Tang Xinyun’s eyes were a bit glossy from her sudden awakening. For a few seconds, she remained in her bed and blinked her eyes before finally registering Cang Yu next to her. Her mouth opened slightly as if she wanted to say something, but no sound came out.
“Xinyun, don’t speak for now. Focus on regaining your soulforce.” Cang Yu’s hand clutched at Tang Xinyun’s as she softly instructed.
Tang Xinyun blinked once. She seemed to be responding to Cang Yu, but her eyes then shifted away from Cang Yu to look at Bai Yunfei who was beside himself with worry.
A flash of joy registered in her eyes and her lips seemed to curl up, the sign of a smile. She was overjoyed to see that Bai Yunfei was safe and sound.
It was a small detail that Bai Yunfei would never be able to forget…
Yet, at the same time, Bai Yunfei felt even more regret.
“Xi—Xinyun, listen to the third elder and rest up. You’ll be fine…” His voice trailed off as if unsure of what to say other than some comforting words. Even those words were said with a stutter before he turned to Xiao Binzi, “First elder, Xinyun is going to be fine, isn’t she? How long will it take for her to fully recover?”
Deep in thought as he pondered the question, Xiao Binzi then answered, “Xinyun’s current situation is way better than before. I estimate that she won’t face any other dangers but… a full recovery won’t be easy.”
“Even now there’s still not a chance for full recovery!?” Bai Yunfei cried out in despair.
Xiao Binzi nodded, “The corrosiveness from the Soul Refining Palm isn’t easy to neutralize. The fact that Xinyun was able to wake up is a blessing in itself. Perhaps the Purple Spirit Ring was far more effective than I thought…
“But in short, as long as Xinyun’s soulforce continues to regenerate, she should be able to subdue and neutralize the remaining corrosive energy. Bit by bit, there’ll surely be a day when all of that energy will be neutralized.”
“How… how long will that take?” Bai Yunfei asked.
Xiao Binzi wasn’t sure, “I cannot say. A few days perhaps. A few months, even longer… There is no saying when or if the corrosive energy will come back. That’s why I cannot guarantee anything.”
Bai Yunfei was quiet. He had originally thought that Tang Xinyun would be safe and sound with the Yun’s Soul Ring. The fact that there’d still be so many different problems was surprising to him. In any case, Tang Xinyun was up now and was in no immediate danger. This much was enough to shrug off most of the weight on his shoulders.
Tang Xinyun was awake for only a short moment. She soon closed her eyes once again. She hadn’t fainted. She was instead asleep due to her fatigue.
Leaving Cang Yu behind to look after the sleeping female, Bai Yunfei and Xiao Binzi both walked out of the room and into the courtyard. The problem was resolved, but the worry in Bai Yunfei’s heart wasn’t gone yet. He looked back at her room.
It was evident to Xiao Binzi what Bai Yunfei was feeling. “Yunfei, don’t worry.” He comforted, “Concerning yourself over her won’t do any good right now. Xinyun is already getting better, it’s just a long route of recuperation from here.
“Just don’t blame yourself too much. Making a mistake is something everyone does. To linger on these mistakes is not what a man should do.”
Bai Yunfei was confused at first as to what Xiao Binzi was saying, but then he realized that the elder had mistaken Bai Yunfei’s room confinement as a sign of self-blame. He didn’t want to mention that even though Tang Xinyun had escaped danger, he was still feeling some lingering regret.
Bai Yunfei didn’t plan on halting his plans to upgrade the spirit-increasing accessories. In fact, he wanted to make even more, to help Tang Xinyun drive out the remaining corrosive energy. That would be when he would stop feeling regretful.
“First elder…” Bai Yunfei began, “I was actually in my room because I realized that something wasn’t right with myself…”
“What!?” Xiao Binzi started. His hand flew to grab Bai Yunfei’s shoulder and probed in with his soulsense. “Your aura is a little peculiar and garbled. What happened? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“With the condition Xinyun was in, I didn’t want to let you worry even more, first elder. I didn’t know what was wrong either. I was just afraid that something would happen if I didn’t try to control the situation. If that happened, I’d hope that you’d come to save me, first elder…”
Overusing the Upgrade Technique wasn’t something to take lightly. The first time this had happened, Bai Yunfei had nearly lost his life. It was after that rampant usage that Bai Yunfei calmed himself down and forbade himself to do it again, but for Tang Xinyun’s sake, he had no other choice.
Wth Xiao Binzi being a Soul King, Bai Yunfei had to make up an excuse so that he’d be prepared in the future.
Still looking at Bai Yunfei with narrowed eyes, Xiao Binzi didn’t look as if he knew what was going on with Bai Yunfei, so he said, “Very well. Now that Xinyun is fine, we won’t need to hurry back to the Crafting School. We’ll stay here for a bit longer. Should anything happen, come straight to me at once.”
“Yes, elder. My apologies for the trouble…” Bai Yunfei nodded.
“Sigh… you youngsters and your reckless actions and inconsideration for the feelings of others. When will you grow up and let us old ones be worry free?” Xiao Binzi sighed before walking back to his room. At the moment, he looked as if he really was a kind but ordinary old man. He might be grumbling about Bai Yunfei’s actions, but Bai Yunfei still felt slightly warm inside.
When Bai Yunfei returned to his own courtyard, he managed to come across one of the men from the Xiao. The man had yet another space ring filled with accessories for Bai Yunfei. He took it without another word.
Back in his room, Bai Yunfei was free to upgrade as he liked. This time, the process was far more casual than before. When he used up all his soulforce, Bai Yunfei didn’t try to force himself to continue.
Instead, he took a proper ‘rest’ for the first time in days.
Later that night within the Xiao Compound—
The head of the family, Xiao Rang, sat in the middlemost seat with a grim expression. His son, Xiao Xin sat to his right with an equally uneasy expression.
In the center of the room in front of the two stood a figure with his head drooped down low. It was the grandson of Xiao Rang, Xiao Er.
Eying Xiao Er with eyes that could start a fire, Xiao Rang exploded in anger, “Well? What do you have to say for yourself? In five days, you’ve borrowed enough money for ten years from our account books, and you even borrowed an enormous sum from your brother and sisters! Then, you spent all this money to buy every single jewelry store in Curopia City and even some of the other stores in the surrounding cities! What ridiculousness is this? You better have a good reason for this; no matter how much your grandmother might protect you, I’ll snap your leg if you don’t explain yourself!!”
Since he and Xiao Xin were completely busy taking care of the matters relating to the destruction of the house of Sun, the two of them had left the internal matters alone unless it was of immediate importance. The destruction of the Sun was very convenient to their family to say the least. Any subordinate family to the Sun needed to be subjugated, and their businesses needed to be bought out.
So upon their return to the household, the two of them were swarmed with complaints from every single female in the Xiao. Each one of them complained that Xiao Er had rudely appropriated their jewelry and accessories without their permission. This in turn led to Xiao Rang and Xiao Xin’s immediate anger. They demanded Xiao Rang be summoned for punishment
Xiao Rang was a figure within the household everyone was afraid of, Xiao Er was no exception, but even though he was accustomed to the critics of his grandfather, Xiao Er had a perfectly reasonable justification for his actions this time. Straightening his back, Xiao Er announced, “Grandfather, your grandson has a good reason for this!”
“Oh?” Xiao Rang replied in surprise. “What reason do you have? Speak!” He questioned.
“These accessories were… what brother Bai wanted me to buy.” Xiao Er confessed.
“Bai Yunfei?” Xiao Rang and Xiao Xin echoed. “Wasn’t he heavily injured? What does he want with these accessories?” Xiao Xin asked.
Since he didn’t know, Xiao Er shook his head. “I… don’t know why, but he didn’t want all of them. Each time I gave him a good sum, but he’d return roughly ninety percent of them before asking me for another delivery. I didn’t understand why, but grandfather said that I should do whatever the guests from the Crafting School wanted. So, I…”
Bai Yunfei had only wanted the accessories that granted spirit. Any +1 accessories that granted any other attribute was pointless to keep and upgrade so he returned them to Xiao Er.
“That is a strange request… does Bai Yunfei have some sort of strange hobby?” Xiao Xin conjectured, but he wasn’t content with that, “Was this Bai Yunfei really such an intemperate person? He might be an honored guest, but to have our family pay so much is a bit…”
Xiao Er interrupted his father before he could finish speaking, “Father, brother Bai didn’t have me help him without a payment. He gave me two soul armaments as gifts…”
“Oh? Soul armaments?” As soon as they heard the words ‘soul armaments,’ Xiao Rang and Xiao Xin were surprised. “What tier are they? Low-human or mid-human? Let us see.”
“Okay…” Xiao Er took out the silver dagger from his space ring and handed it to Xiao Rang.
Upon handling the dagger, Xiao Er examined it before nearly dropping it in shock, “High-human tier!”
“What!? A high-human tier soul armament!?” Xiao Xin was shocked too. “Th—this Bai Yunfei is… a very generous person…”
A soul armament of that tier was worth far more than what the Xiao had lost in the past five days.
“One moment. You said there were two? What is the second one? Show me!” Xiao Rang’s tone was suddenly a lot more impatient than before.
Xiao Er himself was excited too. He didn’t know how to differentiate between soul armaments. He only knew that the one he had obtained was a human tier soul armament, not that it was a high-human tier one.
In his age-group, the only ones who had a high-human tier soul armament was his older brother, so hearing Xiao Rang declare the tier of it was enough for his heart to skip a beat. Quelling his emotions, Xiao Er took out the other azure longsword and handed it to Xiao Rang.
Taking the longsword, Xiao Rang pushed his soulforce into the sword and listened for the vibrations. As soon as the sword light up in a flash of azure light, Xiao Rang’s eyes lit up too.
“Low-earth!!”
In comparison, a low-earth tier soul armament was far better than a high-human tier soul armament. Ever since the founding of the Xiao, their family heirloom had been nothing more than a high-earth tier soul armament. To have Bai Yunfei ‘gift’ them such an expensive item for a few accessories was something even he, a Soul Exalt, would be overwhelmed by.
A wave of silence descended over the room for a decent amount of time before Xiao Rang finally spoke to Xiao Er. “Report to the accountants and tell them that you are free to use whatever capital you need to buy Bai Yunfei his accessories. You are authorized to use and purchase as much as he needs!!”