Keep my Secret

Following the end of the tournament, Hui Yue went back to his courtyard. There he locked himself inside refusing to see almost all of the many guests. The only guests seen entering into the genius’ courtyard were the manager of the Black Market Auction House and a messenger from the City Lord’s mansion.

Usually, an outstanding genius such as Hui Yue would be a target for assassination as soon as he had chosen a faction. Even though he clearly had chosen to ally himself with Lord Rong Liang, no one dared to make a move against him as they all feared his unknown master.

Throughout the next few months, many invitations were sent to Hui Yue inviting him to visit the various nobles of Riluo City. Each and every one of these invitations was declined. He even refused the ones who invited him to the City Lord’s mansion and the Ma family compound.

This refusal to accept invitations, in turn, caused the Wang faction to feel as though Hui Yue might not have been ensnared by the other side. He had shown face to the two families as repayment for them purchasing the martial and spiritual attack skills which the expert, Li Fen, had sold.

Life at the academy had changed drastically for Hui Yue. Just as he left his courtyard, he noticed a person waiting outside for him. A deep sigh escaped Hui Yue’s lips as he looked at the small figure in front of him.

Wang Ju Long’s hair had grown long and was tied at the top of her head. She was wearing a beautiful black robe on her snow-white skin. The fabric fluttered around her fragile figure as the wind picked up. Hui Yue slapped himself mentally. How could he ever have thought Wang Ju Long was a man?

Thinking about it this way made his handsome face turn grim. His feelings were the exact opposite of the ones Rong Ming had felt that fateful day all those years back. Some things were better left unexplored.

“Why do you wait for me every day?” Hui Yue asked dejectedly. He knew there was no way to escape this neighbor of his without her seeing him. He had tried multiple times, yet somehow she always managed to find him within mere seconds.

In the end, Hui Yue had just given up and allowed the woman to turn into his stalker. This change had caused multiple students within the Royal Academy to loathe Wang Ju Long. These students all saw her as someone who previously hated Hui Yue but now tried to suck up to him as he had shown his actual potential.

Unlike most people, Wang Ju Long paid absolutely no heed to the talk of others. She proudly stood next to Hui Yue. She never spoke just observed him quietly. Her sharp eyes always made the white-haired boy feel slightly uncomfortable. This caused him to hardly leave his courtyard. Often, he would barricade himself inside hoping to get just a sliver of privacy.

“I need to keep an eye on you,” Wang Ju Long answered while her cheeks flushed pink. “I cannot afford for you to tell anyone my secret.”

Hui Yue had asked this same question multiple times. Although the answer never changed Wang Ju Long’s attitude had changed throughout the months. At first, she had been very proud and aloof, but day after day she softened up. She had transformed into the blushing girl who was currently standing in front of him.

Another sigh escaped Hui Yue’s lips as he started making his way towards the classroom. It was now time to choose another subject for the remainder of the year. A naïve hope sprung into being within Hui Yue; he could choose a topic that Wang Ju Long didn’t pick!!

‘She will definitely choose the same as you,’ Lan Feng said with a dry voice, bursting the bubbly feeling of happiness which had started to grow within Hui Yue. A sour expression filled his face as he knew that the bird within him was right. It was evident that Wang Ju Long would follow him no matter what subject he chose.

Knowing this Hui Yue had picked the subject which focused on qi refining and eventually decided to skip out of all the lessons. He stayed in his courtyard to cultivate either alone, or with his friends.

Having reached the Disciple rank, Hui Yue spent a whole month just understanding the changes happening to his body.

First were the physical changes. Hui Yue had grown taller and much stronger. His features had gained a slight masculinity. No longer a feminine boy but now a handsome youth.

Although these changes seemed severe, they were nothing compared to what was happening within Hui Yue’s body.

When Hui Yue forced the final strand of qi out of his body in the fight against Li Shing, he had forcefully pushed his way into the Disciple rank. This action caused his body to become like a sponge, greedily sucking up essence from the heavens and the earth.

This essence no longer needed Hui Yue to refine it. The cultivation technique, which Lan Feng had taught him, activated itself and kept circulating the essence until it gained the pearly luster that showed the incredibly pure quality of the qi.

His meridians were slightly damaged during the battle. After a few weeks of rest and constant nourishing with qi, they had healed and became even stronger.

The biggest change was the qi spiral itself. The spiral had grown to twice its previous size, and a roaring sound could be heard from within it.

Not only had the spiral grown, it now spun in the opposite direction as it had originally. Within the qi spiral was a copy of Hui Yue seated with his hands locked in the bird hand seal. This copy of Hui Yue was the cultivation technique which would continually absorb and refine qi at the highest speed possible while continuing to keep the purity equal to that qi which had been manually refined.

Hui Yue would even further speed up the refinement process if he sat down and cultivated using the same technique. But he no longer needed to worry too much about it as his copy was keeping itself busy.

Another significant change within Hui Yue had his two caverns within the qi cave turn into nine cave-ins. Seven of them were blocked by a misty shield. Hui Yue had no way of breaking past or seeing through this shield.

Looking at the two open cave-ins, Hui Yue had the impression that something was missing. A longing within his soul was calling out. No matter how much Hui Yue contemplated the subject no answer would appear to ease this longing.

Instead, Hui Yue underwent multiple tests with Lan Feng to understand the blood-red mist and the sky-blue cloud.

The red mist appeared whenever Hui Yue engaged in battle or when danger was close. This red mist slowly enveloped the qi spiral. It would wrap around the qi, giving it an overbearing strength and also helped Hui Yue’s senses to sharpen.

The qi affected by the red mist would swell in size, and the previously pearl-white luster would have a faint red hue emitting from within.

Hui Yue learned to suppress this red mist with the least possible amount of focus and effort. But his current level was far too low to have any real control over it. He was unable to activate it, and he was even less capable of calming it down within its cave.

The blue cloud-like tranquillity was much simpler in this aspect. Hui Yue would usually activate the tranquillity for the sake of suppressing the killing intent. This cloud activated as soon as his consciousness came into contact with it. Unlike the red mist, the blue cloud emitted its cool and calm energy when traveling throughout his meridians.

While being affected by the blue cloud, Hui Yue was capable of calmly understanding and reacting to the things which were happening around him, and his sharpened senses seemed to observe everything around him in slow-motion.

This tranquil feeling was easy to control. As soon as Hui Yue willed it, the cloud would gather from the meridians and return to the cave-in where it calmly waited for the next time Hui Yue summoned it.

Another benefit of the blue cloud was the increased rate at which Hui Yue and his cultivation technique could refine qi. Nonetheless, all these benefits had a downside.

Every time Hui Yue used either the red mist or the blue cloud both cloud and mist would slowly diminish in size as the energy was used up. If one energy were used up more than the other, an imbalance would appear within Hui Yue. This caused the opposing energy to leak out and bring Hui Yue to the state of a killing frenzy, or a state of aloof tranquillity.

When the two cave-ins were completely empty as a result of Hui Yue using up all his energy, it would then take a full month before the cloud, and the mist could be restored to their original sizes.

Whatever fuelled these two unknown phenomena was something about which Hui Yue had absolutely no idea. Even Lan Feng could not seem to figure it out. He spent hour after hour in front of the cave-ins, observing the two contrasting forces.

‘One day,’ Lan Feng sighed. ‘One day when you get stronger we will be able to get an answer to what these are and their causes.’

‘What about the other caves?’ Hui Yue asked curiously, as he looked at the sealed entrances to the other cave-ins. Nothing was visible from within, nor was any feeling of energy being emitted out. They were thoroughly sealed.

‘They’ll open when it is time for them to open,’ Lan Feng said with little care in the world. For this ancient phoenix, everything that had happened was exciting and new to him. It brought excitement and great promises concerning Hui Yue’s future.

The winter was turning into spring with beautiful flowers that sprouted from the cold soil. Soon the snow would be melting, with the sun rising into the sky allowing for spring to turn into summer. It had now been almost been a year since Hui Yue arrived at the academy. It was time for the Rong’s yearly trip to the Magical Forest.

“This year you must come with us,” Rong Ming said with a big smile on his face. “We are going to go without the guards this year since the two of us have broken into the rank of Practitioner. Perhaps we can even invite the others and have a fun trip together!”

To hear Rong Ming speaking about the Magical Forest as a place to play around caused Hui Yue to chuckle slightly, although he did agree that it would be a good idea for the six of them to go together. If they were all together, it should be possible to survive as long as they did not wander too far into the forest.

Hui Yue felt some excitement grow within his heart as he realized he could visit his parents for the first time in a whole year.

Although Hui Yue had been born with the mentality of a twenty-four year old he also knew that he was cared for deeply by his new parents.

Hui Lifen had done her very best as his mother. Even though they were poor Hui Yue had always had everything he needed. Hui Yue also valued his father deeply, yet there was nothing in this world quite like the love of a mother. It was one thing to which Hui Yue looked forward to experiencing once again.

Another thing which Hui Yue looked forward to was finally allowing his friends to see from where he came. So far only the Rong twins were aware of his humble background.

Although he had informed Gao Yan, Ma Kong, and Deng Wu about his family they all expected to see feral men who fought magical beasts daily. They expected to see a wild tribe who were living in savage lands.

The truth was far from their expectations. Every time Hui Yue tried to correct their impressions none of them would listen to him. Eventually, he had completely given up on trying and instead decided to show them. These five youths were the ones Hui Yue would entrust with his deepest secrets and his most sensitive information.