally asked, "Is that why it hurt so much? Because of these scars?"
The boy glanced down at the marks on his own body, his tone unsettlingly calm for someone who might have been lying. "It doesn't hurt anymore now."
Still uneasy, Chu Li turned to head for the door. "Let me find someone to take a proper look at you."
She'd barely taken two steps before the boy caught her by the wrist. "Can you really bear to let someone else see my body, Sister?"
Chu Li nearly stumbled at the sudden grip. She turned back, a little exasperated. "A healer doesn't see men or women, only patients. There's nothing to worry about."
The boy's gaze drifted to the side, though his hand never loosened its grip, his voice measured and deliberate, as though reciting a vow. "Aside from you, Sister, I won't let anyone else see my body."
Chu Li had no patience left to argue in circles with him, and even less desire to cast a spell on him over something like this. "Let go of my hand first."
"I won't let go until you agree, Sister." He remained stubbornly immovable.
Her wrist ached under his grip, and unable to talk him out of it, she finally relented. "Fine, we'll drop it for today. We can talk about it another time."
Only then did he release her hand, an apologetic look crossing his face immediately. "I'm sorry."
Chu Li rubbed her wrist with a sigh and walked back over to him, tying his front closed from the bottom up. "You'll get the hang of dressing and tying it after watching once."
She circled him once, studying the finished look, and had to admit he really was a walking clothes rack. Whether he wore rags or the deliberately modest robes of a partner, nothing seemed to diminish how striking he looked.
She smoothed out the folds at the back of his robe, then pointed to the bamboo cot beside them. "You'll sleep here tonight."
The boy stared blankly at the cot, then turned back to look at her. "And you, Sister?"
Chu Li pointed toward the inner chamber, just beyond the door. "I sleep next door. If anything comes up, just call for me."
After dinner, the boy settled down to sleep in the small dark room first.
Chu Li blew out her candle and lay in bed, staring absently out the window.
Who would have imagined that, on the very first day of transmigrating into this novel, she'd already found herself the perfect partner?
That kind of luck was practically the equivalent of five million falling straight out of the sky while walking down the street.
Chu Li tucked both hands behind her head and, before she quite realized it, drifted off to sleep.
She dreamed she was sitting in her courtyard again, sipping wine, the sweet taste of plum liquor lingering pleasantly on her tongue.
Then a bolt of lightning split the sky directly overhead, her entire vision consumed by white light, and she jolted awake from the dream all at once.
The window she'd left open banged against its frame in the howling wind, thunder rumbling steadily overhead. Reluctantly, Chu Li clapped a hand over one ear and reached to cast a spell to shut the window.
A sudden flash of lightning outside lit up the room as brightly as daylight for a split second.
It was then that Chu Li noticed a figure standing at the head of her bed.
The boy stood over her, his gaze cold as ice, his face utterly without warmth, nothing at all like the sweet, obedient boy from earlier that day.
【Author's Note】
【Bonus scene 1】
Chu Li: I've genuinely started to wonder if you're secretly a dog.
Ji Wuyan: You've got it wrong. I'm not a dog. I'm actually a...
Chu Li: Duck?
Ji Wuyan: ???
(Fun fact: geese are technically part of the duck family.)
【Bonus scene 2】
Welcome to the livestream, "A Bet's a Bet, Come Watch the Book-Eating"
Viewer 1: Wait, is she really eating the book? Streamers these days really go all out.
Viewer 2: I stayed up this late just to hear the book-eating ASMR.
Viewer 3: Does it sound good? If it sounds good, it must be a good book.
【"Thousand-Year Dragon Well" has entered the livestream】
【"Thousand-Year Dragon Well" sent 666 True Love Rockets】
Viewer 1: Whoa, the top spender just showed up out of nowhere.
Viewer 2: Aww, the top spender really spoils her [lemon][lemon][lemon]
Chu Li: ...(gets up and leaves the frame)
Viewer 3: Where did the streamer go?
Mod: The streamer asked me to let you all know, she went to go train her dog.
Read only on https://royaltywrites.com.ng/
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