Revolt against the Heavens

As Cao Yun was busy training and getting ready for the day of his duel against Luduo Bu, he decided to wait until the end of the week to go see Lu Meihan. Indeed, after Chief Instructor Peng's training, no matter how much energy he absorbed from his small spirit stones, he would need some physical rest.

But before going, he went to see Zhi Yin. Fortunately, the entire Heavenly Swallow Faction was back from the wild at this moment. Apparently, they did not run into too many problems. However, their bounty was pretty small.

Cao Yun relayed the invitation he had received.

"I do not know much about this Lu Meihan. Last year, she mostly stayed within her faction residence. However, I know Sister Wang Mei well enough to tell you that she wouldn't knowingly send you into a trap."

As Zhi Yin was speaking, Ling Hui surprisingly interrupted her with a "tsk". "This vile woman is a part of this depraved faction."

"I'm sorry for Ling Hui. She has some kind of grudge since the Coiling Silk Faction tried to recruit me."

"These women thought they could get Fairy Zhi to mingle with their crowd." Cao Yun had a deep impression that Zhi Yin had been asked but not Ling Hui, hence the animosity.

Someone stood up for this faction, Zhao Fei. "Sister Ling, I can assure you that this faction is not what you think it is. Everything there is very proper."

His twin sister looked at him suspiciously. "And how would you know that?"

"Well... I went there once." He was hesitant to talk.

"With what points?! We earned nothing last year."

"Some of my friends invited me. It was to celebrate the breakthrough of a senior brother." Ling Hui and Zhao Lin's eyes were focused on the man who was sweating more and more. "I swear, it's not the kind of establishment you think it is. I even heard that some guy tried to be improper one day and got dealt with. Even the disciplinary pavilion took care of him. Now that we have some points, we could even all go there." In his sister's eyes he saw some doubt. "Trust me! We listened to music and poetry, we watched dances and plays, I even played some chess with one of the girls. Nothing immoral happened."

"Hmm..." Zhao Lin still wasn't convinced. On the other hand, Ling Hui sure was convinced, of the opposite.

"No good thing could come out from seeing the leader of bunch of lowlifes like them."

"Ling Hui, please. Stop slandering Sister Wang. You should know she's a very hard working girl. No matter how much you dislike her, she's respectable. Cao Yun, I see no problem in you going there. Our faction is too different from the Coiling Silk to be a threat to them. Anyway, you should be careful nonetheless. I think you would get in more trouble if you didn't go. After all, her faction is almost the richest and they have a very good reputation..." She looked at her sisters. "... among male disciples." When she finished her words, Zhi Yin looked straight at Zhao Fei.

"I swear! Sisters, let's all go there when we have some time, you'll see for yourselves. Would I ask you to accompany me if it was what Sister Ling thinks it is?"

"You just want to have an excuse to go back there and take a look at all their beautiful members!"

Cao Yun left the poor Zhao Fei trying to explain himself faced with Ling Hui's attacks and the doubt in his own sister's eyes.

After he took his decision, Cao Yun asked Ren Chao to report to Wang Mei that he would personally go to the Coiling Silk Faction five days from now.

-

During the following few days, he mainly focused on his martial arts, going to several array formations, including the Howling Crane Gorges. This time, he was able to go to the end of the second stage. When he tried to enter the third one, the gust of wind doubled yet once more. It was so powerful that even with his spear pointed straight in front of him, he couldn't pierce through. His spear kept moving and no amount of strength helped him. To get through, he had to adjust his weapon at every instant. The time he had was limited and after several minutes trying to get his second foot inside the third stage, he finally succeeded.

Having only minutes left, he focused on maintaining his stance. But he couldn't just stay still. As with his spear, he had to adjust his stance every single instant because the wind itself was ever changing. Although it came from the same direction, its movement and intensity were always subject to small changes. No matter how small these were, the effects on a human body were huge.

While he was fighting to keep his stance, deep within his sea of consciousness a ball of fire exploded up in the firmament. Besides the binary star that was the Horn Star, a very small dot almost invisible just exploded into an orange ball of fire. It settled down into an orange-hued star more than three times bigger than the Horn Star and ten times as bright. This was the second star of 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars', the Neck Star.

Sensing this change in him, Cao Yun got overexcited but rapidly regained his calm. Forging a star was just the first step. Now, he had to study it and derive its complexities. He had a little less than a month before the duel. But now that the Neck Star was fully formed, by using the star chart from the 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' manual, Cao Yun knew roughly where all the other stars would appear. It could give him a small advantage to form them as he knew where to watch within his sea of consciousness.

-

The night, he focused on this new star, but deriving comprehension from a star was not that easy. He also tried to understand the Neck Star in relation to the Horn Star. These were not just isolated points but small parts of a huge whole.

Until his meeting, his routine didn't change much. Once again, he only shifted a bit of his focus. Instead of alchemy, Qi cultivation and mind cultivation, he focused a bit more on martial arts. All were important aspects of his training so he maintained them as well, just not with the same intensity and duration.

-

The day of his visit to the Coiling Silk Faction was upon him.

When he arrived in front of the Coiling Silk Faction residence, Cao Yun got surprised to see many people. He recognized many of the first-years. Apparently they also thought that the training of Chief Instructor Peng was too hard and came here to relax. Indeed, his last training was even tougher than before. Every session, he increased the intensity, but compared to last month, the increase was sharper. This was also the first week of the month so they could spend a bit of merit points and still hope to earn them back before the distribution of resources at the end of the month.

Not wanting to stand out too much, Cao Yun queued up like everyone else. However, he was soon recognized and even caused a small commotion. Two young ladies wearing fourth-year emblems walked through the crowd.

"Junior Chen, you should have warned us of your arrival. Miss Lu is waiting for you, please follow us."

Despite her seniority, the woman who talked was very subservient just like a clerk toward a client.

"Of course, Senior. I'm also looking forward to meeting your faction leader. Please lead the way."

He followed the two women inside as the crowd was shocked. Lu Meihan was waiting for Cao Yun?! Last month, he had tamed the Dragon's Fire Faction and now he was dealing with the Coiling Silk Faction's faction leader personally. These two factions were the richest of the entire outer yard. The most powerful were the fighting factions such as Red Cliff and Purple Northern Cloud. But, even combined, they didn't have as many points as the Coiling Silk Faction.

The residence had several buildings, a huge garden with beautiful sculptures, plants and ponds. The energy flowing through this place was calm and peaceful. It really looked like a haven of peace, perfect to get some rest and enjoy art. Some small pavilions were used by people listening to a woman reciting poetry or playing some music.

Other people were just taking a leisure walk with some company.

When he got inside the biggest building, Cao Yun saw many closed rooms. With his sharp senses, he could hear music, dancing and singing. There were all kinds of activities within these walls. However, it seemed like what he had heard was right, everything was very proper. Of course, the women wore attractive make-up and clothes to show off their beauty, but nothing out of the ordinary. These clothes were different from the uniform of the sect though, and each member was wearing something different. Although they covered their body, they allowed for anyone's imagination to run wild.

Cao Yun understood the purpose of this. It wasn't just to show off their beauty but also to contrast from the sect. Customers could even forget that they were in the sect for some time.

Expecting to go up to the top floor of the building, Cao Yun was surprised when he was taken to a room within the first floor. In fact, Lu Meihan had move her room because of her weak body, walking up or down the stairs was absolutely impossible for her. And even with the help of a servant, that was still torture.

The two women stood on both sides of the door and knocked on it.

A small servant got out. When she saw Cao Yun and understood the situation, she gestured him to wait. "Young Master Chen, please wait a moment, I'll warn my mistress."

She hurriedly went back inside and after a few more moments, she came out. "My mistress will receive you. We won't disturb you." She completely walked out of the room and let Cao Yun go in. After entering the room, he heard the door shutting behind him.

The room was spacious but not luxurious. Deep in the back of the room was a bed with open curtains. And on the bed was Lu Meihan in a sitting position. Her servant had helped her sit just before leaving.

"Junior Chen, it's a pleasure to see you today. Please come closer." Her voice was very weak and with his sharp senses, Cao Yun immediately perceived that her whole body was as well. In fact, it would probably be impossible for her to stand up. Seeing her so defenseless, he relaxed a bit.

When he walked further inside the room, he failed to notice several incense sticks positioned at various strategic locations. The servant had lit them all just before leaving. Her mistress had told her that this was an invigorating incense meant to help her during their conversation. Indeed, she had a tough time even holding a simple conversation if it became too long.

But it was all a lie. The moment Cao Yun got a bit farther inside the room, he smelled a fragrant odor that seemed to be localized in the center of it. Suddenly, he started to feel a little bit light-headed and looked around. Now that he was paying attention, these incense sticks looked like they were forming an array formation. The moment he wanted to retreat, he found himself unable to. His eyes were drawn to Lu Meihan. Instead of her beautiful figure, some kind of illusion happened, and he saw Feng Yingyue. She was waving for him to come closer and to bury himself in her embrace.

Heat began to crawl down his spine. All his lower abdomen was full of fire. Having let down his guard, he did not think of circulating his mind cultivation and the effect of the incense was already active. And now, he lacked the clarity of mind to do so. Right now, he was faced with Feng Yingyue whom he had not seen for at least three to four months. And she was ardently asking for him to come to her.

As the fire spread through his body, a small drop of blood within his heart started to vibrate. The Drop of Wrath was still physically inside Cao Yun's heart. The drop that was in his sea of consciousness was a manifestation of its intent, not the drop itself. The Drop of Wrath did not seem to have any mind of its own, instead it acted on instinct alone. And right now, it got excited by this fire and felt the three characters of 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks' being weak.

Using this opportunity, it immediately attacked Cao Yun's mind. In his sea of consciousness, the Drop of Wrath fell down inside the vast ocean that turned to blood. The shock was so intense that Cao Yun was instinctively brought inside his sea of consciousness. Now that he was, the effect of the incense almost disappeared. In real life, his body was still slowly going forward like in a daze.

Ironically, by trying to take over his mind, the Drop of Wrath had once again saved him. He had no idea what Lu Meihan wanted to do to him, but he sure wanted none of that. Quickly circulating his mind cultivation, all three characters began to shine brighter and brighter while revolving around the place where the Drop of Wrath used to be. Three precious stones were rotating, gold, onyx and cinnabar. Gradually, the Drop of Wrath rose from the water as if it was drawn out like poison from a wound. It condensed once more.

Now that he was fully conscious, Cao Yun could feel a medicinal essence within him. He was familiar with medicinal essence after his alchemy training. The medicinal essence from a pill or from a poison were fundamentally different. One was meant to help you and was fairly easy to control even without training. The other one was more primal, more violent. The higher the grade of the poison the more difficult it was to control. Thankfully, this poison was not very powerful. Its effects were amplified by the formation he was in. Usually, someone would simply fall under the influence of the illusion and would be unable to resist the medicinal essence entering their body.

By using all his Yi, strengthened by his Zhi, both harmonized by his Shen, Cao Yun overtook this medicinal essence. He was able to gather all of it within his Lower Dantian and suppress the heat from spreading throughout his body.

The moment he did, his body stopped moving as he was two third of the way in the room. Seeing this, Lu Meihan got worried. She looked closely at Cao Yun to see whether he was having a problem or not. She did not mean him any harm but she needed something from him she was not ready to ask for.

'Reversing Two Universes Dance' was a dual cultivation method that could help her regain her strength and some more. This method had to be practiced by a man and a woman. And given the details of this practice, she was fairly certain that Cao Yun would refuse. Thus, she had to resort to other means.