12 Memories (2/2)

”Yes,” Crow replied, ”I will look for her.”

My parents bowed, and Crow left the room. Father followed after him, but Mother stayed with me.

”You're such a trouble…” she said with a smile.

I couldn't quite understand her last word. Trouble what? Troublemaker? After all this commotion, troublemaker was quite apt. Mother stroked my forehead and left with a few parting words.

”Good night baby.”

I was alone now. I had been physically and spiritually exhausted many times already, but this was the first time I felt so mentally drained.

Part of me wanted to check on my soul or do some light meditation, but I didn't have the mental energy. Tonight, I just wanted to sleep.

I slept through the night and woke up to a new morning. Mother hadn't come to check on me yet, so I checked my soul.

The shards had joined into a faceted sphere. The lines of red qi glowed orange now. I seemed to be processing the demon's qi into my own golden qi.

The sphere was open at the top like a bowl, filled to the brim. Qi was trickling into the opening, then down the sides.

I wanted to try and cultivate the Soul Becoming World technique, but I had learned from my mistakes. I would only progress when I was in top condition.

For now, I would wait for the demon's qi to fully become my own. Until then, I could do some light meditation so that my overflowing qi wouldn't go to waste.

Now that my soul was fixed, light meditation was more efficient. It took an hour to open up all the new pathways in my arms and to my eyes.

Mother came in and fed me. She seemed cheerful today, and brought me out on the bench as usual. Later in the day, father came to eat his lunch beside me.

He told me the names of each dish and drew their characters on my palm. Seeing both mother and father like this filled me with happiness.

I wondered what they had been thinking yesterday. They weren't surprised at what happened with the demon band until the very end. They must have known how the band worked.

Maybe they thought that the demon couldn't possess my infant mind. So why did they want me to be able to process another person's qi?

I started to make some sense of the situation. When father tried to fill me with qi, it backfired, and I became terribly ill. Our qi must have been incompatible.

Crow put this band on me so that I could convert father's qi. Maybe they planned to supplement my qi while I fixed my soul? I still didn't understand it all.

How did my soul shatter? Was it because I ran out of qi? But I exhausted my qi when cultivating the first page of the Soul Becoming World technique, and I was fine.

The biggest mystery of all was what happened with the demon. The tendril of qi seemed to act on its own will, and the demon was scared of it.

The way my soul absorbed the demon's qi was strange too. The demon qi that fused my soul together was also becoming my own. Was this the power of the tattoo, or something else?

I had many questions, but no-one to answer them. For now, I just had to continue cultivating with caution.

In the late evening, after mother took me to bed, I checked on my soul. It shimmered in a pure golden light without a trace of demonic qi.

It was time to cultivate.