Volume 4, Chapter 152 – The Shadow of Defending the Dao (Two-in-One)

[Good evening, viewers. This is Nine Provinces News.]

[The Dao-Void Martial Tournament has officially begun and has now been underway for five days. During these five days, a number of sects led by the Mountains-and-Rivers-ranked Dojo Shenming Sword Dao from Xinzhou and Maozhou have performed admirably, producing outstanding results. They have displayed the backbone of the Sacred Dynasty, the finest essence of tradition, and defended the dignity of our dynasty’s national art.]

[At present, Shenming Sword Dao stands tied for first atop the Tongyun Division points table with a record of three wins in three matches without dropping a single point, level with the Void-Emissary sect Qianyuan Sect.]

[Next, let us review Shenming Sword Dao’s wonderful performances across these three rounds.]

The news was playing on the phone screen, but Bai Xiang seemed not to hear it at all. In her hand, she was rolling a set of silver needles between her fingers.

She had borrowed the needles from Xiang Xian.

Shenming Sword Dao had made a huge splash and drawn immense attention. Even now, the entire internet was still in a frenzy discussing them.

Bai Xiang had specifically ordered everyone not to show off. Whenever there were no matches, they were to remain in the hotel and cultivate in seclusion. She wanted them to settle their minds and see whether, after experiencing the glory that followed disgrace and hardship, they might attain some fresh insight.

As for herself, she naturally took the time to make good on her promise and treat the old beggar’s “stinking illness.”

At this moment, the old beggar was obediently lying face-down on the bed, his upper body bare, allowing Bai Xiang to precisely insert one silver needle after another into the acupoints all over his body. Through plucking, twisting, and other such motions, she vibrated his sinews and bones, assisting him in cultivating the deeper meaning of the new methods.

Zhu Qingluo still stood to one side watching, her brows knitted.

When the Transmitters’ pool-seat was occupied, the efficiency of transmitted instruction was naturally so low as to be almost unbearable. But if the creator personally taught and guided someone, or personally wrote out the manual by hand, then the efficiency was obviously different, and the odds of success rose sharply.

In any case, she had already warned Bai Xiang that making the old beggar rebuild his cultivation in the new methods at a time like this was a huge hidden danger. If enemies came, they might lack someone strong enough to intercept them.

But Bai Xiang had insisted all the same, even fooling the old beggar into believing this was the key step in curing his illness. Zhu Qingluo had no way to stop her and could only wait at the side to see how things developed.

“All right.”

After helping the old beggar establish a new circulation route through his inner pathways, Bai Xiang collected the silver needles one by one and said, “Move your qi-force according to this route.”

The old beggar frowned and tried it while still lying there. Immediately, he felt a strange energy erupt from his Inner Body-scape and race through his body along the new circuit. And every time it passed through one of the opened acupoints, a huge store of “medicinal power” gathered into it.

At first, the rise in his aura was not obvious, but very quickly it climbed step by step, surging in one breath from just having Entered the Dao to a level equivalent to the seventh layer of Refining Qi. Only then did the pace of his progress begin to slow.

Yet that was only relative.

In truth, every full circulation of his cultivation on the Path of Qi drew in medicinal power and increased his strength. The scale of that increase was far beyond the cultivation speed of ordinary disciples. Among all Shenming’s disciples, probably only Bai Zhuqing, who cultivated in dual cultivation with Bai Xiang, could compare.

So he really isn’t ordinary.

Bai Xiang was not surprised, because once cultivation on the Path of Qi reached the deeper stages—her current realm, the Origin Realm, for instance—rapid progress came precisely from excavating the “innate great medicine” hidden within these secret orifices and meridians.

The old beggar had started late, but the degree to which he had tempered his body was terrifying. The total number of manifestly refined acupoints and meridians in his body had probably already surpassed a hundred. That was equivalent to practicing the later material in advance. If he kept going like this, it would not take long for him to make up all the lost ground in strength.

But neither he nor Bai Xiang was focused on his strength.

“Take a sniff,” Bai Xiang said, staring intently at his expression. “See whether that smell is still on you.”

The old beggar knitted his brows tight and raised his arm to sniff all over himself. Suspicion appeared on his face.

“The stink’s gotten lighter,” he said.

Then he suddenly sprang up from the bed and let out a joyous roar. “Eeeeh—good! I don’t stink anymore!!”

With his strength, there was no way the bed could withstand the pressure. The springs snapped on the spot, and the old beggar himself crashed straight through the ceiling with a loud bang. A scream of terror quickly came from above through the hole.

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Zhu Qingluo had to step in. After no small amount of effort, she finally dragged back the old beggar, who had gone mad with excitement and was rampaging around. Bai Xiang looked at the foolish old man now tied hand and foot on the bed with strands of green light from Zhu Qingluo, writhing back and forth, and fell into thought with one hand at her chin.

After cultivating the Path of Qi, he said he no longer stank.

So was the foulness gone from the root of his being, or was it merely, as he had first described it, that “the stink had gotten lighter”?

Unfortunately, the man was still fundamentally an idiot. He was far too emotional to communicate with right now. Better to wait until he calmed down and ask again then.

After dealing with matters here, Bai Xiang left him with Zhu Qingluo under the latter’s deeply resentful gaze and prepared to depart.

Of course Zhu Qingluo was unwilling to let it go. Just before Bai Xiang walked out, she suddenly called after her. “Aren’t you curious who we really are?”

By now, Zhu Qingluo understood why Bai Xiang had not been curious before.

It was because Bai Xiang believed she had the strength.

But after spending this period of time together, Bai Xiang trusted them too much.

When she went up to compete, she left her whole family in my care. Th-this… if I had really meant them harm, wouldn’t she have been far too late to save them?

“Isn’t it because you were the one who didn’t want to say?” Bai Xiang glanced back at her.

“Then I’ll ask again now. What relationship do you have with the Rebirth Hall of the Demon Court?”

Zhu Qingluo’s face changed instantly. Her gaze flickered, and she stammered, “I can’t tell you that for now.”

“Then are you at Venerable Saint level?” Bai Xiang asked again. “If not, are you a split body of the original? And roughly how strong is Venerable Saint?”

After those questions, Zhu Qingluo’s expression changed so drastically it could hardly be described. She struggled with herself for a while, then said, “I can’t answer the first question. But I am not Venerable Saint, and Venerable Saints are far stronger than I am.”

With that reaction, does it even matter whether you answer or not?

Bai Xiang was now certain this person was a split body sent forth by the Hall Master of Rebirth Hall. Who knew whether that exalted Hall Master had only split off “a version of herself from a simpler time,” or had spent all day in seclusion taking too many pills—perhaps too many varieties of dragon pills, producing some kind of “Nine Dragons Soul-Suppressing” effect—because this split body was so straightforward she was almost adorably stupid.

“I’m warning you, Venerable Saint is no joke,” Zhu Qingluo said sternly.

“When Saints do not emerge, people of that level stand at the peak. Ordinarily, one has to control a field-path divine pool and grind it forward until it reaches its utmost limit…”

“And then one can be elevated to Venerable Saint?” Bai Xiang pressed.

Wouldn’t that mean people like Yang Chen and the other heaven’s prides, as well as the higher-ranked figures on the Venerable List, all had a very good chance?

The Heaven’s Pride List and the Venerable List were very different rankings.

The Heaven’s Pride List was for experts of the younger generation. The Venerable List, meanwhile, was filled with old veterans of great age and long seniority. Its weight was obviously much higher. So although Bai Xiang had led Shenming Sword Dao to three straight wins and was being lavishly praised all over the primary world’s internet, with many media experts placing her alongside Yang Chen of Qianyuan Sect and Chang Hongyuan of Zhengtian Dao, the main topic of discussion on the Venerable Net was still that the Wentian Dao Master had shamelessly performed a prostration salute toward a primary-world human girl in the bloom of one hundred and twenty-nine years.

One could say that was the result of deliberate guidance by interested parties. Great Yu could still make use of Bai Xiang in propaganda to bolster the Sword Dao divine pool, so long as reports blurred out the presence of the new methods. Dao-Void Methods, on the other hand, had no real use for Bai Xiang.

But one thing could still be seen clearly: to the old veteran Venerables, the competition on the Heaven’s Pride List did not amount to much.

Most of the current divisional struggles were being spearheaded by juniors from the Heaven’s Pride List. Many old monsters had yet to show themselves.

“This is only a prerequisite,” Zhu Qingluo shook her head. “First one pushes a field-path divine pool to its utmost limit, and then…”

She hesitated, fixed her eyes on Bai Xiang’s face, held her breath for five or six seconds, and only then forced out the rest. “And then one needs to make use of fragments of the primary order.”

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Fragments of the primary order.

Zhu Qingluo sounded awkward, but Bai Xiang understood immediately. What she meant was the Order-Preserving Treasures—treasures like the little yellow jade.

The reason she had been so cagey about it was because she was afraid that if she said it aloud, I would guess the plan she had been preparing in secret, and then refuse to lend her the treasure?

“I should make this clear first: I’m not planning to use the treasure that way,” Zhu Qingluo hurriedly explained. “To be elevated to Venerable, one has to seize the rules of the primary order. To become Venerable Saint, one must then merge an already completed field-path divine pool with the rules of the primary order again.”

Bai Xiang nodded. “In other words, you trick the primary order into taking your own divine pool in. That lets you borrow the power of the primary order and raise the divine pool’s might geometrically.”

But the primary order was not easy to fool.

She recalled the scene of conducting experiments on Liu Yong and thereby drawing heavenly tribulation upon herself.

If the primary order itself was hard to fool, then one could take a step back and choose to deceive fragments of the primary order instead.

By fusing fragments of the primary order—in other words, Order-Preserving Treasures—into a field-path divine pool, one could likewise increase the pool’s affinity with the primary order and greatly enhance its power.

Ranked by strength, the former method led to Great Saint, that is, a true Saint. The latter led to Lesser Saint, which required the residual prefix “Venerable” to be added before it, making it Venerable Saint.

At this point, Bai Xiang fell silent.

She realized what she had been doing was not so different from what these people were doing.

The little yellow… the little yellow jade—had she herself tricked it into becoming lame?

No, it was still different.

They were deceiving.

I was forcing myself on it.

Zhu Qingluo shot Bai Xiang a strange look, unable to understand why one second she had still been narrowing her eyes in silence, and the next her brows had smoothed out, leaving her with an air of complete righteousness.

“So what do you want the treasure for?”

Bai Xiang pressed her.

“You’re not planning to use it to merge with and cultivate a field-path divine pool. You’re not trying to use it to become Venerable Saint.”

“Is that because your original body already is one? Or because you plan to use this thing to establish an entirely new set of divine pools?”

“…I can’t tell you!”

Zhu Qingluo turned around at once, refusing to let Bai Xiang see the expression on her face.

Whether you turn around or not makes no difference.

Bai Xiang had the Taishang Response Method, and together with the Jade Spirit Mingxin Method, she could reconstruct even the subtlest details of a scene from the distribution of Tianyuan within the room. Even with Zhu Qingluo’s back to her, she could still observe her expressions.

But Zhu Qingluo had assumed a stance of refusing to speak no matter what, and there was nothing Bai Xiang could do about that.

After pressing her for a while to no effect, Bai Xiang left, letting her stay behind to cool off.

As she went, she did not forget to pick up the phone she had left on the side.

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The news broadcast playing aloud had not stopped. Bai Xiang headed back to her room along the corridor. To avoid disturbing anyone’s peace, she used the Vibration Art to gather the sound waves into a beam, ensuring that only she could hear them.

[We now interrupt with a special report.]

[Qingping Sword Dao, also one of the Mountains-and-Rivers-ranked Dojos, has performed excellently. The old Sword Lord Chu Weiping led his disciples and successors in fierce battle against the Void-Emissaries, completing three rounds in a single day without a single defeat…]

Bai Xiang’s steps halted.

She looked at the phone and caught sight of an unfamiliar old man floating in the air, the camera angle looking up at him from below.

His gaze was extremely cold. This was different from the habitual chill Bai Xiang herself often wore on her face. This was true indifference, true lack of concern.

When Bai Xiang noticed that the sword qi swirling around him was so faint in color that it was almost colorless and transparent, much like the Path of Qi, she felt a trace of melancholy.

Because she did not know this old man.

And yet, without knowing him, she could still tell from his Sword Dao realm and the characteristics of his sword qi that he must have accepted the gift she had given Qin Wuyang.

In other words, Chu Weiping had chosen to absorb back the “corpse” severed out as Qin Wuyang, re-gather all his insights into one source, sort them out anew, discard the stale and bring forth the fresh, and—under circumstances where the future of Sword Dao was no longer clear—draw on the Path of Qi to carve out a new road for Sword Dao.

At the same time, Bai Xiang raised her head as though she had sensed something. She quickly made her way to the emergency passage and, through the Tongtian Gate, came directly onto the terrace high atop the building.

Outside, night had already fallen.

Tonight there was no Loss of Order interference. The dark of night had spread normally like black gauze. Standing on the terrace amid the fierce whistling winds, Bai Xiang could vaguely see a tall, gaunt figure hovering in midair ahead of her.

The neon lights from below the building pushed upward, painting everything in a dreamlike purplish crimson.

By that light, Bai Xiang saw the figure clearly.

The visitor was indeed Chu Weiping.

Strictly speaking, this was the first meeting between a Great Yu Sword Lord and the Dao Master of Shenming.

“…”

“…”

The atmosphere stiffened for a moment before Chu Weiping moved first.

Slowly, he brought his hands together and bent deeply at the waist, giving Bai Xiang a saluting bow much like the one a disciple would offer a teacher.

“By receiving Dao Master Bai’s gift, I gained new understanding and advanced another step atop the hundred-foot pole.”

“I, Ping, offer thanks here for Dao Master Bai’s grace.”

Bai Xiang did not step aside. She calmly accepted the full weight of his salute.

Only after Chu Weiping solemnly completed the entire bow did his aura suddenly surge. The sword momentum and sword qi contained within him seemed almost ready to spill from his silver-white hair and beard and carve cracks into the void itself.

“The Sword Lord of Qingping didn’t come here merely to offer thanks, did he?”

Bai Xiang looked at him coldly as she spoke.

“Of course not.” Chu Weiping nodded. “Ping came to remind Dao Master Bai that if one day weapons are crossed between us, do not let our former bond weigh on you.”

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“So you intend to remain loyal to Sword Dao after all.” Bai Xiang inclined her head. “In the end, you still cannot walk out of it.”

Flash—

A streak of lightning cut across the night. More than a second later came the rolling rumble of thunder.

Drip.

Drip.

It had started to rain again.

The neon glow sank back down, and Chu Weiping’s expression retreated once more into shadow, impossible to see clearly.

Bai Xiang asked, “Working this hard, exhausting yourself for Sword Dao to the utmost… do you think the current Court will acknowledge it?”

Chu Weiping said nothing.

Bai Xiang continued, “The future of Sword Dao is a dead end. No matter how much you discard the old and bring forth the new, sooner or later it will have to merge into either the Path of Qi or Dao-Void Methods. One of those two roads must be chosen.”

Chu Weiping still said nothing.

Then I understand.

Bai Xiang closed her eyes and let out a turbid breath. Suddenly, with a ringing clang, she drew Feixiang Heaven and raised it before her in a sword salute toward him.

A matching clang came from the opposite side. Chu Weiping assumed the same stance, drawing his sword as well and returning the Sword Dao salute to Bai Xiang.

“If we meet again, I will not hold back.”

“Nor will Ping.”

“Take care, fellow Daoist.”

“Dao Master Bai, take care.”

The neon light rose again, brightening the night sky, but the figure before her was already gone.

“Elder Sister?”

Bai Zhuqing had been waiting a long time for Bai Xiang to return and could not help following the faint sense of her presence up here. The moment she passed through the Tongtian Gate, she saw Bai Xiang standing outside in the rain.

She hurried out and raised a hand to shield Bai Xiang from the rain curtain, then looked at her profile in puzzlement.

“Elder Sister, were you… waiting for a guest?”

“He already came.”

Bai Xiang suddenly smiled.

“He came already?… Then who was it?”

“Someone similar to me.”