Chapter 216 : I, Am the Sword!

Chapter 216: I, Am the Sword!

Chu Yinyin truly feared that Chu Huaixu would keep breaking through realms all the way like this and head straight for the Third Realm.

By then, without any follow-up cultivation methods, that would be real trouble.

Xiang Yan frowned and said: “From the current situation, it shouldn’t come to that.”

“But it’s still best to prepare in advance. Better safe than sorry.”

“Sixth junior brother, trouble you to make another trip to the Scripture Pavilion.”

“As for the heavenly materials and earthly treasures required to cultivate 《Dao Canon》 Volume Three, the Treasure Pavilion should have everything. As for these contribution points, well… well—”

The Sect Master, who was incomparably stingy when it came to private property, began laying the groundwork.

After saying “well” several times, he finally slapped the table and decided: “We’ll split it evenly among all of us.”

“Alright, I’ll go get them first, though they’ll probably end up unused.” Li Chunsong vanished on the spot.

In fact, when it came to movement techniques, he truly was the number one among this generation of disciples of the Gentleman Temple.

Moreover, his 【Domain】 was actually related to movement techniques.

A gambler, after all, naturally had to practice running away.

By the time he flew back, Xiang Yan and the others told him: “From how things look now, it’s probably not needed.”

After breaking through to the Second Realm, Seventh Heaven, Chu Huaixu did not continue breaking through further.

This immediately plunged Li Chunsong into wild joy and endless secret delight!

Counting from breaking through from First Realm Great Perfection into the initial stage of the Second Realm, he had just happened to consecutively broken through eight realm layers!

From Level 19 to Level 27—wasn’t that exactly eight levels?

“I won again?”

“No, it’s this seat that won again!”

Li Chunsong began imitating Zhao Shuqin’s earlier manner, cupping his hands toward everyone: “By luck! By luck!”

But he was truly too smug, so much so that he still couldn’t resist showing off:

“Chu Huaixu was brought up the mountain by me—naturally, I’m the one who understands him best!”

Inside the cultivation chamber, that sensation of imminent explosion within Chu Huaixu’s body finally subsided.

Spiritual energy was basically completely exhausted, yet the pain lingering inside and out—like being hacked by a thousand blades—had still not dissipated.

“All the experience points brought by the Origin Fragment have been spent, and I even spent an extra sixty thousand experience points stored in the panel.”

——Remaining usable experience point quota: 710,000.

Next, it was time to refine that strand of Origin Power.

“According to what Jiang Zhi said earlier, next I’ll fall into my own ‘Heart Lake’.”

“But what exactly is ‘falling into the Heart Lake’?”

Jiang Zhi himself could not explain it clearly.

He said that everyone’s experience was different, and what they saw was also different.

The reason one had to stay conscious during refinement was because one might encounter one’s own obsessions, or even Heart Demons.

When Chu Huaixu heard him say this, his gaze seemed to change slightly.

He guessed that when this Little Martial Uncle Ancestor refined Origin Power back then, the process was probably somewhat unbearable to recall.

Not long after, Chu Huaixu entered an incomparably mysterious state.

He felt himself continuously falling, continuously falling.

Before his eyes was a blur of chaos; nothing could be seen clearly.

When he could finally see everything, he found himself sitting cross-legged atop a stretch of lake water.

It was very strange—he could just sit directly on the water like that.

Very clearly, this was not a lake in the true sense.

Immediately after, a faint sound of crying seemed to reach his ears.

Then, Chu Huaixu felt a strand of… warm wind?

It brushed across his body, enveloping him completely, bringing him a warmth that felt very familiar, yet also carried a hint of unfamiliarity.

He could not help but immerse himself in it, feeling only peace in his heart, unable to resist wanting to draw close to this gust of wind.

He even felt as if he shared a bloodline connection with it.

Or rather, they had once been connected.

This was—

“Mom?” Chu Huaixu thought.

In the next instant, this gust of wind “hugged” him even tighter.

Above the Heart Lake, Chu Huaixu sat cross-legged.

The warm wind wrapped around him, causing gentle ripples to spread across the Heart Lake.

This feeling was really so familiar.

That alcoholic and coarse man—every time his mood soured, he would beat him with fists and kicks. At those times, there would always be a woman who shielded him tightly, just like this warm wind enveloping his entire body, holding him very, very tightly.

He was very afraid; his heartbeat would accelerate.

She was also very afraid—afraid that he would be hurt—and her heartbeat would accelerate as well.

The boy curled up in her arms seemed to hear, every time, his own timid heartbeat, along with the powerful beating of her heart.

Chu Huaixu did not know what was happening now.

He only knew that over all these years, he had actually always had many words he wanted to say to this woman.

But there was no longer any chance.

“Every time I promised I’d call you more, but I never did.”

“I always habitually lied to you, just like when I was little.”

“Mom, I’m sorry. Every moment when I spoke harshly to you—afterwards, I actually regretted it deeply.”

The ripples on the Heart Lake began to surge even more intensely.

It was very strange—Chu Huaixu seemed to inexplicably become a bit overly sentimental.

Clearly, it was just a gust of wind.

Just a warm wind, nothing more.

He sat atop the Heart Lake’s water, feeling this familiar warmth.

He felt that only a few brief moments had passed, yet outside, three days had already gone by.

In the time that followed, Chu Huaixu sat on the Heart Lake and experienced many, many things.

He would suddenly see a butterfly.

He would see a big fish eating small fish.

He would suddenly feel a bit cold behind him, then suddenly feel some pain.

In the blink of an eye, a full month had passed in the outside world.

Yet to him, it felt as though only a short while had gone by.

These abruptly appearing things seemed to symbolize something.

Chu Huaixu could recognize them at a glance.

Perhaps a girl from his school days, perhaps an extremely terrible leader, perhaps a betraying friend.

But that warm wind was always there.

Until the moment this warm wind disappeared, he inexplicably began to feel somewhat irritable.

Above the Heart Lake, the lake surface grew increasingly restless.

He saw mosquito flies, one after another, upon the water.

They buzzed loudly, swarming toward him and biting wantonly.

Yet Chu Huaixu could not move at all, allowing them to bite him like this.

And those buzzing sounds gradually turned into endless curses; each bite hurt to the extreme, entirely like fists and kicks raining down, like blows from clubs.

His extraordinarily high pain threshold seemed to vanish.

“Oh, so that dog of a man has arrived.”

The Heart Lake began to churn with wave after wave, each more violent than the last!

Yet for some reason, Chu Huaixu only felt a sense of loneliness.

Just like now, sitting cross-legged upon the Heart Lake, floating atop the water, yet resembling duckweed without roots.

He did not know where he should go, nor did he know where he should return.

This continued for a very, very long time, until suddenly a wave of cold swept in around him.

“Hu——!”

“Chu Huaixu.” He faintly heard a cold, clear voice.

A layer of frost began to form over his body.

The frost covered those mosquito flies, freezing them stiff in an instant. They immediately died, no longer buzzing, and fell into the lake water.

Next, almost in the blink of an eye, those furious and violent waves vanished, and the Heart Lake froze solid.

Across the entire frozen Heart Lake, frost spread.

He was frozen stiff, yet the pain on his body disappeared along with it.

In that instant, he began to know where he should go, and also began to know where he should return.

Chu Huaixu did not feel cold.

He only felt that after the lake surface froze, sitting atop it felt more solid, more grounded.

“So it turns out that in my Heart Lake, you are a layer of frost.”

Forty-five days passed just like that.

Jiang Zhi came to the cultivation chamber every day to check on Chu Huaixu and examine his condition.

Aside from that, every day he would forcibly stuff a fasting pill into the kid’s mouth,

to prevent him from starving to death outright.

“I wonder what he’s been seeing?” Jiang Zhi felt a bit curious.

His own “falling into the Heart Lake” was something he was unwilling to recall again.

“Chu Huaixu’s Heart Demon shouldn’t be too severe, right?” he guessed inwardly.

He himself was different—his obsessions and Heart Demons had still not dissipated to this day.

There was no helping it. The Origin Fragment Jiang Zhi possessed was stained with the blood of many people!

All of it the blood of those closest to him!

Above the Heart Lake, he had been killing the entire time.

Killing! Killing! Killing!

Never stopping.

Chu Huaixu, on the other hand, saw many interesting things.

For example, Little Xu turned out to be a frog sitting atop a lotus leaf.

Every time the frog went “gua——,” a voice would ring by his ear: “Senior Brother——!”

The frog kept croaking on the lotus leaf, and by his ear there would constantly be someone calling, “Senior Brother! Senior Brother!”

Actually, he had long noticed one thing.

When Xu Ziqing addressed other fellow disciples, he always included their surname. Even when calling Han Shuangjiang, he called her Senior Sister Han.

But only Chu Huaixu—from beginning to end—he called him solely—

“Senior Brother.”

Chu Huaixu did not know why, when the ice lake was already covered everywhere with frost, there would still be lotus leaves and frogs.

He gradually came to understand that those “passersby” who had left his life would gradually disappear from the Heart Lake.

Those who stayed with him would continue to exist.

Only, they would exist as different phenomena.

Like Elder Nangong Yue, who was a soft, fluffy cloud.

Li Chunsong, meanwhile, was a fly perched on another lotus leaf, constantly rubbing its hands together.

He saw many, many things, of all shapes and forms.

Over time, a question finally arose in Chu Huaixu’s heart.

——He had not seen himself.

The moment this thought appeared, everything on the Heart Lake disappeared in an instant!

It was as if he had returned to the very beginning.

He sat alone upon the lake surface.

Yet the lake surface also seemed to have changed.

It turned into—

——a mirror surface?

And this mirror surface felt so familiar.

After Chu Huaixu glanced at it once, he immediately remembered what it was, his heart trembling slightly.

So that’s how it was. So that’s how it was!

“This is a Fragment of Xuanhuang Origin!”

The Fragment of Xuanhuang Origin he had obtained within the Origin Spirit Realm was the mirror surface itself!

And it was very strange—clearly only the size of a fingernail, yet it could reflect everything around it.

Previously, several times when Chu Huaixu had lowered his head to look at the Heart Lake’s surface, he had been unable to see himself.

During this period, he had clearly seen so many phenomena, yet alone he could not see himself.

Then now?

Chu Huaixu slowly lowered his head, looking toward the mirror surface.

——What he saw was a sword.