Volume 2, Chapter 96 – Change (Two-in-One)

When the lightning sword came down, Lian Feng was in his room, fiddling with the phone the World-Worry Gang had sent him.

He was desperate to know what was happening outside, and he was eaten up with guilt that at a time like this he couldn’t be at the dojo facing everything together with them.

But the next second, he felt the whole room shake, a blast of wind laced with scattered raindrops slapping across his face.

Dazed, Lian Feng looked up and stared in shock as half the room collapsed. The corner by the window looked like it had been violently sliced away; in the blink of an eye, it was already sliding off and falling… He even heard screams from below.

His vision blurred—and Bai Xiang’s figure appeared out of nowhere.

“Senior Sister!?”

Lian Feng scrambled to his feet, just about to speak when Bai Xiang reached toward him with spread fingers. His whole body was wrapped up by some kind of force; she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him up into the air like a chick.

W-what the hell is this?!

Sure, Lian Feng had wanted to get out of here, but not like this. With his eyes wide, he watched high-altitude scenery streak past below. All he could do was clutch at random handfuls of fabric so he wouldn’t slip right out of his clothes.

Dragging Lian Feng along, Bai Xiang shot into Nanfeng Food Plant. She swept the whole place with her senses without the slightest politeness, quickly locking onto an old, derelict factory building. She dropped through its cracked ceiling.

“You—” Naturally, what greeted her were Yu He and Cao Chuan’s stunned stares.

These two were at least Condensing the Aspect cultivators. Even if they hadn’t seen what happened at the gate, they could guess a lot from those continuous booms.

They had been wondering if reinforcements sent by Lord Fang had arrived and were fighting at the entrance… but now it turned out to be Bai Xiang?

“You can fly?” Yu He’s jaw dropped. “You were hiding that from me on purpose before?”

Sensing qi presence, using qi presence, and moving through the air—those were all hallmarks of the Core realm… Yu He was having trouble wrapping his head around this. What happened to my Condensing the Aspect teammate?

He’d already thought it unbelievable when she’d shown herself off at Qizhou University, faintly displaying the air of a “little invincible” at Condensing the Aspect. And now, in the blink of an eye, she’d advanced again? And by this much?

“I didn’t hide it from you,” Bai Xiang said softly, face dark. “I still can’t move freely through the air.”

The Core realm along the path of qi wasn’t the same as the Core realm in Sword Dao.

She was still at a point where her Core realm cultivation wasn’t fully complete. Though in many areas she’d already surpassed Sword Dao Core realm, and could brute-force lift herself into the air with sword-Qi, she had this nagging sense that true skywalking shouldn’t be this troublesome and taxing.

“I’ve already cleared away the trouble.”

“Take everyone and head to the safehouse.”

Anxious about her little sister’s condition, Bai Xiang tossed out the order and didn’t concern herself with them any further. She grabbed Lian Feng and shot up from the ground again. In no time, she was back at the hotel tower, slicing open the window of the neighboring room and stepping into the high-floor corridor from there.

Naturally, the safehouse was right next door. She let go of Lian Feng, quickly keyed in the preset password, and yanked open the door—just in time to see Bai Zhuqing collapsed on the carpet by the window, trembling and coughing blood.

Without a word, Bai Xiang rushed over, fished out a nourishing pill, and shoved it into her sister’s mouth—crushing it to paste with sword-Qi as she did.

Swallowed like this, it wouldn’t be too hard to get down. She waited for Bai Zhuqing to absorb most of the medicinal power, then pressed her palm to her chest; a shock of vibration-force surged into her body.

She also pulled out her spirit-soul duplicate as a reference. Every corner the vibration reached appeared mapped out on the soul body, visible to Bai Xiang alone.

The situation was bad.

Inside Bai Zhuqing’s body, two completely different heart-meridian circuit diagrams were overlaid. One was the “Transforming Qi diagram” Bai Xiang had personally laid down and guided. If Zhuqing followed that method to cultivate, she’d achieve Transforming Qi in under a year.

The other was much cruder—clearly the ancestral method, the heart-meridian route paired with Shenming Sword. Right now, the two diagrams were clashing; chaotic currents of heart-flow crashed around everywhere.

Bai Xiang increased the force of the Vibration Art, forcing a third stream of qi to seep in, pressing down both diagrams’ violent outbursts.

But this was obviously not a long-term solution. She couldn’t keep her palm glued to Bai Zhuqing and maintain the Vibration Art forever. That wouldn’t solve the root problem; the danger she was suppressing would only explode back with greater fury later.

Why had her little sister ended up like this?

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By refining Uncle Chen’s memories, Bai Xiang already knew the truth—this was all the Prince’s Manor’s doing.

After Bai Nianchan’s death, they’d specifically studied her corpse. From that research, they’d extracted certain “results” that could be used to enhance a person’s talent.

But those “results” weren’t stable. Inject them into someone and, at the slightest strong emotional fluctuation, their meridians would rupture and they’d die on the spot.

They were, of course, unwilling to accept that.

Naturally, they thought again of Shenming Sword Dao, and again of the Bai family.

After all, the Bai clan had produced one Bai Nianchan. Who was to say they wouldn’t produce a second?

Experiments rarely went smoothly. Was the key factor here the Bai bloodline?

Was it “demon blood regressing to an ancestor form”… or “demon blood manifesting a spirit”?

So, just as naturally, they locked onto the Bai family again, sending Uncle Chen and another Core realm cultivator to infiltrate one night eight years ago, and inject the “results” in the form of a syringe into the eldest daughter of the main house—Bai Zhuqing.

That was why Bai Zhuqing’s entry into the Dao had been so perilous.

It was also why she’d awakened both “demon blood regression” and “demon blood manifestation” at the same time!

Regression focused on the heart-aspect; manifestation on the physical body.

Bai Xiang guessed that manifestation was probably Bai Zhuqing’s original natural talent, while regression was an add-on from that syringe of “results.” It wasn’t truly Bai Zhuqing’s own power, so the conflict between the two was inevitable!

How to fix this?

Zhuqing’s entry into the Dao had been something they’d gone through together. Back then, Bai Xiang’s spirit ability had, through a twist of fate, directly entered her body. It hadn’t mattered what she changed.

But things were different now. Her esper ability could no longer get in. If she wanted to alter anything, she’d have to do it by hand—and that was extremely risky.

So, she needed a path-of-qi cultivator for practice.

Bai Xiang lifted her head and looked at Lian Feng.

The coldness and killing intent in her gaze made Lian Feng stumble back a few steps, almost hallucinating from sheer fright.

“S-Senior Sister?” He shivered. “What happened to Third Senior Sister…?”

He couldn’t shake the feeling that Senior Sister had never truly regarded him as a human being.

“You snuck out on your own. Do you admit you were wrong?” Bai Xiang released Bai Zhuqing and rose to her feet, looking down at Lian Feng from above.

She didn’t care what mindset he’d had, or what reasons he’d used, to make that choice.

Wrong was wrong.

He had to accept punishment.

“I…”

Lian Feng felt utterly ashamed under that questioning, and lowered his head, cupping his fists in front of him. “Your disciple will accept any punishment, Senior Sister!”

“Lift your head.”

“Huh?”

Lian Feng reflexively looked up—and met Bai Xiang’s fingertip.

There was no physical contact; her finger hovered just in front of his brow. Using the Jade Spirit spirit-pointing method as a foundation, a wisp of sword-Qi poured in along that point, forcibly piercing through and racing around inside his body.

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This—!

The pain left Lian Feng speechless, his eyes bulging, all strength leaving his limbs—but he still couldn’t collapse!

Bai Xiang’s fingertip might as well have grown an invisible strand of qi-force, directly tapping into his inner body-scape and heart-meridians.

He felt like a marionette, his strings pulled tight. He had no control even over the circulation of his own heart-flow!

Bai Xiang couldn’t care less whether he felt okay. Her sword-Qi whipped through Lian Feng’s heart-meridians at top speed, brutally blasting open the blocked channels he hadn’t yet cultivated through.

The hardest part of starting Transforming Qi was the inner body-scape circulation.

Hard—because everyone’s inner circulation pattern was different. If he were learning the normal way, relying on his own comprehension, even ten or eight years might not be enough for Lian Feng.

But things were different now.

With anger coiled in her chest and Lian Feng already in the wrong, Bai Xiang didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died. She used him as a little lab mouse, letting her sword-Qi stand in for his heart-flow, racing through every meridian in his body over and over, trying to find some viable circulation.

It didn’t need to be intricate. As long as it worked , that was enough.

This kind of rough treatment naturally triggered a violent reaction in the test subject. Blood began to seep from Lian Feng’s nose and mouth, and bruises bloomed under his skin—some of his vessels simply couldn’t withstand the battering of sword-Qi and burst in the process.

Got it.

Light flared in Bai Xiang’s eyes. On her spirit-soul duplicate, a brand new, unfamiliar circulation diagram took shape.

This was Lian Feng’s personal Transforming Qi diagram.

This brat’s pretty lucky… Is it because he also cultivated the Shenming diagram?

Guess it wasn’t a waste to fish him out first.

You’d better hold on.

Because now the real work starts.

She took out a pill and tossed one into her own mouth and one into Lian Feng’s. Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes; the flame-mark between her brows burned brighter and brighter.

This was the sign of Jade Spirit running at high speed. Under her microscopic, exquisite control, the sword-Qi in Lian Feng’s body began to herd his scattered, chaotic heart-flows together, forcibly combing them into a single stream and pushing them along the route of the Transforming Qi diagram.

This was why she needed this experiment.

In a minute, she’d be doing something similar in Bai Zhuqing’s body.

But the pain needed here was obviously intense. Lian Feng’s screams turned hoarse, and in the end he simply passed out, blood-tinged sweat seeping from every pore as his body twitched on reflex.

That’s enough.

Having confirmed her idea worked on the little lab rat, Bai Xiang tossed another pill into his mouth. Then she ignored him entirely, turning and kneeling to gather her sister into her arms.

She pulled Bai Zhuqing against her, right hand on her back, left hand on the front of her chest. Vibration force burst from both sides together as she began to repeat the previous operation.

At first, everything went smoothly. The chaotic heart-flows slowly unified under the guidance of sword-Qi, on the verge of slipping fully back onto the Transforming Qi diagram’s track. The Shenming diagram was just about completely overwritten.

But then—Bai Xiang felt a stab of pain in her mind, and her sister shuddered in her arms, a soft moan of agony slipping from her throat.

Spirit-soul?

Why was the attack coming from the spirit-soul?

Bai Xiang froze for an instant, then quickly realized what was going on.

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Bai Nianchan…

So that’s what your “demon blood regression” really meant?

No wonder it was in conflict.

It would have been stranger if it wasn’t .

A surge of savage emotion roared up. Bai Xiang flung her spirit-soul wide, pouring it almost roughly into her sister’s body. Sure enough, she sensed an extremely faint but highly condensed “resentment” zipping around inside the heart-meridians.

Humans had souls.

Her own case, Feixiang Heaven, and everything she’d eaten with it all proved that much.

Bai Nianchan naturally had a soul too. This was almost certainly a wisp of her remnant soul, very weak, seeming to have no consciousness at all.

Bai Xiang respected Bai Nianchan—but this thing obviously couldn’t be called Bai Nianchan anymore. Even if she couldn’t use her esper ability properly inside her sister, her spirit-soul was still extremely tough and powerful. She immediately seized that “resentment,” wrapped it up, and, by reflex, swallowed it into her own spirit to refine.

The refining process was short, but she still caught glimpses of a few fragmented memories.

Death row… suicide… a bought-off prison guard…

An intact corpse… the extracted neural network… the skeleton re-skinned and turned into a collectible… hung on the wall like some kind of reindeer…

Boom!!!!!!

Purple thunder rampaged across the heavens, as if mirroring a human heart. Bai Xiang’s face had gone so dark it was frightening, and it took everything she had to keep her composure.

But she knew something inside her had changed.

All this time, she’d been trying her best to avoid overusing so-called “demon arts.”

A demon sword, Feixiang Heaven, devouring men and beasts.

A body full of demon arts, Huayuan qi, refining spirit and cultivating Dao.

Fallen into anyone else’s hands, the Transforming Qi method would never have looked this bloody and brutal. It was only in combination with her spirit-soul ability—her uniqueness—that it all seemed so much like a demon sword and demon arts.

That wasn’t an exaggeration. Bai Xiang had always kept herself on a tight leash, trying not to rack up too many killings with them, afraid it would warp her heart.

But in this moment, she suddenly felt that none of that mattered anymore.

All she sought was her own transcendence—and the lives of the ones she cared about.

If those couldn’t be achieved, then there was no cause and effect between her and this world.

Beneath her sword, there would no longer be anyone who “mustn’t be killed”—

Boom!!!!!!

A dozen minutes later, the elevator doors slid open and Yu He burst out with two injured men slung over his shoulders.

Old Jia followed behind him, cradling Cao Chuan. The group raced down the hall and found the safehouse. One glance inside showed Lian Feng sprawled on the floor like a dead dog, still unconscious.

Deeper in, Bai Xiang sat alone at the bedside. Bai Zhuqing lay under the covers, only her head exposed. There was already a hint of color returning to her face.

“Let me keep it short.” Bai Xiang raised a hand to cut off Yu He’s endless questions, and dropped a bomb straight away: “The Marrow-Washing Pills came from the Prince’s Manor. They’re in bed with Zhengwo Dao and the Demon-Immortal Dao. There’s a Demon Pool ‘Shenli’ hidden inside the pills.”

The hell?

Yu He was stunned.

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No one knew better than them how nasty a Demon Pool Shenli could be.

Months had passed since the No. 1 High incident, but they’d all seen the footage and understood what it looked like when that kind of Demon Pool spread.

And now the Marrow-Washing Pills had been circulating through every artery of the circuit city under official endorsement! If they all detonated at once, the consequences would be unimaginable!

“The Roads Directorate has always overseen those,” Cao Chuan frowned. “To be this utterly devoid of conscience…”

Bai Xiang ignored him, her gaze sliding to the two injured men instead.

“The a bit girly-looking one is Gu Qingyu,” Yu He said, setting them down and thoughtfully doing the introductions. “His background isn’t small either… and this one’s Jiang Lai.”

“He hates that name. You can use the courtesy name he gave himself—Jiang Nixing.”

That courtesy name just screamed “zero education.”

Bai Xiang’s eyes skimmed over their faces, quickly guessing that “Gu Qingyu” was probably 【Whisper】 from the chat group, while this “Jiang Lai” matched the style of that 【Fairy Please Step on Me】.

Same sort of chaotic, nonsense style.

“This is bad…”

Cao Chuan ignored the utterly confused Old Jia and muttered to himself.

“Shenli has already seeped into the Chilong bloodstream… with that many people, how are we supposed to deal with this?”

Bai Xiang was strong, apparently already at the Core realm.

That was certainly good news… If not for her, they wouldn’t have escaped and been rescued.

But even if Bai Xiang were Core realm—even if a Divine Fetus cultivator appeared in person—they probably still wouldn’t have any way to handle the current situation!

There were just too many sources of contamination!

Who knew how many had taken Marrow-Washing Pills over this period? They were hiding among the normal population, taking up a huge proportion. It was fundamentally impossible to extract them all before anything broke out!

Even if they did find them all, there’d be no time to save that many people!

“That’s simple.”

Bai Xiang’s voice drifted over, suddenly.

“Just kill them all.”

Cao Chuan froze.

He looked up at Bai Xiang and saw that her expression was perfectly calm.

“Don’t go crazy on me, Bai Xiang,” Yu He suddenly laughed. “I know you’re trying to crack a dark joke to cheer us up, but that’s really…”

His voice trailed off, lower and lower, as he realized Bai Xiang wasn’t laughing with him at all.

“Leave this to me.”

Bai Xiang stood, walked to the doorway, and stopped there.

“Before I get back, I want you to keep Zhuqing safe.”