Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 352: Sleepless Nights

Fu Yating stood frozen, breath shallow, staring at the world before her. The horizon stretched endlessly, painted in red, not with light, but with liquid. The surface rippled softly, thick and dark, and only when she looked down did the truth sink into her gut.

It wasn’t grass at all.

She was standing knee-deep in blood.

The stench hit her next, metallic, cloying, thick enough to taste. It filled her lungs, stuck to her throat, made every breath feel wrong.

“You know,” a familiar voice said from behind her, calm and faintly amused, “I often wonder why I even spared you.”

She turned, heart tightening.

Liu Feng stood knee-deep in the same crimson sea, a book in one hand, lazily flipping through its pages as though the nightmare around him were nothing but scenery. His expression was composed and detached like a man looking through glass at something far beneath him.

“I could’ve saved your family, too,” he said, tone mild yet sharp enough to cut. “But it was too much of a bother.”

Her breath hitched. This isn’t real, she told herself, squeezing her eyes shut. It’s just a dream.

But when she opened them again, it only got worse.

Behind Liu Feng stood a woman with hair like moonlight and skin so pale it almost glowed. She smiled in a slow, sultry curve and draped her arms around his neck, whispering something against his ear as her teeth grazed his skin.

On his right, Jiang Yeming clung to his arm with feigned innocence, mischief glinting in her eyes as she pressed closer.

On his left stood Song Song, gaze half-lidded, lips parted in a faint, hungry smile. She ran her tongue over her lower lip, a languid, deliberate motion that made Fu Yating’s stomach twist.

Jealousy erupted inside her, not a mere ache, but a violent, molten surge that devoured thought and reason alike. It burned through her chest, hot and suffocating, each second feeding the fire until her pulse roared in her ears.

Her breathing quickened. Every instinct screamed at her not to look again, not to turn away from him and see what waited behind her. But dread was stronger than reason.

She turned.

And instantly wished she hadn’t.

Stretching endlessly across the horizon were rows upon rows of crucified figures, bodies nailed to blackened poles rising from the blood-soaked ground. The air shimmered with heat and decay; the smell was unbearable.

At the very front hung a man she knew too well, her father. His once-proud face was hollow, eyes sunken, beard clotted with dried blood. Even in death, his head twitched toward her, and somehow, impossibly, he spoke.

“You forgot about us the moment it became convenient,” he rasped, voice dry as ash.

Behind him hung her mother, her father’s third lover, the old maid who had raised her from infancy. Their faces twisted in accusation and sorrow. Further back, she saw cousins, uncles, and the elder who’d once defended her right to lead based on talent rather than lineage... all strung up, pale and drained, over the red tide.

Their eyes found her, every last one of them.

And in that sea of the dead, Fu Yating’s heart began to crumble.

“Now you will lie with the man who killed us,” her mother’s voice hissed from somewhere deep within the endless rows. “And bear his child.”

“Cursed be the womb that carries a Liu Clan devil!” screamed the elder who had once defended her, his voice tearing through the air with righteous fury even as his flesh split and bled down the cross.

Then came the old servant’s voice, in contrast to the others it was soft, trembling, but no less cutting. “You never warned anyone. You never told them what kind of man Liu Feng truly was.”

Her uncle followed next, his flayed torso glistening with exposed sinew, his ruined head tilting toward her as his mangled lips moved. “And now here you are,” he rasped, “growing fond of the man whose clan mounted our heads on spikes and left us to rot until our flesh melted from the bone.”

Each word struck her like a whip, tearing through her composure. Their voices bled together into a single, monstrous chorus of accusation, grief, betrayal, until the only sound left was the echo of her own heartbeat, pounding in rhythm with the blood that lapped against her knees.

Then something rolled to her feet with a soft, wet sound.

She looked down.

Liu Feng’s decapitated head stared up at her, its expression eerily calm, eyes still sharp with detached awareness.

“It seems I died in the war,” the severed head said mildly, “and won’t be able to finish my research. That’s such a shame.”

Fu Yating’s breath shattered. A strangled sound tore from her throat, half scream and half sob, as the world twisted around her.

And she screamed.

She screamed until there was no air left in her lungs, until even the blood beneath her seemed to pulse with her agony.

Her eyes fluttered open to the sight of a rough stone ceiling. For a moment, she lay still, her mind slow to catch up with her body. Then the weight of the dream came crashing back; all the jealousy, the terror, the suffocating despair and it pressed down on her chest.

A shaky sigh slipped past her lips. She pushed herself upright, the blanket falling from her shoulders, and pressed trembling hands against her face. Her palms were slick with sweat. She wiped them on the sheets, but the trembling didn’t stop.

Get a hold of yourself, she told herself, though her thoughts felt sluggish and tangled. Whenever her heart clawed at her ribs like this, whenever her spirit refused to quiet, she tried to think like Liu Feng. To imagine what he would do.

He was always calm. No matter the storm, he was always unshakable.

But that thought brought no comfort now. Not after the dream. Not after the things her heart had whispered while she slept.

She rose, moving slowly, and crossed into the adjoining bathroom. The air was cool, the walls traced with faintly glowing arrays. Above the sink floated a small crystal sphere, humming softly.

She touched it once, and light stirred through the veins of stone. Water poured from the crystal’s base in a steady stream. Fu Yating cupped her hands beneath it and splashed her face.

The shock of cold bit through the haze, dragging her back to herself. When she lifted her gaze, the mirror met her with a familiar reflection: a dark-haired girl, pale and tired, her white sleeping robe clinging to her skin.

She gestured lightly, and the heating array flared to life. The tub beside her began to fill, steam curling into the air. Within moments, the water glowed faintly, warm and inviting. She slipped in, sinking until the heat reached her shoulders, the warmth soaking into her bones.

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Her eyes drifted upward as she leaned back, the ripples lapping gently at her collarbone. For the first time since waking, her breathing evened out. The jealousy, the fear and the tightness in her chest, all of it dulled.

Fu Yating traced lazy circles across the surface, watching the light shimmer and break. The warmth should have been comforting. It wasn’t. Her thoughts refused to rest.

It was irrational, she knew that, but jealousy still gnawed at her. The image of those women around Liu Feng lingered like a thorn she couldn’t pull free: their laughter, their hands on him, his calm indifference.

No matter what threats she made, no matter how she acted, the truth was bitterly simple.

If he ever chose another, there was nothing she could do to stop him. Not with strength. Not with status. Not even with pride.

Now that he had promised her to marry, she had begun to think more about these things.

She had zero power in whatever strange bond tied them together. They both liked to pretend otherwise and to act as though she held some leverage, some equality, but that was just another comforting lie.

The thought made something cold twist in her chest. It wasn’t just jealousy anymore. It was a quiet, suffocating fear of how small she felt beside him, and how easily he could shatter the illusion of balance between them with a single choice.

Because deep down, Fu Yating already knew the truth, if Liu Feng ever decided to do something, she would have no choice but to endure it. She’d swallow the pain, pretend it didn’t matter, and carry on as if nothing had changed. Even if she had the chance to poison him, she couldn’t. Not the father of her future children, not the man who was the only true protector they had.

Her own father had lovers. Dozens of them. It was something she’d grown up seeing, along with the quiet, ugly normalcy that surrounded it.

But she didn’t want that life. She didn’t want to become her mother.

The memories surfaced unbidden: banquets filled with laughter that didn’t reach her mother’s eyes, the cloying perfume of concubines drifting through the house, their silks whispering against polished floors. Her mother’s fixed, brittle smile. The way guests politely pretended not to see. The shame hung in the air like a cloud of smoke.

Even as a child, she’d felt it; the sting of whispered gossip, the humiliation of hearing her friends joke about her family’s “arrangements.” That helpless anger, that silent, burning shame, had never left her.

The idea of living through that again, of standing in her mother’s place, smiling while others circled the man she loved, made her stomach turn. It wasn’t just pride; it was disgust.

She couldn’t bear the thought of becoming another woman trapped in a gilded cage, calling humiliation love.

Logically, she knew that she had bigger troubles than Liu Feng sleeping with another woman.

Outwardly, nothing had changed. Her daily life had moved in quiet repetition: meals, chores, and gardening. But she knew there was a war raging beyond the calm of her home.

The last war she had experienced took everything from her, and the memory made her chest tighten even now.

Was it going to happen again? Was Liu Feng going to die this time?

Fu Yating would never admit it aloud, but every time he didn’t come home to eat, she worried. Missions, battles, scouting, it didn’t matter what excuse he had. The thought always clawed at her until she could see him again.

She feared that one day, he simply wouldn’t return.

Taking a slow, unsteady breath, she closed her eyes and saw those corpses again, her family’s faces watching her from the dark. Judging the worry she had for Liu Feng.

When she finally stepped out of the bath, she dressed quietly and made her way downstairs to prepare food. But when she reached the kitchen, someone was already there, seated at the dining table.

Wu Yan.

The young woman sat still, staring ahead with a distant calm. When she noticed Fu Yating, she smiled.

“Hey,” Wu Yan said softly.

Despite her resemblance to Liu Feng, she couldn’t have been more different.

“Are you okay?” Wu Yan asked, her tone gentle but perceptive.

Fu Yating hesitated, caught off guard by the simple concern. There was something oddly comforting about that expression. Wu Yan was stoic, more so than Liu Feng, but she still felt human. Present.

Ironically, it was Liu Feng, for all his brilliance, who often felt distant. As if his thoughts were always somewhere else, far beyond the reach of anyone who cared for him.

“Nothing, it’s just that I had an unpleasant dream,” Fu Yating said, forcing a faint smile toward the young girl.

“Oh,” Wu Yan replied, her tone neutral as always, yet something flickered behind her eyes, a quiet understanding. “I sometimes see my parents in my dreams too.”

Parents?

Fu Yating blinked, momentarily thrown. She didn’t know much about how Liu Feng had come to take this girl under his wing. Maybe she was an orphan, or her parents were dead?

Also, how did Wu Yan know she was dreaming about her parents?

“You can talk to me about it if you ever feel like it,” Fu Yating offered gently. “After all, cultivation isn’t just about talent or strength, but also mindset. You shouldn’t carry distractions into your next breakthrough.”

Wu Yan nodded and sat at the table while Fu Yating began preparing breakfast, an old recipe she’d learned from an Azure Frost Sect disciple whose family had once owned an inn. The scent of simmering broth soon filled the room.

When Fu Yating finally joined her, Wu Yan spoke again, voice calm but trembling at the edges.

“Sometimes I dream about my parents,” she said softly. “When I was younger, they thought I was a monster. Too scared to kill me, so they just locked me in the barn to starve. But my body adapted. I didn’t need food anymore.”

Fu Yating froze, unsure how to respond.

“One time,” Wu Yan continued, eyes distant, “my mother pushed me down a well. Tried to drown me. But my body adapted again. I don’t need to breathe anymore.”

Fu Yating tightened her fists beneath the table, keeping her face carefully composed.

“During a bad harvest, my father tried to kick me once,” Wu Yan said, a faint, eerie smile tugging at her lips. “His leg broke instead. He tried drowning me after that, but by then… it didn’t matter.”

“I… see,” Fu Yating managed, her voice unsteady.

“So sometimes I dream of drowning,” Wu Yan said lightly, even laughing at the end, as though trying to soften the horror of her words. “Which is silly, since it’s impossible now.”

Fu Yating stared at her, a strange ache forming in her chest.

Liu Feng might have been the man she needed and the pillar that held her world together, but it was Wu Yan who felt closer. Softer. Human.

Compared to Liu Feng’s often distant, calculating calm words, Wu Yan’s quiet vulnerability felt almost warm.

Hearing what the girl had endured stirred something fierce inside Fu Yating. Anger. Pity. Protectiveness.

Her own childhood struggles, fighting for clan recognition and enduring lectures from old men who doubted her worth because she was a woman, seemed so small in comparison.

“Are your parents still alive?” Fu Yating asked at last, voice low.

She doubted Liu Feng knew the whole story. But if he ever did, if he learned what those people had done, she was certain of one thing.

He wouldn’t hesitate to kill them.

“Yes, and Liu Feng offered to kill them if I wanted, but I said no. Despite everything, they’re still my parents, and I hope the best for them,” Wu Yan said.

For anyone who didn’t know her, the first thing that came to mind when they heard Wu Yan’s name was her talent. The girl’s cultivation speed defied logic, breaking through realms as if the world’s laws simply didn’t apply to her. She was the anomaly that made the heavens jealous.

Yet, for all that, Fu Yating thought she was the most human among them. The kindest.

Wu Yan turned her head slightly, her gaze flicking toward the doorway before returning to Fu Yating. That tiny gesture was enough; she’d sensed Liu Feng’s presence.

“Is something wrong?” Fu Yating asked.

“No,” Wu Yan said after a pause, though her eyes briefly drifted back toward that same direction. “It’s just… Liu Feng has been meeting with Ye An quite a lot lately. And with his teacher. Not with Song Song, though. It seems like they’re planning something.”

The moment Fu Yating heard Ye An, her mind betrayed her. The dream flashed before her eyes, Ye An’s arms around Liu Feng, the soft sound of laughter, the warmth of breath brushing his ear.

Of course, it was absurd. Ye An wasn’t the type, and Liu Feng would never allow something like that. She knew that. Rationally.

But the unease remained like a faint, bitter pang of jealousy twisting beneath her ribs.

It was just a dream, she reminded herself. And Ye An isn’t even beautiful anymore. There was no reason to dwell on it.

Even so… even though she and Liu Feng weren’t yet officially married, the thought of him lying with another woman made her stomach clench.

“Perhaps they’re…” Wu Yan’s voice trailed off as she stared into the distance again. Her expression remained calm, but Fu Yating noticed the faint tremor in her tone and the flicker of anxiety in her otherwise empty eyes.

She frowned.

Was Wu Yan worried about something?

Or was it that both of them, in their own ways, feared losing the same man to war, to ambition, or to someone else entirely?