While Zhang Ming was making his way through the forest thickets toward Baohe, three girls beneath the old shed were meditating on their bedding, sitting cross-legged. Inner Qi coursed through their bodies, helping them forget their anxieties while quietly strengthening them, awakening hidden potential. Unlike Zhang Ming, they had not endured grueling training. Thanks to the pills, their bodies had been purified, and after beginning cultivation according to the method from the scroll, they were slowly changing, as if being reborn specifically for the practice of martial arts.

  Confined underground with nothing to occupy themselves, the captives sometimes sank into meditation for an entire day, and their strength grew rapidly as a result. When the girls wished to stretch their stiff limbs, they practiced flexibility exercises described in the old scroll, and when they gathered enough courage, they went outside into the fresh air, where beneath a sky strewn with stars they freely performed the mysterious martial dance. They loved its unusual movements, shifting from fluid to sharp, as if a light drizzle were turning into a raging storm.

  “How wonderful,” Hai Ling said, drawing a deep breath of forest air. “It’s a pity we can’t stay here longer.”

  “We’re already taking a big risk,” Cao Siwen frowned. “Did you see how pale Uncle Zhang turned when we told him about our nighttime outings?”

  “I know… where is Xiao Mei again?” the eldest girl suddenly realized. “The moment you look away, she runs off.”

  “We need to catch her,” Cao Siwen said, and almost silently dashed across the grassy field.

  Recently, the girls had begun to see extremely well in the dark, though they themselves did not notice the change. Even on moonless nights, when clouds covered the sky, they navigated easily, finding the old shed or the berries on wild grape bushes without difficulty.

  Of the three, Xiao Mei was the first to feel the changes in her body. The sensations were vastly different from her former sluggish existence, when a battered, exhausted soul plunged body and mind into numb sleep. Even before her captivity, life had shown the little girl little kindness. She remembered only the weariness after long days of backbreaking labor, the lack of food in the village, and barely having the strength to reach her bed. Then the bandits came, and existence itself became unbearable.

  When hell swallowed her whole and death had already opened its arms, the world suddenly changed. As if rewarded for the suffering she had endured, a second breath awakened within her, and for the first time she felt truly alive. After her very first meditation, Xiao Mei fell in love with cultivation and practiced with all her heart. Her endurance and strength increased, energy overflowed within her like a seething volcano, and she could not sit still. Locked underground in darkness, she nevertheless felt free.

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  Her mind still wandered in a fog, searching for a way out of the nightmare she had lived through. Painful memories retreated deep inside, and the bleak world was repainted in bright colors, dulling her sense of danger. Lost in the labyrinth of her fantasies, she continued to live as if she had never left her peaceful village.

  After her first timid excursion outside with Hai Ling and Cao Siwen, her fear of the outer world began to weaken. Though they went out only briefly and never lit a fire, Xiao Mei heard the alluring rustle of the forest, the chirping of chicks from the coop, the sounds of life flowing so close by, and even tried taking a few steps without Zhang Ming. Each day she ventured a little farther from the shed and her sisters, and when “Father” returned from Puyang with sweets and a gift, Xiao Mei felt a surge of confidence.

  “I wish I could see the chicks,” she suddenly voiced her thoughts, watching her elder sisters’ reactions.

  “No,” Hai Ling scolded her sternly. “We could be seen. Do you understand how dangerous that is?”

  “But we went out before…”

  “Yes, all together and only briefly. And now you want to go to the chicks. Do you want to doom us all?”

  “I don’t,” Xiao Mei sighed, pretending obedience, though her impatience grew along with the energy inside her body.

  Several days had passed since Zhang Ming’s departure. When Hai Ling and Cao Siwen fell sound asleep after a walk, the disobedient girl quietly slipped outside under the moonlight. After wandering around for a bit, she found a small clearing and began performing the graceful martial dance, finally releasing her excess energy. Her oversized clothes fluttered in the night breeze, beads of sweat like dew occasionally flew from her brow, glimmering in the moonlight, and she herself spun among the tall grass like a night fairy.

  “How wonderful,” she whispered softly, gazing at the star-filled sky.

  Suddenly, nearby came the rustle of grass along with the sound of footsteps. In the same instant, Xiao Mei turned her head toward the noise and froze. Even in the darkness, she made out the outline of a human figure hidden in the shadow of the shed, and immediately dashed toward cover. In just a few breaths, she crossed the entire field and vanished into the night.

  Her heart threatened to leap from her chest, but her training had not been in vain. Using the mysterious technique during meditation had strengthened her will. Before hiding underground, she paused inside the shed and listened. Finding no sign of pursuit, Xiao Mei restored the camouflage over the hatch and descended below. On tiptoe, so as not to wake her elder sisters, she crept to her place and pretended to be asleep.

  The fright was enough to make her behave obediently underground for the next two days. Feeling guilty, she remained quiet and compliant, which made Hai Ling wary and brace for the worst. However, no terrible consequences followed, and Xiao Mei’s confused mind soon forgot everything.