Volume 1, Chapter 7 – Tracing It Back to the Source

Zhou and Tang were taken away by Ma Bolan, leaving only Bai Xiang in the empty classroom.

They hadn’t confiscated her wooden sword. Full and idle, she cleared a patch of space, assumed the Sword Contemplation posture, balanced on the tip of one foot, body seated in midair, and laid the wooden sword across both knees.

It was a pose an ordinary person absolutely couldn’t pull off.

But she held it with ease, even with a touch of airy lightness—as if her body had no weight, suspended in midair.

And the posture wasn’t just for show.

Bai Xiang noticed that whenever she took this stance, the heart‑aspect seed in her inner vista sent some current coursing faster through her body—speeding up how it nourished her flesh.

Strictly speaking, I already have one foot in Nurture the Spirit.

She thought.

The Know‑the‑Self realm is actually brief. Once you cross the threshold and enter the Dao, everything until the right moment to forge your sword is “Nurture the Spirit.”

It was only “half a step” because she didn’t yet know the training methods for Nurture the Spirit.

Relying solely on the heart‑aspect to nourish is too slow. You need inside and outside together—herbs tailored for human absorption, paired with the right drills—to make a leap.

Even if Shenming Sword Dao had lost its former glory and even misplaced the forging lineage, it still had methods for Nurture the Spirit.

The reason they weren’t in Bai Xiang’s memory was that she’d been unable to enter the Dao before; fearing that teaching her too soon would make her over‑eager, Bai Shengju had deliberately kept them back.

So then—is Zhou Ji too weak, or am I too strong?

She opened her eyes, a little puzzled.

In Nurture the Spirit, the heart‑aspect continually syncs mental power to nourish the body. The longer the nourishment, the more your physique improves—techniques and drills included—the tricks of exertion and taking force, medicines both internal and topical.

Given Zhou Ji’s background—entering a year early—his family would never have shorted him on externals. The medicines would be top‑tier, rare treasures you couldn’t buy outside.

With inside‑outside reinforcement and a one‑year head start, plus the edge of sex, even without a sword his physique should far outstrip hers. One punch shouldn’t have been so easy to take.

It seems my entry into the Dao wasn’t quite like other people’s…

Carefully replaying the process, Bai Xiang finally confirmed it: her physical condition wasn’t what a fresh initiate should have.

Other things could be chalked up to sharper reactions; even the later modulation of taking force could be credited to insight. But Zhou Ji’s very first punch—she actually received it.

“An amplification from mental power, then.”

Entering through Know the Self is a process of fully knowing the body, freeing it, and mining its potential. Digging so deeply for potential briefly triggers that mysterious state called “return to the innate.”

What is “return to the innate”?

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Right after entering the Dao, people experience a period of unusual sensitivity. That’s the heart‑aspect seed just planted, trying to awaken long‑dormant functions in the body.

For example, an infant’s severed finger can grow back—that’s a gift only children have; it disappears as you grow.

But cut off a finger right after entry, and a person can regenerate it quickly—though it will drain a lot of energy.

Or the mysterious “innate fetal breath”… a legendary breathing method no one has ever fully mastered; only in that brief span can you taste it for an instant.

Because it shows many innate traits, people call that state “return to the innate.” How long it lasts varies—seconds for some, hundreds of seconds for others.

Buddhist and Daoist schools each explain it differently—one as a past life manifesting, the other as rediscovering the true self. In that state, people have powerful intuition, even sensing impending calamity out of nowhere.

It was by that that Bai Xiang noticed something wrong with the thermos.

Back to the point.

In Bai Xiang’s understanding, mental power in the entry process is like a shovel—the sturdier and sharper the shovel, the more potential you dig out.

My mental strength and will are far beyond ordinary. That’s like others using shovels to dig—while I’m using an excavator…

At the absurdity of it, the corner of Bai Xiang’s mouth lifted.

She had figured it out—there was basically only this possibility.

Her mental power, willpower, and focus were too strong, so she dug out an astonishing amount of potential in one go; so much potential then seeped right back in and affected her body, giving her a bigger physical bump at the instant she entered the Dao than most people get.

She still couldn’t match Zhou Ji, but defense takes less strength than offense.

And once in the Dao she could command her body perfectly, so even if her strength—and other aspects —had increased, she could still control herself with ease.

Without a comparison, she might not even have noticed.

So she practiced and thought in the dark—until suddenly, her phone rang.

Bai Xiang fished it from her pocket and hit accept.

“Xiang’er.”

A hoarse, elderly voice came through.

Bai Xiang recognized it—Bai Shengju.

In memory, Bai Shengju was already well into his eighties and nineties—hair gone white, face lined, even his back starting to stoop.

But he truly had treated the original owner well—so well the Bai family sometimes grumbled.

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Reading through the memory of the old man’s care and comparing it with the abandonment, betrayal, and loneliness of her previous life, waves rose in Bai Xiang’s heart.

“Grandpa.”

She pressed down her emotions and forced out the two words.

“Mm!”

Bai Shengju didn’t hear anything amiss. He continued, “Zhang Longze told me the situation. Those two confessed they didn’t intend to kill you—just took someone’s commission to teach you a lesson.”

Bai Xiang paused. “Was the target the dojo?”

“Huh?” On the other end, Bai Shengju sounded surprised. “I hadn’t even gone over the cause and effect. You guessed they weren’t aiming at you?”

“In Qingya Sword Dao’s eyes, I’m just a talentless waste,” Bai Xiang gave her analysis. “I’m not worth targeting.”

“You’re very clear‑headed.” After a moment of silence, Bai Shengju said, “It wasn’t aimed at you.”

Bai Xiang said nothing. She waited for him to tell the truth.

“…It should be Chai Xuan, or Chai Jingyuan.”

Bai Shengju began to lay it out.

“Shenming Sword Dao lost its transmission. In my youth, unwilling to be trapped here, I went out to seek teachers and learn skills. Chai Jingyuan and I studied under the same master—he was the master’s youngest disciple.”

“The day he showed up with his daughter brought back many things, but soon I realized something was off. Our ties weren’t deep enough to bring him from Daizhou all the way to Qizhou for a visit.”

“I suspected he was after something in the dojo. I kept an eye on them the whole time, but found nothing unusual.”

“Only when the news came that his daughter was top scorer in high school did I realize he had indeed gained something here.”

“Grandpa,” Bai Xiang mused, “you mean Chai Xuan advanced so fast because Chai Jingyuan stole a treasure from the dojo.”

“I examined the girl’s roots—decent enough—but to surge from the third tier of Nurture the Spirit to Forge the Sword in half a year—I’ve never heard of that.”

“So I pulled strings to investigate.”

“I suspect my inquiries spooked Chai Jingyuan,” Bai Shengju snorted. “I only had suspicions, but with a guilty conscience he chose to strike at you to warn me—that would fit my reading.”

A warning, then.

Bai Xiang considered it.

Indeed, if she had actually taken the laxative, once Bai Shengju heard and checked the details, he would wonder why Qingya Sword Dao targeted her.

The two sides had no vendetta. He’d naturally think of who he might have offended lately—and whether that party had ties to Qingya Sword Dao.

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“I’ve heard that Chai Xuan has apprenticed under Liang Qiusheng of Qizhou University’s Sword Institute.”

Bai Shengju’s tone grew more sour.

“Before joining Benling Sword Dao, Liang Qiusheng came up through the Qingya line here in the Chilong Circuit. With that direct lineage, how could I not suspect them!”

“Then what do you plan to do, Grandpa?” Bai Xiang pressed. “Retaliate?”

At that, Bai Shengju didn’t answer for a long while.

Retaliate?

Why did Chai Jingyuan dare this—why dare a warning?

Because he thinks he’s latched onto Liang Qiusheng, onto Qingya Sword Dao of the Seventy‑Two Paths, onto Benling Sword Dao—one of the Nine—and that a tiny Shenming isn’t worth a thought!

So what if you know!

Without evidence—who will believe you?

“Xiang’er…”

When he spoke again, Bai Shengju’s voice had grown even hoarser.

“I know entering the Dao was no easy thing for you. Your beating Zhou Ji shows I misjudged you before. You’re excellent… deeply reserved, late bloomer… the finest disciple of my Shenming dojo!”

“But this matter is not fit to dig into.”

“The Chai girl’s moment has come. I’ll have your uncle stop investigating Chai Jingyuan. We’ll leave them be for now.”

“Next, I want you to come home this weekend. I want to see you properly, and plan the road ahead for you.”

A few brief sentences, yet they held restraint, calculation, and care.

“Okay.”

Bai Xiang agreed, and the old man’s tone relaxed at once.

“Now about how you handled this… Zhang Longze has promised you an accounting. But you did show a bit too much edge.”

After hesitating, he decided to tap her lightly.

Entering over the summer was good—but showing it this early might draw more targeting.

“I don’t see it that way.”

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Bai Xiang pushed back.

“Oh? Then tell me how you see it.”

“Grandpa, getting me into No. 1 must have cost a lot of favors.”

Bai Shengju said nothing—that was assent.

Shenming Sword Dao had no favors to draw on in the Chilong Circuit.

These were Bai Shengju’s personal favors—and those his Bai relatives on the political‑business path had pulled.

“Between Shenming and the Qingya faction, No. 1 certainly knows which weighs more,” Bai Xiang laid out her thinking evenly. “I don’t want to slap a presumption of ‘fairness’ onto No. 1 ahead of time—so I want them to see my value.”

“…It seems moving you out to live alone recently was right,” Bai Shengju thought, then sighed. “Just one summer, and I hardly know you anymore.”

To defeat a veteran sword student within months of entry—Bai Xiang was now a near‑lock for an elite university.

That Zhang Longze had handled things so fairly surely owed no small amount to Bai Xiang’s talent.

Bai Shengju was already deeply moved, but he still underestimated her.

He had no idea she hadn’t entered over the summer—but had “Known the Self” today.

Nor that she didn’t trust No. 1’s leadership to be objective and fair—that she had deliberately struck someone to draw the Inspectorate, using the “imperial hounds” to check the “nobles.”

If he knew these inside lines, he might question everything.

“Did Principal Zhang say what was up with that poison?”

Bai Xiang turned to the other result of the test.

After all, the Chai family leaning on Qingya to mess with her was one thing.

A laxative turning into poison for no reason—that was another.

“He didn’t.”

At the mention of the poisoned water, Bai Shengju’s tone turned grave.

“This is strange.”

“I suggest you move out tonight.”