“Come out!” Su Qingcheng yelled again at the front gates of the Xiao clan residence. She was really quite angry at Xiao Tie; it could not be described properly in words just how mad she had gotten on the way here. However, she managed to restrain herself enough not to just barge into the place and break down the door. Su Yanran would probably have stopped her anyways. Instead, she stared at Su Qingcheng with an incredibly worried expression as she continued to hide behind a tree a fair distance away from the youth.

The door to the residence soon opened. Several men in black cloaks suddenly jumped out of the door and surrounded Su Qingcheng. Though they surrounded her, their bodies seemed to be trembling as if they didn’t really want to be there in the first place. Soon, Su Qingcheng could hear the voice of someone laughing quite loudly and boisterously. The ever-so-familiar visage of Xiao Tie appeared, just as Su Qingcheng asked. Trailing behind him was the frantic Xiao Hei, who seemed very eager to stop this entire mess. “Stop this madness at once,” Xiao Hei grumbled to the seemingly deaf ears of both parties.

The enmity between the two had risen once more. They had already began a conflict even though the agreement was still about ten months away. Su Qingcheng stared menacingly at the men who surrounded her, causing them to involuntarily step back. “I know this was a part of your plan,” Su Qingcheng snarled at Xiao Tie. “These men, they didn’t want to attack Brother Mujian, did they?” she added. She felt a bit of pity for these guys who were forcibly used as hired guns, but she didn’t let an inch of it show in her face. Xiao Tie clapped mockingly towards Su Qingcheng.

“So what are you going to do about it, kid? Even if you managed to calm those cowards down, I don’t think you’ll be able to stand a chance against me. I can just as easily cripple you this time myself and then there won’t be any hope for you to escape marriage.” Xiao Tie grinned maliciously. Xiao Hei looked worryingly at Su Qingcheng. Xiao Hei’s concerned gaze didn’t escape Su Yanran’s eyes, who had been spying from the sidelines undetected this entire time.

Su Yanran had an awkward smile when she realized that one of the strongest members of the Xiao clan’s younger generation was actually on Su Qingcheng’s side. She hoped inwardly that the rest of the Xiao clan was also on her side and that it was just Xiao Tie’s evil machinations that engineered this in the first place. After all, Su Ran and herself both knew this was a case of emotions getting in the way. Otherwise, she knew Su Qingcheng would definitely not throw herself into the trap.

“Watch your mouth, Xiao Tie. I don’t think you’ll stand a chance against me one year from now. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t smash you into meat paste by then.” Su Qingcheng growled, causing Xiao Tie to laugh again, as if he didn’t believe that would happen. Xiao Hei shuddered as he could feel the intense killing intent emanate from Su Qingcheng’s Tianqi aura. This was an energy he had never felt before. He was sure Xiao Tie would be even more affected by it than him.

And he was right. Though Xiao Tie didn’t show it, he started to involuntarily sweat as the pressure from the Nightflower Tianqi that Su Qingcheng was letting loose in ripples fell onto him. Xiao Tie continued to smile at her. The men who originally encircled Su Qingcheng had by now already retreated with relief once they saw Xiao Hei gesture at them to return with a worried expression. Naturally this didn’t go unnoticed by the young Xiao Tie. Though he may be some guy you expect to be nothing but a horny dog, he had a kind of vicious, sinister mind that helped him to achieve certain things rather unscrupulously. One would say he inherited this from his dad.

“Stop this nonsense,” Su Qingcheng growled. “Your enmity is now with me. Don’t involve anyone else in this personal crusade of yours.” Her fists were clenched. She tried very hard not to reveal the Star Vortex Fist now, otherwise there would be too much time for him to figure out a way to counter its mysterious powers. “You didn’t have to attack Brother Mujian, and you definitely didn’t need to anger Senior Brother Xiao Hei!”

“That prude standing behind me?” Xiao Tie laughed again, like some kind of evil villain. Su Qingcheng definitely felt like he was some kind of villainous kid wannabe at this point. It was very shameful to watch. In modern parlance, she would call it ‘cringeworthy.’ Xiao Tie tapped his feet. “Who cares about him. Let him do what he wants. But I don’t have time to mess around with a former cripple like you. I only came out to entertain you because you were so mad, I had to see what the fuss was about.”

“Grr…"

“Not to worry, though. I’ll be sure your visit bears some fruit. Ten months left, Su Qingcheng. Ten months! You better not disappoint me.” Xiao Tie said plainly and nonchalantly before he turned back into the residence and walked past Xiao Hei, brushing him aside rather rudely. The latter ignored him but instead looked at Su Qingcheng with sympathy and pity. Suddenly, his eyes widened.

“Qingcheng’er!! Behind you!!”

Su Yanran, at this moment, also was about to step in as she saw the same thing as Xiao Hei did. Two shadows suddenly lunged from some treetops from behind, launching themselves at Su Qingcheng, who seemingly did not act, but once they were halfway towards her, Su Qingcheng spun around and with two fists, one on her left and one on her right side, drove into the shadows at once, letting Nightflower Tianqi ripple into a vortex. The galactic vortexes were enough to absorb the pressure from the shadows diving into her, and quickly she reversed the flow on the vortexes to knock the shadows back into the trees with a loud thud.

On further inspection, Su Qingcheng learned that the people who attacked her were a pair of women who looked like they could be high ranking Tianqi Geomancers. It seems these two must have been enticed by Xiao Tie to attack her. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize that Su Qingcheng hid the power of her Star Vortex Fist at the last minute, allowing her to flawlessly launch a counter-force. Xiao Hei simply stared in disbelief while Su Yanran sighed quietly in relief, retreating back as she knew Su Qingcheng would no longer stay.

“Ladies,” Su Qingcheng sighed. “You better stop associating yourself with that man. I don’t care if you think he’s good in bed or what, or if you’ve already eaten him up,” she continued, looking at the women who slowly picked themselves up after being knocked back by Su Qingcheng. Though they wanted to attack again, Su Qingcheng didn’t bother to get into a defensive posture. “He’s going to convince you to walk on a path of darkness. If you have any self-respect, you’ll stop bothering yourself with him or me. Live your life.” Su Qingcheng sighed as she idly ignored the two attackers who stared at her just with the same kind of strange awe as Xiao Hei did.

As Su Qingcheng casually walked back in pensive thought, Xiao Hei shuddered, watching the Tianqi burst out of her like a black hole, he decided he would need to get answers. Su Yanran stealthily trailed Su Qingcheng on her way back like a shadow. As for the two women originally hired or bribed by Xiao Tie to attack Su Qingcheng, they sighed and stared at the back of Su Qingcheng. Whether they would strike again was something the youth didn’t really care about at this point. Hopefully if that happened, Su Qingcheng would be strong enough to actually fight against them.

The two of them sighed and left the premises in a dark blur after gathering their energy again and recovering after some few moments of rest. Su Qingcheng herself felt the Tianqi roiling in her veins as if she was really going to attain a breakthrough. “I’m about to break through,” Su Qingcheng smiled to herself as she repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fists. That’s right. You had best return to the training room and engage in meditation. The break through process after all is not simple. While we get back, I should inform you that because of the presence of Nightflower Tianqi in your body, the break through process may be much more painful than usual. That’s because the energy inside you grows exponentially stronger compared to single or double essence Tianqi. The potential and growth is much stronger and far more explosive.

“So it’ll temper my body further at the same time,” Su Qingcheng surmised with a smile. Though she wasn’t outwardly disturbed by the fact her growth would be more painful than a normal person, she was a bit nervous. Then again, the freak accident which crippled her before was also very painful. She could remember that, when she was young, she was curious about how to channel lightning energy. So she followed Su Ran who wanted to show it to her. However, the thunderstorm at the time had suddenly grown in intensity. Su Ran couldn’t absorb all of it as it was just simply too much, and some of the excess electricity and thunder had electrocuted Su Qingcheng, incinerating a majority of her inner Tianqi paths which were overloaded.

In a way, the overloading had predisposed Su Qingcheng to absorbing the Nightflower Tianqi once the paths were repaired because they had been tempered too much to the point they simply broke. But after being repaired, her body had subtly grown more resistant to such overloading. Upon reflecting over this, Su Qingcheng believed that perhaps it wasn’t so bad to be in this state. Yao Meiyue continued to orient the youth on how to manage her body and Tianqi essence during the break through process, and said the plan was to get back into closed-door training and reach the third rank of Tianqi User within this period of time.

Each increase in rank may seem small but in fact it was actually quite a significant difference. This is made clearer when you compare the power between a fifth rank Tianqi User and a first rank Tianqi Geomancer. A Tianqi User at the fifth rank may be strong but they could not actuate Tianqi energy back into the environment like a first rank Geomancer could, no matter how absurd or how abnormal their training or techniques were. This mark of a Geomancer was very crucial to the intermediate levels of the Nightblossom technique set and in fact even the Nightflower Tome itself as a lot of those techniques and earth divination skills required borrowing and giving back to the environment.

Once Su Qingcheng returned home safely, Su Yanran had mysteriously reappeared by Su Ran’s side like a spectre despite having tailed Su Qingcheng the entire time. This was undoubtedly a mysterious technique taught to her by her teacher. However, she rarely talked about this type of movement technique, and didn’t seem interested in doing so. Su Qingcheng bowed respectfully and apologetically to her parents and sister. Su Mujian at this point no longer looked as miserable as when Su Qingcheng first left, but he still looked very tired. His worried face didn’t escape Su Qingcheng either.

“I apologize for being emotional,” Su Qingcheng sighed. “But I have good news. I am about to break through to the next rank, and require extra closed-door training time to get to the next rank of Tianqi User.”

Su Ran nodded silently, while Su Zhan continued to praise her daughter. Su Yanran was also similarly quiet, but she could already tell this from Su Qingcheng’s aura as she had been stalking her from the shadows the entire time. Su Mujian merely looked impressed as he was in too battered a state to express his happiness.

“I will get some rest in the meantime. That Xiao Tie has gone too far. I saw Xiao Hei also trying to stop him,” Su Qingcheng explained. “Xiao Tie also tried to get two ladies to attack me, but I stopped them. Therefore, I am a bit tired.” Su Qingcheng quickly dismissed herself and went to her room to rest her body and restore her Nightflower Tianqi.

Su Zhan also excused himself, citing a need to generate reports on the earnings from his business in the Tang Gu Market. Su Ran and Su Yanran both left Su Mujian to rest in his room while they retreated to one of the training rooms in the Tiger’s Den. Naturally this room belonged to Su Ran.

“How did it go?” Su Ran asked.

“Everything is fine, mother. Qingcheng’er is too terrifying. I was about to step in to defend her when she got attacked, but she reacted quickly and employed a counterforce to temporarily debilitate the attackers. Then, with the use of words, she made them think twice about walking away.”

“I see… her talent and potential is too terrifying. Her teacher must be great, don’t you agree?”

“Well, if you ask me, I think her teacher is several notches better than mine.”

“Definitely… Yanran’er, keep an eye out on her. Guard her during her break-through and do not let anyone interrupt her, even you yourself, until she steps out of the room. Also, if you hear screaming in the room, do not, under any circumstances, help her. Am I understood?”

“Why? I will do as you say, but can you explain why?”

“It’s complicated. I will just tell you that her break through will be far more painful than ever before. I know from personal experience, so don’t question it.”

“I… Er… Okay.” Su Yanran nodded worryingly and hurriedly left before Su Ran could issue any more instructions or even say anything.

“Qingcheng’er…” Su Ran lamented as she remained alone in her room. “Yao Meiyue is indeed the best teacher I have ever met. But… I hope you can handle the bitter struggle. The Nightblossom Method is not a joke. You will feel even more pain than I did practicing the Nightflower Tome’s methods…” Su Ran sighed as she turned away from the door and sat cross-legged before meditating.