Volume 1, Chapter 40 – Bai Xiang Forges the Dao Foundation

“Zhuqing.”

“Auntie?”

“Come here.”

“What… what are you trying to do?” Pinned by Bai Xiang’s calm gaze, Bai Zhuqing grew wary at once and scooted away. “…Don’t tell me you want to try it?”

Are you kidding—this is something you can just try?

No way!

Absolutely not!

After a moment’s thought, remembering how Bai Zhuqing had seemed to like looking at her feet during the day, Bai Xiang said in a very serious, very proper tone, “You stand guard for me, and I’ll let you touch my feet.”

Wha—

What is she even saying?!?!

By reflex, Bai Zhuqing glanced under Bai Xiang’s hem and saw the fresh black stockings there.

Attraction beyond reproach… but, but with a condition like this—what does Auntie take me for?

And Auntie’s whole way of thinking is off, isn’t it? How can she use her looks as a bargaining chip? Doesn’t she value herself at all?!

Bai Xiang, however, didn’t overthink it.

In her view, letting someone touch your hands or feet doesn’t amount to much.

And the person was Bai Zhuqing—her own younger sister. Besides, she did need her help for the moment.

“Auntie, that won’t do!”

Annoyed at her attitude, Bai Zhuqing scolded her for ages, stressing that “a young lady should mind her virtue”!

Bai Zhuqing refused!

Partly because it was indecorous; partly because Bai Xiang clearly didn’t mind letting her take advantage, which in turn meant she still saw Bai Zhuqing as a sister!

She didn’t want that kind of favor!

That wasn’t the development she wanted!

“What virtue I do or don’t have isn’t for worldly folk to lecture me on,” Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes.

“And this is something I’d only ever say to you.”

“With anyone else—once they’d used me, I’d find a place to bury them.”

Boom.

Bai Zhuqing’s whole little face flushed scarlet.

“T‑There’s actually no need to go that far…” She ducked her head in a fluster. “If Auntie is really confident…”

“I am,” Bai Xiang said, making her tone as earnest as she could.

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“If you don’t trust me, you can feel me while I cultivate.”

“F‑Feel… you?”

“Yes. Feel my heart‑channels—sense my mind‑current. It’s like a pulse; at least you can catch the rhythm, right?”

“Th‑This… this…”

“Wherever I get to, you can check it against the text line by line. If you see me go astray, call Grandpa immediately.”

Oh… so that’s what she meant by “feel her”…

Blushing, Bai Zhuqing thought it over carefully and found the idea not unworkable.

It would ensure Bai Xiang’s safety, and she could also… uh…

No. Don’t think about that.

I’m here to supervise Auntie’s training; I have to stay calm at all times!

Thinking that whether she kept calm touched not only on Bai Xiang’s safety but Grandpa Bai Shengju’s as well, Bai Zhuqing used sheer will to steady her mind and, with a die‑if‑I‑must air, sat down beside Bai Xiang.

“Auntie, I’m ready!”

“Mm.”

Bai Xiang was quite casual.

Sitting on the bed, she slipped off her shoes; her left leg came up with the sole turned to the sky, her right leg hung down, taking a Sword Contemplation posture, and she indicated that her sister could put a hand on.

To sense the mind‑current there are two usual spots: the back‑heart and the chest.

Bai Zhuqing pouted at the proud rise of Bai Xiang’s chest, then slipped off her own shoes, tucked up her two white‑silk feet, climbed behind her, sat, stretched out her right hand alone, and pressed it to the true heart‑point between Bai Xiang’s shoulder blades.

She really didn’t let her thoughts wander. Eyes shut, Bai Zhuqing focused intently—and soon her brows knit.

Auntie’s mind‑current… wasn’t really moving.

Didn’t she say she was going to practice an ancient method?

She had no idea that Bai Xiang had her monitor the mind‑current only to keep her from getting in the way.

The real place she meant to try The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi was not Bai Xiang’s body at all, but her unique mutated spirit‑soul.

In another view of the room that Bai Zhuqing couldn’t see, Bai Xiang’s spirit‑soul body whooshed free and sat facing her flesh body at close range.

Using her spirit‑soul to open her fleshly eyes, she gazed at the half‑transparent spirit‑soul, pale as a “ghost,” and first tried to sketch her current inner landscape within the spirit‑soul body.

Then, following Chan Master Wenluo’s circulation diagram, she altered the mind‑flow and simulated its operation within to see whether the route could go through.

The first attempt failed—as expected.

When she saw the failure, Bai Xiang almost laughed.

Because it meant the method Chan Master Wenluo had laid out in The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi was wrong.

Which meant this ancient scripture really wasn’t worth much.

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She had misjudged Master Cizheng.

That old Master Hua’an was the one who wasn’t reliable.

Still, she wasn’t discouraged.

Trial and error cost her almost nothing; each reconstruction just burned a bit more energy. She figured she could keep it up for a good while.

So she stared at the spirit‑soul body and, drawing on insights from The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi, kept building new channels within it, trying new mind‑flow routes again and again.

It was hard.

Because all the qi had to be cultivated together, which meant many places had to be changed; every side branch had to be brought into the inner circulation.

She could take her time here—but it was rough on Bai Zhuqing sitting behind her.

Bai Xiang’s physical body never stirred; Bai Zhuqing’s monitoring was utterly meaningless.

But Bai Zhuqing didn’t know that; thinking Bai Xiang hadn’t started yet, she kept her nerves taut, and soon her eyelids began to droop.

Time sped by in the stillness.

In a blink, hours had passed.

Bai Xiang kept testing; Bai Zhuqing, head tipped, slumped behind her and, unable to fight the fatigue, nodded off first.

Suddenly.

Bai Xiang’s body gave a slight jolt.

In the view only she could see, a wholly new inner‑landscape mind‑flow diagram condensed within the spirit‑soul body.

This diagram was at least a thousand times more complex than the original. If the mind‑current ran along it, it would circulate without end, warming every organ and part of the body—forever, unceasingly, endlessly flowing through them, the warming and strengthening never stopping, never ending.

Most crucial of all—

Within this circulation, the mind‑current could go through.

“It… really exists…”

Staring blankly at the image, Bai Xiang didn’t know what to say for a moment.

Monk Yuanjue, Daoist Qu, Chan Master Wenluo… there were only three here, but across history there were surely many who sought to “transform qi” as they did.

Countless eras, countless people—the clash of ideas and the bitterness and blood—they very likely never produced a single success.

She had only wanted to try.

And she’d actually found it?

So this is what they call a sliver of Heaven’s design…

What remained was to realize it in the body.

Eyes shut, Bai Xiang tried to steady the spirit‑soul’s inner diagram and draw it back into her flesh.

This step wasn’t in The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi.

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No one else had her conditions. From here on, every step would be a new method.

Driving her spirit‑soul, Bai Xiang’s inner landscape changed at once.

The tiniest nerve endings, under the interference of her ability, began to twist bit by bit, deform bit by bit; new tips split and crossed, linking together into the shapes planned in the spirit‑soul diagram.

By worldly eyes, this kind of practice was suicide.

The structure itself was altered… miss even one side branch outside the loop, and the whole framework would collapse.

When that happened, death would be the least of it—the body might outright explode, flesh and blood flying, no bones left!

But Bai Xiang was firm.

Quiet as could be, the entire process finished; the new circulating inner‑landscape diagram had already been established within her body.

“Mm!”

At the instant of completion, she couldn’t help a soft sound.

From skin and flesh to the five viscera to the depths of her marrow, new sensations came from everywhere.

Pain, numbness, itch.

More intense than even with the Dragon‑Slaying secret method.

“So it was hidden injuries.”

Summoning her spirit‑soul to check against it, she finally saw the major hazard in her body.

In skin‑training and flesh‑training she had indeed reached perfection. But when she exerted force, was it purely skin and flesh?

It wasn’t.

Skin and flesh need bones for support.

Strength must also pass through heart, lungs, and the five viscera.

Those parts hadn’t been nurtured; the more perfectly she’d trained the skin and flesh, the greater the force they drew when she went all out—and the greater and deeper the damage to bones and heart‑lung.

Right now the hidden injuries weren’t heavy; she couldn’t feel them.

But if she kept going like before—slowly nurturing the five viscera to perfection as planned—then the next time she crossed swords, the explosive force would very likely yank her bones apart.

Now, though, the new inner landscape was formed.

Under the circulation of the mind‑current, all the hidden injuries were being warmed and healed.

Her skin, flesh, viscera, bones, and marrow were being nurtured simultaneously; she was even slowly changing her blood already.

Every second, her body grew a fraction stronger!

Each time the mind‑current completed a circuit, the five viscera, bone marrow, blood, nerves—every organ—sent feedback to the mind‑current in turn, nourishing the heart‑aspect at many times the normal rate—tenfold at least!

Sudden clarity: Bai Xiang knew her heart‑aspect was already in metamorphosis.

The process was somewhat slow; it might require her whole body’s progress to rise together to be complete.

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And when it did, would the mind‑current transmute into qi‑force that could project outward?

If so, wouldn’t I command an Outward Aspect before I even Forge the Sword?

The first case in history—an extraordinary power that belongs to “humans”?

Cooling the heat and thrill in her chest, Bai Xiang closed her eyes, pressed her palms together, and softly intoned a Buddha‑name.

Chan Master Wenluo.

Though his method was all wrong, his theory was right. It was on the basis of his complete theoretical frame that she could found a new method.

This was the foundation of her path to the Dao.

A word of mourning and thanks was not too much.

Not even close to enough.

Not enough to repay this guidance and gift spanning three hundred years.

So, after some thought, Bai Xiang decided to give the new method a name.

“Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi is already a Daoist phrase—the credit to Daoist Qu is in there.”

“To commemorate Chan Master Wenluo, I must add a Buddhist prefix.”

“As for that… my name is Bai Xiang.”

“Bai Xiang is cognate with ‘Non‑Thought,’ and with ‘No‑Thought,’ ‘Empty Thought’… from which one can derive the Buddhist state of ‘With Thought, Without Thought, Neither With Nor Without Thought.’”

“Which one should I take from there…”

It seemed any of them fit, and dropping any would be a shame.

Then take them all.

“From now on, you’ll be called—”

She paused.

“The Bai Xiang Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi.”

Putting on her shoes, she stood, drew a quilt over her sleeping sister, then opened the side‑room door just as the clouds at the horizon broke for dawn.

Soft morning light fell over her, colors shifting, setting her off like a mortal fairy.

Just so:

The Five Qi face the Origin; with half a step, Heaven’s Gate.

The spirit‑soul illumines the inner scene; essence and qi run to the voided river.

Return to the root, trace the innate; the two parts home to the primal soul.

Bai Xiang forges the Dao foundation—beholding me is beholding the divine.