The Spiritual Pivot of Mortal Cultivation

The next morning, while the sky was still blue, the mountain gate was already open.

Escorting medicine is not a high-profile task. The Seven Mysteries Sect has been engaged in open and covert struggles with the Wild Wolf Gang for years, with people traveling along border routes, mining roads, medicine routes, and escort routes every day. Making a big fuss about it every time would only make them seem guilty. Therefore, this time, the escort mission down the mountain was conducted discreetly, with relatively few people.

Deacon Liang was in front.

Two disciples in blue robes accompanied them.

Another middle-aged porter who frequently traveled the medicine route was responsible for identifying the goods and verifying their seals.

Bai Xuanxin followed behind the group, still wearing the outer sect's gray robe, with only a medicine pouch and a short knife hanging at her waist, looking rather inconspicuous.

The medicinal herbs were packed in three large rattan boxes, one carried by packhorses and the other two pushed by wooden-wheeled carts, all sealed with tape. On the surface, they contained nothing more than common liniments, hemostatic powders, and a few common medicines for clearing the meridians used by border sentries; but Bai Xuanxin could tell at a glance that there were two more layers of boards inside, and what was pressed under the boards was probably the real valuable stuff.

This is not surprising.

That's just how medicine is.

Truly valuable things are never openly displayed on a car, so that everyone can see them at a glance. Just like many things inside a door, what is displayed on the outside is often just the surface for others to see; the truly important things are hidden inside.

After leaving the mountain gate, the group walked down the official road on the southern slope.

The morning air was cool, the mountain mist lingered, and the grass and cart tracks were damp. The two disciples pushing the cart walked carefully, the wooden wheels making a low creak as they rolled over the gravel. Deacon Liang remained silent the entire way, only occasionally glancing up at the road ahead and then turning back to glance at the carts and people.

Bai Xuanxin remained silent.

But along the way, he saw far more than others.

The outer disciples who escorted goods or medicine mostly only looked for ambushes ahead and behind, and whether there were any people around. At most, they would also look at who was fast on their feet and who had a knife at their waist. But Bai Xuanxin never looked at the path just by "the way".

He was looking at the "line".

This medicine route, from the mountain gate to Xiling, then down to three post stations, finally splits into two routes to deliver medicine to the border and the pharmacy. It looks like just a mountain road, but it is not.

The mountain gate is the starting point.

The post station is a place to exchange energy.

Taverns are places where news can stop and people can rest.

The escort team is the shell that can truly hold the goods in place.

The pharmacy is the outermost link, the link where medicinal herbs truly become the flesh and blood of the sect.

These things, on their own, seem quite ordinary.

But if they are connected in one place, they become a truly living "road".

Bai Xuanxin understood this perfectly well.

In my past life, when I was doing experiments and clinical trials, what I feared most was never the high price of a single reagent, but rather a break in the entire process. If a reagent was delayed by a day, the samples were out of order, or the machine stopped for even a moment, everything done before would be wasted. The same applies to the pharmaceutical industry. If you only see the path beneath your feet, you'll forever remain a mere pallbearer; but if you can see the "nodes," if you can see where a break will paralyze the entire line, then your perspective is on a completely different level.

This is precisely what makes Bai Xuanxin so different from ordinary martial arts disciples.

He not only remembered who had the best martial arts skills, but also who had the most courage.

He also remembered which place could exchange horses, which place could store medicine, which place had the most mixed news, and which place had people who seemed inconspicuous but could remember every little thing that happened along the way.

When we arrived at the first post station, the sun had just peeked out from behind the fog.

The post station was small, consisting of three wooden huts surrounded by earthen walls. Inside, two skinny horses were kept, and several mules were tethered under the shed. A postman was squatting in front of the stove boiling water when he saw the Seven Mysteries Sect members arrive. He quickly stood up and smiled obsequiously.

Deacon Liang had the seal checked and water replenished, but he was unwilling to stay any longer.

Bai Xuanxin glanced at the postman again.

The man was somewhat hunched over, with a sallow complexion, and looked like a hard laborer who only knew how to tend the fire and feed the horses. But as soon as Bai Xuanxin entered the post station, she saw him first glance at the sky, then look at the road and the mud on the wheels, and then lower his head to wipe the sweat from the horse's legs.

Such a person may not have sharp eyes or a clever tongue, but their mind is certainly sharp.

He may not recognize any martial arts techniques, nor understand any gang warfare, but he can often remember better than the gang leaders who left quickly today, who missed their stop last night, which horse was driven out, and which vehicle's wheels were covered in mountain mud or river mud.

Bai Xuanxin made a mental note of it.

—At the first post station, the postman, Old Huang, had sharp eyes and could see the way.

He didn't ask any more questions, nor did he go up to chat.

The time hasn't come yet; one more glance is enough.

Leaving the post station, there's a fork in the road ahead. One end leads to the old outpost at Xiling, while the other leads to the small town below. Next to the fork is a small tavern with an old sign. Two strings of dried meat hang outside, and a woman with a headscarf squats under the curtain, picking vegetables.

Deacon Liang forbade the procession from stopping in such a place, and ordered people to keep the vehicles moving.

As Bai Xuanxin passed by, her gaze swept towards the entrance of the tavern.

Taverns are places where wine is sold by day and gossip by night. Who goes down the mountain, who goes up the ridge, who talks too much when drunk, who has something to hide, who has something to hide—many things don't spread in the main hall, but rather slowly emerge in these places where a bowl of turbid wine is drunk.

The woman with the headscarf looked ordinary, her head bowed as she picked vegetables, not even lifting her eyelids. But Bai Xuanxin noticed that when their carriage passed in front of the door, the bunch of vegetables in her hand paused for a moment.

In just a moment.

It's not fear.

It's not strange.

It's like taking notes.

Bai Xuanxin made another note in her mind.

—At the crossroads tavern, the woman had steady hands, sharp eyes, and didn't talk much, yet she probably knew quite a lot.

After leaving the tavern, Steward Liang finally turned around and gave Bai Xuanxin a brief look.

"What were you looking at the whole way?"

These words came abruptly, and the two disciples in blue robes beside him did not react in time.

Bai Xuanxin's expression remained unchanged, and he calmly replied, "Watch the road."

Deacon Liang hummed in response, his expression a half-smile.

"Others who pawn medicine are afraid of knives. You seem to be looking after a shop."

Bai Xuanxin listened and did not argue, only saying, "The knife is in the open, the road is in the dark. If the knife kills one person, the road will be cut off, and a string of people will die afterward."

Upon hearing this, even the two disciples in blue robes couldn't help but turn their heads to glance at him.

Deacon Liang did not stop walking. After a moment of silence, he said:

"Your words don't sound like something an outer disciple would say."

Bai Xuanxin lowered her eyes slightly.

"This disciple simply feels that since the Path of Medicine is called the Path of Medicine, it is not just a matter for the few people on the road."

Deacon Liang didn't take the call, only saying calmly, "It's a good thing you have this eye. But if your eyes are too cluttered, you might not live long."

Bai Xuanxin understood.

This is both a suggestion and a warning.

Seeing more isn't wrong.

But if you look at it and want to reach out, you will die.

He is far from being able to touch these key points, which is why he needs to learn to just observe, remember, and not act.

As the group continued forward, the road gradually narrowed.

The forests on both sides grew deeper, and there were more old cart tracks and scattered horse manure underfoot, indicating that many people usually traveled this road. After walking for another half an hour, a group of people could be vaguely seen coming towards them from the front: six or seven ponies, with two men with swords at the front and back, and three narrow carts pulling in the middle.

It was a镖队 (bodyguard team).

Upon seeing the Seven Mysteries Sect, the group didn't give way, but merely moved their carriage slightly to the side. The leader, a镖头 (bodyguard/escort), was in his thirties, with a dark face, hooked nose, and extremely broad shoulders—clearly someone who had spent years exposed to the elements and swords. He clasped his hands in a fist salute to Deacon Liang as a greeting, but his gaze casually swept over the medicine chests before quickly looking away.

Bai Xuanxin was also looking at him.

Such a person may not have the sharpest knife or the heaviest fist. But just by looking at him riding his horse with his waist firmly on the saddle and his eyes never leaving the front or back, you can tell he's someone who's truly made his way in the world. In the martial world, many things depend not only on courage, but also on knowing when to stop and when to pretend to be deaf and dumb.

The dark-faced head镖师 (bodyguard/escort) clearly understood this.

Bai Xuanxin made another note of it in her mind.

—Han Erkui, the head镖师 (bodyguard/escort), knows the roads well, knows what to look at and what not to ask, and is useful.

Of course, this "available" is just something to remember for now.

It's not about immediately trying to win over anyone.

Bai Xuanxin was very discerning about this.

He's currently just an outer disciple of the Seven Mysteries Sect, recently brought out by the branch to escort medicine. If he were to start thinking about building a network, cultivating connections, and planting moles now, that wouldn't be called visionary; that would be insane. The truly prudent approach is never to reach out and grab anyone who seems useful, but rather to first memorize the people and the path, and then approach them when it's truly needed and within reach in the future.

After missing the caravan, it was already getting late afternoon.

The shadows along the mountain path had shortened, but the wind hadn't warmed up; instead, it had become even drier. Deacon Liang instructed everyone to rest briefly outside a sheltered pine forest, eat some dry rations, and then continue their journey.

While others squatted or sat, Bai Xuanxin remained standing.

He ate a dry biscuit while looking at the ground.

The path outside the forest was marked with a jumble of footprints. There were hoofprints of pack animals, tracks from wooden wheels, and several rows of old footprints that had been blown away by the wind, leaving only half of them visible. But after observing for a moment, Bai Xuanxin's brow twitched slightly.

wrong.

It's too elaborate.

This place is both sheltered from the wind and a resting spot, so there are usually many people coming and going, and the footprints should be messy and disorderly. But right next to a pile of messy footprints, there is a very faint half-print.

The mark didn't look like a horse's or a mule's.

They were nothing like the straw sandals of ordinary porters.

The edge of the sole was extremely narrow, but there was a faint horizontal crack on the inside. It looked inconspicuous, like a corner left after the sole had worn out. But Bai Xuanxin stared at that half-mark for a couple of seconds, and her heart sank slowly.

This wasn't formed naturally by being stepped on.

It's more like a "record" deliberately left for future generations.

As he was thinking, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of a small patch of bark that had been recently scraped off a crooked pine tree not far away. The mark was so faint that it was almost invisible unless you were standing at this angle. The scrape wasn't large, but there was a thin downward scratch next to it.

Like a mark.

It also resembles a direction.

Bai Xuanxin didn't touch the dry biscuit in her hand, but her expression gradually darkened.

Along the way, he recorded people, shops, post stations, and escort teams.

There were other people nearby taking notes of them.

Deacon Liang was drinking water at the time and had not yet noticed.

Bai Xuanxin raised her eyes and looked ahead along the crooked pine tree.

The mountain road ahead bends around a corner, and then it goes downhill. What's beyond the slope is invisible. A breeze blows from that direction, carrying a very faint earthy smell, as if someone has just trampled over wet mud and then deliberately swept it with grass.

Bai Xuanxin slowly swallowed the dry biscuit in her mouth. Her voice was not loud, but it was enough for Deacon Liang and the two disciples in blue robes next to her to hear clearly.

"Deacon Liang."

Deacon Liang looked up.

Bai Xuanxin's gaze remained fixed ahead, and she only uttered a single sentence:

"It looks like someone's coming up the road ahead."