As the blue flower floated beside him like a bubble. From time to time, Qing Lian would look at the flower with a gleam in her eyes, but then despair would wash over her, as if ice water were coursing through her veins. Liu Xing could imagine what was on her mind. On one hand, this was the flower her husband had sought to heal them both. He didn't know what sickness the baby had, but the mother was "cursed." While he didn't know how the flower could help, he was sure it could do something—otherwise, why would her husband have died looking for it? Yet, while the flower's existence might save her and her baby, the price had been her husband's life. It was a cruel exchange.

However, Liu Xing decided he wouldn't just give this flower away freely.

"This flower is yours. I don't know how it works, but I suppose it could help you and your baby." Aside from the fact that the baby was conscious, he looked healthy; however, it was wise not to assume things. "But before I give you this flower, I want something."

Qing Lian turned her eyes from the flower to him. She looked at him silently for a moment, as if not registering his words, before finally nodding. "What do you want, Esteemed Cultivator? As you know, we're poor. We have nothing to offer you."

"It's not a thing, actually," he looked at the baby in her arms. The infant watched him calmly, yet his eyes narrowed slightly, as if he were wary of him. In turn, Liu Xing smiled. "I just want to know about both of you," he turned back to Qing Lian. "The two of you are clearly not normal. Do you know qi?" Liu Xing asked, to which she replied with a nod. "The qi around you behaves so differently. You see, ambient qi is usually something that just sits there, floating and doing nothing. However, it pushes and pulls at you as if it has intent, which is surprising, even for me. I bet many scholars would flock to you if they knew about your condition."

"I am aware of my condition," she said, looking down, her eyes shadowed.

Liu Xing frowned but ignored it and continued. "Your baby isn't normal either. Aside from the fact that he's already conscious, he can also command ambient qi. That's a feat even I can't do, and he isn't even a cultivator. So, I want to know what this strangeness is. I want to know everything."

The wind rustled the branches of several trees, making them creak as if they were singing. The surrounding grass and leaves danced, but their movements were frantic, as if the wind were music with a rhythm that was a bit too fast. He looked toward the baby in her arms. He balled his right hand around his father's necklace, while his eyes held a neutral gaze. Yet, Liu Xing felt as if he was being judged. He flashed the baby a smile, though it was more of a challenge than a friendly gesture. What he was doing wasn't exactly tasteful. This flower was rightfully theirs, yet he wouldn't give it to them until they gave him what he wanted, which in this case was information. But this was an important matter. She and her baby were not normal. He suspected the baby was a reincarnator, though the more he interacted with them, the more his gut told him he wasn't. Still, he was an anomaly that could lead to something greater, and he was curious about it all.

Qing Lian looked at her baby, sighed, and then raised her face so they were eye to eye. "Alright. It is fair. After all, you went to the trouble of coming here. The least I can do is share our condition."

She inhaled deeply, then continued. "Believe it or not, my baby is actually almost two years old."

Liu Xing raised his eyebrows.

"However, as you can see, he doesn't look his age. He looks more like a baby who was just born." She inhaled deeply. "This baby cannot grow up. That was the ailment my husband wanted to fix. If we do nothing, he will be stuck as a baby forever."

He pinched his chin and nodded. It was an explanation that answered his earlier question. He wondered, however, what the cause was and how the Spirit Flower could fix it. He glanced to the side, seeing the Spirit Flower shielded by a bubble of qi, floating up and down. The bubble reflected the sun, making it glitter like a diamond. This flower must carry some unique property. He was not a herbalist or alchemist, so he didn't know what.

"A doctor once said that my baby is overflowing with energy," the mother continued, her eyes calm, as if she were holding everything in and trying to become emotionless. "However, his Yin and Yang energy are not quite balanced. To fix him, we need to balance it. The doctor then said there are many herbs and items that could increase the amount of Yin and Yang energy he has, and the Spirit Flower is one of the most important items."

He nodded. "How about you, then? Did the doctor say you have the same condition?"

"No, the doctor didn't say that. This... curse was something that happened to me right before my husband decided to go on a journey to pick this flower. He believed it could help me, too."

"Was he wrong?" Liu Xing asked.

"I don't know," she shook her head. "However, it is a flower that can benefit whoever consumes it."

Liu Xing closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered the sensation of his qi rebelling against his will, as if trying to slow him down so the ambient qi could catch up to him and Qing Lian. The "curse" that plagued her seemed to draw the ambient qi to her, as if it were a bully ensuring she would be tormented no matter where she went. But was the source of this problem an imbalance of energy within her? It didn't seem likely. While he was aware of Yin and Yang—some scholars said that all qi, whether cultivated or ambient, was a mixture of these two energies—but he was no expert.

There were many things he still didn't know about this world. Who knew? Maybe she had some kind of internal imbalance that upset the ambient qi, which was a strange concept. Ambient qi should have no will of its own.

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"How about the fact that your baby already understands the world around him?" Liu Xing asked, glancing at the baby in her arms, who looked back at him with a calm gaze.

"Believe it or not, he wasn't always like this. At first, he was a normal baby, and he cried a lot. The slightest discomfort would make him cry for hours. I remember a day when he was hungry, and I tried to breastfeed him, but I hadn't eaten for a full day at that time. He sucked so hard it was painful, yet no milk came out of me."

Liu Xing imagined the scene. Qing Lian sitting on her bed, her baby, Qing Yuan, trying to drink milk from her, but nothing came out. Qing Lian sobbing from the pain, but also because she felt a profound sadness as she watched her son trying to extract milk with all his might, and perhaps only a few drops came out. The thought was so saddening it made his stomach churn.

"It didn't happen all at once," she continued. "At first, his eyes merely followed motion around him. Me, my husband, the butterflies outside the window, the bird that perched on the sill—everything. Seeing him observe things, his eyes shining with comprehension, made me and my husband proud. He was learning about the world, and it was a good thing. But gradually, he became smarter and understood the world better, and at one point, he already understood everything." She looked down at the baby in her arms. "Sometimes I think it was because of us. He was forced to understand the world because we couldn't give him much."

Liu Xing inhaled deeply. A question was already on the tip of his tongue, but he hesitated to ask it. He wanted to ask whether she thought her baby was not truly her baby, but an adult who had possessed her son's body. It was not a tasteful question. If he asked, even if she denied it, a seed of doubt would sprout in her mind. She would think about it later, and what if she decided it was true, even though she didn't know the answer?

No, this question wasn't meant for her. It needed to be asked of Qing Yuan directly. He couldn't speak, but he could communicate using ambient qi.

At that moment, Liu Xing saw Qing Lian gaze at the Spirit Flower with blank eyes, as if she were trying to suppress all emotion and simply observe the flower as it was. Liu Xing frowned a little, wondering why she was suddenly looking at it with that gaze. He thought that perhaps it was merely a defense mechanism. Her heart was probably cracked, and she was trying to hold it together so it wouldn't shatter into a million pieces.

"Esteemed Cultivator, may I go to the back for a while?" she suddenly said.

Liu Xing blinked several times, then nodded. "Ah, no problem."

"Could I leave Little Yuan here with you?"

"Sure," he replied.

Qing Lian nodded and said thank you. Then, she grabbed a pillow from her little hut. It had a white cover with a yellow tint, but it was still clean, though it seemed it had never been used. Some dust clung to it, and she patted it several times before placing it beside her. She put the baby on top of it, rose from her spot, once again asked for permission, and began to walk swiftly out of the garden. She didn't walk toward the little hut, as there was no bathroom there; she needed to do her business somewhere in the nearby forest.

As he watched her go, Liu Xing suspected the reason she left wasn't to relieve herself. Instead, she must have been trying to find a space to let out her emotions freely. Soon, she vanished between the trees, and he looked at the baby who lay peacefully on the white pillow. The baby, too, looked toward where his mother had gone. His eyes lingered for a moment before he turned to the side and looked Liu Xing straight in the eye.

It was a great time to dig deeper, so he asked the baby the question he had wanted to ask. "Are you Qing Yuan and Qing Yuan only, or do you have another name?"

His instinct told him that this baby was not a reincarnator. The emotion he saw when the baby clutched the necklace was real affection. Even if he was wrong and this was a reincarnator, this Qing Yuan had real love for his parents.

At that moment, the baby called upon the ambient qi around him. Instantly, qi gathered below his pillow and began to swirl, creating a little tornado that lifted him and the pillow up. The pillow tilted, bringing the baby eye to eye with him. He swung his little hands, and qi began to gather and form words in the air. This was how he had told Liu Xing about himself and his army of little critters who tended the garden.

"I am Qing Yuan," the words said. "Nothing more and nothing less."

The baby implied he was not a reincarnator, which was in line with Liu Xing's feeling. However, those words could be interpreted in many ways. It could be that Qing Yuan had decided he was no longer his past self, similar to how Liu Xing had accepted that he was now Liu Xing.

As if the baby could read his mind, more words made of ambient qi began to form in the air, each character glowing with blue light. "I am my own person. I have no prior memories."

"How can I be certain of that?" Liu Xing asked. "You could be lying."

"Indeed," the words reformed into new characters, and the baby nodded. "I can lie. However, there's no use for it. In the end, nothing truly changes whether you believe me or not."

"For a baby, you're very good at using words," Liu Xing said.

The baby smiled a little. "I love words and songs and poems. I think they are beautiful."

Liu Xing looked at the baby, truly looked at him this time. It was surreal, talking to a baby who manipulated ambient qi to communicate, even by the standards of this world. It made his view of this world expand a little more. But if he wasn't a reincarnator, then what was he? Liu Xing's mind worked for a moment until an answer came, and he snapped his fingers.

"You've attained an enlightenment," Liu Xing said suddenly. Everything made a little more sense.

"An enlightenment?" the baby scrunched his little forehead. "If it means I have had a profound revelation, then perhaps I did attain an enlightenment."

Liu Xing nodded. This baby must be an individual so rare that one might only appear once in a millennium. Liu Xing began to wonder about his future prospects. Assuming he could break free from his ailment and grow into an adult, he would surely become a special cultivator. Would he become a genius with the potential to reach Immortality in record time?

As thoughts and questions swirled in his mind, the baby suddenly looked to the side.

"Your name is Liu Xing, right?" The baby formed words in front of him. "Would you be so kind as to help me?"

Liu Xing frowned. "What kind of help?"

"My mother," the words began to shift once again, but slower than before, as if the baby were hesitating. Soon, however, words once again formed in the air. "There's a cliff there."

Liu Xing blinked several times. "A cliff?" he muttered. And then, as if struck by lightning, he understood. Instantly, Liu Xing stood, summoned his gun, activated his Lightning Cloak, and leaped as hard as he could.

As he moved between the trees, the world turning into a blur, he gritted his teeth.

How had he not realized this sooner? How had he not seen the eyes that had already given up on life?

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