Yu Di didn’t have much of a choice did he? Take in a little girl or flee again. Fairy Wong was determined to make his life miserable either way.

  “Fine, I’ll take care of your daughter.”

  “You mean your daughter.” Fairy Wong glanced back at the crying little girl. “She’s a good girl and she tries really hard, but no matter what she does she just can’t cultivate. I know it’s going to be hard on you, but you and my father are the only family she has left. Please, look after her.”

  For the second time Yu Di saw the precise Immortal break her image. She looked human. It didn’t last.

  “Of course.” Yu Di made a fist and palm salute. “Just remember that should anyone come chasing after me, she will be in trouble too.”

  “I would not worry.” Fairy Wong returned the gesture. “This village is so remote and worthless, that any passing Immortal will not see it unless they landed right in the center. No one registers with any Qi at all here. Not even you.”

  “That’s exactly how I wanted it. I will watch over her, but I don’t have much longer to live. Don’t forget your own child.”

  “I won’t.” Fairy Wong frowned before rising up into the sky on her cloud.

  Yu Di could feel her presence up there, probably staring down at her child who was also looking up. But when Fairy Wong left, her child only kept staring at the space she left behind.

  Yu Di took a deep breath. Now he had to go deal with a child who just lost her mother. It was one thing to lose your father, but your mother always hurt the most. When he found out that his mother had passed all those years ago, Yu Di actually stopped whatever he was doing to fly back to this village.

  All he came back to was a headstone.

  That was when he was truly alone in the world.

  Now Yu Di had a little girl’s presence to look forward to every day. He walked over and squatted down.

  “Hello, little Lin,” Yu Di said.

  “Hello,” came the tiny voice. She stared at the ground. Her pretty pink bow waved in her hair.

  “I’m your father.”

  “Okay.”

  “And this is your grandfather.”

  Old Wong smiled and waved at the little girl.

  “We’re going to take care of you from now on.” Yu Di offered his hand to the tiny human.

  Little Lin reached out and grabbed his fingers. There was a sudden warmth coming from those fingers.

  “You and I are going to have a great time,” Yu Di said.

  “Okay.”

  It took a few weeks before little Lin got over her mother’s abandonment. Well, not gotten over. Yu Di didn’t think anyone could get over that so easily, but she adjusted.

  First, he got her a personal tutor to teach her reading and writing. He also made sure to get the other children in the village to learn as well.

  He was already paying for one kid, might as well pay for all of them. The one thing he didn’t want was for little Lin to feel lonely.

  Her mother was right. Little Lin was very eager to please and took everything Yu Di threw at her. This didn’t last long.

  “Get up, Yu Lin,” Yu Di called. He had taken the liberty to change her family name back to his own. Her daughter seemed to like it when he explained that her name meant Jade Forest as compared to Yellow Forest. A definite improvement.

  “No baba,” Yu Lin replied.

  Yu Di stood over the little girl laying on her bed, asleep in her own room. She had a servant to cater to her needs and a grandfather that bought her everything she asked for. She was on the verge of being one of those spoiled young masters and misses.

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Yu Lin said. She pulled the blanket over her eyes. “I want to stay home and play.”

  That was not happening again. The last time little Lin did that, she almost drove Yu Di mad. It was, “What’s this Baba?” “Can I have candy?” “Why does grandpa smell sour?” “Why does he smell sweet?” So much energy and so many questions from a tiny little girl.

  Yu Di ripped the blanket off his daughter, exposing her face to the sun. He glared down at her cute face and mischievous smile.

  “Fine. If you don’t want to go to school, then you will learn with baba.” Yu Di lifted the tiny girl up into his arms and walked out into the cool air. If she didn’t want to learn what mortals learned, then let’s change the lessons.

  Yu Lin slumped in his arms like a sack of rice. She’d do this every time when Yu Di carried her anywhere.

  Yu Di climbed to the very top of the cliff. He took a deep breath, absorbing the Qi in the air.

  “Your mother said you couldn’t cultivate. Let’s prove her wrong.” Yu Di put his daughter down onto the grass facing the cliff’s edge. “Close your eyes and tell me what do you smell.”

  Yu Lin flopped onto the grass and closed her eyes. Very soon she began snoring.

  Yu Di nudged her with his foot.

  “No sleeping or I’ll throw you off this cliff.”

  “Yes baba.” Yu Lin sat up, closed her eyes again and breathed in deep. “I don’t smell anything.”

  Yu Di pulled out a small stick of incense from his storage ring. He lit it with a spark of his Qi. Then he waved it over Yu Lin’s face. This should help her sense the ambient Qi in the air.

  “Baba, I smell something. It’s roast pork!” Yu Lin opened her eyes. “That’s not roast pork.”

  Yu Di gritted his teeth. He wanted to throw the little girl off the cliff.

  “No little Lin. You’re always thinking about food. Try again.”

  Yu Lin nodded and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath.

  Yu Di watched as the Qi wrapped itself around the tendrils of smoke from the incense and entered Yu Lin’s nose. With every breath, his daughter absorbed more and more Qi. A smile crept on his face.

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  “Baba, I can smell it,” Yu Lin said. “It smells like… rain? No, it smells like trees or sand or… It smells like nothing.”

  “Good. Focus on that smell and keep breathing it in.” Yu Di kept waving his stick of incense. Soon, it burned down.

  Yu Lin opened her eyes. There was a light blue sparkle. Her whole body shimmered against the bright sunlight.

  “Baba, I feel different.”

  “That’s because you started upon your path of cultivation,” Yu Di said.

  “What’s that? Is that what momma does?”

  “Yes.”

  That gleam in her eyes became brighter.

  “Then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Yu Di chuckled.

  “It’s not as easy as that. Cultivation is the practice of trying to understand the world, it’s many facets that create balance, and improve one's body through the same principles.”

  Yu Lin squinted her eyes, looking so much like Fairy Wong.

  “Baba, what are you talking about?”

  “Oh, my sweet child. You’re too young to understand.” Yu Di patted her on the head. “Maybe this is too early for you to learn.”

  “Is this what mother does?” Yu Lin asked.

  Yu Di nodded.

  “Then I want to do it too.”

  “Are you sure? It’s going to be very hard.”

  Yu Lin nodded. She closed her eyes and began absorbing Qi right away.

  “You know little Lin. You don’t have to do this to impress your mother. She’ll come back event—”

  “Shhh, I’m cultivating,” Yu Lin said. The ambient Qi flowed in through her nostrils, down into her dantian, and then back out. She had absorbed her first thread of Qi.

  Yu Di chuckled, thinking about how long it took for him to do the same thing in his teens. Seven hundred forty eight days before he could do this. He got his three-year-old to do it in one hour.

  "Little Lin, why did your mother say you couldn't cultivate?" Yu Di asked.

  Yu Lin stopped absorbing Qi and looked up.

  "Mother said that I didn't have the patience to stay still. She was also very busy with uncle Yeung. And she told me one of the really scary grandmas told her that I have no talent to cultivate. And—"

  Yu Di patted his daughter on the head. He pulled her into a hug.

  "It's okay little Lin. You can cultivate and you will show those old hags one day."

  A devious smile crept onto Yu Di’s face. He looked over at his cute child. Those big eyes, round face, and tiny body. What would happen if he somehow managed to create a twenty-year-old demigod?

  Yu Lin would easily match the Emperor's sons and Yu Di had the means to do it.

  Yu Di had never been a good teacher, but guiding his daughter was rewarding on most days. He had turned his energetic, always on the move child into someone who could sit for hours cultivating and absorbing the Qi from the world. But there were those days that made him want to pull out his hair.

  “Yu Di!” Old Wong shouted. “Get me down from here.”

  Yu Di had walked into town to pay his respects to his parents and came home to Old Wong hanging upside down in a tree. He looked like a wrapped pig ready for roasting.

  “What happened?” Yu Di asked.

  “Your daughter. She said she didn’t like my kisses because my beard tickled her. So when I kissed her again, she tied me upside down and stuck leaves near my face.”

  Yu Di stifled his laughter. He grabbed a ladder and let Old Wong down.

  “Where is my daughter?” Yu Di asked.

  Old Wong rubbed his legs and his face. He pointed toward the back of the mansion.

  Yu Di walked back there to see his daughter sitting quietly, cultivating upon the same rock he used. With a glance, he could tell she had advanced further. But that was no excuse for what she did to her grandfather.

  “Yu Lin.”

  The little girl didn’t move.

  “You did something bad.”

  Yu Lin wiggled a little, breaking her concentration. She opened her eyes with a wide smile.

  “Baba, you’re back.”

  Yu Di scowled.

  “Baba, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  Yu Di stalked over to the little girl who only kept smiling.

  “You like playing with your grandpa so much, why don’t we play a little game?”

  Yu Lin’s smiled disappeared.

  Minutes later, the father and daughter pair stood atop the mansion. It was only at most a thirty or forty foot drop. For the three foot three year old, it might as well be the cliff behind the mansion.

  “No Baba! Let me go!” Yu Lin kicked in Yu Di’s arms.

  “It’s too late now,” Yu Di said. “You did something unforgivable to an Elder of your family. You need to learn respect.”

  “Please Baba. I’ll be good.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll let grandpa kiss me even if it tickles! Please, let me down.”

  “What do you think Old Wong?” Yu Di brought his child to the edge of the roof, looking down at her grandfather.

  “Don’t scare her anymore little Di,” Old Wong said. “It’s fine. Don’t hurt her.”

  Yu Di laughed.

  “You think I’d hurt my own child? Promise your grandpa to be respectful from now on.”

  Yu Lin nodded, holding onto Yu Di’s robes.

  “Yes, yes, please. Let me down.”

  Yu Di lifted Yu Lin to face him.

  “Remember little Lin. No matter what, you have to respect your elders. If they do something you don’t like, you tell them to please stop and walk away. Got it?”

  “Yes Baba.” Yu Lin hugged her father tight.

  Yu Di sighed. His daughter was so good before. Maybe he was being too lenient on her?

  He didn’t throw her off the mansion’s rooftop.

  At least not that day.

  Months passed by and Yu Di no longer felt the unbearable shard of life. Most days he’d forgotten about his curse as he would teach Yu Lin his techniques in the afternoon after herding her to lessons with her teacher. The little girl’s power jumped by leaps and bounds in the Qi Condensation stage.

  Until she hit the middle of the stage, around the sixth level. Yu Lin couldn’t break through. That’s when Yu Di had to take matters into his own hands. There was no way he was going to allow his daughter to wait thirty years before she could break through.

  He didn’t have that long to live.

  “No baba!” Yu Lin screeched as she ran from her father.

  “Get back here now, little Lin,” Yu Di said. He chased after her up the hill toward his home.

  Yu Lin pushed Qi into her legs and ran right into the courtyard.

  “Grandpa!”

  Yu Di pushed what little Qi he could into his own legs and tried to catch up. He knew the day his daughter outran him was near, but didn’t expect it to be so soon.

  When Yu Di caught up with his daughter, the little terror was sitting on Old Wong’s lap inside the main hall. The moment she saw her father, she hid her face against the old man’s chest.

  “Grandpa, help me!” she squealed.

  “What are you trying to do to my cute little granddaughter?” Old Wong asked. Ever since Yu Lin came to live with Yu Di, the old man followed.

  “Nothing that you would understand,” Yu Di said.

  “Like throwing her off the roof a few weeks ago? She had nightmares for days.” Old Wong patted Yu Lin’s head.

  “She was safe, wasn’t she?” Yu Di glared at the little girl. He had to push the limits of what she could do before he died. Besides, with all his items in his storage ring, she would be safe. For the most part.

  “And what do you want to do to her this time? Boil her alive? Cut off pieces of her and watch her grow them back? You cultivators have no common sense.”

  “Baba wants to throw me off the cliff,” Yu Lin said.

  “What? Are you crazy?” Old Wong clutched the little girl closer to his chest.

  “This is the only way to break through her bottleneck,” Yu Di said.

  “No. You are not harming my only cute granddaughter.” Old Wong picked up Yu Lin in his arms and walked past Yu Di. “If you need us, we’ll be at the restaurant.”

  Yu Di sighed. Maybe Old Wong was right. Pushing his daughter so hard might just kill her. But he really wanted her to get to the next level. If not for him, then for her. Right now, she’s too weak in the world of Immortals.

  Then again, as he thought about it, was it really for his daughter or was it more for him? It has been many years since he’s last experienced a level up. With the curse, he’s only lost more and more of his power. Was he pushing his daughter so hard so that he could live through her?

  What kind of father was he?

  His cultivator alarm tripped, sending a warning directly into his head. Cultivators had arrived at their little village. Foundation establishment only? A little stronger than Yu Lin.

  That meant a lot stronger than him.

  Yu Di ran out of his mansion toward the restaurant. There was only one reason why any cultivator would visit their remote village: his daughter.