Jeanean

Here a little note because last chapter someone got confused.

I use -this- for the POV's thoughts. I still use „this" for dialogue.

„Sister Ran, are you okay? Are you still ill?", the girl next to her asked, bringing back her mind that had been wandering off for a while now.

Yesterday, it had taken her the whole day to sort out her mind, and right now, she was supposed to take part in the general martial arts training under instructor Wen. But for the last hour already, she just couldn't concentrate properly.

It could be said that now, as two people had become one, she was now curious for two people as well.

The third-person objective reflection meditation had had a very unexpected side effect. In the process of sorting out the memories of her two lives, many of her buried memories had come back to her. And that was especially so for all the books Alice had read over the course of many years. Although she couldn't remember all of it, she could at least remember most of the books she had read and would be able to roughly describe what they were about.

She had already planned to set aside some days in the future for meditation, to try and bring back even more of those memories.

But the way Xu Ran was after yesterday's meditation was as if two people with very different life experiences had thoroughly discussed every single second of their lives, so while there were many things she had learned, there were many times more that she wanted to know or reconfirm. And even now, new ideas and thoughts kept popping into her head, so it should be obvious that she couldn't concentrate.

„Don't worry QingQing, I'm okay. Just a little distracted."

QingQing was one of the very few girls that had started training in the same year as Xu Ran. Actually, she was almost two months older than Xu Ran, but she always felt more like a little sister to her, now that she was mentally much older, even more so than ever before.

„Don't say... It's a boy?! Oh no, don't say it's that idiot Wu Ling?"

„Ha Haha, of course not!"

If QingQing had asked her two days earlier, Xu Ran wouldn't have been sure how to answer. After all, they were in a society were strength and talent were admired and despite being a year younger than Xu Ran he had already broken through to the Qi-circulation realm.

That and his extreme talent in swordsmanship could already guarantee him a place in the inner sect of the main branch in the Zhou empire. But in addition to that, he even had a bodily constitution that would amplify his physical strength, speed, and stamina by several times with each new realm.

Maybe it was thanks to that constitution, but even though he was younger than herself, he actually looked about two years older than Xu Ran. He was even handsome to a degree were some of the older ladies might just ignore his age.

And last but not least, he was so precocious that she wouldn't be surprised if Wu Ling became father sometime soon. According to the rumors at least.

Yes, he was the kind of person that would appear as the protagonist of a xianxia story.

Or in other words, he was the kind of boy most girls would fall in love with, in this world and even the other. And the old Xu Ran wasn't immune to this either.

But it was something completely different now that she had a total mental age of thirty-seven years. Well, she didn't feel any older than twenty-two, but it was still a no go for her. Thinking about it, she realized that finding a boyfriend of the right age could get pretty difficult with her mental and physical age being seven apart.

Well, it wasn't like she was planning to find one anytime soon. And one good thing about cultivation was that it could even make an age difference of a thousand years redundant at some point.

„Ohh? Are you sure? Come on! Who is it?!", QingQing kept pressuring her.

„There is nothing like this, and now I feel bad because you get distracted as well!", Xu Ran admonished her.

„Huu... haaaaaaa...", she breathed in and out deeply.

Using part of her meditation technique, Xu Ran forcefully suppressed her curiosity and put all her concentration back on her training. But soon her mind wandered off again.

-No one seems to use them, but I wonder how effective techniques that use leverage would be? No, not now...-

Soon, she turned back her focus on Instructor Wen and listened to her lessons.

——————————

Although it was something she saw almost every day, Xu Ran was still a little shocked at the picture of hell around her.

After four hours of martial arts training, three out of four disciples had broken down from total exhaustion. The only ones who didn't, being either the older ones or those close to or above the perfect Qi-gathering realm.

Even QingQing, who wasn't much weaker than Xu Ran had to lie down about ten minutes before the end of the training.

Xu Ran as well had barely been able to keep going in the last ten minutes and was now wheezing with her hands on her knees.

„Xu Ran, come with me for a moment!", At that moment, Instructor Wen called her over.

„Yes! Uwaah!", shooting up like a spring let loose, Xu Ran answered, only to get dizzy and wobbly from the blood rushing out of her head.

Looking around, she searched for a way through the labyrinth of bodies lying around like a group of scarecrows after a storm.

Careful as to not to step on someone, she slowly made her way towards instructor Wen.

„What does Instructor want from me?"

„Not me, the branch head wants to talk with you."

„Master Long wants to talk with me?!", Xu Ran became excited.

Master Long, the head of their branch was a person who rarely interacted with the disciples. Mostly, he would only hold a speech once a year when new disciples got recruited.

As such, it was known that whenever you got called by the branch head, either great reward or great punishment would follow. And if Xu Ran knew one thing, then that she had never done anything that deserved punishment. Of course, she would be excited.