Yu Di frowned. He had already revealed so much to Bai Feng. Maybe too much. Can he trust her?

  No one was there to kill him or steal his secrets.

  Most importantly, she hadn't harmed Yu Lin.

  Yu Di had done far worse. Something he couldn’t believe he was capable, especially now as a father.

  “I’m not much of a hidden master,” Yu Di said. “You’ve been reading too many of those stories. I have nothing I can show you or give you to make you the strongest Immortal in the world or anything like that.”

  Bai Feng laughed. It was a deep, loud laugh as if she heard the best joke in the world.

  “You’re right. I might have read too many of those stories, but I’m not a child. I’ve been around long enough to know what I want in life.”

  That was good news for Yu Di because he was lying. Not including his own specially developed cultivation manual, he also had many other precious items that could make the Emperor blush.

  “Then what do you want?” Yu Di asked.

  Bai Feng looked past Yu Di to his daughter. Little Lin was stacking knives together to make a house.

  “Maybe this is fate,” Bai Feng said. “You’ve not got long to live and I’m lonely. Maybe I can take care of her in your place? Where else can she go now that she’s an Immortal?”

  Yu Di had considered that for a while, wondering what would happen to his daughter when he was gone. She’d be all alone in the world. And a four-year-old with the power to lift boulders and smash rocks would be a menace to everyone.

  What did he do to his daughter?

  “No, I still think she would be better off with me outside of this sect,” Yu Di said. “Even if I were to put her in a sect, I would bring her to her mother.”

  “Oh?”

  Yu Lin stopped and looked over.

  Yu Di shouldn’t have said that. Her mother abandoned her because she wasn’t useful to her. He doubted she would accept her back despite being at the peak of Qi condensation stage at four.

  “Either way, I can’t stay here,” Yu Di continued. “I can’t keep sweeping forever.”

  “If you leave, are you sure you can teach her?” Bai Feng asked. “If there is one thing I have learned in all my years, just because you are powerful, doesn’t make you a good teacher. Your daughter has told me she can’t learn from you.”

  “Yu Lin, come here.”

  Yu Lin got up and pushed over her house of daggers, making them clatter everywhere. She looked back at them, but didn’t stop to pick them back up.

  “Yes, Baba?”

  “Is it true what Senior Bai is saying?” Yu Di asked.

  Yu Lin looked away to Bai Feng and then to the ground.

  “You’re not in trouble little Lin. I just want to know why you are having trouble learning from me. You were fine before.”

  Yu Lin looked up to Bai Feng who smiled and nodded toward her.

  “Baba, you talk too fast and I don’t understand what you mean sometimes. Auntie Bai teaches with funny dolls and puppets.”

  Before Yu Di could ask, Bai Feng had already taken out a doll that had lines drawn all over it. Just a glance told Yu Di that they were all meridian lines and the other drawings on it showed where the dantian was. When she tapped it on the head, some lines lit up.

  “This is amazing,” Yu Di said. “I never thought to use something like this. Where did you get it?”

  “I made it.” Bai Feng took out another set of dolls that had the same lines, but these were bigger. “I have taught so many children over the years. Many of them are fellow Inner Sect disciples. Some of them are Elders.”

  Yu Di thought back to his own training. If his Sifu had these tools, he wouldn’t have had to suffer his wrath whenever he didn’t understand what he meant.

  “Baba, the dolls are only part of it,” Yu Lin said. “Auntie Bai also teaches better. And…”

  “You’re scaring your daughter,” Bai Feng said. She opened her arms and Yu Lin ran into her embrace. “She also told me she’s afraid that you will leave her if she didn’t learn and cultivate to a higher level. That’s probably another reason she wasn’t learning as fast under your tutelage.”

  “Is this true?” Yu Di asked.

  Yu Lin nodded, with her head buried against Bai Feng’s shoulder.

  Yu Di felt like a bad father. He had been so obsessed with having his daughter reach a higher cultivation that he hadn’t noticed she was doing it out of fear.

  “I’m sorry little Lin. I thought you really wanted to learn so that’s why I pushed you.”

  Yu Lin broke free from Bai Feng and hugged Yu Di.

  “No, I only did it because you wanted me to. Please don’t leave me.”

  Bai Feng smiled.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I know what it’s like. Many parents in the sect wanted their child to reach the heights of heaven, especially when they can’t do so themselves. They push and push and it’s usually the kids that suffer.”

  Yu Di hugged his daughter close and felt even worse. He never cared about Yu Lin reaching the heavens or even becoming a demigod like him. It hurt him to think this, but the reason he pushed her so hard was because he wanted to relive his own rise in cultivation.

  He might have a problem.

  “I can also assure you that my ability to teach is unmatched in the sect,” Bai Feng said. “If you leave, I doubt you’ll ever find a teacher as good as me.”

  “Fine. We’ll stay here, but under two conditions,” Yu Di said. “First, you can’t tell anyone about me. Should anyone learn about my secret, I will leave this place with or without your help.”

  Bai Feng nodded. She laced and unlaced her fingers with nervous energy.

  “Second, you need to become an Elder. I want you to take in Lin as an official disciple under you as an Elder and me as your servant. I’m done sweeping the floors.”

  Bai Feng froze at those words.

  “But that’s very difficult.”

  “How so? I read the rules of the sect. It doesn’t seem hard.”

  “There are two ways to be an Elder. One is to get the approval of all the other Elders to accept you. The other is to be appointed as an Elder by the Sect Leader or Grand Elder.”

  “What’s so hard then?”

  “Baba, I want to play,” Yu Lin said. She broke off from her father and went back to her daggers.

  “Well, first I don’t think all the Elders would approve of me since I have denied joining their factions multiple times. They don’t enjoy being rejected.”

  Yu Di remembered Elder Li. That man was rather angry about that.

  “Second, the only way for me to get approval from the Sect Leader or the Grand Elder is if I create my faction by recruiting other disciples. Elder Li has made sure that anyone who associates with me becomes a pariah.”

  “Even the disciples you’ve taught?”

  “Especially them. The Elders they’ve joined have given them elixirs and manuals to improve their cultivation. All I have to give them is my knowledge and the same manual all Inner Disciples get. And I give it to them freely, whoever asks.”

  Yu Di leaned back with his cup of tea. He took a large gulp. This was a bigger problem than he originally thought. Maybe Head Servant Cui was right when he warned him about associating with someone like Bai Feng.

  Who gives away their secrets for free like that?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Bai Feng said. “But what the other Elders are doing is just fracturing our sect. I remember when I first joined and the sect was thriving. Everyone was freely sharing their ideas and we had wonderful debates on how to improve ourselves. Isn’t that what cultivation is truly about?”

  Yu Di wanted to say no. It’s all about power and how much one can get. He never cared about keeping it all to himself, but he never went about giving it away for free. Well, except there was one time in his first sect but that was to help his fellow disciples.

  “It looks like we have a lot of work in front of us,” Yu Di said. “First, I’ve got to see what cultivation manual you are using to teach Lin. Next, I’m going to teach you from my cultivation manual. I can't have our protector be weak.”

  Just thinking about that made Yu Di’s chest tingle. To see not only his daughter reach higher, but now he also got to experience someone else’s cultivation too?

  “Of course.” Bai Feng took out a scroll from underneath her mat.

  Yu Di opened the scroll and peered through. A few words and phrases were crossed out and replaced by new ones. Something about the scroll felt very familiar, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “Did you make these corrections?” Yu Di asked.

  Bai Feng nodded.

  “Whoever wrote the original manual was pretty good. Mostly, it works and it even has a little bit of poetry in it.” Yu Di pointed to a section of the text. “This part about understanding the world at large is particularly poignant. It allows the cultivator to think beyond just the mortal realms. I would like to meet the person who wrote it.”

  “Our sect leader does too,” Bai Feng said. “But he told us that the original patriarch of the sect had left many years ago, leaving him to carry on his legacy.”

  “That’s a shame. Just looking at this manual, I can already tell the patriarch should reach at least the demigod level. But it would take him centuries if he’s lucky.”

  Bai Feng stared at the manual in his hand. There was a wistful look in her eyes.

  Yu Di smirked. It is quite a treasure to have a manual that allows one to get to demigod, but it’s nothing for him. What he was going to show her next was going to blow her mind.

  “Let me show you my cultivation manual. It’s the same one Lin trains with.”

  Yu Di reached into his storage ring and pulled out a long green silk cloth manual. The actual one he used with Lin was on paper, as it was easier to move around, but when he wanted to show off, he took out the silk.

  Bai Feng’s eyes grew large and round when she saw it.

  “It looks so beautiful. You have great penmanship.”

  “Thank you, but the style is unimportant. It’s the content that is the most important.”

  Bai Feng laughed as she placed her hand on one of the beginning sections of the manual.

  “So this is why your daughter keeps telling me I am doing it wrong. You have it laid out perfectly well over here. I’ve been cycling my Qi around that area in the wrong way all this time.”

  Bai Feng closed her eyes and absorbed the Qi from the surrounding area. In minutes, she opened her eyes and it sparkled for a brief second. With just that little tip, she had broken through a small bottleneck and to the next level.

  “Oh!” Bai Feng glowed briefly, flexing the Qi within her. She bowed her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize I read your manual without asking. I’m not even your disciple and I took it without asking.”

  Yu Di wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry. Having someone who was at once immensely more powerful than the current him bowing and apologizing was gratifying. Watching her had a sort of adrenaline rush for him even if he couldn't cultivate himself.

  Cry it was. He really wanted to cultivate so badly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Yu Di said. “If I didn’t want to show you, you wouldn’t see it. But now you have to become an Elder.”

  Bai Feng got up and made a fist and palm salute while bowing her head.

  “I will never forget what you’ve shared with me. I still can’t believe how simple my issue was, resolved by just a few words.”

  “Yes. Sometimes a different perspective about the same thing can change the way you see life. It’s the same for cultivation.”

  Bai Feng glanced at the silk scroll and then back up at Yu Di. It was like a child eying the sweet treat, but didn’t dare to ask for more.

  Yu Di chuckled. He knew that feeling very well, too. The difference was, he usually had to steal it from others.

  He took out the paper version he had been using to teach Lin and handed it to Bai Feng.

  “Here’s the copy I was using for Lin. Learn it and then teach my daughter.”

  “Auntie Bai is going to teach me? Yes!” Yu Lin did a backflip over the newly improved house of daggers with all the sharp ends pointing up. She used her Qi at the apex of the house to push herself higher over the tallest dagger. That caused the entire house to collapse and clatter to the ground.

  Bai Feng didn’t care, so absorbed in looking at the scroll. She was muttering to herself, like she was trying to memorize Yu Di’s gift in case he took it back.

  “If only there was a faster way to get you to becoming Elder,” Yu Di said, more to himself.

  “Oh, there is,” Bai Feng didn’t put the scroll down as she kept reading.