Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Half an hour later, Luo Feng escorted Su Ming all the way back to the cave dwelling on Gazing Star Cliff.

The moment Ying returned to the familiar stone chamber, she wriggled out from Su Ming's sleeve, flapped awkwardly, and flew toward the little nest woven from spirit grass in the corner. She collapsed into the deepest part of the nest, curled herself into a jet-black ball of flesh, and instantly sank into a heavy sleep.

Luo Feng helped Su Ming sit on the stone bed and cast a complicated look over the surrounding defensive formation. For once he didn’t prattle on and didn’t press for details about the pill refinement.

“Rest well.” Luo Feng left those four words, then turned and strode out of the cave dwelling.

The stone gate slammed shut. Su Ming closed his eyes, sat cross-legged on the bed, activated the formation’s highest defense level, and slowly probed his Dantian with his divine sense.

What he saw was a mess. The once-plentiful lake of liquid spiritual energy was now nearly dried up, with only a few droplets stubbornly clinging to life. Scorch marks from severe burns marred his meridians in many places.

What made his heart race most, though, were the several cracks spanning his Dao foundation. Those seams, which had been forcibly mended with the force of the stars using a kintsugi-like technique, were now warming slightly from the aftershock of the Pill Fiend, as if they could rupture completely at any moment.

A faint bluish glow began to rise in the center of the chamber.

Lin Yu’s soul body manifested. His soul’s luster was dim; the edges of his robe were blurred, clearly showing that in the past nine days he had also exhausted terrifying amounts of soul power to protect Su Ming’s divine sense.

“You were reckless this time.” Lin Yu’s voice was severe as it echoed through the empty stone room, “Using divine sense to guide the Pill Fiend’s law-tentacles? Do you know that if your tether deviated even a hair’s breadth—if a sliver of the Pill Fiend touched the wall of your Consciousness Sea—you would already be a fool!”

Lin Yu’s soul body paced rapidly in midair; his deep eyes shone with unabashed lingering fear.

Su Ming did not open his eyes. His voice, though weak, sounded resolutely calm.

“I calculated it.”

He replayed his reasoning in his head, “The Pill Fiend’s nature is a law itself. It targets law-defying elixirs; it doesn’t actively attack a cultivator’s divine sense. As long as it doesn’t directly touch and I only guide it, there was a seventy percent chance.”

Lin Yu’s soul body halted abruptly, looking down on him.

“And the thirty percent?” Lin Yu asked coldly. “The Way of Survival teaches never to act without at least a thirty percent absolute fallback. What did you use to cover that thirty percent contingency?”

Su Ming was silent for a moment, then slowly opened his eyes.

His gaze fell on that inconspicuous grass nest in the corner.

“That thirty percent was a bet on Ying.” Su Ming’s voice was very low. “She carries the ancient Divine Fowl’s bloodline. Bound by a blood contract, she would inevitably take on some of that fatal law pressure at the last moment. It proved I won the gamble.”

Following his eyes, Lin Yu glanced at the chick curled in the nest, breathing barely perceptible.

The sheer willingness to stake one’s own life and the life of a spirit beast on the line made him involuntarily uneasy.

Lin Yu exhaled a long sigh and said nothing more in the way of reproach.

His soul body condensed into a faint beam of light and silently retreated into the Xuantian ring.

Su Ming closed his eyes again and formed an ancient, simple hand seal with his hands on his knees.

The core of the Like Water Art flowed through his mind. He didn’t rush to use spiritual energy to flush the burnt meridians; instead, he allowed a thread of the most primal water-attribute spiritual energy, like the first drop of snowmelt in early spring, to slowly and gently seep through the desiccated meridian network.

Trickles of water, soundlessly, nourished the cracked, parched riverbed.

......

Two mornings later.

The morning mist outside Gazing Star Cliff still carried the distinctive chill of high altitude, a gray-white veil clinging to the steep cliff face.

Soft footsteps came up the narrow path at the cliff’s base. The steps weren’t trying to hide, yet they had become one with the rhythm of wind passing through the pines, indistinguishable unless detected by a keen divine sense.

Su Ming, sitting cross-legged on the stone bed, let out a long breath that tasted faintly metallic, and slowly opened his eyes.

He raised his hand and formed a hand seal to dismantle the formation.

He raised his hand and formed a hand seal to dissolve the formation.

The heavy stone gate ascended with the grinding of gears, and that single thread of cold morning light poured in, drawing a long strip of illumination across the floor.

Xuanheng Zhenren stood at the far end of that strip, hands folded behind his back.

His deep blue Dao robe fluttered slightly in the breeze as his calm eyes swept across the sparse cave dwelling. This was the first time since Su Ming became a true disciple of Formation Peak that his master had personally stepped into his seclusion quarters.

“Master.”

Su Ming did not rise. Although his meridians were now steady, forcing himself to stand would still aggravate hidden injuries. He remained seated on the stone bed, hands folded respectfully, head bowed.

Xuanheng said nothing and walked into the cave.

A gentle divine sense radiated from him and swept over Su Ming’s entire body in an instant.

Su Ming made no resistance, letting that divine sense trace his meridians, his Dantian, and even the edges of his Dao foundation.

After a while, Xuanheng withdrew his divine sense.

“The heart conduit is intact; the meridian burns have been suppressed.” Xuanheng’s voice sounded in the empty chamber, still bearing that demeanor as still as an ancient well. “Your water-based method has excellent resilience.”

Xuanheng walked to the stone table in the chamber’s center and with a slight wave of his wide sleeve,

a jade slip of delicate green fell evenly onto the table without a sound.

“What is this?” Su Ming’s gaze dropped to the jade slip, a flash of puzzlement crossing his mind.

Xuanheng turned and looked at Su Ming.

“It’s Qingyang’s fire-control technique from his last day. He asked me to pass it to you.”

Su Ming’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

He of course understood the value of such a thing. Elder Qingyang had sealed his furnace for a hundred years; his mastery in the fire-control branch was absolutely top-class within the Cloud Hidden Sect. How could a secret distilled from an old monster’s lifelong work be handed so casually to a junior formation disciple?

Qingyang took one Heaven-Mending Pill; the exchange of benefits between the two parties had been completed. He had no obligation to offer any further compensation.