Chapter 69: Curing Zhao Mei
Inside the ring.
Zhao Mei wandered around aimlessly. As her only point of reference was the bed in the middle of nowhere, she could only go so far before she got lost.
In the vast space where only darkness was in sight, Zhao Mei would obviously not want to get lost.
However, she could not sit still either, as anxiousness would pervade her mind if she did.
Her mind was in a dilemma. She sat down on the bed as she massaged her forehead.
Zhao Mei gradually relaxed as she applied massaging techniques she knew onto herself. Her mind was cleared of worries, albeit temporarily.
As she relaxed further and further, she squinted her eyes, noticing that something was wrong.
W... What?!
The Earth energy in this place is so dense!
Zhao Mei was surprised. Instantly, her mind was focused on one thing, and one thing only: cultivate.
She closed her eyes and sat in a cross-legged position, inhaling and exhaling.
'"Inhale the energy, exhale the impurities," this is the basic foundation of any cultivation technique.
Even a six-year-old is taught the very same thing.
Every cultivation technique had its own little quirks and advantages, but if one were to compare all of them, they would have one similarity, and it is this.'
Zhao Mei's mind was full of unnecessary thoughts such as this.
Immersed in cultivation, all she could see with closed eyes was pitch black. Well, even if she opened them, all she would see would still be pitch black... Whatever!
As such, unknowingly, Zhao Mei had opened her eyes. With there being no difference between the two, combined with the fact that Zhao Mei had focused her mind on cultivation, she had not noticed that her eyes had opened on their own!
A blurry figure approached Zhao Mei slowly. He had a look of indifference, before suddenly clicking his tongue. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. To not cover yourself up all this time?"
"Hmm?" Zhao Mei had thought that the man who approached her was just one of her unnecessary thoughts since she had the belief that her eyes were currently closed.
She raised her head very carefully as she studied the man.
He was about the same age as her, only slightly older.
He had extremely handsome facial features, ones that looked a little familiar.
With slightly long hair that reached up to his back, he wore a white robe which exuded an aura of gracefulness.
Zhao Mei nodded her head approvingly. She was satisfied with the image that her head constructed for some reason.
"Hmm, and then...?" The man looked at her with tender eyes, speaking with a playful smile on his face.
The string of words Zhao Mei heard left her a bit confused. Why would my mind have such weird thoughts?
Suddenly, the man had torn her clothes off completely!
After that, the extremely handsome man had taken out clothes from his storage ring! Furthermore, it looked like the same storage ring Li Bai possessed.
The cracks on the ring were exactly identical to the one she saw on the child's finger.
She could never forget the image of the ring since she had engraved it on her mind when Li Bai took out the Sacred- no, Heavenly Cotton!
Zhao Mei examined the clothes. 'Hmm... they look really comfortable!'
Suddenly, the man put his hands behind her, and covered her bare skin with the clothes.
'Hmm? Wait... is this not a construct of my imagination?' Zhao Mei felt bewildered as she felt the clothes touch her back.
"Eh, what? No fair... Fine, I won't do it!" The man started to talking to someone she could not see. He had his eyes closed as he spoke.
'This man is peculiar... I can't see through his cultivation.' Zhao Mei thought as she tried to scan the other party of his level.
'This can only mean two things - one, he has absolutely no cultivation, or two, he is stronger than me!'
Even if the man was in the same cultivation level as her, First Level Godly Mark, she would sense something!
Similarly, even if someone had absolutely no talent, even if that someone has been crippled, she would still sense a faint trace of energy in his body.
The only believable option was that he was, at least, a level higher than her.
"But..." Zhao Mei had a hard time grasping the situation. After all, except if it was that case, it was pretty much impossible for one to reach the Godly Mark at such an early age.
The only reason that she could do it was because her body was special, not to mention the catch that came with being able to cultivate this fast! She would die at an early age of 20 as a price for absorbing this much Dark energy and tipping the balance.
And that specific exception was that one needed to be an extremely exceptional Marked Genius!
A Marked Genius would typically appear in about every fifty years, so the chances of one meeting one of those people by accident was almost zero.
Even for Marked Geniuses, reaching this realm of cultivation by the age of 19 would be hard!
Not to mention the fact that if one was an exceptional Marked Genius, they'd already be known by everybody in the country. Her mother and father would personally groom him, and she would definitely have seen him already, making him, at least, an acquaintance.
As such, she found it hard to believe that a stranger would suddenly be a Marked Genius!
'...So he is a construct of my imagination?' Zhao Mei came to a conclusion.
"...yeah, yeah, fine. You win." The man finished conversing and turned his attention to Zhao Mei, who was clearly contemplating something. Her eyes were closed as her expression would change from time to time, from one of realization to one of disbelief and from that to confusion and so on.
The man couldn't help but feel amused at the sight of her face. He let out a light chuckle.
Zhao Mei's thought process was disturbed as she heard the man suddenly laughing... Did she do something funny?
"Meimei," the man beckoned.
"Eh... huh?" Zhao Mei was startled as she heard her name come out from the man's mouth. 'How does he know my name?'
"You're probably wondering 'How does he know my name?' by now." The man said as he nodded.
"Wha- what?" Zhao Mei widened her eyes as she heard the other party's voice. 'Hmm... he must be the very clever type!'
"Well, yes, I am the clever type!" The man said with a teasing smile.
Suddenly, his expression changed as he said, "What do you mean, stop showing off? Eh, you could hear me while I was talking to, well, erm, you?"
As he finished speaking, he turned his head as slow as possible to look at Zhao Mei, who pricked her ears, listening attentively to what he was saying.
"Bah, don't talk then. I wouldn't have to respond if that was the case." The man said with a frustrated tone.
The man's expression changed yet again from one of frustration to worry. "What? I meant, just for this period of time, of course! Not forever!"
"Wait, don't leave!"
"What...?" As he said this, he let out a sigh of relief.
His expression returned to that of playfulness as he looked back at Zhao Mei.
"Okay, let"s get this over with." The man said as he walked towards Zhao Mei with both his arms stretched out.
He rolled up his sleeves while Zhao Mei was dazed.
She snapped out of it and saw the man walking closer to her with a casual expression on his face.
'He's... what is he doing?' Zhao Mei looked at the man.
The man took something out of his storage ring and showed it to Zhao Mei as he said, "See this? I think you already know what this is."
The item looked like a cloud with a stem that's as thin as a raindrop.
Zhao Mei widened her eyes as she saw the item in the man's hand. 'It's the Heavenly Cotton!"
After he spoke, he rolled his eyes and said, "Didn't I tell you to not talk? Ugh..."
Zhao Mei was clearly confused by what he was talking about. 'But I stayed silent throughout the whole conversation... It can't even be called a conversation!'
The man's fingers suddenly moved in an inexplicable manner. "I'm going to cure you now, so don't be scared."
Hearing the man's words, all Zhao Mei could do was widen her mouth in shock.
"I'm going to need to ask you to take your clothes off again." The man said as if it was a casual thing.
Zhao Mei hadn't recovered from the man's previus words yet, so as soon as his words reached her ear, she took her new clothes off in an instant.
"Oh. I didn't expect you agree so easily! I thought you were the type to be conservative, who knew you were an exhibitio- Hey! Hey, I was just kidding!" The man quickly retracted his words in a panic.
"Fine, I'll just do it!"
After he said that, the man tore the cotton in his hands in an abrupt manner. With this action, the overwhelming amount of Light energy could not be contained in its small stem anymore, and all of them started to leak!
Up to this point, Zhao Mei was watching absentmindedly as she still could not comprehend the man in front of her. Why would he suddenly cure her? What was his goal? And most important of all, who was he?
But as the man broke the stem of the Heavenly Cotton, Zhao Mei snapped out of it and hurriedly warned the man, "Close your eyes!"
The man responded, "Thanks for your concern." He then proceeded to not do anything she said.
His hands hovered around the source of the light - the cotton was on its brink to collapsing into dust particles at any second! It floated between the man's two hands, being suppressed by his energy.
"Huh?" Zhao Mei watched the scene in confusion. Why did the Light energy not disperse immediately? It was known that Light energy was the fastest dispersing energy among all of them, so how come the man was fast enough to contain it as soon as it leaked out?
Not to mention that, much like Dark energy, the Light energy was also overbearing and powerful! One needed a certain amount of strength to suppress even a small concentration of it.
That meant that the man had a high cultivation realm, at least, two levels higher than her!
This man was most likely at the Fourth Level Godly Mark? And she, who would pay a price for her fast cultivation, had only reached the First Level?
Thus, Zhao Mei came to the conclusion that the man had paid a price much more enormous than hers to achieve this kind of cultivation at his age.
While Zhao Mei had unnecessary thoughts running through her mind, the man started sweating bullets.
A sense of exhaustion pervaded through both his arms as he exerted all of his strength in just containing the overwhelming amount of Light energy!
He squinted his eyes. "This is much harder than I thought... Don't laugh at me!"
Eventually, the Light energy inside the small container that he made with his hands calmed down. Prior to this, the energy was swirling around aggresively, attempting to escape this invisible prison it was in.
The man let out a sigh of relief when he felt that the pressure coming from the energy wasn't that much anymore.
"Ahh, my Space energy is almost depleted..." The man shook his head as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead. Since the energy settled down, it didn' t require the man both his hands to contain.
He then pointed at Zhao Mei, saying, "Meimei, lay down on the bed."
Completely believing in the other party's prowess, Zhao Mei lied on the bed, full of hope that her body would be healed.
The scene was completely alluring. The beautiful Zhao Mei was not wearing anything to cover her chest, as she rested on the bed in an unintentionally seductive manner.
The man was slightly moved, before his face turned into one of frustration as he retorted, "No, no! Do you think I'm that kind of person? Why would you marry me in the first place..."
He shook his head as he walked towards the bed with the girl on it.
The man's fingers moved, controlling the stream of energy at his will.
In his control, the energy was like a ball of thread, unravelling as he separated it into different parts. At this point, the initial ball of Light energy now had a bunch of strings coming out of it.
The strings made their way towards seemingly random parts of Zhao Mei's body.
She watched the scene with great interest. With the man's precise control over the overbearing Light energy, who wouldn't?
As the strings entered her body, she expected to be pricked and stinged, only for her to feel pleasure as the energy made its way into her. She couldn't help but moan as her face became flushed.
Meanwhile, the Dark energy inside her body detected the Light energy and it began attacking.
The two energies could not overpower one another, ending up in a stalemate forever.
With the Dark and Light energies gradually balancing, Zhao Mei felt her body become lighter.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
SauceMaster64
SauceMaster64 I hope you enjoy this slightly longer than usual chapter after yet another long period of silence!
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