Battle Through the Heavens: Starting with Cao Ying as an apprentice

This was tough on Cao Ying, who was always clinging to her master.

Cai Die, who had been sitting quietly and meditating, slowly opened her beautiful eyes. Looking at the little girl in front of her who was about to explode with anger, she couldn't help but smile. Her cold and beautiful face instantly melted like ice and snow.

She got up and walked to Cao Ying's side, reaching out her slender hand to gently stroke Cao Ying's head, which she had just ruffled, trying to smooth her hair and soothe her anxious emotions.

"Alright, alright, Xiao Cao Ying, stop overthinking." Cai Die's voice carried a hint of helpless indulgence: "How could Young Master possibly forget you? You are his personally acknowledged and the only one he has officially accepted as his first disciple. Your status is very special."

Butterfly's hands were soft, carrying a faint fragrance, and her caresses were exceptionally gentle. Cao Ying felt the warm touch on her head, and her agitated mood seemed to calm down a bit, but a new question arose.

"Uh, okay..." Cao Ying temporarily accepted this explanation, but then she blinked her big eyes, tilted her head to look at Cai Die, and asked in confusion, "But, Sister Cai Die, and my master, why do you both like to pat my head so much?"

She thought back carefully and realized that not only Sister Cai Die, but also her master Su Baichen would often reach out and rub her head when he was guiding her in her cultivation or when he was bored. Each time, he would have an expression that she couldn't understand at the time, but now, upon closer examination, she felt that something was "very strange".

"And what kind of expression did you guys make every time you touched my head?" Cao Ying imitated, wrinkling her nose as she tried to make that seemingly calm but meaningful smile: "I always feel... there's a bit of mischief in that smile, and a bit... um... smugness?"

After speaking, Cao Ying raised her hand and touched the top of her head. The touch was nothing special; it was just hair. She really didn't understand what was so interesting about touching it, or what kind of "smug" feeling it could give them.

Cai Die chuckled at Cao Ying's quirky questions and imitations. She thought for a moment, a hint of reminiscence flashing in her eyes, and replied in a way similar to what her sister had said to her back then: "Well... when you take on your own apprentices in the future, or when a little one younger than you appears in your life who needs your care, you will naturally understand that feeling."

As she spoke, Cai Die herself drifted into a brief recollection.

Once upon a time, she, like Cao Ying now, looked up and asked her older sister why she always liked to touch her head. Her sister then just smiled mysteriously and gave her a similar answer.

Now that it was her turn, looking at the charming and lively little Cao Ying who occasionally threw a tantrum, Cai Die suddenly understood her sister's feelings back then.

Running his fingers through her soft hair, especially mischievously and deliberately messing up her neatly combed hair, watching her pout and widen her eyes in a cute way that showed dissatisfaction yet helplessness, he couldn't help but feel an indescribable sense of pleasure and satisfaction.

(In her mind, Cao Ying was already drawing circles: "Hmph! A bunch of bad guys! They were just using me to amuse themselves! Wait until I have junior brothers and sisters in the future, and see how I 'repay' you!")

However, what was said without intention was taken to heart by Cao Ying. Cai Die's explanation of the "mystery of touching the head" was deeply imprinted in Cao Ying's mind.

In the days to come, when a junior sister younger than Cao Ying and who joined the sect later than Su Baichen finally appeared, they were often "deeply affected" by her. This seemingly mature and steady senior sister, who was actually "malicious," would pat their heads from time to time with a mysterious smile that said "I understand." She called it "caring for the excellent traditions of the sect," but in reality, she found her own "pleasure" in it.

Chapter 37 The Butterfly's Education

"Okay, fine."

Hearing Cai Die's answer, Cao Ying lowered her head helplessly, her little head drooping like a kitten soaked by the rain. But a sly glint flashed in her bright eyes as she thought to herself, "Master, you'd better put in a little more effort! Hurry up! Find me a junior brother or sister younger than me! Then... hehe!"

She could already imagine the feeling of triumph when she touched someone's head.

"Alright, don't be so downcast." Seeing her daydreaming again, Cai Die couldn't help but remind her, "You've reached the eighth level of Battle Qi now, which is a crucial time. You can't let your guard down. Hurry up and start cultivating."

She paused, her tone urging, "You have the Foundation Establishment Elixir specially prepared for you by the young master; such a condition is the envy of many. You must cultivate as soon as possible and break through to the ninth level of Dou Qi!"

"Only when you reach the ninth level of Dou Qi, condense your Qi vortex, and successfully break through to Dou Zhe, can you be considered to have truly stepped into the door of cultivation, and your strength will experience a qualitative leap." As Cai Die spoke, she couldn't help but recall the scene when she broke through to Dou Zhe, and her tone became more serious.

This was one of the tasks Su Baichen had given her—to supervise Cao Ying's cultivation when necessary, and to prevent her from becoming complacent just because of her talent.

"Um, Sister Cai Die..." Cao Ying's face fell immediately when she heard that she had to cultivate again, and she said in a coquettish voice, "I have really been cultivating very seriously and hard every day during this period! Look, I have lost weight!"

She pinched her still slightly chubby cheeks with a serious expression.

"Since Master isn't here, please be lenient and play with me for a little while, okay? Just for a little while!"

Cao Ying clasped her hands together, blinked her big eyes, and tried to get away with being cute: "Anyway, Master is in the secret room, and he doesn't know we're secretly taking a break."

In the end, Cao Ying is still a child at heart. She was just talking about her master, but when she turned around and found that the "supervisor" was temporarily not there, her little thoughts of slacking off came to mind.

Inside the room, someone hidden within a spatial rift heard everything clearly. Hearing his apprentice brazenly trying to slack off while he was away and even attempting to "bribe" the supervisor, a slight smile crept onto his lips. He felt a mixture of amusement and exasperation, muttering under his breath, "That rebellious apprentice!"

At the same time, looking at Cao Ying's quirky appearance, he unconsciously rubbed his fingers together in his sleeve, feeling a slight itch in his palm—hmm, it had been a long time since he had "guided" this girl's cultivation.

At the same time, Cao Ying, who was coaxing and pleading with Cai Die, suddenly shivered for no apparent reason, a chill running down her spine.

"Achoo!" She rubbed her nose, looked around in confusion, and muttered to herself, "Strange... I suddenly have a bad feeling, like I'm feeling chilly. Sister Butterfly, did you leave the door open? I feel a cold draft blowing in."

However, there was one more specific feeling she was too embarrassed to say: her buttocks were starting to ache slightly, as if she had a premonition of some ominous disaster about to befall her.

(Cao Ying's buttocks: "Warning! Warning! A high-intensity 'Master's Majesty' energy field has been detected approaching! Danger level: Buttocks will be bruised! Master, please immediately correct your attitude and stop your reckless behavior!")

Cai Die was also puzzled by Cao Ying's words. She looked at the closed door and felt the dry, warm air in the room. She asked strangely, "Little Cao Ying, are you hallucinating because you're tired from cultivating? We're deep in the Tagor Desert, and it's daytime. It's scorching hot outside, but this room is very warm. Where did the cold wind come from?"

Hearing Cai Die's reasonable analysis, Cao Ying also felt that it might be a misperception caused by her own guilty conscience. So she forcibly suppressed the unease in her heart and nodded: "Oh...maybe, maybe I'm just imagining things."

Seeing Cao Ying's obviously guilty but trying to appear calm, Cai Die shook her head helplessly.

A thought flashed through her mind, but looking at Cao Ying's pitiful appearance, she felt it was unlikely and attributed it to the little girl's lame excuse for being lazy.

So, Butterfly put on a stern face, deliberately adopting an expression of "I've seen through everything," and said seriously, "Hmph, in my opinion, you just don't want to cultivate, which is why you made up such a flimsy excuse. What 'cold and chilly'? That reason is not convincing at all."

When Cai Die saw through her thoughts, Cao Ying's face instantly flushed red. Her eyes darted around, and she stubbornly said, "How could that be! Absolutely impossible! Sister Cai Die, you're overthinking it. Am I that kind of person?"

However, her lack of confidence and her darting eyes betrayed her completely, because she had actually had that idea just now.

Looking at Cao Ying, whose guilty conscience was practically written all over her face, Cai Die felt both annoyed and amused.

She decided to try a different strategy. Hands on her hips, she tried to conjure up an expression of reminiscing about her glorious past, and very "honestly" touched her "conscience" as she said:

"Little Cao Ying, let me tell you, when I was your age, I was very self-motivated in my cultivation! I didn't need anyone to urge me at all!"

She tilted her head slightly, as if lost in fond memories (and started making things up): "I spend so much time cultivating every day that I even find it a little boring!"

"My sister, Queen Medusa, and the elders of the tribe are all so happy to see how hard I'm working. They encourage me in all sorts of ways every day, praising me as the future hope of the snake people!"

As she spoke, Cai Die frantically hypnotized herself to increase her persuasiveness: "Yes, that's right, they were indeed 'chasing' me and 'rushing' me to cultivate... Their methods might have been a bit intense, but the result was good, so it could be considered an encouragement... right?"

However, what Cai Die didn't know was that while she was forcibly adopting the persona of a "diligent girl" in order to "admonish" Cao Ying,

Queen Medusa, far away in the Serpent People's royal city, and several elderly elders almost simultaneously sneezed loudly. They looked up at the sky in confusion, feeling as if someone was fabricating their past "bitter parenting history".

"Uh, really?" Although Cao Ying was young, she was naturally intelligent and not so easily fooled. She tilted her head, seized the logical loophole in Cai Die's words, and asked a probing question: "But... Sister Cai Die, if you were really that diligent when you were young, with so much time to cultivate that you were bored... then how come you're only a Dou Wang now? If I remember correctly, your sister, um, that cool Medusa Queen, isn't she already a nine-star Dou Huang?"

"..."

The air suddenly became quiet for a moment.

Cao Ying's sudden, incisive question froze Cai Die instantly, her "bitter memories of the past" expression freezing on her face. She never expected this little girl to have such a clear mind and such a sharp angle!

When Cao Ying directly questioned her (although it was true), Cai Die's mind started working at an unprecedented speed, almost overheating! In a flash, she had a brilliant idea and came up with a "reason" that seemed extremely suitable and could perfectly explain the "gap between diligent cultivation and current cultivation level"!

Of course, before giving this reason, Cai Die offered her sister the most sincere and overwhelming apology in her heart:

'Sister, I'm so sorry! Sister, I'm so sorry! Your Majesty, please forgive me!'

"My sister is forced by circumstances to let you take the blame for now in order to teach (or mislead) little Cao Ying a lesson! She'll definitely apologize to you later!"

Chapter 38 The Butterfly's "Story"

After countless acts of self-reproach towards her sister, Cai Die took a deep breath. She straightened her back, and her aura suddenly surged, her snake eyes regaining their bright light.

Then, as if recalling some extremely heavy past event, her shoulders slumped slightly, and she let out a long, melancholy sigh.

"Sigh—" The sigh was drawn out and full of helplessness.

Seeing the complex expression on Cai Die's face instantly switch between "unbearable memories" and "I can finally get it all out," Cao Ying blinked her clear eyes and, almost without thinking, blurted out a sentence she'd heard from somewhere:

"Please begin your speech!"

Seeing that her "only" audience member was so "cooperative," Cai Die nodded in satisfaction, cleared her throat in a pretentious manner, as if she were about to step onto the podium that everyone was watching.

"Ahem—!" The throat-clearing sound was exceptionally loud, signaling the official start of a speech that was utterly "sincere" (carefully fabricated).

"Back in the day," Cai Die began in a tone reminiscing about her glorious past, her gaze drifting into the distance with a touch of poignant regret, "my talent was in no way inferior to my sister's, and in some aspects, it was even superior!"

She paused deliberately, stealing a glance at Cao Ying. Seeing the other woman's mouth slightly open in surprise, she was secretly delighted. Then, an almost saintly "compassionate" expression appeared on her face.

"But, my biggest flaw is that I'm too soft-hearted and too kind!" She raised her hand and touched her chest, her tone becoming heavy: "I see my sister cultivating diligently, but she is often secretly saddened because her progress is a little slow in the early stages. As her younger sister, I see it all and it hurts me to see it!"

"In order to prevent my sister from feeling inferior because her cultivation level is temporarily lagging behind, I, Cai Die, have made a difficult but great decision!"

Cao Ying listened intently and couldn't help but lean forward slightly.

Seeing this, Butterfly raised her voice, with a sense of tragic determination: "That is—to actively devote my energy to the heavy and trivial affairs of the snake-people!"

"From then on, my daily life consisted of only two things: dealing with mountains of official business and extremely short breaks that I had squeezed in whenever I could!"

“Cultivation? That kind of thing that requires a lot of time and concentration is simply a luxury for me!”

As she spoke, she gestured exaggeratedly, as if there were truly an invisible mountain of official documents in front of her.

"As you can imagine, I neglected my cultivation because I was busy with many things, while my sister was single-minded and quickly surpassed me in cultivation, leaving me far behind."

When she got to the most crucial point, Cai Die's voice lowered, with a barely perceptible sob: "When it came time for the clan to decide on the new Medusa Queen, I adhered to the simple principle of 'If I don't pamper my own sister, who will?' and resolutely gave up the competition."

"To avoid putting my sister in a difficult position and to prevent the clan elders from urging me to take the throne, I even went so far as to use a secret technique that would damage my vital energy, and 'fled' the Snake-People's Holy City overnight, willingly leaving the Queen's throne and boundless glory to my sister..."

As soon as she finished speaking, Cai Die turned around at just the right moment, walked to the window with slightly "heavy" steps, tilted her head back slightly, and gazed at the distant place that might not even exist outside the window.

The afterglow of the setting sun outlined her profile, which carried a hint of loneliness and determination. She created a poignant atmosphere of "hiding one's merits and fame," as if the air itself was filled with the noble spirit of self-sacrifice.

At this moment, the simple-minded Cao Ying had already been completely captivated by this dramatic story full of "sisterly affection" and "self-sacrifice".

She clasped her hands together in front of her chest, tilted her head back, her eyes glistening with tears of emotion, and gazed with adoration at the "great" figure by the window, her inner monologue swirling with excitement:

"My God! Sister Cai Die has sacrificed so much for her sister!"

"She gave up her talent, her cultivation, and even her queenly position! This is so touching and so selfless!"

"Waaaaah, how can there be such a wonderful little sister in the world! If only... if only I had a little sister who dotes on me and thinks of me like that!"

By the window, Cai Die, who was trying to maintain a "sadly gazing at the sky" posture, had actually been quietly releasing a wisp of subtle soul power from the moment she began her "speech." Like an invisible thread, it clung firmly to Cao Ying, accurately capturing every subtle change in her facial expression.

From initial surprise, to being moved in the middle, and now to almost blind worship, all the emotional responses are under my control.

The huge weight that had been lifted from Cai Die's heart finally lifted, and a hint of pride quietly rose within her:

"Sigh, kids are so easy to fool! One set of words and it's done."

Then, without any guilt, she silently said to her sister in the distance, "I'm sorry, my dear sister! In order to successfully 'teach' little Cao Ying and make her cultivate obediently, I have no choice but to temporarily wrong you and mold you into an image that 'needs your younger sister to sacrifice to protect'."

"Your sacrifice was worth it, please don't blame me!"

Meanwhile, far away, Queen Medusa, who was handling state affairs, suddenly sneezed several times without warning.

Achoo! Achoo—!

She rubbed her slightly itchy nose, a rare look of confusion and annoyance appearing on her beautiful face: "Strange, what's wrong with me? How could I have sneezed so many times in such a short time? With my cultivation as a Dou Huang, catching a cold is absolutely impossible!"

She frowned, pondering to herself, "Could it be... someone is talking about me behind my back? Could it be... Mr. Su?"

The thought caused Queen Medusa's heart to skip a beat, and a barely perceptible blush quickly crossed her cold, beautiful face. "No way...could it be that he......"

She began to drift off, her thoughts wandering in directions that were not quite in keeping with her queenly status.