Volume 5, Chapter 73 – Sacrifice (Two-in-One)

The fragment was tiny, but it was still enough to push forward the first phase of the “sword-refining” experiment.

Bai Xiang did not even plan on taking the stairs. She was about to tear open the void and go upstairs to cultivate on the spot.

“Wait!”

But just as she raised her hand, a voice suddenly called out from behind her.

“Hm?”

Bai Xiang paused and cast a sidelong glance toward that flash of red skirt, watching Bai Zhuqing take out a redwood box from her jade token and walk over with her face flushed crimson.

“This is… while the ‘Item-Seeking Order’ was in effect, I attached a few other requests to it as well. I also consulted some skilled craftsmen, and in the end made it myself.”

“And since there are basically never any outsiders here or in Zhengyuan Palace, if Elder Sister is walking around this tower or the palace normally, then you could consider changing into these…”

“I see.”

Bai Xiang did not show the slightest surprise. She simply took the box.

There was no need to guess, really.

Her younger sister’s face was red to that extent, and her heartbeat was clearly abnormal too. It could only be some flirtatious sort of thing, probably stockings or shoes, or perhaps a newly remade pair of Golden Cicada earrings.

With that in mind, Bai Xiang gave the item inside the box a quick sensing sweep, then suddenly frowned and arched a brow.

This was actually…

When she opened the box, what appeared inside were two sets of gold ornaments.

One set was indeed a pair of Golden Cicada earrings. Whether in material or craftsmanship, they were obviously extremely fine. This did not even seem to be ordinary gold.

The other set was the remarkable one. It consisted of four gold rings engraved with dragon patterns. They looked somewhat like gold bangle bracelets, but there were four of them. Presumably, the extra two were meant to be worn on the ankles.

No wonder she had specifically emphasized that they were for wearing at home.

Closing the box, Bai Xiang turned fully around to look at her younger sister. She found the little thing twisting both hands together, her gaze darting away, not daring to look at her. Her cheeks were so red they looked ready to steam.

Without the Illusory God’s influence, she was even more genuinely adorable like this.

“You put your heart into this.” Bai Xiang reached out and brushed aside Bai Zhuqing’s hair. Her gaze deepened as she fixed her eyes on those long lashes, then suddenly leaned close to her ear and whispered, “I like it very much.”

“El…”

Bai Zhuqing froze at first. Then a brilliant radiance burst into her eyes.

She had just started to say something more when the weight pressed close against her chest suddenly vanished, and Bai Xiang herself had already disappeared.

Ah… as expected… nothing could possibly matter more than cultivation…

Honestly. She could clearly have gone straight upstairs to cultivate without opening the box or giving any response at all, but instead she had to tease me first before suddenly slipping away.

Grinding her teeth, Bai Zhuqing felt that she was almost getting used to it by now.

Still, the gift had been accepted, and Bai Xiang had plainly said she liked it very much. So after only a brief moment of complicated inner conflict, Bai Zhuqing’s mood quickly turned bright again. She turned and strode out of the main hall.

“Sword One.”

She called out while standing at the doorway.

“Master.”

A figure instantly flashed out from behind a corridor pillar. It was the female sword attendant from before.

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“How is the matter I had you handle progressing?”

“We have located two Zhenyuan sword blanks in total,” the female sword attendant reported immediately. “One of them appeared at an auction held by the Silver Sea Merchant Guild five days ago and was bought for an enormous sum by a mysterious person cloaked in a black hooded robe. The other is part of the collection of the federal congressman ‘Kirk,’ and is being stored in the basement of an estate on the western outskirts of ‘Karona State’ in the Federation.”

“The Silver Sea Merchant Guild?” Bai Zhuqing frowned. “With those Yu dogs leaking information outside, how could they possibly not know what prototype Her Majesty’s sword came from? And yet they actually dared handle a lot like that privately instead of notifying me in advance? They’ve got some nerve…”

“We’re already contacting Young Master Meng,” the female sword attendant said hurriedly. “It’s just that he still hasn’t replied.”

“This should have nothing to do with him.” After a moment’s calculation, Bai Zhuqing narrowed her eyes. “He was never cut out to be a businessman. He’s too honest. This was probably his mother’s doing.”

“Contact the Silver Sea Merchant Guild in my name and question them directly,” she ordered the sword attendant. “At the same time, pull in our forces from the various regions and track down that man in black. Then have Starwater gather some of its federal connections and verify whether the news from Karona is even real.”

“Master suspects the source?”

“Sword blanks are public information.” Bai Zhuqing let out a cold laugh. “Although this thing will most likely no longer play any truly crucial role for Her Majesty, with the example of Her Majesty’s sword right there before everyone, the value of every remaining sword blank is bound to skyrocket. It’s not something a tiny little congressman like him could hold on to.”

“There’s something fishy here. Keep investigating.”

“Yes!”

“And how is Bai Chenyu, by the way? He actually went a whole day without coming to pester me?”

“Young Master Chenyu…” The female sword attendant looked hesitant. “Apparently he’s ill.”

“Ill?” Bai Zhuqing bared her teeth.

“He’s ill.”

“Hah. He’d better be.”

With a sigh, Bai Zhuqing looked at the female sword attendant kneeling before her, waiting for orders, then waved her hand. “Have the others keep an eye on Yu Daoyong. And remember to test the effect of that broken tower of his. If the results are bad, shut him down for me. I do not have that much money to waste on him.”

“Yes.”

“You may go.”

“As you command!”

After giving instructions on several important matters, Bai Zhuqing returned to Listening-to-Rain Tower. Using qi, she moved the table and chairs outside and set them directly at the entrance on the first floor, planning to work there for all three days.

If Bai Xiang was going into seclusion, then naturally someone had to guard her retreat. Bai Zhuqing trusted no one else with that work. She had to do it herself.

Not long after she sat down, a gust of wind suddenly flashed before her eyes. A lingering afterimage swayed once, and Li Huiran’s aloof face appeared.

“I came to see the Dao Lord,” Li Huiran said stiffly to Bai Zhuqing.

Then he paused. Perhaps feeling that speaking that way while depending on someone else’s hospitality was a little impolite, he added, “I came to seek the Dao Lord’s guidance on a few questions.”

“You’re one step too late.” Propping her cheek on her elbow, Bai Zhuqing narrowed her eyes at him. “The Dao Lord is in seclusion. No one is allowed to disturb her for the next three days.”

“Hm?”

Li Huiran froze, then frowned. “Then what about the consultation we agreed on?”

He was another cultivation lunatic…

Bai Zhuqing frowned inwardly, then thought for a moment and asked, “You’re asking about qi methods, right?”

“Naturally.” Li Huiran nodded.

“If it’s qi methods, then you can ask me first.” Bai Zhuqing tipped up her chin. “Anything I can’t answer, you can ask the Dao Lord three days from now.”

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“You?”

Li Huiran’s brows knit even more tightly. His face was full of distrust toward Bai Zhuqing.

Bai Zhuqing did not bother explaining. The hand that had been supporting her cheek suddenly moved to her temple and, right in front of Li Huiran, pulled out a mass of white qi flow from within. It rapidly formed into a “sphere” in midair, like a lump of fog that shot straight at him.

What was that thing?

Reason told him that this little girl was far from being his match, yet his instincts sent a warning of danger. Li Huiran drew his sword in an instant, and clang clang clang clang rang out as he exchanged several passes with the tiny fog-ball in midair.

After several moves like that, he split the fog-ball apart with a single sword stroke. Yet instead of striking back at Bai Zhuqing, he simply stood there with a deep frown, as though he were contemplating something.

“Condensation… transformation… properties… so that’s how it is.”

Nodding to himself, Li Huiran let out a breath of stale air, cupped his fists and bowed to Bai Zhuqing, then turned around and left.

Even martial lunatics had their endearing side.

Twining a strand of her black hair around one finger, Bai Zhuqing quietly summoned a sword pellet with her other hand. It split from one into two, from two into four, until four tiny spheres rested in her palm and spun continuously.

After waiting ten years, and with most of her time having to be spent on state affairs, it was true that her cultivation had not advanced as dramatically as it might have otherwise.

Ten years ago, she had been on the verge of the Golden Core Realm. Ten years later, she had only just broken through to the late Golden Core stage.

The “Golden Core Realm” corresponded to the “Dao-Origin” of demon arts. It was still below Venerable level, and with nothing but the Shenming Sword, a divine weapon of that caliber, she could at best bully a few water venerables.

But whenever she had time to spare, she would study the two swords Bai Xiang had left behind, and in the process she had comprehended quite a few exquisite methods.

Leaving cultivation aside and speaking only of technique, Xiang Xian might not necessarily surpass her. Handling Li Huiran over these three days would be more than easy enough.

Still, Li Huiran’s purity also threw the complexity of other people’s hearts into sharper relief.

Bai Zhuqing narrowed her eyes and thought again of the Silver Sea Merchant Guild.

Before the Void Tribulation, Meng Qiaosheng had chosen to defy his mother Meng Wanyu’s orders, in effect placing a bet on the Shenming Sword Dao. After the Void Tribulation, with the Xia dynasty established and the Bai family rising to power, he naturally reaped a rich reward: at present, the Silver Sea Merchant Guild was the only civilian organization besides the Great Xia Transport Directorate permitted to operate a multi-channel logistics system.

And yet, Bai Zhuqing always felt that Meng Wanyu’s heart did not seem to be here.

She had met that smiling woman who hid blades in her smile a few times, and every time she came away feeling uncomfortable.

Was it inertia?

People like Chang Hongyuan were similar. Their relationship with this side had not even been bad back then. Clearly, staying here would have meant better prospects, and Bai Zhuqing certainly would not have treated them unfairly, yet they had still chosen to go north or west… Was that, too, the inertia of sect upbringing at work?

Because sects valued inheritance.

One’s own skills were passed down to disciples, or through family lines, to sons and daughters, to sons-in-law. They believed that bonds like those were the closest and most reliable.

But Great Xia was different.

She supposed she had been influenced by Elder Sister as well… It was precisely because she had once heard Elder Sister describe certain visions that, after the first year of Zhengyuan, she had tried to make the “university” the second core of the base city.

And the greatest difference between the “university system” and the “sect system” was that the former forbade the monopolization of knowledge.

Why had she dared, in the early phase of the “university system,” to split apart the many peaks of the Shenming Sword Dao and send them either into existing universities or simply have them open new academies of their own to teach and hold classes?

Because under that kind of brand-new mode of cultivation, “dojos,” transmission channels whose essence was no different from sects, could already be cast aside.

Too outdated.

And far too inefficient.

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Take the most basic qi-refining art. If you holed yourself up on a mountain and practiced for a year, could the results really compare to studying on campus?

On campus, there were the best teachers and the best instruments. From the very beginning, each class of martial students had a specialized team recording their data. Medicinal meals, dietary supplements, weekly examinations—every requirement could be met in every aspect.

…That kind of model seemed naturally opposed to sects.

Sects hated universities because universities shattered the sects’ monopoly.

A situation like this seemed to be the first of its kind in all history. A vision that could never possibly have been realized in any dynasty or any age of the past had been brought into being by Elder Sister, by the Dao lineage she had spread.

Those people had to be furious.

And they must have been desperate to overturn this flourishing age once again and use the flesh and blood of the myriad people to rebuild their lost glory.

“I won’t let you have your way.”

Still toying with the sword pellets, Bai Zhuqing turned her eyes toward the sea of clouds on the horizon.

“Meng Wanyu.”

“You had better not entertain any crooked thoughts…”

…

On the other side, Bai Xiang had already begun “refining the sword.”

The steps were simple. She had already run through them in her mind countless times. The only thing missing had been a crystalline substance like Heavenly Stem Precious Jade, something enough to distort rules on an objective level.

Bai Xiang directly summoned Feixiang Heaven. Her right hand gripped the familiar hilt tightly, and the flesh and meridians in her palm connected directly to the sword hilt, using those channels to pour the jade fragment from her Inner Body-scape into it.

This should have been Feixiang Heaven’s first time directly devouring Heavenly Stem Precious Jade.

Though it was only a fragment, and in size not even a few dozen times as large as that little yellow jade from before, the sword still immediately conveyed a surge of excitement. With a hum, a blood-colored ripple of light trembled across its body, and from the guard to the edge, it quivered without cease.

Bai Xiang deliberately waited a bit longer. Once she confirmed that Feixiang Heaven had completely devoured the Heavenly Stem Precious Jade, and at the same time that unique authority—a sensation like “a blank sheet of paper upon which one could paint anew”—had surfaced in her heart, only then did she boldly and fully pour most of her consciousness into the sword and begin altering and reconstructing its Inner Body-scape.

This task was incomparably intricate. It was nothing like using her soul-abilities on herself, something that could be done in a single thought. It required constant, uninterrupted carving and refinement, creating the structure of a living being bit by bit, from the tiniest nerve-filaments all the way to marrow, flesh, and blood.

To be honest, this was no less than creating something out of the void.

The Divine Palace Realm did not possess such an ability, so Heavenly Stem Precious Jade had to be consumed to trigger it.

That was also why Bai Xiang had flatly said she needed three days.

For those three days, her mind had to remain wholly invested in the sword. Every second of every moment had to be sustained at high intensity.

This was a recasting.

She looked forward to her own concept becoming whole once more.

…

The scene shifted, crossing thousands of li in an instant. A blur of speed-lines froze before one person, revealing Rongyin’s gloomy face.

Today was the day Tao Sicheng and her younger brother were being discharged from the hospital. Rongyin had come to pick them up, only to discover that Tao Sicheng had secretly practiced cultivation and thrown her qi channels out of alignment, leaving her body with slight internal injuries.

“I think I told you not to cultivate on your own while you were here,” she said to Tao Sicheng.

“Sorry.” Tao Sicheng also knew it was her own fault. “I was just a little too anxious…”

If you were treating that person as your imagined enemy, how could you possibly not be anxious?

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Rongyin bared her teeth but said nothing. She simply moved the two of them into the car at high speed, sat down in the driver’s seat herself, and stepped on the accelerator toward the northwest.

“Where are we going now?”

Tao Kangyuan was still weak and asleep in the back seat, while Tao Sicheng kept watching the scenery along the road, her expression wary.

“I’m taking you to meet the people who can make decisions,” Rongyin said.

“Make decisions? You mean… our higher-ups?”

“Something like that.” Rongyin nodded.

“And while we’re at it, we’ll also take a look at that pack of idiots. Judging by the time, they should have reached the place already.”

“?”

Tao Sicheng was utterly baffled, with no idea what exactly Rongyin was talking about.

“Ah, that’s actually part of a sacrificial plan,” Rongyin said.

“Our god has not yet fully awakened. Our integration… is to truly awaken Him and obtain that favor once again.”

“And what does that have to do with sacrifice?” Tao Sicheng narrowed her eyes dangerously.

She did not like that word.

Although she might be a genius of the Li people and therefore stand to gain enormous benefits, she had still grown up in the modern Eastern Xia. Her experiences and way of thinking were closer to those of a modern person, and deep down she actually held a faint contempt for primitive tribes like these.

To put it simply, she did not think much of these primitives. Her current docility existed only because she lacked the power to resist and, even more, because she needed to borrow this strength.

“Sacrifice is sacrifice. What do you mean, what does it have to do with it?”

Rongyin frowned and glanced back at her.

“You should count yourself lucky.”

“If you didn’t have this talent, your fate would not differ in the slightest from those ‘pure maidens.’”

“…Can I know how exactly this is done?” Tao Sicheng asked.

“Incense offerings, faith, and bloodline of the same source,” Rongyin replied. “Only those can accelerate… His awakening.”

“And right now… ‘that’ has not yet begun to burn, so our faith is very difficult to transmit there. That means we can only use bloodline of the same source.”

“We have always been excavating and searching in every region for descendants with even the thinnest traces of that bloodline. The purpose is to lure them onto the path of seeking the Dao and guide them before the temples.”

“And after that?” Tao Sicheng pressed. “Once you guide them to the temples… what do you do to them afterward?”

“Afterward?” Rongyin arched a brow.

“I’m wary of her, so I can’t explain it too clearly to you.”

“But with your intelligence, you should be able to guess, shouldn’t you? How something like bloodline would be passed on to that kind of existence.”

“There should be corresponding legends on this land as well…”

Tao Sicheng’s face went somewhat pale. In an instant, her mind filled with strange tales such as “inviting the god into the body” and “divine conception,” and goosebumps rose all over her skin.

At the same time, in the distant northwestern desert, the mercenary team led by the middle-aged merchant had already gone deep into the ruins, using their torches to illuminate a deep and shadowy tunnel.