"I wonder if we'll get any customer today?" exhaled Li feeling restless.
Zheng sat cross-legged before a cauldron, sleeves rolled back, expression calm and focused. With flick of his wrist, spirit fire bloomed beneath the cauldron. He added ingredients one by one.
"Have patience." Said Zheng.
"What are doing?" said Yang Yue as she leaned on the table, her eyes filled with curiosity.
"I'm just refining a pill." Replied Zheng.
"I didn't know you can refine a pill too." Said Li.
Midst of their conversation, a middle-aged woman walked into their healing heal, dressed up in long flowing robe, her expression somewhat timid.
"I'll get straight to the point." Said the middle-aged woman. "Can you treat my injury?"
Zheng sat before his cauldron while the middle-aged woman stood in front of him, her gaze fixed on Zheng as he continued his refining.
"Hmm? Injury? I don't see any injury on you."
"what do you mean by that," the middle-aged woman said as she frowned over his words.
"I got hit on the chest and since then the pain doesn't seem ease a bit." Said the woman.
"The pain on your chest is not due to the accident but an illness." Zheng said in nonchalant tone.
"What did you say? How's that possible? I have never had this kind of pain before and yet you are telling me this is my sickness? Are you joking with me?"
"Calm down," said Zheng as he stood up and approached the woman. The woman didn't move and stared at him with a serious expression, wondering what he was up to.
Suddenly, Zheng brought his face closer to her chest and gently placed his hand on her chest, shocking everyone in the room.
"HOW DARE YOU TOUCH ME?" The middle-aged woman raged over his action.
"What do you think I'm doing?" asked Zheng. "I'm just examining your body. If you don't want be treated, I won't touch you."
Zheng's word helped the woman calm don a bit.
"Lan, I'm called Lan." The middle-aged woman introduced herself.
"I'm Zheng. This is Yang Yue and other one is Li." Said Zheng, pointing toward Yang Yue and Li respectively.
Zheng placed his hand on Lan's chest again. After a brief moment, his expression changed.
"As I thought, you are still pure." Zheng smiled.
"what… H-How did you know."
Zheng's words caused Lan to tremble and her face turned red from embarrassment. How could he possibly know that by just touching me?
"It would be hard to find someone pure at your age." Said Zheng as he sat back on the floor. "You have cultivated a technique meant for dual cultivator and yet you are still virgin. You are either a fool or wants to die young."
Lan's expression changed from embarrassment to seriousness. "Explain it more."
"Dual cultivator is when a couple of opposite sex indulge in sexual intercourse by yin with the woman and yang within the man, I'm sure you have heard about that. The yin within your body are accumulated around your heart and it's unstable, that's what is causing you the pain in your chest. If you continue without dual cultivating, you will surely die sooner or later."
The more Zheng explained the more Lan's face turned red.
"And what am I supposed to do now?" Lan said, her voice trembling in embarrassment.
"If what you are saying is true, that means I should have sex with a man?"
Zheng stared at the quivering light in her eyes at that moment. He then nodded his head. "I thought you knew what dual cultivation is?"
Lan stood there with a bewildered expression. Not once in her life she thought her decision to save her virginity until her marriage would prove fatal to her life, just when there was no man in her life.
"Zheng?" Lan called his name, her voice calm and fill with expectation. "Is there any other way?"
Yang Yue and Li were thrown aback by her question, given the Zheng's explanation about dual cultivation.
"There' a way," said Zheng, his face filled with concern. "But I won't recommend that way?"
"What is it?" asked Lan with excitement.
"That method requires several weeks to be completed." Replied Zheng. "But… but there's a catch."
"What's the catch."
"You won't to able to cultivate anymore but your life will be saved."
For someone who has been cultivating for years, the thought of not being able to cultivate anymore was devastating.
Time passed extremely slow for Lan; it felt like the world itself was mocking her.
"My only option is dual cultivation, isn't it?" Lan said in low voice. Just thinking about it, her expression deeply saddens over the fact that she will loss her virginity to someone who's not even her husband.
Seeing Lan stand there, without any moment, her expression darkened, Yang Yue tried to cheer her up.
"Why not marry a man?"
The question itself was like a salt rubbed on her wound. "Ha… how am I suppose to marry a man suddenly? Without even knowing him."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that way."
"My body will be dirty after the dual cultivating. How am I suppose to face my husband later with this impure body?" Lan's moral was shaken to its core.
"Dirty?" Zheng suddenly frowned. "Do you have any Idea how many women are there in this world, who lose her virginity before her marriage and still is happily married? And how many women practice dual cultivation?"
Lan froze after hearing Zheng's word. She then forced herself to smile and walked her out the door.
After Lan's figure disappeared from their sight, Zheng, Yang Yue and Li spoke to each other.
"How cruel a fate can be," said Yang Yue with sympathy in her voice. "A woman has to sleep with a man, without any feeling for him. How can someone possibly do that?"
Before either Zheng or Li could say anything, Lan walked back and caught them off-guard when she said;
"Zheng? Will be dual cultivate with me?"