Volume 1, Chapter 32 – The Canon of Returning to the Origin and Transforming Qi

In a lane off the pedestrian street, Bai Xiang raised her sword to block the attacker.

The foe was a young woman of about twenty, comely in face and figure. She wore a nearby convenience store’s uniform; the nails at the tips of both hands had grown grotesquely long, and she was using them against the sword, trying to force Bai Xiang back.

But Bai Xiang did not yield a single step.

Left hand held the scabbard to shield Bai Zhuqing; right hand alone braced the wooden sword against the woman. She even had the leisure to note details on the enemy.

The skin on her hands and face was a bit loose.

She was baring her teeth at me—what’s that behind the gaps?

“Rrr!!!”

Seeing she couldn’t overpower Bai Xiang, the woman loosed another guttural beast-roar from her throat.

This time Bai Xiang saw it clearly—at the instant she gaped wide, there was another set of teeth inside her mouth.

Triangular fangs, sharp as a shark’s!

“Pssht!”

Almost as she registered it, those fangs jutted outward—like an alien thing, or a molting snake—an enormous serpent’s head bursting out of her mouth, lunging straight for Bai Xiang’s face!

With a “whuff,” Bai Xiang rolled her left wrist low and spun the scabbard like a baseball bat, ramming it hard into the thing’s face and knocking its lunge off-line out of nowhere!

“Boom!!!”

“Clatter-clatter…”

A black mass whipped past, nearly grazing her hair as it flew.

The giant python caromed off and smashed a tile wall. Pebbles rattled down in a patter, kicking up a broad cloud of dust.

“Ah!” Bai Zhuqing screamed in fright.

She had not entered the Dao, and her body couldn’t keep pace with a fight—but she knew that when human and demon-beast clashed, a blocked view was a huge disadvantage.

The enemy meant to use that. The “python body” that had thrust from its shell’s mouth coiled, seeking to loop around Bai Xiang’s neck; at the same time the flesh over its whole body shriveled fast—turning into a human skin in an instant.

Human skin was terribly elastic. Somehow, the drooping hands and feet snapped like rubber bands toward the two of them, trying to bind them round.

Bai Xiang had just managed to parry the coiling python-body with her wooden sword when the dust closed in and a human skin wrapped over them; together with Bai Zhuqing she was snared by those skin-hands and feet, wrists and ankles cinched tight.

Bai Zhuqing’s heart went cold. She looked up and saw a python’s head loom above the haze, sliding toward them, its blood maw opening bit by bit.

She struggled with all her might, but whatever sorcery the demon had worked on that skin, the more she fought, the tighter it drew—until she could barely breathe.

Rеаd оո КatRеαԁinɡСаfe

Just then, she felt the body pressed to hers begin to writhe.

It was Bai Xiang.

First she powered from the waist, undulating like a water snake; then she rapidly sent that strange rhythm through her whole body, down even to her black-silk-clad ankles.

The skin-bonds that tightened the more they bound began to loosen under that odd vibration—visibly about to twist free.

The python narrowed its eyes and snapped its jaws down over them.

Halfway through the bite, the skin slipped off Bai Xiang; she drove the wooden sword at its gaping mouth.

A sword-student’s wooden blade couldn’t match metal for sharpness, but there was no scale-armor inside a mouth. The python had to shy from the edge; its tail whipped from the waist to sweep at Bai Xiang’s legs, hoping to catch her low while she was distracted.

Surely she can’t keep up with that?

Tilting past the blade, it turned its head to snap at Bai Xiang’s sword arm; a trace of mockery gleamed in its eyes.

But Bai Xiang had never meant to evade.

Catching the sweeping shadow at the edge of her vision, she merely lifted her right leg; toes of her black-silk foot in red-thonged sandals tipped up, and with a move like trapping a football she pinned the python’s tail underfoot.

“Impossible!”

The python thought it hallucinated—blurting human speech in shock.

“That’s not strength a sword-student has!”

She hadn’t forged the sword yet, hadn’t bathed in demonic aura—how could this mortal flesh compare to mine?

Its mind wavered; its performance faltered.

Bai Xiang bore down first, crushing the tail.

In that instant her stomp split the sandal, snapping the red thong; her foot sank deep into the python’s scales!

“You—”

Blood sprayed; before the serpent could cry out, Bai Xiang flipped her wrists—left hand on the hilt, right on the blade—bracing just so against the descending bloody jaws.

Then, before it could react and loose its bite, she wrenched hard and twisted like wringing a towel!

“Bang!”

“Crack-crack!”

Reαⅾ οո КаtRеαԁinɡCаfe

With a report and the crisp fracture of marrow and bone, blood-mist burst from several places on the python’s head; torqued scales split and spurted, and even the two eyeballs, under pressure, popped and shot free, brain-matter hissing from one socket.

“Shengge?”

Just as the dust cleared, a long-haired beauty in a red dress among the onlookers saw how Bai Xiang had brute-forced the brute serpent-demon—and her eyes went blood-red.

Shengge was dead; she herself was exposed. There was no way to explain this away.

Only fight to the death!

Her gaze turned vicious. The black hair loose over her shoulders whipped like spined tendrils, lancing into passersby’s throats around them; in an instant they were sucked dry and turned to skins.

Her own skin swelled with the blood she’d taken. Sprinting for Bai Xiang, blood-blisters popped along her back; midway she suddenly opened her mouth and pushed out the stub of a metal sword-hilt.

The hilt had been iron-hued; as the swelling in her body ebbed, the hilt reddened, turning bright as fresh blood by the time she gripped and drew it free!

A soft-sword!

Hilt and blade were blood-red, a faint haze of blood and wailing about it, as she raised it and hacked this way!

Bai Xiang saw the oncomer, and though she was panting hard from the force she’d used, she still whipped out her wooden sword to meet the soft blade.

When they met, the soft-sword clung like bloody mud.

All the better.

Bai Xiang heaved to haul the woman in—then felt the sword’s blood-mist twine up her wooden blade toward her.

At the same time, in her unique spirit’s view, she clearly saw countless tiny blood-red bugs pressing at the pores of her hand, trying to burrow in.

What are those?

Her mind jolted; every warning flared.

Perfected skin-and-flesh sealed her pores and locked down the body. Her unique spirit faintly manifested, and the visual tell was the inner gleam in her yellow eyes flashing a muted dark-gold—so startling that the woman in red was aghast!

How could that be?

The demonic sword’s invasion… dispersed?

She blanked for a beat—and by the time she recovered, it was too late.

Using the soft blade’s coil, Bai Xiang yanked her hard in and smashed a knee into her face, a delicate crack sounding.

The woman went limp, blood leaking from seven orifices as she slumped.

Reαd οո KαtRеaԁinɡСаfе

Near exhaustion, Bai Xiang still forced herself to pin the woman’s face underfoot, nudge it square—and drove the wooden sword brutally through an eye socket.

She worked her wrist, stirring inside for a few turns; drawing it out slick with red pulp, she drove three more thrusts into chest and belly.

Only when she was certain the foe was dead beyond dead did Bai Xiang let her shoulders sag and her strength drain, dropping into a half-crouch to gulp air.

Perfected skin-tempering had let her shake free a bind with sheer writhing.

Perfected flesh-tempering had greatly raised muscle strength.

But her five viscera were not yet well-nourished.

This level of exertion was still too much for the body.

And Bai Zhuqing—she stood by and watched it all.

It happened too fast.

It ended too fast.

By the time she fully grasped what had happened, her beloved elder sister—or aunt—was already half-kneeling, sword reversed.

From this angle, her right black-silk foot was bare on the bluestone, soaked through with scarlet demon-blood.

Her left foot still wore what remained of a sandal, the sole propping half her weight.

White hair stained red fell from midair; with that blood-smeared profile, it was flung wide by wind and dust.

Add demonfolk and demon-beasts and the wretched bodies strewn around—this tableau was…

Bai Zhuqing felt something flood her body and mind; her breathing quickened on its own.

Catching a few calmer breaths, Bai Xiang pushed herself to her feet.

She lifted her wet, black-silk-clad foot and glanced at it, then at the lone cone in Bai Zhuqing’s hand.

By chance, it was black too.

By more chance, the melting chocolate was veiled in a sheen of scarlet demon-blood.

“As you see—this is the road I’m taking.”

“Do you still dare eat it?”

She figured her sister would understand what she meant.

Reaԁ оn KatRеаԁіոɡCafе

But Bai Zhuqing’s answer made her blink.

The little imp puffed her cheek, then quickly snapped off the cone’s tip, slipped her little tongue up from below, and gave the underside a fierce lick.

“…”

Impervious.

Bai Xiang couldn’t be bothered. She pulled out her phone, chose the contact “Chief Inspector Zhang,” and dialed.

While it rang she didn’t keep her hands idle; she reached into the red-dressed woman’s bodice and rummaged out a phone, a pair of earbuds, a car key, and a palm-sized notebook.

She ignored the rest and opened the notebook—only to find she couldn’t read the script.

A title sat in angle-brackets at the head; below, cramped, twisted characters crammed the page.

What did this say?

“The Canon of… Returning to the Origin and Transforming Qi?”

Hm?

Snapping her head up, Bai Xiang fixed on Bai Zhuqing.

“Can you read this?”

“Of course.” Bai Zhuqing blinked too.

“This… this should be ‘Nuodi Sanskrit.’”

Under Bai Shengju’s influence, she’d loved studying sutras since childhood. Knowing this wasn’t strange.

Oh…

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes and swiftly tucked the notebook into her bodice.

“Remember.”

She warned Bai Zhuqing.

“We have never seen this thing.”