Remembering You For Eternity

2.41 If 'You and I' Were Enough

Ji YuLan had always been an alert person in the first place. As Mia Simmons and Bai YuLan, she could even tell one's arrival from the sound of their walking; or sometimes, by sensing just their 'aura' - so to speak. Even with having her back facing them, without looking, she was able to tell who had visited her house, or her room.

She fondly recalled that her acuity had always driven Ji LanBai nuts. In their younger days, Ji LanBai always tried to sneak up behind her back to give her a scare, only for YuLan to suddenly turn her body around. Just with a light 'boo', she ended up shocking the living daylights out of the other instead.

It was only after she had been reborn into this world where cultivation was the norm - that she found her limitation to this ability, that also applied to every other Dao practitioner. If an aura was a qi, they could not sense qi of those who possessed cultivation levels beyond them, or of the ones that had no cultivation at all.

The former was self-explanatory; to an Established, Martial-Artist, or even an Enlightened, a Sage's qi was like an immeasurable depth of ocean, impossible to gauge, let alone hope to fathom. If they persisted and tried to 'challenge' such depth by force, their Dantians would just be damaged by the extreme pressure of such depth and power.

Higher leveled cultivators could also mask their qi at will, even if only to fool their enemies of the same level of cultivation. Though in practice, hardly anyone did such a thing. Powerhouses tend to flaunt their enormous qi on purpose instead, like a lion roaring to strike fear.

Towards those who did not have an ounce of cultivation - those people's Dantians were empty and full of cracks. If qi were to be transferred to such a person, it would just go to waste as it would be dispersed straight away, slipping through the broken reservoir. If qi was water, such person possessed Dantians like a cracked basin, a receptacle incapable of holding any.

Normally, Ji YuLan did not pay too much attention to this phenomenon. Having grown up and cultivated in Chun Ping Gu sect, she had gotten used to being able to 'sense' her fellow martial sisters of the same or below her rank.

Only once she had finally attained Sageism, and was released of her confinement by her Shifu, was she was finally able to sense her Shishu's qi - Ju huang's - as the latter was only at the late stage of Enlightened. After that, she could then start to faintly feel her elders' qi, including her Shifu's - Zhu Hong's; but only if those experts did not mask their qi in front of her. Contrary to the norm, the old Sages of Chun Ping Gu sect did not like to show their qi, even amongst themselves.

Nevertheless, at that time, Ji YuLan was exposed to the different strong qi 's of her elders. It was to familiarize herself with those of the same rank and higher - after all, her Sage cultivation level granted her respect and regard as their equal. Who was to say that she would not far surpass them in the future? She was their sect's precious pure Yin Maiden after all - one with an unprecedented future to bring the sect to great heights.

The Sages' wish was for the sect to be the first sect written in records to have one that was to be successful in attaining immortality. It was a feat that sounded as mythical as a qilin's beard, but did not seem too impossible now that Ji YuLan had broken Zhu Hong's record in attaining Sageism.

Nevertheless, ever since then, Ji YuLan had never sensed her elders' qi anymore. It was perhaps due to the older women masking them once again on purpose, it was perhaps due to her gradually longer distance from each other, it was perhaps that she did not bother to try or think about it.