Cultivating Immortality by Raising a Cat (GL) Chapter 52

When her father nodded and agreed to take her along on this trading trip, A-Bai could not even describe the joy that burst open in her heart. It overflowed so much it almost spilled out into the air along every strand of rabbit fur.
She was so happy that even if she had to eat flatbread rolls with dried vegetables and smoked meat every day, she felt she could accept it.
Her father said that since he was taking A-Bai along this time, they would be going farther away. They would be out much longer than his usual one or two months. They might return in three to five months, or they might not come home for a year or more.
So before leaving, A-Bai carried flatbread, dried vegetables, and smoked meat, and very seriously said goodbye to every rabbit family whose meals she had mooched from.
If she could help on this trading trip, she would definitely bring back something besides flatbread, dried vegetables, and smoked meat!
That was what A-Bai thought.
But A-Bai never imagined that after leaving, her short goodbye would almost become forever. Forget bringing back other tasty things. She almost failed to bring herself back.
Outside the livable valley was endless ice and snow.
Her father was as silent as he had been at home. Even though the journey was long and only the two rabbits were traveling together, he still spoke pitifully little. Most of the time, when he opened his mouth, it was only to warn A-Bai about something, or to answer one or two of the many questions asked by this country-bumpkin rabbit.
Even so, her father’s coldness did not lessen A-Bai’s excitement.
The ones living in the valley were all ordinary rabbit demons. Rabbit demons with spiritual roots, who could cultivate, had all gone out to practice and rarely came back. Anyway, up to that point, A-Bai had only seen two cultivator rabbits at the time of her birth. Oh, if her father counted, then three.
Back then, those two cultivator rabbits had thawed A-Bai and her father out of the ice-sealed house, then left the next day. At that time, A-Bai had just been born and received her inheritance. She also had to face the loss of her mother. Her whole rabbit self had been confused and lost, so her memory of the cultivator rabbits’ immortal methods was only a blur. In short, she remembered no details, but felt they must have been very amazing.
During those two years, A-Bai had asked her father about cultivator rabbits before. But her father always lacked interest and answered maybe one question out of ten. What he said was even less than what A-Bai learned from the other rabbit demons in the village.
This time was different.
As soon as they left the valley, her father made a large transparent leaf appear out of thin air. He held the little basket carrying A-Bai and stepped onto the leaf, flying straight into the air.
A-Bai had not even had time to marvel at the first flight of her rabbit life when the sharp cold wind, mixed with frost, gave her a heavy blow straight to the face.
Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbits of Great Snow Mountain were born with cold resistance in their bloodline talent. But for A-Bai, that only meant she could endure the normal cold of the valley where she had lived. Now that they had gone up into the sky and sped up, the instant the cold wind struck her, A-Bai felt as if she had been hit by countless tiny hidden weapons. She was cold and in pain. Her whole rabbit body was about to freeze stiff.
Even though A-Bai quickly pulled her head back and buried herself inside the basket, the basket let wind in from all sides and was completely useless. A bone-deep chill slowly seeped in through her fur. Even her organs began to freeze.
Was this… normal?
A-Bai lifted her head and looked at her father, who was holding the basket.
He was staring ahead, standing steadily on the leaf, his expression calm and cold as always.
It was probably… normal, right?
A-Bai tried hard to curl herself even tighter inside the basket. She deeply regretted not bringing the little quilt from home.
Her little quilt. Her little stove. Scalding hot water.
A-Bai used all her strength to hug herself and tried her hardest to think of every warm thing that had ever appeared in her life. Reality, however, still covered her rabbit fur in frost and made her start losing control of her limbs.
“So… cold…”
Already frozen dizzy and confused, A-Bai could no longer think about whether this was normal, or whether she was too weak. Almost by survival instinct, she climbed onto the edge of the basket, stiffly reached out a front paw, and placed it on the back of her father’s hand. Trembling, she used her last breath of warmth to say how she felt.
This was the first time A-Bai had ever been this close to her father. It was also the first time she had ever touched him. But she had no time to feel happy that her father did not slap away her little paw. Nor could she feel the warmth that belonged to him under her already numb paw.
She felt she was about to freeze to death. As a cold-resistant Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbit of Great Snow Mountain, she was about to freeze to death.
When the father before her lowered his head, A-Bai’s blurred eyes could no longer see his expression. A kind of fear, a fear long pressed down in the bottom of her heart, slowly rose inside her. She was about to freeze to death. That fear did not seem so important anymore.
Of course, A-Bai did not freeze to death.
For a little while, it seemed her mind froze into pure blankness. Then, bit by bit, she began to regain awareness.
A-Bai suddenly discovered that although her body was still very cold, the cold wind outside, the kind that could almost knock an entire small rabbit head over heels, seemed to have stopped.
No, it had not stopped.
A-Bai moved her still-stiff body and carefully peeked over the edge of the basket. They were still flying through the air. The wind was still strong, and the tiny ice crystals were still dense. But when A-Bai reached out a paw and watched carefully, she saw the tiny ice grains carried by the wind suddenly change direction just before touching the tip of her claw. They slid off another way, as if she had put on an invisible claw cover that snow and ice could not stick to.
Soon, as the chill inside her slowly faded, A-Bai realized it was not only her paw. Her whole rabbit body seemed to be covered by a transparent shield. The wind and frost that had nearly frozen her to death could no longer invade her at all.
Was it Father?
A-Bai poked out of the basket and looked at her father with worshipful eyes. Having escaped death, she temporarily forgot how hard her father had always been to approach and asked about this strange thing almost without stopping.
When her father told her in a very plain tone that he had only stuck one of Great Snow Mountain’s most common wind-repelling and cold-resisting talismans on her back, A-Bai’s worship of cultivator rabbits rose to a level it had never reached before.
Just one thin sheet of paper was enough to save a rabbit life. It was simply too amazing.
During the rest of the journey, A-Bai asked her father all kinds of strange questions about cultivator rabbits with a passion she had never had before.
This time, although her father was still mostly listening and rarely answering, it was at least much better than when he had almost never spoken of these things in the valley.
After several days of being bombarded by countless questions, A-Bai finally gained a little useful information from her father’s answers and from her own experience.
For example, in Great Snow Mountain, there were many livable places like the valley where she had lived before. But there were even more places colder than those livable areas. The cold that even Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbits could not bear was probably colder than the wind that had struck A-Bai when she first flew into the sky.
However, that kind of cold was only dangerous to humans and demons who had no spiritual roots and could not cultivate.
Whether human or demon, as long as one had spiritual roots, after drawing spiritual energy into the body and entering the first level of Qi Refining, one could control spiritual energy to circulate inside the body and warm the blood. One could also learn to wrap the body in spiritual energy to resist cold. That was enough to let them live in most parts of Great Snow Mountain.
As for the humans and demons without spiritual roots who lived on Great Snow Mountain, the ones with weaker cold resistance could only live in the warmer outer areas. A-Bai’s old valley already counted as a place only those with stronger cold resistance could live in. But if they wanted to leave a livable area and go elsewhere, they needed a cultivator with them, or they had to bring magic artifacts that could repel wind and resist cold with only spirit stones, or talismans that could be opened and stuck on for use.
The one her father had stuck on A-Bai was a wind-controlling and cold-repelling talisman that could last twelve double-hours. It was something humans and demons without spiritual roots often used when traveling outside in Great Snow Mountain.
A magic artifact that could be used for a long time as long as spirit stones were added was naturally more convenient than a talisman that only lasted a set time. But compared with the value of spirit stones and these simple talismans, more people naturally chose talismans.
And so A-Bai became a rabbit with a talisman stuck to her back. Fortunately, once the talisman was stuck on, only A-Bai herself could see it. Otherwise, with her tiny size, if she walked on the ground, others would probably think she was an automatically walking talisman.
After leaving the valley, they flew for about seven or eight days. Just when A-Bai was so tired of looking at the forever-white land and the sky full of wind and snow that she nearly wanted to vomit, her father finally brought her down.
There were no people.
There were no demons.
The wind was strong and the snow was heavy. But her father said this place produced a small fruit that was ice-blue, almost transparent, sweet, and slightly sour. As the main ingredient, it could be brewed into a wine that suppressed heart fire for cultivators who had suffered cultivation deviation. Because the yield was low and the profit high, her father always stopped to search for a few days whenever he passed by.
A-Bai was eager to try after hearing him. She did not understand what cultivation deviation meant, but an ice-blue little fruit that tasted sweet and slightly sour sounded delicious. After eating cold dried flatbread rolls with cold dried vegetables and dried meat for several days, A-Bai felt that such tasty fruit absolutely had to be found.
Even when her father found a cave out of the wind, used a talisman to light a pile of spiritual fire, and cooked their first hot meal in seven or eight days, a soup with meat, vegetables, and flatbread, A-Bai still drank the hot soup while thinking constantly about the legendary little fruits.
Over the next few days, A-Bai followed her father around searching for them.
The fruits grew on low plants and were easily covered by the ice and snow flying through the sky. So her father often had to bend down and use his hands to brush aside loose snow from suspicious spots. In that situation, it was not convenient to keep holding the basket.
A-Bai, with a talisman stuck to her back, very considerately said she could walk on the ground by herself. When her father neatly put away the basket, A-Bai still felt a little disappointed.
But very quickly, her attention focused on finding those tasty little fruits.
A-Bai began learning from her father, carefully observing plants covered by thin snow. At first, A-Bai did not dare put all her energy into searching. After all, the wind and snow in this area were especially strong and seemed as if they would never stop. She could barely see within ten meters. Anything farther away was already a white blur.
After searching for a few days, however, A-Bai discovered that every time she looked toward her father, she could always see him nearby. As time passed, that faint tension in her heart slowly relaxed. Once, when she used her height advantage and buried her head in a low shrub for a long time to search for fruit, then crawled out and saw her father standing outside the shrub, that tension finally scattered.
They searched for many days without seeing any trace of the fruit. One morning, her father finally said that they would search for one more day. Whether they found it or not, they should continue onward afterward. Hearing this, A-Bai felt a little discouraged. After so many days hopping around in the wild, she was also reaching her limit.
There was only one day left anyway. They had not found anything after so many days. What kind of surprise could one day bring?
Thinking this, A-Bai no longer worked as hard as usual while searching.
And accidents always began with carelessness.
That afternoon, A-Bai, who had already stopped hoping to find the fruit, wandered casually around a clump of low shrubs. From time to time, she raised a little paw and patted snow off the branches.
Unexpectedly, as she was patting snow, she glanced deep into the shrub while walking and saw a flash of blue pass before her eyes.
A-Bai, who had been absent-minded a moment earlier, quickly backed up several steps. Perhaps because of the angle, she could no longer see that hint of blue. Growing anxious, A-Bai shoved her whole rabbit head into the shrub. But very soon, she backed out again, turned to look at her father, and saw that he was very close to her. Only then did she burrow back in.
If she found the fruit all by herself, Father… should be very happy, right? Would he smile at her? Like the fat rabbit father next door at Wang Ermao’s house, who always turned into a big fat rabbit with a bang and played long jump with Wang Ermao, smiling so cheerfully…
No, her own father did not look fat at all. Even if he turned into a rabbit, he probably would not be a big fat rabbit.
Tiny A-Bai climbed through the shrub while nervously thinking all sorts of things. Her little paws pulled hard at the branches, and even her three-part mouth pressed tightly together from the effort.
Perhaps because she was too nervous, little A-Bai kept feeling that this shrub was especially large, especially deep, and especially dense. The talisman on her back only protected her from wind and cold, not scratches from branches. The farther A-Bai went in, the harder the path became. She could only squeeze through uneven gaps with little wooden thorns. Her white fur became dirty, and some places on her body began to hurt from rubbing. Even so, A-Bai never thought of retreating even half a step.
So far. So hard. A-Bai began to suspect the flash of blue had only been her imagination. She had already gone so far in and still had not seen the fruit. No matter how she looked at it, she did not seem like a rabbit whose eyesight could reach this far.
Just then, A-Bai smelled it.
A refreshing, cool fragrance mixed with a little sweetness. After only two deep breaths, her whole rabbit body felt as if clear water had been poured over her head. Her earlier confusion and tiredness vanished.
Unconsciously, A-Bai followed that tempting scent and burrowed forward.
She passed beneath clump after clump of shrubs, chasing that wonderful fragrance. After one fierce push, A-Bai suddenly felt her body lighten. She had actually burrowed out of the thicket.
Before her was a whole cliff face covered in ice and snow.
And in front of the cliff, on the ground surrounded by that large patch of shrubs, dozens of even shorter plants were covered in clusters of small ice-blue fruits.
Unable to believe it, A-Bai raised a paw to rub her eyes. When she saw the muddy water on her paw, she put it back down.
This time, Father should be happy! Even if he did not turn into a rabbit, they could still play long jump together!
A-Bai hurried forward. But unexpectedly, the little plants bearing ice-blue fruits, which had been quietly clustered together a moment ago, also began to move.
Their roots pulled out of the soil. Carrying their blue fruits, the little plants scattered in every direction.
A-Bai had never seen anything so amazing. Shouldn’t plants properly stay in the ground and wait for her to pick them?
Although A-Bai came back to herself very quickly, by the time she pounced over, she only barely pinned down two plants.
Two out of more than ten.
Seeing the other plants already vanish without a trace, A-Bai worked hard to hold down the two plants wriggling under her. Only after a long while did she stretch out trembling little paws, quickly pluck the two fruits, hug them, and jump far away.
Fortunately, after the two plants lost their fruits, they climbed up and ran far away. They did not come back to snatch the fruits.
The little rabbit trembling off to the side from lingering fear no longer cared that there was muddy water on her paws. She wiped away sweat in a shaky way and finally let out a breath. Just now, she had almost been overturned by two blades of grass. In the future, she really had to eat more. She had no weight advantage at all.
As expected, fruits eaten by cultivators were truly special.
A-Bai stood upright and carefully held the two ice-blue fruits in her front paws, turning to head back.
Then the whole little rabbit froze in shock.
As far as she could see, there was a vast, endless sea of shrubs covered in ice and snow. Here and there, a few tall trees stood among them.
Had she… gone this far?
She could… still go back, right?
Uh… had she come here in a straight line?
The road in had been exciting and hard. The road back was nervous and helpless.
When A-Bai spent twice as long returning and still had not walked out of the low shrubs, she looked at the snow flying through the sky and the shrubs visible in every direction, then sat down on the ground with a plop.
The fruits in her arms gave off a sweet fragrance that lingered near her nose. A-Bai sat quietly for a while, and her heart was not as panicked anymore.
A-Bai did not know whether her father could find her in such terrible weather. If she were a little red rabbit, then if her father flew into the sky, he would see her right away, wouldn’t he?
That faint fear which had appeared before slowly rose in her heart again. A-Bai quickly lowered her head and deeply breathed in the fruit’s fragrance twice.
Although most of the falling snow had piled on top of the shrubs, there was still a layer of snow underneath on the ground. Wherever one passed, traces would remain. After surviving her first panic, the little white rabbit quickly adjusted her mood and seriously looked for marks around her that were different from the rest. Searching carefully, walking carefully, she slowly and successfully returned to the open ground by the cliff where she had first found the ice-blue fruits.
This was a successful beginning.
A-Bai glanced at the sky. The wind and snow were too heavy, so she could not see the sun. But the light around her was clearly much dimmer than when she had first arrived. She had to hurry. If she still had not left this patch of shrubs by the time it got dark, things would be bad.
Success could be copied. If there was a first time, there could be a second.
When A-Bai finally emerged from the shrubs again and, in the dim light, recognized the tree not far away as the one that had been beside her father before she entered the shrubs to search for fruit, her nose almost stung from excitement.
In truth, when the little rabbit finally ran back with the fruits after countless hardships, only to discover that she had returned to the tree but not her father, she really could not help crying with a loud wail.
And so, the little rabbit’s task for the day changed from finding fruit, to finding the road back, and finally to crying while looking for her father.
Unlike inside the low shrubs, where traces could be found, outside the wind and snow were too strong and there was no shelter. The traces of the path she and her father had taken here, and even the signs of where her father had gone, were all covered by heavy snow. Not a clue could be found.
Everything around her was white. A-Bai completely did not remember the road they had taken that day, nor did she remember which direction held the cave where they had rested these past few days.
Seeing the sky grow darker bit by bit, the only thing she could do was crouch at the edge of the low shrubs where she had last seen her father and place the two little ice-blue fruits on top of her head.
Hopefully, that bit of blue would let her father see her when he searched.
A-Bai, exhausted from the whole day, thought this, and before she knew it, she fell asleep.
A-Bai was woken by freezing cold.
That sudden cold was even fiercer and more overbearing than what she had felt the first time she flew into the sky. Unlike the previous cold, which had started at her fur and slowly invaded inward, this time it froze straight into her bones from the very start. A-Bai could clearly feel that she had woken because her bones hurt from freezing.
Only a few breaths after feeling cold, A-Bai figured out that she had fallen asleep and been covered by snow. Before she could even dig herself out, she felt she was already about to freeze to death.
As a Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbit of Great Snow Mountain, A-Bai truly did not know how she was lucky enough to nearly freeze to death twice within a few days.
A-Bai endured the pain that almost felt as if her bones were being frozen apart. From the thin string around her neck, she anxiously but carefully pulled down a rolled paper charm, opened it, and slapped it onto her belly.
In an instant, the invading cold scattered.
Although her body was still cold and her bones still hurt, at least the rabbit would not freeze to death.
Before she could suffocate under the snow, A-Bai bravely crawled out with her little fruits.
White everywhere. White everywhere.
No father.
A-Bai touched her neck. There was one unopened paper roll left.
These two rolled talismans were ones A-Bai had asked her father for to play with after she first flew into the sky and nearly froze from the wind. She had been curious about talismans, but could not see her own back. Because she did not have a storage bag like her father, A-Bai could only tie the two paper rolls together with a thin string and hang them around her neck to play with.
Now, she truly had to thank that playful habit for saving her life.
Judging by how overbearing the cold had been just now, this area should belong to the sort her father had mentioned, a place where humans and demons who had not reached the first level of Qi Refining could not come without protection.
There were not many choices left before A-Bai now. She only had two paper rolls in total. That meant that in the next two days, if she could not find her father and did not meet any other person or demon, she would probably become a frozen-dead Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbit.
A-Bai did not know whether she should hate the two fruits in her arms or be grateful to them. If not for them, she would not have become separated from her father and fallen into such a life-or-death situation. But at the same time, if not for their scent steadying her heart, she probably would not have had the extra strength to calmly seek a chance of survival in danger.
At that time, A-Bai still did not understand how fortune and misfortune depended on each other. She only knew everything had changed too suddenly. If possible, please let her go back to the village and continue being a rabbit who was still hungry after mooching meals from four families.
One night had already passed. With only two days left, A-Bai did not want to keep placing hope on empty waiting.
Maybe, if she kept walking, she would meet her father, or some other person or demon. Maybe, if she kept walking, she could leave this extreme cold region. As long as she reached a place that was only normally cold, she, as a cold-resistant Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbit, could survive.
The little rabbit with two fruits on her head thought this as she listened to her stomach rumble and swallowed her saliva.
A-Bai remembered that over these days, the talisman on her body had always been placed on her in the early morning. In other words, when she woke from freezing today, it should have been early morning too. If she could not find a path to life, then the morning after tomorrow would be the day of her death.
Every side was white. The wind was strong and the snow was heavy. She could not see clearly. A-Bai randomly chose a direction and walked straight onward.
This walk lasted from early morning until afternoon.
Of course, A-Bai could not tell time by looking at the sky. This “afternoon” was judged from how hungry her stomach felt.
Thinking about it now, dried flatbread, dried vegetables, and dried meat… really had nothing wrong with them.
Of course, if they did not have to be eaten dry and could be boiled instead, that would be even better.
Light a warm little fire, boil a big pot of hot water, put in the dried vegetables and dried meat first to make soup, then once the soup had flavor, tear up big pieces of dried flatbread and toss them in.
Plop. Toss in one piece.
Plop. Toss in another piece.
Plop. Toss in one more.
Plop, plop… keep going…
No, as a rabbit who would eat the flatbread in order and would not let any piece soak too long and turn mushy, she would never throw two pieces into the pot in a row.
Those two plops just now did not seem to be sounds from her imagination.
Was it another person or demon?
A-Bai, still carrying the fruits on her head, brightened and stopped, looking left and right.
With that look, she saw a bit of bright color between heaven and earth behind her to the right. It was so green, so green, like the little cabbage planted by crooked old Rabbit at the east end of the village. It looked very tasty.
But this color was so fresh and tender. Had she not seen it when she passed by just now? It seemed she was truly too hungry. She had gotten lost in imagining a pot of dried vegetable and dried meat soup.
A-Bai ran quickly toward that patch of green. When she got closer and saw it clearly, her heart filled with disappointment.
The green thing was a small cloth bundle about half the size of her body. Beside it was a small white cloth bundle. The two bundles together were pressing down on a small earth-yellow cloth bundle.
Where was the cabbage she had been promised?
A-Bai wiped the corner of her mouth.
But these cloth bundles had not been covered by snow yet. Did that mean the person who left them had just passed through? Speaking of which, what exactly were these bundles?
No matter what they were, they could not be worse than herself, who had less than two days left to live.
Thinking this, A-Bai hesitantly reached a paw toward the bundles.
Before her paw could touch them, the bundles suddenly bulged from underneath, and a fluffy white paw stretched out.
A-Bai looked at her own paw, already gray and muddy, then awkwardly and stiffly pulled it back.
But that white paw with pink pads had only just poked out from the cloth bags when it stopped moving. In a stiff pose, it slowly rested on top of the bundle.
A-Bai looked closely and saw frost instantly cover the fur on the white paw. The symptoms were exactly the same as when her previous day’s talisman had failed that morning. A-Bai no longer cared that her paw was not as white as someone else’s. She rushed over, yanked away the cloth bundles in a few quick moves, and revealed the thing lying in the snow hollow underneath.
A snow-white… nearly frozen furball.
Oh, not snow-white. On the top of its head and the tip of its tail, there was a small patch of black and orange markings.
A-Bai had no time to investigate why this furball’s ears were pointed and why its tail was so long. Because the one looking at her with damp little eyes, trembling so hard it could not say a word, seemed about to freeze to death.
A-Bai had far too much experience with the look and feeling of being close to freezing to death, with that pain and despair.
A-Bai did not know what she was thinking. She did not know whether it was empathy, pity, or something else. By the time she came back to herself, she had already opened the last paper roll on her neck and slapped it onto the furball’s back.
Watching the white frost on the furball gradually fade, A-Bai let out a breath. She knew she had not been impulsive. After all, the little fruits that could calm a rabbit’s heart were still in her arms.
When the furball slowly stood up and shook its fur, A-Bai felt, Good, it was saved. She just did not know how long it could live. Calculating it, it could probably live about two double-hours longer than her.
The strange little furball had short, pointed ears and a long tail.
Hugging the fruits, A-Bai resisted the urge to reach out and touch her own tail.
Its mouth was so small too.
A-Bai looked at the clean little furball in front of her. Although it looked a little strange, it was not ugly. It was probably… some other demon species?
The two furballs looked at each other for a long time. The air was quiet.
“Hello…” A-Bai was the first to release goodwill.
The strange furball before her tilted its head. Only after a long while did its small, faintly pink mouth move. Its voice was weak and soft. “Hello… You are…?”
“I am Le Siji, a Phantom Silver-Haired Rabbit of Great Snow Mountain in the Northern Territory. You can call me A-Bai.” A-Bai unconsciously lowered her own voice too. “May I ask who you are?”
“I am?” The strange furball lowered its head and looked at its paw. “I am…?”
A-Bai had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, after struggling for a long time, the strange furball lifted its head again, still completely lost. “Hello, A-Bai. Do you know who I am? Where is this? Why am I here? Do you know me? Why was it so cold just now? Why is it suddenly not cold anymore? Did you help me?”
A-Bai: “…”
She suddenly somewhat understood why her father had always stayed silent for so long when she asked questions.
After A-Bai explained where this place was, why she was here, the reason for the cold and the lack of cold, and the process by which she had found the strange furball, the furball thought for a moment, then began flipping through the three little cloth bundles on the ground.
Inside the earth-yellow bundle was a thin booklet.
“You said just now that after drawing spiritual energy into the body, one can resist the cold, right?” The strange furball picked up the booklet and looked at it, then passed it to A-Bai.
A-Bai took the booklet with trembling paws. After confirming that this was a book teaching the method and posture for drawing spiritual energy into the body, as well as the basic cultivation methods of the Qi Refining stage, tears streamed down her face.
“Why are you crying? If drawing spiritual energy into the body means we do not have to die, isn’t that good? You learn first. After you finish reading, I will read it.” The strange furball had a strange calmness.
“Did I not tell you just now? Demon race members have to wait until they are ten before they can test their spiritual roots and begin cultivating. I do not even know whether I have spiritual roots, all right? Also, I am not even three yet!” A-Bai pressed one paw on the booklet, truly heartbroken. “But speaking of which, didn’t you forget everything and know nothing? Why can you read?”
“I do not know. I recognize the words when I see them.” The strange furball spun once in front of A-Bai. “I feel like I am about the same age as you. Do you think I am three?”
“Why is the main point on being three? Also, a demon’s age is not decided by body size, all right? Besides, I heard the village people say that the cultivator rabbits who came home to visit relatives said drawing spiritual energy into the body takes several months. We only have one day left.” A-Bai lifted her head and looked at the sky. “Fine. Less than one day.”
The strange furball began untying knots. As it worked, it seemed uncomfortable and twisted its neck. From the fur in front of its neck, it pulled out a small black metal disk about half the size of a paw.
“Is this… mine?”
“…Could it be mine?” A-Bai was a little speechless.
“So… my surname is Yuan?” The strange furball showed A-Bai the character on the metal disk.
“Yuan what?” There was only one character, Yuan, on the front of the disk. A-Bai moved closer and looked at the back. The back had strange patterns, but no name.
The strange furball shook its head blankly again and untied the white cloth bag. “Inside this bag…”
“What?” A-Bai leaned over.
“Can you wear it?” The strange furball shook a set of clothes and skirt out of the white cloth bag.
“No…” A-Bai looked at the last cloth bundle. “Although I do not know where these came from, the fact that one of them only holds clothes neither of us can wear is too hurtful to a rabbit!”
The strange furball did not join A-Bai’s complaint. Its little paws with pink pads quickly untied the last cloth bundle.
Inside the green cloth bundle, there was only a small bottle as long as one of A-Bai’s legs, filled with pale green liquid.
“Drink it, and draw spiritual energy into the body.” The strange furball read the little paper slip stuck on the bottle in a steady tone.
A-Bai stared in shock at the paper slip the strange furball turned around to show her. “Am I actually already about to freeze to death and having hallucinations? Something that gives us exactly what we need should not be happening to an ordinary rabbit like me!”
“Here.” The strange furball placed the bottle in front of A-Bai without the slightest reluctance. “I do not remember anything anyway. You drink it.”
“…” A-Bai did not move her paw. “Although you do not remember, these things should all be yours. I said just now, after one day…”
“I know. Your talisman only works for twelve double-hours.” The strange furball looked serious. “Thank you for saving me. This is for you to drink. But I think we do not know whether this works, or whether other symptoms will appear. So you should wait until tomorrow, when the talisman on you is about to fail, before drinking it. If the choice is between freezing to death and drinking this, I think drinking it is safer.”
“So you know that if you do not drink it, you will freeze to death tomorrow, right?” A-Bai felt this furball seemed a little stupid.
“I know.” The furball looked at A-Bai as if looking at a fool. “Although I do not remember many things, I only lost my memory. It is not like there is something wrong with my ability to think.”
A-Bai still felt this strange furball was very stupid.
“No matter what, we should keep moving forward. Maybe we can meet other people or demons, or maybe we can leave this extreme cold region.” A-Bai still decided to follow her plan.
The strange furball agreed.
So A-Bai put the booklet and fruits into one cloth bag and tied it to herself. The strange furball tied the bag containing the bottle and clothes to itself. The two furballs continued in A-Bai’s original direction and started walking forward.
After only a few steps, A-Bai felt something was wrong.
After walking another short distance, A-Bai really could not hold back. She turned her head and asked, “Hey, you do not seem to be a rabbit. Why are you hopping along like me?”
“…” The strange furball kept doing serious rabbit hops while looking at A-Bai with confusion. “Does being a rabbit or not being a rabbit make a difference in how one walks?”
A-Bai: “…”
It just felt very strange to watch a creature that was not a rabbit hop along like this.
And so, the rabbit who did not recognize cats and the cat who had forgotten how to cat-walk stumbled onward together.
Perhaps the strange furball had brought luck. By evening, the two of them actually reached the cave where A-Bai and her father had rested over the past few days.
Of course, her father was not in the cave either.
As the sky grew dark, the two stopped their journey in that cave.
Before sleeping, A-Bai refused the liquid in the bottle again. She clearly stated that if someone had to drink it the next day, the strange furball would drink first. If it succeeded and there was extra left, she would lick the bottom of the bottle. A-Bai decided this and was determined to do exactly that the next day.
Then… the next day, when A-Bai was once again woken by freezing cold, she was kicked over by that strange furball and force-fed a big mouthful of the liquid from the bottle.
A-Bai did not know what drawing spiritual energy into the body was. But as soon as the liquid entered her stomach, she felt the air from every direction surge toward her. It was not cold air, but currents that made a rabbit feel extremely comfortable. Using the last bit of her strength, A-Bai raised a paw and refused the strange furball’s second attempt to pour more into her. Then she closed her eyes, fell to the ground, and began following the booklet she had studied the previous night, guiding those currents.
That bottle of liquid, which came from who knew where and contained who knew what…
With one mouthful, A-Bai successfully drew spiritual energy into her body.
Afterward, Yuan Zhaoyang also used one small mouthful to smoothly enter the first level of Qi Refining.
And in the bottle, there was only that small mouthful left. It had stayed there all the way until today.