Ultimate Villain's Return as a Doctor in the Cultivation World-Chapter 216 - A Heroine’s Mother’s Pleading

Before.

Before Lin Feng.

Before the Heavenly Demon.

Before whatever had happened — she did not know exactly what had happened, had never been told the full account, had pieced together the available fragments over the last two years from sources that were not consistent and were not complete — before the event that had left her daughter crippled.

Crippled.

The flat, clinical, devastating, precise meaning of the word as it applied to a cultivator — the specific, permanent, severe, cultivation-path damage that had taken her daughter from Nascent Soul Early to Foundation Establishment Mid in whatever had happened to Lin Feng, the specific, enormous, irreversible gap between what she had been and what she was.

She watched her daughter listen to the elders.

She watched her daughter’s face — the flat, present, jaw-set, eyes-forward, attending face of a woman who had been crippled and had decided that crippled was not final.

She watched one of the elders gesture.

She could not hear what the elder said.

But she watched her daughter’s face receive the words and file them and produce the specific, present, small, single-nod response of a woman who had just been told something she had been waiting to be told and was confirming she had received it.

The Titan’s Trial.

She had heard of it. Everyone in the territory had heard of it.

The flat, ancient, blood-gate, Titan-bloodline-specific trial that the territory’s founding ancestor had undergone and that the bloodline had been passing down the record of for four hundred years without anyone having the specific, particular, catastrophic need to actually attempt it. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Because the trial was not a cultivation advancement path.

The trial was a specific-case activation — the flat, precise, bloodline-locked, emergency mechanism for cultivators who had suffered the specific, severe, near-irreversible cultivation path damage that her daughter had suffered.

And apparently the elders had decided that her daughter’s case qualified.

She watched Lin Wuxin stand.

The full, enormous, seven-foot-two, Titan-bloodline stand of a woman who had been seated and was rising — the specific, present, complete, everything-committed stand of a woman who had made a decision and was executing it.

She stood for a moment.

She looked at nothing — the flat, inward, present, decision-confirming look of someone who had just heard what they needed to hear and was running the final confirmation of the decision.

Confirmed.

She turned.

She was going to the seclusion quarters.

He knew it. She knew it — the mother, from the balcony, knowing her daughter’s face and her daughter’s pace and her daughter’s walk and having known both for twenty-six years.

Her daughter was going into seclusion.

To begin the preparatory work.

For the Trial.

Lin Wuxin moved.

The flat, decided, no-surplus walk of a woman who had somewhere to go and was going there — toward the seclusion wing, toward the specific, stone, sealed, cultivation-optimized quarters that the territory’s serious practitioners used for the serious work.

She stopped.

One time.

The specific, one-time, final-inventory stop of a woman who was about to go somewhere for a long time and was doing the last check.

She turned her head.

She looked up.

At the balcony.

Their eyes met.

The specific, direct, full-contact eye contact of a daughter and a mother who were looking at each other across a training ground — the daughter’s flat, present, jaw-set, decided amber eyes finding the mother’s specific, warm, watching, worried amber eyes — and both of them held.

One second.

Two.

Three.

The specific, accumulated, everything-that-had-happened-in-the-last-two-years weight sitting in three seconds of eye contact.

The daughter’s jaw moved.

The specific, small, single, flat, everything-said-without-words jaw-clench of a woman who had looked at her mother and had said the specific thing jaw-clenches said, which was: ’I know. I know everything. I know what your face is saying. I am still going.’

She turned away.

The flat, decided, no-looking-back walk of a woman entering seclusion.

The mother watched her go.

Her palm was on her belly.

Still. The flat, present, slow, circular motion had stopped. Just the warm, still, full-palm hold of a woman who was watching her daughter’s back as it moved away and whose hand had found stillness because the rest of her had found stillness.

The child moved again.

She looked down.

She breathed.

She looked at her pendant — the flat, present, quick, single-glance at the pendant she wore, the specific, earth-element, amber-stone pendant that had been her mother’s and her mother’s mother’s and that had been at her chest since before she could remember.

She held it.

One second.

She released it.

She turned.

The flat, present, moving-now turn of a woman who had looked at everything she needed to look at and was going inside.

The two maids followed.

The specific, quiet, professional, two-step-behind follow of women who were doing their job.

The stone of the balcony was warm.

The afternoon sun was at the western angle, the flat, amber, long-shadow afternoon light of a territory that had been at the same latitude for four hundred years.

Below, her husband was still talking.

She walked through the balcony’s stone arch and into the palace interior — the specific, high-ceilinged, cool-stone, enormous, Titan-scale interior of a structure built for people built different — and her hand found her belly again and stayed there.

She sat.

The flat, present, careful, belly-first, everything-considered sit of a woman who had been sitting carefully since the fifth month and had developed specific habits about it.

She sat.

She breathed.

She said it quietly, the way she said things she was saying to no one specific and everyone specific simultaneously — the flat, present, prayer-adjacent delivery of a sentence that was looking for a recipient and was going to the available air.

"I hope happiness returns," she said.

She looked at the ceiling.

At the warm, stone, enormous, Titan-scale ceiling of the palace’s main chamber.

"May whatever holds the scales of this," she said, "return what was taken."

She paused.

"From her," she said.

Her palm was warm on her belly.

The child was still.

Outside, through the stone arch, the training grounds were full of the flat, ambient, earth-element, iron-and-stone sounds of a Titan-bloodline civilization doing its daily work.

Her daughter was already inside the seclusion wing.

"Just send a relief to our scattered lives, lord."