Volume 4, Chapter 177 – Defection (2-in-1)

Outsiders were not allowed into the kitchen at Wangyun Tavern, but there was no problem with simply going over and saying you wanted something to eat.

Ignoring the odd look the chef gave Bai Zhuqing’s two blackened eyes, Bai Xiang ordered a huge spread of meat dishes and meat soups, with only a few vegetables to cut the grease and round out the flavor, then took the girl into the kitchen canteen and ate their fill.

“It’s not as good as Sister’s cooking!”

“Less nonsense. Keep whining and you can go back to instant noodles.”

“Ying ying ying!”

After putting Bai Zhuqing down a peg, Bai Xiang scooped up the little white fox and lifted it in front of her face, staring at it almost nose to nose.

“Ying…” Animals were the most sensitive of all to things like killing intent and baleful aura. Even though Bai Xiang had kept hers under control quite well, this little thing was clearly no ordinary demonic beast either. The lively posture it had shown earlier while clamoring for meat wilted in an instant. Its two pointed fox ears drooped as it looked at Bai Xiang pitifully.

“So you already have a fairly concrete sense of self.” Bai Xiang judged as much from its fear.

Most animals did not possess any concrete sense of self. Some canines and corvids were a bit smarter, but only to a limited extent. At the very least, before they had been raised and trained for a while, they would not be this good at reading expressions and moods.

If it could do this much, then this little white fox possessed a rather developed awareness. In other words, it was capable of remembering specific things and quickly drawing lessons from them.

If that intelligence was something it had awakened innately, then it likely was not far from awakening true sapience.

She took some meat and fed it to the fox. From Bai Xiang’s own sense of it, the little white fox did not particularly like this kind of food. It was only eating out of fear of her, and was even pretending to enjoy it greatly.

Forget it.

Bai Xiang dug the minced meat back out of its mouth, fed it a little water, then took out a small mountain ginseng from her sleeve. Tearing off the roots, she fed them to it one by one.

That immediately made the little white fox much happier. Curled up in Bai Xiang’s arms, it gnawed away at the ginseng roots with happy little crunches, while its dangling tail swished back and forth.

So envious.

Sitting across from them, Bai Zhuqing saw the scene and for a moment did not know whether she ought to envy Bai Xiang, or envy the white fox curled in Bai Xiang’s arms being fed by her.

After they finished eating, Bai Xiang hauled the girl back upstairs.

“Go bathe,” she ordered.

“And then come upstairs and dual cultivate with me.”

Bai Zhuqing simply assumed Bai Xiang was going to dual cultivate with her again and use that “mysterious method” to treat her, so she happily scampered into the bathroom at once and even tried to coax Bai Xiang into joining her.

“Sister, aren’t you coming too?”

“If Sister wants to save time… then why not come together?”

That actually made sense.

Bai Xiang thought it over for a moment, then gladly accepted her younger sister’s invitation.

Half an hour later, she came out of the washroom carrying a mentally exhausted girl whose body was practically limp from fatigue, and tossed both her and the little white fox onto the bed in one move.

Bai Zhuqing let out an absurdly exaggerated yelp, then landed face-down and backside-up, sprawled there without the slightest desire to move.

The little white fox copied her, giving a few ying-ying cries before lying there motionless as well.

Was it really that serious?

Bai Xiang raised a brow.

It was not as though she had done anything bad to either of them. She had merely used the Vibration Art to probe their inner Body-scapes first.

Especially you, she thought, looking at her younger sister. Shouldn’t you be used to this already?

After thinking about it, the issue seemed to lie with “instinct.”

Qing’er had… in order to increase her cultivation efficiency, apparently carried the mentality of sparring and training over into everyday life as well?

Wasn’t that basically the method-acting school for film actors?

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Thinking, So that’s it, and, As expected, laziness really is human nature, Bai Xiang reluctantly had no choice but to take the lead herself for the moment and begin treating the bruises on her sister’s body.

By now, the two of them were already very practiced in that process.

Entering their exclusive cultivation mode, Bai Xiang used her soul-abilities to repair the various bruises and hidden injuries that she herself had beaten into Bai Zhuqing. Then, after thoroughly digesting the large amount of food and medicinal pills they had just consumed, she let the girl lie there and sleep for a while.

Then she woke her up right on schedule and took her back to the practice grounds for more sparring.

After repeating roughly that cycle three times in a single day, Bai Zhuqing, who had already fused instinct into her very nature, could not hold on any longer.

She simply collapsed onto the ground and refused to get up. No matter what Bai Xiang threatened her with, she lay there like a dead dog, utterly motionless.

That was probably about her limit.

That’s enough for today.

Bai Xiang hauled the girl upright, took the little white fox with her, and returned to the room, where she bathed them again.

Yes, “them.”

She had checked long ago. The little white fox was female.

Once everything was done, she tossed the girl and the fox onto the bed to rest. She herself untied her bathrobe, changed into her underclothes and a set of pure white inner robes, then added a blue silk skirt patterned with python motifs over them.

Though it was already deep into the night, when everyone ought to have been resting, she still deliberately put on clothes for going out.

There was a reason for that.

She felt there was, in all likelihood, at least an eighty percent chance that someone would come looking for her tonight.

Without stockings, my legs feel oddly light…

She had originally already settled her mind to summarize her cultivation, but the strange sensation beneath her robe and skirt made Bai Xiang get up again and pull on a pair of black silk pantyhose.

Then she directly took up a full-lotus Sword Contemplation posture in the open space beside the bed, drew Feixiang Heaven over and laid it across her knees, floated her whole body into midair, and instantly entered a meditative state.

From her battle with Zhang Dai, the greatest gain on the surface seemed to be the God-Slaying Sword Array and the great quantity of treasures Tianfu Mountain had collected. But in Bai Xiang’s view, the most precious gain was actually the combat experience she had obtained by fighting someone at that level.

Before this, she had looked through materials many times, and the conclusion she kept finding was that body cultivators held a low status in the Upper Realm. That was not just because body cultivators expended more resources and had shorter fated lifespans. It was also because their destructive power was very limited.

It was easy enough to understand.

The Immortal Venerable Jiuli who had previously come to assassinate Bai Xiang was already formidable with fists and feet, and with his pool art could count as a master in his own right. But if he were compared to any cultivator who had formed a Field Dao, he would instantly come up short.

And the difference would be stark.

Compared with a Field Dao, which could casually influence the world’s primordial qi and create wide-ranging, spectacular interference, the damage a person could inflict with mere arms and legs simply was not enough to look impressive.

If Immortal Venerable Jiuli had truly fought people like Chang Hongyuan or Yang Chen, he probably would not even have been able to close the distance. He would have been controlled and blasted to death from a hundred meters away.

That was the predicament every cultivator who followed the path of body cultivation had to face.

In the past, it was not as if no one had doubted the future of this path. Talented cultivators had made hypothetical projections, believing that if one could fully manifest and refine all the human body’s hidden orifice-meridians, then the unified explosive power produced in the end might well rival pool arts.

That inference was clearly based on the ancient human race, and there really were rumors that ancient humans could cross the void by relying on their bodies alone, their flesh unimaginably strong.

But all such attempts had failed.

It was not only because of issues like “the Hidden Spirit Orifice does not emerge” and “the Heavenly Pillar Meridians do not manifest.” Throughout history, there had been only a tiny few people who could fully manifest and refine the other orifices to completion.

Bai Xiang’s own sense of the matter, however, was this… those people had been headed in the wrong direction.

She was not sure what exactly the ancient human race had been, or whether, properly speaking, they were even the same species as the humans she understood.

But as far as her own senses were concerned, the greatest gift of the human race in this world lay in the fact that their bodies possessed a naturally deeper understanding of the metaphysical, which in turn made it easy for them to open up extraordinary powers like the inner Body-scape and mind-force.

If body cultivation could not be fused with that gift, if one could not twist all of one’s power into a single strand, then pure body cultivation really was of limited effect.

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She did not suffer from that problem.

Once the Three Flowers were achieved, her essence, qi, and spirit nourished and supplemented one another. It did not reach perfect numerical uniformity, but it was close enough.

Under those circumstances, all of her body-cultivation research within the Origin Realm would ultimately feed back into her qi and spirit as well, lifting both together and automatically raising her cultivation on the Path of Qi.

The bigger turning point, however, had been the force-stacking method she had devised.

Daoist Lingquan had created a pool art, the Yuling Dragon-Gathering Constellation Grand Array. Its principle was modeled on the Heavenly Gang order of a small world, multiplying output by lighting up stars.

This was not something he had created wholly through personal innovation. That law of multiplication was already inherent to Yuling Heaven itself.

Every so often, one more star in Yuling Heaven would light up.

Once all thirty-two stars were lit, Yuling Heaven would instantly draw down a new wave of heavenly yuan, its concentration multiplied thirty-two times over, to replenish the heavenly yuan it had consumed internally.

This was a phenomenon.

Like a waterfall.

It belonged to the category of natural phenomena.

So if its essence belonged to nature, if it was a law born from the exchange and transformation of heavenly yuan, then why couldn’t I, having comprehended the Five Dragons of Heavenly Water Method, learn from it as well?

Bai Xiang had paid no attention to the pool art as summarized by Daoist Lingquan. She had almost discarded every ingenious part of it, retaining only a natural concept, then inserting that concept into the Five Dragons of Heavenly Water Method and trying to simulate that law of nature within her own body.

Stars?

The one hundred and sixty-four hidden orifices that I have already manifested and refined may not be any less than one hundred and sixty-four lit stars.

Because her soul-abilities granted her absolute control over her body, Bai Xiang had not needed much effort at all to make experimental progress.

And her battle with Zhang Dai had proven even more clearly that this line of inquiry was correct.

“Force-stacking method isn’t a suitable name. I’ll change it. Let’s call it Burning Stars instead.”

Because the process of lighting up the orifices and squeezing out power to stack it really did resemble burning the many orifice-stars within her body.

This method was not easy for ordinary people to master. Even Bai Xiang herself did not dare keep the Burning Stars secret art active for too long.

That thing burned lifespan.

Just using it for that short while had burned away one hundred and eighty years of her life. Compared to that, side effects like weakened blood essence and mental fatigue were not even worth mentioning.

But Bai Xiang had Feixiang Heaven.

This natal Dao sword did not merely slaughter and refine the souls of living beings. One must not forget that, in essence, it was an extension of Bai Xiang’s body.

It too belonged to the concept of “Bai Xiang.” Her soul-abilities could be poured into the sword, and the gains from its refinement could likewise act upon Bai Xiang in sync.

Because of that, after Zhang Dai died, his remnant soul was refined and instantly replenished her lost lifespan. All negative effects were swept away, and she could sustain the Burning Stars secret art for another stretch of time.

“Ordinary body cultivators, no matter how well they train their bodies, have no means of transmitting their destructive power outward. Against cultivators who have formed a Field Dao, they’re at an enormous disadvantage.”

“Only I can have the Burning Stars secret art drive up my void-traversing speed at the same time, and together with weapons and sword arts specialized for close-quarters killing, even someone as strong as Zhang Dai was cut down by me in two sword strokes, with almost no ability to resist.”

The more Bai Xiang summarized, the more she felt she was walking the correct path.

At present, Burning Stars had heavy side effects, so it was not yet suitable to be formally incorporated into the Path of Qi system.

But it could still be modified.

At worst, she could lower its power somewhat and bring the consumption down with it.

One hundred and sixty-four stars, compared with the total of three hundred and sixty-one, only counted as lighting up half of them. In terms of Origin Realm cultivation, that could only be regarded as mid-Origin Realm.

And yet it already possessed explosive power of this degree. Compared to Burning Stars, all those widely circulated explosive body-cultivation arts were not even fit to carry its shoes.

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Bai Xiang was in extremely good spirits.

She had proven her Dao, avenged herself, and even reaped a great haul of treasure along the way. Her mood now could truly be called excellent.

At that very moment, Bai Xiang sensed someone rapidly approaching out in the corridor.

The visitor was clearly not hostile, and made no attempt to conceal their aura. They simply stopped at her door and stood there motionless, taking the posture of, I’ll just wait for you here.

The corners of Bai Xiang’s lips lifted. She knew she had guessed right.

Putting on a new pair of boots, she opened the door and saw Zhu Qingluo waiting outside.

“Come with me,” Zhu Qingluo said in a low voice.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Bai Xiang followed her to the practice grounds. Seeing Zhu Qingluo turn on all the lights and throw the empty, desolate interior into full brightness, she still said nothing and merely waited for Zhu Qingluo to open the subject herself.

“I really am the Lord of Rebirth Hall.”

Zhu Qingluo laid her cards on the table immediately.

“Strictly speaking, I used to be.”

It was as though she had finally put down some heavy burden. Once she began speaking, the words poured out in a torrent, and she laid bare many things Bai Xiang had asked her about before, things she had always avoided discussing.

“There was a problem inside the Sacred Court.”

“People represented by me, and another group of Hall Lords, wanted to carry out the Sacred Lord’s will, to keep drawing knowledge and refinement from the human path, which meant imitating the human path, guarding order, and establishing a whole series of rules, even morality, in order to offset the influence of Loss of Order.”

“But another group had a different idea. They believed that while that overall line of thinking was acceptable, we couldn’t keep rigidly following the old ways forever. There had to be innovation.”

“And then… well, you can probably guess the result from there.”

Zhu Qingluo raised a hand and covered her face.

“They gradually became radical. They came to believe that the Loss of Order interference caused by void tribulations was itself a kind of heavenly will.”

“They believed… that sentient beings should not resist it, but instead should try to make contact with it, and explore some… new possibilities.”

That was almost the same twisted logic as Blood Soul Heaven.

Bai Xiang understood at once.

In truth, she had guessed as much long ago. With the Demon Court as powerful as it was, the only way Blood Soul Heaven could have grown that strong was if the Demon Court had permitted it.

After all, the Thirty-Three Heavenly Seas and their thirty-three Hall Lords meant that behind the scenes there had to be at least thirty-three Venerable Saints.

And that wasn’t even counting the ones who had stepped down.

Or the candidates.

Add it all together, and that sort of colossal power would be more than enough to crush the whole world. Their indulgent attitude toward many matters was anything but normal.

“In the struggle, I… lost someone who was extremely important to me.”

Zhu Qingluo’s voice gradually dropped.

“The thing I want to borrow from you is meant to help me create a new Field Dao.”

“A Field Dao that can make the Six Paths of Reincarnation from myth into reality.”

“I want to reshape all this chaos, to return everything to… how it was before it had begun to collapse.”

After saying that much, Zhu Qingluo fell silent.

She was waiting.

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Waiting for Bai Xiang’s answer.

“There are things in all this that you only remembered in the last two days, aren’t there?” Bai Xiang asked her.

“…Yes.” Zhu Qingluo nodded.

“Doesn’t it make you curious why you couldn’t remember them before?”

Zhu Qingluo frowned and turned her head away, deeply resistant.

“Let me say it.”

Bai Xiang let out a soft breath.

“That fox is a lifeform unique to Douyun Sea.”

“Douyun Sea is the jurisdiction of Rebirth Hall. It could even be called its base of operations.”

“Its existence means that an intention from Douyun Sea is interfering with the main world. You guessed that much, but you couldn’t understand why. Rebirth Hall, which should have stood completely empty, was somehow transmitting that kind of signal outward.”

“You didn’t realize that before, so you never dared think about it.”

“Whether your true self and your current stance are really one and the same.”

At those words, Zhu Qingluo’s body shuddered violently.

“If you hadn’t developed that sense of impending danger, you wouldn’t have told me everything so clearly.”

Bai Xiang shook her head.

“You’re only afraid.”

“Afraid of the final answer.”

“That’s true,” Zhu Qingluo said hoarsely, effectively admitting the point to Bai Xiang.

“If not for that, I wouldn’t have told you any of this.”

“But it’s also the only thing I can do now…”

“Bai Xiang.”

“Venerable Lord Bai.”

“Just take it as me begging you… begging you to lend me the precious jade for a time!”

Working up all her courage, Zhu Qingluo started to kneel on the spot.

But suddenly a current of qi braced itself beneath her knees, forcibly supporting her and preventing her from touching the floor.

She stared at Bai Xiang in shock, only to see those two cold golden eyes.

“You’re in too much of a hurry,” Bai Xiang said.

“Nothing is certain yet.”

“Even if I gave the thing to you now, you still wouldn’t make it back alive from Douyun Sea… from Rebirth Hall.”

“Then what do you intend to do?” Zhu Qingluo asked urgently.

“Wait a little longer.”

But the Bai Xiang before her had already turned away.

“Take it as my guarantee to you.”

“At least wait until the tournament is over.”