Volume 4, Chapter 23 – Inspiration

The two of them walked forward for a while before the space finally opened up.

It still couldn’t compare to the luxurious underground laboratory beneath the Zhennan Prince’s Manor, but at least the floor had been laid and the walls smoothed, enough for it to serve as a laboratory—or even a prison.

Xiang Xian casually chatted about a few matters, mentioning that Dr. Hannah was still “busy” down below, then led Bai Xiang to the room where the prisoner was being held, where they found a short-haired girl in a dazed state.

If Liu Yong and Dongzi were here now, they would recognize her at a glance as the very girl who had followed Li Guangyuan back then, the real client who had come to buy ticket stubs from them.

Her name was Li Shuxin, and she too had been sent by the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance. When Bai Xiang had gone to look for her earlier, she had escaped, but in recent days Bai Xiang had used the Taishang Induction to pluck her out of the crowds entering the city, and had killed the follower she had brought with her on the spot.

Bai Xiang had originally thought she could use Feixiang Heaven to read their memories and thus had no need to keep this girl alive. But after she seized those servants’ souls, a bizarre phenomenon occurred: their memories were so fragmented they could hardly be examined, at most offering a few scattered images and scenes.

Bai Xiang had her suspicions about this and had specially used it as a case to ask Sun Yaoming of Tianfu Mountain. Sure enough, Sun Yaoming told her, “Immortal Venerable Ningyuan of the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance is highly skilled in the Dao of the soul. It’s likely there’s a secret art he grants only to deathsworn, allowing their souls to be shredded upon death to conceal secrets.”

That was indeed rather troublesome.

After hearing this, Bai Xiang was a bit disappointed, but her mood didn’t fluctuate much.

Because she had already expected as much.

Back when she defeated Wang Changhe and absorbed the memories of many experts from the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty, she had learned that in the Upper Realm’s Illusory Realms, soul-refining arts existed.

Since such arts existed, corresponding defensive measures naturally would as well. The various powers of the Upper Realm were all surely on guard against soul-refining techniques.

Even if those arts were nothing compared to the overbearing techniques Bai Xiang commanded, as long as there were precautions in place, it would indeed be very hard for her to probe a target soul’s complete memories.

Because these defensive methods were applied to the target themselves.

They weren’t directed at her, so for now she had no way to counter them.

Therefore Li Shuxin had been allowed to live, and Bai Xiang had handed her over to Xiang Xian instead, hoping this “makeshift master” of hers could use more mundane methods of torture to extract the truth.

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Hearing footsteps approach, Li Shuxin lifted her head and looked at Xiang Xian with venomous eyes, her hoarse voice rasping, “No matter what you do to me, I won’t tell you anything!”

Bai Xiang raised her brows. Looking down, she saw that all the girl’s fingernails had been ripped out, and her entire body was covered in wounds, yet she still craned her neck stubbornly, refusing to talk.

This was exactly why she wasn’t willing to have Bai Zhuqing involved for the time being.

It wasn’t doting, it was that her younger sister’s mindset needed to be built up step by step. She intended to leave a buffer of time for that.

Still, this answer didn’t really match what Master had said, did it?

“This is what you call an idiot,” Xiang Xian said, narrowing her eyes at her slantwise. “I don’t need you to tell me the truth. As long as you dare open your mouth, as long as you dare look into my eyes, you have no secrets in front of me.”

“Impossible!” Li Shuxin glared. “You can’t do that!”

“Then let me ask you—why did you come to Zhennan Circuit?”

Li Shuxin had just opened her mouth to answer when she suddenly remembered what Xiang Xian had just said. She immediately shut it again and instead responded with a mocking smile.

“You came to plant a Demon Pool.”

The mocking smile continued.

“You came to avenge your father.”

Her expression shifted into hatred.

“You came here as a scout, to prepare the way for your companions to enter later.”

Hm?

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Li Shuxin’s eyes widened, staring at Xiang Xian in disbelief.

“See?” Xiang Xian pointed at her. “Too simple.”

So that was it.

Bai Xiang finally understood how Xiang Xian had made her judgment.

Reading and managing microexpressions…

I have the Taishang Induction. If I want to gather intelligence in the future, I don’t actually have to kill so fast. I can use the two together.

Mm… or I can choose to kill quickly.

Just like with Li Guangyuan. He might also have had some secret technique to damage his own soul, but he’d never expected my sudden move, and that was why I managed to seize his soul.

Skipping over Li Shuxin’s howls of “Impossible” and “You’re lying,” Bai Xiang left with Xiang Xian, took a different secret passage back to the connected Yuming Peak, and sat down with her in the main hall to play a game of go.

It might sound a bit dismissive, but Bai Xiang truly didn’t care much about the many schemes of the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance.

Barring surprises, the orders behind the recent “Head Shop” incidents were most likely coming from Immortal Venerable Ningyuan’s seventh child, Ning Haiyun.

There had been fragments about this woman in Li Guangyuan’s memories as well. Their main purpose in coming into Maozhou’s territory was naturally to invite Bai Xiang to join the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance. But their other purpose was to get Bai Xiang to help Ning Haiyun, letting her borrow the land to deploy the Demon Pool “Brain-Eater,” and use the order it warped to feel out a Dao-path, then condense a Divine Pool and in one stroke step into the Three Flowers Realm.

Since this pertained to the Dao-path, there might still be room for maneuver between others and Bai Xiang, but Ning Haiyun alone absolutely would not back down. Whether Bai Xiang agreed or not, she would insist on forcing her way through Maozhou to break through.

Now that she knew they would be making a move against Zhennan, Bai Xiang had already laid her arrangements, simply waiting for that woman to walk into the net.

What truly distracted her, in fact, was still the Path of Qi in her hands.

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Because of her suggestion, Maozhou had reconnected to the Nine Provinces Network, and plenty of people were arguing fiercely online with folks from other prefectures.

Perhaps it was precisely this move that made the court misunderstand, thinking she was determined to stand for the Path of Qi and face the Sword Dao head-on, which directly led them to intensify their forced control over all information about the Path of Qi.

According to what Fang Xiaochun, Tao Muyun, and the others had reported, many regions had already ordered an outright ban on the spread of the Path of Qi. Once discovered, the Inspectorate was to be dispatched to arrest people. It was starting to reek of terror.

“Since this dispute is about the so-called Dao-path, and the Dao-path is closely tied to condensing a Divine Pool, reaching the exalted seat, and being canonized above the mundane, we can imagine that the Sword Dao can’t just be simple techniques either. It must hide further mysteries within.”

Xiang Xian placed a stone, then looked up, intending to comfort Bai Xiang. “You don’t need to rush too much. It’s just a matter of waiting a few more days.”

Bai Xiang glanced at her and understood that she was talking about the Nine Prefectures Sword Meet.

A ban?

You need the strength to back that up.

Now that she no longer feared the two Swordmasters, if she could defeat them in that fight, countless eyes would witness the power of the Path of Qi, and that so-called ban would become nothing but empty words.

But would it really be that easy?

Bai Xiang dropped a stone on the board, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

The information Sun Yaoming had provided already made it clear: the Path of Qi wasn’t just in competition with the Sword Dao. It was also competing with the Dao-Void Methods upheld by the Demon Court, and even with the Path of Sacred Armaments championed by the human race.

On the surface, she could use this Dao-path to try walking the road to being canonized above the mundane. But with so many powers turning hostile all at once in such a short time, would there really be enough time left for her?

She had already found the optimal window in the cracks to push the Path of Qi out into the world, but it still didn’t seem like enough.

“You’re hesitating.”

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Xiang Xian saw the trend of her moves and teased her lightly.

“What’s there to be afraid of?”

“At worst, you just pull back. Your master will go on forging swords to support you.”

Hm?

Forging swords… forging swords?

Bai Xiang frowned at first, then abruptly relaxed her brows, and a rare hint of a smile appeared on her face.

“Master, you mean Yuming Workshop?”

“What else?” Xiang Xian raised a brow.

“I said forging swords… You felt it back when I fought Li Sheng, didn’t you?”

“There are hardly any refined steel swords in the world that don’t follow the Yuming method.”

Then that was it.

Bai Xiang’s expression returned to calm.

It was a bit of a wild idea.

But she already had a plan.