Evolution - Chapter 161
Chapter 161
The grand promises Major General Xie’er laid out did not move Yu Zhiyao in the slightest.
Ji Changqing as the supreme military commander of Blue Star? What was she thinking? The girl hadn't even commanded a formally structured unit yet, had she? If it was just to make her a puppet to appease Blue Star, it would disrupt her path of growth and even negatively impact her future development. That was entirely unnecessary.
Of all the things Major General Xie’er had said, the only words that caught a sliver of her attention were “be together” and “get married.”
By her calculations, they had been separated for twenty years and had been back together for over ten. But in reality, during the nearly ten years after their long-awaited reunion, the total time they had spent together didn't even add up to a full year. It was a completely virtual romance.
It couldn't even compare to the time after they were unintentionally swept into this cultivation world. Not counting the months they were each unconscious, they had at least been together day and night for over a year.
Hmm, elevating their relationship from girlfriends/lovers to partners/family, or Dao Companions, was actually quite an appealing idea!
The thought flashed through her mind, and she tucked it away. After seeing off Major General Xie’er, who was preparing to return to the Alliance, Chu Ci and Gu Jiawen, who had been mysteriously absent recently, came to find her together.
They had come to share good news!
They had originally thought it would take about ten years to gather the medicinal ingredients for Yu Zhiyao, but since they had been collected ahead of schedule, Gu Jiawen was particularly generous with his prescriptions. He adjusted her treatment plan, saying, “Once your spiritual soul has recuperated a bit more, we can start addressing the damage to your spirit body. If it goes quickly, it could take a year. If it’s slow, two or three years will be enough.”
Chu Ci was mainly there to remind her not to be anxious about cultivating. “Don’t be in a hurry. It’s better to wait until your spirit body is fixed before you start cultivating.” She wore a look of great pity. With a physique like this, even if she only had five spiritual roots, her cultivation speed would rival that of someone with dual spiritual roots, if not single ones!
If she had started cultivating from childhood, her achievements would have been limitless! “Although you’re a bit old to start cultivating now, you should at least be able to break through to the Spirit Transformation stage.”
The Spirit Transformation stage came with a three-thousand-year lifespan!
Gu Jiawen’s eye twitched. How was Big Sister so good at this? She clearly meant it as a compliment, but it came out sounding like she was looking down on her.
“A year is fine,” Yu Zhiyao mused for a moment, then looked at Chu Ci. “Fixing my spirit body can be done on Blue Star too, right?”
“Oh, that depends on whether you want to be in pain for a day or a month,” Chu Ci said frankly. “The entire process will be excruciatingly painful. The spiritual energy here is abundant, so it will be faster.” The spiritual energy on Ten Thousand Swords Peak was a hundred times richer than on Blue Star. Here, she could refine the medicinal power and channel it into Yu Zhiyao’s body to refine her muscles and bones, cleanse her blood and marrow. The whole thing would likely be over in less than a day.
On Blue Star, a month would be considered fast!
Yu Zhiyao shivered. Who could endure a solid month of pain?! It was just two or three years; that was no problem. Once the project application was approved, they could do other preparatory work here first.
She waved goodbye to Chu Ci and Gu Jiawen and cheerfully went to find Ji Changqing.
She wasn't in a rush to cultivate, but there was a small issue she needed to discuss with Ji Changqing beforehand.
Watching her walk toward Ji Changqing with a light spring in her step, looking for once like a lively child with smiling eyes and a relaxed, utterly undignified expression, Chu Ci felt a little conflicted.
Ever since she found out Yu Zhiyao and Ji Changqing were a couple, she often felt like she was splitting in two.
When she looked at Ji Changqing, she remembered that this was her junior sister from the same peak who had achieved the happy ending for Lingyun Peak. She felt incredibly gratified. Her own little piglet had learned how to snag a prize cabbage! So capable! She wanted to praise her!
When she looked at Yu Zhiyao, the thought that this was her future junior sister-in-law, set in stone, would suddenly fill her with heartache. Her own fresh, dewy cabbage had been snatched by a pig! The pain! The agony! She wanted to give Ji Changqing a good beating!
In the end, she could only reconcile her feelings by thinking, Fine, at least both the pig and the cabbage belong to Lingyun Peak!
And so, during evening practice, Ji Changqing was beaten by her Big Sister until she was howling, rolling all over the ground. Finally, she clung to Big Sister’s long leg and let out a shameless, fake cry, begging for mercy.
He Yi, who was standing on the side trying to slack off, was so scared her legs went weak. She was terrified that Big Sister would drag her over next and spank her—she was a grown woman! Being spanked in front of everyone was just too humiliating!
Ji Changqing, however, had no such psychological burden. After all, Big Sister was thousands of years old! In front of her, who wasn't a child? She howled and had to resort to fake crying to get through it purely because it hurt so much! And there was no escape; no matter how she dodged, she was hit with pinpoint accuracy.
Perhaps her wails were too boisterous, because Big Sister mercifully stopped focusing on one spot and instead gave her entire body a thorough going-over, from top to bottom. Even her face had red welts from being struck.
After the beating, she was sore all over and lay flat on the ground like a salted fish. Only then did Big Sister finally offer a smile. “Go back and have a good medicinal bath. I already had Jiawen send the ingredients over.”
Ji Changqing covered her face. This was a premeditated assault! She had been on her best behavior recently, so why had Big Sister suddenly been so ruthless?!
When she returned, Yu Zhiyao was shocked to see her bruised and swollen like a pig's head, her steps faltering as if she were an old woman on the verge of death. She quickly rushed over to support her.
Ji Changqing buried her head in Yu Zhiyao’s embrace, whimpering and playing the victim. “Big Sister was so cruel today, she beat me up like this!”
Yu Zhiyao had been feeling very sorry for her, but when she looked down and saw Ji Changqing’s contorted face, her features twisted as she begged for comfort, her lips swollen from the beating, she couldn't help but shudder and instinctively look away. Even if beauty was in the eye of the beholder, and her love-tinted glasses were thick, Ji Changqing was barely recognizable as human right now. She felt sorry for her, she really did, but it was also so, so hard on the eyes!
A moment later, feeling that she was being a terrible person, a conscience-stricken Yu Zhiyao let her gaze wander as she comforted her. “Why was the beating so bad today? Are you about to break through a minor realm? No wonder Gu Jiawen came by earlier to change the ingredients for your medicinal bath.”
Completely unaware that she had been subtly found repulsive, Ji Changqing paused, then said with some uncertainty, “Maybe?”
The two of them, a happy couple, were utterly oblivious to the forces of the Singles’ Alliance. Although they still felt something was strange, reason prevented them from thinking any deeper about it.
Yu Zhiyao helped her to the medicinal bath. Looking down at the salted fish Ji Changqing, who was clinging to her and rubbing against her insistently, she held back, then held back again, suppressing the urge to give this girl—who was pretending to be pitiful while actually copping a feel—another beating. She asked with feigned concern, “Doesn’t it hurt? Hurry up and get in!”
Ji Changqing grumbled, reluctantly pulling herself out of Yu Zhiyao’s arms. She stood up straight, stripped naked, and climbed in. She sat cross-legged, assumed a cultivation posture, with only her bruised and swollen face showing, and grinned through the pain to schedule her services with Yu Zhiyao. “I’ll wash your hair after my bath!”
Yu Zhiyao covered her eyes. “I know!”
These days, if she overused her brain even slightly, it would trigger a headache. Ji Changqing had specifically consulted Gu Jiawen and Shen Guiqing to learn a set of massage techniques for relief and prevention, and she massaged her head every day. The only annoying thing was that the girl would often start copping a feel mid-massage, sexually harassing her client. She would steal a kiss one moment, then another the next, greatly diminishing the client’s experience.
As for washing her hair, that was another story. In the cultivation world, a simple purification spell could solve the problem, but years of habit made her feel it wasn't right without a proper water rinse. Ji Changqing used the excuse that she was prone to headaches and that if her hair wasn't dried in time after washing, it might trigger one again, so she eagerly took over the task of washing her hair.
She even had a righteous argument for it: she could massage her head while washing her hair and then immediately use a spell to dry it after rinsing—killing two birds with one stone. It allowed her to practice a small wind-manipulation spell and also prevented her from getting a headache for one reason or another.
She howled like a ghost during the medicinal bath, but afterward, her depleted spiritual energy gradually returned, and she was willing to use it to erase the various marks on her face and body. Seeing the once again beautiful Ji Changqing, Yu Zhiyao felt she was back in the game.
Ji Changqing had no idea she had just unknowingly weathered a relationship crisis. After they both finished washing up and were ready to cuddle and sleep, Yu Zhiyao was nestled in her arms, wondering how to bring up the topic, when she suddenly heard Ji Changqing ask in a soft voice, “What’s wrong? You look like you have something on your mind. Did something happen?”
Yu Zhiyao let out a low laugh, tilted her head up, and kissed the corner of Ji Changqing’s mouth. “Big Sister and Gu Jiawen told me today that my physique problem can be solved in one to three years.”
“Really?” Ji Changqing was quite pleased. After her initial happiness, she asked, puzzled, “That’s great news. Why do you still seem unhappy?”
“There are two evolutionary paths,” Yu Zhiyao said, her long, slender fingers unconsciously tracing circles on Ji Changqing’s chest, making Ji Changqing’s heart itch.
She grabbed Yu Zhiyao’s mischievous hand and rolled over to pin her down. “Then just choose the Glazed Immaculate Spirit Body.”
Ji Changqing understood what Yu Zhiyao was struggling with. Even though she appeared strong and charming, elegant and composed, seemingly invincible, she actually detested—or rather, feared—anything that could lead to a loss of control, any possibility of losing herself.
She didn't say things like “I’ll protect you.” To Yu Zhiyao, such words were probably as toxic as “I’ll support you.”
“It’s your decision to make. Don’t worry about what others think.” Ji Changqing lowered her head and slowly, reverently, kissed her inch by inch. “No matter what you decide, I’ll support you.”
Yu Zhiyao looked quite moved. She was silent for a long time, merely reaching up to gently trace the contours of Ji Changqing’s face. Then, she suddenly hit her with a soul-searching question: “Are you afraid I’ll differentiate into an Alpha?”
What kind of horror story was this! Ji Changqing’s face turned green, but under Yu Zhiyao’s gaze, her survival instinct kicked into high gear and she shook her head frantically. “No, no, no!”
Yu Zhiyao just smiled at her, then wickedly reached a hand down to her abdomen, pinching her fatal weakness and hitting her with a trio of disbelief. “Really? I don’t believe it. How could that be?”
Ji Changqing sucked in a breath, both annoyed and amused. Supporting herself with her left hand, she lay sideways over Yu Zhiyao, while the nimble fingers of her right hand slipped inside with ease, casually toying with her core until her fingertips were slick with nectar.
In the end, it was unclear who let go first. Ji Changqing thrust forward, moving in and out of Yu Zhiyao’s world.
Soft gasps and low moans intertwined, interspersed with a few broken sentences.
“You see, no matter which way we evolve, it just gives us more choices. Doesn’t it?”
“Mmm…” Yu Zhiyao’s voice was sweet and syrupy, laced with suppressed pleasure. “Yes.”
“So of course we should choose the way that’s most comfortable for both of us, right?”
“Mmm…” Yu Zhiyao sounded annoyed. “Stop dawdling. Faster!”
“As for your worry about reproductive isolation between different evolutionary paths… it’s not like we could have children before, anyway!”
Yu Zhiyao clung tightly to Ji Changqing as she moved on top of her, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
It was just a heart full of lonely courage, stubbornly wanting to hold your hand.
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