Chapter 382: Damned Be The Chosen Ones

Cultivation Nerd

Autumn arrived as I stood by the window, staring out beyond the Spring Array that kept our garden lush and green.

Golden leaves drifted lazily from the trees, spiraling down in slow, unhurried arcs before settling on the ground. The air had thinned and sharpened, carrying that faint dryness that came only when summer reached its end. Even the light felt different, softer as though the sun no longer lingered where it once did.

It was amazing how good a cultivator’s vision was. Sometimes it was so instinctual that I forgot about it.

Now, as a future father, I had to learn to live in the moment and all that. Enjoy my kids while they were still young.

Well… they weren’t born yet, so there was that.

But despite how hard I tried to focus on other things, my gaze often returned to Fu Yating.

She stood by the stove array I had built for her, so she no longer had to start a fire. Her sleeves were rolled slightly as she worked, her movements practiced and calm.

Steam curled upward from the pot, briefly obscuring her face before drifting away.

She looked… normal.

Her figure hadn’t changed. No swelling. No heaviness. No visible sign that another life was growing inside her.

That was what unsettled me.

My chest tightened as a quiet, persistent anxiety settled in. I watched the way she shifted her weight, the steadiness of her breathing, the ease with which she lifted the lid to stir the pot.

Nothing seemed wrong.

And yet–

Shouldn’t there be something?

The thought gnawed at me.

I didn’t know how pregnancy was supposed to look at this stage. I had never paid attention before. In my previous life, children had been an abstract concept. Something for other people. Something distant. Optional.

I had never imagined myself as a father, never cared enough to learn what it meant to keep a child healthy and safe. It had never been my responsibility.

Though I did know that it was bad to feed babies water when they were too young, since their kidneys couldn’t handle it.

Now the ignorance from my previous life felt like a big mistake.

It wasn’t like I knew nothing. But it was never enough.

What if something’s wrong? What if the lack of change meant that she had miscarried–

I cut the thought off before it could finish.

No.

I should focus on the things I could control, and whether they were enough.

Outside, unseen beneath the layers of stone and soil, an array hummed faintly.

I had placed it carefully.

An Anti-Soul Array.

Weak by design, and subtle enough not to draw attention.

It lay beneath the Spring Array that kept the yard lush and green, hidden like a second skin beneath the first. It didn’t block Qi. It didn’t disturb the flow of life.

It simply denied entry.

No wandering weak soul would slip inside this house. No reincarnator would take root in a body that wasn’t theirs. Especially not my child’s.

The thought made something dark stir in my chest.

If someone tried… I didn’t know what I would do. Some gross old man or woman, taking over the body of my baby.

The realization lingered, uncomfortably.

It was hypocritical, I knew. I had taken another body once. I lived because someone else had ceased to exist. I had made peace with that long ago.

As for whether we had fused in body and mind, that could have happened too. But I was the more dominant personality. Still, this was different.

My child…

I shook my head, dismissing the thoughts again before they could settle and turn into something darker.

I watched Fu Yating taste the soup, frown slightly, and add a pinch of salt. The simple domestic motion grounded me more than any breathing technique ever had.

Hypocrite or not, some lines were not meant to be crossed. And this one, I would defend.

I rose from my seat and walked over, lingering perhaps a little too close to the stove.

“Do you need help?” I asked.

Fu Yating didn’t even turn around. She shook her head once and let out a small sigh as she stirred the pot.

“No,” she said. “You’d just get in the way.”

I hesitated.

“I can–”

She glanced back at me then, her eyes briefly appraising.

“Your food isn’t bad,” she added, almost generously. “But it leaves much to be desired.”

“…Meaning?”

“Too bland. Sometimes overcooked. Other times, you mix ingredients that don’t belong together,” she said flatly, then turned back to the stove.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again.

Arguing with my pregnant wife was useless. What if I won the argument, and the emotional stress somehow harmed the baby?

“Just… don’t strain yourself,” I said after a moment. “You don’t have to do everything.”

She paused, the ladle hovering over the pot, then exhaled slowly through her nose.

“I’m fine.”

“You say that, but–”

She set the ladle down and turned to face me properly this time.

“I’m not made of glass,” she said, her voice firm but not sharp. “I can still cook. I can still walk. I can still live.”

I nodded, though the knot in my chest didn’t loosen. She studied my face for a moment, then her tone softened slightly.

“If it really bothers you that much, go do some research. Or scheme. Or whatever it is you usually do when you used to disappear all day," she said. Her lips twitched faintly. “At least then you wouldn’t be hovering like this.”

“So I’m nagging now?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said immediately.

When I thought back on the past few days, how I had watched her walk, how my eyes followed every step, every shift of balance. I couldn’t even deny it.

…Yeah.

I was probably being annoying.

Fu Yating caught the expression on my face and smiled, a small, knowing curve of her lips. Despite the complaint, there was warmth there. Something almost fond.

It was clear she didn’t truly mind.

If anything, she seemed to enjoy it in her own quiet way, the way I hovered and worried as if the world might collapse the moment I looked away.

I swear, women and their vanity.

Despite the complaints in my mind, I couldn't help but smile too.

I let out a sigh and straightened.

“Alright. I’ll be nearby, researching," I said.

She raised an eyebrow.

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“Nearby?”

“Yes. Nearby,” I said, pulling out a small token and placing it on the table. “If you need anything, break this. I’ll know immediately.”

She glanced at the token, then back at me.

“You’re serious.”

“I am.”

Another sigh escaped her, but it was softer this time.

“You’re impossible.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ll still be close.”

She shook her head, smiling faintly as she turned back to the stove.

I stepped away, already feeling the strange, unfamiliar weight of responsibility settling deeper into my chest like an unease that no cultivation technique could soothe.

With a thought, I took to the air as translucent jade wings unfurled behind me.

They were elegant, each translucent green feather crafted with intricate detail. The wings beat with almost lifelike smoothness.

Flying this way was cooler, but slower than usual. Even so, I arrived at the library pagoda shortly after. The moment my feet touched the ground, the wings dissolved into drifting motes of light.

I stepped inside.

The familiar scent of old paper and incense greeted me.

Behind the counter, Jiang Yeming leaned on one elbow with a book open in front of her. Her eyes skimmed the page without focus, her expression flat with boredom so profound it bordered on suffering.

I had her temporarily take over my duties here while I stayed home to… take care of Fu Yating.

Calling it “taking care” was generous. There was nothing to actually do. I mostly watched. All the time.

Jiang Yeming flipped a page with all the enthusiasm of someone being punished.

“Oh,” she said suddenly, straightening as if she had just noticed me. “Can I leave now?”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

“This place is torture. None of these books are interesting.”

“Not even the secret ones?” I asked.

“Especially not those," she scowled. "They’re either wrong, incomplete, or written by idiots who thought mystery meant omitting key steps. So, can I leave now?”

“No," I shook my head. "I need to do some research first.”

“On what?” she asked, already bracing herself.

“The Misty Mountains.”

That did it.

Her complaints died mid-breath. She nodded once, sharply, her lips pressing together as if she had just been given a satisfactory answer to a question she hadn’t asked out loud.

For some reason, she wanted me connected to that place.

I didn’t ask why.

I passed her and descended.

The underground passage opened smoothly, arrays recognizing my Qi and parting the stone like water. My laboratory waited below, humming faintly with unactivated arrays.

The giant lion’s paw, the preserved remnant of a Nascent Soul beast that once dominated the room, had been pushed to a corner. It was partially covered with sealing cloths and suppressive arrays, looming there like a discarded relic preserved in strange solutions.

But now something far more disturbing floated at the center of the lab.

A dark cube.

Suspended in midair.

Its shape was perfectly symmetrical, its surface absorbing light rather than reflecting it.

Around it, rings of writing hovered and rotated slowly. Ancient scripts layered over one another with some etched in golden strokes, others formed from pure Qi, and still others flickering as if half-phased out of reality.

None of them touched the cube.

I had learned a few things about it since acquiring it.

The mist sealed inside wasn’t ordinary fog. It was highly refined Yin Qi and unnaturally dense. That much I could confirm.

Beyond that, understanding unraveled quickly. The more I probed, the more my thoughts slipped away, like trying to grip oil with bare hands.

Still, I had theories. Dangerous ones.

I suspected that one or several of the creatures sealed within the Misty Mountains hadn’t merely been imprisoned by the mist.

They had fused with it.

Not in the simple sense of body and energy merging. It was more intimate than that. The mist behaved less like an external seal and more like an organ. It was responsive, adaptive, and alive in a way Qi wasn’t supposed to be.

But even that wasn’t quite right.

I moved to the side table and activated a layered array. The formation unfolded with a soft chime. At its center, a lens system formed, nested rings of refracted Qi and crystal plates calibrated to absurd precision.

A microscope, if one insisted on naming it. Though no mortal craftsman would recognize it as such.

A xianxia microscope built with arrays, one that required a specific eyesight-enhancing technique just to properly observe through it.

I drew out a thread of the sealed mist, barely a fraction, isolating it through containment arrays before guiding it beneath the lens.

The moment I focused, the world changed. The mist no longer looked like vapor.

Under magnification, it fractured into countless filaments, each one thinner than a hair, twisting and folding over itself in complex patterns.

They weren’t random.

They followed rules.

Spirals within spirals, repeating structures that mirrored veins.

Yin Qi flowed through them, yes, but not freely.

It pulsed.

Circulated.

Rested.

Like blood.

Occasionally, two filaments brushed against one another and fused briefly before separating again, exchanging something intangible in the process.

Information, perhaps.

Memory.

I adjusted the array, pushing deeper.

The filaments responded.

They noticed.

The mist contracted slightly, its patterns shifting as if something inside had become aware of being observed.

For a split second, the structure resembled muscle fiber, all tensed and ready.

I leaned back slowly.

This wasn’t just energy.

And it wasn’t just a seal.

It was closer to a living system that had forgotten how to be alive.

Or worse. One that had learned how to survive as mist.

I shut down the array.

Somewhere far away; beyond stone, soil, and sanity, the Misty Mountains waited.

And for the first time, I suspected they weren’t just a place. They were something closer to a body. This thing didn’t align with the logic of this world at all.

After all, even elementalization techniques, like the one the Four-Armed Winter Bear used to turn itself into snow, had limits. If kept active too long, even with the theoretical Qi required to sustain such a technique indefinitely, the cultivator would eventually lose their sense of self.

They would stop being a creature using the technique and simply become snow.

Was I missing something here?

*******

Ye An breathed out, and her breath came as mist.

Qi churned violently within her as she tried to cultivate safely and limit it. But for the brief moment it was drawn in against her will, it flooded her body as if she were a bottomless abyss. In an instant she felt filled to the brim, like she was about to burst.

Extreme Physiques never rested. It devoured ambient Qi relentlessly, flooding her meridians faster than they could adapt.

She immediately sealed her roots again and winced as a stinging sensation pulsed through her body. All the way from the back of her head, down her spine, and finally settling in her dantian just below her stomach.

Pain followed.

It tore through her nerves in relentless waves, feeling the grinding, burning cold and freezing all at once. The cavern around her had long since frozen over, its walls glazed with thick ice. The ground lay cracked and rimed where excess Qi had bled outward and died.

Frost crept up the stone like living veins, responding to her instability.

Her Qi surged. Not cleanly. Not beautifully. It detonated inside her like a collapsing star.

Ye An screamed as the pressure shattered its limits, her cultivation forcibly tearing its way upward. The Core within her spun faster, denser, and sharper until it locked into place with a shrill, piercing resonance.

Four-star Core Formation.

The breakthrough completed itself without her consent.

She collapsed forward, laughing and sobbing at the same time.

“No—no—no—”

Her hands clawed at her head as the pain changed, spiking higher, sharper, unbearable.

“I’m not done!”

She slammed her forehead into the ice-covered wall.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

Cracks spiderwebbed through the frozen stone as blood smeared across the surface, instantly darkening against the frost.

She didn’t stop.

Couldn’t.

The agony demanded release that never came.

“I’ll live through this,” she sobbed hoarsely, her voice breaking apart. “I will… I don’t care… I will…!”

She slid down the wall, fingers digging into the ice until they bled. Then she bit down hard on her own nails, teeth scraping and tearing, piling pain atop pain just to keep her mind from dissolving completely.

Tears froze on her cheeks as fast as they fell.

Her body shook uncontrollably.

Twenty-one.

She was only twenty-one years old.

And already dying.

Her cultivation had advanced too fast, and it still did. The Extreme Physique was killing her from the inside out, stuffing her full of power she could not endure, promising explosion or madness as its final gift.

She survived not because her body allowed it. But because her will refused to let go.

Every second she endured only sharpened the blade carving her apart.

Ye An dragged in another breath, bloodshot eyes unfocused, staring at nothing as laughter bubbled from her throat... thin and broken.

Her gaze drifted across the cavern.

Past the ice. Past the blood. Past the fractures she had made.

And then it stopped.

A token lay nearby.

Unbroken.

Still intact.

Her breathing hitched.

Liu Feng’s voice echoed faintly in her memory, calm and infuriatingly confident.

It’ll break the moment I find a solution.

Her cracked lips pulled into a trembling smile.

“I’ll survive,” she whispered to the empty cavern, her eyes locked on the token as if it were proof the world hadn’t abandoned her yet. “I don’t care how much it hurts.”

Her gaze wandered again, unfocused and bloodshot, fixing on something that wasn’t there.

The ice crept closer.

And Ye An held on.

She knew Liu Feng was working tirelessly to find a way to help her with her condition.

She just had to hold on.