Chapter 9 - Xiao Ning'er

Xiao Ning'er completely cleared her mind and focused as best as she could. The chilling cold energy around her body, the blazing pain in her feet and ribs, made it impossibly hard for her to cultivate.

This forest, the one near the gates of the Holy Orchid Institute, was the only place she could cultivate peacefully. At her home, people were constantly snooping around, making her concentration falter. If she went any deeper into the forest, she was going to become food for the demon beasts that roamed near. Thus, this place was the only one where she could cultivate in peace and wouldn't be bothered.

Another problem was that this was the only time she could cultivate her strength. During the day, she would either be in class listening to Shen Xiu go on and on about nobility and talent, or she had to spend the day avoiding Shen Fei and his goons. The elders of her family would constantly make demands of her, just because she was a girl. If she had a cock between her legs, she wouldn't be pestered so much.

The sad part was that even though tales of the Sacred Family's heir's crimes were infamous all-around Glory City, the greedy bastards that rule her family still wanted her to become that bastard's bride. If it wasn't for her father, she would have been married off to the pervert the day she turned 14 (they are considered adults at 14), and would have been turned into a baby making factory, nothing more.

But she refused to become a pawn in their games. She refused to even let that asshole come near her, let alone be his bride. Which is why she had been cultivating non-stop ever since she found out about the engagement. She even broke off her friendship with Ye Ziyun to focus on this.

But alas, she was still far too weak to challenge Shen Fei for annulling the agreement between their families. She thought that she would be one of the geniuses of Glory City due to the speed at which she was cultivating, but now she was hit with the hard truth.

The friend she abandoned in hope of cultivating and becoming stronger had already reached Silver rank, while she was still pitifully stuck at them peak of Bronze Rank! This was a huge blow to her pride.

As she was thinking all that, the pain in foot suddenly spiked up and the aura of her cultivation collapsed, going out like a flickering candle in the middle of a storm.

"AH!" she gasped in pain, as her body fell down and she landed on her, sweat running down her entire body as she clutched her feet in pain.

What was wrong with her?! These last few months, her body started to fell cold and she caught a disease that no one in her family knew about, which just kept getting worse and worse.

'It is not fair!!' she raged internally. All she wanted to do was to make her own choices in life. To be free. To not be chained down to the whims of her clan. She did not want to be a bed warmer for the rapist, Shen Fei. Was that too much to ask for?!

"You alright, beautiful," a heavenly voice whispered to her, snapping her out of her daze as she quickly put up her guard and brought out a silver-rank dagger that she had 'borrowed' from their family treasury.

She moved her head to her side and saw the handsome hunk whose name was on everyone's lips today after class. A genius unlike any other and the prized son of the City Lord.

"Ye Xen? What are you doing here?" she asked with her eyebrows raised, trying hard to not blush when she saw him smiling at her.

"I was about to go to the Alchemy Association, but wanted to cultivate for a while before I left. I was travelling through here, when I heard you gasp in pain, so I came to check on you," he replied with a gentle smile that made her heart flutter.

"Yes, I am fine. So please, just go," she rudely stated. She couldn't have anything distract her from her mission.

"Hmm," instead of replying, Ye Xen just scanned her body as his eyes roamed down from her eyes down to her feet, only stopping briefly at her breasts and plump ass. She was about to reprimand him for ogling her so shamelessly when he asked with a serious expression, "Do your feet burn at night and feel extremely hot? As if thousands of ants were crawling all around them?"

Her amber eyes flew wide open in shock. "What?" she whispered. "How do you know that?!"

He just sighed with his eyes close before replying with a stern tone, "Stop cultivating at night. Due to you cultivating at night under the moonlight, with probably a faulty cultivation technique, a tremendous amount of Yin qi is being accumulated inside your body, causing it to mature at tremendously fast rate. Even Ziyun takes elixirs, but she isn't that developed, so this is the only reason why your body I far more mature than her."

With each sentence, Ning'er felt her heart being stabbed. She wanted to beg for his help, thinking he might know how to cure her, but her pride kept her from doing so.

"It is called the Arctic Disease," he continued. "Due to the overwhelming amounts of Yin energy being collected inside your body, it begins to block your meridians, causing your body to feel ice cold every night and it becomes worse when you cultivate. I can sense the temperature of your body, and I can safely say that there would be at 2 or 3 bruises on your body due to this.

Your cultivation will be slower due to this and once you reach 1-star bronze rank, you will be bedridden, shall lose your cultivated energy and if it becomes any worse, you might die.

Despair filled her heart and she lost all sense of self-control. She collapsed on her knees but was quickly caught in a pair of arms as tears started streaming down her face, "I worked so hard, so that I will be the one in charge of my decisions. So, that I did not have to marry someone like Shen Fei. And now I might lose everything I have worked for or even die?!" She started sobbing and Ye Xen wasted no time in pulling her in for a hug.

"Ye Xen, you know what this is right? Please, help me!! I'll do anything to repay you but please, just help me!" she said as her crying eventually slowed down.

Ye Xen simply gave her a charming smile and said, "If I did not help a maiden who wants me to save her, what kind of a man I would be? Don't worry, I'll help you. With everything." He said as he rubbed her back and comforted her.

Xiao Ning'er did not know what happened to her that time, but the way he treated her made her feel so happy that she did not want the moment to ever end. Her heart beat faster with every moment she spent with him, and her face, that had been cold to touch for so many months, was feeling warm in a long, long time as a blush formed on her lovely face.