Volume 1, Chapter 47 – Departure

Bai Xiang returned home and first went to her room to find the stab-resistant suit she had brought back last time.

Not the one she wore that night; that one had been slashed to tatters. This was the one Zhang Daoming gave her afterward, likely internal stock from the Inspectorate, and its quality was far better than what the school provided.

Food should not be a worry; there is at least a camp, they should not expect you to bring your own rations.

But given Nanshan’s damp mists, she needed to bring clothes and shoes.

She packed her toiletries as well, putting everything into one backpack.

Bag set aside, she was about to go explain the situation to Bai Shengju when her movement stopped. Little by little she turned her left hand over and stared fixedly at her palm.

The skin that had been pale and clean now had a dark red patch beneath it, she did not know when it had appeared.

It was pooled blood.

It should be what was eliminated during the blood replacement.

But how could pooled blood accumulate in a place like this?

With the inner circulation built, Bai Xiang had of course considered how to deal with the replaced blood. Normally it would either be consumed as nourishment, or expelled with other waste; it should not be accumulating in some corner of the body.

What did I hold in my left hand earlier?

Her heart gave a tremor; she immediately looked to the cloud-pattern wooden sword by the bed.

She drew the wooden sword and examined it carefully, and sure enough found something off.

The cloud-pattern wooden sword was originally pitch black overall, with white cloud patterns carved at intervals. Now a small patch of those white clouds had turned the color of blood.

“…” Bai Xiang stared at the wooden sword in silence, then suddenly wielded it and ran through a sequence of moves, slashing within the cramped space.

When she finished, she slid the sword back into its scabbard.

It felt unchanged.

Only the surface had been stained red by seeped blood, which should be a natural property of the wood.

However…

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She picked up the wooden sword again and looked it over.

If, once all the blood in my body has been replaced, you can still absorb it.

Then perhaps the spirit-soul ability is not limited to interference only inside the body.

If that is so, I do not even know what material you are actually made of.

The cloud-pattern wooden sword had been a gift from Bai Shengju when she was thirteen. All third-generation Bai children had such a gift, and the type and style were more or less the same.

Sword in hand, Bai Xiang had just stepped out to find Bai Shengju when she turned back, took a box of [Nurture-the-Spirit Calming Tablets], and slipped it into her pocket.

Very unfortunately, she ran into her eldest uncle Bai Guanshan at the courtyard gate.

“Bai Xiang?”

Bai Guanshan seemed in a foul mood; the moment he saw her he frowned.

“The old man has turned in to rest. What are you here for?”

Asleep?

Bai Xiang knew at once something was wrong.

Bai Shengju never napped; how could he be sleeping now?

She moved to slip past Bai Guanshan into the courtyard, but he stretched out an arm to block her.

“I said,” Bai Guanshan fixed her with a gloomy stare, “he is already resting. What part of that do you not understand?”

Bai Xiang looked up and met his gaze, and felt the blame behind the glare.

Oh.

He thinks this is all because of me.

He probably knew in his head that with or without her, Chengfeng Sword Dao would have come knocking; but he was also a very sharp businessman, and could not fail to notice that she had a “hand” in Grandpa’s decision.

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Bai Guanshan ran a small company outside, with a hundred or so employees under him, which was why he could give a ten-thousand-yuan red envelope.

In that line of work you cannot stay home long; he had gone back to the company after one night of reunion, and in only two days, calamity had struck at home.

“So Uncle thinks…” Bai Xiang spoke. “Being too high-profile is wrong too.”

“If I had not saved anyone, not beaten Jiang Haojing, not thrown her down the steps, would they have stopped?”

“You—” Bai Guanshan’s face twitched; his expression eased a little, mixed with anxiety and annoyance. “Then why did you not go to those grandees?”

“I did.”

“Then why are you—” He started to press on, then froze hard as it sank in.

Huh?

What did she say?

She had already gone?

“Today I met them, and I received a public order from the State Chancery for a security assignment. I am heading out shortly.”

As she spoke, Bai Xiang took the box of [Nurture-the-Spirit Calming Tablets] from her pocket and handed it over.

“This is from the State Chancery.”

“The effect is strong. There is a leaflet inside. You can grind it to powder and dissolve it for Grandpa to drink; it should help.”

Bai Guanshan stared, woodenly took the small box, and when he made out the name his pupils shrank.

Nurture-the-Spirit Calming Tablets?

The legendary training and Nurture-the-Spirit drug, practically the ideal of its kind in the southern states.

Without connections, do not say buying it, even seeing or touching it is a dream.

She should not even know this existed; so she was not lying?

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She had really seen the State Chancery’s envoys?

The medicine was real?

Holding the box, Bai Guanshan trembled slightly, an endless joy rising in his heart.

Only then did he realize he had blamed Bai Xiang wrongly, and he looked up at once to mend things, but where was Bai Xiang now?

He stared a few seconds, then lowered his head with a touch of desolation.

He looked at the front gate, then at the courtyard. Gritting his teeth, he ran inside with the medicine.

Bai Xiang, after handing over the medicine, left at once.

Not out of pique, but to spare Bai Guanshan embarrassment.

She held no ill will toward this uncle with a sharp tongue and a straight spine.

Put in his place, if she were Bai Guanshan, with her most beloved little sister just dead and Father bringing home an adopted baby girl soon after—suppose she had not had those ten years with a terminal illness, had grown up normally—she certainly could not have done as well as he did.

He had not truly severed father and son; he had not run away from home like Third Uncle Bai Qingmin. By that measure, Bai Guanshan was the filial one.

And he had not treated her badly.

The money was not skimped; in gifts, whatever Bai Leying and Bai Zhuqing had, Bai Xiang had too.

What more was there to demand?

In those years at the hospital, she had seen more than her share of families ruined around her.

What is indifference, what is turning cold in an instant, what is breaking off all ties, what is numbness and “no dutiful child by the long-sick’s bedside”—she had grasped these too deeply.

The atmosphere at Shenming Dojo was still good.

She did not want to see that atmosphere vanish before her eyes like those examples.

Back in her room, after confirming that everything was ready, Bai Xiang did not contact Cao Chuan to come early; she lay down without undressing and went to sleep.

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She had not slept the night before; no matter how strong the spirit, going into danger with a negative state was unwise.

She slept five hours like that. Her phone alarm woke her; when she picked it up and checked the messages, she could not help a little smile.

Great Yu… it has gone as far as cybernetic prosthetics.

Yet in civil tech it is so far behind; the phone is still a brick.

It is even a luxury; those at the bottom mostly use phone cards. Even with a network, online communities are very crude, and information control is particularly strict.

In such a country, from such a system, a man like Fang Xiaochun—his promises, hmm…

A state governor’s power is astonishing. Without iron loyalty to the imperial house, you cannot sit in that seat.

Which is to say, no matter how optimistic he is about her now, if someday she shows the least dissatisfaction with the imperial house because of Bai Nianchan’s case, he could turn into another face in an instant.

Thinking as she washed up, she had just finished when a text came in from Cao Chuan.

[I am here.]

[I will wait only five minutes.]

Bai Xiang did not reply; she grabbed her bag and headed out.

With Bai Shengju unwell, the Bai family was now under Bai Guanshan’s management.

She had already informed Bai Guanshan she was leaving; on this trip she did not intend to notify anyone else, lest she have to exchange courtesies before going. Too much trouble.

But as she descended the long steps, she paused and looked back at the gate with its plaque, and at the dojo, hazy in the dim twilight.

She looked a moment longer.

Just one moment.

Then she turned and went down, sinking little by little into the long stair.