Finally, they reported the matter to Ma Renshan and asked him to warn the villagers to stay away from the lotus pond whenever possible. After hearing the news, Ma Renshan became even more worried. First, there had been the poisonous ants, and now the blackened lotus flowers. Who knew what other strange things might appear in the future? 

That afternoon, clouds thickened across the sky, and dry thunder began to rumble. Everyone hurried to destroy all the ant nests. Fortunately, no more poisonous ants appeared. They did, however, find many ant eggs. This time Big Mouth Zhang could not take them all, so several villagers who enjoyed eating such things divided them among themselves. Jing Lin, Yan Fei, and the others could not bring themselves to eat them, so they declined. 

By evening, Jing Lin told Zhao Chenghuai’s family that he intended to set up a Spirit-Locking Array for them. He explained its functions and benefits as well. 

Although Jing Lin had purchased yellow talisman paper some time ago, Zhao Chenghuai had never questioned what he had been doing with it. He trusted Jing Lin completely. When he heard that the Spirit-Locking Array could help improve his family’s health, he happily encouraged Jing Lin to proceed. 

As Jing Lin arranged the formation, Zhao Zhiwen and the others watched him perform an unusual series of steps for the first time. The movements were strange but not comical. Instead, they carried an air of solemnity and sanctity that unconsciously made the observers grow serious and become immersed in the process. 

After a busy day, Zhou Yu invited Jing Lin and Le Le to stay for dinner as thanks for the effort he had put into setting up the formation. Though the meal consisted only of simple porridge and side dishes, the warm atmosphere of a family eating together made it enjoyable. Afterward, Jing Lin sat and chatted with Zhao Chenghuai and his wife for a while. Before long, the thunder grew louder, accompanied by wind and flashes of lightning. Seeing that a heavy storm was about to arrive, Jing Lin took Le Le home. 

They had barely returned when large raindrops began falling. The wind drove the rain toward the house. Jing Lin shut the door, and the gusts battered the rolling shutter outside, making loud banging sounds like someone pounding on the door. 

He lit an oil lamp and heated water for a bath. After bathing with Le Le, the two returned to their room. It was still early, and Le Le was busy playing with Duckie, so there was no need for a bedtime story as usual. With nothing else to do, Jing Lin continued cultivating the Lesser Vast Heaven Heart Method. 

After silently reciting the cultivation incantation for a while, all of Jing Lin’s consciousness soon entered a profound state. He watched as spiritual qi gathered by the technique poured into his body. Unlike the spiritual qi from his morning practice, the qi now flowing in was tinged with purple and streaked with flashes of brilliant white.

It was like… what was it like? While cultivating, Jing Lin vaguely wondered. After a long moment, he realized it resembled the lightning outside. 

During his previous two cultivation sessions, the spiritual qi he absorbed had always been tinged with purple, leading him to believe this was the norm. Only now did he begin to wonder if that assumption was actually incorrect.

These thoughts merely drifted through his mind in passing. As more and more spiritual qi flowed into him, Jing Lin began to feel a faint pain spreading through his body. 

He thought something might be wrong, and the urge to stop briefly surfaced. However, he immediately dismissed it. A sudden craving deep within him told him that he absolutely could not stop now. After hesitating for only an instant, Jing Lin calmed himself once more and focused wholeheartedly on circulating the cultivation technique. 

He did not know how much time had passed. Eventually, the spiritual qi no longer carried any purple or brilliant white coloration. Everything he absorbed became milky white. Only then did he end this cultivation session. The thunder outside had ceased, the lightning was gone, and only the gentle sound of rain remained. 

He examined the milky-white cloud of qi within his brow. Floating inside it were occasional streaks of purple that drifted through the edge of the cloud like wandering dragons, sometimes mixed with flashes of dazzling white. During today’s cultivation, the purple qi containing the bright-white flashes had gradually become scarcer. Once the storm ended, the spiritual qi he absorbed had turned completely milky white. Only now did Jing Lin begin to understand the connection. 

Purple qi came from the east, the direction of the rising sun. Both of his previous cultivation sessions had begun just before sunrise. The purple qi he absorbed then likely came from the sun itself. As for tonight’s purple qi mixed with brilliant white, it was most likely power that had escaped from the lightning. 

To verify his theory, Jing Lin carefully reread the “Early Winter” section of the cultivation manual. Eventually, he found a note explaining that the spiritual power of heaven and earth took many forms, and ordinary spiritual qi was only one of them. The power of the sun and the power of lightning were also forms of spiritual qi, and both were superior to ordinary milky-white spiritual qi. The pain he had felt when first absorbing lightning qi had actually been a forging process, tempering his meridians and making them stronger. 

The room remained lit. Le Le had already fallen asleep, holding Duckie in his arms. Duckie stared at Jing Lin with its little black bean-like eyes. The moment it noticed Jing Lin looking back, it quickly buried its head in Le Le’s arms and pretended to be asleep. 

Although Duckie was a goose, it was quite different from ordinary domestic geese. In Jing Lin’s experience, geese relieved themselves wherever they pleased. Yet Duckie spent most of its time curled up in the cardboard box Le Le had prepared for it, and after all this time, the box remained clean and odorless. Jing Lin had never once seen goose droppings anywhere in the house. 

Every evening, when Le Le took a bath, he also bathed Duckie. As a result, Duckie was an exceptionally clean goose and even carried the scent of body wash. Since Duckie possessed intelligence, Jing Lin did not insist that it sleep in the cardboard box. The real issue was that it was still so small. He worried that either he or Le Le might accidentally roll over and crush it during the night. 

Therefore, even though Duckie clung to Le Le and pretended to sleep, it could not escape Jing Lin’s grasp. He picked it up, placed it in the cardboard box, and lightly tapped its beak with a finger, telling it to behave and sleep there. 

Duckie was obedient that night. It did not shoot Jing Lin any annoyed looks. When Jing Lin told it to sleep in the box, it simply settled down. 

Before long, Jing Lin extinguished the oil lamp and closed his eyes to sleep. In the darkness, he failed to notice a faint stream of purple light flicker across the feathers on Duckie’s back inside the cardboard box.