Chapter 28: Bi Ling’er

The dual thread settled slower than the "breakthrough" itself.

Lin Tian lay on the narrow bed with Su Qingxue still draped half over his chest, her breathing evening out against his skin in soft, uneven puffs, small unconscious waves of pure Yin, leaking from her that the Chaos Dual Core drank without any effort.

So I crossed one more minor realm, with Qingxue h! It’s a little improvement. She is sleeping too quietly, otherwise...uh

The "Mid Foundation" had finally been opened the right way denser qi, clearer meridians, the strain of the early stage wiped away as if someone had taken a mud-smeared lens and cleaned it.

He flexed his fingers once beneath the sheet.

The difference wasn’t much , no explosion, nothing short of that, Just more strength settled deeper into the bones, circulation that no longer caught at the joints, and when he pulled the dual-colored light down and locked it, it stayed down far easier than it had that morning.

Su Qingxue stirred, her cheek dragging lazily against his chest.

"Tian-ge your body feels different," she murmured, half-asleep, her voice muffled against him. "It’s like, like a little heavier and warmer."

A small breath escaped him,

"It’s Mid Foundation"

That made her lift her head, eyes still soft and unfocused from what they’d just done, the tips of her ears burning pink.

"So it’s from... that? right? It’s the result of that, really it’s too fast!" She blinked at him, her lashes fluttering.

"No it’s from you," he answered, his gaze lingering on her a second too long.

She buried her face against his neck to hide, her shoulders curling inward, then pushed herself up with that practical, flustered stubbornness of hers and, started fixing her underrobe like she "absolutely" refused to be seen looking undone in daylight.

The dual thread between them hummed, brighter than before the oral, brighter than before the full dual.

He watched her hands work at the sash before he finally sat up himself and circulated once, settling the new stage before the path rules. Those thin third-row walls could become a problem.

Outside, the afternoon light had already tilted toward the practice field.

....

LGu Shen found him on the third-row path before the first combat cluster was even fully called.

"Brother!!" He stopped dead, squinted hard at Lin Tian, then walked a full, slow circle around him like a man inspecting a cracked pot for leaks.

"Brother, What did you eat? You look like someone poured a whole spirit stone into a village body and forgot to warn the neighbours!!"

What did I eat? What should I say??? I eat somthing you can’t even dream of? Or I was eaten??

Lin Tian didn’t break stride." Brother, I just cultivated."

Gu Shen echoed, jabbing a finger at his own face, his eyebrows climbing.

"You cultivated ??? This is my cultivated face. That is not a cultivated face!! That is the face of a man who did something thoroughly illegal, between noon and the brackets."

Lin Tian kept walking, his hands tucked behind him.

Gu Shen fell into step, leaning in to stare closer.

"Brother Mixed root doesn’t jump stages from sitting still."

Believe me, I have sat still, nothing jumped." He threw his hands up.

"So did Qingxue sister hit you with some secret technique?? Did an elder drop a pill into your porridge? Did you finally sell your soul to the silver-cloud people for a proper breakfast?"

First one is correct, she indeed hit me with a secret technique. "None of those," Lin Tian replied evenly.

"Then explain why your qi feels denser than this morning when we shared the same cold water and the same sad pot," Gu Shen pressed, bumping his shoulder.

"I will explain after I don’t lose the first round," Lin Tian muttered without looking over.

Gu Shen halted again, his mouth dropping open.

"You are actually fighting today."

"My name is on the cloth brother"Lin chuckled, like he’s having fun.

"Brother, your name is on the cloth and you just became a different weight class!! while I was eating porridge." Gu Shen grabbed his arm. "At least tell me if I should bet on you or run."

Lin Tian glanced at him. "Bet on me brother, bet on me"

Gu Shen let out a noise that was half laugh, half complaint, and shoved his water flask into Lin Tian’s hand.

"Fine. I will stand exactly where I can see the finish." He counted off on his fingers, eyes narrowing.

"If Cheng Fei points at your name again, I will trip him with a formation flag and claim it was an accident.

" If Han Qirui looks at you too long, I will look at him longer. That is the level of support you get from a third-row friend."

"Yeah yeah brother appreciated," Lin Tian breathed, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Do not appreciate me, brother , Win. then explain the denser qi, before I start spreading rumors that you dual-cultivate with the ledger."

Fuck !is he real.

The dual core turned once under Lin Tian’s ribs, quiet and full, Mid Foundation steady and heavy.

Gu Shen’s voice sat easy beside the new strength the kind of thoughtless noise that made the east slope feel less, like a cold board of names and more like a place a person could actually stand.

They reached the edge of the practice field just as Elder Zhou Ming’s junior began reading, the first cluster, his voice carrying over the crowd. Lin Tian’s round came clean.

Nothing flashy, no core flash. Only the denser qi moving through familiar footwork, a single decisive exchange that put his opponent outside the ring before the boy, even understood the weight behind the strike.

Sweeeeww.....

Gu Shen whistled sharply from the rail, cupping his hands around his mouth.

Cheng Fei’s pointing hand froze mid-air for half a breath.

Han Qirui’s silver-cloud badge didn’t move, but his eyes tracked the mixed-root.

Mid Foundation didn’t need to shout!

Lin Tian stepped off the square with the dual thread still warm at the edge of his awareness, Su Qingxue somewhere on the women’s side, her focus tugging toward him even through the noise of the brackets and for a moment the afternoon felt simple.

Phew...Win -> Points.-> Path toward review!

Then the memory hit,

Not a full scene, only a face rising from the dual core, like something the Yang Stone and the Reincarnation Stone had buried too deep to stay buried after a breakthrough.

Beautiful crimson eyes !

Not the faint glow from the previous fragment, a full face this time.

Fair skin that seemed to hold its own light, soft red lips, long dark-crimson hair heavy with red silk and gold, a blood-red Rose, spreading over the upper- right curves of a chest, he shouldn’t have remembered this clearly.

The mark glowled faintly, when she breathed. She felt possessive and silent. The kind of beauty that made a "man’s heart flutter" and then made him "walk the path of immortality alone" afterward because he never learned how to "keep both."

A name tried to form on his tongue, he did not know it yet.The face refused to fade.

Lin Tian stopped dead on the path between the practice field and the third-row dorms, his feet rooting to the ground.

Gu Shen’s voice was still somewhere behind him, complaining about formation flags and silver-cloud stares, but it sounded muffled, distant.

The dual core turned hard under his ribs, Mid Foundation pressure feeding the fragment, until the name that had only been a shape in his mouth finally tore free.

"Bi Ling’er..."

The sound ripped out of him low and rough, more a ragged exhale than a call, his jaw tightening.

It wasn’t recognition he could explain. It was only the debt of a previous life forcing itself, through his mouth while those crimson eyes and that blood-red rose and the possessive silence of that face, stayed burned behind his eyelids....

To be precise he didn’t know who she was, atleast not in this life, not on this mountain,not among the outer dorms and the mixed-root file, and the brackets; still being called on the east slope.

’Bi Ling’er’ I’m-I’m sure, I’m sure that that ,I have said that name before, many times, while she looked at me like my entire being, already belonged to her. And-and that saying it again made my heart ache..I don’t, there’s somthing,there must be somthing.

His hands trembled a little, as he thought.He turned his senses towards his dantian, and

the dual core ache in a way no combat win and no clean breakthrough, had ever prepared him for.

Gu Shen caught up to him, still talking breathlessly, his hand waving in front of his face. "....."".....""...".

Lin Tian didn’t hear the next complaint and his eyes stayed unfocused, only the name, still sitting heavy in his mouth, and his thoughts wandering here and there.

...

Little Zhao is in the inner court, I don’t know where his sister is .

A woman thought as she walked towards the competition ground, her inky black eyes quickly spotted a boy, looking unfocused and an another boy waving his hand. His hands were trembling slightly.