Chapter 339 - The Missing Path and the Returning Realm

Chapter 339: Chapter 339 - The Missing Path and the Returning Realm

Blood darkened the corner of Shen Youran’s lips.

She wiped it away without changing expression.

Inside the secluded chamber of Silent Orchid Peak, spiritual energy moved through her meridians according to a circulation route that had not existed in the Heartless Sutra she inherited.

For several breaths, everything remained stable.

Shen Youran observed the movement carefully, adjusted one connection near the upper meridians, and guided the circulation forward.

The moment it reached the next junction, pain tore through her chest.

A meridian strained under the sudden change.

Shen Youran coughed.

Fresh blood scattered across the pale floor before her.

Her expression remained calm.

She stopped the circulation, examined the damaged pathway, and committed the failure to memory.

That route was wrong.

Shen Youran closed her eyes again.

She had already expected this.

Completing an incomplete cultivation method was never a matter of writing down whatever sounded profound enough. Every principle eventually had to become a real circulation route capable of supporting the body, meridians, mind, and soul.

A mistake on paper could be crossed out.

A mistake inside one’s body tended to be less forgiving.

Shen Youran had already torn apart her cultivation once in her life.

She had crippled the foundation that had once carried her to Void-Shattering and rebuilt herself from almost nothing for the sake of another path.

Compared to that, a torn meridian was merely inconvenient.

She resumed.

The Heartless Sutra she possessed had always been exceptionally stable in what it knew how to do.

The problem came whenever Shen Youran attempted to move beyond that state.

Her understanding told her the missing portion should allow what had been suppressed to return without regaining control over the practitioner.

Understanding the principle was one matter.

Finding a circulation capable of accomplishing it was another.

Shen Youran adjusted the route again.

This time, she allowed the spiritual energy to approach one of the pathways connected more closely to the soul.

The circulation held longer.

A faint change appeared in her perception. Something long muted stirred at the edge of awareness.

Shen Youran observed it.

The movement collapsed almost immediately.

Her Qi struck the wrong junction, and pain spread through several meridians at once.

She opened her eyes and coughed another mouthful of blood.

The blood on the floor was beginning to look excessive.

Shen Youran stared at it for a moment.

Her conclusion remained unchanged.

The direction was right.

Her route was not.

Eventually, she would find it.

If there was anyone in Radiant Sky Sect capable of reconstructing the Heartless Sutra through personal experience, Shen Youran believed it should be her.

She had not begun life on the Heartless Path.

She remembered what emotions had once felt like.

Or at least, she remembered the knowledge of them.

Happiness had once been warm.

Grief had once hurt in a way that could not be reduced to damaged meridians or a wounded body.

Affection had once made certain people more important than logic alone could justify.

Those sensations had faded as the Heartless Sutra deepened.

The memories remained, but increasingly as categories rather than experiences.

That difference was precisely why Ji Ruyue’s question had unsettled her.

She drew another breath and prepared to try again.

Just then, a knock sounded against the chamber door.

Shen Youran’s circulation stopped.

"Master."

It was Ji Ruyue.

Shen Youran opened her eyes.

"What is it?"

Ji Ruyue spoke from outside.

"Master, I asked Junior Brother Su for help."

Shen Youran remained still.

"He completed the Heartless Sutra."

Silence filled the chamber.

Ji Ruyue continued in the same even voice.

"He is recording the completed method and the necessary adjustments now. You do not need to continue testing the missing portions on yourself."

Shen Youran stared ahead.

For several breaths, nothing moved.

Her gaze eventually lowered toward the blood staining the floor.

She had spent the better part of the afternoon tearing at her own meridians in search of a route that Su Bai had apparently found before she finished bleeding on the tiles.

Strangely, that did not surprise her as much as it probably should have.

"Show it to me when he finishes."

"Understood."

Ji Ruyue’s presence withdrew.

The courtyard outside became quiet again.

Shen Youran remained seated.

Her eyes returned to the blood.

A rather unreasonable thought surfaced.

She considered it carefully.

Su Qingshan had brought his son to Radiant Sky Sect.

That son had proceeded to overturn one impossible problem after another.

Now, at exactly the point when Shen Youran reached an obstacle she could no longer ignore, Su Bai had somehow produced a completed Heartless Sutra.

Shen Youran closed her eyes.

"Senior Brother Su was indeed farsighted."

The conclusion was completely unsupported.

She accepted it anyway.

Su Qingshan had always been difficult to measure.

Perhaps, somehow, he had anticipated that Shen Youran would one day require precisely the kind of unreasonable solution his son seemed particularly talented at producing.

Shen Youran considered this for several breaths.

The explanation was absurd.

It was also considerably more pleasant than admitting that Su Bai had solved in a short time what she had just injured herself repeatedly attempting to reconstruct.

Her cultivation inexplicably felt smoother.

Shen Youran opened her eyes.

Apparently, even the Heartless Sutra could benefit from selective reasoning.

She swallowed a medicinal pill.

Warm energy spread through her damaged meridians, easing the strain while she returned them to their normal circulation.

There was no reason to continue experimenting before Ji Ruyue returned.

For once, Shen Youran allowed herself to wait.

It did not take long.

The chamber door opened some time later, and Ji Ruyue entered carrying a freshly recorded jade slip.

Master and disciple looked at each other.

Their expressions were almost identical.

Ji Ruyue held out the jade slip.

"Junior Brother Su said the completed method can continue from our present foundation. He tested its circulation and adjusted several routes to make the transition smoother."

Shen Youran accepted it.

Her spiritual sense entered the jade slip.

The first portion was familiar.

The Heartless Sutra unfolded exactly as she had practiced it for years.

As Shen Youran read deeper, the method continued beyond the point where their inheritance had always begun to thin.

Her attention sharpened.

The instructions were clear.

Painfully clear.

Several of the routes matched pathways she had attempted earlier.

The difference was that Su Bai’s record showed exactly where those paths should turn, which channels should remain closed during the transition, and how the later circulation prevented returning emotions from overwhelming the stillness established by the earlier stages.

Shen Youran read the complete method once, then again.

Ji Ruyue waited silently.

Shen Youran eventually lowered the jade slip.

"He was right."

That was all she said.

Ji Ruyue understood.

Shen Youran sat down again.

"Let me try it first."

Ji Ruyue did not object.

Her master had cultivated the Heartless Sutra far longer than she had. If there were subtleties Su Bai’s simulation had failed to reproduce, Shen Youran was the one most likely to notice them.

She stepped aside.

Shen Youran closed her eyes.

The completed Heartless Sutra began circulating.

The first cycle followed routes she knew intimately.

The second entered the transitional passages.

Shen Youran’s attention sharpened.

No meridian tore. No Qi resisted. The circulation reached the place where every attempt she had made earlier had collapsed.

This time, the method moved through it naturally.

Something changed.

The stillness inside Shen Youran did not disappear. Instead, it widened.

For years, the Heartless Sutra had maintained calm by forcing disturbances beneath the surface.

The completed circulation did something subtler.

It allowed those disturbances to exist while the mind remained unmoved above them.

Shen Youran sensed memories that had long felt distant.

Their emotional impressions were faint, but they were no longer immediately pushed away.

She observed them.

The cultivation continued.

One cycle became ten. Ten became dozens. At some point, Shen Youran stopped counting.

Ji Ruyue remained nearby.

The chamber gradually filled with a strange stillness.

It was different from the cold emptiness usually associated with Silent Orchid Peak.

There was no suppression in it.

The quiet felt natural.

When the hundredth circulation completed, something inside Shen Youran’s cultivation finally loosened.

A barrier she had approached many times without crossing trembled.

Shen Youran’s eyes opened.

Above Silent Orchid Peak, the sky darkened.

Clouds began gathering from every direction.

Ji Ruyue looked upward.

The pressure descending from them was unmistakable.

Shen Youran rose.

After rebuilding her cultivation from the beginning, the realm she had once discarded had finally appeared before her again.

Void-Shattering.

Ji Ruyue turned toward her master.

Shen Youran looked at the jade slip once more before handing it back.

"The method is correct."

She stepped toward the chamber entrance.

"Have the others on Silent Orchid Peak begin studying it with you once this is over. Do not rush the later stages merely because the path is complete."

Ji Ruyue nodded.

Shen Youran looked toward the darkening heavens.

"After mastery, the Heartless Path will need to be reconsidered from the beginning. What we thought was its destination was only part of it."

She paused briefly.

"But that can wait."

The first distant rumble of thunder crossed the sky.

Shen Youran’s white robes stirred as the pressure continued to rise.

"I have a tribulation to face first."

Ji Ruyue gave a small nod.

Neither woman smiled.

For the two of them, that somehow made the moment feel entirely appropriate.