That night, Qiyue slept exceptionally soundly and peacefully.
When the first ray of morning light shone into her room the next day, she slowly stirred awake. Opening her eyes, she stretched lazily in bed, then gradually sat up to get dressed.
After washing up and pushing open her bedroom door, she was surprised to find the courtyard completely empty. Not a single one of her senior brothers, who should have been practicing martial arts there, was anywhere to be seen.
She suddenly remembered what Fifth Senior Brother had told her yesterday: they needed to spend every day practicing and meditating inside their respective dwelling caves, because the caves were filled with abundant spiritual energy that could effectively boost their cultivation.
Feeling rather bored, Qiyue decided to thoroughly sweep the front courtyard outside the row of bamboo houses and tidy up some of the other common areas.
Normally, such chores should have been handled by outer disciples, but ever since Daoist Yunhe lost his influence, outer disciples rarely set foot in this place. Consequently, most of the time, the senior brothers would first clean up their master's quarters and then tidy their own rooms, while the common areas were practically neglected by everyone.
Right at that moment, as Qiyue was earnestly sweeping the ground with a broom, a dark shadow suddenly flashed past like lightning. She instinctively looked up, but saw nothing at all. Thinking it must have been her imagination, she lowered her head and went back to sweeping.
Before long, she saw several more dark shadows flash across her field of vision. This time, she realized something was amiss and looked up at the sky once more, only to be astonished to find many people up in the air.
Some of those people were riding on flying swords, others were steering flying shuttles, and various other magical instruments she had never seen before streaked across the sky with a continuous whistling sound, filling her heart with envy.
"Aren't you envious of this?"
"I am!"
"As long as we work hard, we'll definitely be able to do that in the future too."
"Huh? Oh?"
Only then did Qiyue notice someone was talking to her.
She turned her head sideways and was surprised to find that the speaker was an adorable child of only eight or nine years old, wearing a pair of tufted buns on his head.
"What a cute little boy!"
"Pfft!"
Hearing this sound, Qiyue realized someone else seemed to be standing on her other side.
When she turned to look that way, she was so startled that she let out a shriek of "Oh mother!" and leaped back more than a zhang.
Looking closely, she saw that it was actually two identical children.
"Ah! You... are you twins?"
"That much is true!" the child on the right nodded and replied.
"Little brothers, did you guys come to the wrong place?"
"Well, what you said isn't right!" retorted the child on the left.
"Not right? What's not right about it?" Qiyue blinked her bewildered eyes, utterly failing to figure out where she had made a mistake.
"We aren't little brothers, oh! We're your senior brothers!" the two little ones shouted in unison, giving Qiyue quite a scare.
Pointing at herself in disbelief, she stammered, "You... you're saying you are m... my senior brothers?"
"That's right!"
The two of them spoke in unison again, their tone firm and unquestionable.
Stunned into speechlessness, Qiyue was still wondering where these two mischievous kids had popped out of when a familiar voice suddenly drifted into her ears.
"Seventh Junior Brother, Eighth Junior Brother, you two startle a young girl the moment you get back! What will you do if you scare her away?"
Before the words had even faded, a figure rushed over like a bolt of lightning and arrived right in front of them in the blink of an eye. It was Fifth Senior Brother.
In his hand, Fifth Senior Brother was holding a few jade slips, as if he had just retrieved them from somewhere.
"Are they really my senior brothers?" Qiyue couldn't help murmuring softly, still finding it hard to believe after hearing Fifth Senior Brother call them junior brothers.
After all, the two children in front of her looked even younger than her by three or four years, and their heights only reached her shoulders. No matter how she looked at them, they seemed like adorable little boys.
Yet facts were facts, and she had no choice but to believe it. Only after hearing Fifth Senior Brother's affirmative confirmation once more did Qiyue finally accept the reality that these two seemingly youthful "little boys" were genuinely her senior brothers.
"Indeed, without a doubt. They are Seventh Junior Brother Su Xing and Eighth Junior Brother Su Yao," Fifth Senior Brother said with a smile.
Qiyue hurriedly bowed to her two senior brothers and greeted them obediently, "Hello, Seventh Senior Brother! Hello, Eighth Senior Brother!"
Faced with Qiyue's greeting, the two little ones were clearly unaccustomed to it. They froze for a moment, then clumsily tried to mimic the manner of adults. Each of them gently patted Qiyue on the head from their respective sides, muttering, "There... good girl! Here... good girl!"
Their cute actions left Qiyue torn between amusement and helplessness. What could she do? Who told her to be the last one to enter the master's sect? Naturally, her seniority in terms of address had to be lower than all of their fellow apprentices.
After a detailed introduction, Qiyue finally gained a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of these two newly acquainted senior brothers.
It turned out that the one who always liked to say "this" was Su Xing, while the other who habitually said "that" was Su Yao. The two brothers really were twins!
They were children that Master had picked up from the foot of the mountain and brought back to raise several years ago.
Because the two of them were too young at the time and there was no one on the mountain to take care of them, Master had faced two choices: either leave them to starve to death, or send them to the outer sect families to be child servants.
Daoist Yunhe had never been able to bear such things. Although he struggled to advance in his own cultivation, no matter what, it was still better than letting the two of them starve or become slaves. So he had brought them to Ziyu Peak and raised them alongside his disciples.
It had to be said that the two brothers' aptitude was indeed quite exceptional—they could be considered naturally gifted with superior bone structure.
Coupled with the fact that they had followed Master in learning immortal arts since childhood, they had already successfully cultivated to the Level 5 Qi Refining realm by the tender age of eight.
Regrettably, however, their cultivation had since hit a bottleneck just like everyone else's, stalling and remaining stubbornly unable to break through any further.
Curious, Qiyue looked at Song Yifan and asked, "Song Senior Brother, you look quite young yourself! Master hasn't taken in any disciples for a hundred years, so how did you become his disciple?"
Song Yifan smiled upon hearing this. "I met Master when he went down the mountain to temper himself. Although my family is from a medical lineage and we are outer disciples, I was prone to attracting malevolent spirits since childhood. Many people said I wouldn't live past the age of ten unless I became the disciple of a master of high virtue. In our mortal realm, where could one find such an expert? As it happened, Master passed through our area back then. At first, Master didn't want to take me in, saying he was afraid of misleading a young person. But my parents, desperate to help me escape this fatal tribulation at age ten, couldn't worry about all that, so they pleaded with Master to accept me."
Achieving perfection in immortal cultivation happens at the Foundation Establishment Stage. If one reaches completion in old age, one retains an elderly appearance thereafter; if one achieves perfection in childhood, one retains a childhood appearance.
This was why the legendary Nezha always maintained the appearance of a child, while Zhang Guolao appeared as an old man. Of course, once they reached completion, they could change their youthful appearance according to their own preferences.
However, those who had not successfully cultivated to the Foundation Establishment Stage—especially those merely in the Qi Refining ranks—naturally could not change at will. Instead, their bodies and appearances grew and aged just like ordinary people's according to their age.
Delighted, Qiyue felt she had learned a bit more about immortal cultivation.
"This... by the way, Fifth Senior Brother, aren't you supposed to be cultivating? Why did you suddenly rush back?"
"That... yeah! You couldn't have rushed back purposely to supervise us for fear that we might bully the Junior Sister, right?"
Su Xing and Su Yao looked at Song Yifan with mischievous grins, and even Qiyue looked at him with great curiosity.
Embarrassed and with a slightly flushed face, Song Yifan feigned anger and retorted, "Who's as idle as you two? I merely promised to teach the Junior Sister how to read, so I came to deliver the study jade slips."
With that, he handed the jade slips in his hand to Qiyue, and looking into her eyes, he said earnestly, "Junior Sister, Master has always hoped that I would diligently cultivate and constantly forge ahead, so in the future I might not have too much time to come and teach you how to read and write."
Hearing this, Qiyue's heart grew heavy, but she still nodded to show she understood.
However, Song Yifan seemed to see right through her thoughts and quickly comforted her, "Still, Junior Sister, you needn't worry too much. I have already found another respected teacher for you, who can likewise instruct you. If you encounter any difficult problems, you can always ask us whenever our senior brothers have time to return."
Hearing that someone else could teach her, Qiyue's face immediately blossomed with a joyful smile. After all, acquiring knowledge and culture was a very important and indispensable matter for her.
"Then who exactly is this new teacher of mine?" she asked impatiently.
Just at that moment, a faint sound of breaking air rang out, and a dark shadow the size of a fist shot out from nowhere like lightning, reaching the two of them in the blink of an eye.