Night Feather was so anxious that he paced back and forth frantically all morning, only to return empty-handed. When he saw the group of monkeys, he didn’t even greet them before falling asleep immediately.
Seeing his sorrowful expression, the monkeys didn’t dare to disturb him.
He slept on until the afternoon, when the sky finally cleared. Nightfeather hastily ate a few pieces of fish meat left by a monkey and then rushed toward the pond, only to find that the water level remained unchanged and the water was still utterly turbid.
“My dear, you must persevere. I promise I’ll never let you leave me again,” Ye Yu murmured to himself as he sat on the rock, watching intently until the water cleared. He remained there all night, and by the next day, the water was finally clear once more.
With a sense of unease, he jumped into the water; the current still surged strongly, and the depth that had originally been four or five zhang now reached five or six zhang. Under immense water pressure, he descended to the small platform only to find the stone still there, but the knife beneath it was missing.
“Damn it, heavens! The stone hasn’t moved—but why has the knife down there disappeared? There must be a thief,” Ye Yu exclaimed inwardly, while simultaneously suspecting that the knife might have fallen deeper underground.
He persevered in his descent, reaching a depth of about fifteen zhang (approximately 45 meters), yet the abyss below remained bottomless. The lighting conditions were already poor there, and at such great depths, visibility was even worse.
“Alas, I can’t find it!” Ye Yu was utterly dejected. He returned to the small platform and thought to himself, “No way—I must practice cultivation immediately so I can venture deeper underground. Then I’ll simply release combat energy to illuminate my path. Since I can’t glow throughout my entire body like my master, focusing on just one finger should suffice.”
He was originally just a child, but now burdened with worries, he couldn’t find peace anywhere. He spent half a day floating freely in the water before resurfacing again to devise another solution.
“The master once said that under pressure, people can unleash incredible potential. So I need to find some form of pressure for myself—but where should I look?” Ye Yu pondered deeply, yet after much thought he still couldn’t figure out how to obtain it, so he decided to ask the monkeys.
“When hunting, whenever we encounter wild boars, tigers, or bears, we feel immense pressure—especially when they feign death and suddenly leap up as we approach. Under such terrifying circumstances, we run faster than rabbits; this must be what we call a surge of potential,” said the monkey who was about to go hunting.
“You stupid monkeys—you actually think I’m as cowardly as you are?” Ye Yu said helplessly.
An old monkey suggested, “As for stress, imagine you have to carry a large stone and trek with us across mountains and valleys—you’ll naturally feel stressed. The larger the stone and the longer you carry it, the greater the pressure you’ll experience. That’s a conclusion I drew after carrying a rabbit once.” “Well, that’s indeed a good idea,” Ye Yu nodded. Being quite strong himself, he chose a massive stone weighing over a hundred pounds, donned a leather coat, and then carried this long, heavy rock along with the monkey on their hunt.
To increase the pressure, the monkey jumped onto that rock and asked him to carry it while running.
After half an hour, Ye Yu was utterly exhausted and gasping for breath. On the road, he came across a goat; he threw a stone at it, crushing the unfortunate animal into pieces.
The monkeys grew increasingly impatient, running swiftly one after another and soon left him far behind. On many occasions, Nightfeather wanted to discard the stone on his head, but thinking of that blade, he gritted his teeth and persevered.
That day they were lucky enough to encounter a group of wild boars. The monkeys first secretly surrounded them and then sent the most agile ones to alert him. Under their urgent urging, Ye Yu finally arrived. He picked up the stone and hurled it at the area with the highest concentration of boars, killing three large animals in one strike and causing the remaining boars to scatter in fear.
On the way back, the monkeys dragged the wild boar while Ye Yu carried stones on his back. By the time they reached their destination, both man and monkeys were so exhausted that they collapsed and had to rest before getting up to grill the meat.
After a tiring day that left me utterly exhausted, I had originally planned to practice meditation and martial arts in the evening. However, as soon as I entered the cave, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was already another day, and my entire body was plagued by severe bone pain.
That day, carrying that massive stone, he had only completed half of yesterday’s journey when he could no longer endure the strain and had to turn back home. After two days of relentless hardship, it felt as if all his strength had been drained from every pore of his body.
On the third day, his vital energy gradually recovered. Carrying the large stone, he diligently monitored the flow of breath and vital energy within his body, no longer acting recklessly as he had in the previous two days. Whenever his breathing became irregular, his vital energy would fluctuate, and the weight of the stone on his body grew as heavy as a mountain; he would then pause to regulate his breathing and resume moving forward only after recovery was nearly complete.
“Alas, if my master knew that I’m carrying a huge burden all day, he’d surely scold me again as a fool. But apart from this, I really can’t think of any other solution,” Ye Yu thought.
After ten days of this training, he was finally able to carry stones on his back and run at lightning speed. Such progress would undoubtedly astonish the master.
The monkeys had grown accustomed to him carrying large stones while hunting with them; eventually, even Nightfeather adapted to this routine, setting out each morning with that very stone on his back.
On the fifteenth day, Ye Yu discarded the stone and felt himself as light as a swallow, with his vital energy surging with each breath. Overjoyed, he focused his strength at his fingertips and effortlessly performed an inverted stance; by then he could freely emit blue combat energy as desired—though still unable to sustain it for long.
“I completed the master’s task in just half a month, but I lost my blade, and I still can’t fly using qi,” Ye Yu thought. He channeled his primordial energy through his fingertips, where a faint blue light flickered; yet he wasn’t confident that this mere glow would suffice to locate objects on the depths of the water.
“I still have nearly half a month left. I’ll spend ten days intensively refining my skills, then five more days searching at the bottom of the pool. If I really can’t find anything, I’ll ask my master to go. Although it might be embarrassing, I don’t mind,” Ye Yu thought.
His martial prowess had greatly improved, yet he failed to conserve his vital energy; an intangible pressure emanated from his entire body—like that of a freshly forged sword, radiating a chilling cold that made even the monkeys reluctant to stay near him. Nightfeather was delighted by this: each day he would venture out alone to capture a wild beast as if completing a mission, and devote the remaining time to intensive cultivation.
That night, he stood upside down on the mountaintop with his hands pointing downward, eyes tightly closed, and breathing under conscious control. Gradually, the primordial energy flowing within him merged with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into a unified whole. He felt himself completely integrated with the cosmos, breathing together with it. At that very moment, he attained the state of unity between heaven and man, and his body began to rise gently.
“Fly on qi!” Night Feather exclaimed with joy, suddenly opening his eyes. The state of harmony between heaven and man was instantly shattered—he fell from the air, and a large bump formed on his head from the impact.
“Haha, wow! I can actually fly using my qi now—you dead monkeys, come and see!” Ye Yu exclaimed joyfully, then suddenly released a surge of combat qi. A flash of blue light appeared, yet it failed to form a protective barrier.
The monkeys woke up one by one from their sleep and stared blankly at Nightfeather, who was acting strangely. “This guy must be crazy,” they thought irritably, “getting up in the middle of the night and shouting.”
“Ha ha, I can fly now! From here, I’ll go straight to the Demon City—don’t you believe me? I’ll show you how!” said Ye Yu as he jumped down from the high mountain peak. The monkeys watched in excitement; shortly afterward, Ye Yu’s agonized cries echoed from below.
“Wang has been acting a bit erratic lately; we’d better ignore him and wait for his master to return,” the monkeys discussed, before each going back to sleep.
“How come it won’t work again?” With a sorrowful expression, Ye Yu climbed onto a bluestone step by step with assistance. Undeterred, he sat in meditation cross-legged and, in less than half an hour, once again attained the state of unity between heaven and man. At that point, his body began to float again—much faster than during the single-finger handstand exercise.
This time, he carefully opened his eyes; his heart moved freely, and his breath followed its course. He felt the energy flowing between heaven and earth, guiding his body to drift through the air until it reached the mountaintop.
“Ha ha, look! I really flew!” Yeyu couldn’t contain her excitement and shouted again; as soon as she finished speaking, she fell from the air.
The monkeys woke up abruptly from their sleep, still unaware of what had happened, when suddenly they heard Nightfeather’s agonized cries coming from the foot of the mountain.
“Madness—this noise keeps us from sleeping.” The monkeys covered their ears and continued sleeping.