Chapter Ninety-Two: The Lifeblood of a Man

“You’ve lost your mind!”

As expected, a sharp cry rang out in her ear.

At the same time, a flash of blinding white light flickered and vanished, and the jade token that should have been smashed to pieces now floated steadily in the air.

So the old swindler really was hiding inside it. Feng Ke'er turned away in a huff.

A faint sigh drifted from within the jade token. It was the voice of the Heavenly Lord of the Way: “Girl, no matter how angry you are, you can’t go around using your own life essence as a toy to smash things with.”

What? Life essence? Has the old man gone mad from reading a tragic romance? She was not some spoiled young master from a noble household. Feng Ke'er gave a cool snort, every expression on her face condensing into three words: she did not believe him.

“Really, I’m absolutely not lying to you this time.” The Heavenly Lord of the Way had finally learned what it meant when the boy cried wolf. His tone was heavy with helplessness. “Girl, I did lie to you before. Some things were not yet ripe, and with your temperament, I had no way of telling you the truth. But this matter, you must listen to me. Whether you want to cultivate immortality or not, this jade is your very life. If anything happens to it, at best you will not be able to cultivate; at worst, you will lose your life.”

He did not seem to be bluffing. Looking back at the jade token floating quietly before her, Feng Ke'er felt it was all beyond belief and blurted out, “Why?”

She knew this jade token was no ordinary object. It was a petal from the primordial green lotus, a true treasure of sacred rank. Besides, the old dean had also said that it once held the soul of the Goddess of Creation... Wait, had the Heavenly Lord of the Way been lying back then? Just as the old dean had said, was she really a newly formed soul made from that lingering fragment? If so, then this jade really might be her life essence...

“Girl, it is not what you think.” It seemed that the earlier effort of protecting the jade had taken a heavy toll, and the Heavenly Lord of the Way’s breath was somewhat unsteady.

But how could Feng Ke'er notice that now? She urgently wanted to understand the relationship between the jade and herself, and with knitted brows pressed, “Then what is it really?”

The Heavenly Lord of the Way drew a deep breath.

Patiently, he explained, “Girl, wanting to know your own origin is only natural. I understand. However, your background must be sought by you personally.”

“You don’t know either?” Feng Ke'er did not believe him at all. Old man, weren’t you just boasting about how all-knowing you were? Was there really anything in this world that you did not know?

The Heavenly Lord of the Way sighed again. “Girl, by now you have already glimpsed the immortal path. I can tell you the truth. You guessed part of it right—I am indeed hidden within this jade. But there is something far more important you did not guess: within it, there is only a wisp of my divine sense. Every time I contact you, pass on power to you, help you... and so on, I rely on this wisp of divine sense. And divine sense is a consumable thing. Think for yourself: over all this time, how many times have I protected you? How many times have I helped you? Girl, to be honest, this wisp of divine sense has already been worn down by nearly a third. Once it is exhausted, I will no longer be able to contact you as I do now, nor can I continue to transmit power to you, much less guard you from the side. The Clear Mind Mantra is a cultivation art I created, with ten layers in all. Right now I can only pass the third layer to you. Girl, cultivation is a path that goes against Heaven, fraught with peril. I truly do want to pass all ten layers to you. But with your current attitude toward cultivation, I’m afraid that before you even reach the fifth layer, this wisp of divine sense will already be used up. Girl, cultivation is your own affair. I truly cannot protect you for a lifetime.”

His words were heartfelt, his tone sincere to the extreme. Feng Ke'er only felt as though the softest place in her heart had been stabbed hard. Choked with emotion, she said, “Why are you helping me?” They had no kinship, no connection. They were not even familiar with one another...

“Fate. Everything is a matter of destiny.” The Heavenly Lord of the Way chuckled softly. “Girl, whatever you want to ask, I know it all. But the timing is not yet right. Saying too much will bring nothing but harm to your cultivation and no benefit at all. So for now I can only tell you this: the answer is hidden within the Heavenly Scroll. The more you comprehend the scroll, the closer you will come to the day the answer is revealed.”

He was unusually patient, coaxing and persuading her, and for the first time he even changed his self-reference from “I” to the more humble “I.” “Those so-called three tasks were only an excuse, weren’t they?” Feng Ke'er understood now. From the very beginning, they had been using guided teaching, step by step luring her onto the great path of cultivation.

The Heavenly Lord of the Way only smiled and said nothing.

That was as good as an admission.

Touched as she was, Feng Ke'er still felt deeply unconvinced. Her life was her own. What right did that old man have to decide whether she would cultivate or not?

“Why must I cultivate immortality?”

The Heavenly Lord of the Way gave a cold laugh. “Wrong. It is not that I insist you cultivate immortality. It is that you have been cultivating all along. Before, I did not know. Now that I do, naturally I will do my utmost to help you.”

“Your utmost?” That was quite a bond indeed. Feng Ke'er’s gossip-loving heart surged with interest. Smiling ingratiatingly, she asked, “Is it because of that lotus... uh, Senior Green Lotus?”

According to later Taoist records, after Pangu opened heaven and earth, the three primordial deities transformed into the Three Divine Ones of Taoism, one of whom was the Heavenly Lord of the Way. And having read so many of Pangu’s cultivation notes, how could she fail to detect the unmistakable scent of an unspoken crush on the Primordial Green Lotus? So the reason the Heavenly Lord of the Way would “do his utmost” to help her was because of his former goddess crush, was it not? Darling, this was the purest form of caring for one thing because of another! To say that the jade token was her life essence—ha! Clearly it was the old man’s life essence!

Yet the person involved refused to speak of it, and instead warned her in utter seriousness, “Girl, focus on your cultivation. While this wisp of divine sense has not yet vanished, learn a few more layers of the Clear Mind Mantra from me. Otherwise, relying entirely on your own insight, just how difficult do you think the road of cultivation will be? And take good care of your jade. It can not only teach you spells, it can also protect your soul. With your current level of cultivation, I’m not trying to frighten you, but the day the jade shatters will be the day your soul is scattered to the winds.”

Fine. The subject had somehow shifted back again.

In short, the jade token was her life essence, and it could not suffer even the slightest mishap. Feng Ke'er of course understood this, but setting aside the gossip about the Great God Pangu and all that, what she was even more desperate to know was how she had come to be “cultivating all along,” and why, upon learning that she was cultivating, the Heavenly Lord of the Way would be so generous as to pass on all of his self-created art to her... Wait—

A flash of white light appeared, and the jade token automatically hung around her neck.

“Girl, remember to protect this jade well.” The Heavenly Lord of the Way sighed and said no more.

The cave instantly fell silent.

“Lord? Lord...” Feng Ke'er came back to herself, clutching the pendant as she called out several times in a soft voice, but there was still no response.

It seemed the conversation was over.

Feng Ke'er sat cross-legged on the ground, unwilling to accept it, and spread her divine sense over the jade token, hoping to uncover something. After more than half a quarter hour of fussing about, she found nothing at all.

So be it. Her cultivation was insufficient; no amount of anxiety would help. She should keep the pendant safely and cultivate in peace. Perhaps she would find some clue in the next page of Great God Pangu’s cultivation notes. After confirming that the two old monsters outside the cave showed no abnormalities, she gathered her spirit, closed her eyes slightly, formed a hand seal before her chest, and began practicing the third layer of the Clear Mind Mantra.

Unexpectedly, before she had even gotten through three lines of the incantation, she was startled.

The first two lines actually required her to guide the spiritual energy within her dantian in reverse! Wasn’t reversed spiritual energy the precursor to qi deviation and demonic frenzy? How could that be possible? If the Heavenly Lord of the Way had not just said so much that was so moving, Feng Ke'er would have almost suspected he had given her a fake cultivation art.

Suppressing her doubts, she only read and did not practice, continuing downward. The more she read, the less she understood. Finally, after finishing all of the incantation, she abruptly opened her eyes and found herself panting like a ox, drenched in sweat, as though she had been jolted awake from a nightmare. She was exhausted from merely reading it once, and she had not even begun to practice. Feng Ke'er braced herself on the ground with both hands and lamented, “So hard!”

She believed the Heavenly Lord of the Way had not lied to her. First, there was no need; second, there was no motive. So there was nothing wrong with the incantation. The one with the problem was her.

Before transmitting the third layer, the Lord had said that this layer would help her condense her golden core. Yet she was only at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment. Could it be that her cultivation was insufficient and, by forcing herself to practice, she had instead harmed the process by trying to make the seedlings grow faster? At that thought, Feng Ke'er shook her head repeatedly, then quickly overturned the conclusion herself. If the timing had not been right, how could the Heavenly Lord of the Way have passed it to her?

To hell with it. Same old rule: memorize it first.

She sat again, sealing the spiritual energy within her body, and began to commit it to memory by brute force. Since embarking on cultivation, her memory had risen by leaps and bounds with the increase in her level. Especially after Foundation Establishment, her memory had reached the point of never forgetting what she had seen. The first layer of the incantation had still required the old-fashioned method of memorization. As for the second layer, she had not even deliberately memorized it; she had simply guided her spiritual energy through once according to the verse and had already retained all the essentials firmly in mind.

Now, however, she dared not recklessly mobilize her spiritual energy. With no other choice, she had to return to her former clumsy method. Yet once her spiritual energy was sealed, her memory seemed sealed as well; by the time she read further on, she had already forgotten what came before. And the third layer of the incantation was several lines longer than the first two layers combined. So memorizing it was a grueling task. Still, after reading it five times, she finally etched the whole thing into her mind.

“I did it!”

Feng Ke'er opened her eyes in delight.

Then she clutched her stomach with both hands, and cold sweat the size of beans burst out across her forehead.

Hungry. She was truly hungry.

She had not felt hunger this intense in a very long time.

Steadying herself, she quickly examined her body and soon found the cause: memorizing the incantation had consumed too much of her spiritual power, and on top of that, she had not eaten for several days or practiced the second layer of the Clear Mind Mantra. How could she not be starving? A person made of iron still needed rice made of steel; miss one meal and the stomach would protest. She was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, still a vast distance away from the realm beyond grain.

Fortunately, she remembered that there was still some leftover roasted golden carp in her storage pouch. So, without hesitation, she pulled out the roasted meat and wolfed it down in big mouthfuls.

Er... she ate too quickly and choked until tears streamed down her face.

Yet after a few bites, warmth returned to her stomach, and before she could even catch her breath, her six dantians, large and small, suddenly quivered together.

At once, spiritual energy ran wild, and a stabbing pain tore through her lower abdomen.

“Pfft!” Food poisoning? Had it gone bad?

Feng Ke'er hurriedly clawed at her throat and spat out the golden carp meat in her mouth.

Someone on the peak thanks Old Leaf 9966 for the pink vote. To be continued.

Heavenly Scroll: Chapter Ninety-Two, Life Essence. Update complete.