Volume 1, Chapter 9 – The Mission

Shi Lan carried the food box into the room and sat down at the desk.

The moment she opened the food box, a rich aroma rushed to her nose, instantly teasing her senses awake.

She hadn’t felt anything when she first got up, but the instant that fragrance hit her, Shi Lan felt the hunger in her stomach surge up all at once.

Inside the food box were two porcelain bowls, one large and one small. The larger one held a stewed game bird—what species exactly, Shi Lan couldn’t tell—while the smaller bowl contained a light green, thick soup.

Picking up the chopsticks at the side, Shi Lan couldn’t wait any longer. She picked up a piece of meat and put it into her mouth. The meat was tender and melted on her tongue, making it almost impossible to stop.

What’s more, every bone in the bird had been meticulously removed with exquisite knife work, so it was no trouble at all to eat.

As she wolfed the food down, Shi Lan asked the system in her heart about the reason for that stab of pain just now.

【Due to the host overtaxing her physical strength, the muscles contracted too forcefully, causing vascular spasms. A certain part of the host’s body then experienced anemia and hypoxia, which in turn triggered pain.】

“Can you put that in plain language? I don’t really get it.” Shi Lan couldn’t quite make sense of it.

【Menstrual cramps.】

Shi Lan’s face darkened. Her chopsticks paused mid-air. She stopped talking and silently focused on eating the medicinal meal.

There were some things about women’s physiology that Shi Lan didn’t really understand. Doing intense exercise during one’s period made it very easy to induce cramps—let alone what she had just done, which was far more extreme than mere intense exercise.

Shi Lan didn’t leave a drop of broth from that bowl of game bird; she drank it to the last. The other bowl of thick soup also ended up completely in her stomach.

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Once the medicinal food settled, Shi Lan felt heat spreading through her entire body. Her essence and qi felt full, as if she had endless strength to use.

After eating and drinking her fill, Shi Lan glanced at the sky. Noon had just passed; it was only early afternoon.

It was still early. Shi Lan wanted to run through the Vajra Divine Fist one more time, but she already had a bit of psychological shadow from that earlier pain. She couldn’t help but ask silently, “System, can that pain… that pain from just now be avoided?”

【Aside from giving up cultivation, there are three ways to avoid it.】

【First: Block the Shuidao and Guanyuan acupoints to sever two meridians. That will calm things down, but it will cause the internal flow of qi to go awry and hinder cultivation.】

【Second: After finishing your fist practice, find a martial artist at or above the Innate Realm to use their true qi to help regulate the host’s internal breath and move the blood through the meridians.】

【Third: Once your cultivation reaches the Innate Realm, the qi within your body will circulate on its own, under your control. At that point, there will be no further need for your period to regulate your body.】

Shi Lan let out a small, headache-laden sigh. None of the suggestions the system offered suited her, yet she had no choice but to practice this fist art. The system had only given her three days in total, and most of the first day was already gone.

After thinking it over for a while, Shi Lan still grit her teeth and walked out of the room. As long as she paid a bit more attention and didn’t drain herself like before, there shouldn’t be any major problem.

Shi Lan had just taken her stance and hadn’t even started throwing punches when the All-Heavens Samsara System panel she’d shoved to the back of her mind suddenly popped open, the mission tab flashing rapidly.

“Mission issued: Current world data insufficient. Explore current map, ‘Tenglong City’. Time limit: three shichen. Mission reward: increase your cultivation by one stage. Mission failure: no penalty.”

Shi Lan froze for a moment, then immediately withdrew her stance without the slightest hesitation and headed toward the main gate of the Shi Residence.

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If a mission could solve the problem, why苦 herself with hard training? Laziness is human nature.

……

“You’re saying Aran has started practicing the martial path?” Shi Tianlu asked, looking puzzled.

“Yes. And the fist technique the Young Miss is practicing has a hint of the Zen sect’s style to it.” Shi Feng also looked somewhat baffled. In the past, Shi Lan had shown not the slightest interest in the martial path, even going out of her way to avoid it.

“Zen…” Shi Tianlu’s expression grew thoughtful as he sank into contemplation.

“This subordinate examined the Young Miss’s pulse today and discovered that her talent and physique far exceed those of ordinary people. Calling her a genius would not be an exaggeration.”

Shi Tianlu shook his head and sighed. “With Aran’s soft temperament, no matter how high her talent, she’ll never amount to much. And now Aran is already nearly twenty. Starting the martial path at this age… she’s already missed the best time. It’s too late.”

Shi Feng opened his mouth, but in the end he fell silent. He had served as Shi Lan’s shadow guard for five years now. When it came to Shi Lan’s disposition, he knew it like the back of his hand.

To walk far on the martial path, the most essential quality was a tenacious heart. In this regard, Shi Lan absolutely did not measure up.

Silence fell over the study.

Knock, knock…

A series of knocks broke the stillness.

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“Come in.”

A servant pushed the door open, cupped his hands, and said, “Family Head, the Eldest Young Master wishes to leave the residence.”

Shi Tianlu waved a hand. “Arrange the escort team as usual.”

“Family Head, this subordinate would like to accompany the Eldest Young Master out of the residence,” Shi Feng said from the side.

Shi Tianlu paused for a moment, then quickly understood what Shi Feng meant. Pointing at the servant, he said, “Then go with him. Have him assigned into the escort team.”

……

Shi Lan had originally planned to go out alone, but the guards at the gate refused to budge, insisting they had to wait until the escort team arrived.

After waiting at the main gate of the Shi Residence for nearly a quarter of an hour, Shi Lan finally saw her escort team.

There were eight in total. Seven of them were burly men with sturdy builds, all with various weapons hanging at their waists. The last one was a delicate-looking young man who seemed completely out of place among that group of big fellows.

Shi Lan didn’t think too much of it. She simply waved her hand to signal the escort team to follow, then lifted her leg high and, with some effort, stepped over the several-foot-high threshold, striding out of the Shi Residence with barely contained eagerness.

Not long after Shi Lan and her group left, Zique came out holding a parasol, following them from a distance.

Tenglong City stretched for several dozen li in every direction. Not exactly huge, but not small either; to walk the whole city would take quite a bit of time.

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It was already the fifth month of the year, and the sun had grown rather vicious. They had barely left the Shi Residence when the blazing sun above made a thin sheen of sweat appear on Shi Lan’s skin.

Shi Lan raised her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her forehead and looked around. Just as she was thinking of finding a place to sit and rest, her vision suddenly dimmed. She looked up to see a parasol already shading her head.

The slightly out-of-place young man was standing beside her, hand on the parasol handle.

“Y-Young Master, it’s very hot. Be careful not to get sunburned.”

The young man seemed nervous. After handing the parasol to Shi Lan, he withdrew once more to the back of the group.

With the parasol, Shi Lan felt much more comfortable. Before she knew it, half a shichen had passed, and they had already covered nearly half of Tenglong City.

Along the way, Shi Lan noticed something that puzzled her. Every commoner they passed looked at her with fear in their eyes—and with a faint trace of disgust.

The fear she could understand. After all, she was the legitimate eldest son of the Shi family; in Tenglong City, her status was anything but ordinary.

But where did that disgust come from?

From the memories she had, the original Shi Lan hadn’t done anything especially arrogant or tyrannical, hadn’t bullied the common folk.

So why had she earned those kinds of looks?