Volume 1, Chapter 30 – Speaking of a Forbidden Method Before the Buddha

“You are… Master Hua’an?”

At those words, Bai Xiang at once recalled what Bai Shengju had told her about how she’d been adopted at Yinling Temple.

Bai Shengju had just lost his youngest daughter, family strife and clashes of principle breaking out at once. Unable to swallow his grief, he’d come here to seek Master Cizheng to ease his sorrow.

The abandoned infant—that was her—had been found at the temple gate that very night. Thinking of his daughter, Bai Shengju had asked Master Cizheng to entrust the child to him; as he was leaving, he happened to run into Master Hua’an of Longhua Temple, who gave her the single-character name “Xiang”—thus, Bai Xiang.

Master Hua’an—Grandpa had said he was from Longhua Temple.

Tao Shuohua—Aunt Tao—had said the Jade Phoenix Sword was stolen; wasn’t that at Longhua Temple?

After sifting through these details, Bai Xiang’s gaze finally fell on the prayer beads hanging from Master Hua’an’s neck.

At a glance they passed, but looked at closely… each bead was a tiny skull.

Only, not human skulls—either a protruding snout or horns jutting from the head.

If those weren’t merely polished decorations…

Hearing her speak his name, the drinking old monk set his cup down with a smile and nodded, bleary eyes roving up and down her figure with a rudeness to his manner.

Steadying her breath, Bai Xiang turned to Master Cizheng beside him, touched her wooden sword, and bowed. “I wonder if Master has read my grandpa’s letter.”

To be the one Bai Shengju remembered in his darkest hour, to whom he came to pour out his grief—Master Cizheng, naturally, was an intimate friend.

And since Bai Shengju had told her “don’t feel embarrassed,” she followed her heart and faced Master Cizheng plainly.

Master Cizheng straightened his legs and rose from his seat at once, returned her salute, intoned the Buddha’s name, and said, “I have read it.”

“But parts of it were vague. I don’t yet understand why you feel the ‘Nurture-the-Spirit viscera-tempering method’ is slapdash.”

Bai Xiang didn’t answer, but looked to the drinking old monk.

“Master Hua’an is my senior brother—and a bearer of our Kanjin line,” Master Cizheng said with a smile. “Among the many schools, Kanjin Sword Dao emphasizes the foundation most. Since Senior Brother is Kanjin’s chief, perhaps I can’t help you with your question and must ask him in the end.”

I see.

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Kanjin Sword Dao—one of the Seventy-Two Paths.

Bai Xiang thought a moment, then, without concealment, described her doubts about the Nurture the Spirit method in more precise language.

“So you’re saying,” Master Cizheng frowned after listening, “you can faintly sense the inner landscape’s flow—and you can also feel that according to the universally taught ‘viscera-tempering,’ there are many corners it fails to warm and nourish?”

“Exactly,” Bai Xiang said openly. “Grandpa asked me to seek your guidance.”

She wasn’t posturing; she had truly hit a cultivation snag.

At the Nurture the Spirit stage, no matter where you looked across Great Yu’s sects, there really wasn’t much difference in method.

It was the modern age—even the internet existed. With scientific research aided by instruments and data collection, people had long known the ideal way to train during Nurture the Spirit. There was little room for disagreement.

Bai Xiang knew that too. But because she could achieve “spirit-illumines-the-inner-scene,” she deemed she could take the heart-flow’s nourishing routes to the utmost fine detail.

Down to a tiny fork in a nerve or a capillary branch, she could sort and trace them. It was under such microscopic inner vision that she sensed the “universal method” was a bit off in its viscera-nourishing effect.

Not that it was wrong—just insufficient.

Strictly speaking, that insufficiency had already appeared in the skin- and flesh-tempering stages.

The standards Bai Shengju had described probably reached only eighty to ninety percent of her own standard. The rest she’d made up by relying on “spirit illuminating the inner scene.”

You could say she’d veered from the general method from the start, striving for perfection in Nurture the Spirit.

“You’re not lying?”

Master Cizheng was still dazed when Master Hua’an spoke up first—with a challenge right out of the gate.

“Add up Great Yu and the neighboring states—you get hundreds of millions. With that many people and scientific instruments, the training method they’ve measured and settled on has ‘defects’ in your case—do you know what you’re saying?”

Bai Xiang looked at him a moment and nodded. “Of course.”

“Good! Then let me test you!” Master Hua’an perked up. “It’s said, ‘The heart stores spirit; postnatally, it is the cognizing spirit.’ The heart is first among the five viscera—by rights, viscera-tempering should begin with nourishing the heart. Yet in practice, all methods advocate nourishing kidney-essence first. Why is that?”

“Because ‘the kidney stores essence; postnatally, it is turbid essence,’” Bai Xiang answered fluently. “The kidney is the valve that guards against the external and governs excretion. Whether it’s hepatic detoxification, splenic immunity, or pulmonary respiration—those follow innate law. Only the kidney-essence guards against the external and regulates the five qi.”

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“Eh?” The old monk’s eyes bulged. “Another—besides guiding the heart-flow by the method, what else matters in nourishing kidney-essence?”

“Medicinal supplementation; dietary abstentions.”

“And how is that heart-flow guided?”

“Nourish the outside to reach the inside; open the blood first.”

Master Hua’an fired off more than a dozen questions in a row—none of which stumped her.

Now the old monk was at a loss.

He and Master Cizheng stared at Bai Xiang, full of astonishment and curiosity.

At such an age, and her grasp of viscera-tempering this fine—almost catching up to this Buddha here?

What kind of monster was this?

Could she actually see the inner scene?

But no—that wasn’t it—

He stroked his beard.

Seeing the inner scene—machines and instruments could do that too.

But what good is seeing?

However detailed the imaging, guiding the heart-flow would still go astray sometimes.

Because the five qi are constantly changing.

Even with the wealth of the Nine great sword daos, even if they could use instruments to verify routes every moment, they still couldn’t tell the finest terminal branches apart.

Which is why one “doesn’t train enough.”

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That’s just common sense—of course you don’t.

Not training enough is to protect you!

If you insist on “training enough,” chasing the heart-flow through every last inch of the viscera, you’ll send it off course—spit blood—and drop dead!

Meanwhile, Bai Xiang bowed again to both.

“Please instruct me, Masters.”

At that, both men knew what she meant.

To put it this way: if perfect viscera-tempering were 100%, the universal method would warm and nourish perhaps 60–70%. Beyond that, one dared not go.

The further you go, the more dangerous it gets—at any time you could fall into deviation and suffer grievous harm.

Kanjin Sword Dao prized the foundation most and poured great effort into the Nurture the Spirit method. With their proprietary method you could raise that progress by half a step.

With poor luck—you might not even reach that.

Bai Shengju had likely thought Bai Xiang sought that “half step,” and so sent her to Master Cizheng to ask for the Kanjin line’s viscera-tempering.

That wasn’t sword technique, nor anything like visualization charts. Teaching it to Bai Xiang posed no issue.

After all, sword dao didn’t weight the body that heavily.

Nurture the Spirit’s feedback only laid a base for bearing demonic power.

But from the sound of Bai Xiang… she wanted perfect viscera-tempering?

Call it fanciful, yet her descriptions of the inner scene were vivid—words only sensing could ground—showing she indeed had the gift.

“In that case,” Master Cizheng sighed, “I’ll fetch the Kanjin line’s method for you in a moment. Look it over—if anything is unclear…”

“Oh, don’t make it such a fuss!”

He’d barely begun before Master Hua’an cut him off.

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Bai Xiang said nothing as the old monk reached into his sleeve and drew out a tattered, thread-bound classic.

Its cover had yellowed with heavy curling at the edges; in fine script, five characters on the front read: The Canon of Returning to the Origin and Transforming Qi.

“Senior Brother!”

Master Cizheng’s face changed at the sight of the book; in a flash he stepped between Bai Xiang and it.

“No!”

“You can’t give her that!”

“You know my bond with Bai Shengju—if you get her killed, how am I to live with myself?”

Master Hua’an’s face showed impatience. “And what if she can train it?”

“Even then, no!”

Master Cizheng dropped his voice like a stone.

“That’s an old method of Jinchan Temple…”

“Jinchan Temple is already—Senior Brother!!”

“Fine.”

Master Hua’an blinked, then tucked the classic back away.

“What a pity…”

He glanced at Bai Xiang and sighed.

“So it is a missed connection.”

“Then, female benefactor, discuss the Kanjin method with my junior as soon as you can.”