Aimless Ascension

Xiaolin was more uneasy on the way back than when they came. Along with her initial worries and what she encountered had troubled her more than she deserved. Moreover, Gale hadn't given her any green signal about the purchase.

His mind was still hovering over contemplation. Yes, buying the land wouldn't even cost a dent in his wealth, but buying the land meant he would be tied down to this place. It would truly be retirement, not some rest.

Gale still wasn't sure about retirement. He still wanted to do more. If he kept at the adventurer's life, he would probably die in the next two decades. If not from an outside threat, then it would be the cosmic imbalance growing inside him. But he still wanted to do more.

Gale doesn't want to die, like any normal human being. If he gave up, he would probably live about a hundred more years or more, still half of the natural life span of any gold ranker. Gold rankers that cultivate life energy could live up to five hundred years with no issues, while for any normal gold ranker, three hundred years were easy enough.

'Well, a hundred years is still a long time,' Gale muttered. Not to mention he was calculating the time of this world. In earth years that would be close to 140 years. That should be a long enough time to find a cure. Well, even if he couldn't, his master or fellow disciples would. Probably.

"Ah, senior?"

"Hmm, yes?" Gale turned towards Xiaolin, who was caressing vale gently the whole time they were on the carriage. The visit hadn't gone the way she hoped it would, but she was still hopeful about it.

"What do you think?" She asked, sounding eager. "About the land, I mean?"

Gale thought for a moment. "I can't give you a definite answer without knowing the whole thing," he told her. "Nobody can threaten me to do anything, but you have to convince me first. I need to know the complete story first to get into this, Xiaolin."

"The complete story?"

Gale nodded. "How you ended up like this," he said. "I can already piece together a summary, but I want to hear more from you." Finding the girl silent, he added, "If you like."

Xiaolin sighed. "It's not really a secret," she said. "If you ask anyone in the town, they would fill you up with all sorts of rumours. It happened about two years ago when a noble son came to our house after adventuring in the wild mountains. He asked my father for my hand in marriage."

"That was . . ."

"Han Xiao," Xiaolin answered. "The Mayor's nephew. He presented himself as if he was doing a big favour to me and to my family. Maybe he did, with me being incapable of practising spiritual arts. However, my father opposed Han Xiao's proposal, as there were nasty rumours about Han Xiao. . . ."

Xiaolin recounted her story as Gale listened attentively. After Xiaolin's father denied Han Xiao, the noble son didn't take it easy. Well, nobles hardly take anything easy that they thought belonged to them.

Han Xiao and a few of his gang members made things difficult for her family. At first, it started with small things, but seeing her father's non-tolerance against all this bullying, Han Xiao came in harder.

The slight liking had grown into an infatuation over the time he was denied.

It needed to be mentioned that Xiaolin's father was a retired soldier and once rose to the rank of sergeant in the king's army. He had enough confidence with the connections he made he wouldn't have to leave his daughter to such a life. Being the mistress of some terrible young master who would throw her away on a whim just as he took a liking on a whim.

Unfortunately, within a couple of months, he found no one was ready to purchase grains from him in the town. The Wang family helped, but they couldn't really buy all of it. However, he didn't bend. Even when his crops were burned in the middle of the night.

In the end, he decided to go to the capital, leaving his daughter in the care of the Wang Family, intending to sell his grains as well as solve this problem once and for all.

He never returned from his journey to the capital.

Xiaolin had to live with the Wang family from then on. Ignoring all sorts of trouble Han Xiao would bring, it's not really safe for a lone girl like her to live alone. So she moved to the Wang Family, where Grandma Wang instructed her on spirit arts and Xiaolin helped run all sorts of errands.

Though they weren't any adaptation ceremonies, Grandma Wang or Wang Li treated her like a family.

But it did not solve the problem. Han Xiao never budged from his point. He acted like Xiaolin's father agreed to their union before going missing, and acted like he owned her or something. He never really wanted to marry her, and that was showing up well after her father's absence.

Only with the presence of Grandma Wang, Han Xiao didn't try anything drastic.

Xiaolin didn't go deep into how much harder her life had been, but Gale got the point. It wasn't really anything unique. Gale could find cases like hers all over the world, but that didn't mean the struggle wasn't real.

The sheer helplessness of unknowing whether or not your loved ones were even alive. That's brutal. It wouldn't be crueller than that. Xiaolin still waited for her father to return, despite knowing in the back of her mind, it was unlikely.

"And I've been working uselessly in the Inn since then," Xiaolin said pessimistically. "I'm a completely useless daughter. Useless in practising spirit, useless in everything else. . . ."

Vale rubbed his head soothingly on her lap, trying to ease her pain. The intelligent eyes of the hound turned to Gale as if asking him to do something about it. Vale seemed to like her very much, even though they only met a day earlier.

"Anyway, senior," Xiaolin said, shrugging away her pain. "You don't have to buy the land just because you feel pity for me. I owe that to Grandma Wang and elder sister Wang Li already."

Gale wasn't sure what look he was giving, so he decided to turn the topic around. "You mentioned you're incapable of practising spirit art?"

"Yes," Xiaolin bit her lips. "There's something wrong with my meridians. I can't accumulate Qi for a longer period. Anything I cultivate gets sucked out of my body within a month or two, causing me to remain in the initiate rank even after six years of practice."

Gale frowned. All these broken or sealed meridian talks were complete horseshit to him. Well, they were real, like how magic was in this world, but meridians were nothing but the most efficient imaginary ways energy travels through the body.

You simply couldn't have a problem with an imaginary thing.

That means there's something wrong with her constitution.