Chapter 81: Surprise Growth?
Standing in the air, Kian looked down at the floor.
For a moment, he felt a sense of fear. An absurd, almost ludicrous amount of fear.
He was flying, and his body was not truly designed to fly. Thus, the entirety of his cells were worried.
Then, ignoring the noises of the world, he took a step up. Then, another. And another.
Soon, he was standing above his house, looking down at it.
Kian spread his arms widely, closing his eyes. The wind slowly buffeted around him, the noises of night echoed around him, and at the depth of his mind, Kian smiled.
Wasn’t this nice?
With a thought, he landed on top of the house’s roof. Then, he slowly sat down, crossed his legs, and took out a few Spirit Stones from his sleeve.
’Let’s cultivate for a while.’
His mind felt unusually at ease, almost entirely meditative.
The world around him could become chaotic, noises could echoe everywhere, but he believed he would stay unruffled.
He fished a single low-grade spirit stone from his sleeve and rolled it between his fingers. The crystal was rough, warm, already humming with stored Qi.
He pressed it between his palms and let his breathing slow.
Inhale. Exhale.
The stone began to steam, faint white threads curling from its edges as his dantian pulled. Normally he guided every spark with intention. Tonight he didn’t. He simply let go.
At the end of the day, strength was so that he could live peacefully. Enjoy his life.
And nowadays, he had truly been enjoying.
The roof beneath him faded.
The wind, the lanterns, the distant laughter from the house all became a soft smear of noise.
His perception narrowed to the pulse of the stone and the slow burn of Qi entering his meridians.
Qi, come to me.
Something shifted. The Qi didn’t just trickle in from the stone anymore.
It started seeping up from the terracotta tiles, leaking from the air, rising from the grass below like dew lifting from a warm field.
He wasn’t calling it. He wasn’t directing it.
Kian’s breathing deepened on its own.
The world outside went quiet, and the invisible current of Qi moved toward him as if he had become a drain in a river. He didn’t notice. His thoughts dissolved into the current, and the current kept widening.
Feimei felt it before she heard anything.
The guqin string under her fingertip stopped humming, the note dying as the air in the main room turned thin and electric.
She set the instrument aside, stepped out of the house in her burgundy inner robe, and froze at the edge of the courtyard.
Kian sat cross-legged on the roof, his outline blurred by a slow spiral of white threads.
Qi was bleeding in from the stones, the tiles, the night wind itself.
Jia and Mia appeared behind her, barefoot and wide-eyed. "What’s going on?" Mia asked.
Jia opened her mouth to shout, but Feimei raised a hand without looking back. "Don’t."
Her red eyes tracked the widening current. The lanterns along the porch guttered, their flames leaning sideways toward Kian as if bowing.
Xiao Cui and Jiao Yin stumbled out last.
Xiao Cui grabbed Jia’s sleeve. "What’s wrong with him?"
No one answered her, all just looking.
Jiao Yin said nothing. Seeing Qi move so wildly, she felt fear for her own Qi, but thankfully, it did not effect her at all.
Kian’s eyes remained closed.
Beyond the courtyard, the city stirred.
A distant stall owner’s lantern crashed.
Shutters cracked open.
Near the Jinguan Sect, a burst of wind hit Su Chen, making him turn around in surprise.
Then, he vanished.
A pair of cultivators on a neighboring rooftop flared their spiritual perception and immediately crouched low, fear on their faces. "What’s happening?"
The other replied: "Isn’t this the same thing that happened with Su Chen?"
The entire city around Kian was startled into following the lead of where the Qi was headed.
"He’s causing it," Feimei murmured.
The words dropped into the quiet like a pebble into still water.
Across the western district, old men and young disciples stumbled from their doors, unsheathing weapons, remembering the last time the heavens bowed over this city.
One voice rose, then another: "Not again."
The night split open, and the Qi kept pouring in.
For Kian at the moment, none of that mattered.
Kian felt it in his dantian before his mind caught up to what the city was seeing.
Every second, his total Qi Sparks ticked upward by two, three, then five. It wasn’t a flood. It was a slow, relentless current, filling the spaces inside him like rain finding every crack in dry earth.
He inhaled through his nose, long and clean, and the pull deepened.
Thick streams of Qi poured in through his pores, his meridians swallowing them before they could scatter. Sparks flared inside him in clusters, dozens blooming with every breath.
The count climbed faster.
He held the next breath for a heartbeat, then let it out through parted lips.
The spiral around his body tightened. Tiles under him cracked with heat, but he didn’t hear it.
The city’s panic meant nothing. There was only the rhythm—breathe in, sparks wake, breathe out, sparks settle.
A cool pressure pressed against his ribs as his body adjusted. He leaned into it, tilting his head back toward the moon. Why force it? Why fight for every thread of Qi when the air itself was offering everything?
He smiled without opening his eyes.
Let it come.
The wind shifted, and Kian’s awareness blurred at the edges.
The spiral around him flared white, then snapped inward.
Just then.
Su Chen himself was the first to arrive.
He landed on the ridge of the neighboring roof, his robes snapping in the unnatural wind.
He looked at Kian, then down into the courtyard where Xiao Cui stood pressed between Jia and Mia, and his frown deepened into a cold, brittle line.
The city answered a heartbeat behind.A column of armored guards poured through the area with talisman lamps blazing.
The same female captain from the western square led them, her voice cracking through the night. "Everyone stay inside. This zone is now under joint city and sect order."
More figures landed behind her—a green-robed swordsman, two gray elders, and a dozen outer disciples with spirit chains.
They ringed the courtyard in a tightening arc, their spiritual perception slamming down on the house like a net. It was the same formation, the same fear, the same scene as the night Su Chen had shaken the market.
"Hoy, Su Chen!" the female captain shouted. "Stop him! Don’t you understand now why we stopped you?"
Su Chen turned around to look coldly at the woman. "Stop him? Why should I? I am not the same kind as you pigs."
Then, his cold gaze turned to look back at Kian. He held his hand behing him, then simply watched.
Kian’s total Qi Sparks went up every breath.
60,000 Qi Sparks now.
The female captain stepped forward, her jaw set. "If you are not going to do it, I will!"
She drew a plain iron-tipped arrow from the quiver at her hip and nocked it to her short bow in one smooth motion.
Kian felt it. The arrowhead aligned with his head like a cold needle pressing through the swirling Qi.
He could wake up, stop it or dodge it.
’Not yet, I cannot wake up now.’
He let it come.
The bowstring snapped. The arrow flew straight, a thin hiss cutting through the night air.
Before it could reach him, a Guqin flew through the air, slamming into the arrow.
"Humph!"
Feimei’s red eyes were incisive.
"You can stop one arrow, but can you stop another? You are too slow."
The captain appeared like wind on another roof and shot an arrow again. She was too fast for the weak Feimei to intercept this time.
The arrow flew straight towards Kian.
He did not open his eyes.
Bam!
The tip shattered on impact.
The shaft splintered and fell away in pieces, and all it left behind was a pale white mark on his bronze-hard skin.
Kian did not open his eyes.
The female captain lowered her bow, fingers still curled around the string.
Her arrow lay in splinters at the edge of the roof.
Not one drop of blood.
The green-robed swordsman cursed under his breath. "Iron-skin art?!"
The two gray elders exchanged a long look and stepped back.
The outer disciples went still, their spirit chains slack in their hands.
Su Chen didn’t move, but the muscle in his jaw twitched.
His hand dropped behind him as if he had touched something hot.
Even he blinked once.
Only Feimei remained motionless. She had always known this would be what happens.
She walked to where her guqin had fallen, bent, and lifted it with both hands.
Then she glanced once at Kian’s motionless figure.
"Sheathe your weapons. My son-in-law is only cultivating. Why ruin children’s futures?"
The female captain raised her hand, ignoring Feimei. "Now you piss me off."
A burst of purple energy appeared in her palm.
"Die."