Chapter 4

All was good. Su Jin cultivated and red and practiced. She began to appreciate the calm and the serenity it brought her. No worries, no disappointment, only serenity.

But her parents estimated it was time for her to establish connections with other girls and pave the way for a future betrothal. It did not make Su Jin particularly happy, but neither was she unhappy. She would enter Tiansheng Sect, and all would be like ashes in the wind, gone and forgotten. It did not really matter.

The only problem was that she had less time to dedicate to her cultivation. And only this made her want to scream.

Funny, right ? Two years before I would have done anything to avoid cultivating and now I would do anything to be in a permanent state of cultivation. It really reflects my mind, after all. Nothing is more important than peace and quiet satisfaction. Happiness comes and goes, but peace can always be reached.

The girls her parents introduced to her were not scheming, only little girls who wanted to have friends. But Su Jin was by far too mature to even entertain the idea of joining their group, and so in their reunions she easily faded in the background.

Time passed, always faster, but Su Jin did not worry, contrary to her feelings at the beginning of this life. To close her heart was really the best idea she could ever had, to just follow the stream of life and to be satisfied with what she had. If she could enter Tiansheng Sect, she would be happy.

But if not, she would only try to share her knowledge to save people's lives, and live her own in peace.

With her fourteenth birthday, a betrothal was proposed to her parents. He was ten years older than her, but she did not care. In the modern world too, this age difference existed, and so it did not shock her.

Su Jin only asked to postpone the engagement in case she managed to enter Tiansheng Sect, in this case she would refuse this marriage and would become a cultivator. Of course, she would compensate them for this refusal. And the other family fortunately accepted, maybe because they did not believe she could achieve it. Neither did her parents.

The joke was on them, because she managed to attain the fifth rank of Qi Refinement one week before her fifteenth birthday. Her birthday was an important date, because it was the day the Tiansheng Sect recruited disciples. And they did so only every five years. If she has missed this chance, with the familial pressure, she would have no other.

Su Jin was happy. The would be groom was not. They met a couple of times, and he visibly enjoyed her wit. She liked him too, because though just a shop owner, he was cunning and educated. But alas, it was not to be.

Su Jin gave them a heavy sum to compensate them, which came from her allowances that she never used. She had no money now, but at least she also had no enmity. She would enter the cultivation world with a blank state, without having any resentment lingering against her. And it was the most important.

Consequently, the day of her fifteenth birthday, she packed some food, her daily necessities, clothes, accessories, several books most on poetry, supplies for painting and her guqin. Three servants helped her bring all of this, but when she looked at the hundred servants who brought lots of coffers, she felt better. After all, none of this was superficial. Entering a Sect was for life. Rarely people would leave it.

Pondering this, Su Jin took a profound inspiration and presented herself in the exam of Tiansheng Sect.