Volume 4, Chapter 7 – Heads

The generation gap between young people was small, and Xu Shu was not that much older himself. He quickly grew familiar with everyone, and he was especially optimistic about Zhu Sheng and Liu Yong.

“Don’t compare yourselves to Zhu Sheng,” he reminded them gently during a break. “Zhu Sheng’s family used to be a prestigious clan in Nanqi. They only moved here after suffering in the demon disaster. He’s had training in this since childhood. It’s normal if you can’t match him right away.”

Liu Yong and Dongzi both looked at Zhu Sheng, and sure enough, the kid’s face was full of smugness, like he could barely stop himself from straightening his back and breaking into a belly dance.

“But you mustn’t look down on yourselves either,” Xu Shu went on. “Cultivation on the path of qi is a long road. We’re not Sword Dao disciples who chase combat power at this age. You must remember to keep a calm mind if you want to go farther.”

Senior Brother First really was something. A lot of this was what the teachers who passed on cultivation should be saying, but Xu Shu was covering it all himself.

Listening, Liu Yong couldn’t help feeling emotional. He thought that their group had to be much luckier than the other squads.

“Senior Brother!” he had just thought that when Dongzi suddenly yelled beside him, “You just said ‘path of qi’… Aren’t we Shenming Sword Dao? Aren’t we Sword Dao disciples?”

You big oaf.

Liu Yong’s eyes flew wide.

Was that really something you could ask straight out?

He hurriedly shot a nervous look at Xu Shu, but instead of getting angry, Xu Shu actually started nodding slowly, an expression of “this child can be taught” on his face.

As if he had been waiting for someone to ask exactly that, and was delighted to finally have the opening.

“Zhang Donglai asked a good question,” Xu Shu said. “Indeed… I think some of you already knew the distinction before joining the dojo. Dong Feiyu, why don’t you tell us your understanding?”

Dong Feiyu was one of the two female disciples from before. She brightened when she heard her name, but after hearing what he wanted, her brows knit and she suddenly looked like she didn’t quite dare speak.

“Don’t be afraid,” Xu Shu encouraged her. “Whatever you’ve heard, just say it.”

“If we only go by what I’ve seen online, the reputation of the path of qi is not very good.” Dong Feiyu said this with a very serious face. “A lot of people online badmouth us. They say the path of qi is no different from that Luohou qigong nonsense and that it’s all just a con.”

“Online?”

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The word left Liu Yong a little dazed.

His life hadn’t changed for very long. Strictly speaking, at this same time last year he had still been skipping class to go to an internet café. Now it felt like years had passed. He was almost forgetting what it meant to go online at all.

“The path of qi is not a con.” Xu Shu’s brows furrowed slightly. He reached out, gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist, and without even drawing it, just gave a small motion. In the middle of the ground where everyone sat, a deep sword mark appeared.

“Wow!” Many of the disciples’ eyes widened.

They weren’t totally ignorant. A technique like that, as far as they knew, was not something a swordsman of his age should be able to pull off.

“As long as you get in the door, you can experience the mystery of qi,” Xu Shu nodded. “Qi is not a lie. It’s something the Dao Lord discovered, a true ‘upper tier, orthodox upgrade’ that completely replaces demonic power and demonic aura.”

That was not a polite way of putting it. If that was how things were being phrased in those online rumors, it was no wonder most people were trashing the path of qi.

So thought Liu Yong as he listened from the side.

Because obviously — with so many people out there practicing Sword Dao, and then you pop up and say your cultivation method is an upgraded replacement for theirs, the genuine upper tier, it sounds like you’re saying “I’m the real orthodox way.” Of course no one’s going to be happy about that.

Those with better manners might just shrug it off. Those with worse manners would go online and flame you.

But not everyone was hung up on that point. While Liu Yong was thinking it through, he heard Zhu Sheng speak up. “Senior Brother… I’m a bit curious. Do we still have an external net now?”

Hm?

Quite a few people blinked and their eyes lit up.

Now that was a good question.

They all knew that Maozhou currently used an internal net — not the corporate or school kind, but an internal network that only covered the four circuits of Maozhou.

With millions, even tens of millions of people, the base population was big enough to make an intranet viable. But since March, that net had been running on its own, never once opening a channel to “go out.”

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Whether or not there was still an external net was directly tied to the state of the outside world.

If the outside didn’t even have a network anymore, the damage from the demon disaster had to be severe. For all they knew, Maozhou’s net might one day be the only net left, turning Maozhou into a “doomsday oasis,” a “beacon of civilization.”

If the outside still had networks, then the situation couldn’t be that bad. Once they pushed the Aberrations down and reclaimed their land, there would still be a chance to reconnect and get back in sync.

At least for Liu Yong himself, he very much preferred that second possibility.

“There definitely is one… In fact, that news will be made public soon.”

Xu Shu hesitated briefly, then made up his mind. “It’s no harm saying it early. In a while we should be linking up with the external net again. You’ll be able to go online in your free time — just remember to speak up more for the path of qi.”

He took the public opinion environment very seriously. That was because the path of qi’s reputation really was bad right now.

From the perspective of those who had experienced its subtlety, no amount of praise was too much.

But from the perspective of people farther away, who had only heard the name, that kind of talk sounded like pure nonsense.

For a simple reason: people relied on experience.

Throughout history, so many Human Emperors and Earthly Immortals had never managed to create a method that truly replaced Sword Dao, and now an eighteen-year-old girl had pulled it off?

And you expect them to believe that? How?

Even though the simplified version of the Shenming Qi-Refining Formula had already been released on the net and plenty of people were studying it, only a bit over two months had passed. It hadn’t been long enough, and there probably weren’t many who had successfully entered the door yet.

So there weren’t many voices on the outside net speaking up for the path of qi. Most people thought Shenming Sword Dao was either joking or that Bai Xiang was fooling around, just trying to stir up attention.

Xu Shu believed that would change, but he also knew it would take time.

There was a way to speed it up, of course — getting famous figures from the Nine Prefectures to step up and vouch for it.

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Thinking of that, Xu Shu’s brows knit again.

That was something he really didn’t understand. Two months might be nothing to ordinary people, but for those big names, the Sword Dao masters, it should be easy to see that the Shenming Qi-Refining Formula contained something extraordinary.

He had access to the external net. He couldn’t understand why not one of them was speaking out.

But that was not the sort of problem someone at his level should be worrying about. Xu Shu didn’t dwell on it. He continued chatting with the new disciples and even let slip a few secrets.

“You don’t know where Senior Brother Lian’s nickname came from, do you?”

“Let me tell you. It’s because when he plays games and duels us, we clearly agree not to use no-effect skills, and he insists on using them to sneak attack us.”

“And sneaking us is one thing — he still yells ‘Move, move, I pressed the wrong button!’ while doing it. So we teased him as ‘Flash Sword’, and somehow that title just spread… So remember not to mention that nickname to him.”

“Pfft… Is that true?”

“Senior Brother Lian actually has a quirk like that? That’s hilarious.”

Xu Shu really did have plenty of dirty tricks. He was doing this to make Lian Feng feel more approachable in the minds of the new disciples, so they wouldn’t feel too distant from him.

Because of Lian Feng’s background… there were issues with his temperament too.

As Senior Brother First, Xu Shu felt he had to keep an eye on that.

After a good rest, they set off again.

The first half of the night went by peacefully. The squad’s atmosphere was easy and relaxed. Everyone had exchanged names and family backgrounds and gained a sense of camaraderie as fellow disciples.

Now, when they walked through dark alleys, they weren’t nearly as scared.

When they heard the rustle of footsteps, names surfaced in their hearts. They knew that if something happened, their senior and junior brothers would help them, and that tense, thrilling feeling rose up again.

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They patrolled like that, trading patrol zones with other squads, gradually drawing close to where Liu Yong and Dongzi lived.

On the way, they ran into a squad from the Inspectorate. While Xu Shu chatted with Chief Inspector Zheng at the head of the other team, Dongzi grabbed the chance to ask for leave to “go water the flowers.”

There was no shortage of toilets around the resettlement block, but in the pitch dark, it was easy for things to happen.

Dongzi wasn’t fancy. He just planned to find a corner and handle it.

Consider it watering the plants.

The relief of letting it all out sank straight into his soul. Dongzi shivered with his eyes half-closed, and just as he was pulling up his pants, he suddenly heard a strange sound.

A slurping, sucking sound… like someone drinking from a cup with a straw and still sucking after they’d hit the bottom.

Curious, he turned his head, following the moonlight, and saw Uncle Liu Er hunched by the wall, squatting with his back rounded, holding something in his hands and sucking at it happily.

“Uncle Er?” A tremor ran through Dongzi for no reason.

Why wasn’t Uncle Liu Er home this late?

Just then, the clouds slid aside and more moonlight spilled down, lighting up what Uncle Liu Er was cradling in his hands.

“Ah—!”

Dongzi let out a blood-curdling scream.

It was not some random object.

It was a fresh human head.