Chapter 32 : The Goddess in the Dream
Chapter 32: The Goddess in the Dream
When he stepped back into the small courtyard under the cover of night, Spider Sister Luo Yusi was standing at the gate, tiptoeing (if spiders could even be said to have toes) on several of her lower legs, struggling to light the old oil lamp.
The dim yellow halo flowed over her chitinous shell, unexpectedly reflecting a hint of warmth.
Hearing footsteps, she lightly turned around.
The movement was by no means a clumsy twist; rather, it resembled a kind of dance unique to another race, carrying a strange rhythm.
Six long legs crossed and shifted, steady and elegant, with hardly any sway in her upper body.
Long Tao froze for a moment, staring blankly, forgetting to move.
“Daoist Friend Long?” Luo Yusi felt a little uncomfortable under his fixed gaze.
Her six eyes blinked.
“What’s wrong? Did I… get dust on myself?”
“Huh? N-no, no!” Long Tao snapped back to his senses and hurriedly waved his hands.
The words slipped out before his brain caught up.
“It’s just that the way you turned just now… it was really beautiful, like dancing. I got totally absorbed. Um… forgive my abruptness for asking, Daoist Friend Luo, but you wouldn’t happen to be, among your spider… uh… demon race… one of those… young ladies from a big household, would you?”
A visible blush spread once more across Luo Yusi’s non-human cheeks.
She had originally thought that Long Tao’s earlier praise of her beautiful eyes was merely courtesy and kindness.
But now, looking at the undisguised admiration and faint fascination in his eyes, her heart wavered for the first time.
This human man seemed to… genuinely not dislike her—perhaps he even liked these spider-like traits of hers?
“T-there’s no such thing as a young lady…” Her voice was as thin as a mosquito’s buzz, and she subconsciously tried to shrink her rather large body backward.
“With a… with a body as bulky as mine, turning in circles is terribly clumsy. It looks awful… Daoist Friend Long, p-please don’t tease me anymore… I-I’ll go back inside first!”
Before the words had even finished, she practically fled, her six legs moving rapidly as she slipped back into her room and slammed the door shut with a bang.
Long Tao stood where he was, rubbed his nose, and suddenly felt like some shameless rascal flirting with a respectable… uh, respectable spider girl.
He even felt a faint sense of guilt.
At the same time, however, he made a new discovery: once a girl became familiar with you, those unique and attractive sparkling traits she had would really make a man’s mouth turn sweet, letting all kinds of compliments spill out unconsciously.
Recalling the Spider Girl’s unique, strangely beautiful “dance” and her embarrassed expression, Long Tao smiled and shook his head before returning to his own room.
Teasing the cute little neighbor next door was certainly fun, but the top priority right now was still breaking through.
Tomorrow was said to be a rest day, but that did not mean lying flat and doing absolutely nothing.
The next stage was the critical step of letting the newly born Spiritual Mist in his dantian “take form.” The primary task was “Hundred Meridians Spirit Infusion”—first filling and compacting every acupoint in the body with pure spiritual power as much as possible.
This directly affected the final scale and foundation of the dantian qi sea after the breakthrough, and there was no room for carelessness.
The sect had no shortage of ruthless individuals.
For the sake of having a broader qi sea in the future, they would rather grit their teeth and risk torn meridians or even damaged acupoints, forcibly injecting spiritual power until overload.
Long Tao, however, was not too anxious about it.
Unhurriedly, he took out another small jade bottle from the precious little box Nan Yuchen had given him.
A label was pasted on the bottle: Nine-Bend Palace-Stabilizing Pill.
This thing was truly good stuff! It could forcibly suppress excess spiritual energy within the body that was even on the verge of going berserk, protecting the meridians and acupoints from damage.
With this layer of insurance, he could boldly pour spiritual power into his acupoints to strike for a higher carrying limit, without worrying about going too far and crippling himself.
“Heh, having a big tree to lean on really does make for good shade.” Long Tao weighed the jade bottle in his hand.
That sense of security was something he would not have dared to even imagine back when he was struggling miserably as a menial disciple.
.......
After sitting in meditation all night, Long Tao felt as though every acupoint in his body had been filled with water—heavy and swollen.
His spiritual power reserves were estimated to be at seventy or eighty percent completion.
His meridians also faintly burned, having been pushed to their limits.
If he forced it further, something was bound to go wrong.
He pushed open the door.
Outside, the sky was still an inky blue, with only the Morning Star hanging alone on the horizon.
The sun was nowhere to be seen.
“Alright then, time to catch up on sleep!” He yawned and decisively flung himself back onto the hard wooden bed.
Nothing was more important than sleeping.
He would get up when the sun was high and head to Qixia Town to properly reward himself.
Who knew that not long after he closed his eyes, he sensed something was wrong.
This falling-asleep speed was way too fast! And the scene before him was not the usual chaotic, blurry, bizarre dreamscape.
Instead, it was exceptionally clear.
He could even feel that he was standing in a void, his consciousness lucid.
“This is… a lucid dream?” The thought had barely surfaced in Long Tao’s mind when the empty space before him rippled.
A figure he had longed for day and night, one that haunted his very soul, silently condensed into existence.
That graceful bearing, that cool yet alluring face… who else could it be but the dream goddess of his heart, True Person Mingzhu?
“Sigh…”
Long Tao looked at the figure, feeling half excited and half sorrowful.
“Looks like I really held it in too hard these past two years. Even my dreams are starting to auto-generate goddesses…”
Since it was a dream anyway, he completely let himself go.
All the respect and pretense he usually maintained were tossed beyond the clouds.
His gaze turned naked as it shamelessly roamed back and forth over those exquisitely contoured curves, paying special attention to several parts he had long been fixated on.
Yet this “True Person Mingzhu” in the dream did not follow the script he had hoped for.
There was no throwing herself into his arms, no soft warmth and fragrant jade.
Instead, like a true Golden Core great cultivator, she sat cross-legged, floating in the void.
Her deep eyes carried scrutiny and… a hint of amusement as she quietly looked at him, making Long Tao feel a little uneasy.
“You once said that I am the number one beauty of the Nine-Xia Heavenly Sect,” she spoke.
Her voice was cool and ethereal, yet carried a strange sense of realism.
“Was that statement… true?”
Long Tao was stunned.
Why was the beauty in his dream asking about this? And he had clearly only said those words to that fool Nan Yuchen… oh right! This was a dream! The “True Person” before him was something molded by his subconscious, so it was not strange that she knew this.
“Absolutely true!” Long Tao did not hesitate at all, patting his chest in guarantee.
“True Person, you are, in my heart, the one and only, shining brilliantly, crushing all others—the number one beauty of the Nine-Xia Heavenly Sect! Guaranteed genuine!”
After hearing this, the corner of “True Person Mingzhu’s” lips seemed to curve upward ever so slightly, as if satisfied, or perhaps simply amused.
“So beautiful…” Long Tao stared blankly, his thoughts slipping out uncontrollably.
In this dream, his mouth seemed to have completely broken free from his brain’s control.
“Shameless!” True Person Mingzhu scolded lightly, but there was no real anger.
She continued asking, “Then let me ask you again. You also said that I simultaneously possess… a girlish quality and a maternal quality. Was that statement… also true?”
Long Tao found it even more wondrous.
When the “True Person” in the dream asked this question, her expression actually carried a trace of something extremely hard to detect… embarrassment? There was even a hint of shyness, as if this question was quite private and shameful to her.
“Absolutely true, True Person!” Long Tao’s mouth moved faster than his brain.
“Your temperament is unique across the entire Cultivation World! Pure yet compassionate, lively yet embracing! Forget Golden Core—those Nascent Soul ancestors don’t even compare to half of you!”
“Nonsense!” True Person Mingzhu put on a stern face, though there was no real sharpness in her eyes.
“How many True Lords has a junior like you even seen? Admiration… is admiration, but you must not be disrespectful to sect seniors!” She paused, as if too lazy to argue with a “dream figure.” “Enough.
An ignorant junior who does not know the immensity of heaven and earth.
Then let me ask you one last thing… you also said before that you very much like the aura of… quiet sorrow about me.
Was that… also true?”
“True! Truer than the two low-grade Spirit Stones in my pocket!” Long Tao was completely hyped up.
Since it was a dream, he dared to spew any outrageous words.
“What I love most is exactly that faint, indescribable sense of quiet sorrow about you, True Person! The first time I saw you in Qinglin Town, I was completely enchanted by it! Even then I felt that you must be hiding some sadness in your heart, and I just wanted to… just wanted to hold you tightly in my arms and cherish and comfort you!”
The more he spoke, the more excited he became, the more unrestrained he grew.
It was just dream fantasy anyway—who could control him?
“Insolent!” True Person Mingzhu’s voice suddenly rose a few degrees, carrying a trace of genuine embarrassment and annoyance.
“Some words… are not permitted, even in a dream!”
That strange feeling rose again in Long Tao’s heart.
This “True Person” in the dream… was she a little too real? And she was way too controlling, wasn’t she? Even policing what he could say in a dream? Oh… maybe his subconscious just thought she was the type who would manage people like this?
“Alright, alright,” Long Tao shook his head and tossed the doubt aside.
It was just a dream—no matter how outrageous, it was fine.
He grinned cheekily as he “floated” toward the hovering figure.
“Since it’s a dream and the questions are all asked, then you should at least let me… hehe, give you a hug, right?”
He spread his arms and lunged forward.
Who knew that the next second, a sharp pain exploded in his chin!
He did not even see how she kicked.
He only felt the world spinning as his whole body flew like a top being whipped away, tumbling who knew how many times in the void.
When he finally steadied himself, seeing stars, “True Person Mingzhu” was still sitting cross-legged in the same spot.
She merely extended one slender foot gracefully, stopping right in front of him.
The jade foot was exquisite, skin like congealed fat, the ankle slender, every toe as delicate as a work of art.
At the same time, her indifferent voice followed.
“Help me massage my foot.”
Damn it! Long Tao immediately burst into tears inside.
He was really too damn pathetic! Even in a dream, with a goddess-level fantasy target, the ultimate fantasy… was actually just massaging her foot?! Could he have any less ambition?!
But… his gaze stuck uncontrollably to that flawless jade foot, and he swallowed hard.
…It seemed… not entirely unacceptable?