The question hung in the clean air like a slap.
Who among them could raise a house?
Silence ripened into embarrassnt. The bright bubble of “we’ll build cabins!” burst with a soft pop.
Zhan Yuan scratched his head, laughing at himself. Qi Xiu’s heart twinged. After the trade with Flowing Blossom Sect, he decided, he would splurge on a second-rank Construction Talisman no matter the cost. Morale and comfort were worth more than a few dozen spirit stones.
But that was later.
Right now the Yellow Sand Formation drank stones just to stay awake. Sitting idle ant bleeding wealth they didn’t have. Inco had to be found, yet the most urgent task was still reopening the tantric spirit array. Nothing would steady hearts faster than actual qi to cultivate with, especially He Yu’s.
The boy had grown quieter than ever since Kan Lin’s lecture. Eyes always on the floor, lips pressed thin. Everyone under the sa roof noticed.
Qi Xiu summoned Zhang Shishi, Zhan Yuan, and He Yu into the inner chamber.
“The blockage is only hardened clay, not a seal,” he explained in a low voice. “Vine talismans to loosen, earth spells to shatter. We rotate until the channel is clear.”
They worked like miners.
Qin Weiyu and Pan Rong (the two with wood among their motley roots) burned Vine Talismans one after another, sending green tendrils worming into the thumb-sized hole. Zhang Shishi and He Yu followed with Dust Shattering Strikes, yellow flashes pulverizing the loosened clay.
Seven straight days.
On the seventh, little Qin Weiyu’s face was the color of rice paper. His small hands trembled forming the final seal. A last Vine Talisman flared, the spectral creeper burrowed… then fizzled out. The boy folded backward like a broken doll. Gu Ji caught him before he hit stone.
He Yu stepped forward, cheeks flushed from overdraw, and fired two more Dust Strikes, one after another, until his knees buckled.
Qi Xiu’s chest tightened. The kid was dense as a brick, but stubborn as bedrock. When he latched onto sothing he gave until nothing remained.
Zhan Yuan murmured, “They’re injuring their foundations. We have to stop.”
Qi Xiu could only nod.
They called a halt. Four pale figures sat recovering while the others fetched water and wiped sweat.
That was when Yu Jing ca running in from watch, holding a slip of paper that had drifted through the array like a lazy moth.
Two bold characters in the center: Kan Lin
Lower left corner, tiny: Respectfully presented
Qi Xiu’s stomach dropped.
He’s back—and right when the hole is half-open!
No ti for cleverness. He yanked Zhang Shishi’s heavy prayer mat and slamd it over the mandala’s center.
“Whatever happens, the array does not exist. Understand?”
Then he marched the entire sect outside.
Kan Lin waited beyond the yellow haze, hands clasped behind his back, cyan robes fluttering though no wind touched inside the formation.
Qi Xiu opened a door in the ward with the leader token and led the formal greeting line: himself, Zhang Shishi, He Yu, Zhan Yuan, the rest in perfect descending order.
“Junior was unaware Senior would grace us again. Please forgive any lack of courtesy.”
The disciples chorused the sa.
Kan Lin’s smile was sunlight on water. “No offense taken. I’m the one intruding.”
They ushered him to the seat of honor in the hall.
He sat, looked around with open curiosity.
“I hadn’t planned to disturb you twice. But flying overhead on my return, I saw the Yellow Sand do and knew you’d decided to stay. This poisonous wasteland… even putting aside Southern Chu’s little sches, White Mountain has a hundred better places. Why cling to a corpse of a peak?”
Qi Xiu fed him the polished half-truth about debts of gratitude and nowhere else to go.
Kan Lin chuckled, neither believing nor pressing.
“Very well. I won’t ddle with another sect’s choices.”
His gaze slid sideways and settled on He Yu, softening. “Last ti I quite enjoyed chatting with this young friend. On my trip I happened across a jade slip that perfectly matches his water-earth dual roots. A small gift.”
A flick of his sleeve.
The slim jade volu drifted across the hall and settled into He Yu’s stunned hands like a ta bird.
He Yu stared at it, lips trembling, eyes instantly red.
Qi Xiu felt the temperature in the room shift. Every disciple’s gaze burned with the sa thought:
Foundation Establishnt cultivator, casual as giving candy, just handed our best seed a priceless cultivation manual.
The gap between them and the heavens had never felt wider.
Kan Lin rose, still smiling. “I’ll not impose further. Cultivate well, little friends.”
He stepped out through the opened ward and vanished into the southern sky before anyone rembered to see him off.
The hall was silent a long, long ti.
He Yu clutched the jade slip to his chest as though it might fly away, tears finally spilling over.
Qi Xiu looked at the prayer mat still hiding their one hope beneath its bulk, and felt the weight of ten futures pressing on his shoulders.
One gift from a passing stranger had just outshone everything their sect leader had managed in weeks.
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