NOVEL WEB Chapter 34: The first week in the residence
Do you know that feeling when you are in survival mode and every minute was hard and stressful but you had to keep going?
It was the one I had since I came back to this life for 4 straight days. It was like I was alone in the middle of a windy storm, I had to stay alert every second to avoid debris and try to move between trees to avoid getting wet but knew I would end up soaked and hurt at the end of it.
With the city lord and his wife, I was not alone in the storm anymore. Someone was holding a sturdy umbrella for me while another was hitting back debris so they did not touch us. We all would end up soaking wet but we would laugh at it in the end.
Uncle Huai came two hours later with a letter of separation and told me that my name was already crossed out of the Yu family tree. He accidentally hit some of my uncles who bad mouthed me during the ceremony. After it was done, he took old lady Yu to jail. She was to be interrogated before being expelled. By the next day Old lord Yu divorced her. His reasons; she affected the reputation of the Yu family while not being born with the same surname.
Funny, it was the same reason he used on me in my first life. My oldest cousin never came back as he was banned from AnNan city. My she-wolf cousin was also expelled with the 6 other former students and some of their family members. Some of those families chose to leave the city at the same time as they could not sustain the shame or to simply follow their children.
The Yu family did not move out. The eldest son of the Yu patriarch was as ruthless as his father. Now that his mother was not around, the first uncle divorced aunt Liu and expelled his daughter. Both went to a lower grade city with Liu’s family help - dear aunt’s natal family.
School was closed for a week to deal with the affairs and let the student’s mind settle. Losing two teachers was a big blow to the school’s morale. Especially that they were both from the wealthy section and dealt with beginner and advanced classes.
Teacher Huo, who replaced the intermediate teacher a few months back, was not affected as he was the one who raised the alarm first. The person he replaced was part of the bribery scheme but he died earlier due to sickness.
From the bully group, of the initial 6 members, only 3 were left. Based on Sui-er, they seemed to have taken the humble pill these days. There was a low to no chance for them to bully anyone from now on.
Aunt Yan was still busy with the refugee’s shelter and managing the residence but she made sure I was well fed and clothed. Uncle Huai would come home very late but he would always show himself at unexpected times during the day. Usually, he came to steal some of the snacks grandma Li made for me. I gave her a few recipes to try on and they were all popular within the city lord’s residence.
As for me, I was still as busy as before but I passed the first week like in a dream. Not expanding my brain to deal with the Yu family anymore helped me break through on my research in cultivation.
The school temporary closing meant no access to the library so the city lord let me use his. He had all the books I needed and even more. I would pass all my mornings there and, sometimes, would sneak up after dinner. The afternoons would be at the training center where I would practice with my root abilities, cultivate and try out new theories.
After a whole week I found out that the lightning root increased in size so I expanded that training with water and wood roots.
Because I was trying out multiple things at the same time, I did not create a complete meridian primary path yet. I planned to focus on it after figuring out a way to deal with the freezing winter.
The Li trio’s life was also good. Because I was always studying or training they had a lot of free time. Li Bo, our genius single fire root, reached the 2nd level in a few days. On top of the agreed bonus, I also gave him a defensive artifact I used when I was 7 years old. I wanted to register him for school and uncle Huai promised to do it for me. He got his letter of acceptance the next day for the free side section.
Li Yao, who was always pestering the security officers to show him some moves, was hijacked by them. He was now training with the new recruits - 6 years older than him - He would come back tired but happy every night.
As for grandma Li, she still took the time to practice writing and cultivation in the morning with Li Bo. In the afternoon, as she had more leisure time, she would meet and chat with some of the former refugees hired by aunt Yan.