The utterly shocked and dismayed screech of the young girl promptly roused her roommate without fail.
The bloodcurdling cry drilling into her ears, Shen Ming Yue leapt from her safe coven of dreams in an instant, her body erupting from the bed as it radiated a fearsome strength.
“Who’s there!?”
The youthful girl slammed her palms together, a thread of spiritual essence agitating the still air within the room to howl with a frenzied coldness.
Shen Ming Yue’s eyes gradually glazed over with confusion at the obvious lack of an enemy or stalker, and her arms lowered towards her sides.
The spiritual essence responsible for the sudden gust of air within the room did not abate from its connection to her dantian, poised and thoroughly capable of ambushing any hidden foe.
“Little sister, what’s going on… ah?”
The unusual sight of An Fei’s body trembling as though it was a severed leaf certainly did not escape from Shen Ming Yue’s watchful eye, causing her heart to fluctuate with worry.
The youthful girl silently crept over to the adjacent bed without alerting her roommate, thus exposing the embarrassing and shocking scene to the world in all of its glaring conviction.
“Ah…”
An Fei’s frozen consciousness returned to reality the instant Shen Ming Yue’s hand landed on her shoulder, and she instinctively closed shut the loose blanket draped around her body.
Alas, the youthful girl’s strength was far superior to her cruelly suppressed physique, thus the thin cover of fabric was quickly snatched from the young girl’s control.
“This… Little Sister, ahem…”
En, the large patch of blood that soaked the bedsheets as well as her undergarments was supremely embarrassing.
As her eyes inadvertently caught ahold of the consoling but teasing gaze of Shen Haoren, An Fei’s heart began to twitch incessantly as her fingers curled around the thin blanket.
The young girl lowered her head as she deeply attempted to restrain the cynical remark tugging at the lowest threads of her heart, but alas…
This girl, her actual age was not any younger, nor was this that sho–
“Little Sister, it must hurt quite a bit, doesn’t it?”
Shen Ming Yue earnestly stroked the young girl’s back, her mind wandering at the unusually soft and supple sensation transmitted from her fingertips.
Interpreting An Fei’s silence as exacerbated embarrassment, the daughter of the potbellied, middle-aged man that gloated about his name adopted her father’s shamelessness as she continued to croon and tug at the young girl’s collar.
“Don’t worry, this happens for all women; it’s a simple sign that our bodies are approaching the threshold of maturity. Come, let Elder Sister give you a massage – a quick rub of the shoulders, with some pinching and pulling, and the pain will be thoroughly chased away!”
This time, the young girl was forced to submit due to her embarrassment.
Her mind sobering from its shock-induced delirium, An Fei’s mood took a nosedive towards the bottom of the crags as her consciousness roamed elseward.
As Shen Ming Yue’s fingers gently teased the soft and supple skin between her shoulders and neck, a perplexing and interesting thought raced through the young girl’s mind.
The monthly pain that was the true crusher of all flowers in the world; it truly was a ‘long time no see’ in the purest essence, ah!
Only, for it to manifest its scraggly and detached head at this moment, and not soon after she woke up… just how old was her body?
Thirteen?
No, Eldest Brother Wei Chang Feng once mentioned that she had remained in the wooden shed for fourteen years prior to An Fei occupying the frail body in its previous owner’s stead.
Since it was soon approaching a year from the time that her eyes had gazed upon the Shattered Star Continent, then…
“…fifteen?”
An Fei’s dry lips muttered as she attempted to relax herself underneath the conflicting barrage from the soothing massage and the burning pain near her stomach.
Her mind partially absorbed into the carnal and completely satisfying sensation of massaging a beauty’s body, Shen Ming Yue could only comprehend a faint portion of the word escaping the young girl’s mouth.
“Little Sister, did you say something?”
“No, nothing,” An Fei quickly grunted, her fingers lightly pressed against her lower abdomen.
Shen Ming Yue gently teased the young girl’s exposed nape with her delicately trimmed nails, before returning to calming the young girl’s agitated body.
As her fingers reoccupied themselves in their wholly voluntary trial, the youthful girl finally comprehended a puzzling question that had nagged at her heart since the beginning of her memory.
No wonder Father liked to massage Mother’s shoulders so much as well as touch her body every day…
As Shen Haoren’s daughter immersed herself in her hazed memories, the young girl was carefully examining her body.
With light pats and prods to certain areas on her limbs and ribcage, An Fei quickly immersed her mind into the sea of perception without a word of complaint.
The ever-changing, complex diagram of her internal composition was summoned at once, the amassed array of multi-colored lights dazzling her mind.
The moment her sea of perception filtered through the bastion of golden light to reveal the recent changes that had imposed themselves on her body, An Fei’s mind flickered with a dense concern.
The entire region of her body surpassing her abdominal areas to the base of her pelvic bones were pulsating with a heavy gloom of crimson.
After overcoming the brief surprise and calmly observing for an entire minute, An Fei realized that the rate of pulsation matched that of her heart’s pulse.
Similarly, it wasn’t hard to infer that the phenomenon was caused due to her menstrual cycle delivering a powerful slap without any forewarning.
“But… why is the entire region red, and the golden light seems to have diminished in intensity?”
An Fei instinctively frowned, and the young girl commanded her sea of perception to temporarily filter away the waves of crimson light emanating from her abdominal region.
Her consciousness briefly flickered into darkness as the sea of perception sorted through a near unsurpassable volume of information utilizing whatever free channels it was allotted, and the glaring truth was revealed before her.
When the distraction of crimson light was removed, what remained was a massive and complex pathway of vessels, tissues, meridians, skeletal structure, and internal organs.
However, though the structure and arrangement had not been changed, the young girl quickly caught onto the problem at hand.
The mental visualization of her body detailed her internal structure and composition with a monochrome color to signify the minimum capabilities of her physique in a sea of golden light.
Traversing fluids including blood, were exempt from this rule, and thus retained their original sheen.
The quantity of spiritual essence travelling through or contained within the structure was determined by the intensity of the golden light.
The primary storage of the spiritual essence allotted to An Fei was located at her heart, of which the visualization faithfully transmitted forth a glaring ball of yellow fire.
Her abdominal region… was nothing more than a faint backdrop of light, far diminished compared to that of her toes. The general pathway that permitted spiritual essence to circulate throughout her body, it seemed to have…
“…been disconnected,” the young girl gasped, her mind flashing with a grave worry.
“The Sanctum’s changes imposed onto my body isn’t that different from a circuit. If the segment establishing a connection and a closed circuit is severed, then…”
Would the basic protection of her body such as the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> even function?
Granted, there seemed to be no problems with her legs as through the visualization’s portrayal, but the question at hand couldn’t be avoided.
An Fei’s brows instinctively furrowed as her mind dug into her memories, only to come to no avail.
Hopefully, the damage was not permanent…
“Little Sister… something troubling your mind? Your shoulders are too stiff even after my massage, ah…”
Shen Ming Yue’s concerned voice drifted into her ears, startling the young girl’s mind from her reverie. Dragging her consciousness from the sea of perception, An Fei turned around to gaze into the youthful girl’s graceful eyes.
“Nothing’s… wrong.”
The young girl managed to thrust through her lips, her countenance smoothing into a dull and blank stare. Surveying her expression for a brief period of time, Shen Ming Yue retreated with a gentle nod.
“It’s going to be morning soon, but there’s some more time left to sleep,” the youthful girl murmured as she departed towards the door.
“Elder Sister will be back after a few minutes, alright?”
Under An Fei’s blurred gaze, Shen Ming Yue departed from the room with light and graceful steps, her figure quickly vanishing from sight.
As she was about to lean back into the now awkward sheets, the young girl’s brows rose in surprise.
Given Shen Ming Yue’s capabilities, she should have covered at least twenty meters – far out of any mortal’s range of hearing, especially for any light sounds, much less her suppressed senses.
So why could she hear the light footfalls from inside the room?
