Volume 2, Chapter 47 – Seeking

Another month passed. On Chilong Circuit, it was already nearing mid-November.

According to Bai Zhuqing’s personal calendar, this was Day Thirty-Five of being cold-shouldered by Bai Xiang.

For these thirty-plus days, Bai Xiang still taught her sword during the day. She guided her exactly as she should, even personally pressing certain heart-meridian acupoints when necessary, without a hint of awkwardness—her behavior was no different from before.

Then in the afternoons, Bai Xiang would go out.

Bai Zhuqing had no idea what she was doing out there; she only knew Bai Xiang came back at a different time every night. Sometimes she made it back in time to eat dinner with everyone, sometimes she dragged it out until the middle of the night.

Every time, Bai Zhuqing insisted on waiting up for Bai Xiang. That was the same as before too.

The only difference was: at night, she could no longer get through the door of Bai Xiang’s room.

“You’ve got your own room, don’t you? No need to come looking for me every night.” Bai Xiang had said at the time. “The forecast says this winter will be freezing. Leying’s about to go on winter break— you should go back and sleep with her. Don’t let her feel lonely again.”

Lonely, my ass.

Bai Zhuqing’s eyelid twitched madly when she heard that.

Ever since she chose to be a “full-time Sword-Track Student,” no longer attending the big cultural classes at school, Bai Zhuqing had also assumed her little sister, Bai Leying, would feel lonely and miserable.

Yet less than three days after Leying returned to class, Bai Shengju got a complaint call from the teacher saying Bai Leying wasn’t studying at all, spending every day bullying her classmates and even making several girls cry.

Things had already escalated to the point where they had to “call the parents,” which obviously meant the ultimate kill move of “having the parents come in” wasn’t far off.

Bai Shengju definitely didn’t have time to go, so it was Second Uncle Bai Lianzhou who went, bringing Bai Zhuqing along.

Bai Zhuqing watched, eyes wide open, as her grim-faced second uncle got lectured at length by a young female teacher. Then she turned her head a little and saw Bai Leying on the sports field, making as if to walk away, while another girl was kneeling on the ground, clutching at her hand.

Holy crap, since when did my little sister’s inner world get this rich?

Bai Zhuqing’s pupils practically shook.

Her horizons were blown wide open.

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Bai Zhuqing felt a strange mix of being abandoned and betrayed by her little sister, tangled together with an inexplicable gratification of “she’s finally grown up.”

After that, Bai Leying still came home for dinner on a few weekends, but each time she felt more and more absentminded, as if coming back was just a formality.

Their mom said, “Leying’s busy with her band. They’re using some instruments brought over from those foreign folks to play and sing.”

Bai Zhuqing had zero interest in that. Over time, she just got used to the idea that “my little sister has her own life now,” but hearing Bai Xiang say that, she instantly felt something was wrong.

No— does Leying not want me anymore?!

She never had much reverence for the “older sister” role to begin with! Even if she comes back for winter break, she’ll definitely be running out every single day. She’ll just think about meeting up with those classmates of hers!

She had wanted to properly explain things to Bai Xiang, even to apologize for what happened that night.

But Bai Xiang didn’t give her the chance; she said her piece and shut the door on the spot.

“……”

Bai Zhuqing immediately thought of that scene on the sports field.

If I kneel down and grab Sister Xiang’s hand to beg her, would she have a change of heart?

After mulling it over for a while, Bai Zhuqing decided that if she actually dared do that, even their daytime two-person world of sword practice would probably be gone.

Bai Xiang, on the other hand, didn’t think that much about it.

Giving Bai Zhuqing the cold shoulder was also a way of punishing her, forcing her to recognize her place as much as possible. And what Bai Zhuqing saw every day—Bai Xiang heading out in the afternoon—was naturally her going to carry out commissioned tasks from the Demon-Suppressing Directorate and the Jobs Directorate.

Those two agencies’ commissions could be taken in parallel. Some were to clear out Demon Pools, some were to go deeper into the jungle to investigate the cause of abnormal demonic-beast numbers. Every time she completed overlapping commissions, she could inject points into both systems at once.

Opportunities to destroy Demon Pools weren’t many, because the average Demon Pool didn’t require the Demon-Suppressing Directorate to step in; the Inspectorate could just send a few people to handle it.

And “handle” didn’t necessarily mean “eradicate.” As long as it was confirmed that a Demon Pool posed no great danger and didn’t have growth or spreading traits, the Inspectorate would simply warn the locals not to go near it again, and let the Demon Pool’s existence be.

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Sometimes when Bai Xiang came back extremely late, it was because she wasn’t satisfied with the results from the commissions. She would work overtime alone, running off to those rumored locations from Demon Pool ghost stories, unravel the Demon Pools, then kill for a sword-sacrifice.

In this way, her cultivation base steadily climbed.

And with no Bai Zhuqing to make trouble before bed, Bai Xiang finally had the time at night to study the new Dao-path after Transforming Qi.

That night, after showering, she sat down at her desk. In front of her lay an ancient text spread open—The Fuhu Arhat Scripture, which she’d previously swindled off that white man Cerredo.

It was a martial scripture, recording a set of fist arts, a set of staff arts, a set of sword arts, as well as the key points for visualizing the “Benling Tiger” and the specially matched “Spirit Tiger Heart-Meridian Diagram.”

The visualization chart itself wasn’t recorded; that was an even more precious treasure. She didn’t know whether it was now in the hands of the Benling Sword Dao, or with Fuhu Temple, which had left Great Yu.

Bai Xiang felt it was probably the former.

In truth, the only reason she could know this much was thanks to her soul-ability.

The ancient text itself was damaged in many places, with corrections and scribbles all between the lines. Just reading it normally was obscure and difficult, let alone extracting the essence and cross-verifying things.

All thanks to her soul-ability.

By chance, Bai Xiang had discovered that when she channeled her soul-ability into her ears, she could faintly hear murmuring whispers coming from the text.

Those whispers weren’t anything horrifying. They simply narrated, filled in the scripture’s content, and even came with explanations where things were difficult to understand.

Bai Xiang guessed it might be because the copy she had was personally written by the author.

Written by hand, with the author’s soul and essence poured into the strokes. That powerful will had barely managed to linger until today, and only someone whose soul was exceptionally strong or particularly unique could hear and learn from it.

She hadn’t gotten this kind of perk with The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi last time.

That one had been a hand-copied edition, and copied by some flunky of the Demon-Immortal Dao at that. There was no way any soul-will could have been imprinted into it.

This explained why Cerredo had treated this book as trash.

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If it hadn’t fallen into Bai Xiang’s hands, it really wasn’t worth much.

“The Benling Tiger’s visualization chart is most likely in the hands of Benling Sword Dao.”

Bai Xiang pondered.

To cultivate Sword Dao, everyone had to visualize the Demon Pool to Condense the Aspect, condense a Demon Pool outer Aspect, and use their inner mind Aspect to control that outer Demon Pool Aspect. That was why Sword Dao divine arts and the sword-Qi formed from demonic power were also called “outer Aspect power.”

They were all Aspects. The mind Aspect could only interfere with the inner landscape of the human body. Demonic power, however, could hook divine arts, forming sword-Qi of demonic power to inflict all sorts of destruction on the outside world. That demonic power was, of course, a force belonging to the outer Aspect.

In Daoist theory, there was even the saying that “outer Aspect” was “outer scenery.” It all meant the same thing in essence.

“Sword Dao needs to condense the Demon Pool outer Aspect, but my path of Transforming Qi only condenses the true-self Aspect, which is the human Aspect.”

“Going by that logic, everyone’s mind Aspect is different. If this method could be popularized, then depending on the differences in each person’s mind Aspect, would the abilities and divine powers attached after Transforming Qi also differ?”

She thought of this because, in checking and guiding Bai Zhuqing’s cultivation progress lately, she’d discovered that the qi Bai Zhuqing transformed was far less sharp than her own, but stood out tremendously in terms of control.

This had caused Bai Zhuqing’s Shenming Sword arts to advance by leaps and bounds; all sorts of Vibration Arts were improving at a breathtaking pace.

Bai Xiang’s research into The Fuhu Arhat Scripture mainly had two goals.

First: to see if she could draw on its essence, learn the advantages of the “Spirit Tiger Heart-Meridian Diagram,” and further optimize her current heart-meridian diagram.

After all, although her current heart-meridian diagram met the conditions for forming an inner circulation, it could hardly be called the optimal solution. There was still room for further refinement.

Second: she wanted to see whether, from the Benling Tiger’s visualization keys and training content, she could deduce the path after “Turn Qi into Form.”

Transforming Qi corresponded to Condensing the Aspect.

Turning Qi into Form would correspond to Purple Qi and Purple Blood.

Then the next Qi-path realm should be a major realm, directly corresponding to the Purple Core in Sword Dao.

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So was the next step to condense the qi sea into a qi core?

Returning to Origin and Embracing the Core—both Buddhist and Daoist traditions advocated such a realm.

In broad strokes, that direction wasn’t wrong. But how, exactly, should she go about it?

Both tasks were incredibly heavy, especially the sheer amount of calculation involved. For almost this entire month, Bai Xiang had been summoning out her soul body every night before sleep to experiment, and every attempt had ended in failure.

Another fruitless night tonight as well…

She felt a bit rueful, but Bai Xiang was used to it by now.

After wiping down Feixiang Heaven, she hugged her sword and fell asleep, and with one sleep, dawn came again.

“Mm?”

The moment she opened her eyes, she sensed a shadow cast beside her. Bai Xiang immediately sat up and saw Xiang Xian, dressed in a palace gown, sitting at the edge of the bed, The Fuhu Arhat Scripture in her hands.

“Your vigilance isn’t bad.”

Xiang Xian spoke without even lifting her head.

“You got your hands on the Fuhu Scripture and didn’t act rashly. Not bad. Looks like you really took it to heart when I told you to cultivate yourself and temper your disposition.”

“Teacher?” Bai Xiang frowned.

“Get up and wash.” Xiang Xian smiled at her.

“After breakfast, I’ll pass on to you the fundamental method of Yuming Sword Dao—Jade Spirit, Luminous Heart.”