Chapter 209 – Five Sources, Nine Ancestors, Return to the True Self; Four Lotuses as One; Innate Shadow Blood - Part 2

A few days later.

Gu Xuejian arrived. She had bright, piercing eyes like a rising sun, an aura as wild as a free-running steed...no trace of meekness about her. One might call her a

heroine

—at least, she wore the attire of one, looking like a poised young warrior maiden. Her true age, however, was anyone’s guess.

But Li Yuan did notice a curious set of numbers hovering above her—2,548~6,536. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if she was at the fifth rank or the fourth.

“Senior, this is my uncle,” Yan Mu introduced. “Uncle, this is the

senior

I mentioned before.”

Gu Xuejian wasted no time, showing off her strength by suddenly leaping into the air, scanning the surroundings from above, then twisting lightly to land. “Not a bad spot. I’ll stay here.”

Seeing her nonchalantly display the power of a fifth rank martial artist, Li Yuan feigned just the right level of astonishment and said, “You’re...fifth rank?”

She nodded. “I hope you’ll keep it to yourself.”

Li Yuan quickly agreed. “Of course, of course. You’re my nephew’s friend, so you’re my friend, too.” Then he added, “What would you have me do, Senior?”

Gu Xuejian said, “No need to call me

Senior

. That’s just Yan Mu’s habit. You...” She paused, then continued, “Call me Gu Yu, or

Miss Rain

if you’d like.”

Li Yuan felt a little speechless. In the past, he’d gone by the aliases

Mister Wood and Woodson

. It was a play on his name Li, which used the radical for

wood

. Now she was calling herself Gu Yu, basically a play on the Xue character in her full name. So they were kindred spirits in that respect.

[1]

“Uhhh, I think Senior Gu would be more preferable,” he said at last.

Without dwelling on the form of address, she explained, “I need to borrow your resources to help me track down any unusual Red Lotus Cult activity in the surrounding area. Don’t bother with small fry, only if you see something big. Also, if anyone asks, just say I’m an enforcer you hired to work for you. Since you’re Yan Mu’s uncle, I’ll trust you for now. Don’t disappoint me. I’ll repay you handsomely afterward.”

Li Yuan nodded. “Understood.”

All of a sudden, Gu Xuejian said, “Li Yuan, show me your sixth rank moves. I want to see them for myself.”

Li Yuan instantly understood. The deputy temple master was nothing if not cautious. People could lie, but their martial arts, especially their underlying essence. were much harder to fake. If he were practicing anything with traces of the Red Lotus Cult, those marks would be impossible to hide.

So, he took out his Dragon-Fanged Blade, planning to imitate the spirit of the Ruling Blade while performing City Toppler.

The Ruling Blade was a hero’s blade style that stemmed from Li Yuan’s visualization of the Thousand-Mile Hero. When he focused on that image, he felt a towering surge of heroic fervor rise within him. A fierce, unstoppable aura welled up, and the heat coursing through his veins made him exhale a faint white vapor in the cold air.

The blade vibrated with a piercing shriek, as though some vicious demon were trapped within, screaming to break free. The once-quiet courtyard suddenly burst with energy.

BOOM!

The blade slashed downward, tearing the air with a deafening screech.

Gu Xuejian glanced at Li Yuan’s move, frowning slightly at first before realization dawned. She tapped her palms together in light applause. “An impressive skill..and excellent talent.”

Deep down, she felt a twinge of regret but kept it to herself. She could clearly sense that City Toppler couldn’t fully tap into the essence driving it. Still, his move was far from ordinary; it was the kind of pinnacle strike that only a rare genius could comprehend.

When Li Yuan circulated his shadow blood, she sensed an inherent righteous aura. When he wielded the blade, she also saw the mismatch with his core cultivation method. But wandering cultivators with no sect affiliation often ended up like this. Reaching the sixth rank on their own was already an extraordinary stroke of luck.

But this was likely his limit.

Without a more advanced path to follow, and with no chance to start over, Gu Xuejian believed Li Yuan would be stuck at the sixth rank for life. It was a pity to see such talent go to waste; if someone capable of understanding this kind of peak-level technique had begun on the

right road

, they would surely have gone much farther.

Li Yuan cupped a fist politely. “You praise me too highly,” he said. Then he let out a long sigh. “Still, I’m not sure how to progress from here.”

Sensing his dejection, Gu Xuejian responded in a softer tone. “But you know, there’s more to life than just perfecting a cultivation technique. Good mountains, pleasant rivers, a peaceful home...sometimes I envy that. I chose the martial path, so I have no choice but to press on. You can enjoy other landscapes in life.”

Seeing her adopt a kinder expression, Li Yuan silently exhaled in relief. As he suspected, someone who trusted Yan Mu and presented herself as a roving heroine would naturally respond better to the upright, heroic energy of the Thousand-Mile Hero. Had he shown traces of Southern Mountain’s Ghostly Rain instead, he suspected she would’ve regarded him with hostility.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

After the initial meeting, Gu Xuejian took up residence in the Hundred Lotus Manor without a shred of formality. Still, Li Yuan figured that with such a keen-edged blade living under his roof, he might manage to use her presence to eliminate nearby threats.

Every day, he went out personally to gather information—some from Xue Ning, some from Yu Chaojin—then presented his findings to Gu Xuejian. Her habits took him by surprise. She was a heavy drinker, but held her liquor well and never caused a scene. Even more unexpected was her willingness to pay for what she consumed.

After learning the price of the Snowbrew, she purchased ten full jars in one go. Upon finding out it was made at the estate’s own distillery out front, she moved from the back courtyard to a room closer to the distillery. Yet for all her enthusiasm, she kept proper boundaries. She never went inside to see how the wine was made, simply waiting patiently for new batches to finish and then buying them outright.

All of this left Li Yuan somewhat puzzled. Yet after spending a few days together, he found he could converse casually with her from time to time.

“Aren’t you going to cultivate?” he asked one day.

Gu Xuejian drank from a cup of wine and replied, “I’m stuck right now.”

That wasn’t the kind of question he could press, so he stayed quiet. She didn’t elaborate, continuing to sip her wine under the clear daylight. Her slender yet powerful waist was loosely cinched by a length of cord, her long hair resting on her shoulders...looking nothing like someone at a lofty rank.

After a few sips, she raised an eyebrow at Li Yuan. “You’re not going to ask more?”

He shrugged. “It must involve your cultivation secrets. I figured I shouldn’t pry.”

She grinned, flashing a hint of boldness. “There’s no secret to it. Come closer and I’ll tell you. Think of it as part of the payment for letting me stay here and for the help you’re providing.”

Li Yuan walked over and bowed. “Then please enlighten me.”

Gu Xuejian’s voice took on a thoughtful tone. “Five Sources, Nine Ancestors, and Return to the True Self.”

Li Yuan blinked in confusion. “I...what?”

She went on. “

Five Sources

refers to the fifth rank, in which five strands of extreme Yang source blood swirl around the heart.

“

Nine Ancestors

refers to the fourth rank, in which the heart transforms back to its origins in stages. Each of these ancestral transformations is a deeper progression.

“And

Return to the True Self

...that’s the third rank.

“People often reference the Nine-Five Supreme as a name for the emperor. In our martial circles, the phrase

Five Sources, Nine Ancestors, and Return to the True Self

follows a similar logic.

“But frankly, I’ve no real clue what

Return to the True Self

actually entails; that’s still way above me. I haven’t even reached the first step of the Nine Ancestors Realm. That realm demands intense combat and even brushes with death itself. Which is why...” she exhaled, “I’m out here looking for the Red Lotus Rebels.”

Extreme Yang source blood

... Li Yuan was instantly reminded of the faint thread of fiery blood circling his own heart, strongly radiating Yang energy but still rigid and incomplete. It was missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

He was almost certain that the missing piece was the ancestral seal, something he suspected would only become available once his three main successors, who were practicing the Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, and Final Blade, reached the pinnacle of sixth rank.

At that point, Li Yuan could push for his own breakthrough to the fifth rank, giving the extreme Yang blood a

soul

, making it the source blood Gu Xuejian described.

Yet now he realized that even the fifth rank wouldn’t be so straightforward. He would need five full strands of source blood to achieve true mastery.

Li Yuan sighed softly. “I might never get there myself, but it’s a pleasure to hear about such lofty sights all the same.”

His remark appeared to resonate with Gu Xuejian. She seemed to appreciate the attitude.

Gu Xuejian actually lifted the wine jar and poured Li Yuan a cup. Then she clinked her jar against his cup, threw back most of the jar in one long drink, and laughed heartily. “That’s the stuff!”

She set the jar down and continued, “Producing the first strand of source blood means stepping into the fifth rank. Once you’re at the fifth rank, with source blood spiraling around your heart, you can resist the pull of the earth and fly through the air at will.

“When weapons master refines spirit weapons, they use blood gold crystals to create a soul for the weapon. And how is that soul born? Through the source blood of a fifth rank master. Because source blood doesn’t just contain raw power, it carries everything about you...your view of life, your personality, your very being.

“That’s why a spirit weapon you forge that way is like a living extension of yourself, bound to you by blood and connected to your will.”

She raised the jar again, and Li Yuan clinked his cup to hers. After gulping down the remainder, she said, “Once you form three strands of source blood, your heart begins its ancestral transformation or

atavism

, and that’s when your shadow blood changes dramatically. Previously, you needed to draw an ancestral seal just to get any effect at all. But once you’ve reached that stage, every drop of blood in your body will carry the power of the ancestral seal.

“At that point, even if someone cuts you into 18 pieces, as long as your heart remains, you won’t die. And an ancestrally transformed or

atavic

heart is extremely difficult to destroy.”

Li Yuan listened intently. In truth, it all sounded a bit muddled. His own path, lacking a traditional ancestral seal, would likely unfold differently.

Gu Xuejian went on, “Once you’ve cultivated five strands and tempered them further, your heart will achieve full atavism, though that’s only the beginning. I’m right at that threshold...missing just half a step.”

With that, Li Yuan had a clearer sense of her level. The Sacred Fire Palace elder, Zhu Nuyang, was probably around the three-strand stage of the fifth rank. Gu Xuejian, by contrast, was already almost at the peak with five strands. Moreover, her spirit weapons and various skills would likely surpass Zhu Nuyang’s by a wide margin.

The two chatted a while, after which Li Yuan excused himself and resumed his usual routine of gathering and organizing information for her.

When he received word of a large-scale commotion caused by the Red Lotus Cult, Gu Xuejian made her move. Wearing white, sword in hand, she departed. It was nearly half a month before she returned, looking more troubled than triumphant.

Li Yuan tried to probe discreetly, but she wouldn’t talk. His own attempts to investigate yielded only scattered rumors. A forest outside a certain county in Northriver Prefecture had rotted away overnight; several places reported hearing the screams of lanterns in the night... The fragmented accounts were all jumbled together, and none of it made any sense.

1. Did my best to write the explanation into the actual story here. Basically, Chinese characters use combinations of radicals, which can also be characters themselves, to form new characters. I believe I’ve written about this in the past with how Li Yuan came up with Sheng’er’s name. But the long and short of it is that the Li (李) character has the wood (木) radical in it, and the Xue (雪) character has the rain (雨) radical in it. ☜