“Leave it be. Maid, bring the bestowal.” Su Nanya said with a huff, her cleavage jiggling. Yung gulped, then forced himself to be excited about this bestowal.

The expressionless maid dutifully brought out a scroll and held it to Yung. Yung tried to take it, but the maid flicked his hand away. “Ziyou Yung. Do the ritual.”

How the heck am I supposed to know what the ritual is, Or what this crazy thot wants—gosh darn it—if no one will tell me anything? Om in, Om out.

“This… unlearned one does not know how.” Yung was not irritated, just exasperated.

“Hold out both your hands.”

Yung did so.

The maid dropped the scroll on his outstretched palms. “Now bow, and kiss at my lady’s feet.”

He did so again. It took all his willpower not to look up.

“Rise, new servant. We called you here to bestow upon you a method of cultivation. After all, we are a benevolent princess. We reward before we ask.” Su Nanya held her palm at her cleavage, as if showing off her magnanimous heart. Maybe she actually was. Or perhaps it was her magnanimous bust. Yung would never know.

"We, I thank you. For your kind bust. Heart. I Thank You For Your Kind Heart."

Yung wanted to crawl under the bed. Not to peep at Su Nanya's red lacey scanties—not that he needed to, her frilly robes were an elegantly netted see-through silk tulle—but to hide away from the world forever.

The vixen glanced at him but said nothing otherwise. Perhaps that’s why she did not act against the Youjin clan yet, despite being aware of Youjin Hong’s insults. Was she really that easygoing? Did face mean nothing to her? Or was Yung that amusing as a clown? He hoped it was the latter. He hoped the small smirk he spotted on her lips was no illusion.

Yung had to admit to himself a vital fact.

He completely lost his cool in the presence of this gorgeous maiden, and he, for the love of Moira, did not know why! He absolutely refused to believe himself to be an out-of-control creep of a libertine; his sense of self-worth would not allow it.

But the facts were laid bare on the vixen's pristine body, her mere gestures, and every flutter of her long lashes.

The look in Su Nanya’s eyes as she gazed at him, her beguiling voice as she spoke, and the depth behind her words were enough to make him quiver like a banshee in a storm of lust. It was as if there was some otherworldly magic forcing his mind and his groin to give a hundred percent of their attention to this offbeat yet endearing beauty before him.

But Yung was also Jung, a middle-aged man with modern sensibilities. And he did not like the fact that one hot bikini chick could make him lose his mind. Not that the Jung part of his brain had anything constructive to offer to solve this conundrum.

Thirty-nine years of no intimate contact with the opposite sex, other than hugs from his mum, sisters, and nieces. Maybe that one kiss on the cheek with little Suzy next door when he was five? That was the extent of Yung’s romantic curriculum vitae as Jung.

Jung, who was a bona fide virgin archwizard, had not even shared a first kiss on the lips, let alone hold hands and other lewder stuff.

Yung was a bundle of teen insecurities, with horny hormones raging through his veins. Oh, and he also had a fifteen-year career as the least desirable boy in town.

Is this love? This berserk emotion felt so base, yet scaldingly so, without remorse nor refusal. Or was it that Yung's expectations of love were so unrealistically high?

Yung had to completely overhaul his previous judgement. The transmigration was not seamless at all!

So after some serious thought, he decided it wasn't love, probably just a hormone-fueled teenage crush. And more importantly, Su Nanya wasn’t Princess Leia. She was Rey Skywalker! Obnoxious! I’m gonna call you Nyanya in my head from now on, and there’s nothing you can do about it!

“Tell us, boy. What was your cultivation before the yaoguai contracted you?”

“I am, or was, an apprentice at the Youjin clan’s jade slip shop. I mainly worked with sound transmission and capturing tokens. I can also make jade slips for record-keeping and light capturing tokens. There is also the scene transmi—”

“Enough!” Su Nanya slapped her forehead. “We asked of your cultivation, not profession.”

Yung grumbled. Internally.

“We—I was at the 1st stage of qi refining minor realm, houtian major realm of spirit cultivation, my lady. I have been cultivating lingqi since I was ten and haven’t been able to progress at all. I wasn’t allowed to practice with a clan manual, so my grandfather had to buy one from a travelling merchant called ‘the severed yang fire qi circulation technique.’ It's a rare technique and was apparently used by a hidden master to make his inner flame exceptionally robust!”

“… There was something else with this, circulation technique, was there not?”

“Yes!” Yung took out the jade slip containing the technique and passed it to Su Yafeng, who gave it to Su Nanya. “As expected of my lady, so knowledgeable.” Bootlicking cost no cash. “It’s ‘the severed yang nine forms.’ The merchant said it was an accompanying physique-nurturing spiritual art to increase limb flexibility. While the circulation technique focuses on accumulating yang and fire aspected lingqi.”

“Village bumpkins. This is why… No, at the least, we have found half the answer to that touch.” Su Nanya creased her eyebrows at a confused Yung. “It is a dual cultivation technique to boost your primordial yang. A rather bad one at that. This ‘spiritual art,’ as you called it, is a bedroom art for kept men.”

“No! But the merchant. It doesn’t mention that on the jade slip!” Dear Moira and all things holy! “And it really did increase my flexibility! Especially my fingers. I can curve jade slips in angles better than anyone else in the shop.”

Su Nanya threw him a long, hard, bored look.

Grandpa, you’ve been scammed. Oh Grandpa, that’s why I couldn’t increase my cultivation after so long!

“I-I-“

“It matters not. Open the scroll.”

Yung was sure without a shred of doubt that his whole body was red like a boiled lobster. A boiled frog! The humiliation, the shame! Grandpa, you have ruined me. Not that it mattered, because his bronze skin hid blushes quite well.

Yung opened the scroll.

"A xinqi cultivation technique!" The scroll concealed marvels. Written on it were runes inscribed with jade. When Yung touched it, a vast amount of knowledge poured into his brain without pain or discomfort. The information quality and quantity were far higher than could be stored in a normal jade slip.

“The foxfire creek heart sutra.” Su Nanya said. “Created by a fellow clanswoman when she gained enlightenment by a creek in her village. You shall make use of it with due respect.”

Yung nodded, clutching the scroll in a death grip. Su Nanya smirked. “Tell us what you know of cultivation. Let us judge your knowledge as we feel rather benevolent today. Oh, you poor soul, cultivating the bedroom arts without a mate.” For some reason, her voice grew forlorn, as though she wasn’t talking to Yung. She had this distant look on her face.

Regret? Rage?

“When I cultivated lingqi, I first had to awaken my upper dantian, also known as the temple palace dantian.” Yung started, then paused, checking Su Nanya’s reaction.

“Continue.”

“It’s one of the three dantians of the renyao body—”

“Yaoren.”

“…Yaoren body. Yaoren can absorb the chaotic, all-pervasive natural qi from the air, water, food, and other things in the world, but they cannot use it as is. They have to purify or refine it into cultivated qi.

“There are three major types. The temple palace dantian is used to refine lingqi, which is used for spirit cultivation. The lower dantian or navel palace dantian is used to refine yuanqi for body or physical cultivation. And finally, the middle dantian or the heart palace dantian is used to refine xinqi for shen or mo cultivation. Also known as divine or devil cultivation, and they are the two most popular forms of xinqi cultivation using faith xinqi or fear xinqi, respectively.”

Yung finished that in one breath, then peeked at Su Nanya. The vixen rested her chin on her palm. She scowled. “Who ever allowed you to stop?”

“Just catching my breath. Okay. So after absorbing the natural qi from the world and refining it into one of the three types of cultivated qi, one can practice spiritual, martial, and numinous or blasphemous arts. But no matter how much qi I refine, I won’t be able to progress to the next stage with that only. I need zhenqi.

“Zhenqi is the qi of our very existence, our innate True Qi. We can use our awakened dantians to send the cultivated qi to our sea of consciousness. This sea of consciousness and the dantians each make two halves of our spirit root, which we must awaken to cultivate.

“The very act of passing lingqi through this metaphysical divide turns it into zhenqi, the true qi with flavours unique to each practitioner—”

“Metaphysical. What a peculiar term, but concise.” Su Nanya said, interrupting Yung’s flow. She talked as though she was licking candy. “And then what shall our hapless cultivator do next, dear servant?”

Yung cleared his throat, humming mentally. This expounding helped him organise his own knowledge too. “It is the accumulation, refinement, and transformation of this zhenqi that pushes the cultivator through the ladder of cultivation. The efficiency of this zhenqi conversion depends largely on the cultivators’ talent, resources, his dao, and the quality of the cultivation technique. Usually, the conversion ratio is meagre. Even the best techniques I know of, those used by the heroes of epic stories, have a rate of barely one-in-ten-thousand.”

“None but the pipedreams of drunk minstrels. Even those of us most esteemed barely have a one-in-a-hundred-thousand ratio. Go on.”

“The cultivator can also inversely convert the zhenqi to its respective base cultivated qi form,” Yung said. “That’s how they can cast spiritual arts and control artefacts. For me, it’s lingqi. Well, xinqi now. Zhenqi created from lingqi can’t be used to convert to xinqi as far as I know.”

Su Nanya smiled that half-smelly-smile those elitist PhD holders from rich people universities aimed at working-class high school graduates.

"I forgot to mention, but refining lingqi to zhenqi also increases the cultivators' zhenqi capacity and natural zhenqi regeneration. The inverse conversion of zhenqi to lingqi afterwards won't lower this capacity, and if the environment or circumstances are stable, zhenqi will regenerate naturally. Again, this depends on talent, resources, dao, technique, and many other factors.

“The exception to this is when a cultivator directly uses vast amounts of zhenqi to fight or do other things like pill making or using their artefacts. This can have severe consequences on the cultivation base.”

Yung stopped there. Su Nanya clapped, “Quite the concise briefing if we must praise. Well performed, boy.”

Yung knew she was humouring him, yet he couldn’t help but puff out his chest.

“We shall guide you on that scroll now. Tell us, do you know much of xinqi cultivation? It is rarer than lingqi or yuanqi and quite different in essence.”

Yung thought for a bit. “I know the Zheng bunch talk about ‘cultivation is in following the forms of society,’ or, ‘the truth is in the qi, the qi is in the teaching.’”

“The path of Confucius is not the solitary route to the divine.” Su Nanya smiled. “Xinqi is worship. A shenmo must gather faith or fear to accumulate xinqi in their middle dantian. One can either gather it from others or gather it from themselves. Yet we forbid you from mo cultivation. The Su fox clan tolerates no devils on our land bridge, and we shall have to end you if you cultivate fear qi.

“That leaves you with a singular option, new servant. One with such a face as yours cannot possibly convene a loyal following of worshippers. As such,” Su Nanya pointed at the scroll, so cultured in her denigrations. “we have graciously bestowed upon you a technique to do the latter. The foxfire creek heart sutra is a technique to refine one’s own will, to have faith in oneself, and to accumulate faith qi from there.”

…I’m not that ugly. Yung held in a tear and kept his attention steady. Su Nanya explained the ins and outs of the new technique. It was fascinating to see those glossy lips dance as though trotting through a tango with seductive grace.

But all good things had to end. And after half an hour, Su Nanya ended her melody and returned to the upper bourgeois tone she loved so much. “You shall have this one chance.”

“Huh?” Yung snapped back. He had become so enthralled simply staring at Su Nanya just talking, that he’d completely forgotten to hear what she was actually saying.