Upon the Dragon Chariot, Zhou Qiyun raised his head, gazing at the great serpent before him. His white eyebrows furrowed gently. His Dragon Chariot was a treasure indeed, but it could not accommodate this colossal creature.
Previously Yuan Qi had measured roughly thirteen or fourteen zhang—he could have lain straight inside the Dragon Chariot without issue. Now, he had not only grown longer but considerably thicker. Curling him inside was proving difficult.
Yuan Weiyang looked up at Yuan Qi and advised, "Only a few days have passed and you have grown this fat? You should go on a diet."
Yuan Qi scoffed. "Not a chance!"
Xu Ying addressed Zhou Qiyun. "Ancestor Zhou need not worry. He has practiced the True Cultivation of the Ba Snake and can change his size at will. The Dragon Chariot should still fit. Xiao Qi, shrink yourself a bit."
Yuan Qi called out, "Little Ying, from now on do not call me Xiao Qi—call me Seventh Master Ox!"
With that, he activated the True Cultivation of the Ba Snake. After straining for a while, he seemed to have shrunk a minuscule amount.
Xu Ying turned back to Zhou Qiyun. "Ancestor Zhou, could your Dragon Chariot perhaps become a little bigger?"
In the end, they reached a compromise: they stuffed Yuan Qi into the carriage with his head poking out. Even so, the interior of the Dragon Chariot was rather cramped.
Zhou Qiyun entered the carriage and squeezed in alongside Xu Ying and the others. This great figure was entirely unbothered—as long as you had talent and proved useful to him, he could tolerate you to the fullest extent.
But should you prove useless, then you were in danger.
The divine dragons pulling the Dragon Chariot set off with great effort. The moment their claws touched the cloud-heads formed from incense smoke, they nearly stumbled and fell. The four divine dragons' legs trembled, but at last they succeeded in riding the clouds and mists, heading toward the prefecture of Yongzhou.
The Dragon Chariot soared into the cloud layer, threading between verdant mountains and green waters. A waterfall hung between the peaks, its mist catching the sunlight as a colorful rainbow stretched across the gap between two mountains.
The Dragon Chariot passed beneath the rainbow, collecting some of its dampness, its own surface bathed in radiant color.
Inside the Dragon Chariot, Zhou Qiyun sat by the window, producing three volumes and spreading them open, leafing through them at leisure. Xu Ying stole a glance—the contents of all three books were essentially identical.
At that moment, a soft, gentle hand clasped his, writing characters in his palm with a fingertip.
Xu Ying's heart stirred. He looked down to see Yuan Weiyang seated beside him, holding his hand and tracing words on his palm with her index finger.
She was writing the characters for "Immortal Scripture."
Xu Ying nodded subtly. The three volumes Zhou Qiyun was browsing were all deciphered versions of the Scripture of Tuoyu.
Xu Ying held her hand and began writing in her palm in return. Yuan Weiyang tried carefully to discern his characters, but after a moment she realized he was attempting to write an entire lengthy passage, which might take until the end of time. She hurriedly withdrew her hand.
Xu Ying casually brought his hand beneath his nose and thought, "Why does Brother Yuan's hand smell so lovely? Could he be a flower demon?"
He had heard legends of flower demons—monsters that lived inside flower buds, exquisitely fragrant, dancing within the blossoms as the flowers opened.
Though Xu Ying had walked many nights and encountered plenty of demons, he had never come across a flower demon.
"Strange—today the scent on his hands is not daphne and orchid."
Xu Ying carefully discerned the fragrance, thinking, "It should be lily and gardenia. Hmm, there is still a milky sweetness—does Brother Yuan still drink milk every day?"
Yuan Weiyang caught him sniffing his fingers repeatedly and looking peculiar. She gave him a fierce glare.
Zhou Qiyun turned pages, then asked suddenly, "The eldest young master practiced the Scripture of Tuoyu. He must have become quite strange, has he not?"
Xu Ying snapped out of his reverie. A chill crept up his spine and crawled to the back of his skull.
In his mind, the Great Bell also jolted violently, thinking in alarm: "He knows we killed the eldest young master!"
Yuan Weiyang felt a prickle of dread. Though she did not know what had transpired, the fact that Zhou Qiyun raised the matter meant it was serious.
Zhou Qiyun said nothing more, as though waiting for Xu Ying to answer.
Xu Ying was silent for a moment, then spoke the truth. "The eldest young master practiced the deciphered Scripture of Tuoyu. His strength was formidable, but his pure yang was entirely drained. He cultivated a pure yin body and became a woman."
Zhou Qiyun raised his head, his gaze fixed directly upon him.
Xu Ying met his eyes steadily, without flinching.
Zhou Qiyun withdrew his gaze. "Then why did you not practice the Scripture of Tuoyu?"
Fine beads of sweat surfaced on Xu Ying's forehead. He immediately understood the implication. Eldest Young Master Zhou Zhi had stolen the Scripture of Tuoyu and, upon seeing it, could not resist practicing it. Xu Ying had deciphered the scripture—why had he held back?
"He may have wanted me to decipher the Scripture of Tuoyu precisely to see whether I, like the eldest young master, would turn into a woman."
Xu Ying steadied himself and smiled. "Because when I deciphered the scripture, I already recognized that practicing it would certainly drain one's pure yang and transform one into a woman. That is why I did not practice it."
Zhou Qiyun's gaze settled upon his face once more. "Why did you not tell me?"
Xu Ying's smile did not waver. "If I could see that, could Ancestor Zhou not? Ancestor Zhou is an earthly immortal—how could a mere scripture turn him into a woman? A figure of Ancestor Zhou's brilliance would at most use the scripture as a stepping stone to create his own supreme techniques, not cling rigidly to the methods of predecessors."
Zhou Qiyun revealed a smile. "Your response is most fitting."
Xu Ying hesitated. "Ancestor Zhou, regarding the eldest young master—"
Zhou Qiyun continued reading, his voice flat. "He was born a man's body but became a woman—a disgrace to the Zhou family name. Better dead. It spares me the trouble of doing it myself."
Xu Ying said nothing more.
After a while, Xu Ying stepped out of the Dragon Chariot and stood upon the carriage shaft. Yuan Weiyang saw this and followed him out.
The blue-robed elder Xiao Bo noticed Yuan Weiyang emerge and wanted to follow, but leaving Zhou Qiyun alone in the carriage felt somewhat discourteous. Zhou Qiyun waved his hand, and only then did Xiao Bo step out with visible relief.
Once outside, Xiao Bo did not find Xu Ying or Yuan Weiyang on the shaft. His scalp tightened and his mind went blank. "Abducted already? How will I explain this to the Old Madam?"
He hurriedly leaped to the carriage roof and breathed a sigh of relief. There—Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang were seated upon the forehead of the great serpent Yuan Qi.
Yuan Qi's head was enormous. Between his two massive velvet antlers lay two enormous scales, smooth and flat, like twin boulders. Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang sat comfortably. It was already April and the weather was warming. Sitting here with the wind in their faces, they felt not the slightest chill.
The wind was rather strong, scattering the young men's robes and hair.
Yuan Weiyang reached out to touch the mane behind Yuan Qi's head, exclaiming in surprise, "It is so soft—truly feathers, like the down on a newborn chick!"
Xu Ying came forward to feel it, clucking his tongue in amazement. Yuan Qi's mane was soft yet possessed the texture of feathers—running a hand through it from top to bottom felt remarkably pleasant.
"Touch me again and I will bite you!" The great serpent's body was trapped inside the carriage, but his head issued the threat regardless.
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang ignored him completely and stroked him twice more. Yuan Qi protested, "I am a serpent—I have no human sentimentality! Touch me again and I will spray you to death with venom!"
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang reluctantly stopped. Xu Ying asked, "Seventh Master, when can you transform into human form?"
Yuan Qi exhaled to conjure clouds and mist, inhaled to form a whirlwind. In no particular hurry, he replied, "This time I sensed I was about to knock upon the Mysterious Pass, and the power of metamorphosis within me gradually grew. So I came before the Black Iron Mysterious Pass to comprehend the mysterious root of heaven and earth. I grasped the Tai trigram of heaven and earth inverted, then grasped the exchange of Li and Kan, and thereby established my own mysterious root. The Mysterious Pass thus opened. I also sensed from the primordial darkness the call of my ancestors' bloodline, and following it naturally, I transformed—becoming what you see today."
Xu Ying found this unfathomably profound, his jaw dropping. He asked the Great Bell, "Grandpa Bell—can he still transform again here?"
The Great Bell replied, "I do not know how many times a yuan serpent can transform. However, most demons appear to transform only once, and he has already transformed twice."
Yuan Weiyang was greatly impressed. "He comprehended the true essence of the Dao and awakened the ancient bloodline within his body. Seventh Master is a demon of extraordinary spiritual root. He now bears the image of the Great Dao."
Xu Ying's heart stirred. After Yuan Qi had opened the Mysterious Pass of the Tailbone, his physique did seem to contain something additional—something ethereal and intangible. At rest, it was like a mountain's slope; in motion, it carried an inexplicable sense of pressure and authority. It did indeed possess the qualities of the Great Dao's image.
Within his body, the ancient yuan serpent's bloodline was gradually awakening—whether from the effect of knocking upon the pass, or the scholar flowers, or the result of his metamorphosis.
The Great Bell said, "A-Ying, look at this stupid serpent. His gate-knocking this time was the proper gate-knocking of a true qi refiner! And yours—did that even qualify as gate-knocking?"
Xu Ying humbly sought instruction. "Grandpa Bell, was there an essential difference between Seventh Master's gate-knocking and mine?"
The Great Bell replied, "There was not. He merely added some pretentious nonsense about the serpent's life philosophy."
Yuan Qi gazed deeply into the distance, his voice growing heavy and resonant. "I perceived the vastness of the sky, the weight and breadth of the earth, the emptiness of life. I have comprehended the Dao... I am starving. Is there anything to eat? The scholar flowers have all wilted these past few days—I am going mad with hunger up here!"
Xiao Bo approached, his expression solemn. "Seventh Master, why not consume the emptiness of life?"
At this, Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang could not help but burst into laughter. The corner of Xiao Bo's mouth also curved with the faintest trace of amusement before he straightened his face again, cleared his throat, and said, "Young Master, a gentleman does not show his teeth when laughing."
Yuan Weiyang immediately straightened her posture. After a moment, she said, "Demon King Xu once mentioned he had attempted sword flight multiple times but never mastered the technique. These past days I searched through some of the Zhou family's collected texts and discovered that the Sword-Flying Art has been lost to history. Ancient records contain scattered references to sword flight—mostly describing qi refiners of the pre-Qin era who flew not by standing on their swords, but by transforming sword qi into streaming light that enveloped their entire bodies."
She produced her own transcribed notes, which included an illustration: a figure forming a sword seal, sword qi flowing like radiant streams from top to bottom over their entire body.
Yuan Weiyang explained, "This form of sword flight resembles a flying shuttle—pointed at both ends, bulging in the middle, with the person concealed inside, piercing through the void."
Xu Ying leaned in for a closer look and praised, "With the sword light shielding the body, one could pass through barriers of sound, through thunder and fire, without harm. Far superior to simply standing upon a sword."
Yuan Weiyang said, "Unfortunately, sword flight has been lost. The Zhou family's texts contain no instructions—only descriptions from antiquity. My Yuan family's library, though vast, has few records on sword flight as well."
She produced several more transcribed volumes and unrolled them one by one. "My Yuan family possesses the Spirit Sense Leaping technique. The Zhou family has a method of physical transformation. The Guo family possesses the Cloud Ladder Sky-Leaping art. Of these, the Guo family's Cloud Ladder Sky-Leaping is the most refined—a ladder to heaven, one light leap faster than a meteor. My Yuan family's Spirit Sense Leaping technique uses Cunxiang—through spirit sense, one visualizes a foothold in empty space. Stepping upon that visualization, one can walk through the sky."
The transcribed volumes contained a simplified version of the Spirit Sense Leaping technique. Xu Ying read through it once and grasped its principles.
Spirit Sense Leaping was essentially walking—only walking through the sky.
The technique required first visualizing a foothold in the air—for example, a square brick—then stepping upon it, visualizing the next brick, and moving one's foot forward.
In this way, one could walk through the sky step by step.
If one's spirit sense was powerful enough, one could visualize an entire open road in the sky and run directly along it, the path extending ever forward.
However, this leaping technique consumed spirit sense heavily. Even a spirit sense expert like Yuan Weiyang, who had opened the Yellow Court Hidden Repository, would rarely use it for travel, preferring to walk.
As for the other noble families' flying techniques, they too relied upon Cunxiang to move through the sky, including the Zhou family's physical transformation into birds.
Clearly, none of these methods matched the Sword-Flying Art.
Xu Ying's heart stirred. He asked, "Grandpa Bell—do you know the Sword-Flying Art?"
The Great Bell replied, "In my era, qi refiners had already begun to decline, and many things were lost. My master did not know the Sword-Flying Art either, but he once found a remnant fragment and recited it before me."
The Great Bell recited it once. Xu Ying listened carefully—a short passage on using spirit sense to wield the sword, no more than thirty-odd characters.
Xu Ying repeated the remnant fragment. Yuan Weiyang took out paper and transcribed it. Though brief, the passage's meaning was profound, and Yuan Weiyang could not immediately grasp it.
Xu Ying, however, understood at a glance. He explained the meaning of the fragment. Enlightened by his guidance, Yuan Weiyang exclaimed with delight, "My Yuan family has an exceptional advantage in spirit sense. We may be able to fill in the missing parts of this remnant!"
Blue-robed elder Xiao Bo hesitated, wanting to object but stopping himself. He thought, "If the Yuan family's technique could complete the remnant, that would be a great benefit. Transmitting the tiniest fraction of technique outward should cause no real harm."
Yuan Weiyang wrote over a hundred characters on the paper before her insight ran dry, unable to continue.
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang huddled together, studying the scripture and picking up the brush to continue. Both had grasped the Great Dao's image of sword technique from merely a sliver of sword intent—they possessed extraordinary talent. Soon they had written a sword manual of over two hundred characters.
Xu Ying and Yuan Weiyang exchanged a glance, a light flickering in their eyes.
Xu Ying said, "I will try first. With Grandpa Bell here, I will not die from a fall."
A faint smile touched Yuan Weiyang's lips. Then she suddenly leaped into the air, jumping straight off Yuan Qi's head—before Xiao Bo could even move to stop her!
Xu Ying's heart lurched. He leaped down immediately.
Xiao Bo and Yuan Qi each cried out in alarm as the two plummeted from the sky at accelerating speed. At this pace, even an iron-bodied person would be smashed to pulp!
Then, at that very moment, sword light began flowing across their bodies—dancing sword qi erupting from their fingertips, whirling around them, gradually coalescing into twin sword-energy shuttles that grew ever brighter.
Whoosh!
Just as they were about to crash, the two sword-energy shuttles crossed paths and skimmed across the river between two mountains below, leaving twin trails of surging waves in their wake—spray flying like shattered jade.
The two shuttles accelerated, then pulled sharply upward from the water's surface, hugging the mountain peaks on either bank in a steep climb, spiraling around the summits.
Zhou Qiyun, startled by the commotion, pushed open the window and looked out. He saw the two sword-energy shuttles meet at the mountaintop, intertwining as they soared higher, quickly surpassing the Dragon Chariot. Then they suddenly separated, threading through the valley below.
A smile crossed Zhou Qiyun's face. He murmured, "Such extraordinary talent—to have grasped the art of sword flight on their own. However..."
His expression cooled, a trace of displeasure settling in his heart. He sneered, "A pair of adulterers."