Vessel of Worlds

Guided by the two girls' souls, Andy easily located the formation disc beneath one of the jade beds.

Once he set several mid-grade spirit stones into it, spiritual light rippled across one wall of the boudoir, and an opening about a chi wide appeared.

White light flashed within the opening—and to Andy's delight, four jade boxes materialized on the wooden table beneath it.

None of the boxes bore any sealing talismans.

He opened them one by one with great care.

A jade slip; a pink pearl the size of a bean; a fist-sized lump of silvery stone; and a jade hairpin three cun long, green as dripping spring leaves. Such were the treasures of the four boxes.

The jade slip had to be what Yun Mengli sought.

Andy made no move to probe it with his spiritual sense. He closed its box and stored it in his pouch.

For one thing, he had not the slightest interest in a female cultivator's technique. For another, Yun Mengli would easily detect residual traces of his spiritual sense in the slip. No one wished their cultivation method known to another, its weaknesses exposed—why do a thankless thing?

The pink pearl was the soul vessel the two girls had spoken of—the Soul Sacrifice Pearl. A pity his cultivation was still too shallow to refine it. He placed it in a jade box and sealed it with Spirit-Calming Talismans, Soul-Settling Talismans, and several other restrictions.

As he finished, the two girls' souls were locked fully into the pearl and sank into their long sleep.

Andy picked up the fist-sized silvery stone and examined it closely.

"Heavenly Astral Silver!" he exclaimed once he had confirmed the material.

This was an extraordinarily rare and costly dharma treasure material, famed for its hardness. Blend even one part Heavenly Astral Silver into any treasure's forging, and the result leapt to another order of durability—proof against any ordinary dharma treasure.

A pity his shallow cultivation gave him no use yet for so supreme a material.

He laid the Heavenly Astral Silver carefully into a jade box and pasted on several talismans.

The last item—the green jade hairpin—was recognizably a dharma treasure made for a female cultivator.

Given a treasure's immense value, Andy's first instinct was to keep it too. Yun Mengli had specified beforehand that she required only the technique slip; the Soul Sacrifice Pearl and the Heavenly Astral Silver he pocketed without ceremony. But after a moment's thought over the hairpin, he decided to hand it to Yun Mengli untouched.

The treasure was plainly a woman's, and likely demanded a matching technique to unleash its full power. It was useless to him—and he already carried two dharma treasures; this hairpin stirred no interest at all.

Valuable as it was, he lacked nothing in spirit stones, and he wouldn't dare trade the thing away openly anyway. Keeping it served no purpose—better to make a graceful gift of it and return it to Yun Mengli.

Besides, this trip had already yielded richly, and with the Heart-Cleansing Pill she'd promised, he was returning loaded with gains. There was no need to claim a treasure he didn't need on top of it all.

Without Fairy Mengli, none of these treasures would be mine—no point in over-greed. And she lent me a peak-grade artifact for protection before I went in; let her have a little extra out of this. So Andy reasoned—then mocked himself: The moment Yun Mengli comes up, I can't bring myself to play the villain. Have I truly been bewitched by that girl's face? The beauty's pass defeats me every time.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

A final look around revealed nothing further of use, and Andy strode back the way he had come.

The gravely weakened Gold-Winged Fire Ants gave him no more trouble, and before long—wrapped in his veil of purple qi—he stepped back through the restriction into the hall where Yun Mengli waited.

"Brother Zhao! Back so soon—did all go smoothly?" The white-clad girl's face lit with joyful surprise, open concern shining in her eyes.

In the hall, a miniature formation seven or eight zhang across was humming with power—and the white-clad girl stood at its center.

Andy grasped her meaning at once and said, his smile not quite a smile: "And what is this, Fairy? Don't you trust me?"

The girl smiled ruefully. "Brother Zhao is no oath-breaker, I know. But one must keep a guarded heart. This defensive formation is only for my own protection—I trust Brother Zhao understands."

"Quite right. Prudent of you—I'd have done the same," Andy said with a nod. Then he shook his sleeve lightly, and two jade boxes floated slowly toward her.

"Ah! You found the technique?" Before the boxes even reached her, the girl cried out in delight.

That Andy had returned from the restriction so easily and unharmed had already suggested success—but seeing him hand over the treasures unasked still thrilled her.

"I did—though I haven't examined it closely. See for yourself," Andy said.

"Then I owe you all the more thanks!" She swept the boxes with a careful pass of spiritual sense, found nothing amiss, let them float into the formation, and took them in hand.

She opened the first box—and at the sight of the green jade hairpin, gasped: "A dharma treasure!"

She quickly opened the second, and there indeed lay the jade slip, quiet in its box.

Then the girl looked at Andy with a complicated gravity, dismissed her formation, and bowed deeply. "Brother Zhao finds a dharma treasure and does not take it—yields it to me instead. Such conduct puts me utterly to shame. This great kindness, Mengli will find a way to repay."

"You make too much of it," Andy said mildly. "I only kept my word—and lent my small strength for the sake of a Heart-Cleansing Pill. Where is the kindness in that?"

The girl gave a soft laugh, produced a formation disc, and struck several seals into it. In an unremarkable corner of the hall, white light flashed—and a wooden box appeared where nothing had been.

She pointed at it, and the box glided level through the air to Andy. "Inside is the Heart-Cleansing Pill. It may be taken only once in a lifetime, its effects last forever—and for the attempt at Core Formation, nothing serves better."

Andy received the box unhurried and opened it. There lay a pill a cun across of extraordinarily vivid color, translucent as jade, breathing a faint, sweet medicinal fragrance—matching the texts' descriptions of the Heart-Cleansing Pill in every particular. He stored it away in his pouch with care.

The girl tossed him a small storage pouch as well. "Inside are two formation sets—the Heaven-Earth Three Talents Formation and the Six Ding Six Jia Formation. Both are tremendously strong in defense; even a Core Formation cultivator could not break them quickly."

Andy took the pouch and probed it with his spiritual sense: a heap of formation flags, discs, and pearls, plus two jade slips—the deployment methods, presumably.

Without examining further, he tucked the pouch into his robes and looked back at the girl.

She had sunk her spiritual sense into the technique slip and was reading.

It must indeed have been the method she sought, for Andy watched an excitement she could not quite suppress rise through her face—and her beauty, already celestial, turned so vivid it burned. He caught himself staring, lost.

He even found himself wondering: had every illusion-girl in that boudoir worn a face like hers, could he truly have looked through them all with such untroubled calm?

The moment that silken scene rose in his mind, his heart slammed against his ribs and hot blood surged through his whole body.

For once in his life, Andy's face went red. He wrenched his gaze from her face, drew two long breaths, steadied his heart, and forbade himself another stray thought.

Did she see me in that sorry state? he wondered—and slid a sidelong glance at her.

The girl's own expression had shifted from joyous excitement to startlement—and then a flush crept over her cheeks, unmistakably embarrassed.

Andy was still puzzling over it when she suddenly turned her head—and their eyes met.

She dropped her gaze at once, cheeks burning crimson, brows drawn tight, flustered and shy all at once.

Then, after a little while, the girl let out a soft breath and her expression firmed—as though she had settled some momentous decision—and every trace of strangeness cleared from her face.

She asked quietly: "Brother Zhao... you are still of primal yang body? You have no dual cultivation partner?"

Andy froze, shook his head—and found no words. He could not fathom why she would suddenly ask something so private.

In an instant the two of them dropped into a silence of exquisite delicacy, neither speaking.

At last, cheeks flaming, the girl gathered her courage and spoke again: "Would Brother Zhao... be willing to become Mengli's dual cultivation partner?"

Her voice was almost too faint to hear—and before the words were fully out, she had bowed her head in boundless shyness, not daring to meet his eyes.