Chapter 386 – Training and Daily Life at Dawn Manor, an Encounter With the Emperor Before the Mass Grave - Part 1

The same evening, Jing Shuixiang drew the short stick.

After their usual husband-and-wife routine, the two lay down on the bed.

The former elder of the Holy Tree Temple was a petite thing, all delicate curves. Among Li Yuan’s many wives she was closest in build to Yan Yu. Yet when it came to nightly

combat

, no one was fiercer.

Yan Yu was a gentle rabbit that could still bite, a textbook virtuous wife who could rule the kitchen and grace the reception hall. Jing Shuixiang, by contrast, was a rampaging lioness, usually imposing and every bit as savage once the bedroom door closed.

Even now she was still on top.

Li Yuan, utterly relaxed, combed his fingers through her long hair while studying her. Snow-pale skin, soft curves, eyes that fluttered like black butterflies. He lifted her hands and kneaded them.

Jing Shuixiang was a superb cook, easily the best chef among his wives, and her hands bore the proof. He squeezed here, pressed there.

She’d long since grown used to his attentions, yet never bothered asking Cui Huayin or Yao Jue whether Li Yuan treated them the same. When she tired of being pawed, she flipped over, rolled off him, and curled into his arms instead.

Li Yuan held his dove-sized wife and let his mind wander. It was funny, really. Apart from Jen’gal Snow, he’d always married in pairs, one petite and one tall. First came the tiny Yan Yu and long-legged Xue Ning; then it was the petite Jing Shuixiang and statuesque Cui Huayin. Their temperaments, though, were worlds apart.

His thoughts drifted further. What new lives would he taste in the long years ahead? What strange folk await him?

Then he reined himself in and quietly focused on the 856-blade ancestral seal inside him. Layer upon layer of ancestral seal seeds unfurled like eerie lotus petals around the core, each petal seething with wild intent.

Feeling in rare form, he hugged his fourth wife tighter and pressed the ancestral seal against his heart.

Li Yuan still remembered the garden that Qing Hancheng had displayed and his own son’s shadow clones. There was no reason they could wield that power while he could not.

The instant the ancestral seal touched his heart, Jing Shuixiang’s body jerked; her eyes flew open, terror shining in those bright pupils. Her breathing hitched, as though invisible fingers clenched her throat.

Li Yuan withdrew the ancestral seal. Only then did she gasp for air like a drowning girl hauled ashore.

“What on earth were you doing?”

“Just testing a power,” he replied. “Still can’t find the trick to it.”

He pulled her close again and launched into a discussion. How could a single thought sprout an entire world of flesh and blood?

Ever since learning where the Cycle of Withering and Growth ultimately led, Jing Shuixiang had kept her panic clamped down, comforting herself that the cart would find a road when it reached the mountain

.

Now, hearing Li Yuan revisit the topic, she could no longer hold back. Worried yet keen, she joined the debate, hoping they might stumble onto the

right path

.

They talked the whole night through.

The next morning—

“A ghost is nothing but pure obsession,” Jing Shuixiang said. “Plant that obsession in Yin energy and it turns into a ghost. A martial artist’s power works the same. The ancestral seal seed is a powerful thought; plant it in shadow blood and it keeps growing stronger. Strip everything down and the world is just spirit and flesh.”

Li Yuan nodded. He was in a different world, but it was the same old mind versus matter. Offhandedly, he added, “Ordinary people’s obsessions are weak, but death magnifies them; Yin energy swells them to infinity; and then before we know it, a ghost domain pops up.

“You cultivate a technique of the Holy Tree Temple, which is innately flawed in the soul. The early stages hide it, but higher up the imbalance shatters the body into death or locks you forever at a plateau.”

“Patch the soul and maybe—”

“No.” Li Yuan cut her off. “Shadow blood techniques are bizarre. One soul, one shadow blood, no cross-compatibility. Patch the soul later and it’s an outsider looking in. Useless.”

Jing Shuixiang fell silent. “Ping'an is lucky. Born with innate shadow blood.”

“That’s why he can clone himself,” Li Yuan said.

“A whole world of souls...” Jing Shuixiang stared out the window. Then she murmured, “Are we doomed to stay lambs forever penned inside our flesh?”

“

They

are only after the strongest souls,” Li Yuan said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t swing the Wither Growth Sword to reap them. As long as you never reach that point, they won’t harvest you.”

Inwardly he added,

It’s different from me. I can harvest the insights from ancestral seal seeds without killing anyone...

The more Jing Shuixiang talked it through, the more tangled her mind became. A moment ago, she had been relaxed. Since she had access to the original painting and manuals of the Holy Tree Temple to reference, she thought she might as well keep cultivating higher and worry later. Now, with every word, her own end grew clearer.

She tightened her arms around Li Yuan; her pride was slipping away. She had always chased the

Dao

on her own terms. But if the path itself was paved by someone else, then it wasn’t the Dao at all.

Jing Shuixiang had talent, willpower, and strength to spare. She had broken through to fifth rank, and even when she’d been stuck in sixth rank, she’d dominated her peers and earned the title of

queen

. Yet lying on the bed, she saw the whole trap spread open in her mind.

Even the temple master Qing Hancheng was dead; at best her gifts might only catch up to him.

Despair swept through her like a rushing flood; Li Yuan was the lone stalk she could cling to.

“Husband...what should I do?” Jing Shuixiang asked, abandoning the last vestige of her pride. “I-I’ve worked so hard and ignored everything else, but this path is wrong. It was wrong from the start, and there’s no turning back, no side path. What...what do I do? What can I do?”

Once softness erupted, it couldn’t harden again. Terrified, Jing Shuixiang clutched Li Yuan, then struck a fawning pose, hips swaying, face upturned and pitiful. She looked exactly like the wife who used to apologize every other sentence.

Li Yuan looked at her shivering and understood at once. His fourth wife was a lamb in a tiger pelt. Pull the pelt away and she showed the frailest belly, rousing every protective urge in a man.

He thought a moment. “First, don’t panic.”

“Mhmm!” She nodded furiously, suddenly obedient.

“Stop practicing the Cycle of Withering and Growth for now. Cook every day. Change your mood. The real snag is that I don’t understand souls yet. Once I do, I might be able to prescribe the cure and spring this trap.”

“Mhmm.”

“Oh, and during the day, tell Huayin and Yao Jue the same thing. Persuade them to quit for the moment.”

“Mhm! Mhmm!”

Her thoughts were still a mess.

Dawn was up, but Li Yuan kept her in his arms a while longer before rising, perfectly content. He worked himself ragged outside; surely home was meant for comfort.

He also had a hunch. Sooner or later, he would cross swords with whatever being lurked behind the Holy Tree Temple. When that day came, he could just ask the fellow point-blank how to break the trap set in the Cycle of Withering and Growth.

“Power, everything still comes down to power,” Li Yuan muttered to himself.

He had no way to gauge how strong that being was, which meant he had to become stronger still.

Qing Hancheng saw him as opposed to that transcendent faction. Li Yuan himself personally was ready for a clash, but he also hadn’t stamped the label

enemy

on his own forehead. Everyone was out there reaping. Nobody was inherently nobler than the next.

However, if their vaunted Grand Union of Yin and Yang promised doomsday and hordes of ghosts roaming free, Li Yuan would definitely object.