Astral Odyssey: Dying Ember

World 1.3: Chen Xinyi

Xinyi returned to her courtyard while avoiding the crowd. She could freely practice her martial arts there as it was located in an isolated corner of the estate. She was excited about trying out her newfound power. 

At Earth realm, attacks are simply far stronger than the attacks made by people who do not have spiritual cultivation. It was beginning from Sky realm that attacks would begin to release a little spiritual power. This made it possible to land attacks without needing the weapon to make direct contact with the target. It would be easy to blow away attacks by people in Earth realm as well. 

She took a look around her bare courtyard. Since she was a neglected character, her estate was pretty much basic. Besides the white stone table and well, there was only a random run down tool shed further hidden in the corner of her courtyard. Weeds were growing around bushes with small white flowers and the place was never repainted, so everything looked dull and unwelcoming. She wanted to find a weapon to practice with. Looking at the tool shed, she found some bamboo poles and broken or rusty gardening tools. She chose the stick that looked in the best condition and started practicing with it as if it was a spear. 

BaoBao was secretly sulking to himself. If the system market was available, she would not have to put up with all these. There was a whole plethora of weapons she could choose from and they were of really high grades. 

He was able to have these thoughts without Xinyi knowing because he was actually able to disconnect the link between their thoughts anytime. Xinyi never asked about it so he never brought it up. 

BaoBao's understanding of Xinyi's character gradually grew over the period of time he has spent with her. He realised that even if she knew about this function, she probably would not bother. She never thinks of anything beyond what she is working on at the moment or the present situation. Otherwise, her thoughts are very quiet. Sometimes he would even forget that the function has been left on. Has she always been like this? 

It was close to sunset, the celebration would be ending soon. Xinyi begun to get used to her long ranged 'weapon' and faint scratch marks were left on the ground and brick walls that surrounded the courtyard. She decided to try maximising the output of spiritual power in the next attack. 

She did a 360 degrees spin to use the momentum in her attack. As she was about to complete her swing, she found a person in range of her attack so she hastily tried to stop her movement. Thanks to the momentum she had gained, the stick still ended up reaching the person and was a hair's breath away from his throat. The top leaves of the bushes that was beside the person got blown off harshly. She froze in shock. Her eyes glued to his neck. It took her awhile to realise there was not a scratch nor a mark left on him. Only then did she move her eyes up to meet a pair of obsidian black eyes. It was the second male lead, Zhang Yong. What's he doing here?

Zhang Yong had excused himself to the washroom and went back to the cherry blossom tree to find the girl. He still could not hold his curiosity in in the end. When he could not find her there, he followed his instincts towards the more remote parts of the estate. Servants and maids secretly looked confused and sharing the same thought. Why would a guest appear here? 

He finally felt little fluctuations in the air that showed that someone was attacking. It was not chaotic and the tempo was constant, so he knew it was not a fight but more like repeated attacks made by the same person. Is she practicing? 

He appeared in her courtyard in time to see her in the midst of doing a full spin. He smiled and continued forward. He stopped just as she caught sight of him. He was confident in his estimation that he would not be hit. "You're very hardworking. Skipping out on a grand celebration to practice by yourself... Why?"