Chapter 25

That night's dinner was sweet potato porridge. After peeling and cutting the sweet potatoes into chunks, they were cooked together with rice to make a thick porridge. Two bowls were slurped down with a salty sauce, barely filling the stomach. It was said that the inner disciples of the Xian Du Sect did not eat such earthly food. To nurture their Dao embryo and refine their sword seed, they mostly practiced fasting, chewed on pine seeds, drank mountain spring water, and absorbed the wind and drank the dew. The earthly food was too turbid and not conducive to cultivation.

Xu Li assigned the tasks of chopping wood, fetching water, cooking, and cleaning to Yue Zhi Lan, and everyone thought it was a joke. According to tradition, the disciples of the Qi, Lu, and Zhang lineages were responsible for the meals for ten days each. However, Yue Zhi Lan always offered to help, and the on-duty fellow disciples were happy to let him do the work. After a few words of thanks, they left him to toil alone in the woodshed. The benefit of this was that although the disciples of the Lu and Zhang lineages looked down on him, they at least remained polite on the surface.

Weak, spineless, and willing to degrade himself—this was the impression Yue Zhi Lan gave. No one knew what he was thinking, and no one saw through his hidden intentions.

Qi Yunhe came every five days to guide his disciples in cultivating the "Taiyi Foundation Scripture."

Opening the "Postnatal Acupoint" is the first step for a sword cultivator, with the so-called three minor barriers and one bottleneck. The three minor barriers refer to perceiving the existence of the elemental energy of heaven and earth, sensing the nature of the elemental energy's generation and transformation, and drawing the five-elemental energy into the body. The bottleneck refers to using the elemental energy as a drill to open the acupoint.

The five disciples under Qi Yunhe had different situations. Yue Zhi Lan was a postnatal turbid object, and Wei Shiqi cultivated the Moon Howling Technique; neither needed his guidance. Qin Zhen had exceptional talent and made rapid progress, passing the three minor barriers of "perception," "sensation," and "introduction" on her first attempt. She seemed to have no difficulty with the bottleneck of "opening the acupoint," and the Tian Tu and Zhi Gou acupoints had already shown signs of movement, which made him marvel. The Song brothers, one with an affinity for wood and the other for water, had somehow failed to sense the corresponding elemental energy.

Qin Zhen's seven "Pre-natal Acupoints" were scattered along two meridians. After much deliberation, Qi Yunhe ordered her to choose one and start by opening the Zhi Gou acupoint on her right arm. The geothermal fire beneath the Ku Ji Spring was no longer sufficient to provide the abundant Fire Qi. He instructed Wei Shiqi to take his junior sister to another boiling spring for cultivation.

Days passed, and the trial disciples at the foot of Tian Du Peak gradually became familiar with each other. Xu Li and Xin Laoyao were gone, and without these troublemakers, they got along better. Wei Shiqi and Qin Zhen spent more and more time on Tian Du Peak, occasionally descending the mountain—sometimes Wei Shiqi alone, sometimes both of them together—always in a hurry. They would stay overnight, or sometimes not even that, and after a brief conversation with their fellow disciples, they would return to the mountain.

Each time they descended the mountain, Wei Shiqi brought back some game: mountain chickens, wild rabbits, deer, and wild boars. Yue Zhi Lan was responsible for cleaning and preparing the game. The mountain chickens and wild rabbits were torn apart and cooked into soup or porridge, while the deer and wild boars were split open with a wood axe and roasted over a fire. Each person could get a piece to satisfy their hunger. Some of the trial disciples, envious, tried to hunt game themselves but were stung by bees, gored by wild boars, and returned empty-handed nine times out of ten.

Different people have different thoughts. Some, seeing that Qin Zhen, though young, was a beauty and always with Wei Shiqi, began to gossip behind their backs. The Song brothers, hearing this, were very indignant and reported it to their senior brother. "They ate our game and still said such things, how shameless!" Wei Shiqi just smiled it off.

The geothermal fire beneath the Ku Ji Spring on Tian Du Peak was beneficial for drawing Fire Qi, which was not a secret. After the disciples of the Lu and Zhang lineages, who had an affinity for fire, started cultivating the "Taiyi Foundation Scripture," they would go to the Ku Ji Spring to try to draw Fire Qi into their bodies. By the time they reached Tian Du Peak, Wei Shiqi and Qin Zhen had already left the Ku Ji Spring.

The boiling spring Qi Yunhe mentioned was located in a mountain hollow a hundred miles east of the Ku Ji Spring. The spring bubbled, and the steam rose like thick smoke, emitting a pungent sulfur smell that made one want to vomit. The surrounding area was barren and devoid of life. Despite the desolate and harsh environment, the Fire Qi was exceptionally abundant. Qin Zhen cultivated on a green stone in the upwind direction, only moving away from the boiling spring during breaks.

The boiling spring water could not be drunk, so they had to fetch drinking water from a mountain stream several miles away. However, with the boiling spring, cooking bird eggs was easy. Wei Shiqi even came up with a way to stew meat. He cleaned a wild boar's stomach, filled it with wild boar meat and mountain stream water, tied it with tree bark, and hung it in the spring to cook for several hours until the meat was done.

Wei Shiqi often left, sometimes for half a day, sometimes for a day and a night. Each time he returned, he was exhausted and fell asleep immediately, as if he had endured great suffering. Qin Zhen mustered the courage to ask him what had happened, but Wei Shiqi always patted her head and said it was nothing, just cultivation, and told her not to worry. Could cultivation be so difficult? Qin Zhen could not imagine.

Time passed without the sun and moon, and Qin Zhen finally opened her first postnatal acupoint. Fire Qi surged into the Zhi Gou acupoint, forming a small vortex. She was overjoyed and eager to tell her senior brother, but after waiting for a day and a night, Wei Shiqi still did not appear. The large blue dog came twice, leaving a few mountain chickens and then leaving. The boiling spring bubbled, and the sound was monotonous and dull. She had no heart to continue her cultivation, and she looked up at the white clouds in the sky, thinking, "Is my senior brother somewhere, looking at the same cloud as me?"

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