Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and before Wu Jian knew it, a whole half a year had passed since Hou Jingshu left.

Just like they had promised, Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu wrote to each other a lot. It took three days for a letter to be delivered, so correspondances happened within a six day interval. He now had a drawer filled with letters.

He could have thrown them away, and some of his fellow clansmen had even suggested it, but he refused. These were letters from someone he loved.

His training continued unabated. During the last strength test, his strength had risen from sixteen thousand to eighteen thousand. Wu Meiying had once again tested exactly one thousand below him, but he suspected she was doing that on purpose, though he didn’t know why. That girl often did things that were incomprehensible to him.

Summer and fall had passed and winter had arrived. The landscape once again became a snow-covered wonderland. Trees without leaves had their branches covered in white powder and most of the people spent their days indoors, warming themselves up by the fire.

Wu Jian and Wu Meiying were exceptions to this rule.

“Catch me if you can!” Wu Meiying shouted with a laugh as she darted through the trees, hopping from one branch to another. Her movements were so elegant, so refined, and so gentle that she didn’t even disturb the snow covering each of the trees as she passed.

By contrast, snow fell like an avalanche as Wu Jian hopped from one branch to another. While he was nowhere near as soft or graceful, he did have the advantage of speed. The only reason Wu Meiying had been able to keep ahead of him was because she could make sharper turns.

Even as he leapt onto another branch, the girl he chased after spun around and leapt to a tree parallel to hers. She did so effortlessly. Wu Jian needed to pause, turn, then leap, which allowed her to keep the distance between them from shrinking.

I’m never going to catch her like this. Rather than just chasing her, I need to think of a way to slow her down.

Called catch and release, this was a new training idea they had come up with, which involved one of them chasing after the other. However, rather than simply running along the ground, they added to the difficulty by traveling through the trees.

The goal of the chaser was to catch the runner. The goal of the runner was to keep away from the chaser. If one of them fell out of the tree tops, they would automatically lose.

This game was a great way for them to train their balance, leg strength, and coordination. It took a lot of concentration to leap from one tree to another. A person couldn’t just jump and expect to land on a branch. They had to aim at where they wanted to land, and because he and Wu Meiying were traveling at high speeds, they had barely a split second to determine what branch they should leap to.

It was good for training the mind to think faster.

As he leapt to another branch, Wu Jian looked down. There was no particular reason for this. Perhaps he was starting to tire. His muscles did feel stiff.

The moment he did, however, he spotted something black standing out starkly against the snow-covered ground. Curious, he decided to stop their game and called out to Wu Meiying.

“Mei! I see something down below!”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Not sure. I’m going to check it out.”

“Guess I’ll join you then. Just know this is your loss since you stopped our game. That means you’ll be getting a penalty later today.”

“I’m aware.”

Wu Jian leapt to the ground, kicking up snow as he landed in a crouch. Wu Meiying landed on the ground several chi away. She did not kick up nearly as much snow.

Walking cautiously over to the black lump on the ground, Wu Jian became surprised to realize that it was an animal—a magical beast to be exact. Its sleek black fur contained a glossy sheen that made it look soft. A long tail protruded from its hind quarters. It was small. He judged this creature to be maybe half a foot in length. The feline-like muzzle let him know this creature was some kind of cat magical beast. What really caught his attention, though, was the blood dripping from its face.

It didn’t respond when he walked up and knelt before it. Wu Meiying peered at it from around his shoulder. He touched the creature’s back and once again it didn’t respond.

“It’s cold. Maybe it wandered out of its home, got lost in the snow, and fell into a deep sleep,” he theorized.

“Maybe, but look at that cut on its face. Looks like someone injured it.”

“Another animal?”

“No. That cut is too clean. It was a knife or sword, maybe.”

“So maybe someone was chasing after it…”

There were many reasons someone might hunt magical beasts. Some wanted their monster cores, others wanted to tame them. Wu Jian had even heard from Grandpa Son that there were cultivators who integrated magical beast body parts into themselves.

“Hey, Jian. Check out the necklace around its neck,” Wu Meiying said.

“Around it’s—oh, it does have a necklace around its neck. Does this mean someone owns it?” he asked.

“Who knows.” Wu Meiying shrugged. “What do you want to do? Take it with us?”

“I think we should. I feel bad for it,” Wu Jian said.

Wu Meiying didn’t question his decision, so he scooped the creature into his arms. A soft jangling sound alerted him to the locket dangling around its neck as they made their way back to the Wu Clan compound. It was a simple golden locket with the characters of the old language. He didn’t know what they meant. However, the locket made him wonder if maybe Wu Meiying was right. Perhaps this magical beast had an owner, but if so, what was it doing all the way out here?

The gate guards greeted them as they walked through, though the two also did a double take when they saw the black creature in his arms. He paid them no mind.

“Should we inform Uncle about this?” asked Wu Meiying.

“Let’s do that later. Right now, I think we should patch this little guy up and get him somewhere warm,” Wu Jian said.

They took the small black feline to his building and entered his bedroom. They both changed into dry clothes, washed the blood from the magical beast’s body with a rag, then Wu Jian sat on the bed, the creature on his lap, and wrapped himself up in blankets.

Wu Meiying gave him an amused stare.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m warming it up with my body heat.”

“In that case, make some room for me. I’ll help you.”

Opening the blanket, Wu Jian allowed Wu Meiying to crawl in next to him, then closed it again. She leaned her head on is shoulder. Her body was cold, like his, but it quickly warmed up as the three of them shared their body heat with each other.

They spoke for several hours, but they must have fallen asleep. Wu Jian jerked awake when he heard a startled growl next to him. He looked down to find the small cat no longer in his lap but standing in the center of the room. Now that it was fully awake and he could see it better, Wu Jian realized this creature was some kind of panther magical beast, though it was just a cub right now.

“Looks like you’re awake,” he said.

The magical beast turned to him. He immediately noticed its eyes were two different colors: blue and yellow. It also had a scar traveling down its left eye. That was from the cut it had received. When their eyes locked, it growled, leaning down on its front paws and baring its fangs.

Wu Meiying woke up, perhaps startled by the noise. As she rubbed her eyes and sat up straight, Wu Jian climbed off the bed and wandered over to the panther magical beast, who seemed to become even more wary of him. He showed no fear despite this and held out his hand, palm up, as if showing the creature that he was unarmed.

“See? I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to—ouch!”

Wu Jian drew his hand back with a hiss. The panther had swiped at his hand with its surprisingly sharp paws, drawing a line of blood.

He frowned at the creature, but then a soft glow caused his attention to shift to the necklace around its neck. The locket dangling from the necklace was glowing a bright gold. When the panther noticed this as well, it stopped growling and looked down.

“What is that?” Wu Jian wondered out loud.

Wu Meiying climbed off the bed and sat beside him, eyes locked onto the locket. “Looks like that locket has some kind of blood activation sequence. See that? It’s opening.”

Just like she had said, the locket released a soft click before opening, dropping a small ring onto the ground. It was silvery-gold. Nothing about it seemed unusual. It looked like a very ordinary ring that you could find at any jewelry store.

The panther looked at the ring, nudged it with its nose, licked it, then looked at Wu Jian. Because its expression had become calm, Wu Jian didn’t feel wary as he extended his hand again.

This time, the panther reached out and began sniffing his hand. One moment passed. Then two. Finally, the panther nuzzled his hand, and he smiled as he began stroking the soft fur on its head.

“Oh? I think he likes you,” Wu Meiying said. The panther growled, causing her to blink. “Are you upset about being called a he? She, then?” The panther didn’t answer, but both he and Wu Meiying took that to mean this panther could somehow understand them and was a girl. “She’s a lot more intelligent than a normal magical beast of this level. She must be a rare species that has more potential than most.”

“Kinda makes me wonder what she’s doing all the way out here,” Wu Jian said.

“Maybe she ran away from something. By the way, you should take that ring.”

Wu Jian stopped petting the panther and grabbed the ring with his bloody hand, but the ring flashed when his blood got on it. He, Wu Meiying, and the panther all shut their eyes. When they opened it, another object was lying beside the ring—a scroll. Yellowed with age, the scroll looked like something that had existed since ancient times.

“Storage ring!” Wu Meiying exclaimed.

Wu Jian was bemused. “What?”

“That’s a storage ring. You know what those are, right?”

“Hou Jingshu mentioned them. They’re rings that have a pocket space attached to them, so you can use them to carry items.”

“That’s right! They’re also exceedingly rare, especially in small countries like the Shang Kingdom. Only powerful sects and the Emperor would have something like this.”

“That just makes me more curious about this panther. What was it doing all the way out here, and why does it have a storage ring?” asked Wu Jian.

Wu Meiying shrugged. “Who knows. Anyway, let’s check out that scroll. I’m sure it’s important.”

Because he didn’t want to get his blood on anything anymore, he wiped and bandaged his hand as Wu Meiying grabbed the ring and scroll. She sat down on the bed. He joined her, sitting on the edge. The panther also hopped onto the bed and curled up on his lap. He was a little startled to see that it had already become attached to him, but he focused on the scroll as Wu Meiying unrolled it and looked at the contents.

Her eyes widened. “This is a cultivation technique!”

Wu Jian also looked at the scroll in her hands, which did indeed list a cultivation technique. It was a lot more advanced than any of the cultivation techniques in the Wu Clan library, however. He wondered who had created it.

“Jian… you should train with this technique once you reach the Hunger Realm.”

Wu Meiying’s eyes had become glazed again, like she was staring at nothing and everything at once. He didn’t know what she saw. However, he trusted her judgement.

“If you think I should train with this technique, then that’s what I’ll do,” he decided.

“That’s good. You will need a powerful cultivation technique once you reach the Hunger Realm, and I don’t think you’ll ever find a better one than this one right here.”

Written at the very top of the scroll was the name of the cultivation technique: Nine Heavens Spatial Severing Cultivation Method.