Chapter 2: A Chance at Survival
"Junior Brother, it's time to take your medicine..." A voice laced with seductive allure sounded beside Xiao Yichen. He snapped out of his meditation, slowly opened his eyes, and saw Yun Mei sitting next to him holding a medicinal pill, looking at him with an enchanting smile.
This woman was none other than the one who had coaxed Xiao Yichen into the Meiyu Sect not long ago, and she was now his nominal dao companion.
Looking at the intensely seductive woman before him, Xiao Yichen would surely have fallen head over heels long ago had he not discovered the grim truth behind the sect's cultivation practices.
He had stumbled upon this secret quite by accident. One night, while idly wandering about and passing the residence of a certain senior brother, he heard lingering, intimate sounds coming from within. Driven by a dash of curiosity and a hundred and forty-seven parts of reckless daring, he crept up to the senior brother's window, only to witness a scene he would never be able to forget.
The graphic details defied description; he only knew that the senior brother lying on the bed looked as though every ounce of life had been hollowed out of him. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, the corners of his eyes stained with tears—he looked utterly on the brink of dropping dead.
It left Xiao Yichen trembling from head to toe outside the window.
*Good grief, not only is this the Joy Sect, it's an evil sect. No, I have to figure out a way to escape.*
Later on, he learned that when most female disciples in the Meiyu Sect reached a bottleneck in their cultivation and lacked sufficient talent, there was a high probability they would remain stuck at that stage for the rest of their lives. At that point, they required a male of Pure Yang constitution to engage in dual cultivation with them, thereby breaking through the bottleneck and ascending to a higher realm.
Though called dual cultivation, it was essentially treating them as cauldrons. Once every last shred of value was squeezed out of these male disciples, the only fate awaiting them was a tragic death from the depletion of their vital life force.
And if they wanted their cauldrons to yield maximum results, the cauldron's cultivation level had to be as close to their own as possible—surpassing it would be even better. Yet how could cultivators with greater strength than theirs ever willingly sink to becoming their cauldrons?
In this world, cultivation realms ranged from low to high across seven major tiers: Body Tempering Realm, Qi Condensation Stage, Core Formation, Spirit Concentration, Body Integration, Dao Enlightenment, and Ascension. Each realm was further divided into four minor stages: early, mid, high, and peak.
Right now, Xiao Yichen's nominal dao companion, Yun Mei, was at the High-Stage Qi Refining Realm. Relying on Xiao Yichen's innate talent, reaching the Qi Condensation Stage would take him roughly five years—not particularly fast, but certainly not slow either, barely qualifying him as a medium-to-high-quality cauldron.
Pulling his thoughts back to the present, Xiao Yichen felt a headache coming on as he looked at the pill in Yun Mei's hand. Over the past few days, he had been fed various different pills every single day, most of them meant to refine and improve his physique.
These immortal elixirs, impossible for mortals to buy for a thousand pieces of gold, were no different from poison in his eyes. He knew that the faster he cultivated, the closer death would loom.
"Senior Sister, just leave it aside for now. The medicinal effects of yesterday's pill haven't been fully absorbed yet." He offered Yun Mei a faint smile. Lacking the backbone to fall out with her just yet, he could only flatter her for now and wait for an opportunity to break free from this demonic sect.
Hearing this, Yun Mei suspected nothing. She placed the pill on the nearby wooden table, then suddenly lunged forward, tackling Xiao Yichen onto the bed. He offered no resistance, knowing full well that before his cultivation reached the required standard, she wouldn't dare touch him—otherwise, all the pills she had fed him beforehand would go to waste.
Draped over Xiao Yichen, Yun Mei stroked his cheek with her right hand and whispered in his ear, "Junior Brother is truly diligent. Are you that impatient to make Senior Sister yours? Hehe..."
Beneath her, Xiao Yichen cursed the vixen inwardly while maintaining a infatuated expression on his face. He wrapped his arms around Yun Mei's slender waist—after all, he couldn't afford to lose out on the physical contact.
"Senior Sister, I still need to cultivate. Don't worry, I will definitely work hard and strive to meet your requirements as soon as possible. When that day comes, I'll make all the other senior sisters green with envy that you found such a motivated and promising good dao companion." Xiao Yichen nearly gagged himself as the words left his mouth; never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would ever utter such cheesy drivel.
Yet Yun Mei took the words very well. After a bit more verbal teasing, she finally left the room with a look of lingering reluctance.
Lying on the bed, Xiao Yichen looked at the pill on the nearby table and let out a wry chuckle. "How is this any different from what I imagined? Others fight tooth and nail in bitter cultivation just to reach the peak early and look down upon the world, while I strive to cultivate only to become wedding garments for someone else. Truly unjust and unfortunate."
He had tried numerous ways to stop the medicinal effects from taking hold—stuffing his fingers down his throat to vomit out the pills and the like—but none of it had any effect.
The moment a pill entered his body, it would transform into wisps of pure essence that endlessly tempered his flesh. The process was agonizingly painful, but the results were exceptionally potent. Under this recent period of tempering, though his physical build hadn't changed much, his muscle density had more than doubled compared to when he first started. Reaching the true Body Tempering Realm was only a matter of time.
Stepping out of his room, he began wandering around the Meiyu Sect once more. This was his mandatory daily routine—who knew when an opportunity to escape might present itself? Yun Mei placed very few restrictions on him; as long as he didn't leave the sect grounds or wander into explicitly forbidden areas, his movements were entirely free.
Arriving at the sect's martial arts arena, he found two female disciples currently sparring on the stage. The shockwaves of their battle caused the spiritual energy barrier in the air to quiver slightly. With every casual movement, waves of spiritual energy surged toward each other, drawing enthusiastic cheers from the crowd below in a lively display.
Just then, a minor misstep by one of the women exposed an opening that her opponent seized. Her rhythm shattered, she was driven step by step toward the edge until, with no miracle appearing, she was knocked straight off the martial arts stage with a single palm strike.
The woman lying on the ground wore a look of intense unwillingness, her eyes blazing with fury as she stared at the figure on the stage. Slowly picking herself up, she beckoned to a male disciple standing outside the ring. Moments later, the male disciple walked to her side with a numb, vacant expression.
"You won. Starting today, he belongs to you." With that, the woman shoved the male disciple toward the victor on the stage, turned around without looking back, and strode away, her face dark with rage.
"You can actually do that?" Xiao Yichen gasped, watching the male disciple ahead with mild astonishment.
Although he knew that male disciples held low status within the Meiyu Sect, he never expected it to be this low—traded back and forth like mere commodities.
A flash of inspiration suddenly struck his mind. *If I manage to catch the eye of another female disciple for some reason, might I have a chance to escape the clutches of that demonic witch Yun Mei? Even if it just means stepping into another tiger's den, as long as that person's cultivation is higher than Yun Mei's, won't I have that much more time to plan my escape?*
With this thought, he left the martial arts arena and headed toward the mountain valley within the sect. Arriving beside a waterfall and gazing at the silver-dragon-like curtain of water ahead, the corners of Xiao Yichen's mouth curled up slightly. He followed a stone path over the water to a large boulder right in front of the waterfall.
The rushing current pounded endlessly against the rock, kicking up massive clouds of spray that formed a hazy mist in the air. Through years of relentless pounding by the current, the surface of the boulder had long become smooth as glass.
This place was specially prepared for disciples who had yet to reach the Body Tempering Realm to train their bodies. However, since most female disciples in the sect were already past the Body Tempering Realm, and the male disciples were all muddle-headedly boosting their cultivation with pills, this training ground had been abandoned for quite some time.
Stripping off his upper garment, Xiao Yichen slowly stepped forward. He decided he would no longer rely on pills to raise his realm the way he had before—that was merely the lowest form of cultivation.
He wanted to elevate his cultivation step by step through his own hard work. Though this approach was much slower, its advantage lay in its solid foundation; compared to those pill-popping senior brothers of the same realm, his actual combat strength would be vastly superior.
If he wanted to attract the attention of the powerful female disciples in the sect, he needed genuine strength to back it up. As long as he could display extraordinary talent, he wouldn't have to worry about failing to catch someone's eye.
Having figured this out, Xiao Yichen psyched himself up and slowly stepped onto the boulder. The instant both his feet landed, a powerful torrent of water instantly washed him right off, his body tumbling repeatedly in the water as the river rushed into his mouth and nose, cutting off his breath.
Struggling fiercely, he crawled back ashore and began walking toward the boulder once more.