Volume 2, Chapter 76 – Questioning the Heart

Bai Xiang’s cultivation state was different from ordinary people.

When ordinary people cultivated, they truly had to personally guide the heartflow, warming and nourishing the heart meridians; after stepping into Forge the Sword and Condensing the Aspect, they had to even more carefully communicate with the sword, letting the Demon Pool within the blade grow more familiar with them.

But Bai Xiang—after all, she was “all methods advancing together”. Thanks to that unique circulation diagram, even if she lay there doing nothing at all, the heartflow would run by itself along the routes of her heart meridians, again and again strengthening and nourishing her body.

So her cultivation right now wasn’t aimed at the inner landscape of heart meridians, but at comprehending the mysteries of the soul.

Bai Xiang still remembered how she had first undergone Transforming Qi.

At the final moment, her Transforming Qi progress had jammed at ninety-nine percent. Only after luring the cicada demon and Daokong into her inner landscape and using her soul-ability to refine them, turning the resulting enormous energy into a single burst that smashed through that bottleneck, had Bai Xiang finally completed Transforming Qi.

After success, she could clearly feel that the strength of her soul was greater than before. That meant her soul possessed the ability to “devour” and “evolve”, but it had to eat its own “kind” in order to evolve.

In this battle against Bolou, “Feixiang Heaven” had been crazed from the very first exchange. Bai Xiang had deliberately set up a little misdirection because she wanted to see how “Feixiang Heaven” would behave when facing this sort of remnant soul.

And “Feixiang Heaven” hadn’t disappointed her.

From her own firsthand senses, once the blade stabbed into Bolou’s body, that thing clinging to his surface—and the nausea and vertigo it brought her—plummeted all at once.

If what she’d felt before was a sky-filling tsunami formed from “pollution”, then after the thrust, that tsunami had begun to ebb almost instantly, exposing Bolou’s original aura.

This was Bai Xiang’s first time experiencing something like this, but thinking it over, she knew it shouldn’t be normal.

This remnant soul shouldn’t have been that easy to deal with.

At first, Bai Xiang had thought “Feixiang Heaven” simply had an innate counter to this kind of spiritual existence.

Just like how this demon sword preferred devouring Demon Pools over flesh and blood, and Demon Pools themselves were a very typical kind of spiritual, conceptual bizarre entity.

But as her comprehension deepened now, she sensed some trickling-stream-like, indescribable something flowing over from within the sword, and Bai Xiang no longer thought that way.

“Feixiang Heaven” had only ever been able to kill Demon Pools before, directly touching or tearing apart the illusions a Demon Pool created. If you really wanted to talk about a counter, it actually wasn’t all that obvious.

On the contrary, it was Bai Xiang herself—her eyes unmuddled by a riot of blossoms, her soul unshaken—that had displayed a thorough suppression of Demon Pools. Strictly speaking, the one that countered Demon Pools was her—her steadfast soul.

“Feixiang Heaven” was just basking in my glow.

Bai Xiang was certain that was how it was.

Her life-bound treasure sword had her heart meridians and blood essence fused into it; it was both her “avatar” and her “child”.

The fact that she could send her soul probing into the sword and examine it the way she examined her own inner landscape was the best proof of that.

So…

After she finished absorbing the tiny trickles within the sword, Bai Xiang slowly opened her golden eyes.

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The one suppressing the remnant soul was my soul—was me.

Under normal circumstances I have no way to project the power of my soul outward, but “Feixiang Heaven” is equivalent to an extension of my body. When it directly injures the other’s flesh, or even their soul, my soul will also take effect at that moment… producing a certain suppressive effect.

That should be the most reasonable explanation.

As for how strong that suppression would be, that depended on the relative strength of the two sides’ souls.

Because this kind of confrontation “took place outside the body”, and as long as it was outside the body, soul-abilities wouldn’t be of use; she could only rely on the soul’s raw strength itself.

Those trickles she’d just absorbed should have been the remnant soul itself after being converted by “Feixiang Heaven”. It was something incredibly mysterious and impossible to describe; after Bai Xiang absorbed it, she clearly felt her spirit brighten, even her thoughts turning a little clearer.

She raised both hands and turned them over, an odd look on her face.

I’m always saying that Sword Dao that feeds on demons is heretical and demonic—then this path of mine that drains blood and devours souls… is it really any better?

There is still a difference.

She set her thoughts in motion.

Back at Minghui Tower, she’d already killed a few ordinary staff who’d shot at her as an experiment. The result of the experiment was—killing people could indeed be converted into “blood qi”, but the amount was obviously far, far too little, so little it could practically be ignored.

That at least proved one thing: this path of qi system she’d created did not encourage slaughtering one’s own kind.

Why did killing ordinary people yield so little “blood qi”?

Most likely because ordinary people didn’t cultivate and had no demonic aura or demonic power in their bodies.

That suggested the path of qi had been born specifically to target the concept of “demons”; it simply took “demons” as food.

Of course, making that judgment when she hadn’t run nearly enough experiments was hardly objective. There was another possibility: that “the path of qi simply liked devouring powerful souls, and the reason ordinary people weren’t even enough to get stuck between its teeth was that ordinary people didn’t cultivate, their bodies as the ‘candle’ were too frail, so the soul as the ‘candle flame’ was also too weak to satisfy the path of qi’s appetite.”

That was indeed another line of speculation, but Bai Xiang instinctively rejected it.

Because thinking of it that way was a bit too horrifying; it was basically likening practitioners of the path of qi to some other species—no longer human at all.

For now, better not overthink it…

She shook out her hands, tossed aside those baseless associations, and casually named the energy converted from remnant souls, which could nourish her own soul, “heart-force”. Then she quantified the amount she’d absorbed this time, temporarily marking it down as “one unit of heart-force”.

That was very necessary, because she had “Jade Spirit”; in future, whenever she absorbed more, she could compare the numbers and see what had the higher conversion rate.

With “Feixiang Heaven” influenced by her, it could also be considered capable of restraining this kind of remnant-soul Yaosui. That counted as a new method; next time, when she stabbed someone, she could try synchronizing an infusion of her soul into the sword and see if that increased the suppressive effect.

“As for you yourself…”

Picking up the scabbard, Bai Xiang drew the blade halfway; a flash of cold light swept through the bedroom.

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She didn’t know if it was just an illusion, but the orange candlelight reflected on the blade looked blood-red to Bai Xiang’s eyes.

This sword was originally an avatar of Bai Xiang herself; she could directly feel that its toughness and sharpness had both risen somewhat.

Is my rate of improvement a bit too fast?

Bai Xiang felt a little unsure.

Just a day ago she had only just stepped onto the path of embracing the core; that alone had already been a huge gain. Yet not even twelve hours had passed since the battle with Bolou, and she was tasting that feeling of advancement again—this time even her life-bound treasure sword hadn’t been left out.

If she said it out loud it would scare people to death—was this pace normal?

Definitely not.

Was that the proper path?

Bai Xiang interrogated herself inwardly.

“All the way until now, whether fighting battles and killing enemies or breaking through realms, all I’ve relied on has been perseverance and comprehension. Even my soul-ability was something I finally forged through endless hardship in my previous life; very little of it depended on external aids.”

Then there was nothing to be afraid of.

Bai Xiang firmed up again.

Indeed, from ancient times to now, aside from those legendary human immortals and earth-masters in myths who grasped the Dao in a single day and ascended in broad daylight, no one could compare to her cultivation speed.

But just because it’s always been that way, does that make it right?

No one knew.

For things like this, no amount of reasoning was any use.

Better to wait and see what happened, then decide afterward which side was the right one.

“Creak…”

The sound of the wooden door came from outside; Bai Xiang immediately knew that Xiang Xian had finally finished “keeping people company over drinks” and had time to come back and rest.

When she waited a bit and didn’t see anyone appear, Bai Xiang frowned, set down her sword, stretched out her black-stockinged feet into her slippers, and went out. There she saw Xiang Xian half leaning against the wooden door, eyes shut, actually fallen asleep in that posture.

This cheap master of mine—why is she just like a child.

Bai Xiang shook her head, walked over to support Xiang Xian’s shoulder, bent down to hook an arm behind her knees, and lifted her master up in a princess carry.

“Mmm…”

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Xiang Xian kept smacking her lips along the way; fortunately she didn’t do anything else. Once Bai Xiang laid her down on the bed, she opened her eyes and woke up.

Even now, Xiang Xian could smell the strong reek of alcohol on herself.

“Xiang’er…?”

She called Bai Xiang once but got no response.

She couldn’t see Bai Xiang’s figure in front of the bed and had no idea what she’d gone to do.

Xiang Xian stared blankly at the floor, the light in her eyes dimming.

Footsteps came.

She jerked her head up and saw Bai Xiang coming in carrying a large wooden basin, with a pure-white towel floating inside.

“Xiang’er? You… what are you doing?”

She found the scene a little hard to believe.

“Hm?”

Bai Xiang grabbed the towel and rubbed it twice; at Xiang Xian’s words, her tone lifted slightly.

“I’m going to wash your face for you, then use the leftover water to wash your feet. What about it?”

She didn’t feel this was anything worth questioning.

Xiang Xian still stared at her blankly. “But you have ‘Jade Spirit’…”

You should be able to tell from my breathing and posture that I don’t need anyone to wait on me…

“‘Jade Spirit’ is just a tool.”

Bai Xiang instead looked back at her in puzzlement.

“If you calculate things that precisely—”

“—you just end up bound by them.”

Strictly speaking, words like that weren’t something a disciple ought to say to her master; it was a bit disrespectful to an elder.

But Bai Xiang had seen too much of human warmth and coldness in her previous life and was sick of so-called worldly smoothness. Plus, it was only her and Xiang Xian here, so she couldn’t be bothered to overthink it and just spoke bluntly.

When she finished wringing out the towel and stood up, she saw Xiang Xian lying on the bed with tears streaming down her face, little pearls pattering down.

I didn’t make her cry, did I?

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Bai Xiang’s eyes widened; she tried calling softly, “Master?”

“…I’m fine.”

Xiang Xian wiped away the tears on her face and took a deep breath, then took the towel from Bai Xiang’s hand and vigorously scrubbed her own face clean. Only then did she regain the particular demeanor and authority of a teacher.

“Xiang’er.” She tilted her head to look at Bai Xiang.

“Mm?”

“Tell me the truth—do you want to inherit the Yuming Sword Dao?”

When she said this, Xiang Xian’s expression was extremely serious; her eyes locked tightly onto Bai Xiang’s golden pupils, as if she wanted to peer through them into her true thoughts.

“I don’t want to inherit it,” Bai Xiang said.

Xiang Xian’s reaction was very strange.

She had her own guesses but it wasn’t convenient to say them.

“Why don’t you want to inherit it?” Xiang Xian pressed on relentlessly; she wanted an answer spelled out clearly.

So how am I supposed to answer that?

Bai Xiang truly frowned now.

She couldn’t exactly say that even techniques at the Nine Daos, Seventy-Two Paths level weren’t enough to shake off the Imperial House’s control, that she only wanted to use these inheritances for reference and had no interest whatsoever in actually taking them on, right?

Even bluntness had to depend on the situation.

And right now was obviously not a time for bluntness.

“All right, you don’t have to say it.”

As if something had just occurred to her, Xiang Xian’s expression relaxed.

“I’d almost forgotten your ‘innovation’… no wonder you look down on the Yuming methods.”

“Rest first.”

She sat up and began taking off her shoes.

“Whatever it is, we can talk about it tomorrow.”