In the blink of an eye, four years rushed by. Su Yú had grown from a tiny tot into a slightly bigger tot, standing just over a meter tall.
At five years old, Su Yú looked increasingly exquisite and translucent like jade. Over the past few years, she had long since finished learning introductory primers and had even studied some profound scriptures to a certain extent, though Li Qingping often advised her not to read such things just yet, on the grounds that young children should not be exposed to abstruse theories too early.
Su Yú understood the principle that precocity could harm the body, but for her, things were probably different. Ever since she arrived in this world five years ago, she understood that her body might be somewhat different from ordinary people's, and some logic and principles applicable to ordinary people simply did not work for her.
For the past few years, she had spent her nights substituting sleep with the five-hearts-facing-the-sky seated meditation posture, entering a state of deep concentration. Originally, Su Yú had simply regarded this as a straightforward meditative state to practice casually for fun. Unexpectedly, after successfully entering meditation three times, Su Yú truly felt a tiny yet actual current of *qi* generate in her Lower Dantian, entering from the Guanyuan acupoint into the Qihai acupoint, then moving to the Shenque acupoint, and finally flowing backward to the Qihai.
"Good grief! This world actually allows cultivation! That's terrifying!" This was Su Yú's feeling when she cultivated her very first wisp of *qi*. This was no illusion of flatulence in the belly, nor hallucinations from holding back urine. At the time, to prove that this wisp of *qi* truly existed, Su Yú even made a great effort to guide this wisp of *qi* to her fingertips, successfully slicing through—a piece of paper.
Without her fingers directly touching the paper's surface, the sheet was cleanly split in two, with hardly any visible burrs to the naked eye. The moment that *qi* was unleashed, Su Yú seemed to see something resembling a thin wisp of smoke emerge at her fingertips, which then slowly dissipated.
Once Su Yú confirmed that the *qi* she had cultivated was real and undeniable, she realized a problem: whether other people in this world could also cultivate, and whether those legendary immortals who flew through the skies and vaulted over the earth, moving mountains and draining seas, actually existed—and that this tiny Guining City where she lived was merely a tiny corner of this vast world of Immortal Cultivation.
If that were truly the case, then this was quite possibly the worst possible news for Su Yú, because the tiny corner she inhabited might fall victim to mortal disaster at any moment due to immortals fighting in the heavens.
Who would want to wake up one day to find themselves in the netherworld? She certainly lacked the Monkey King's incredible ability to wreak havoc, cross names off the Book of Life and Death, and still swagger right back out. She didn't even know who had given her this little life in the first place, so she had better cherish it.
Thus, full of anxiety, Su Yú tried to find answers in scriptural texts, Buddhist sutras, and Daoist scriptures. Yet, even after flipping through all the texts, she found no trace of any Immortal Cultivation sects passed down in the world. Those descriptions of gods, Buddhas, and immortals read much more like stories and legends, no different from the descriptions of deities in the religions of her past life, where the overarching purpose was to make you believe in the religion rather than believe in the gods.
Over the next few years, Su Yú listened very carefully to other people's conversations, trying to find a clue in their exchanges. Yet the occasional snippets she overheard were nothing more than praises for some local hero who had rid the town of bullies and brought security to the people, or reports of bandit troubles in some region where the local government had dispatched troops to wipe them out.
As for any mention of immortals appearing anywhere, there was not a hint of it. At most, people discussed how efficacious a certain temple or Daoist shrine was, and that one should go burn some incense when free.
Su Yú scoffed inwardly. Could it be that this world had never possessed any true immortals, and that they were merely people projecting imagination and legends onto a specific individual or group?
Could it be that she was the very first, and perhaps only, person in this world capable of cultivation?
No way, could that be—?
Wait, Su Yú thought carefully once more. Once you eliminate all impossible answers, then whatever answer remains, no matter how absurd, must be the truth.
Perhaps she would find the answer once she and Uncle Yan Feng officially began studying martial arts. Uncle Yan Feng had practiced martial arts since childhood and possessed formidable skill. In his youth, he had roamed the pugilistic world alone with a single sword, and even five or six ordinary experts found it difficult to get close to him. She had once heard people recite a couplet composed about Uncle Yan Feng: "The swallow's tail bends lightly in the wind with the willows, blowing away a wisp of mortal fragrance."
This referred to how Yan Feng's sword back then was as sharp as a swallow's tail, cutting through crowds with an unstoppable momentum that claimed nearly one life with every step.
And now Su Yú had reached the age where she could practice martial arts. Tomorrow, she could wait at home for Uncle Yan Feng to come over in person and teach her the fundamentals. The apprenticeship ceremony had already been completed last month. She should have started martial arts last month, but Yan Feng had mentioned an urgent matter that required him to make a trip out, so the timing was postponed to the middle of this month.
Taking advantage of the last two days before her martial arts training, Su Yú further strengthened the *qi* current in her Qi Sea. Through years of unremitting accumulation and exploration, she was now able to maintain concentration in daily life and continuously generate *qi* currents without needing to meditate.
This *qi* current was not obtained by drawing from the outside world; rather, it was the strength of Su Yú's own body, something internal. It was just that after producing *qi* currents for a long period each time, she would feel hungry, as if her body were craving energy. Viewed this way, she was still a long way from the ethereal realm of *bigu*—abstaining from grains—that she had fantasized about.
Currently, the *qi* current in Su Yú's Qi Sea was roughly the size of her own fist, stored inside her body like a ball of gas, and it was quite magical. Su Yú had once secretly tested it: by channeling *qi* into her fist, a single punch could shatter a block of granite. At the time, she had smashed the stone table in the small courtyard into powder with one blow, leading Su Liangchen to think some bandits had broken into the estate. He had sent people to search for a long time without finding a single trace. Fortunately, aside from a stone table, nothing was lost, so they simply chalked it up to the stone table being of poor quality.
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Today was the day Su Yú officially began learning martial arts. Yan Feng was dressed in the exact same outfit from five years ago. Excluding the possibility that he never changed his clothes, it could only mean he had prepared several identical sets of this attire. Su Yú silently complained in her heart: *Well, truly worthy of being a "martial arts maniac"!*
In this martial arts training ground, aside from Su Ling'er and another maid serving nearby, only Yan Feng and Su Yú remained. Since Su Liangchen and Li Qingping had decided to entrust Su Yú to Yan Feng's care, they trusted him completely. No matter how arduous Su Yú's martial arts training process might be, they would not arbitrarily intervene out of a "pangs of heartbreak" for their daughter.
"Yú'ér, today is your very first day learning martial arts. Before we officially begin, you have one last chance to back out. If you make up your mind, you mustn't cry from fear of hardship and exhaustion, or you will be punished. Have you—thought it through?" Yan Feng asked with a smile, looking at the calm Su Yú.