Volume 4, Chapter 40 – Creating a Method (I)

Several days slipped by, and the turmoil in Zhen’nan Dao gradually subsided.

With the pressure from the “Head-Taking Shop” gone, many construction sites returned to round-the-clock work. Every few streets in the city you could see roads blocked off for repairs, pipelines being laid everywhere.

On top of that, Maozhou Prefecture had sped up negotiations with various companies, so more and more factories were being built around the outskirts. At the very least, none of the refugees flowing into Zhen’nan had to worry about not finding work.

The flood of jobs absorbed the displaced, which further reduced the workload of the Inspectorate. Zhang Daoming no longer needed the help of gray-sector forces like Pei Jian to solve cases, and the frequency of Inspectorate police patrols began to drop.

The recapture of Chilong Circuit was already more than halfway complete.

Everything was getting back on track. All of Maozhou was thriving.

The only mysterious thing that left many people baffled was that the sky over Zhen’nan often saw dark clouds gathering, thunder rumbling, and every time the rumbling would suddenly cut off mid-roar, like someone had hit a mute switch. No one had any idea what to make of it.

The time and place were irregular too. Sometimes it happened in broad daylight, sometimes in the dead of night, sometimes over Shenming’s main peak, and sometimes out beyond the Dao city’s outskirts.

Some people guessed that it was the young, newly elevated Shenming Dao Lord meeting challengers and secretly defeating them one by one.

The people of Maozhou had an extremely deep affection for Bai Xiang, who had appeared more than once with a “savior” image. As soon as this theory appeared, it was quickly accepted. Passed along and embroidered, it soon hardened into ironclad “truth,” leaving no room for any outlander to question it.

You lot are the ones who spend all day online bragging about those flashy duels and challenges, right?

You keep saying visitors from the Illusory Realms look down on Maozhou, look down on the Mountains-and-Rivers-ranked Dojo under Maozhou’s jurisdiction, and that to this day not a single person has come to challenge it?

You bumpkins ought to come see Maozhou and learn what “practical” and “low-key” really mean.

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Some people even recorded the scenes of the celestial changes as they happened and posted them online as supposed hard evidence.

But most of those videos were dark and blurry. Not only did they fail to resolve the original dispute, they brought a wave of mockery and ridicule, which in turn stirred up a craze across the Nine Provinces regional net for “chasing down and filming experts in battle.”

Some recorded lightning splitting the night sky and joked that some attained master was undergoing tribulation there.

Others did parodies, having a friend stand on a riverbank and move in slow motion while, with the right camera angle, the flowing river filled the frame. They insisted this was a great master exerting power to alter the course of the river.

People used this playful way to question Shenming Sword Dao’s “boasted battle record.” Though the noise seemed loud, if you compared it carefully to the earlier waves of abuse, you would find it was no longer so crude and vicious.

[By rights I ought to flame them on the spot, but I won a fifty-percent-off meal coupon at their store, so I seriously cannot open my mouth.]

[Shill upstairs, you can draw fifty percent off? I heard it caps out at sixty or seventy percent.]

[Too late to the party, but speaking of the lottery…]

[“How did you all know I drew the grand-prize sword-forging gift bundle set from Yuming Workshop’s virtual store”… good grief, look at this username, who even asked you!!?]

[Fake! Fake! They are all shills!!]

[I just want to know when the ceremonial sword I bought is going to arrive.]

[By the way, Yuming Workshop is supposed to be a “handcrafted workshop,” right? They claim nationwide free shipping… With these order numbers, can they really keep up, do they actually have the capacity to deliver nationwide?]

[They already have physical branches, and they are also plugged into the Transport Directorate logistics system. As long as they are willing to burn the money, it is not a big problem.]

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[The two Yuming stores are at each other’s throats, looks like the jianghu rumors were true and Yuming Sword Dao really is splitting the house?]

“…That is the general picture.”

At Listening-to-Rain Tower, after scrolling through various screenshots on her phone, Bai Zhuqing handed over a written summary report she had drafted.

“Because of the recent promotions at our outlets, the dojo’s reputation has improved quite a bit.”

“And that Mr. Xu Ling has now entered official service. Governor Zhang has appointed him Commandant of Maozhou Prefecture, concurrently serving as chief of the Transport Directorate. I went to take a look over there recently. Quite a few youths from Jiangnan have come to join him.”

Bai Xiang did not speak. She picked up the report and read through it. The writing felt like a clear step up from before.

So this is the difference after mastering the Jade Spirit Mingxin Method. Lately Bai Zhuqing had been in seclusion by day cultivating, then pestering Bai Xiang at night to further dual-cultivate along the Path of Qi, and somehow she still found the energy to put together these summaries.

Yesterday Xu Shu had mentioned that, in order to find inspiration for a breakthrough, she even went to the outer courtyard to instruct the disciples there.

With that kind of effort, no wonder she jumped straight to the eighth layer of Refining Qi last night.

Looks like that sword I took for her shook her up quite a bit.

“Good work.” Bai Xiang gave her a word of praise. “I have not had time to handle these things lately. It is thanks to you, Grandfather, and First Master that everything is being looked after.”

“It is not hard work.” Bai Zhuqing could not help the way the corners of her mouth curled up, though she quickly schooled her expression. “I just hope I can keep being useful.”

“Give this to Second Uncle on your way out.” Bai Xiang picked up a sheaf of manuscript paper from beside her.

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“What is this?” Bai Zhuqing took it and opened it. She saw neat, tiny characters copied by hand, along with many extremely detailed inner body-scape route diagrams traced out by hand.

“The latest version of the Shenming Qi-Refining Formula,” Bai Xiang explained.

Second Uncle Bai Lianzhou was still doing his old job, teaching as a transmission instructor in the dojo’s outer courtyard. Any new results in this area naturally had to be delivered to him first.

“I will go right away,” Bai Zhuqing replied.

“By the way, Aunt.” As if suddenly remembering something, she looked up, frowning at Bai Xiang. “…Outer sect disciple Liu Yong, do you still remember him?”

“I do. What about him?”

“Yesterday when I went to the outer courtyard to guide his cultivation, I kept feeling like I had seen him somewhere before.”

“Hmm?” Bai Xiang’s hand paused. “Did he make you feel ‘disgusted’?”

“No. Not that. It is not the same feeling as a divine-lineage demon.”

“Have you seen him before?”

“I swear I have not. It is just… I do not mean I have seen his face somewhere. It is more that he feels very familiar.”

After hesitating for a moment, Bai Zhuqing added, “I wonder if it might be the spiritual thought your little aunt left behind acting up.”

Little aunt referred to Bai Nianchan.

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Bai Zhuqing had Bai Nianchan’s blood and fragments of her soul within her. Later, with Bai Xiang’s help, she fused them into a unique talent of her own. It manifested as razor-sharp senses; she could even sense the aura of divine-lineage demons from very far away, which was tremendously powerful.

But Bai Nianchan and Liu Yong, familiar with each other?

If Bai Nianchan were still alive, she would be thirty-five by now. Those two were not even from the same generation, were they?

The matter was strange. Bai Xiang quietly filed it away in her mind and told Bai Zhuqing to keep an eye on Liu Yong whenever she had time. Then she shooed her out.

After her younger cousin left, Bai Xiang went up to the training room, sat straight down into the void, let her body naturally float in place, and let a misty aura spill out from her.

She was creating a Dao.

The date of the Nine Prefectures Sword Gathering was getting close, and there was the pressure of Li Huiran, that Heaven-Patrol of the Demon Court, on top of it.

Moreover, during her battle with Cui Yuanhao, there had indeed been moments when her divine sword formulas failed to work and she had to fall back on raw blade-to-blade combat. That made Bai Xiang feel, all at once, that she could not waste the physique she had cultivated with the Sun-Chasing Scripture. She needed to create a new set of sword arts and sword moves suited to the strength of her current body.

As it happened, she had recently taken out quite a few petty scoundrels who had slipped in from chaotic Illusory Realms and chaotic demon kingdoms, all coveting the Xuandi Scripture. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not, but she had managed to collect some remnants of their souls and gained some insights into Upper Realm cultivation arts and sword techniques.

After digesting and integrating these insights over this period, she felt she finally had some grasp on things.

It was time to update her close-quarters killing methods.