Chapter 12: Another Perk

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Jiaoyue stared wide-eyed, reaching out toward the warm jade bed, but her hand grasped nothing—the warm jade bed had vanished. Indeed, it was an illusion. Relief settled in her heart. Who had taken her warm jade bed? As this thought crossed her mind, the warm jade bed reappeared before her eyes. Suddenly, Jiaoyue realized the bed was not within her spiritual perception. Though she could not cultivate and had no spiritual roots in her dantian, her mental strength was powerful; her spiritual sea existed. Could this be another blessing granted by Heaven? Filled with excitement, she summoned her mental strength to peer into her spiritual sea—there was nothing there. Where was the warm jade bed?

Jiaoyue racked her brain but could not understand what was happening. With a sigh of helplessness, she thought, “You’ve appeared; can’t you let me lie down for a while? Why disappear so quickly?” The moment the thought arose, her body stirred, and the scene shifted. At last, she lay on her warm jade bed as she had wished.

Jiaoyue paused, gazing at the familiar bed curtains and the comforting warmth beneath her. Had she returned to her past life? She reached out again to confirm—it was still her delicate baby hand. How then had she come back to her former bedroom, lying on her warm jade bed? As she tried to rise, she found her tiny body hovering. Wherever she thought, her body appeared in that part of the room. What was going on? Had she died and become a soul?

Fearfully, Jiaoyue pinched one of her small hands with the other. There was sensation, flesh and blood—she was not a soul form. She was not dead. Relieved, she fully took in the surroundings—they were unmistakably her own room, her bedroom, more familiar than anything. She controlled her body to the door and pushed it open.

Outside was a spacious courtyard typical of a quadrangle residence. One side was filled with her favorite flowers, a pavilion stood there, and just outside the pavilion hung a swing—her favorite place to linger. The other side was planted with vegetables she loved to eat.

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Jiaoyue continued flying forward—yes, she was flying through the courtyard in her tiny infant body. The sensation was magical; for a baby, it was true freedom. Her home lay in the town at the foot of the largest sect’s mountain. The backyard faced her shop, which sold all manner of items needed by cultivators for their practice.

Approaching the shop, she found it intact with all goods inside, but the street-facing door was shut tight and refused to open no matter how much she tried. Jiaoyue exhausted every method and finally accepted that she could only move about inside her house and courtyard.

She then checked the storeroom where her hundred-plus boxes of spirit stones were kept—still there. She missed her beloved mother deeply. Previously, she had clung tightly to those spirit stones and her warm jade bed, but now she would gladly trade them all just to be with her mother again. The moment the thought arose, she found herself beside her beloved mother.

Jiaoyue was overjoyed to have returned. Yet human nature was greedy—if she could stay by her mother’s side and still return to her past home to sleep on her warm jade bed, that would be even better. Instantly, she appeared on the warm jade bed.

Jiaoyue was stunned for a long moment before realization dawned. Trying multiple times back and forth, she joyfully confirmed that her past home had arrived with her via a portable spatial method as those cultivators described. Heaven had granted her yet another blessing.

Only then did Jiaoyue realize she had been using her mental strength for quite some time—and it was still available. She finally personally experienced the effect of cultivating mental strength before age five: the speed of improvement far exceeded even her own expectations despite preparation.

She was born at the hour of the dragon and had begun cultivation then. Now it was roughly the end of the hour of the monkey, beginning of the hour of the rooster. She had only cultivated for about five hours but achieved results surpassing what ten years of cultivation had brought in her past life, by an unimaginable multiple. And this effect lasted until age five.

This delightful revelation made Jiaoyue want to soar with joy.

Since she still had mental strength to use, she wanted to see what the Meng family was like. Closing her eyes, she released her mental power; her divine sense flew from her bedroom, surveying the entire courtyard below. Then she rose higher, and the whole of Lanzi Mountain lay within her view.

She also saw Hanmo Academy, where it was evening mealtime. The dining hall bustled with many people, likely numbering in the thousands. She clearly heard their discussions about her—mainly concerning how she was nearly killed shortly after birth by a poisonous wet nurse.

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Jiaoyue then looked toward the Meng family’s residence in the back mountains, where exquisite courtyards nestled among the trees, exuding comfort. She observed the fortune of Lanzi Mountain: a golden aura of destiny enveloped the entire mountain, interspersed with strands of green fortune energy.

The golden aura symbolized wealth and power, capable of consolidating financial energy and stabilizing the aura. The green represented vitality and health but also indicated a current crisis the Meng family needed to resolve. To overcome this crisis, they needed to strengthen their fortune. The mingling of green within the golden aura signified a major turning point for the Meng family—a pivotal moment foreshadowing their future fate.

Jiaoyue frowned. How could the Meng family’s fortune be like this?

Her mental power returned to Hanmo Academy. She wished to find the source of the problem and noticed a notice posted on the academy’s bulletin board. The calligraphy was unmistakably her grandfather’s own handwriting.

Reading its contents, Jiaoyue was stunned. This notice had been posted at her birth, stating that sixteen years later, on the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, the Meng family would transfer Lanzi Mountain to the emperor without compensation.

This place had been the Meng family’s ancestral home and clan land for centuries. Why would they give it to the emperor?

Clearly, the emperor coveted Lanzi Mountain, and her grandfather had delayed the transfer for sixteen years with his own birth as the condition.

Why did the royal family covet Lanzi Mountain? Though the fortunes here were good, there was no dragon’s aura. It was hard to understand why the imperial family would be so fixated on it.

Jiaoyue could not make sense of it. Using her mental sense, she located her grandfather, finding him together with six uncles and her father.

Such a gathering indicated a serious matter was being discussed. Thinking of the poisonous wet nurse, she wanted to know the outcome. She immediately controlled her mental power to fly toward her grandfather’s location.

Her grandfather’s courtyard was the largest in the entire Meng family residence and also the center of Lanzi Mountain’s fortune.

True to the scholarly tradition of the family, various kinds of bamboo grew in the courtyard. Around the room where her grandfather, uncles, and father sat was a vast patch of black bamboo.

From what she knew of the courtyard’s layout, this should be her grandfather’s study.

Sure enough, upon entering with her mental power, she saw her grandfather seated behind a desk. Her father and six uncles sat in a row of chairs to the side, with her father at the last seat.

Judging by the study’s size, this was also a place for her grandfather to entertain guests.

The Meng family head’s expression was grave as he said, “The innkeeper of Qingyun Inn has already fled, leaving no trace. Only one person could have managed this.”

Jiaoyue’s big eyes flickered. Indeed, they were talking about the poisonous wet nurse. The mastermind behind it was the innkeeper of Qingyun Inn? And they had escaped? Without a trace?