Volume 1, Chapter 26 – A Mysterious Gift

Over the days that followed, Bai Xiang stayed at home.

Her bedroom was on the far east side. Every morning at four she rose to practice Sword Contemplation, cultivating her heart-aspect according to Bai Shengju’s guidance, then a little past five she fetched water and tools to clean the dojo.

Calling Shenming Dojo “small” only made sense relative to a few hundred people. Cleaning it alone was naturally inefficient. But she didn’t need to finish in a single day—just one section per day.

She set herself a goal of one week. By week’s end, the entire dojo would be scrubbed down.

She was so diligent that Xu Shu actually felt a bit ill at ease.

He used to do this work. Given his humble background, the dojo had waived so much of his fees and covered his room and board; all he could repay it with was loyalty and hard work. Much of the sweeping and cleaning had been done by Xu Shu and a few disciples.

Now the dojo was on break. The other disciples had gone home; only Xu Shu lived here.

He’d thought he could finally take all the chores onto himself, roll up his sleeves, and go to town—only to find the dojo’s senior sister up earlier than he was and doing more than he did.

Xu Shu didn’t get it. Was this… also a form of cultivation?

He really didn’t get it. Bai Xiang was purely finding things to do.

Someone who’d lain in bed ten years with ALS—one day, she not only had a healthy body, she could polish that body to seek the Dao and ask after immortality.

Question: what did she most long to do?

Shut herself in a room to cultivate all day?

It wasn’t that.

What she most longed for was to find something for her hands and feet to do every day—to use them, again and again, to feel life as it was now, to feel the joy of rebirth and its true meaning.

Senior Sister really was lightning-fast at chores.

Mop on his shoulder, Xu Shu watched as Bai Xiang walked past with a bucket of dirty water.

So as not to get in the way, Bai Xiang had tied her hair into a ponytail. Both delicate ears showed, and from the side one couldn’t help but marvel at the perfection of her features and face shape.

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But what astonished Xu Shu most was her clothing.

A pure-white training uniform—that wasn’t the point. The point was, after two hours of filthy, heavy work, not a speck of grime had gotten on that white uniform. That just wasn’t… scientific.

“Master said Senior Sister has already entered the Dao. I didn’t believe it… Looking now, I was a frog at the bottom of a well.”

Overawed by Bai Xiang’s “cultivation method,” Xu Shu secretly wondered if his own dao heart lacked firmness.

“As expected—Senior Sister is Senior Sister. The Dao Lord—Grandpa—would never appoint a chief disciple at random.”

“No—that won’t do… I’m going to learn Senior Sister’s cultivation method! I’ve got to enter the Dao as soon as possible!”

While Xu Shu was busy pumping himself up, Bai Xiang wasn’t paying him any attention.

After dumping the dirty water and putting the tools away, she headed to the kitchen, where she happened to bump into the newly awakened Shen Xuelan and joined her in preparing breakfast.

When the dojo had to feed some disciples breakfast, there were so many people that nothing fancy could be made, so it was mostly steamed buns and stuffed buns—at least enough to fill stomachs.

Now they were on break, the family could be more particular—some upgrades on top of buns and bao.

Like new fillings: sweet red bean paste, salted egg yolk, barbecued pork, potato… ingredients that took little effort yet greatly enriched the taste.

At first Shen Xuelan had been a little skeptical of Bai Xiang. In her impression, Bai Xiang had helped in the kitchen a few times, but because Bai Shengju indulged the child too much, Bai Xiang was always rather slow at whatever she did.

Not like in the Shen household—though her father Shen Xin was deputy commissioner on duty at the Transit Directorate, he had never been lax about her upbringing.

Knitting or kitchen work—she could hold her own at either.

But Bai Xiang’s improvement left Shen Xuelan stunned.

Her hands filling bao were faster than Shen Xuelan’s, and she casually took a knife to dress some chicken and fish, even prepping ingredients for lunch.

A sword-track student… do the changes after entering the Dao really run this deep?

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Shen Xuelan began to doubt her own assumptions.

She knew the true meaning of entering the Dao and Knowing the Self: only once a sword-track student entered the Dao did they truly know their body—hands, eyes, body… all coordinated at will. Whatever they learned—cooking, handiwork—they’d be fast beyond belief.

But there should still be a process, shouldn’t there?

It wasn’t just Shen Xuelan. Aside from Bai Shengju’s unruffled air, the Bai clan were all somewhat shocked by Bai Xiang’s changes.

For the first day or two, Bai Guanshan stared at Bai Xiang over meals, frowning and spacing out.

By contrast, Bai Lianzhou—thought to be a man of few words—had been wearing a faint smile these days.

When Bai Guanshan looked at Bai Xiang, he looked at Bai Guanshan.

Until Bai Guanshan was flushed with anger and demanded to know what he meant. He gave no answer—just buried his head and shoveled food into his mouth.

Adults’ “overt and covert sparring” mostly went over kids’ heads.

Bai Maoxu didn’t notice.

Bai Leying probably didn’t notice.

Hard to say about Bai Zhuqing, but Bai Xiang felt there was something different in the way she looked at people. Clearly an early-blooming child—she might well have understood everything.

Bai Xiang didn’t care. She chalked the changes up to entering the Dao and lived at ease, going to Bai Shengju every afternoon to ask about experience and details of the Nurture the Spirit method.

In a blink, more than a week passed.

She’d scrubbed the dojo once through; her Nurture the Spirit would soon have flesh-tempering perfected, and a breakthrough to tier four was at hand.

Not just because she’d digested the medicinal portion she’d swallowed, but because of “soul-vision of the inner landscape”—a tremendous edge in cultivation.

How did others nurture the spirit?

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They couldn’t see within—like blind men feeling an elephant. They could only probe gingerly, afraid the heart-flow would stray.

Bai Xiang saw everything clearly. When the heart-aspect fed back and the heart-flow emerged, she sent it exactly where nourishment was needed; her efficiency simply couldn’t be compared to others’.

By her own estimate, even without medicinal boosts, her Nurture the Spirit pace should be five times that of an ordinary person.

If the medicinal gruels and diets were supplied in full, Bai Xiang felt she could even attempt a run at Forge the Sword before next year’s Big Exam.

Just then, Bai Leying suddenly handed her a parcel, saying it was from Elder Sister Bai Zhuqing.

And that she should meet her in the camphor grove next door to talk.

“What do you mean?”

Bai Xiang looked at Bai Leying.

“What is this?”

As entering-the-Dao gifts, the elders of the Bai family had already given theirs.

Bai Shengju went without saying—that pot of medicinal gruel was absolutely expensive, and the old man had said that so long as she trained fast, more would be forthcoming.

Bai Guanshan and Zhu Ying had given theirs together—a thick red envelope with a full ten thousand yuan inside, a poor family’s annual income.

Bai Lianzhou’s was Mingyu Cream.

Shen Xuelan was going to give her a piece of forging material called “Azure Gold,” pricey stuff—but it was controlled; even with connections at the Transit Directorate, it would still take a few days.

Gifts exchanged among the kids were far more casual.

Bai Leying had drawn her a picture.

Bai Maoxu had given her a hat.

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Only Bai Zhuqing had kept hemming and hawing, telling her to wait—and what came at last was this parcel.

“How would I know!”

Bai Leying tossed her head and stalked off in a huff.

“Look for yourself!”

All I did was follow Grandpa’s warning and not tell you the Nurture the Spirit method—and you’re still holding it against me.

Bai Xiang shook her head, went back to her room, and opened the parcel.

“…Why would it be something like this?”

Unwrapping it, she frowned deeply, first shaking the item out to inspect and feel it, then reading the attached card.

It read:

[Woven from the silk of the farmed demonic beast “Black Demon Spider.” Tough, breathable, and elastic; perfectly fits all body types—the fashion choice for female swordsmen.]

On the back was a brand: Menglun Hosiery.

“…”

Bai Xiang fell silent, lost in thought.

Yes, it was a pack of black sheer tights. Three pairs in all.

Giving me a gift like this.

What on earth is going on in my little sister’s head.