"Sure." Zhu Baixi nodded with a smile. "Then let’s have a little contest."

With that, she also dove straight into the water.

A few seconds later, Chen Xiao grabbed the edge of the pool with both hands and let out a long breath from his mouth.

The competitiveness between women really is strange.

They even want to compete over this?

Still, it looked like, after Cultivation, both their breath-holding skills had improved a lot.

Worth some praise.

Right now, aside from Zhu Baixi and Zhang Yaqing who were practicing holding their breath underwater, the closest one to Chen Xiao was Li Biyun.

Just now, she had been sitting with eyes closed, absorbing Spiritual Energy, but as soon as Zhang Yaqing spoke, her attention was drawn. A glance over here and she saw Zhang Yaqing and Zhu Baixi racing underwater, circling around Chen Xiao like mermaids.

She hurriedly closed her eyes again to continue absorbing Spiritual Energy, but no matter what, she just couldn’t calm down. Sister Yaqing and Sister Zhu’s breath-holding, wasn’t it a bit too insane?

Perhaps because of the Medicine Bath, her pretty face quickly flushed red, but curiosity kept driving her to secretly sneak glances over here.

"Splash—"

Water splashed as Zhu Baixi’s head broke the surface and she flicked her long hair.

Zhang Yaqing surfaced right after her, gasping for breath in big gulps.

Zhu Baixi opened her mouth at Chen Xiao, then playfully blinked at Zhang Yaqing. "Looks like I win."

A hint of unwillingness showed on Zhang Yaqing’s face. She snorted lightly and swam off into the distance.

Their actual strength was more or less the same.

It was just that Zhu Baixi had timed things better.

To lose like this, she really felt a bit unwilling inside.

But a bet is a bet; she could only tactfully leave and turn to go pester Manluo Sha instead.

Zhu Baixi’s white lotus arms wrapped around Chen Xiao as she smiled charmingly. "Skinny mutt, I want you to help with my Cultivation. Can you still manage it?"

Chen Xiao’s face darkened. Seeing that everyone else was holding their breath, keeping quiet, eyes closed in Cultivation, and with the bath’s color and concentration high enough that the water had turned dark—

As long as they kept things discreet, secretly giving her some extra help shouldn’t be a big problem.

Thinking this, he said, "I’ll put in a few needles for you, open up your meridian points, so you can better absorb the Medicine Bath’s power."

Over an hour later, Zhu Baixi’s delicate body trembled slightly, her forehead covered in fine sweat. With Chen Xiao’s exquisite needlework and the aid of his Xuan Yang Qi, her Cultivation directly broke through to the Middle Hua Realm.

Chen Xiao pulled the Silver Needles from her body. "Stabilize your realm properly."

Zhu Baixi nodded lightly.

Just then—

Li Kani came storming down from upstairs, huffing with anger. "Chen Xiao, you guys are soaking in the hot spring and didn’t call me!"

Looking at Li Kani’s furious face, Chen Xiao could only explain, "I did go to call you. You were sleeping so soundly I didn’t keep trying."

"I don’t care, I’m coming in too."

Li Kani directly stripped naked on the spot and, with a splash, plunged into the Medicine Bath pool.

Cold sweat broke out on Chen Xiao’s forehead. This girl really was wild.

Li Kani’s figure was downright demonic.

Curves in all the right places, gifted by the heavens, full yet tight—flat-out cheating.

However, Chen Xiao keenly sensed that after Li Kani entered the Medicine Bath, the surrounding nature’s spiritual energy, the nature’s spiritual energy within the bath, actually all began converging toward her.

This girl, she was absorbing Spiritual Energy this fast?

Chen Xiao was inwardly shocked.

After entering the pool, Li Kani suddenly stopped throwing a tantrum and instead closed her eyes to start absorbing the Spiritual Energy in the Medicine Bath.

She was like a whale gulping water, frantically devouring Spiritual Energy.

The commotion wasn’t just shocking for Chen Xiao; even Leng Baiyu and the other two women opened their eyes one after another.

"Kani?" Lu Wushuang exclaimed. "Even an Energy Transformation Grandmaster couldn’t absorb Spiritual Energy this fast. How can this girl be so fast? Has she lost her mind?"

Chen Xiao hurried over to stop her.

Otherwise, with Li Kani’s level of Cultivation, absorbing Spiritual Energy at that speed would quickly make her body burst.

Yet just as his hand touched Li Kani, she suddenly opened her eyes, two golden flashes shooting from them. With a flick of her hand, she flung Chen Xiao’s hand away. "Get lost."

Caught off guard, Chen Xiao staggered from the throw and almost fell into the water.

"Even if she’s angry, this girl shouldn’t be throwing such a big tantrum, right?" Chen Xiao smiled bitterly in his heart.

The next moment, Li Kani said nothing, walked out of the water stark naked, put on her clothes, and headed inside.

Lu Wushuang quickly nudged Chen Xiao. "Aren’t you going to comfort her?"

Chen Xiao gave a wry smile. "She’s fuming right now. I’ll go up later."

He didn’t know why, but he felt that Li Kani’s problem was more than simple anger. That golden flash in her eyes just now felt very unfamiliar to him, like she’d become a different person.

An hour later, the water in the pool gradually turned clear again, and the Spiritual Energy contained within had basically been absorbed by everyone.

Zhang Yaqing was very happy. She had actually broken through to Late-stage External Strength in one go. Wearing a smug look, she said, "Looks like I’m a Cultivation genius too."

Li Biyun hadn’t made much progress, only feeling that her energy had become more abundant. After all, her Cultivation and that mysterious power in her body had all been sealed by Chen Xiao, for fear that she wouldn’t be able to control that power and end up exploding.

As for Luo Qingli, she was pleasantly surprised. Previously, she’d only been able to absorb nature’s spiritual energy, but her Dantian couldn’t store it. Now, however, she felt that the Spiritual Energy she drew into her Dantian was no longer leaking away.

For her, this already counted as a very significant breakthrough.

As for Qin Lan and Zhu Baixi, the two of them were a bit older and had never touched Cultivation before. So for this Medicine Bath, Chen Xiao still had them focus on Cultivating the Supreme Lady Scripture, using this mental method to purge impurities from their bodies, improve their aptitude, and lay the groundwork rather than rushing to raise their Cultivation.

After the Medicine Bath ended, Chen Xiao went to Li Kani’s room.

"Kani?!" he called softly, but heard no response from inside.

He frowned slightly and pushed the door open.

Only to find that Li Kani wasn’t there.

"Where’d she run off to?"

Chen Xiao frowned. The villa wasn’t that big. Normally, there weren’t many places Li Kani could go.

How could she suddenly vanish?

It was truly strange.

He searched the room again and confirmed that Li Kani really wasn’t there.

"What’s wrong?" Lu Wushuang hurried over from behind and asked.

"Kani’s gone." Chen Xiao took a deep breath, his expression turning very grim.

Even if Li Kani really was angry, by her personality she wouldn’t just suddenly leave. Plus, with so many people here, how did she manage to slip away without anyone noticing?

Hearing this, Lu Wushuang also grew anxious. "Let’s have everyone help look for her."

Once they heard that Li Kani was missing, everyone grew tense at once and immediately searched the entire villa from top to bottom, but still didn’t see a trace of her.

Their moods, which had just been quite good, instantly sank to rock bottom!