Outside in the real world, Bai li yue remained motionless. Grand elder Mu, who had visited her a few times was growing more and more worried everyday she saw the girl unresponsive. She fed her expensive pills and herbs that she didn't even use on herself, but her efforts were fruitless. She debated calling in her son to check Bai li yue and ended up sending for him. He arrived in her courtyard in the middle of the night. 

'Don't ask questions. Just find what is wrong with her and tell me. Little ancestor has been sleeping for more than 2 weeks.'

Elder Mu gave Bai li yue a thorough inspection and checked her pulse putting what little knowledge he had of medicine to good use. If his mother had bothered to ask, he would have told her that him being an alchemist didn't mean he automatically knew everything about healing.

'She is sleeping.'

She hit him on the back of the head.

'I know that, you idiot. Don't you find it strange that she's been asleep for so long without waking?'

He took her pulse again and came to the same conclusion.

'She doesn't look to be in any danger. She's simply asleep.'

'Can you think of something to wake her up? Use your alchemy skills.'

'Mother, i'm only a one star alchemist.'

'So?'

'Unless you can call a three star alchemist, there's nothing to do but wait. Her pulse is strong so it should be a matter of time before she wakes up.'

'If you are sure about that, then i'll believe you.'

'Mother, why are you so interested in little ancestor, anyway?'

'I don't follow.'

She affected ignorance. She hadn't finished stabilising her realm. Until it was done, she didn't wish to inform anybody of her advancement. 

'Did you use the blue dragon fruit you took from the sect treasury on her?'

'Elder mu, why are you still acting jealous at your age? She is a little girl who was entrusted to us by the ancestor. Do you want me to leave her all alone without any care?'

She answered his question with a few of her own. He needed to know that the precious blue dragon fruit has been used for softening her skin. 

Elder Mu sighed in sufferance. He was just asking out of curiosity. When did it become a question of jealousy?

'Mother-'

'Don't bother denying it. It's not normal for a grown man like you to be jealous of a little girl, but i can't blame you. It's all my fault.' 

She sobbed into her hands. Elder Mu sighed and went to her side to comfort her.

'I was just asking. I didn't mean it by it. It was my mistake. It's my fault.'

'Really?' 

she choked, almost giving away the pretense.

Bai li yue frowned in annoyance.

Why are these people acting out a family drama in my ear? 

The fakes sobs of Grand elder Mu intruding in the fortuitous dream distracted her from the tablet in her hand despite her best efforts.

'Ahh! Grand elder Mu, can't you let me sleep in peace?' She shouted.

The mother and son turned slowly to meet the now awake Bai li yue.

'Little ancestor! You're finally awake. What a relief! I was starting to get worried. You've been asleep for the better part of a month.'

Bai li yue read the concern in Grand elder Mu's voice.

'A month? That- that's impossible!'

'Wasn't it just yesterday we went to the for-'

'Son! You can leave now. She is awake.'

Knowing his presence was unwanted, elder Mu bid them good day and left. Grand elder Mu quickly filled her in on what had happened after she'd left the array, including the state she had found her in.

Bai li yue assured her that she was perfectly safe. 

'If you are certain you are alright, then i won't poke my nose into your business. I need to go into seclusion. I have neglected my cultivation because i was too worried about you.'

Bai li yue nodded, thinking to herself: 

Isn't it the least you could do? I almost died helping you after all.

She didn't ask about the results of the grand elder's cultivation. It was plain to see. And the twenty spirit stones she received were enough of a hint. The two women nodded to each other, concluding their business and going their separate ways.

Bai li yue returned home. A moment later, she cleaned up and headed to the kitchen. She had a quick meal and left for the forest. The control stone she'd given grand elder mu provided an exit out of the array. It didn't stop the array. It was still working. She sealed a few of the spirit gathering arrays in the network and headed back to the sect.

A group of outer sect students were joking and laughing among themselves in front of her as she walked back. They had gone into the forest to hunt buffaloes for their hide. They each carried a stack of several hides tied together on their backs. 

She walked behind absentmindedly and happened to recognise one of them. 

Lu dou tensed suddenly when he felt a pair of eyes watching him. He searched for the watching eyes and saw Bai li yue's smiling face.

His smile slowly disappeared.

'Greetings, Miss Bai. Are you also on your way back to the sect?'

His friends gave him puzzled looks that he ignored. Why was Lu dou being polite all of a sudden? And to a member of the chores division at that?

'Lu dou, who is this? Introduce us to your friend.' 

One of his friends coaxed.

He nervously blinked at his friend to mind his manners or better yet shut his mouth, but the sign came out wrong.

' Lu dou, is something wrong with your eye?' Another was quick to ask.

'No, no. I'm fine. Miss Bai, please forgive my friends. They have no manners.'

He quickly introduced his group of friends to her. There was a series of hellos to which she nodded in acknowledgement.

She rolled her eyes at the teasing looks they threw their way as they not so subtly distanced themselves. Lu dou was helpless, he wished he was anywhere but here walking beside her.

He had not returned to the wall since the last time she caught him and when she asked? He simply told her the truth. 

' i gave you more than half of my wealth. I can't afford to pay anymore.'

'Four spirit stones are all you have?' She exclaimed.

'I have to work to earn all i have.'

He simply didn't have the resources she was asking for and here she thought the students were living comfortable lives. She felt guilty for keeping him away from his training. Instead of cultivating, he was working to earn a living.

Despite her sympathy, she had no intention of giving him back the spirit stones but she reasoned that she could do him a favour in return. 

All she had to do to help him was to lift a finger. Helping Grand elder Mu had been harder than helping him and she had gone ahead and helped her. 

'Lu dou.'

'Yes, Miss Bai'

'Come to my courtyard tomorrow.'

He couldn't refuse what sounded like an order so he nodded. 

The two of them walked in silence. He glared in the direction of his friends who threw him encouraging looks. 

He ignored his friends' questions and went to exchange his share of the buffalo hides for sect points. He had almost gained enough points to get a copy of one of the new martial skills in the library. He wasn't entirely confident in his chances of taking one of the ten spots and entering the inner sect, but training in a new skill would definitely raise his odds of success. 

Lu dou entered the courtyard he shared with his friends under a barrage of teasing. They were already referring to her as sister-in-law. It was sister-in-law this, sister-in-law that.

'You just met her today and you have already tied us together. Aren't you being too shameless?' 

Lu dou grumbled before heading to his room. He cleared his mind and focused on his nightly meditation.

He ended his meditation in the morning and left before his friends came out of their rooms asking for food. If they heard that he was heading over to miss bai's courtyard, there'd be no end to the teasing.

Bai li yue greeted him at the door just as he raised his hand to knock. 

'You are early. Come in.' 

The courtyard was small but tidy. There was a row of plants and flowers bordering the wall. 

'Have you eaten yet?' 

She asked mildly, heading to the garden patch. She pulled out a white root vegetable and headed to the kitchen. 

Lu dou, stood at the same spot as she moved around in the kitchen. He was preoccupied with questions that he couldn't voice

. 

Why did she call him over? What did she want with him? Why was she being so kind? Could he refuse whatever it was she was going to ask of him? He wanted to refuse now. 

She appeared with two bowls of steaming rice topped with shredded buffalo meat. The root vegetable was on a different plate coated in scarlet fire fruit. He took a piece of it and put it in his mouth when he sat down across from her. 

'Hm?' 

The white root vegetable tasted both spicy and sweet. He bit into another piece of vegetable trying to identify the mystery ingredient. 

'Hurry up! I haven't got all day.' 

her voice broke through his reverie. He quickly swallowed the vegetable and took a bite of the rice. It was as delicious as or even more than the side dish. 

He also quickly finished his food when he saw her finishing her meal. She poured him a cup of tea that she brewed at the table. They finished the tea in silence. He kept still even though worry was burning a hole through his brain. She rinsed the empty cups and walked to the centre of the courtyard. She seemed to inspect the air around her and nod. She returned to her seat. 

'Go to where i was standing a moment ago. You have till nightfall to reap as many benefits as you can. Go on!'

Lu dou quickly followed her instructions this time. He walked to the spot she had stood in a moment ago and wondered what he was supposed to be doing. She hadn't explained anything to him and he couldn't bring himself to question her.

'Focus!' She formed a hand seal to open the containment seal and watched as his eyes bulged in shock. He sat down a moment later and triggered the rotation of energy in his dantian.

Bai li yue nodded. He had been quick to react despite his shock. His comportment has been wearing her patience thin. His behaviour yesterday was funny, but he had arrived this morning like a condemned man facing his last moments. 

During their time together, she found herself slipping into her persona of sect elder. She took a wicked pleasure in watching him squirm in his ignorance. If he persisted in thinking the worst, then she was prepared to torture him. She didn't have to explain anything, but time was awasting. 

Keeping an eye on the array, she produced the booklet and opened to the current page. Apart from the brief moment of insight that led to the construction of the isolation array, she had been stuck on the page for some months now. The words of sovereign han bei jie flowed through her mind. She had them memorised by now. 

'The most complex of arrays is one that is founded in simplicity… I have spent eons contemplating the mysteries of array formations. My lifelong mission was to find the root, to reach the core that combines intent and space. I progressed from the simple to the complex in my young age but now, i find myself an old man, approaching the end of my days. The answer continues to elude me. What is the complex if not an accumulation of simplicity? What is simplicity if not complexity shrouded. To find the root, i must return to what is simple…'

Simplicity. Complexity. It is a circle. One flows into the other, returning to the beginning and repeating the process on and on.

She was beginning to make sense of the different segments of the page. Once she put it all together, she would finally be able to absorb the page. 

A sudden rumble in the array drew her attention back to Lu dou.

'Five hours. Not bad.' She muttered under her breath. It was afternoon already and he wasn't wasting the golden chance that had fallen into his lap. He didn't look like he was stopping anytime soon. 

As night fell, Bai li yue directed a rune at the working array. The energy gradually shifted and calmed down from its previous churning state. Lu dou frowned and slowly opened his eyes. His breakthrough had been certain once he sat down. The scarcity of spirit energy in the sect was a hard truth. Most of them relied on cultivation pills or medicinal herbs to advance. This was his first time experiencing the full sensation of cultivating with spiritual energy. It was a heady rush. After breaking through, he forged ahead. He wasn't a fool to deny himself when a feast was presented before him.

He had known that Miss Bai was not an ordinary student and congratulated himself for keeping his manners with her. Which ordinary student had a cultivation array in his courtyard? Even sect elders did not have this kind of luxury. He resolved that if he could break through a second time, he would gladly become her retainer. 

He sighed in disappointment when the array started to slow down. He had stored almost enough energy to break through a second time. It was unfortunate that he couldn't break through again but he was luckier than others.

He bowed to Bai li yue when he emerged from the array.

'Miss Bai, this Lu dou is grateful for your kindness. I don't know how to repay you.'

'You said you are training to enter the inner sect. I wish you success.' 

She replied and turned away.

'Lu dou understands. I won't let you down.' He bowed again and retreated from the courtyard without raising his head. 

'At least he knows how to be grateful.' 

She yawned loudly and lit the nearby lamp to continue reading. 

Lu dou returned to the courtyard in a merry mood. He whistled a popular tune that he'd learned from his friends. His friends were in the compound eating and drinking when he entered. They watched him in surprise as he passed by and entered his room without acknowledging them. 

'Zhengqing, do my eyes deceive me?'

'No' they don't. I saw it too. I saw it too.'

' wasn't Lu dou a level 8 master like us? When did he break through?'

All eyes turned to the closed door separating them from Lu dou. They all moved like a single entity with one consciousness to the entrance of the room. Lu dou was cultivating, so they couldn't disturb him, but there was no way they were going to let him rest without finding out what had happened. 

By morning, Lu dou was red eyed and teary. He had been miserable all through the night and he was ready to give in. When their entreaties hadn't moved him to share his secret for rapid breakthrough, they had dredged up stories of their sad lives. They had entered the chores division together and suffered together to reach the outer sect as a group. They had vowed during one night of drinking to challenge the inner sect examination together. Those who made it would ensure to assist the rest who failed to also enter the next year the inner sect opened its gates. It was a pact that demanded fairness in all their dealings. If this was a normal situation, Lu dou wouldn't hesitate to share the medicinal herbs he'd found with them or how he had gotten his hands on the miracle cultivation pill. However, this was different. Miss Bai hadn't warned him about talking but did she even have to say anything? 

His friends watched him closely as he sat in thought. When the silence stretched too long, and they went back to recounting sad tales.

'Lu dou, my friend, i don't want my old mother and father to see their son return to the village as a failure. I promised them that i would return one day, a hero and exterminate the bandits who took away my sister.'

Lu dou gritted his teeth. He knew about Zhengqing's sister. She had been older than him and had been protecting him when the bandits arrived in their village. He knew that his friend's main mission in life was revenge. He couldn't choose to abandon his friends and yet miss bai had been kind to him. Was there a way to make his friends happy while not offending Miss Bai? He didn't have an answer. 

The answer soon hit him like a brick hitting his head. 

Of course! Why didn't i think of it.

' Zhengqing, Fang shi, Wang do, Huang rong: how many spirit stones do you each have saved?'

They exchanged puzzled looks.

'I have seven stones' 

Zhengqing was the first to answer.

'Twelve' 

Huang rong answered next and received shocked looks.

'What? I found a medicinal herb a while back and got four stones for it.' 

He sheepishly filled them in.

Wang do and Fang shi didn't have as many stones as the former two so the total pool of spirit stones came up to twenty after they agreed on an equal contribution. 

Lu dou told them how he had gotten help from someone. He was optimistic that Miss Bai would accept their stones since he had paid only four spirit stones himself.