After the night raid, Feng Yi came to investigate, and the army increased their security around the mansion. After she was done arranging everything, she went to Wu Long and asked to speak to him in private.
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
She asked him as soon as they were alone. Wu Long raised his brows, and she was somehow even angrier.
“Why did you just decide I did not want to follow you and did not ask me?” 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘦𝑙．𝑜𝑟𝘨
She then asked in more detail, and surprise intensified in Wu Long. His experience and observational skills, as well as his perception, told him that she would need some time to adjust to the thought of leaving the city, so he just proposed she stays and he visits her until she was ready.
“I do not deny that I am not yet ready to leave with you and leave everything I ever thought of as my life behind, but the fact that you did not even ask me is not acceptable”
Once he explained his reasoning to her she was even more upset, which made Wu Long wonder, if he had at some point started to rely on his experience and knowledge as well as perception too much. If he started to believe that what he observed with his superb observational skills was the truth. Not to mention, no matter how experienced he was, most of his experience he was using for the last tens of thousands of years pertained to immortals, whose emotions were more overshadowed by logic than mortals.
A new light of comprehension appeared in his eyes.
“You are right, I am sorry”
He said with a smile, though it of course was not enough to completely pacify her. He spent a good few hours soothing her anger, talking sweetly and making sure she knew he understood her anger and where he was wrong. He gave her a sweet kiss in the end, which finally somewhat melted her anger, but it would be a few days until it completely subsided.
—
A few days passed after the night raid. Wu Long was still guarding Luo Mingyu as usual, and discussing the Dao with her. Her father saw that Luo Mingyu’s gaze at Wu Long has long since been not a simple one, but there was little he could do. Wu Long was near the same age as her, extremely good-looking, ridiculously strong, and seemed to be very knowledgeable about the Dao. There was even no meaning in opposing as he would be happy to have such a man as his son-in-law if he was honest, but ever since the scandal with Feng Yi, there was no end to his worries.
In these days Luo Mingyu asked him about Dual Cultivation a few more times, as she was trying to digest the information of its shared origins with the Dao Cultivation. Her questions also gradually got bolder.
“But isn’t Dual Cultivation available to anyone? I heard that even non-dual cultivators engage in Dual Cultivation when they are married, as it is more efficient than letting the Yin and Yang Qi of practitioners go to waste since they would be doing the act anyway”
“Certainly, it is just a difference of the main cultivation and auxiliary one. It is one of the very rare paths of cultivation that does not conflict with almost any other path”
He answered with a smile.
“Hmm, then why oppose it, why does the Dao Cultivation school of thought that initially caused a rift become so vehemently against it?”
“Well, there are many different explanations to this, and it is also all very unclear and uncertain, as it happened very… very long time ago, long before I was even born. But from my understanding, one of the main reasons was because that school’s Dao was of asceticism as I told you earlier. They were required to expel all worldly desires from themselves in order to cultivate their Dao. And that conflicted with Dual Cultivation in their view”
Wu Long pondered before answering, as it really happened long before his time, as Dual Cultivation was already long since shunned when he became a Dual Cultivator.
“The second reason…heh… was because one of the main authorities of this school of thought was given a green hat by a Dual Cultivator”
He then said with a chuckle, prompting a laugh from Luo Mingyu, who found this a ridiculous reason to be responsible for the near downfall of an entire cultivation path.
“But that is not to say that all Dao Cultivation schools of thought have this attitude toward Dual Cultivation and philosophy about worldly desires, there are a lot of them after all, it is just that it was a particularly influential one.
There was even a school of thought that pondered on the Dao through Dual Cultivation and thus were called Carnal Dao Cultivators, but they became nearly extinct because of the influence of others”
Wu Long continued. As she heard this Luo Mingyu pondered for some time.
“All of these are just ravings of people who are driven by their own motives, while the Dao is formless, soundless, and incorporeal. Who is to say they are right? We are only left with what the influential say, but who is to say they will remain influential forever? ”
She finally said, as she thoroughly digested Wu Long’s words. There was now a light of enlightenment in her eyes.
“What if… what if I create my own school of thought in the Dao… it may sound like an impossible dream of a naive little girl… but there are so many paths, and all of them are paved by someone who is not me, whose Dao does not completely suit me… what if I pave my own path and my own understanding of the Dao?”
She then timidly started to speak out, and as she spoke more and more passion came out in her words, an intense desire to pave her own path. Wu Long looked at her with a light of appreciation and admiration. It took mere weeks for her to digest what he said, and her passion for the Dao led her to make her own conclusions and ignite a new desire, a very, very ambitious one.
“Congratulations, that ambitious desire is not some impossible dream, but a new frontier for you”
He said sincerely. It was not like he did not have ulterior motives in guiding her on the path of the Dao, but he was sincere in his praise and admiration. He was also very much truthful in wanting to help her not get lost in the maze of paths paved by the old fossils that rule the Dao Cultivation world that would have ruined her brilliance otherwise.
But his ulterior motives came to fruition as well, as a new light shone in her eyes.
“I-is Dual Cultivation really capable of making one ponder on the Dao…I want to find out..I…I want to try”
She finally said, her face completely red. She looked downward, not daring to look at Wu Long as she was afraid of what his expression might look like.
“If you are asking me, I will be happy to guide you on this path. To be truthful with you, as you are a smart girl, you probably noticed that I approached you not completely with pure motives”
He said, and she froze for a moment, and then slightly nodded.
“Relax, it does not mean that I am only after your physique, even if you had an Extreme Yin physique, I would not have approached you if you were not attractive to me otherwise. I do like you and appreciate your special physique and talents at the same time as one does not inhibit or negate the other”
He said, as her blushing intensified. And yet there was a light of happiness in her eyes now. It was impossible for her not to fall for him after he mysteriously appeared with his credentials as well as his charming personality and kind attitude to her. But when she did, as the smart young woman she was, Luo Mingyu noticed that Wu Long was there for her specifically. When she learned he was a Dual Cultivator, that gave her a sense of insecurity since it could mean that all that he was after was her physique, and she herself was not attractive to him. Seeing him accurately see through her worries and listening to his soothing voice, she finally felt more relieved. She could not immediately and completely get rid of her worries, but it still gave her some comfort.
Wu Long secured the tea room they sat in with talismans, and taught her the Dual Extremes Infinite Union Art. He wavered on whether he should be sharing this technique with others besides Ye Ling, but in the end, since he decided to make committed relationships, he had to start trusting them. And his intuition, which always served him well told him that he should give this technique to his partners, as his relationship with them was enough of a reason to do so. He has taught Feng Yi this technique on the day she got angry at him, and she has been studying it ever since.
Though for Luo Mingyu, it only took a few hours to comprehend and master the technique. It was a difference in the level of comprehension.
And as such, a veiled figure approached Wu Long’s lodging late in the evening. He let the figure in, and the door closed.