Volume 3, Chapter 14 – Inspiration【1】

Once she was sure the “nerve monster” couldn’t escape the glass vessel, and that there was nothing more to learn from Han Yuanfeng for now, Bai Xiang simply encouraged him to devote more effort to this case.

Han Yuanfeng had already assumed the “nerve monster” was actually coming for him. Based on their current speculation, this thing could flexibly parasitize a human host. If Bai Xiang hadn’t deliberately redirected its target toward Bai Zhuqing, the one truly at risk of being parasitized would very likely have been him.

And his “Hongchen Heart-Refining Method” was far from mastery; he hadn’t sensed anything off about Bai Chenyu at all. With the other side plotting while he remained unsuspecting, he didn’t dare claim he’d have escaped unscathed.

So his gratitude toward Bai Xiang was absolutely sincere. Of course he agreed on the spot, saying that even if she hadn’t asked, he would have done his utmost.

“But there’s one more thing.” Han Yuanfeng’s brows knit slightly. “This matter… the news about this ‘nerve-vein fiend’—how does Dao Lord Bai plan to handle it?”

“Shen” referred to the nerves; “mai” to the heart meridians.

Nerve-vein fiend —that was the name he and Bai Xiang had come up with on the fly.

“I’ve no intention of hiding it.” Bai Xiang understood he was worried she might choose to suppress the information. “The two provinces have just suffered a calamity. In many places the common folk can hardly survive. And at such a time, there are still Aberrant powers trying to spy on us—this has to be the work of the demon race. We ought to let many parties know, to warn the world.”

It was an impeccably phrased, high-minded answer, and Han Yuanfeng’s respect for her soared. There was now a new gleam in his eyes when he looked at her.

She granted him permission, authorizing him to “report the situation to his Dao.” Then Bai Xiang left Rain Veranda Pavilion and returned to the first-floor hall of Tingyu Tower, where she sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion.

She summoned Lian Feng, gave him a few instructions, and told him to go fetch two people for her. Then Bai Xiang closed her eyes and, with the Jade Spirit’s assistance, activated the Yuming Library.

Seven books appeared in her consciousness at once, pages already open for Bai Xiang to skim through their contents.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much material pertaining to the Xuan Emperor Canon or the Five Worms Treatise .

A few anecdotes did record the doctrine of the Five Worms, but they also explicitly labeled it as heterodox nonsense—never to be treated as truth.

Selective arrogance, was it?

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Bai Xiang felt a bit of disdain for that.

From ancient times, people had always had a habit of naming things “worms.”

Take the tiger, for example, nicknamed “white-browed, hanging-eyed, arched-backed great worm.” That was clearly influenced by the Five Worms doctrine, proof that at least for a period in antiquity this system of thought had a solid market—enough for naming conventions like that to spread.

But it hadn’t lasted.

In particular, the Xuan Emperor Canon —none of the references to it could pinpoint the exact year in which it had been written.

Some claimed it predated the Saint-Emperor Gu, founder of Sword Dao and Taizu of Great Yu, and thus was even older than the establishment of the Yu dynasty.

Others argued it came later—that it was created after countless heretical sects, like the “Yuhua Sect” Han Yuanfeng had mentioned, gathered together to jointly worship a figure called the “Xuan Emperor.”

There was too little information. Bai Xiang had no way of knowing whether this “Xuan Emperor” had really existed back then, or was simply a totem of belief like the Buddha or the Dao Ancestor.

One thing, however, was certain: these heretical sects were fiercely devout toward the Xuan Emperor, to the point they were willing to die for him.

Interesting.

The more Bai Xiang read, the more suspicious this “Xuan Emperor” became.

To style oneself an Emperor, regardless of whether he had written it himself or whether the concept truly originated before Great Yu—just daring to play that game under Great Yu’s rule was already a choice courting death.

Same line of work as Yao Qingyuan—treason.

And far more professional than Yao Qingyuan, too. Unlike Yao, who was still under the influence and control of demon factions and couldn’t even be the primary hand in his own rebellion, these people didn’t seem to be controlled by the demon race. Their attitude toward humans and demons was remarkably consistent.

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Mm… they at least discriminated equally—saw both as blood food. That was a kind of fairness, in its way.

The Yuming Library was vast beyond measure. It contained tens of thousands of miscellaneous and crooked texts. Bai Xiang would usually ignore these offshoot topics, but now that she’d hauled them back out, she suddenly noticed all sorts of subtle, hidden details in the writings.

Take this one, Travel Notes of Mount Songlang —it recorded a little anecdote between a demon and a human.

It told of a demon fox in the mountains, named Zhen. The fox Zhen was kind by nature and did not wish to harm humans, so it left its clan and lived alone. But that year heavy snows sealed the land, and Zhen could no longer hunt enough to eat. One day, starving, it collapsed by the roadside. When it woke, it found that a scholar had rescued it. The two shared an abandoned shack.

The scholar was heading north to sit for the exams. Seeing the trouble Zhen was in, he gave it all the food he’d bought, and even “foolishly” left half his money as well, teaching it that once it finished the food it could go down the mountain to buy more.

It was a simple, childlike act of kindness, but as soon as he said this, a puff of white smoke rose before his eyes. When it cleared, Zhen the fox had taken human shape—a young girl in a fur coat.

The girl bowed to the scholar, first thanking him for saving her life, then solemnly asking, “Benefactor, are you heading north on this trip?”

The scholar nodded. “I am.”

“Then you mustn’t go!” Zhen blurted out. “At least not for the next few days—you mustn’t head north!”

Puzzled, the scholar asked why. Zhen said, “Let me tell you, within a hundred li there’s a heretical Daoist who often comes out to kill and cultivate. Every day his mouth mutters away, something about ‘Great Xuan’ and ‘restoration’… My whole family was killed by him. The three neighboring townships around here have already been wiped out. The only direction left for him is north.”

The scholar was greatly astonished. His vision blurred for a moment, and the little girl turned back into Zhen the fox in a puff of white smoke, grabbed the bag of dry rations and money in her teeth, and vanished.

The scholar obediently stayed in the shack a few extra days. After later heading north and passing the exams, he came back and made inquiries. Sure enough, he heard there had indeed been a heretical Daoist killing people to the north. Calculating the dates… it was exactly when he’d stayed put.

Astonished and shaken, he also felt a deep chill of belated fear. So he commissioned a Fox Immortal Shrine to be built on the site of the shack. It still stood to this day and had become a local scenic attraction.

In itself, the story wasn’t anything remarkable. There wasn’t even a romance between human and demon—hardly the sort of thing that would catch the general public’s fancy.

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But what Bai Xiang cared about were the “tags” buried inside—the keywords.

Great Xuan. Restoration.

She speculated that the heretical Daoist was likely one of the Yuhua Sect or similar. If the records were accurate, then the Xuan Dynasty corresponding to the Xuan Emperor might really predate Great Yu.

Which raised a question—wasn’t the era before Great Yu one of demon rule?

If a Xuan Dynasty truly existed, shouldn’t this Xuan Emperor and his followers have centered demons as the primary race?

Why would they “equally discriminate against humans and demons”?

Bai Xiang didn’t have proof yet, but she suspected the answer was probably hidden in the Five Worms Treatise .

These people believed in the Xuan Emperor Canon and also in the Five Worms Treatise . Their ultimate goal was “feathered ascension to immortality,” and the way they pursued it was clearly different from every other Dao.

Could it have been an ancient attempt at a true cultivation method?

Something like the Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi , only older—centered entirely around the Five Worms Treatise , with every goal pointed toward “metamorphosis.”

In that case, everyone who didn’t support “metamorphosis”—humans and demons—would naturally be labeled rebels and receive their so-called equal treatment.

That logic, at least, hung together.

“The Five Worms Treatise …”

As the Jade Spirit returned more and more hits on that tag, Bai Xiang also saw quite a few references tied to Buddhist and Daoist scriptures.

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She even recalled related material from her own previous life.

On the Daoist side, there was the Supreme Scripture on Expelling the Three Corpses and Nine Worms to Preserve Life .

It said that within the human body there were Three Corpses, named Peng Ju, Peng Zui, and Peng Jiao.

And Nine Worms, named Fu, Hui, Bai, Rou, Fei, Wei, Ge, Chi, and Qiang.

The upper corpse, Peng Ju, resided in the brain palace; the middle corpse, Peng Zui, in the bright hall; the lower corpse, Peng Jiao, in the belly. The Three Corpses and Nine Worms numbered in the thousands, living off the vital qi generated from the Five Grains. If left unchecked, they would make a person ill.

The Three Corpses and Nine Worms were indeed classic Daoist terminology. Some said that Daoist methods of grain-avoidance and fasting—refusing to eat the Five Grains—had arisen from this theory, the idea being to cut off the insects’ food source, starve them out, and restore the body to its Innate purity.

On the Buddhist side, there was the Vinaya Daily Record .

In it was a line:

“The Buddha looked upon a bowl of water and saw eighty-four thousand worms. “If one does not recite this mantra, it is as though eating the flesh of all beings.”

It told a historical story: once, during a sermon, the Buddha Śākyamuni pointed at a begging bowl and said to his disciples, “In this water there are eighty-four thousand living beings. Whenever you drink water, you must first recite a mantra: ‘Om vasiparamani svaha.’ Once recited, the lives in the water are ferried on, and you are spared the sin of killing.”

Anyone even slightly familiar with Buddhism had heard of this—it was the very famous “Pure Water Mantra.”

What Bai Xiang focused on here was the micro level—whether it was Daoism’s “Three Corpses and Nine Worms” or Buddhism’s “eighty-four thousand worms,” when reinterpreted through a modern scientific lens, weren’t they both basically talking about microorganisms, bacteria, and viruses?

And these two texts were written in eras that didn’t even have natural science as such, let alone microscopes. Bai Xiang truly couldn’t understand how the ancients had come up with such concepts—and ended up so uncannily close to reality.