Reincarnation Girl Becomes Immortal

"I'm inferior to others in every aspect..." Xi Heng muttered to himself while practicing his sword.

Even though the illness in his body was temporarily suppressed by expensive medicine, he still could not compare with these gifted individuals.

That martial arts prodigy, Lin Ying, has already defeated most of her senior sisters and is about to move on to the next stage of learning movement techniques.

She herself only won two or three matches by luck.

After that, it will obviously be quite difficult to cross the threshold of entering the realm of power.

"Perhaps it will take two or three lifetimes to truly become a martial artist?" she mused.

Fortunately, I was able to reload the save file and start over.

If I were just an ordinary person, the best outcome would probably be to become a sickly person, relying on various tonics to live a few more years, and silently waiting for death to come.

“Heh…” Xi Heng shook his head: “If I were an ordinary person, I would have fallen to my death on the cliff of Yaowang Mountain long ago.”

She has now changed her destiny and started learning swordsmanship and martial arts.

If we continue to work towards a better future, perhaps things will open up before us.

"To achieve mastery." She whispered, "I will dedicate my entire life to achieving mastery!"

Xi Heng took a deep breath and continued practicing the sword dance until his body reached its limit.

……

The sun was setting, and the sky was darkening.

The girl pressed her aching shoulder and arm with her left hand, and weakly gripped a wooden sword with her right hand. She left the sword academy, passed an elegant and tidy flower bed, and was about to return to her residence to rest.

"Hopefully, there will be some improvement," Xi Heng muttered to himself on the way.

She would be satisfied as long as today's efforts translate into tomorrow's progress.

As long as you keep moving forward, you'll eventually achieve your goals.

Xi Heng comforted his weary body and mind with these words, smelled the fragrance of the flowers around him, and looked around at the various flowers.

This flower bed is not large, but the bouquets planted are colorful, with more than a dozen kinds of flowers at a glance.

Inside the altar, a hunchbacked old man was steadily holding a large-bellied, narrow-necked, wide-mouthed porcelain pot, dripping water onto the flowers.

Xi Heng stared at the old woman's back. The old woman seemed to sense her gaze and slowly turned around to look at her.

Then, the old man frowned and rubbed his eyes.

She stared intently at Xi Heng, her eyes unmoving, and the wrinkles on her face froze.

The girl stopped and looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Xi Heng gradually recognized that the old woman was the one she had seen sweeping the floor outside the gate of the Red Thread Sword Academy when she came here.

She then remembered that it was the other person who led her to the courtyard and handed her over to Senior Sister Hongmiao.

It seems that the senior sister calls this old woman... Elder?

"Greetings, Elder." Xi Heng then gave a casual bow.

The elder seemed not to hear what Xi Heng said, but simply looked at her and muttered to himself in a hoarse voice:

"alike……"

……

Chapter Seven: The Barrier of Qi and Blood

"picture?"

Although the elder's voice was quite hoarse, Xi Heng still managed to make out the two words he murmured.

like what?

"Hmm, it really looks like him." The old woman placed the porcelain pot she was holding steadily back on the edge of the flower bed and slowly approached Xi Heng.

The closer she got, the brighter her eyes became.

She stopped when she was only one meter away from him.

"Little one, what's your name?" The old woman's voice was hoarse and dull, like the wind blowing through old newspapers, as if something was stuck in her throat.

"Xi Heng." Xi Heng found it strange, but since the other party was, after all, an elder of the Sword Academy, he still behaved politely.

"Surname Xi?"

The other person's languid, blurry gaze gradually sharpened, staring straight at him.

Xi Heng felt a little pressured, but still nodded.

Since coming into this world, her name has always been Xi Heng. Others call her by these two characters, and she naturally assumes that this is her name.

My memories of the time travel were quite vague, and it was difficult to recall much useful information from them.

but……

Xi Heng's eyes flickered slightly. After the old woman's reminder, she immediately remembered something she hadn't paid much attention to before.

After her death in her previous life, just as she was about to load the save file, she saw something similar on the glowing text that looked like a system interface next to the words "load save file"—

On the system panel, her name is not just Xi Heng, but also preceded by the character Zhao.

Xi Heng hesitated for a moment, then slightly opened his mouth as if to bring up the matter.

But after opening his mouth, no sound came out.

As she was about to tell him this, her heart suddenly tightened, as if something had squeezed it.

A feeling also arose in my mind—this matter was not something that could be said casually.

"..." Xi Heng opened his lips but remained silent, momentarily stunned.

The old woman observed her various reactions, a thoughtful look appearing in her eyes.

In the end, she didn't ask any more questions. She simply turned to look at the many bouquets in the flowerbed, and began to speak with her hands behind her back:

“Kid, you look like a senior sister I admired when I was young, someone I once took care of…”

The setting sun cast an orange-red glow, which clung to many flowers, making the reds even redder and the oranges turn red as well.

Xi Heng wasn't in a hurry, so he stood quietly to the side and listened to the elder recount the past.

"She often wore white clothes, and she was incredibly elegant in both her sword and her demeanor. Back then, she was quite favored and pampered in our Bloodline Sword Sect."

The old woman gently shook her head: "Later, when the Sword Sect encountered a great enemy, many senior masters defended the mountain gate with their lives. In the end, the mountain gate was still breached. It was she who led us to fight our way out."

"After we broke through the encirclement, we split into several groups and fled to different directions. I have never seen her since then, and I don't know if she is still alive today."

"Perhaps she has already passed away." She sighed. "The lifespans of warriors in our Bloodline Sword Sect are not long; even I am considered to have lived a long life..."

As she spoke, the old woman looked up at the distant sunset, watching the red sun sink below the horizon.

A few minutes later, she turned back and looked at Xi Heng from beginning to end.

Then, the old man exhaled and said hoarsely, "You look like her, but you look so frail and sickly, not dashing at all."

The old woman shook her head again, saying to herself, "What a pity, what a pity."

"..." Xi Heng didn't know how to react; she found it difficult to understand the old woman's thoughts and emotions.

Just reminisce about the past, why suddenly have to say she's not handsome enough?

Xi Heng also wanted to become dashing and handsome, but his physical condition simply wouldn't allow it.

"Once I get into the flow, maybe I'll be able to be more carefree." Suddenly, she blurted out her true feelings without thinking.

The old woman was stunned, her dull eyes staring at Xi Heng for almost half a minute.

Xi Heng was also stunned for a moment, looking into the other person's somewhat wrinkled face, feeling as if he had said something wrong.

"..."

After a long silence, the old woman hummed softly a few times.

Then she curled the corners of her mouth into a smile, her voice becoming increasingly undisguised as she burst into laughter in her hoarse throat.

"Alright, alright." The old woman stared at Xi Heng, her gaze having changed slightly, and said, "I'll teach you a trick."

"Please enlighten me, Elder." Xi Heng felt a sense of joy at discovering a hidden quest, and immediately bowed politely and agreed.

"The Red Thread Sword is a fierce and powerful sword technique, but for someone with your physique, mastering it to the level of fierceness is extremely difficult," the other person said.

"Actually, there is another shortcut to comprehending sword intent."

"There's a shortcut to sword practice?" Xi Heng was somewhat skeptical when he heard this.

"If you don't fight for the sharpest sword, you can choose the one that will sacrifice you." As he explained, the man's tone became much calmer: "Between life and death lies great terror, but also great opportunity."

"If you can give up everything and only want to slay your enemy with a single sword strike, even if you don't know anything about swordsmanship, the sword will spontaneously draw near to you."

"As martial artists who enter the path of martial arts through swordsmanship, if we can obtain this opportunity, it will greatly benefit our understanding of swordsmanship, sword intent, and even the fundamentals of martial arts." The more she spoke, the more robust her voice became, and a certain martial artist's temperament gradually emerged.

"It is said that the founder of the Red Thread Sword gained enlightenment from the brink of death, thus integrating his life's sword techniques and passing them down."

"The sword of self-sacrifice is the true Red Thread Sword," the other person said with a smile, then turned and slowly left.

Xi Heng fell into thought, and when he came to his senses, the old woman was nowhere to be seen.

She then continued on her way back to her residence, silently replaying the other person's words in her mind.

"A life-or-death opportunity? A desperate strike?"

"I am not afraid of death, and it feels feasible... but there aren't any enemies right now that require such a desperate effort, are there?"

Xi Heng tapped his cheek repeatedly with his index finger, tilting his head back to think: "If I still can't get into the zone after a few months, I might as well go out and find some enemies to fight and see what happens."

"There will definitely be no chance to fight to the death in the Sword Academy."

……

In the days that followed, Xi Heng continued to practice his swordsmanship as always.

A month later, the number of her wins against her other apprentices gradually exceeded the number of her losses.

A few days later, under the watchful eye of his senior sister Hongmiao, Xiheng narrowly defeated the other apprentices one after another, thus memorizing all the moves and reaching the stage of perfect harmony between mind and hand.

Next, Hongmiao took Xiheng to practice his body movements and stances, explaining and demonstrating them one-on-one, and even sparring with him herself.

Of course, the so-called exchange of blows was just the senior sister using her movement skills to dodge, while Xi Heng used his sword to pursue with all his might.

If Xi Heng were to actually engage in a sword fight with this senior sister, she feared she would be beheaded in the next second.

Even in simple sparring where it's just one person hitting and the other dodging.

It will still gradually make her feel frustrated and depressed.

Even though they seem so close, and the opponent is clearly within my attack range, I can't hit them no matter how hard I try.

After a sparring session, as Xi Heng patted his chest to calm himself down, he took a break and asked his senior sister a question:

"By the way, what level of martial artist is Senior Sister Hongmiao now?"

She wondered how powerful a martial artist was currently manipulating her.

"Minor mastery of internal strength." The other party stated this directly, without elaborating further, only saying:

"Keep practicing. Body techniques and stances require long-term practice; it can take several years to achieve mastery."

While teaching Xi Heng the stance, the other party casually mentioned:

"In fact, one should practice stances before techniques when learning martial arts, but your purpose in coming to the Sword Academy is to become a martial artist who has entered the realm of internal strength. Practicing stances and body techniques first would take too much time and would not be of much help in entering the realm of internal strength, so we changed the order."

"Will practicing the stance first make you more powerful?" Xi Heng asked.

"Stance is the foundation of martial arts; only by laying a solid foundation can one have the opportunity to reach the pinnacle."

The other party replied, "True martial arts families don't rush their descendants to master internal energy and blood circulation. Instead, they start training in stances from childhood and then guide their descendants to master internal energy once their bodies have grown up."

Xi Heng said "oh" and then asked after a moment:

"If I want to become one of the strongest martial artists, I need to master the stances first?"

"Oh?"

Hong Miao's long-preserved natural demeanor suddenly vanished. She raised an eyebrow and stared intently at Xi Heng for a long time.

She gradually curled the corners of her lips into a smile, her expression becoming quite amused. She then chuckled softly a few times, pointed at Xi Heng, and said:

“The elder once told me that you were special, but I didn’t see what was so special about you at the time. Now I understand.”