Netherworld Painted Skin Scroll

Chapter 390 The Method of Returning to the Origin

Zhao Qi didn't sleep well the night of the incident; he was sleepwalking. He's been sleepwalking for the past few nights.

However, this is nothing to be alarmed about; it's a common reaction for practitioners after eliminating inner demons. Inner demons are originally part of one's own consciousness, and although "clear consciousness" occurs after they are eliminated, that comes later. In the first few days, or even the first month or two, the outward signs of mental and spiritual damage will appear first—just like a person who has had a boil removed will be weak for a while.

Knowing this in advance, he bound himself up before going to sleep or before entering a meditative state. The first three nights were effective, but the fourth night was ineffective—when he woke up, he found himself wandering to the top of Dapan Mountain without knowing when.

It was still night, and the surface of Tianchi Lake was sparkling. He found himself soaking in the water, taking a bath.

Autumn has arrived, and the water is quite cold. Zhao Qi, who was a Qi Refining cultivator outside, was freezing when he regained consciousness. Fortunately, the moon was bright that night, and he looked around and found the shore. He splashed his way up to the shore, found a place to sit, and quickly began to circulate his internal energy to dry the moisture from his clothes.

He stood up only after his clothes had dried. When he turned around, he was so startled that he almost fell to the ground—behind him was a low cliff about the height of a person, and a figure was sitting on it.

Zhao Qi shouted sharply, "Who!?"

The man above laughed: "Brother Zhao, what a refined taste! Coming here to take a bath tonight?"

Zhao Qi then recognized the voice as Li Wuxiang's. He leaped up and exclaimed, "You followed me here? Why didn't you stop me?"

Li Wuxiang remained seated cross-legged, shaking his head: "No. I was meditating here, and you came here by yourself. You jumped into the water from the other side of the lake first, then swam all the way here. You probably caught some live fish to eat—are you running out of food in Maple Valley?"

Zhao Qi then felt something sticking to his palate. He tried to spit it out several times but couldn't. After gagging a few times, he had to use his hand to remove it and found that it was indeed a few transparent fish scales.

He glared at him: "You're not going to stop me?!"

Li Wuxiang laughed again: "Aren't you a god now, free from the demons in your heart? We shouldn't disturb you at this time. Besides, I think it's quite funny to see you swimming with a fish in your mouth, head tilted back."

Zhao Qi, slightly annoyed, sat down beside him and said, "When are you going to let me go back to the dojo? I'm not confident being out here. I'm just a Qi cultivator. I've been watching them these past few days, and I've found that at least five of them could kill me."

"Where are your Seven Sword Masters? Is that what you call them?"

“Those seven won’t do. Only Tu Nan is a bit stronger, Zhang San is the weakest, and the other five are all at the Qi Refining stage. But that little girl has hysteria. How can I let her stay next to me? Besides, she doesn’t want to be in my lineage. She wants to become your disciple. She asks me where the sect leader is every day. Li Wuxiang, you can’t just fly over every two or three days. As the sect leader, you have to do things personally.”

Li Wuxiang nodded: "I understand. You're not actually afraid, you just don't want to suffer."

“Yes! I don’t want to work hard! I’m mentally exhausted! I’m also curious what you’ve been up to these past few days—weren’t you going to move this lake into the dojo? Have you just been sitting here watching?”

"Yes, I'm practicing how to move this lake in."

Zhao Qi was stunned: "There's such a method? Can you teach me?"

"I haven't even practiced enough myself yet."

Zhao Qi frowned: "Even Xu Zhen couldn't do it back then, right? Can you?"

Li Wuxiang smiled slightly and closed his eyes.

Zhao Qi thought he didn't want to talk to him anymore, but the next moment he had a strange feeling.

He felt every hair on his body stand on end, as if his vital energy was about to dissipate. It wasn't that he was afraid, but rather that a powerful force seemed to be generating around him—no, it couldn't be called a force, but rather a trend. It was like when Jinshui had brought his master Zhao Kui down, there was a trend of everything falling towards the center, only this time it was the opposite.

Everything around Tianchi Lake seemed to be affected by this force, as if it were about to take flight. Not to fly into the sky, but to escape this world and go somewhere else!

But this feeling only lasted for a moment. If Li Wuxiang intended to use this method to move the Heavenly Pool into the Myriad Transformations Array, then Zhao Qi felt that the Heavenly Pool had only been slightly moved just now.

But this was already enough to shock him—

"You didn't cultivate the magic of the Five Mountains True Form Sect, did you, Li Wuxiang?!" Zhao Qi asked quickly. "You can't just do that! Xu Zhen can already bewitch you. If you seduce the Five Mountains Emperor, you'll be in trouble!"

Li Wuxiang shook his head: "No. I guess I figured it out myself."

"Hahaha, then I'll become an immortal!" He laughed, then, seeing that Li Wuxiang didn't react, he was stunned again, "Really?"

"real."

Zhao Qi fell silent.

He felt a pang of sadness in his heart.

I've always felt a little bitter, but back then I could comfort myself by saying it was just bad luck.

His own master was Zhao Kui, while Li Wuxiang's masters were Zeng Jianqiu and Mei Qiulu, and he also possessed the Golden String from Ranshan. If he were in Li Wuxiang's shoes and encountered the exact same situation, he might not fare much worse. He himself had said that both were near-death experiences, which meant that he wasn't always guaranteed victory.

Now he has become the Blood God, and Li Wuxiang has become the Nascent Soul—although he is only the Blood God in the Myriad Transformations Formation, at least they can be considered equals.

But what about Li Wuxiang's "self-realization"?

Zhao Qi sighed, and then he heard Li Wuxiang sigh as well: "Brother Zhao, do you think you're Zhao Qi now?"

"what?"

Li Wuxiang pointed to the sky and said, "There's another one of you over there." Zhao Qi immediately replied, "That's the Blood God!"

Li Wuxiang laughed: "Don't get agitated, alright, let's not talk about you, let's talk about me. I was the one who died at Zhao Kui's hands, went to Mount Ling, and became part of the Blood God. Now you've taken my true spirit down—do you think the me now is me, or the me in Mount Ling is me?"

"You should ask Mei Qiulu about that. Didn't she achieve a Yang spirit? Is the Yang spirit her own persona, or is the person in her physical body her own persona?"

Li Wuxiang shook his head: "These are different."

Because of the sour feeling in his heart, Zhao Qi wanted to compete with him: "What's different?"

But then he noticed Li Wuxiang glance at him and smile slightly: "Don't be in such a hurry."

Zhao Qi felt as if he had seen through his thoughts, and suddenly felt guilty: "I'm not in a hurry. Just say what you want to say."

“The emergence of the Yang Spirit is the proof of one’s origin. I used to think that this proof of origin meant that when one’s cultivation level reached a certain point, the origin would emerge. But now I think I was wrong before. It should mean that one’s cultivation level has reached a certain point—like Senior Sister Mei, who was the strongest Nascent Soul cultivator in the world for so long, but never emerged the Yang Spirit, that’s when she reached that point—and then one’s character.”

“It depends on one’s character. Only by resolving the question of ‘who is the Zhao Qi in the Myriad Transformations Cube and the Zhao Qi in the Crimson Heaven?’ can one break through the barrier to becoming a Yang God and attain the origin.” Li Wuxiang sighed softly. “I’ve been thinking about this question these past few days. It’s time to start thinking about it. I’m a Nascent Soul cultivator now, and you were a Blood God in the Myriad Transformations Cube, with a cultivation level roughly equivalent to Nascent Soul as well. We should both start thinking about this question.”

He paused for a moment, then said, “The people of the Thirty-Six Sects are of bad character, so their Yang Spirits are fake. After the Yang Spirits are released, their true bodies are confused. In fact, their true bodies are not true bodies, but just empty shells. The so-called Yang Spirits of the Thirty-Six Sects are nothing more than slightly stronger Nascent Souls, barely able to see a glimpse of the origin.”

“But Senior Sister Mei’s spirit should be different. One of her is talking to me, and the other is doing something else. Both of them know what the other is doing and what the other is feeling, and then they return to one place. This is because these two of her, one spirit and one true self, are not the real her anymore. The real her is the origin, in a place we cannot see, but she has touched it.”

"But, in terms of her origin, isn't the Yang Goddess, the original self, equivalent to you and the Crimson Heaven you now? I'm just using an analogy; I didn't say that you over there are the original self—now you are her Yang Goddess, so why are you willingly returning to your origin? Or, when Mei Qiulu was still in the Nascent Soul stage, knowing there was a higher self, how did she understand, see through it, and return to her origin?"

He didn't use any profound vocabulary typical of spiritual practice, so Zhao Qi understood him easily. He then said, "You and I should both start thinking about this issue," which Zhao Qi also found agreeable.

Zhao Qi felt less bitter and calmed down. He pondered for a while and said, "If you ask me, if one day I feel that life is meaningless, for example, if I am heartbroken or feel that life is too bitter, I might be able to return to my origin... No, that's suicide. There are many people in the world who commit suicide because of this. It doesn't count as enlightenment."

Li Wuxiang nodded: "Yes, this shouldn't count."

"Then... is it that you're truly willing? Knowing that you'll be stronger after attaining the Origin Realm, you're willing to do it?"

Li Wuxiang shook his head: "It's difficult. The idea of ​​being willing is essentially still about something. No matter how noble the purpose, it's still about something. Once a person wants to achieve something, it's very difficult for them to truly give up their own self."

Zhao Qi frowned and thought for a moment, then his brows relaxed: "Go ask Mei Qiulu!"

"—She didn't become a Yang God on her own." The two said almost in unison.

“There are no other legitimate Yang Gods in the world.” Li Wuxiang looked up at the lake. “But even though Taiyi and Li Ye helped Senior Sister Mei become a Yang God, it proves something. It means that attaining the Origin can be achieved through shortcuts, and it doesn’t necessarily require a Nascent Soul cultivator to figure it out. I’ve been thinking these past few days, is it possible that no one in this world has ever truly attained Yang Godhood on their own, and that it was all like this time, with Taiyi helping them?”

Zhao Qi was stunned, then asked cautiously, "Li Wuxiang, putting everything else aside—you suddenly thought of this, are you planning to kill Li Guichen? You mean that if you were to release your Yang Shen, Li Guichen would have to come back, but he definitely wouldn't want to?"

"That was not what I meant."

"Then why did you have to bring this up tonight?"

"Because I want to ask you, do you prefer to be the Blood God outside, or do you prefer to be the Blood God only within the Myriad Transformations Realm?"

Here we go again, Li Wuxiang is spouting nonsense that his brain can't keep up with. Zhao Qi frowned and thought for a while but couldn't figure it out, so he could only ask, "Is this related to what you were saying earlier?"

"Here. I haven't let you go back to Wanhua Fangli these past few days. First, it's really busy outside and we need you to take care of things. Second, I want to see how you'll behave outside. You are the true spirit of the Blood God incarnate. When you were in Wanhua Fangli, Xu Zhen thought it was his dojo, so he made it as solid as an iron barrel, so that the one from the Crimson Heaven couldn't get in. But it might not be the same when you're outside."

“If you don’t want to be trapped in the dojo, we can try to call the one in the Crimson Heaven to find you, and see if there’s any way to make the two of you become one—like one person’s spirit emerging from the body. That’s why I wanted to ask you, which one do you think is real, the one here or the one in the Crimson Heaven?”

"Of course I'm telling the truth! That idiot in Crimson Sky isn't right! No, you told him to come find me?"

"Don't be afraid. True spirits need to be invited down. Didn't I invite you down last time? The reason I told you what I just said is because I might have found a way. This method may be used to create a Yang God in the future, but right now it may help you become a Blood God—it all depends on whether you want it and whether you have the courage."

Want to? Of course I want to! But—"Maybe? You yourself aren't sure?"

"Ah."

Zhao Qi wanted to say, "Then I won't think about it anymore." But at that moment, he remembered his previous thoughts—Li Wuxiang's current cultivation level was entirely due to near-death experiences.

He closed his eyes, remained silent for a moment, and tried to calm himself down, pondering what Li Wuxiang would do if faced with this choice.

He actually knew the answer was yes. But thinking about it this way made him feel like he was being thoughtful and serious, which made him feel more confident about the outcome. He felt himself slowly sinking into this emotion, and his whole being became more profound. So he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled—

But the fishy smell in his stomach made him cough, and that deep feeling vanished instantly. Zhao Qi opened his eyes and looked at Li Wuxiang seriously: "When we met in Jinshui, your cultivation was not as good as mine, but now you're almost there. Li Wuxiang, every time you risk your life, you've actually thought it through carefully, haven't you?"

Li Wuxiang nodded: "Yes. It's never easy to convince myself, but I know what I really want to do. I think you know that too, Brother Zhao."

“I understand,” Zhao Qi said solemnly. “Then I won’t try. One shouldn’t be too greedy or impatient for quick success. I’ll wait and see. It’s not that I’m afraid, really, I just feel the time isn’t right.”

He thought Li Wuxiang would frown, or at best, make a few teasing remarks.

But to everyone's surprise, Li Wuxiang laughed, as if he had expected it: "Fine. If you're not going to do this, then go do something else. Your Seven Swordsmen have become Six. Just now, while you were sleeping and slacking off, Zhang Jingzhong from the Shaowei Sect died."

(End of this chapter)