After Becoming the Hero's Ex-fiancée

Frost Arrow Talisman (1)

Despite what Granny Jin said, Zheng Wan did not choose to give up.

She was usually one who shied away from difficult things, cared about looking pretty and avoided troublesome matters. However, once she has made up her mind, she would not change it easily. It was all the more so in this case, where for the sake of the yellow paper, talisman brush, and cinnabar pigment, she had assumed the authority of others, used coercion and bribery, and all sorts of other tricks—

“Sigh, failed again.”
Zheng Wan shook out her wrist. Drawing talismans required careful concentration. For this, she even deliberately took a bath and lighted prayer incense. However, every time she put brush to paper, before she was even halfway through, her vital Qi would begin to riot violently.

It has been four hours, and she had already wasted almost thirty pieces of yellow paper by now.

Dusk was falling, and the trees were dimly lit in light of the setting sun. Her mother began to call her out for dinner.

“I’m not eating!” said Zheng Wan huffily without even turning her head.

“…This child.”
Zheng Zhai and Madam Wang exchanged looks. “I’ll go take a look.”

He knocked on the door, and when there was no response, he pushed the door and went in. “Wanwan…”

“Father! It’s all your fault, I wasted another piece!” Zheng Wan looked at him accusingly. A long line trailed out of the half-drawn talisman on the table.

“……”
Zheng Zhai didn’t know much about the ways of the cultivators, and said coaxingly, “If it’s ruined, it’s ruined. You can just draw again.”

Seeing her father like this, Zheng Wan lowered her head again and muttered, “Sorry Father, I lost my temper again.”

“Father is used to it. You’re still like a child.”
Zheng Zhai rubbed his daughter’s head, his eyes full of nostalgia, “When you were young, your penmanship was like chicken scratches no matter how much you practised. You were so angry that you even broke Father’s best purple gold weasel-hair brush. Your temper was so foul.”

Zheng Wan denied it and said testily, “Father, that’s nonsense! My temper… is not that bad.”
Her voice faded off weakly.

“You’ve remembered it now, right?” Zheng Zai laughed. “Father couldn’t bear to see you upset and told you it would be fine to stop practising. It doesn’t matter if my daughter doesn’t have good penmanship.

“But later… your stubbornness flared up. You tied a small sandbag around your wrist every day, and gradually, your words stopped being all floaty and started to become more and more powerful.”

“Father, I understand what you’re trying to say. It’s all about the method, right?”
Zheng Wan decided to be stubborn and tossed the talisman brush into a brush holder. “Let’s go eat.”

“Ignoring the advice of your elders will only lead to folly,” sight Granny Jin in her sea of consciousness.

Zheng Wan ignored her. After dinner, she lay on the rattan chair in the courtyard to have tea and bathe in the moonlight with her parents.

“This cook is pretty skilled.”

“Your mother picked her out at the market.”

Instead of fussing with his chess pieces as he usually did, Zheng Zhai was lying back and watching the sky. “Be it in the mortal realm or the Heavenly Realms, the moon looks pretty much the same.”

“Father, are you missing home?”

Zheng Wan looked at the moon thoughtfully. Moonglow… She shrugged and silently began to conjure the Illusion Creation Arts.

She picked things up quickly, and with the help of Granny Jin, she had grasped the arts almost entirely. It’s just that she had only practised in the daytime previously, and had never used moonglow before…

As a result, she failed multiple times.

According to Granny Jin, even if it was daytime, the moon was still there. It’s just that the sun’s rays were so overwhelmingly bright that it covered the moon’s brilliance. The moon was at its brightest right now, which gave her the perfect opportunity to draw the moonglow.

Vital energy made one full cycle throughout her body; when it passed through Phoenix Jade, it was washed clean and emanated from her body. At this moment, an almost imperceptible trace of moonglow was attracted by the vital energy and fell on her palm, forming a small vortex.

The moonglow rinsed her vital energy gently, and Zheng Wan found to her surprise that during the rinsing process, her ice vital energy was converted into moonglow. She carefully controlled the vortex with her soul consciousness; the vortex grew gradually, and the light became brighter and brighter—

To Zheng Zhai and Madam Wang, it seemed as though a sphere of moonlight appeared in the palm of their daughter’s hand out of thin air. This moonlight was small at first, no bigger than the size of a firefly, but it grew larger and larger, then finally, turned into a blooming ice lotus in her palm.

The ice lotus turned into a glittering light that scattered into the air.

The night was extremely quiet, and a gentle breeze hung in the air.

The two of them watched in awe, feeling that this scene was truly a picture of a beauty that they could never even imagine in their entire lives. If before, they would still miss life back in the mortal realm, seeing their daughter possess such a magical ability right now, they only felt…
It was worth it.
It was all worth it.

“Let’s go.” Zheng Zhai patted Madam Wang’s hand and pointed to the room. The two tiptoed back to their room, not wanting to disturb their daughter’s cultivation.

The vast world should be free for the young people to soar.
Fly, our daughter.

Zheng Wan didn’t know that her parents were having such thoughts. She looked regretfully at the moon lotus that had dissipated in the air, gradually understanding the meaning of what was called “Illusion Creation.”

The so-called Illusion Creation meant creating illusory scenes, such as this moon lotus.

She concentrated and repeated the same move just now; a moment later, a kitten appeared.

Unfortunately, her soul consciousness was limited, so this kitten only had form but no spiritual awareness. She tried to direct the kitten to gnaw on the wutong tree in the courtyard and found that even before she got close, the wutong leaves were wrapped in a layer of frost.