With Zhang Tuhu’s storytelling, the jianghu began to take shape in Shen Yi’s mind.
The swordsman of Qingfeng Mountain — principled, passionate — rode hard across nine ranges and ten rivers, cut down a bull demon, recovered his beloved concubine, and spent three days and nights fighting at home without leaving. His name rang through all of Qingzhou.
The flying thief of Pingsha Valley crept into a noble’s estate, drank every last drop of the prince’s treasured vintage, let it make one complete internal journey, and left the result behind. He was thereafter known as “One Who Borrows and Returns.”
The Jingang School elder went begging for alms and came back with two explicit spring-palace paintings, which he quietly hung on either side of the Buddha statue. The prefect’s eyes went considerably wider than expected during his incense visit. The abbot chased the elder out of Qingzhou with a meditation staff and he ended up in Baiyun County.
Shen Yi’s expression was difficult to read.
Zhang Tuhu clicked his tongue. “Either way, I’d made enemies of people, they’d been skimping on my techniques and medicines — leaving them with something to remember me by before I went seemed fair.”
“Reasonable.”
Shen Yi looked toward the gate.
An entire morning had passed without a single visitor.
He wasn’t worried about being called to account — but for Clerk Liu’s death to simply dissolve into nothing felt strange. He hadn’t prepared himself for things being this quiet.
Easy days were easy days.
He and Zhang Tuhu talked when there was something worth saying, and sparred when there wasn’t. The man was a genuine martial obsessive — fully aware that Shen Yi outclassed him considerably, and entirely indifferent to that fact. He came at every exchange with the same enthusiasm.
Shen Yi used only the Cloudscattering Longfist and the Serpentine Eight Strides in these sessions. The gains were real, as it turned out.
Proficiency and combat experience were different things. It wasn’t enough to know how your own techniques worked — you had to read how an opponent would respond before they responded. That quality couldn’t be simulated and didn’t come from the panel.
The improvement was slower than acquiring demon lifespan through kills, but at the moment Baiyun County’s surroundings were very quiet. No demons venturing in. By Shen Yi’s knowledge, only two threats remained: the Azure Scale Matriarch and the Beiya fox clan.
The Matriarch was a known Jade Liquid Realm demon. Riding out alone to confront her wasn’t hunting for lifespan — it was hunting for a burial site.
He’d asked Zhang Tuhu about minor stray demons.
Zhang Tuhu had looked at him with mild puzzlement. “Even street thugs know to form gangs and claim territory — otherwise there’s nothing to eat. If you were a demon, would you let unknown demons hunt your patch? Either you bring them under you or you crush them.”
“Something that survived alone in conditions like that — it wouldn’t be some nameless small fry.”
“…”
Shen Yi shelved the idea.
When a small insight surfaced, he’d slip back to the room on some pretext, run a brief panel simulation, then return. At the end of each shift he collected the vegetables and meat Chen Ji had bought for him and headed home. Days passed this way, one after another.
The duty room had grown quiet enough to feel forgotten, which made Chen Ji faintly uneasy. Zhang Tuhu was pleased — no visitors meant no demon incidents. He kept the constables on regular patrols and sent them to check the nearby villages now and then, covering what gaps there were.
“Taro stems and lettuce today. Kept the lamb ribs you wanted from the butcher — two jin. Here’s the change.” Chen Ji returned from patrol and set everything on the table.
“Good. Head home. I’ll close up tonight.”
Shen Yi pocketed the coins and checked the panel with quiet satisfaction.
The past few days’ work hadn’t matched the Four Harmonies True Astral Force in magnitude, but it hadn’t cost much either.
He’d combined the Serpentine Eight Strides with the Heart-Ape insight and derived a new movement technique, then pushed it to Perfection — total cost: thirty-seven years.
【Threshold · White Ape Dancing with the Python — Perfection】
Compared to the Eight Strides, the new art was both faster and carried a bonus against short-bladed weapons. A technique that suited him well.
What excited him more was the Blood-Corruption Bladework, which had finally shown movement after fifty-odd years of investment.
【Year fifty-four — you attempt to refine the blood-corruption into astral-corruption force. This step is extremely hazardous — but you have mastered a genuine astral force method, and using it as a reference, you have faintly brushed against the threshold of the transition.】
If the derivation succeeded, he would have personally created a Jade Liquid Realm martial art — one refined over many years, built entirely around his own nature.
Unfortunately, the demon lifespan reserves were running low.
He looked at the Thunder-Wind Demon-Subduing True Interpretation and sighed.
The problem was probably still the Thunder-Wind Scripture itself. He’d only obtained the first volume, then developed a crude workaround through self-destruction to push past the Threshold — and had been traveling further down that side-road ever since. Almost impressively foolish. Hundreds of years of lifespan poured in, and the results still read as “drawing from heaven and earth.”
Heaven and earth must be getting tired.
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 185 years】
Try again tonight. Keep a hundred years in reserve.
Shen Yi dismissed the panel, picked up the lamb ribs, and left the duty room.
His palate had changed over these past few days. Each evening’s meal at home had recalibrated his expectations, and the compliments he gave Lin Baixi’s cooking had been growing less restrained — hence the better cut of meat. Even the salted pork flatbreads Chen Ji brought for lunch had lost some of their appeal. The flat bread was a little dense. The meat was on the salty side.
Hard to go back to simple once you’ve tasted better.
He caught himself, felt faintly guilty about it, and quickened his pace.
He reached the door and pushed it open without thinking.
The familiar figure wasn’t in the back courtyard.
He stepped inside, puzzled.
Then two arms came from behind and wrapped around his waist, fingers interlocking across his stomach.
White sleeves. Slender wrists. A delicate fragrance drifting from over his shoulder.
“What took you so long?”
A refined face pressed against his arm with the lazy ease of a cat, dewy eyes holding a thread of gentle reproach. Red lips parted slightly, the voice barely above a breath — soft, pulling: “I missed you.”
Shen Yi looked down in silence.
He lifted the lamb ribs slightly.
Lin Baixi’s weight pressed warm against his back. She didn’t glance at the ribs at all — just looked directly into his eyes. “Why aren’t you saying anything? What are you thinking?”
At that, Shen Yi let the lamb ribs drop. They hit the floor with a thud. A trace of irritation entered his voice.
“I was actually prepared to play along for a while. But your acting is too poor. Pretending not to notice at this point would make me look genuinely slow.”
“And—”
“And what?”
Lin Baixi’s eyes widened, smile still in place, chin tilting up.
Shen Yi’s brow drew down with distaste. “Your fox-stench is getting in my nose.”
As he spoke, five fingers dropped to the black hilt at his hip. The dark blade cleared the scabbard in an instant, dense blood-corruption pouring across the steel — the ring of the blade like a grieving spirit’s cry, settling deep in the chest.
The woman’s pupils contracted. Her arms pulled back immediately.
But her reflexes, fast as they were, couldn’t match the blade. In that same instant, the edge tore through her sleeve and opened the pale skin beneath — a stroke aimed with full weight behind it, enough to cut her clean in half.
Then a clear bell-sound rang through the room.
Two copper bells appeared in Shen Yi’s vision, drifting in the air. With their chime, the dark blade seemed to sink into mud — stopping in mid-arc, suspended and still.
(End of Chapter)