At the Threshold

"Who did it?"

As Stone Pillar rose to his feet, he quietly wiped away the tears at the corners of his eyes.

He had come out of the refugee camp.

All alone.

Growing up, Old Xiang had been the one who treated him best.

It was not just once or twice that he had eaten at their home; he had treated Sister-in-Law Xiang like his own mother.

Even Xiang Wen's martial arts had been taught to him without reservation.

How had they been separated by life and death after only a few days apart?

Old Xiang lowered his eyes and looked at the two corpses laid out in the inner hall. After a moment of silence, he finally said, "The Wild Dog Gang. I've already wiped them out."

"Who gave the orders?" Stone Pillar's hair stood on end in rage as he slapped the table and sprang up.

His surging inner qi flushed his face crimson.

But Old Xiang did not tell him. He merely said, "Light some incense."

After drinking, Stone Pillar was already steeped in the smell of liquor.

During the meal, he did not ask again who had given the orders, nor did he offer any words of comfort. He only told Old Xiang that if he sought revenge, Stone Pillar had to be counted in.

No more words were needed; a call would bring him.

The two drank until they were slightly drunk.

Stone Pillar offered incense and bowed again before leaving the courtyard.

Night had fallen, vast and dark, and the moon amid the clouds hid its figure.

It also dimmed the boundless land considerably.

Old Xiang drank again beneath the moon, while his wife and son lay quietly upon wooden boards.

The Soul Banner stood before the table.

Raising his cup, he used the vast world beyond the window and the hazy moonlight to toast his wife, his son, and himself.

His eyes shone brightly, like burning deadwood blooming with light.

"Magic treasure, sometimes I truly don't understand. Are people more terrifying, or are ghosts?"

"I heard that Demon Cultivator had his entire family wiped out, then stormed into the Prefectural Governor's Mansion and killed the Prefect on the spot."

"A true man should live with such exhilaration!"

"Not even the immortal masters of the Attendant Tower could stop him."

"Was that a Demon Cultivator?"

"To tell the truth."

"I envy him."

"Can I do it?"

No one knew whether he was speaking to the Soul Banner or to himself.

Tu Shan Jun gave a derisive snort.

Everyone yearned for the thrill of repaying kindness and avenging grudges, yet few could actually do it.

Even he, Tu Shan Jun, could not.

What use was envy alone? The cultivation method had been given, and the Yin Soul Pill had been taken.

The road lay beneath his feet. He only needed to walk it.

If he shrank back even from these few steps,

merely lamenting fate's unfairness and life's many twists and turns, he would forever drown in his own dispirited will.

This life would amount to nothing more.

Tu Shan Jun stood within the Soul Banner, watching Old Xiang.

He said nothing.

He only watched.

Would Old Xiang collapse here in drunkenness and cease moving forward, or would he steel himself and strive to become stronger?

The choice rested only in the hands of the person involved.

Tu Shan Jun could not choose for another.

Old Xiang was thoroughly drunk, swaying crookedly as though he might fall at any moment.

Just as he was about to pass out drunk,

his inner qi circulated and evaporated all the alcohol from his body.

Old Xiang sobered up.

He could not get drunk yet, much less collapse here in drunkenness.

He could be despondent, but he could not wallow in it.

He stoked the heated bed again, sealed the courtyard gate, and swallowed the black bead.

The night passed without incident.

By morning,

more than a month had slipped away in the blink of an eye.

Nothing had changed in Liang Capital, but news of defeat in the north had returned.

Defeat after defeat.

It seemed that no good news of victory had come back for a long time.

This month had been difficult for the lords and ministers of the imperial court.

For Old Xiang, each day had likewise felt like a year.

His accumulation of inner qi was already sufficient.

His Organ Refining realm had reached its peak, and the circulation of inner breath through his five organs and six bowels continued without end.

To keep the corpses from rotting, Old Xiang nailed together crude wooden boards into coffins, placed them inside, and buried them in the cellar behind the courtyard.

He did not want to do this, but he had no choice.

After the burial, he wept before the graves.

He wept bitterly.

It was like a fishbone lodged in his throat.

After that, he spoke even less.

Every day, he either served on duty as a prison guard or returned home to swallow black beads.

Heaven did not fail those who worked hard.

At last, his inner qi reached completion, and he stood at the edge of a breakthrough.

There was still experience to draw upon when becoming a first-class master.

But returning from the Acquired to the Innate was something entirely new.

Those who could become Innate martial artists through their own efforts were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns throughout the worldly martial realm.

Cultivating to the Innate meant stepping onto the immortal path, and they would no longer remain in the mortal world.

Who did not wish to seek immortality?

The Innate could be converted into Qi Refining, yet it was not ordinary Qi Refining.

Tu Shan Jun had no particularly good method of guidance either. Others used spiritual roots to achieve Qi Sense, then used mana to cleanse their bodies and meridians after sensing qi, eventually cultivating to the Qi Refining First Layer.

Now, returning from the Acquired to the Innate relied entirely on the abundance of inner qi and patient grinding effort. Once the inner qi reached the peak of what the dantian could store, it would transform into mana.

Old Xiang felt that he was about to break through.

The inner qi in his dantian had swelled to its limit, while his body had been tempered to the pinnacle of mortal capability.

He only needed one final kick at the threshold to step into the Innate realm.

Inner qi surged through his meridians, and vitality flowed from his five organs.

The Tiger Roar Art circulated. The eight extraordinary meridians spread open, drawing in the inner qi within his dantian.

Inside the Soul Banner, Tu Shan Jun stared with blazing eyes at Old Xiang, who sat cross-legged upon the bed.

Success or failure would be decided in this one stroke.

But Tu Shan Jun knew that Old Xiang's chance of success was actually less than thirty percent.

His severed arm had left flaws in his meridians, preventing his inner qi from circulating effectively.

This was commonly known as the Greater Celestial Circuit.

Without the Greater Celestial Circuit, he could not open the still-blocked vital apertures within his body.

Others could sustain endless vitality through the Greater Celestial Circuit, but because of his severed arm, a portion of Old Xiang's cycle had been broken.

If inner qi clogged within the meridians, it could easily stretch open those meridians that were still relatively resilient.

Until cracks and gaps appeared.

If the meridians could not endure, the quality of the inner qi would decline, making it impossible to open the Greater Celestial Circuit apertures of the body.

Though none of it was especially serious, at such a critical juncture, these were things that could kill.

Once the meridians collapsed, the loss of control over his inner qi would grievously injure his body and cause internal injuries.

More serious internal bleeding could directly bury a martial artist's life.

Though he was a first-class master in the Organ Refining realm, if he attempted a breakthrough with such injuries, death was certain.

But if he forced all his inner qi out, the Greater Celestial Circuit would become incomplete, and without enough follow-through, he would be unable to open the apertures.

He would still fail in the end.

So he could not rush.

The more it was such a moment, the less he could panic.

Tu Shan Jun feared that Old Xiang did not understand the principles involved, that he would rush to break through and administer harsh medicine.

"Don't rush."

Tu Shan Jun took a deep breath and muttered softly to himself.

Tu Shan Jun watched Old Xiang, who was circulating his cultivation, with tense focus.

Naturally, he hoped Old Xiang could successfully break through.

Only if Old Xiang succeeded would he have a chance to wield the Soul Banner.

The cultivation method and mental formula of the Tiger Roar Art could no longer support the circulation of his inner qi. Vast inner qi burst madly from his dantian.

Even the meridians that had already been widened could not withstand the flood of inner qi.

Before he could complete the Greater Celestial Circuit, his meridians gave out first. A thread of blood trickled from the corner of Old Xiang's mouth.

The moment Tu Shan Jun saw Old Xiang's complexion and the blood at his lips, he knew something had gone wrong.

"This is bad. His inner qi is too deep and immense; it has instead affected Old Xiang's breakthrough."

"If this continues a little longer, his meridians will burst."

Tu Shan Jun frowned anxiously, thinking of a solution.

"Do I really have to use harsh medicine and force my way through in one breath?"

His meridians were already burdened. Either the inner qi had to be dispersed, or the circulation had to be completed directly.

To complete the circulation, the clogged inner qi had to flow freely and without obstruction.

"What if I give him another Yin Soul Pill?"

Tu Shan Jun pondered whether the idea was feasible.

The blood at Old Xiang's mouth had already become a thin stream. His body was like red-hot branding iron, glowing scarlet.

White steam evaporated from the surface of his skin.

"Ah, how did I forget about that?"

Tu Shan Jun suddenly understood, deeply struck by his own stupidity.

He had considered it countless times, yet none of it compared to this sudden flash of inspiration.