Ever since Lu Qingning had passed out in the medicated bath, she had been extremely careful during every subsequent soak, terrified that she might somehow drowse off and forget something important again.
Though her Senior Sister's explanation seemed reasonable enough, she still felt as though she had forgotten something.
Fortunately, cultivation was utterly exhausting, and it wasn't long before Lu Qingning put the matter out of her mind.
Time in the mountains passed unnoticed, and the body-tempering medicated baths alone had taken half a year.
"Hee-yah!"
Lu Qingning skipped lightly up the stone steps. By now, the fatigue of her first ascent was long gone; on the contrary, she always found creative ways to amuse herself on the way up. Sometimes she would hop on one leg for a few steps before switching, other times she would climb with her hands behind her back without using them for balance, and occasionally she even had her Senior Sister add extra weights for her.
Lu Qingning let out a long breath and untied the stones bound to her body.
With a heavy thud, the stones from her legs crashed into the ground, leaving two deep indentations.
"I honestly have no idea where Senior Sister finds rocks this heavy."
Lu Qingning sat at the highest point of Qingzhu Peak, looking down over the entire mountain.
The weights fastened to Lu Qingning's legs had all been enchanted by Xiao Hongyu to make them heavier, and they had been polished to various shapes so they would fit snugly against her legs.
Fortunately, Lu Qingning underwent medicated baths and massages every single day over the past half-year, which prevented her figure from turning blockish and bulky.
Since it was still early, Lu Qingning had already finished her quota of twenty ascents.
"Hmm... I guess I'll go play with Ah Huang!"
Lu Qingning glanced up at the sun hanging overhead. It was clearly still noon, and since her Senior Sister had vanished off to be busy with who-knows-what and Lu Qingning had nothing to do, she had no choice but to head into the back-mountain forest to play with the small animals.
After spending time with her Senior Sister, Lu Qingning had realized that Xiao Hongyu was by no means idle. She frequently came and went from Qingzhu Peak, stepping onto her flying sword to travel to parts unknown.
The entire Tianjian Sect was massive, and Qingzhu Peak was merely one of its mountains. As for other places like Danding Peak, the artifact-refinement peak, or any of the other peaks, Lu Qingning hadn't visited a single one.
Whenever Lu Qingning mentioned to Xiao Hongyu that she wanted to go out and take a look, Xiao Hongyu would always dismiss her with: "Your strength is still too puny; you have no need to go to such places yet."
Each time she was rejected, Lu Qingning would droop like a frost-bitten eggplant, left with no choice but to trudge back to the back mountain with a wronged expression to play with her animal friends.
However, Xiao Hongyu would occasionally bring her treasures produced by the other peaks to play with, which somewhat appeased Lu Qingning's resentment toward her.
With Xiao Hongyu around, Lu Qingning hadn't stepped a single foot outside of Qingzhu Peak for the past half-year. And since Qingzhu Peak was an Elder's private mountain and not open to outsiders, very few people ever came here.
As a result, the only beings Lu Qingning could talk to over the past six months were Shen Ye, Xiao Hongyu, and the various animals in the mountains.
Speaking of the mountain animals, Lu Qingning had been terrified the first time she saw Ah Huang, but by their second meeting, Ah Huang was already treating her with utmost deference.
The other animals were equally respectful toward her, as if she carried some sort of terrifying threat.
One look was all it took for Lu Qingning to figure out that her Senior Sister was behind it—she simply wasn't allowed anywhere near those fluffy creatures.
Meanwhile, her Second Senior Sister, Shen Ye, got to cuddle a pile of fluffies to sleep every single day—it was just too comfortable!
And so, Lu Qingning went to Shen Ye to seek a solution.
Shen Ye was powerless against the restrictions set by the Eldest Senior Sister, and could only say with a sheepish laugh: "There's nothing I can do either. Why don't you try interacting with A-Hei first?"
As she spoke, she nudged a large black dog that was hiding behind her.
Shen Ye was sitting on the grass with a whole crowd of spiritual beasts gathered behind her. As for why they were gathered behind her, one only had to look at the person sitting in front of Shen Ye—Lu Qingning.
Lu Qingning's face was covered in dark lines as she tried interacting with A-Hei.
At first, the black dog was terrified of her; after all, every single spiritual beast in the mountains had witnessed the terrifying nature of the female demon, and not a single one failed to fear her.
Yet this little female demon didn't seem quite so scary after all.
After a bit of back-and-forth, Lu Qingning grew familiar with the spiritual beasts that usually stayed around Shen Ye.
...
"Senior Sister Shen Ye, I'm here to play with you guys!"
Lu Qingning waved brightly from afar at Shen Ye, who was resting against a tree with her eyes closed.
Shen Ye opened her eyes, looking sleepily at her. "Ha~ Junior Sister, you're here? What do you want to play today?"
Adopting the philosophy of "if there are no conditions, create them," Lu Qingning had creatively invented two games to play in the back mountain of Qingzhu Peak.
One was Ascension Ladder, and the other was fighting the supreme deities.
"Hmm... let me think. We played fighting the supreme deities yesterday, so let's play Ascension Ladder today."
Shen Ye sat up and retrieved the game map drawn by Lu Qingning from her storage bag.
The animals around Shen Ye also gathered around Lu Qingning in a tight circle.
There were over a dozen animals in total, ranging in size.
Shen Ye picked six breeds out of the bunch that were good at holding game pieces to play with the two of them.
"A-Hua, A-Bai, A-Hong, A-Lü, A-Huang, A-A-Hei."
Adhering to a color-based naming convention, Shen Ye had named a leopard, a wolf, a monkey, a deer, a bear, and a dog respectively.
Of course, these animal breeds had also been named by Lu Qingning herself based on their appearances.
In reality, their looks weren't those of single, ordinary animals, but rather seemed stitched together from several different creatures. They even seemed to have some cumbersome name, but Lu Qingning found it too troublesome and just treated them like regular animals.
Besides, the animals on this mountain were no different from the silly dogs kept by people in her past life.
"Alright... A-Qing, you won last time, so let me throw the dice first this time!"
"Fine, fine~"
Lu Qingning accepted the "starting capital" handed to her by Shen Ye and stared blankly at each region on the map.
Having been in this world for sixteen years now, Lu Qingning had gained a general understanding of it.
Most people lived in the Nine Provinces, and the Nine Provinces were ruled by a unified regime—Daxia.
Rumor had it that beyond the Nine Provinces lay the Northern Wilderness to the north, the Western Buddhist Kingdom to the west, and the Eastern Dragon Kingdom to the east.
However, Lu Qingning had no way of knowing whether these places were real or fake.
Yet in the game of Ascension Ladder, they genuinely existed.
"Hmm... I'll take Yanzhou."
"Then I'll buy Cangzhou."
"Awooo!"
"Hey! Senior Sister, give me the East Sea, please? I'll trade Yangzhou for it."
"Hmph hmph, don't think I don't know that collecting all four territories outside the Nine Provinces multiplies your Spirit Stones by four!"
"Darn it..."
...
The two humans and six beasts had been playing for two hours, right in the middle of an intense match, when a squirrel suddenly came running from afar and leapt onto Shen Ye's shoulder.
"What?! Xiao Hongyu is back?!"
Shen Ye was shaken with fright.
Earlier, the two of them had been caught by Xiao Hongyu playing the supreme-deity game, and both had been forced to copy the Tianjian Heart Formula one hundred times.
Moreover, Shen Ye had been caught getting the spiritual beasts to copy it for her, resulting in another penalty of one hundred times, bringing her total to two hundred.
Having finished that last round of copying, Shen Ye was thoroughly terrified, so she had arranged for numerous spiritual beasts to patrol the perimeter and keep an eye on Xiao Hongyu's movements.
Speak of the devil, the moment Shen Ye heard the news, she instantly reached out to grab the game board—only to see Xiao Hongyu's figure descending from the sky.
"Lu Qingning. Shen Ye."
Lu Qingning and Shen Ye both jolted upright.
The two of them froze like statues, staring at Xiao Hongyu as she dropped down from above.
By the time Xiao Hongyu landed steadily, the spiritual beasts around Shen Ye had already bolted away, leaving only the three of them in the clearing.
"The two of you, go copy the Tianjian Heart Formula two hundred times."
Xiao Hongyu said calmly.
We're totally cooked!