After the Great Dao Died

Two days passed.

Chen Lingxi stood at the entrance to the Martial Arts Hall in the West Courtyard. Morning light slid down the eastern roof ridge and fell across the bluestone steps, casting a thin, warm wash of yellow.

He did not hurry inside. Instead, he waited at the foot of the steps for the gatekeeper to announce him.

Two days was neither long nor short.

His Concealed Edge Method was already practiced to proficiency; the strand of cyan qi in his dantian was wrapped in an exceptionally thin barrier, leaking not the slightest trace of its presence.

His Cyan Edge Method had also progressed. Unleashing it now consumed about ten percent less spiritual qi than when he first learned it, and the cyan gleam at his fingertips had grown visibly denser.

The only trouble was how slowly his spiritual qi recovered. A full night of breathing exercises restored barely half of it.

Before long, a white-haired old man came out of the Martial Arts Hall.

The old man had a hunched back and a stern face.

He raised his eyelids and glanced at Chen Lingxi. His cloudy eyes gave nothing away; without a word, he simply beckoned to him and turned back toward the foyer.Chen Lingxi followed him in.

The Martial Arts Hall was the same as ever. Seven or eight young disciples were practicing their forms, their shouts rising and falling as the wind from their fists kicked up dust from the floor.

As Chen Lingxi walked down the corridor, the sounds of their practice gradually died away.

Someone dropped his stance and wiped the sweat from his neck with a towel, his gaze locked on Chen Lingxi’s back.

Another nudged his companion with an elbow and jutted his chin in Chen Lingxi’s direction.

A few simply stopped moving altogether, crossing their arms and leaning against the pillars with undisguised sneers on their faces.

Chen Lingxi recognized those looks.

The day Jiang Yuan publicly examined his bones and declared his aptitude far superior to everyone else in the courtyard, the West Courtyard disciples had marked him. He had later heard that Zheng Qingya sulked for days afterward, practicing his forms an hour longer than anyone else each day as if bottling up a surge of energy to prove something.

’Is it because I, a mere official bondservant, have better root bones than Zheng Qingya—the Martial Arts Courtyard’s finest—that they refuse to accept it?’

Chen Lingxi ignored their stares.

Two days ago, he might have spared them a passing glance.

Now, their provocations felt like watching people throw punches through a fog—vague and indistinct, even the sound muffled before it reached him.

He had seen Lin Suri manipulate clouds and mist, and he had watched Lu Baizhong command lightning.

After witnessing such existences, looking at these boys shouting and fighting for their lives on the training ground made him realize that both they and he were nothing more than frogs at the bottom of a well.

The only difference was that he had at least caught a glimpse of the light above the rim, freeing him from any urge to squabble with them.

’I wonder how effective this medicinal bath will actually be.’

Chen Lingxi had come today for the monthly medicinal bath Lin Suri had promised him.

The bathhouse sat in the deepest part of the Martial Arts Hall.

The room was small, with four walls of bluestone and moisture-resistant wooden slats laid across the floor. In the center sat a waist-high cypress bathtub.

A layer of fine linen lined the bottom of the tub, scattered with an assortment of medicinal herbs that Chen Lingxi could not identify.

A small charcoal stove burned beneath the tub, its fire roaring enough to keep the medicinal broth bubbling.

Steam rose from the water, shrouding the entire room in a thick, fragrant fog of medicine.

Without a word to waste, the old man pointed at the tub. ”Get in. Close your eyes and rest your mind. Use your vital blood to guide the medicine through your entire body, and soak for a full shichen.”

With that, he hunched his back and left without waiting for Chen Lingxi to reply, pulling the door shut behind him.

Chen Lingxi stripped off his clothes, stepped across the wooden slats, and climbed into the tub.

He lowered himself into the water, rested the back of his head against the rim, and closed his eyes.

The medicine seeped in remarkably fast!

A wave of warmth spread from the soles of his feet all the way to the crown of his head.

His fascia and muscles relaxed inch by inch, and a warm current seemed to drift slowly through the marrow cavities of his bones.

Chen Lingxi circulated the vital-blood technique from the Seven Forms of Halting War, guiding the medicinal power through his body.

His vital blood was already thicker than it had been two days earlier, and now, stimulated by the bath, it flowed even faster—like a stream swollen by spring rain, gurgling audibly through his meridians.

’It really works wonders.’

He could feel his skin tightening and his bones growing faintly hot. Even his internal organs felt as if they were steeped in warm water, so comfortable he almost sighed aloud.

Half a shichen passed.

’Hm?’

Chen Lingxi suddenly opened his eyes. ’The spiritual qi in my dantian—has it changed too?’

He could clearly sense the snake-like strand of cyan spiritual qi in his dantian trembling slightly.

With every tremor, a minuscule thread of spiritual energy peeled away from the medicinal broth, seeped through his pores into his meridians, and flowed into his dantian to merge into that strand of spiritual qi.

His spiritual qi had grown a fraction stronger!

Though the change was minuscule, he tempered his spiritual qi every day through his breathing technique, making him acutely sensitive to the difference.

’So that’s how it is!’

He rejoiced inwardly.

’Ever since I reached Qi Circulation 2nd Floor, the ambient spiritual energy drawn in by my breathing has grown less and less sufficient. Even after a full night of practice, my spiritual qi barely increases at all.’

’To think this medicinal bath can grow spiritual qi as well!’

He was surprised at first, but soon realized it was only natural.

Herbs were the essence of heaven and earth. Soaked in sun and rain, rooted in the soil, and nourished by dew, they grew by gathering spiritual energy.

That they contained traces of spiritual energy was hardly surprising.

’If I could take a medicinal bath every day, wouldn’t my Qi Circulation cultivation advance much faster?’

Excitement surged in his chest, but his brow quickly furrowed.

A single bath this effective likely cost several liang of silver—perhaps even ten.

Though he now received a monthly stipend of ten liang, soaking in it daily was a fool’s dream.

Never mind every day; even soaking once every ten days would cost hundreds of liang a year. His meager stipend would not even be enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Moreover, if an ordinary medicinal bath cost this much, how expensive would genuine vital-blood pills and natural spiritual materials be?

He shook his head slightly and put the thought aside. ’I will plan for that later. For now, I should focus on absorbing this medicine.’

Another half a shichen passed. The broth gradually faded from dark brown to a paler shade, and the water slowly cooled.

Chen Lingxi stood up from the tub, dried himself, and dressed.

He stretched his limbs; his joints felt noticeably more limber, his skin was firm and warm, and an indescribable lightness filled his muscles.

The strand of spiritual qi in his dantian was also slightly thicker than before he entered the bath—roughly equal to seven or eight days of his normal breathing practice.

He pushed open the door and stepped out. The old man was still in the foyer, wiping dust from a row of iron-sand bags with a piece of linen.

Seeing Chen Lingxi emerge, he only glanced up without speaking.

Chen Lingxi cupped his hands to him, then crossed the corridor and headed out.

The disciples practicing in the corridor turned their eyes toward him again as he appeared.

Someone gestured toward him with a jut of the chin; another muttered something low, drawing laughter from the few men beside him.

Chen Lingxi did not break his stride and walked straight out of the Martial Arts Hall.

Back in his side room, he took out his ten liang of silver and set it on the table, staring at it for a long time.

The broken silver gleamed faintly in the lamplight.

’Whether cultivating vital blood or cultivating spiritual qi, neither can be done without silver.’

He weighed his situation. With the Concealed Edge Method at his disposal, he could hide both his spiritual qi and his vital blood.

’But hiding is only hiding. If I don’t prove my value to Lin Suri, I will be trapped in this courtyard forever—ostensibly arranging flowers, but in truth unable to take a single step forward.

Even leaving the residence to buy medicine requires a steward’s nod, to say nothing of anything else.’

As he turned the thought over, Lin Suri’s words echoed in his mind: ’Handle the matters I assign you and prove your value. As for your other thoughts, put them aside for now.’

Only by showing his value would he earn the right.

He reined in his thoughts and stood up, walking out into the courtyard to continue practicing the Cyan Edge Method.

Beneath the moonlight, he held two fingers together like a sword. Spiritual qi surged from his dantian, advancing along the meridians of his right arm, compressing and condensing before bursting from his fingertips.

A misty cyan edge pierced the air with a sharp hiss, slicing a hairline rift through the night wind.

The Cyan Edge danced at his fingertips for several breaths before slowly fading.

He unleashed it once more.

The spiritual qi in his dantian was nearly half depleted, but the cyan gleam at his fingertips was a fraction denser than before.

He slowly curled his fingers, drawing back the lingering edge. The moonlight reflected in his eyes—clear, bright, and still.

In two days, there was still a killing to be done.

He could not afford to slack off.

—

The tenth day of the third month!

Chen Lingxi wore two identical indigo garments, one over the other. When he pushed open the door to his room, the spring wind blew a faceful of willow catkins against him.

The sky was a hazy, overcast gray, the clouds hanging low. The willow tree at the corner of the street was already full of new leaves—tender yellow tinged with green—and as the wind shook the branches, morning dew showered down.

Chen Lingxi stepped out through the corner gate into an empty alley.

He did not head toward the river.

When he left the residence in the Divine Chamber, he had gone to the three-arched stone bridge, but he was not going there today.

He turned down a different street.

Liujie Alley.

The alley was named Liujie—Willow Street—but only one willow tree remained now, alongside two rows of crooked mud-brick houses with peeling walls that looked like patches of mange.

A waist-high pile of refuse choked the entrance to the alley. Rotting cabbage leaves, tattered rags, and broken pottery lay heaped together, soaked by days of rain and reeking of sour decay.

A few greenbottle flies buzzed in circles above it.

Chen Lingxi set aside an indigo jacket he had already taken off and walked forward, his steps exceptionally light.

His soles crunched softly against broken tiles, but the wind through the alley swallowed the sound.

He kept close to the base of the wall, his shadow stretched thin and pale beneath the overcast sky.

Near the end of the alley, he heard voices.

Two people were talking.

One voice was raspy and impatient.

”You’re getting sickening, doing this kind of thing again.

Those girls were bought to sweep and cook, but you insist on tormenting them. You beat one to death yesterday; we bought three, and now not a single one is left.”

The other voice was shriller. He chuckled twice.

”You don’t understand, Old Three. Those refugees aren’t even people anymore. Their parents sold them here, and I paid silver for them—that makes them mine. What’s mine, I handle however I please.

If one dies, she dies. I’ll just buy another tomorrow.

Martial artists need someone to tend to their daily needs anyway.”

Old Three was silent for a moment, then seemed to spit on the ground.

”Just don’t let Overseer Wang Kong see you. His parents were refugees; if you rub him the wrong way, you’ll pay for it.”

The shrill voice paused, sounding dismissive when he spoke again.

”I know, I know. Stop using Overseer Wang to press me, Third Brother. Besides, doesn’t Overseer Wang like a bit of variety himself?”

Old Three said no more, only craning his neck to peer toward the alley entrance.

”It’s almost time. Why isn’t that official bondservant from the Marquis’s residence here yet?”

Before his words faded, wind whistled sharply.

Chen Lingxi vaulted from behind a half-collapsed mud wall!

His figure shot upward!

Spring wind rushed into his cuffs, whipping his sleeves until they cracked.

Before coming to Liujie Alley, he had considered many things.

After lying low in the Marquis’s residence for over a year, he had come today resolved to kill!

Wang Kong wanted to seize him today, and so did Zhao Yong. These two men guarding this spot were the first threshold.

Since it could not be avoided, he would not avoid it!