Volume 1, Chapter 39 – Mirror the Scene, Set the Heart‑Channels

Aside from the “authorial remarks,” the latter two parts are the training method and a fragmentary outline of the Five‑Dragon Method.

Bai Zhuqing hadn’t translated them yet, but just from these notes she already felt the scripture was utter nonsense.

How is anyone supposed to practice this?

Even many disciples of major Sword Daos get stuck at the marrow‑washing and blood‑change step and are forced to skip it and go straight to Forge the Sword.

But this “secret manual” not only demands a blood change—it wants marrow‑washing and blood‑change together with cultivation of the other parts, all at once?

Does this Chan Master Wenluo think the human body is a machine? Computer software? As if organs and progress bars could all be controlled simultaneously?

“Finish translating first.”

It was already past one; ignoring her complaints, Bai Xiang pressed her to write out the remaining sections.

Reluctantly, Bai Zhuqing started translating the training method, but as she neared the end she kept a little trick up her sleeve and deliberately left the final passage unwritten.

“Auntie, it’s not that I won’t finish it for you, it’s that this scripture is downright heretical.”

While Bai Xiang studied what had been done, she sat to the side pounding Bai Xiang’s legs and back, playing obedient as she tried to talk her down.

The later content of this book is really a bit…

She was on pins and needles now, wishing Bai Xiang would burn the scripture on the spot.

But Bai Xiang ignored her and was absorbed in the training section.

Monk Yuanjue, Daoist Qu, Chan Master Wenluo.

Three people from different eras—from Buddhism to Daoism, then from Daoism back to Buddhism.

The first two lived too far back; Chan Master Wenluo is closer to the present, but still over three hundred years ago.

Because of that, even in Bai Zhuqing’s translated version, the notes and explanations remain obscure; in places you not only have to parse the literal meaning, you must also know certain Buddhist and Daoist classics.

By fortunate coincidence, Bai Xiang had those foundations.

After crossing over, you could say she fused with the original body’s dying spirit‑soul, taking in all its memories and felt experiences, which of course included the Bai family’s Buddhist devotions—the original Bai Xiang had studied sutras and knew those Buddhist and Daoist commentaries.

As for Daoism… in her past life she lay bedridden as a cripple for ten years. Doctors said she couldn’t just exercise; she had to work her mind. Before discovering meditation training, she tried online games, reading Daoist texts, and so on.

Not a master by any means, but basic exegesis didn’t stump her.

The two streams met, and she happened to be able to read the text. Unconsciously she began to model in her mind the cultivation routes the three had outlined; ideas and trains of thought rose and fell until at last she grasped why this scripture existed.

The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi.

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Transform qi.

Transform qi.

Why transform qi?

Why did Monk Yuanjue, Daoist Qu, and Chan Master Wenluo—three men spanning different ages—exhaust themselves poring over annotations?

With Sword Dao available to pursue ever deeper, why didn’t they grind on the sword, instead of obsessing over these side paths?

The answer is obvious… on the one hand they rejected Sword Dao’s dominion; on the other, they believed the Sword Dao system itself was wrong.

The supernormal divides into inner and outer: the inner landscape of the heart‑aspect, and the outer landscape of the Outward Aspect.

The Five‑Dragon Heart Method and Sword Dao’s Nurture the Spirit are both inner‑cultivation methods, working by benefiting the self; strictly speaking, they don’t even count as “supernormal.”

Set against the terrifying divine powers of demon beasts and the Demon Pool—swallowing starlight, breathing fire and water, calling wind and rain, making the unreal real—the torque of inner methods is far too weak.

Therefore Sword Dao must exist!

Only by taking up this sword of Human Principle can the human race avoid becoming demon beasts’ feed and the Demon Pool’s plaything!

But all three believed: Heaven’s principle leaves a sliver of life; what Heaven decrees for humankind should not be to incite us to wield demon arts with a sword, but to have us cultivate an Outward Aspect of our own.

This is plain from Chan Master Wenluo’s comments—[The human body is the essence of Heaven and Earth].

If the body is not firm, demonic aura stains the flesh!

If the heart is not settled, demonic aura defiles the spirit!

They thought the order of the world was wrong!

Humans are a higher lifeform than demons!

Humans should not rely solely on demon arts to express the Outward Aspect!

Humans ought to possess an Outward Aspect of their own!

Hence, they sought to transform qi.

They summed up experience, tried again and again, wrung their brains and shed their blood; whatever the price, they would systematize a method—find a way to transform qi.

This “qi” is the “human Outward Aspect” they pursued.

That amounts to more than ordinary treason.

Bai Xiang pondered.

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Speak this aloud, discuss it openly, and it’s not merely “betraying the imperial house”—it extends straight to the crime of “rebelling against your own species.”

Because these people sought to overturn the very foundation of human rule—Sword Dao.

That scripture Master Hua’an lent her surely didn’t include these annotations, did it?

Bai Xiang didn’t think so.

This information is too sensitive; Master Hua’an would never take it out and hand it to someone he’d barely met twice.

No wonder Zhuqing looked so terrified.

If this book were discovered, the entire Bai family would be finished.

Bai Xiang knew the weight of it; her urge to cultivate this scripture had already faded.

But she kept reading anyway, wanting to know what marvel lay in the practice Chan Master Wenluo finally distilled.

Monk Yuanjue tried to use the Buddhist Vajra method to forge a powerful body to drive the Daoist Five Dragons, fuse them and transform qi—he failed.

Daoist Qu tried a compromise, aiming to coexist with Sword Dao; later generations proved the road wouldn’t take—he failed too.

And Chan Master Wenluo?

Was the outlet he finally found a way through?

From cross‑reading the text and the notes, Bai Xiang learned that Wenluo first thought to use newly created heart‑channel organs to hold demonic power, while running the Five Dragons along the body’s original heart‑channel routes.

But through experiments on robbers and bandits, he discovered it was impossible to comb together the Five‑Dragon mind‑current and Sword Dao’s demonic power.

However you shaped new heart‑channels or new organs, demonic power would always conflict with the Five Dragons.

And what the human body lacks by nature—force it in, and the greater the degree of alteration, the greater the cost to maintain it, with survival odds especially low.

By his notes, he was on the verge of giving up.

But one day, while he was farming along a riverbank, the sky suddenly darkened and a downpour began. Chan Master Wenluo had no choice but to head back along the levee. As he walked, he saw the river raging, like an untamed great dragon, and sighed: [To tame this dragon is no easier than taming the Five‑Qi Dragon.]

Gradually, though, the storm drew his attention.

[The water‑dragon runs swift and wild; it is caused by the heavenly rain‑dragon joining its flow.]

[The rain‑dragon surges with a world‑shaking force; it comes from the fusion of wind‑dragon and cloud‑dragon.]

[Wind‑dragon and cloud‑dragon both feed on the earth’s qi‑dragon, and qi‑dragon, in turn, is born of the water‑dragon.]

[Water‑dragon, rain‑dragon, wind‑dragon, cloud‑dragon, qi‑dragon… taming these five dragons is no easier than taming the five dragons in one’s heart.]

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[How does Heaven and Earth bind them?]

[Now, observing the five‑dragon laws of heaven and water, I am suddenly enlightened.]

[Their mystery lies only in ‘circulation.’]

Yes.

This was his realization—the most perfect foundation for attaining the Way, as he called it.

He abandoned addition, no longer trying to stack up newly made organs. He began subtraction, step by step seeking how, without adding too many heart‑channels, he could use the body’s existing heart‑channels to string together a “circulation.”

Once the “circulation” is formed, whether Five Dragons or demonic power, both are forcibly incorporated into the loop—“like two chariots that could rear‑end at any moment, yet never collide.”

In the process, the mind‑current would course through every corner of the body at greater speed. The so‑called “cultivate inside and out; advance all methods together” would come about naturally.

Then one pins one’s hopes on the Five Dragons’ marvels.

He was certain that if such a circulation could be achieved, with time’s passage and the turning of sun and moon, the Five Dragons would gradually gather all mind‑currents in the process, causing the heart‑aspect seeds in the inner landscape to mutate and produce the “qi” he sought.

[At this point, heart‑aspect is Outward Aspect!]

This page’s notes were written with special vigor.

[The human Outward Aspect should be human!]

[Not some fiend or monster!]

……

It was indeed shocking.

Through the words, Bai Xiang truly felt that spirit of refusal and defiance.

But she wouldn’t be bewitched so easily.

However pretty the reasoning, it doesn’t change the fact this scripture was dropped by a small‑time goon.

Which means it’s not important at all.

In fact, perhaps no one has ever cultivated it successfully.

Whether Chan Master Wenluo succeeded, Bai Xiang didn’t know, because Bai Zhuqing hadn’t translated the final part.

She knew that even if she asked, Bai Zhuqing wouldn’t give it to her—so she decided to study it herself.

I’ll run the numbers myself and see whether your path is right or wrong.

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She began paging back, cross‑checking the text and marginalia to work it out carefully.

Two core points.

First, the Five‑Dragon Heart Method.

Second, remolding the heart‑channels.

By normal cultivation, the Daoist Five‑Dragon Method and Sword Dao’s demon‑refining arts do clash—especially after forging the sword, when the body’s heart‑channels have set; the process by which Sword Dao draws demonic power into the body is bound to conflict with the Five‑Dragon Method.

Hence the need to rebuild the heart‑channels: seek heavenly materials and earthly treasures to implant in the body, splice and recreate new blood vessels, nerves, even organs, so that every heart‑channel in the inner landscape can form an “inner circulation” mode.

Once the inner circulation is established, all methods naturally advance together.

For most people that’s near impossible. First, the Five‑Dragon Heart Method’s general outline is missing; what’s recorded here she suspects is the fragment of a fragment—many lines don’t even read smoothly.

Second, remolding heart‑channels is way too fanciful.

Even though Chan Master Wenluo had already switched to subtraction—only asking to splice some side paths of the heart‑channels, implanting no new organs unless unavoidable—this touches on altering the human body, on life and nature. It isn’t something you can decree with a wag of the tongue.

But for Bai Xiang—

Her spirit‑soul ability can also interfere with reality; she didn’t know whether her “will” would take effect.

Could it replace the Five‑Dragon Method’s functions of interference, integration, and transforming qi?

So only the second point was truly hard.

Her spirit‑soul ability can interfere with the inner landscape; in theory she could use it to alter or splice heart‑channels, simulating the “heart‑channel circulation diagram” of Chan Master Wenluo’s training method.

That would require bodily modification—a one‑shot deal—and she might be gone once the alterations were done.

So she wasn’t keen.

But does this kind of modification—rebuilding new channels—have to be done in the body?

She’d already found, when cross‑checking with her spirit‑soul, that the translucent “spirit‑soul body” held nothing but the heart‑aspect seed; only when she had need did the full routes of the mind‑currents surface within.

Then why not try test‑building this “heart‑channel circulation diagram” in the spirit‑soul?

A no‑cost, no‑risk move—only a fool wouldn’t try.

At this point, Bai Xiang’s thinking had shifted.

She fixed her eyes on Bai Zhuqing, already considering how to keep her from getting in the way.