"So you're saying she's only three years old, and she's already awakened a spirit seed?"
Chu Mingyan's first instinct was that something must be wrong.
But Chu Daixi crossed her arms, utterly confident. "If she hadn't awakened a spirit seed, could she control qi on her own? Just now, when I was flying with her, she actually levitated for a moment."
...Why on earth would you take a three-year-old flying up in the sky? What if she fell and got hurt, or got scared?
...Levitated? Is it not possible that the kid just weighs very little?
Chu Mingyan's throat was stuffed with a dozen retorts, yet not a single one made it out.
Perhaps her expression of utter exasperation was too obvious, because Chu Daixi raised an eyebrow. "I'm her mother. I have a feeling. Go ahead and test her!"
...Chu Mingyan suppressed the urge to press her palm to her forehead, crouched down to Wangshu's level, and softened her voice as much as she could: "Just now, up in the air, what did you do?"
"Control spiritual energy. Fly," Wangshu answered plainly.
You're three years old, and you dared to manipulate qi in mid-air, intending to fly on your own?
Chu Mingyan was rendered speechless. All she could think was that these two truly deserved to be mother and daughter at first sight—they clearly had matching temperaments.
Chu Mingyan took out the Dao Veil Disk. Seeing Wangshu staring at it curiously, she held it in her hands and let the child look her fill.
Keeping her posture steady, she looked up at Chu Daixi and said, "The clan leader should know this object is precious. Ordinarily, it takes the writs of three elders to bring it out. I alone can carry it for at most a quarter of an hour before they come looking for me here."
"Isn't that perfect?" Chu Daixi looked thoroughly pleased. "Each of them can give a welcoming gift, and while they're at it, they can serve as guardians for my daughter's spirit shaping."
She had no intention of hiding Wangshu away. On the contrary, she was the type to show off anything good she had. Wangshu was a treasure that had crashed into her life of her own accord—if she wasn't going to announce it to the whole world, at least she should announce it to the whole clan.
Sometimes communicating with your superiors was truly exhausting... Chu Mingyan took a silent breath and turned back to Wangshu. "Have you looked enough? I'm going to use this now to test whether you've awakened a spirit seed."
Wangshu nodded. She'd looked enough.
This thing called the Dao Veil Disk—she couldn't tell what material it was made of. It was black and heavy as ink, and no matter from which angle she viewed it, not a single glint of light reflected off it. The disk was circular, with inscriptions carved densely along the rim and the hollowed-out bottom. Only at the center did a raised pillar jut out, its core hollowed as well.
Chu Mingyan said, "In a moment, I'll take a drop of your blood and let it fall onto the pillar at the disk's heart. All you need to do is close your eyes. You won't feel any pain."
Wangshu: "Okay!"
Chu Daixi, however, frowned at those words. Taking blood won't hurt? It's not your blood being taken. She was about to speak up when she saw Chu Mingyan move with lightning speed—pinching Wangshu's middle finger, bending her own finger into a blade, and slicing swiftly.
Bright red welled up, falling precisely onto the disk's center.
Chu Daixi's eyelid twitched. She snatched up Wangshu's middle finger, ready to complain—but then she saw the wound was already nearly healed.
She casually shut her mouth.
Chu Mingyan shot her a cold, withering glare.
Wangshu, sandwiched in the triangular space between the two adults, kept her eyes fixed on the disk. "This disk is glowing."
She was very focused on the test result; she'd been watching the disk ever since the blood drop landed. After the pillar absorbed her blood, the inscriptions along the rim lit up in sequence. From the pillar as the center, two trails of blood spiraled outward, forming the pattern of the two cosmic forces—yin and yang.
As the bloody haze spread to fill the entire base of the disk, the pillar slowly pushed up a clump of light. It was like a lamp lit at dusk—not blinding like the night, yet not so faint as to vanish in the day.
Wangshu asked, “What does this light mean?”
The gazes of the two adults had long since been drawn over.
The soft, silent beam illuminated Chu Mingyan’s pupils, and she murmured, “So it really did awaken…”
Chu Daixi was also still processing the shock of the moment. A moment ago, she had been the one speaking with such certainty, and now that she actually saw the result, she was the one finding it hard to believe.
In the brief silence between the two, Wangshu’s head was still hovering over the spirit disc, the tiny golden cicada wings pinned to her two little hair buns trembling slightly.
“It awakened? Then what grade is my spirit seed?” She was very invested in her own talent.
Chu Mingyan snapped back to her senses and gave Wangshu a surprised look.
Chu Daixi raised an eyebrow and scooped Wangshu up in one motion.
“You’re just a little kid—what’s with you thinking about grades?”
Wangshu steadied herself on Chu Daixi’s shoulder, her dark, inky eyes utterly serious.
“Chu Yan told me all about it. What privileges and treatment I get in the Chu family all depends on whether I can awaken a spirit seed, what grade it is, and how powerful my innate divine ability is after awakening… There’s a whole system to it.”
In her childish voice, she repeated word for word the three-tier progression Chu Yan had explained to her.
Chu Mingyan’s brow arched ever so subtly.
Chu Daixi’s smile turned sinister. “Chu Yan, is that so. Very well.”
That pale, fat steward could kiss his position goodbye! Her sweet child had been utterly corrupted—what kind of nonsense had Chu Yan been teaching her!
Her mind instantly raced through a hundred ways to discipline Chu Yan, while her face bloomed into an even gentler smile as she launched into a motherly lecture. “You’re my daughter—how could your grade be anything less than outstanding? Don’t worry about any of that. All you need to do is eat and play. If anyone in the Chu family dares to say a word against you, I’ll kill them!”
The word “kill” carried a vicious edge, but Wangshu remained utterly unfazed. She gave an “oh,” tugged at Chu Daixi’s sleeve, and blinked with wide-eyed innocence. “So… what’s my grade?”
Chu Daixi: …
Chu Mingyan watched her clan leader get stumped for the first time, savored the sight for a good while, then explained to Wangshu, “Your spirit seed just awakened—it has form but no substance yet. It still needs a full ‘drenching’ of energy before we can see its grade.”
Drenching? Like watering a seed? So it really was similar to raising plants.
Wangshu nodded.
As they spoke, the identity jade tokens hanging from Chu Daixi’s and Chu Mingyan’s waists flickered simultaneously. The two exchanged a glance, and moments later, two figures flew over from Zhaoxi Pavilion.
Wangshu’s big eyes widened as she watched the two women descend, their feet landing as lightly as feathers.
One was slightly older, her pitch-black hair neatly coiled up and pinned with a green jade hairpin. She wore a purple robe patterned with lotus motifs, her eyes calm and composed, dignified and steady.
The other was younger, with a striking face and upturned, alluring eyes. She too had her hair bound up in a crown, but she wore a silken, form-fitting gown with a plunging neckline. Golden bracelets adorned both wrists, each set with sparkling gems—extravagant and resplendent.
Based on the earlier conversation between her mother and Fifth Elder, these two newcomers were likely also Chu family elders. Counting her mother as clan leader, the upper echelons of the Chu family consisted of at least four women.
Wangshu immediately recognized this as a good thing. The more high-ranking women the Chu family had, the more standing girls with cultivation aptitude like herself would hold.
The moment Chu Zhiyuan arrived, she met a pair of big, kitten-like eyes—clear and watery, with large black pupils, staring unabashedly at the glittering ornaments she wore. She couldn’t help but smile and say, “Whose little doll is this? Such a lively spirit.”
Chu Daixi held Wangshu, chin lifted high, and said with shocking bluntness, “Mine.”
…
There was a brief moment of silence in Zhaoxi Pavilion. Chu Mingyan pressed a hand to her forehead but chose not to expose the truth.
The Grand Elder's gentle gaze withdrew from Wangshu's face, shifting to Chu Daixi as she offered a tactful reminder: "The Clan Head's last excursion was to the Spirit Cave Heaven of the North Sea some time ago — that was barely a year past."
Even if a child had been conceived during that journey to the North Sea, there was no way a child this size could have resulted.
Though Wangshu was only three, she was larger than most children her age — thanks to Chu Xiu's early feeding of spirit cuisine and her own hearty appetite. One could easily mistake her for five years old, and no one would question it.
"Giving birth to a child is just something done on a whim — if you decide to have one, you have one. No need to wait for some excursion." Chu Daixi spoke casually, yet a deep thought lingered in the depths of her eyes.
She was serious.
From the very night she had clinked cups with Wangshu, Chu Daixi had resolved to take responsibility for her as a mother.
This was their pact.
From now on, to the outside world, she would simply say that Wangshu was her own flesh and blood.
Born into a family of the Seal Imprint lineage, Wangshu would one day leave the clan to enter the Dao Palace and compete for rank against the finest prodigies of the world. Any flaw, no matter how small, could be seized upon by her rivals and magnified against her.
She could not bear to allow Wangshu to carry any stain on her identity.
She would only be her child. She could only be her child.
There would be no second answer.
The senior elders of the Chu family might sense something, but they would never speak of it abroad — because they all bore the surname Chu.
As for Chu Xiu and Chu Yan — from the moment they had pushed to bring Wangshu from the branch family to the main house, their interests had become deeply entwined with hers. Should they ever betray her, she would personally end their lives.
The Grand Elder's words turned over in her mind once, twice, but in the end, she said nothing, merely nodding.
Second Elder Chu Zhiyuan's gaze shifted back and forth between Wangshu and Chu Daixi, a flicker of hesitation crossing her face.
What the Clan Head had just said — absurd as it sounded, it didn't seem entirely without basis. The child's eyes... they really did resemble the Clan Head's.
Both had roundish eye shapes, with dark, bright pupils. What was most alike was the way they fixed their gaze on someone — perfectly still, radiating a coldness that felt innate.
Besides, given the Clan Head's temperament, she was exactly the type to do something like this — secretly bear a child and then suddenly bring them home. She did have two lovers abroad, after all...
Of course, truth or falsehood hardly mattered. With the Clan Head's stance as it was, the child's status was beyond all dispute.
After turning this over in her mind, Chu Zhiyuan broke into a languid smile, her red lips curving upward. She casually slipped a gold bangle from her wrist and pressed it into Wangshu's hands — the child had been eyeing it several times already — and said warmly, "A greeting gift from Second Elder."
The gold bangle was larger than Wangshu's hand, heavy and solid, pulling downward the moment it touched her palms. Wangshu cupped it with both hands, then looked to Chu Daixi.
Chu Daixi gave a slight nod. "Take it. Your Second Elder has money to spare."
Upon seeing this, Grand Elder Chu Jingjian hesitated for a moment, patting herself down... but found nothing to offer.
She wasn't like the Second Elder, who could pluck a hairpin or bangle off her person and it would be a gift worthy of presentation. Nor did she have anything suitable in her storage spirit artifact. Surely she wasn't supposed to just hand Wangshu a pile of spirit stones? That simply wouldn't do.
The Grand Elder struggled over this dilemma for a long while, and Chu Daixi found it amusing. "Grand Elder, there's no need to rush. In seven days, I will convene a clan assembly to formally introduce this child to everyone. At that time, you may present your gift then."
The Grand Elder gave a steady, low hum and got straight to the point: “What’s this about the Daoyun Disc?”
Chu Daixi suppressed the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth and said with a pre-prepared nonchalant air: “Oh, nothing much. It just seems my sweet child has awakened her spirit seed, so I used the Daoyun Disc to test her.”
The Second Elder’s lazy eyelids flew open, and she straightened up. The Grand Elder paused, then asked: “How old is she?”
Chu Daixi couldn’t hold back the smile spreading across her face: “Three.”
Three years old. Chu Zhiyuan grabbed Chu Mingyan by the arm, pulling her close, and whispered rapidly: “The Daoyun Disc has already been used? What was the result?”
“She just awakened, that’s all,” Chu Mingyan said flatly.
The incredulous looks on the Grand Elder’s and Second Elder’s faces were like some kind of natural, miraculous tonic, filling Chu Daixi with immense delight.
So this was the joy of raising a child?
She let out an “oh” as if she’d just remembered something, and said offhandedly: “Perfect timing. Since all three elders are here, why not take the opportunity to serve as the guardians for my sweet child’s spirit shaping?”
Might as well let you see it with your own eyes, save you from doubting it.
Sure enough, the Grand Elder and the Second Elder exchanged a glance, and neither refused.
The spirit shaping for Wangshu took place at the spirit pool deep within the bamboo grove of Zhaoxi Pavilion.
Spirit shaping, as Chu Mingyan had said earlier, was the process of pouring copious amounts of spirit essence-rich liquid over a newly awakened spirit seed to allow it to fully take form and truly burst into spiritual vitality.
Only after shaping could the grade of the spirit seed be revealed.
The liquid used for shaping was also a matter of great care. Given both her awakening at age three and her status as the clan leader’s daughter, there was no way Wangshu would be shaped with anything less than the finest.
With the silent approval of the three elders and Chu Daixi’s sense of entitlement, the medicine liquid for Wangshu’s shaping was specially retrieved from the clan’s treasure vault.
Wangshu stared at the clear jade bottle in the Fifth Elder’s hand—that was what she was about to use, something called Essence of Spirit Foundation. Just to obtain it earlier, every elder, including her mother the clan leader, had to produce their own command tokens.
Such a tedious process, and in the end they only brought out a jade bottle the size of an adult palm.
Chu Daixi placed Wangshu into the water of the spirit pool and signaled that the shaping was about to begin. Wangshu quickly snapped back to attention.
She saw the gentlest of them all, the Grand Elder, form a barrier over this patch of bamboo grove, while the beautiful Second Elder held the Daoyun Disc.
And her most familiar Fifth Elder, with a solemn expression on his face, tilted the jade bottle in his hand, aiming its mouth at the central pillar groove of the Daoyun Disc.
Wangshu watched as the Essence of Spirit Foundation poured out—a pale green like freshly sprouted leaves, carrying an otherworldly shimmer. It settled in the disc, glowing faintly.
Whether the disc was too deep or the Essence too little, by the time the entire bottle was emptied, it barely covered the bottom in a thin layer.
In the end, Chu Daixi took the disc in her own hands, and she personally performed the most crucial step of Wangshu’s shaping.
Chu Daixi tossed the disc lightly into the air, rapidly forming hand seals. The disc hovered steadily overhead, not a single drop of liquid spilling from it.
As the incantation activated, the engraved characters along the rim lit up, and the disc expanded by a full circle, stopping in midair above the spirit pool where Wangshu was soaking.
Wangshu reached out a hand and found that the disc cast down a beam of light, perfectly enveloping her. She ran her hand through the light, poking it in and pulling it out, trying to detect any difference between inside and outside the beam.
“Sweet child, close your eyes,” Chu Daixi reminded her. “Absorb this energy. Wherever it flows and gathers, that is where your spirit seed lies.”
Wangshu obediently closed her eyes, and felt her body become a river.
The spiritual energy in the pool slowly converged toward the river, and the spiritual light overhead scattered like rain, falling upon the parched riverbed, raising the water level until the river began to flow once more.
Wangshu's consciousness drifted along with the current, and at the very core of her viscera, she saw a faintly floating point of light.
Sensing Wangshu's "gaze," the point of light pulsed gently, as if greeting her.
The three elders observed the entire process, watching the spiritual liquid in the dao disk diminish at a visible rate. When the last drop vanished, a ball of light condensed at the center pillar of the disk.
The ball of light was bright, steady, and unwavering. Amid the evening glow of the bamboo forest, it revealed a mesmerizing violet hue.
Wangshu felt as though a gentle rain had fallen within her body. Her seed, having drunk its fill, finally ceased its desperate thirst and began to take firm root in the earth.
So, that constant hunger for spiritual food—had this been the root cause all along?
Wangshu opened her eyes and saw that everyone was looking at her, their expressions subtle—not quite joy, not quite shock.
Wangshu wanted to clench her fist, but in the end, she only lifted her gaze. She asked, “I... what rank?”
Chu Daixi crouched down in front of Wangshu, a strange look on his face. “It's Violet-grade.”
Violet-grade. Wangshu's eyelashes, as delicate as little fans, involuntarily lowered.
In the foundational cultivation lessons Chu Xiu had given her, she had already learned that spiritual seeds came in four grades, from low to high: Green, Blue, Violet, and Gold.
Among them, the Golden-grade spiritual seed was the highest rank, and also the rarest.
I'm Violet-grade. At that moment, Wangshu caught a flicker of disappointment passing through her heart.
So I had secretly dreamed of awakening a Golden-grade seed, of becoming a true genius.
But isn't this perfectly normal? If I don't even dare to dream, then what am I playing the genius for? It's precisely because I'm not good enough that the simulator chose me.
In that instant of sinking, Wangshu found the strength to steady herself.
She raised her eyes and saw her mother still crouched before her, her expression not at all disappointed, but rather... amazed?
Chu Daixi pointed at Wangshu's forehead, his expression subtle as he said, “But your Violet-grade... doesn't seem quite normal.”
On Wangshu's fair, full forehead, during the process of shaping her spiritual seed, a golden mark had appeared.
It was like smoke, yet also like mist—like the first light of dawn, adorning the space between her brows.
