Lin Bohui's Origins

Faced with such fierce attacks, Lin Bohui's expression remained unchanged. He channeled his True Qi and swung his sword again, creating a sudden, thunderous sound in the air.

The sword light was like a pool of flowing mercury, enveloping Lin Bohui's body. In a mere instant, it clashed with Duàn Yì's Ten Refinements Sword more than ten times. The clanging sounds were incessant, like a clear mountain spring hitting rocks, crisp and pleasant to the ear.

Sparks flew, and sword winds howled. Duàn Yì, stepping on the King Yue's Divine Arrow, was once again forced back several paces. The veins on the back of his sword-wielding right hand bulged, and his entire body felt numb, as if he had been electrocuted.

The Jade Well Heavenly Pool technique had failed, but instead of being alarmed, he was delighted. His eyes were bright, and he looked at the trembling Lin Bohui with a strange smile, as if he had calculated something.

"How could this be? My True Qi?"

Lin Bohui had repelled Duàn Yì, but he felt an unprecedented heat within himself. The True Qi in his dantian churned and leaped like boiling water, restless, even elevating his swordsmanship to another level.

If it were only this, it would be fine. The most crucial thing was that his blood surged, and his desires flared, causing him to reveal a look of panic.

Lin Bohui hailed from the Lin family of Fuzhou, Lingnan. His family held considerable prestige in the local Martial Arts World, and his grandfather was a supreme swordsman, known as Fuzhou's number one sword, recognized by all.

As the legitimate heir of the Lin family in this generation, Lin Bohui was supposed to inherit the family's Bixie Swordplay from childhood, practice diligently, and after years of training, emerge to make a name for himself in the Jianghu with his family's swordplay, becoming a figure like his grandfather.

However, when he was seven years old, he was judged by his grandfather, the previous Lin family patriarch Lin Chunwang, to have average aptitude and be unsuitable for inheriting the Bixie Swordplay.

To cultivate the Bixie Swordplay, one needed to be at least thirty years old and possess a certain foundation in martial arts. Whether he would even want to practice it then was another matter.

In contrast, when his younger brother was seven, he was directly deemed to have excellent aptitude and was allowed to practice the family's martial arts, even receiving the Bixie Sword Manual. This made Lin Bohui intensely envious and jealous, though he had no other recourse.

Until five years ago, feeling that his cultivation had reached a certain level, he proposed a sword duel with his younger brother.

The outcome of this battle was beyond his imagination; he was subdued in a single move.

His brother's swordsmanship was uncanny, making it impossible for him to muster any will to fight. This led to resentment and confusion.

The Bixie Swordplay was incredibly powerful. As descendants of the same Lin family, why could his brother learn it while he could not? Was it truly due to aptitude?

For this reason, he made subtle inquiries and pestered his doting father several times, finally uncovering a shocking truth.

The Lin family's Bixie Swordplay was indeed immensely powerful, a supreme sword technique. However, its core lay in the hidden qi-cultivation methods.

To practice it, one had to undergo self-castration to overcome the first stage of intense heat generated by the cultivation; otherwise, one would go mad and burn to death, with no escape.

Self-castration was something no man in the world would willingly face, preferring death.

However, for generations, the Lin family had an unwritten rule: to raise many descendants, select those with excellent aptitude to teach the Bixie Sword Manual, and upon achieving success in martial arts, they would naturally succeed as the family patriarch.

As for those with average aptitude, if they had offspring in the future, they had to choose one to be adopted by the sword-practicing heir as their own child, to continue the lineage. Simultaneously, the branch that did not undergo self-castration would be relegated to a collateral branch.

Just like his father, he was not Lin Chunwang's biological son but Lin Chunwang's nephew. Because he never underwent self-castration to practice the sword, his martial arts were not particularly formidable, and he could only live under the shadow of Lin Chunwang's reputation.

Take himself, for example. If he were to marry and have children in the future, he would have to give one to his younger brother, making him his brother's child. This was compensation for the sacrifice, and he didn't know whether to feel fortunate or disappointed.

Because his younger brother, at the age of seven, was no longer a true boy.

To preserve the Lin family's prestige, there had to be someone practicing the sword to succeed Lin Chunwang as the head of the family. Decades later, perhaps another ignorant child would suffer the same fate as his brother.

While Lin Bohui felt heartache for his brother's fate, such a divine skill, if not practiced, was a true regret.

For this reason, he found an opportunity and secretly extracted the Bixie Swordplay from his brother's hands, then began to research its secrets, looking for a way to practice it without self-castration.

For years, he found nothing and couldn't bring himself to self-castrate for the practice, driving him to the brink of madness.

It wasn't until he accidentally obtained the Calming Incantation that things took a turn.

The reason the Bixie Swordplay required self-castration was that during cultivation, it generated a fiercely hot True Qi that caused uncontrollable lust, something even enlightened monks could not resist.

The Calming Incantation, however, had the miraculous effect of dispelling desire and alleviating heat, allowing him to pass the first stage, but it left behind hidden dangers.

This shortcut method was merely treating the symptoms, not the root cause, and had significant limitations and hidden dangers.

For instance, his current level of cultivation was his limit. He could not further cultivate his qi to strengthen his internal energy, or his internal energy would go out of control, and he would burn himself from within.

For example, when fighting others, he had to engage in sexual intercourse before and after battles to vent the internal heat, yang energy, and desires. When attacking, he could not unleash his full power; he had to keep himself within a controllable range.

Another example was his luxuriant hair, which was a result of practicing the Bixie Sword Manual without self-castration. Fortunately, as a man, growing more hair only added to his imposing appearance.

Later, under the pretext of traveling, he journeyed north from the Lin family in Lingnan, eventually arriving in Hebei, where he conceived the idea of testing his sword against the heroes. He challenged a local Willow-Whip Swordsman and won.

This battle was the first time he used the Lin family's Bixie Swordplay against an opponent, and he experienced its power, realizing it was far beyond comparison to so-called superior sword techniques.

Afterward, he challenged six more individuals consecutively, winning each bout.

It could be said that, up to this point, everything was under Lin Bohui's control, both his cultivation and his challenges against masters were within a manageable range.

As for accepting a hefty sum from Ruan Xiang to defeat a young man for him, he hadn't even given it much thought.

But now, at this very moment, Lin Bohui was filled with immense terror because the True Qi in his dantian was burning like fire on oil, growing hotter and more intense.

Without any conscious effort, it was rapidly erupting, exceeding the control range of his Calming Incantation.

This outcome, while causing his True Qi to advance rapidly in a very short time, would inevitably lead to great chaos after the advancement.

He could no longer control his True Qi. Once the True Qi cultivated by the Bixie Swordplay went out of control, there was only one result: demonic possession.

It could be said that the ropes that had bound the fierce dragon had snapped at some unknown time. Now, the dragon's strength had grown considerably, but the first one to suffer the backlash would not be anyone else but himself.

He never imagined that after all the twists and turns, he still couldn't escape this trial.

For this reason, Lin Bohui was filled with regret and unwillingness. He regretted coveting the power of the divine skill and was unwilling to let all his painstaking efforts go to waste.

Besides regret and unwillingness, he also had a significant question in his heart.

Why had his True Qi spiraled out of control for no reason?

Last night, he had enjoyed the company of four women, and with the effect of the Calming Incantation, the heat of his True Qi and the distracting thoughts in his heart had already been cleared.

Before, when he fought Duàn Yì, he hadn't fully circulated his True Qi. Why had he fallen to this point? Where had the problem occurred?

"Was it that scent? It was an extremely potent aphrodisiac? How could he have known my weakness?"

In a daze, a flash of lightning struck Lin Bohui's mind. He recalled the scent from Duàn Yì's sword when they clashed during the Ten Refinements Sword exchange, and he understood where the problem lay.

But the resolution of one problem meant the beginning of another. How did the other party know about the hidden danger in his martial arts?

"Ah, you despicable scoundrel, I will kill you."

Though his heart was filled with confusion, it no longer mattered. Lin Bohui had only one thought at this moment: while his consciousness was still clear, he would kill the person who had ambushed him, and they would go to hell together.

His furious roar, like a thunderclap on a clear day, rumbled through the mountains, its echoes unceasing. It startled countless birds and beasts, its impact reaching half the mountainside.

At the same time, Lin Bohui gritted his teeth, controlling the True Qi within his body to unleash the Bixie Swordplay. Sword light reappeared, not a single bit held back.