"Fast? A few months is fast?" Yuan asked her.
"Of course! I was expecting at least a few years!" Min Li quickly said.
"A few years? That’s too long!" Yuan exclaimed.
"I won’t even be a Spirit Master in a few months! I cannot challenge the Stairway to Heaven with such a low cultivation base! That’ll be akin to suicide!" She said to him.
"Hmm..." Yuan pondered.
"Looks like you’ll have to just rely on me in the end," he chuckled.
"It’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. There will be times when you need someone’s help regardless of your situation."
Min Li sighed after hearing his words.
"Whatever... I guess I’ll figure it out when you’re actually about to challenge the Stairway to Heaven."
"Now I have to worry about how I should leave the Min Family," she said.
"Can’t you just tell them that you’re leaving the family? I left my own family without even telling them." Yuan said to her.
"What? You left your family?" Min Li looked at him with wide eyes after learning this unexpected news.
Yuan nodded and said, "Well, they were going to disown me, and I merely decided to leave before that."
"Why did you leave your family— if you don’t mind me asking..."
"It’s simple— I was no longer useful to them, so they kicked me out. Our families are similar in the way that they both only accept perfection. If I make any mistakes during competitions, even if I won the competition, I would be scolded and punished for it."
"And now that I am no longer of any use to them, they decided to discard me."
"I’m sorry to hear that..." Min Li said to him.
"Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault."
"But even if I want to leave the family, it’s not as simple as it sounds. As a member of the Seven Legacy Families, I cannot simply leave the family without permission, and most of the time, people who wish to leave the family must have their cultivation base crippled before they are allowed to leave." Min Li said.
And she continued, "If I leave without their permission, I will become a deserter, and they will hunt me down and kill me."
"What the heck?" Yuan said in a shocked voice.
"They would kill you just for leaving the family without permission? How is that even allowed?" Yuan said.
"When you’re powerful enough, everything is allowed." Feng Yuxiang’s voice suddenly resounded behind him.
"The laws of mortals do not apply to the strong," she continued.
"Y-You are...?" Min Li was surprised by the sudden appearance of Feng Yuxiang, whom she has never seen before.
"I’m the Young Master’s servant," she responded in a proud manner.
"S-Servant?" Min Li mumbled in a dazed voice.
"Anyways, I have a suggestion, Young Master." Feng Yuxiang said.
"You’re not going to tell me to destroy her family so that she could leave safely, right?" Yuan looked at her with narrowed eyes.
"Haha... of course not..." Feng Yuxiang laughed with a stiff smile on her face.
"I was going to say if the Young Master shows up at their doorsteps and demands them to give you this young lady here, they might hand her over without any hassle," she continued.
"What? That simple? Will it really work?" Yuan asked, doubting her suggestion and completely oblivious to the meaning behind her words.
Feng Yuxiang nodded, "You just need to act a little aggressive and domineering. There won’t be any violence if you do it properly."
"I see... That does sound like a good idea." Yuan nodded.
"Wait..." Min Li, however, realized what Feng Yuxiang was suggesting to Yuan and immediately flushed with redness.
"Don’t worry, Disciple Min. I will do my best to convince them to let you leave the family!" Yuan said to her.
Min Li gave up and said, "When will you be able to do it? They’ll keep asking me for updates until I recruit you."
"Can you stall them? I have to enter the Dragon Temple in a few days so I cannot go too far." Yuan said.
"Stall them? But how..." Min Li suddenly realized something and mumbled, "Wait a second... I can simply tell them that you’ve entered closed cultivation and that I cannot speak with you until you’re finished. This should get them off my back for a while since they’ll assume that the other families would also be unable to approach you."
"Closed cultivation?" Yuan raised his eyebrows.
"It’s when a Cultivator isolates themself to prepare for a big breakthrough or when someone simply wants to focus on cultivating. It’s an unspoken rule in the cultivation world that one cannot bother someone in closed cultivation, almost a taboo." Feng Yuxiang explained to him.
"I see... I will be entering the Dragon Temple soon, and I most likely won’t be able to speak with anyone while I am inside, so you can probably tell them that I’m in closed cultivation."
"Alright, I will tell them that later." Min Li nodded.
Sometime later, before Yuan returned to his own living quarters, Min Li bowed to him and said, "Thank you for everything, Disciple Yuan. I will definitely repay you in the future for everything."
"Don’t worry about it. I will always be willing to help a fellow friend out." Yuan said.
"A friend...?" Min Li mumbled to herself as she watched Yuan return to his home.
Once the day was coming to an end, Min Li messaged her family and told them about Yuan’s closed cultivation.
Although her family was unhappy about it at first, they were not completely unreasonable and did not ask Min Li to disturb Yuan’s closed cultivation to recruit him, as that would definitely have the opposite effect.
Therefore, they reluctantly accepted the situation and said to her, "Just because he’s in closed cultivation doesn’t mean you can slack off! Use this time to prepare yourself and think about what you need to say to him! If you cannot think of anything to say, just let your body do all of the talking! He may be a cultivation prodigy, but he’s also a man! You were blessed with your mother’s good looks, so put it to good use!"
"Yes, father." Min Li responded with a calm look on her face.