Chapter 390 - Expectations
“Relax your muscles. Let your body shift and change as it wants to, but also keep the altering under control,” I advised Wu Yan as she sat cross-legged on her bed, her eyes open and fixed on me, and the air around her trembled slightly as she let out a slow breath.
Normally, we would have performed this experiment in the secret lab, but I wanted to observe a few things directly. For example, whether Wu Yan’s emotions could interfere with her control over her body. We also needed to train her to maintain her 'normal' physical shape while sleeping.
Her body bubbled and warped like a grotesque creature, reminding me of how it had scared the shit out of me when I saw this for the first time.
Mouths formed across her forehead, filled with mismatched teeth. Fingers pushed out of her ears. Her eyes shifted in their sockets, and jagged teeth sprouted from within them.
She no longer looked human.
Her entire body twisted and flickered like a glitched video game character struggling to stabilize its own form.
My prediction about when her Extreme Physique would begin breaking down had been somewhat correct, or at least regarding the direction it would take. Her body was endlessly attempting to morph outward.
Which meant our choice of the Change element for her Foundation Establishment had been the right one.
Strange wet noises began leaking from her eyes as her pupils split open, revealing rows upon rows of sharp teeth like a shark’s maw. Beyond them, for a brief moment, I even caught a glimpse of her twitching brain.
Damn, that was hard to look at, despite everything.
Even for me, the sight was gruesome.
“Good. Now try to bring it under control,” I told her.
Wu Yan blurred, and in almost an instant, her face settled back into its usual shape that was eerily similar to mine, as it always tended to become. Her body returned to its usual shape.
“You can still control your body easily as long as you remain conscious of it,” I said. “Good. Now we need to work on keeping that control even during sleep, and with minimal effort.”
She nodded, staring down at her hand with a strange glint in her eyes.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “I was just thinking about how I never really understood before why you had me choose this element when stepping into Foundation Establishment. It’s surprising how far ahead you managed to predict all this. I sometimes think about how my life could have turned out if I didn't meet you...”
I simply stared at her, trying to hide my disappointment. Not at her for being grateful to me, but the part where she was making it sound as if I hadn’t explained everything to her step by step along the way.
Wait.
Had she forgotten all those lessons? Sure, some of them had been rather long… but they concerned her life.
Yes, it was flattering that she trusted me enough to let me make such an important decision for her, like choosing the element that would shape the rest of her cultivation path.
But that wasn’t the point. This was supposed to be the moment where she took control of her own fate.
Perhaps I needed another pair of eyes on this situation. When studying something, having the untable factor of emotional attachment to the subject can make me miss obvious things.
Who could help me with something like this?
Research on Extreme Physiques was extremely shallow. Most records simply catalogued them and gave vague descriptions of what they did, without any real understanding of how they worked at a deeper level.
…
For an entire week, Wu Yan and I tried to train to subconsciously maintain control over her physical form.
The results were… unsatisfactory.
While she was awake, she barely needed a thought to keep her physique unchanging. But the moment she fell asleep, her body behaved like a tumor in a fast-forward video with all the shifting, warping, and reforming without pause.
I stood in Wu Yan’s bedroom, just as I had for countless nights over the past week, observing her condition.
But this time, I wasn’t alone.
Jiang Yeming stood beside me, a thoughtful look on her face as she rubbed her chin.
Normally, I would never involve someone like her in something this sensitive.
But I was worried as this situation had the potential to spiral out of control.
At first glance, Ye An’s yin-type Extreme Physique seemed more dangerous, since she had suffered from constant pain since childhood. But Wu Yan’s was more… absolute.
If she ever truly lost control, it felt like there would be no coming back.
We hadn’t found anything like the Yang Fruits that could act as a stabilizing remedy for her condition.
“Hmmm,” Jiang Yeming hummed, watching Wu Yan closely.
The girl slowly drifted off to sleep, and the transformation began instantly.
Her clothes tore apart as her body collapsed into a grotesque mass of shifting flesh with arms, hair, teeth, mouths, and eyes constantly forming and dissolving in an endless cycle.
She looked like some kind of biblically accurate angel.
“I don’t see the problem,” Jiang Yeming finally said.
Just like that, whatever hope I had placed in her was shattered.
Why the fuck was this transmigrator woman so damn useless?!
A heavy darkness settled in my chest, and a sense of helplessness crept in.
Still, I gritted my teeth and forced myself not to show it. These were my emotions speaking.
“As long as her condition doesn’t immediately kill her, she’ll be fine,” Jiang Yeming continued. “Once she breaks through to Core Formation and her element strengthens further, she’ll be able to suppress her physique again.”
She was telling me things I already knew.
“Also, good choice with her element,” she added. “It’s something outside the norm, touching on concepts that would drive ordinary people insane, since they wouldn’t be able to personify it. Right?”
The cloud muddying my mind immediately cleared up.
Personify the element? What did she mean by that? Was there some kind of connection between a cultivator’s personality, life experiences, and the element they chose at Foundation Establishment?
Of course, people typically chose elements they were familiar with. But could experience go deeper than that?
If someone had been cut by a sword repeatedly, would they be better suited for a cutting or sword element?
I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind for now.
Still, if I had known this earlier, perhaps being a transmigrator, I might have chosen a different element, something more aligned with my own experiences.
Then again… who knew if it was better to choose an element aligned with personality, or one shaped by something as abnormal as transmigration?
All of these thoughts flashed through my mind in an instant, filed away among the ever-growing list of research topics I intended to explore.
“How did you come to that conclusion?” I asked, my gaze never leaving Wu Yan’s grotesque form.
Normally, I wouldn’t be disturbed by something like this. If anything, I would find it fascinating.
But this was Wu Yan.
The same girl who had once been gentle and kind, someone I had practically raised myself.
How long have we been together now? More than half a decade.
“You’re thinking of Wu Yan by your own normal human standards,” Jiang Yeming said. “After all, she doesn’t need to breathe, or even eat or drink. So no matter how much she shifts in her sleep, it doesn’t really matter. The only weak point is her brain, but have you ever tried scooping it out to see if it affects her? Extreme Physiques aren’t always logical.”
She glanced at me from the corner of her eye as she finished.
Wu Yan shifted again, her body collapsing into another grotesque form of a ball of flesh, fat, hair, and limbs writhing together into something barely recognizable.
Wu Yan…
I stood there in silence, staring.
What else could I do?
“Everything alright?” Jiang Yeming asked, noticing I had zoned out.
“Yes,” I replied with a small nod.
“Don’t worry too much,” she said. “Even among Extreme Physiques, I’d say Wu Yan is blessed in her own way. She has adjustable cultivation talent and a form of extreme regeneration. If someone like you had something like that… who knows what you’d do? Probably impersonate Core Elders from other sects and steal all their techniques.”
She chuckled.
It was a strange thing to say right now. Almost like she was probing me for a reaction.
But I didn’t care.
Not about her thoughts, nor about her suspicions.
Wu Yan’s body twitched.
Slowly, it began compressing and folding inward, reshaping. Flesh smoothed out, limbs reformed, and pale skin spread across her body as she returned to a humanoid shape.
Then she opened her eyes and stared straight at me, with moonlight casting a soft glow over her naked form.
If Wu Yan chose to hide her emotions, no one could read her.
Just like now.
“It seems control is impossible when I’m not conscious,” she said calmly. “I’ll move out of the house. Just in case something goes terribly wrong.”
“There’s no need for that,” I replied immediately. “You can stay here.”
Wu Yan had been raised like an animal and abandoned on the rooftop of a mill by her own parents. There was no way I was going to let her go back to anything even remotely similar.
“But…” she shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt Fu Yating or the children.”
That part worried me too.
Still, I doubted her physique could break through a Level 6 array. I was planning to have my teacher reinforce her room anyway. And I was always nearby, sleeping in the same room as Fu Yating, with the twins in the crib right beside our bed.
We went back and forth for a while, each of us making valid points, while Jiang Yeming stood to the side like an outsider.
Which she was. She wasn’t part of this family.
In the end, Wu Yan had the advantage.
She insisted that, at least for tonight, she would sleep under the library pagoda in my secret lab.
She didn’t accept any of my arguments.
It was… frustrating.
But at the same time, I felt a small sense of pride. It was the first time she had truly stood her ground against me.
After that, Jiang Yeming left with Wu Yan, saying they would spend some time together as best friends.
Jiang Yeming had been a bit lonely lately, especially since Tingfeng had been going out of his way to ignore her completely.
…
Despite it being well past midnight when everything settled down, I didn’t go to sleep. Instead, I stepped outside into the cold night, the grass brushing softly beneath my feet as the full moon loomed overhead.
I walked over to Speedy and leaned against his hard shell.
A low, steady hum vibrated beneath my ear as I pressed it against him, like some kind of engine running deep within his body. It was his Qi, constantly colliding against his shell and calcifying, reinforcing his defenses.
After all, his element was Strong Defense.
Not just defense in a general sense, like barriers or shields, but something tangible. Something that physically strengthened what already existed. At least, that was the best way to describe it.
Speedy opened one eye, disturbed from his rest. Then his thick neck slid out of his shell like a serpent, lowering his heavy head beside me.
I sat down on the grass, staring up at the sky as my thoughts drifted.
“I haven’t come by in a while, Speedy,” I said with a quiet chuckle. “Sometimes it feels like everything moves too fast… and even if I stop, the world doesn’t. So I just keep going, trying to stay busy.”
Speedy grunted in response.
“I’m worried about Wu Yan,” I admitted.
Saying it out loud and dropping the act for a moment lifted a weight from my chest.
“The worst part is that even if we come up with a solution, it’ll all be theoretical. And if we fail… Wu Yan dies. Only then will we know that we–” I paused. “No. That I failed.”
If she had broken through to Core Formation the first time, she wouldn’t be dealing with this now. But life didn’t work that way. Plan B was always shittier than Plan A.
“I’m worried,” I said again. “And not just about her. My kids too… Anyone can see they’ve become a weakness. People like Song San would jump at that chance.”
Speedy didn’t respond. He just stared at me with those large, steady eyes.
“I never thought parental love would be this… irrational,” I admitted.
I had always considered myself a logical person.
I never understood things like love at first sight or obsessing over idols and celebrities. A celebrity crush had never made sense to me, as I didn’t know those people; I only knew the roles they played.
Even in relationships, whether in this life or the last, I tried to stay grounded. I never dated someone just because they were attractive or we shared a few hobbies. There was always more to a person than surface traits.
But the first time I held the twins…
No, the first time I saw them.
Even Song Song… someone I cared about deeply, perhaps more than anyone else in this world besides my children, if she died right now, I could process it. I already knew how I would react. I would have a plan.
But if something happened to my kids…
I had no idea what I would do.
“I’ve always been able to deal with crazy cultivators,” I continued, lowering my gaze from the moon to the grass below. “I could match them, outplay them… even push things further than they could.”
I exhaled slowly.
“But now I have two kids. Two fragile little infants.”
Speedy let out a low rumble. I had no idea what it meant, but… it felt reassuring.
“Yeah… sorry for dumping all this on you,” I said with a small chuckle. “You’re the only one I can talk to about this.”
In response, Speedy leaned in, pressing his rough, leathery head against my shoulder.
His skin was too rough, and it wasn’t comfortable.
But it was… comforting.