Volume 1, Chapter 50 – The Sword Path

Is it really like this?

Cao Chuan leaned in to examine carefully and found that it was.

The noise had been faint because the corpse was at rest. Some holes had also been packed by small insects; whenever the night wind moaned through the jungle, the efficiency of this “skeletal devil-tone” was further reduced.

A chill crept over him. In that case it was hard to say whose body in the team had made the sound he heard at the time.

Could it have been Gu Yong?

Surely it was not me?

“Let’s get out of here!”

“Now!”

With the situation changed, Cao Chuan chose the safest course at once, hustling Bai Xiang back out of the dense fog, not even bothering with Gu Yong’s corpse.

They could have someone drag it back later; preserving themselves mattered more.

As for the lives of Li Yu and Han Zhifeng… he had not forced them to take risks. If they died inside, it would be their own greed for merit.

Once out, Cao Chuan raised the radio and called it in, relaying the discovery.

When he finished, he stared at Bai Xiang with something like awe.

Was Tao Shuohua not sending this person over just for gilding?

Even after revising his estimate upward along the way, she had looked at one corpse, not even the autopsy report, and drawn that conclusion on the spot… compared to her, who was the expert here?

“They said the autopsy team may have overlooked…” Cao Chuan kept his voice as level as he could. “The holes in the bone were not unnoticed, but no one made that hypothesis; they all assumed insects bored them.”

“So how did you find it?” He looked at Bai Xiang.

“My hearing is sharper than most,” Bai Xiang pushed the credit to her five senses.

This was not boasting. Her inner circulation no longer limited itself to the organs “as written.”

The five viscera?

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I have established circulation through the whole body, ‘all methods cultivated in concert’; why would I woodenly nurture only the organs named in a book?

The five senses—hearing, sight—were being nurtured and strengthened together. Every sense now outstripped an ordinary person’s by a wide margin; saying she caught the “sound” by keen hearing was not wrong.

In truth the largest credit still belonged to her spirit-soul ability.

Back facing the Demon Pool “Shenli,” whenever taint drew near, her heart aspect and heart flow would heat, like the blaze of the great sun, setting her blood to boil.

Just now, at the first thread of that faint sound, heat flared within again. That was a plain-as-day prompt that the “sound” was wrong; how could she have ignored it.

“Plausible,” Cao Chuan accepted at once. “Time was too tight to set up a proper autopsy room; they did it in a noisy field environment, so the findings were not professional.”

A proper autopsy room must be quiet and ventilated; with those two alone, a body carried out of an illusory-realm Demon Pool could not hide the secret of bone-hole resonance.

Looked at this way, the so-called illusory realm might be caused by this strange music.

Because you keep hearing it at your ear yet can never find the source, and fail to realize it comes from within you, from your own bones, so hallucinations arise?

At that thought, Cao Chuan could not sit still.

He had reported anyway. He took Bai Xiang straight back to camp, found a particular white tent, and inside requested, “We want a Class-B screening.”

Several people in lab coats were writing. They clearly knew him as State Chancery staff, put down their work, and ran a full panel of tests, finishing with a special scanner to take bone films.

“You read it like this…” A young woman doctor warmed to Bai Xiang, showing her how to check the key points when the films came out.

Bai Xiang listened closely; she needed to know whether such films could capture her internal anomaly.

The doctor soon finished the gist; Bai Xiang confirmed that simulated heart flow fooled the machine as well.

So heart flow really was a special kind of energy.

She turned it over in her mind.

To cultivate the inner scene and the heart aspect by heart flow seemed a uniquely human faculty.

Yet compared to the interference and destructive power of an outward aspect, it was too weak; and cultivating the heart aspect did not grant longevity. That was why, more than a millennium ago, the people of Great Yu abandoned it as a main path and used it only to aid Sword Dao.

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Then this “qi-force”… what kind of interference and destruction could it wield?

After the tablet, her overall nurturing progress had surged; by her estimate she had passed twenty percent.

At this pace, as long as she took a tablet daily and the effect did not diminish, ten days at most; in ten days her heart aspect would finish its metamorphosis and she would formally reach the realm of transforming qi.

Truly a divine medicine.

She only did not know whether, on this path, she could still forge a sword later.

The original text said she could, and Bai Xiang agreed, because the inner circulation did keep demonic aura and power from ever clashing with heart flow.

But without practice she could not be one hundred percent sure.

The doctor was still trying to chat her up when a coolness suddenly licked Bai Xiang’s right palm.

As if a tongue had appeared from nowhere and ran across the center.

She kept her face smooth, sent the doctor off on an errand, stepped out of the white tent alone, and went to a secluded corner before raising her right hand.

Sure enough, pooled-blood marks showed under the palm.

This time it was more than before, actual beads of blood seeping through.

My hand was on the grip just now…

She immediately lifted the cloud-pattern wooden sword to the light. Narrowing her eyes, she saw that the clouding on the hilt had turned entirely blood-red, a little uncanny under the lamp.

She stirred her spirit-soul, tried to extend along the arm. The resistance was simply gone.

Everything is a zero-to-one breakthrough. With the feeling gone, she at once poured spirit-soul into the sword body.

She began gingerly, afraid of scuffing, then quickly grew deft, feeding in roughly half her spirit-soul and trying to drive the wooden sword.

First impression: sensitivity sharply increased.

The sword seemed an extension of her body; every basic form linked far more smoothly than before.

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Was this not another form of a body outside the body?

The instructor who gave that first lecture—the woman in the suit… apart from lacking a Demon Pool, what she was doing differed little from the forging tableau that woman described.

She checked the blade again and swung a few more times, listening closely to the hum as it cut the air. She was sure: the blade’s strength, keenness, and resilience had all improved markedly.

This was not from the spirit-soul infusion; it was spontaneous enhancement from the sword body’s absorption of old blood.

This student’s sword, a four-faceted Han-style in pattern, had quietly begun its metamorphosis alongside her.

What is more, Bai Xiang felt a powerful urge.

Like an instinct rising from the depths of her soul.

Inviting her.

Tempting her.

To feed heart flow as well, through her palm… into the cloud-pattern wooden sword.

She had no chance for now.

With a swish, the flap lifted.

Cao Chuan came out, sword on his back and report in hand. Seeing Bai Xiang, he stepped straight to her, clasped his fists, and bowed his head.

That is to thank me…

With that attitude, does he have a problem with his bones.

“Found micro-holes,” Cao Chuan said, fear still clear in his tone. “Luckily there are only three in total, and none go through, so they cannot sound. One surgery will fix it.”

That made Bai Xiang curious instead. “That Mr. Gu, and you, Officer Cao—when you used to explore Demon Pools, did it never occur to you to carry items to resist contamination?”

“What item could work better than a swordsman’s sword?” Cao Chuan shook his head.

With a metallic clang he drew the long sword from his back, revealing its true form.

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An eight-faceted blade, as expected.

Bai Xiang eyed his build; the heavy blade did suit him.

“Chenyuan,” Cao Chuan called. The blade breathed out a plume of black vapor.

It coiled and spread, congealed midair into a chill ribbon of water, circled him once, then was drunk back into the steel.

“I have only just reached Condensing the Aspect and cannot stabilize Chenyuan outside,” Cao Chuan spoke frankly to Bai Xiang now. “But with Chenyuan, a Demon Pool’s taint finds it hard to seep straight into me.”

“Because Chenyuan is also a Demon Pool.”

“Every Demon Pool has a unique field. When different fields collide, outcomes vary with relative strength.”

He shook his head. “For a Demon Pool to slip past Chenyuan without a sound—following His Excellency so long, this is my first time seeing it.”

I see.

Bai Xiang nodded, thoughtful.

“I cannot thank you only with words.”

He thought a moment, asked her to wait, then soon returned with a hand case.

He opened it before her, showing a set of black combat gear in fitted slots.

From bodysuit to matching vest, joint guards, ballistic plates, protective mask—everything was there.

“Black Water Serpent Max,” Cao Chuan said.

“Unisex cut. I brought it for family… I believe they will understand.”

“Take it.”

“On a battlefield of lead and fire, a stab-resistant suit is not much use.”