Chapter 631: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (7)

Ximen Surin’s mornings are usually early.

While the sky is still pitch-black, she wakes, settles her mind in quiet meditation, straightens her attire, refreshes the incense on the altar, and prays for the well-being of her disciple and her sect.

Then she goes, back straight, to the main hall, folds her legs beneath her, and circulates energy with breathwork, waiting for her disciple’s morning greeting.

She waits with not a single stray strand of hair out of place—thinking, if an old master lets herself go just because she has aged, what will that look like to a disciple?

Thus begins a long day.

A very long day.

Her disciples are older now, and each has duties in their respective schools.

So not everyone can pay respects every single morning; they take turns showing their faces—no more than that.

Once they’ve greeted her at dawn and left, they’re busy with administrative work and teaching their own pupils.

Which leaves her, in those generous, leisurely hours bought on kindness alone, to chew over the scriptures in meditation seeking the thread of insight, to swing the sword, to step through footwork, to devote herself to training.

At least when the young disciple she took on late in life was staying, the day didn’t feel so long.

From morning, that now-grown girl would beam, dripping that utterly loose, spendthrift smile, shoving her face at her master with not a shred of fear.

And no matter how much scolding she got, she never fixed that naturally big stride—those outrageously flighty steps—going “hehe” with that feather-brained laugh.

So the day would begin with nagging that had practically become a greeting.

After a few exchanges of sparring and questions and answers to deepen her cultivation, it would be noon before she had hardly swung a few times; evening before they had exchanged more than a few words.

But the wayward disciple soon roamed outside again, and then the days stretched out without end.

In any case—

Habits long steeped in the body almost never change.

Which is why, even though the hour was still black, Ximen Surin’s spirit naturally came awake.

Usually she remains lying just as she is and slides into meditation until her mind becomes pristine and luminous.

But—?

A heavy weight pressed her body.

Something like soft threads tickled the corner of her lips.

Right at her ear, a rolling, low snore.

Ximen Surin’s eyes flew open.

She saw an unfamiliar ceiling.

She lifted her head—and there were lustrous black strands of hair, and between them a nape so white it stood out, translucent.

An unfilial disciple girl, of all things, was sprawled atop her master’s body, pressing her down and puffing that rolling snore right into her ear.

Ximen Surin was at a loss for words.

Regardless of woman or man, people do not, as a rule, sleep with their bodies laid over another person.

Because it’s uncomfortable.

Unless you’re three years old, who would choose to climb onto a person to sleep when there’s a soft, plush bed?

A human body is surprisingly hard; there are bones under the skin, so as soon as you put weight on it, it jabs and catches here and there.

All the more—should we call it impressive, or remarkable?

Still, astonishment is astonishment, and when a foolish disciple is this insolent, she must pay the price.

So Ximen Surin clenched her fist.

Twelve-grade nuclear fission qi detected.

Warning. Warning. Nuclear launch detected.

And then—

The thermonuclear fist that was just about to fire... paused.

A memory, flashing like a life-in-a-moment, skimmed through Ximen Surin’s mind and halted that solemn ignition of destruction.

“Master? You’re going to sleep already? I prepared water for washing your face—you should at least wash.”

“The day is so cold I haven’t shed a single drop of sweat. Why wash? Besides, I’ve never once neglected it in my life—if I skip a day, what does it matter? Isn’t it needless fuss?”

“Aw, but you feel so refreshed when you wash. Then tonight, your disciple will attend you.”

Then a warm towel gently tickled her; heated skin prickled; a fragrant scent (soap) hummed under her nose; the splash-splash of water somehow sounded lively.

“Now, Master—hm! If the water doesn’t drain from the wall niche, it’ll sting.”

At this point, the face of Ximen Surin, lying on the bed, went suddenly, utterly red with embarrassment.

Wasn’t she the picture of a senile elder with dementia being cared for by a granddaughter?

And afterward, she lay there perfectly at ease while her disciple swish-swished a towel through her hair, enjoying those light tugs on the scalp.

“Master, then, your disciple will withdraw.”

“You—how can you leave your master so coldly and go?”

Then she grabbed her, pulled her in, and held her tight.

That’s right. Qing was innocent!

It was the liquor. That damned liquor.

Whether she overdrank for the first time in ages, or was tipsy on the giddy Spring Festival night-market mood—

Or perhaps, being a master, she’d always been stern and grave, and liquor, as they say, draws out a face one keeps hidden in the breast.

A so-called master, aged as she was, made a drunken scene—how could she face her disciple now, and what would the disciple think?

It was a dawn that made her legs itch with the urge to swing.

Just then—

“Mmnn... uuh, what time is it...?”

Qing—easygoing in temperament but hypersensitive to presences—murmured in a not-yet-fully-awake voice.

Then she rustled—“ah!”—and planted both hands, propping the torso that had been pressing her master down.

With a head-width of space between them, the pretty disciple’s face filled her view.

In that way, the whole world became her disciple’s face.

And all across that world, a smile of pure gladness blossomed, bashful and bright.

Ximen Surin, as if bewitched, gazed, mouth fallen open without realizing it—as if looking at the rarest thing under heaven.

The disciple, scandalously, was braced with both hands on her master’s shoulders, leaning over.

Qing chirped in that uniquely lovely voice of hers, soft and close:

“Master. Did you cough?”

Though the world outside was black, neither master nor disciple is bound by such things.

Ximen Surin is a Translucent-Realm expert, and Qing’s night vision is beyond human to begin with.

“A-hem. How long are you going to stay like that?”

At that, the insolent disciple flopped to the side—only to snuggle back in again.

She had the gall to hug her master’s waist, even pressing cheek to cheek.

“You. Why are you lying down again?”

“Mmm, it’s still the middle of the night. We’ve got a while till sunrise. Isn’t savoring the aftertaste of scant sleep in the dark exactly the bliss of life?”

Even so, the gaze brushing her cheek felt ticklish; without looking, Ximen Surin could see it—warm, affectionate, sparkling.

Ximen Surin, pretending otherwise, let out a big sigh of relief.

Then, suddenly—would Qing, because of last night’s disgrace, look down on her master or take her lightly?

Of course, Qing had always been so gentle by nature that she’d never known how to be properly overawed by her master.

This, simply put, is because what is original in a person’s root is thus.

But would the other disciples be the same?

Her being austere and difficult to approach had been her way of setting an example as a master, yet even if she were not so, would her disciples grow licentious or shun their master?

This—precisely because of affinity, because the time up to now has pooled and set into a hard foundation.

Is a face shown in drink truly contrary to a person’s root?

But if, for a purpose, one has long adopted a form as a formal shape—does that drunken disgrace have the power to change recognition?

If we call that not a person but a sword—

A person’s native drive is to swing.

Call “sword art” the nature that takes on form; to another’s eye—hmm.

Unsorted koans circled in her head.

At the Translucent Realm, one does not leap realms in a flash from a single enlightenment like those still far short of Super-transcendent.

It’s not about the “depth” of enlightenment so much as embodiment and experience.

Martial arts, developing over long years, hold subtlety in themselves; those mysteries the body had used without the mind’s knowing—when the head and the heart truly understand and embody that experience, the realm can leap forward in great strides.

After all, no matter how excellent an old martial art is, the heights of the ancients did not surpass today’s overall level of martial learning.

In the past, even a so-called absolute could be hailed “foremost under heaven” at the Harmony level.

By the Translucent Realm, one often holds an insight higher than the art’s own founder.

Thus, a Translucent-Realm martial artist is a pioneer and forerunner widening the whole field and base of martial learning.

How easy could it be to seek an insight that did not exist in the world?

Which means that seizing the koan at all is already a monumental turning point.

Chew it slowly, again and again, and hone it—like tempering a blade—until it’s clearer.

Grrr-rroll. A dainty sound tickled her ear.

In that briefest moment, the disciple had already dozed back off.

Ximen Surin slid out of the bed and pulled the quilt up over Qing.

Without knowing it, the corners of her lips had softened.

****

Seol Iri spent ten days in Kunlun—literally hell training—doing nothing but accumulating energy.

She stacked jars of fasting grain and water right beside her; when hungry she pulled one out and chewed, when thirsty she drank; even sleep she replaced with circulation, focusing solely on building the inner energy she lacked.

It was ten days of truly nothing but accumulation.

And then, at some moment—

Seol Iri sensed that the time for decision had come.

A faint furrow formed between her brows.

Had Qing seen it, she would have read it as a face of extreme concentration.

In Seol Iri’s still-meager dantian, true-energy gathered around the Cold-Aspect core and clumped into a large mass.

A single, not-so-impressive knot of true-energy.

Then, suddenly, in one go, all that energy shot out as-is—the speed of it, like a fired shell, fearsome.

This was ejecting inner energy at a speed even one’s self could not control.

Name the taboos a martial artist must never commit, and this act is always among them.

If you just blast true-energy out violently like this, the ungoverned current will careen through the body, ripping blood and qi meridians apart.

At best it ends in mild internal injury; at worst the dantian can shatter. It was a perilous act.

But why?

In truth, this was one of the all-or-nothing training methods of primitive antiquity—staking a martial artist’s life.

The torrenting energy surged past the perineum, reached the back of the spine—past the lumbar gate and the spine’s center, past the divine pivot, the great vertebra, and the jade pillow—to the crown, ramming, without losing speed, into the hard wall sealing the upper dantian—

BOOM!!!

Seol Iri’s waist bent like a bow.

From both nostrils, blood spurted out almost like a jet; legs still tied in full-lotus, she couldn’t even unlace them before she toppled, convulsing in large and small spasms like an epileptic.

“Uck— haa... huk... gh—kkk...”

Piteous sounds kept leaking as she forced air into her lungs.

She writhed for a long while.

Then Seol Iri raised her torso again and firmly wiped under her nose with a swipe.

Which only smeared it and made the mess worse—

She drew breath again—fuuu—and once more concentrated her inner energy.

She over-revved the gathered power, forced another ejection; the clumped current blasted along the Governing Vessel up the back of the spine—BOOM!!!

Her waist bent like a bow again.

With a strangled cry, she vomited bright red blood from nose and mouth at once.

She lay on the floor, gulping, dragging breath, writhing—yet somehow the corners of her mouth were cocked in a grin; anyone seeing her would suspect a possessing wraith.

But Seol Iri’s face was all sunlight.

Burst capillaries had reddened the whites of her eyes, and still—what delighted her so?

Because the “crack in the head” was on the verge of collapse.

This referred not to the skull or brain’s function, but to the thick barricade blocking the body’s two greatest channels, the Conception and Governing Vessels.

Blood kept streaming from her nose; light-red tears ran from her eyes; the mouth dried with an iron tang—yet Seol Iri pushed herself up again.

Along the Governing Vessel, the qi network was ragged, and the pain was horrific.

The Governing Vessel is the chief thoroughfare by which energy flows from the dantian and diffuses through the body; damage there brings crippling sequelae to a martial artist.

Seol Iri did not care.

And once more.

Ready—fire!

In that instant, lightning struck inside Seol Iri’s head.

What was blocked shattered to pieces; an indescribable coolness filled her skull.

Sounds that wanted to burst out unbidden—she had to clamp her own mouth shut to hold them in.

Ssshhhhhhhh—

A pure white cold streamed out of Seol Iri’s entire body.

Frost clung so thickly over her that the clothes she wore froze solid and then cracked apart into crumbs.

Cold filled the training room wall to wall; frost filmed white over floor, walls, and ceiling.

In the midst of it, Seol Iri felt some primal, mighty current restoring her body—felt a powerful vitality from who-knows-where flooding every blood vessel and channel of the eight extraordinary meridians.

Bones itched, muscles spasmed, skin rampaged on its own—yet the sensation was strange rather than unpleasant.

It was exactly the feeling of shedding the bones and changing the body.

This was the forced breakthrough of the Conception and Governing Vessels!

A crude, extreme secret of primitive, ancient martial arts that drives one into Super-transcendent by force.

Is the very attempt dangerous, the Governing Vessel inevitably injured, the true-energy and original qi damaged along the way?

But if you succeed, not only do you recover through rebirth of bone and flesh—your body is newly born, optimized for martial arts.

And your true-energy and original qi come back larger than before.

Back where Qing comes from, they phrase this kind of gamble like this:

Take it first—and pay it back!