"I am going to come back," I said again.

Zhen was quiet.

Then, she started humming.

It was the saddest melody I had ever heard. No words, just the tune, the kind of song that sounded like it had been written for a specific feeling, is it love?

"Zhen."

She stopped.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

"That was not nothing."

"A song, I wrote it. For my master..."

"...When."

"A long time ago. In the cave."

"I bet he’s gonna love it."

"Thanks..."

Then I finished my food and stood up for classes.

***

The afternoon was a free cultivation period.

This meant everyone went to their preferred spots around the sect grounds and cultivated, and I went to my broken room and sat on the bed and started reading the manual.

Zhen sat in the corner.

She cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall, her cat tail curled around her feet, her eyes half-closed. She looked like she was sleeping.

"You are watching me."

"I am resting."

"You are watching me with your eyes half-closed."

"Resting involves awareness of surroundings. This is a feature."

"It is creepy."

"Meow."

She looked back with half-closed eyes and said nothing further.

I went back to bed.

The framework from Core Fundamentals was clearer now than it had been this morning. The structure was taking shape slowly.

Not the way cultivation in novels usually worked with dramatic breakthroughs and golden light and people exclaiming about your talent. Just a gradual solidity.

An hour passed.

Then a loud bang appeared from down the corridor, a door slamming.

Who the fuck...

I saw someone moving fast, the specific combination of sounds that meant something had gone wrong.

Zhen launched herself off the floor.

She was on my bed with both hands gripping my arm before I processed that she had moved. Her ears were flat. Her tail was puffed to approximately twice its normal size.

We looked at each other.

The corridor was quiet again.

"Someone slammed a door,".

She said nothing.

"Zhen."

"I am aware of what happened," she said, while still holding my arm.

"You jumped."

"I did not jump."

"You were on the floor and now you are on my bed."

"I relocated."

"Did you get scared?"

"Meow."

I looked at her. Her tail was slowly deflating back to normal size. Her ears become normal.

"Is loud sounds a problem for you,"

"No."

"That was a very fast relocation for someone who does not have a problem."

"What is the use of being a divine beast if you get scared easily?"

"I was providing comfort," she said. "In case you were startled."

"I was not startled."

"You might have been."

"I was not."

"Precautionary comfort," she said. "The relocation was precautionary."

She let go of my arm and moved to the edge of the bed with dignity.

I turned back to my cultivation.

Three seconds later I felt her sit back down behind me.

So she got scared.

I did not think further.

***

Evening came.

Dinner in the hall was the same configuration as lunch

The general population of the sect distributed itself in the pattern it had established since the first day, which is why everyone away from me.

I was accustomed to it.

Ten years of alone life. Being avoided in a dining hall was manageable.

Zhen sat across from me. Invisible to everyone else.

She looked at the other disciples the way a cat looked at birds it had decided not to chase yet.

"Stop looking at them like that."

"I am simply observing."

"You are looking at them like they are a buffet."

"They are not a buffet, Most of them smell unremarkable."

"That is mildly reassuring."

She picked up my cup and drank from it.

"That is my water."

"Yes."

"You drank my water."

"So you can drink it too."

"I was going to."

She put the cup down. Pushed it back toward me.

"It is still water,"

I looked at the cup.. Then I drank it because I was thirsty and arguing about it was not going to change what had already happened.

Hehehe.

"So how was the water?"

"....."

"Then next time we should share the cup properly." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"What does that mean?"

"I think humans call it an indirect kiss."

"I’m going to kick you out"

***

"You have made more progress today than most people make in their first week of Foundation Establishment cultivation."

"Because I am using the correct method."

"Because you are stubborn," she said.

"The method is correct, but the method without the stubbornness is just theory. Other people have had access to correct methods and not used them."

"Why not."

"Because building a core is harder than building one incorrectly, The incorrect method produces results faster in the short term. People like the fast result."

"And then hit bottlenecks later."

"And then spend years trying to fix structural faults they could not have detected until they were already very difficult to fix." She looked at me.

"You are not doing that."

"I do not have time to do that. I have one month."

"Which is an extremely short window," she said.

"I want to be direct about that. One month for Foundation Core establishment from a standing start, using the pure root correct method, is not a reasonable timeline.

It is achievable and I believe you will achieve it. But it is not reasonable."

"Thank you for the honest assessment."

"I prefer precision to comfort,"

"I noticed."

She looked at my food. At the remaining portion I had not yet eaten.

"Are you going to finish that."

"Yes."

She looked back at it.

"Zhen."

"Yes."

"You cannot eat my dinner."

"You have not finished it yet."

"That does not change ownership."

She looked away. Her tail moved.

"Zhen."

"I am not going to eat your dinner," she said. "I am sitting here."

"You are sitting here looking at my food."

"I am sitting here. The food happens to be in my field of vision."

I ate faster.