Vast spirit, one with primordial chaos

This time.

He no longer condensed his embryonic breathing into a curtain of qi, hoping to envelop the cold dipper true qi and finish everything in one stroke... Instead, he deployed it like troops in battle formation, making the empty seem full and the full seem empty, with hidden soldiers lying in ambush everywhere.

But in the final moments, his embryonic breathing still failed to fully restrain the cold dipper true qi's movements. One careless slip let the cold qi shatter his heart chamber, killing him on the spot.

Chen Heng frowned and made a new Mind Image sit down. Only after carefully pondering the matter did he collect his thoughts and begin again.

This time, a hitch in circulating his embryonic breathing made the Mind Image collapse again, coughing blood.

On the third attempt, his intestines ruptured, and he died.

On the fourth, the cold dipper true qi turned around and devoured most of his embryonic breathing. With no strength left to sustain him, his blood dwindled, and he died.

On the fifth, the true qi exploded the instant he began refining it. Cold poison fell into his organs, and after struggling to hold on for half an incense stick's worth of time, he still met his end.

On the sixth, his skull split, and he died...

Chen Heng no longer knew how many times he had died. All manner of novel causes of death had appeared, a thousand strange and bizarre variations.

Eventually, he grew numb and could no longer be bothered to count his deaths or the days that had passed in the One True Dharma Realm. He simply kept using his embryonic breathing to encircle and block the true qi, memorizing every gap and oversight before starting all over again. When he died, he tried again.

Fortunately, his will was exceptionally cold and hard. Anyone else would likely have suffered a mental collapse long ago under this day-after-day torment, unable to carry on.

Every instance of bleeding and pain in this Dharma Realm felt utterly real. Dying dozens or even hundreds of times a day could certainly be considered a peculiar form of torture.

And so it went.

He spent four days in arduous practice, equivalent to forty days in the One True Dharma Realm, suffering who knew how many failures.

In return, his skill at moving and circulating his embryonic breathing advanced by leaps and bounds. He completely adapted to its explosive increase...

Shifting between hardness and softness, expanding and contracting, advancing and retreating-all had become second nature. Compared to before, he was practically a different person.

Chen Heng was confident that among Qi Refining cultivators at his level, those capable of matching his skill in circulating and dividing embryonic breathing, while perhaps not one in ten thousand, would certainly be few.

Those who could firmly surpass him were probably only the disciples of the fabled Eight Schools and Six Sects...

Yet he still made no significant progress in refining the cold dipper true qi. In his recent attempts, he had repeatedly come within a single step of extracting it from his body, only to fall short at the final hurdle.

Chen Heng even began to doubt whether the trace of primordial beginning true origin acquired at the third level of Qi Refining could handle this true qi.

Still, he remained patient, trying over and over, dying again and again. He simply treated it as a way to hone his embryonic breathing.

Then, one day, inspiration suddenly blessed Chen Heng, and a flash of insight blazed through his mind.

Joy crossed his face. He hastily followed that elusive inspiration, steadied his mind, and set his embryonic breathing in motion.

An unknown amount of time passed before Chen Heng stopped refining and opened his eyes from meditation.

There in his palm hovered a strand of blue-green true qi, starkly cold and dark, shifting ceaselessly, surging and rushing...

"Cold dipper true qi, is this your true appearance?"

Chen Heng sighed softly. After silently contemplating the changes for a while, he severed his own neck with a chop of his palm and started over.

He repeated the process dozens more times. Only when he felt certain there were no remaining errors or omissions did he contact the Golden Cicada and have it send him out of the One True Dharma Realm.

The real world.

He was still inside the boat's cabin, with countless drifting clouds billowing high outside. Yet to Chen Heng, this ordinary sight now wore entirely different colors.

Over those several dozen days of cultivation in the One True Dharma Realm, he had not only honed his greatly increased embryonic breathing until hardness and softness worked in harmony, advancing and retreating at his will, but could also extract the cold dipper true qi from his body and turn it into a killing move of his own.

Recalling his wretched state when he first arrived in this world, tormented beyond endurance by the cold dipper true qi through countless days and nights, Chen Heng felt as though it had all been a bewildering dream.

Just then, a shaft of golden light shone through the window. In that clear daylight, his profile seemed all the more strikingly beautiful, splendid as rich brocade.

"Its beginning and end have never ceased through all eternity. Man is not primordial qi; how can he linger long beside it? Grass does not thank the spring wind for its flourishing, nor do trees resent autumn for their falling leaves..."

Chen Heng fell silent for a moment, then broke into a smile and recited:

"I shall encompass the great earth, my vast spirit one with primordial chaos!"

As he finished, his sleeves suddenly billowed, and his white robes stirred without a breeze.

Half a day later.

When the Cloud-Piercing Flying Boat approached Yuanjing in the Rong Kingdom, Tu Shan Ge came up from the lower cabin to report. The instant he opened the door, he saw an astonishing sight.

A thin layer of brittle frost had formed on the cabin floor. A stamp of his foot sent it crackling.

At the center of the cabin, a strand of starkly cold true qi emerged from Chen Heng's sleeve, winding around him in shimmering coils like a long snake. It seemed ready to soar into the heavens and vanish forever the instant it escaped his control.

Hearing the door open, Chen Heng glanced over and gave Tu Shan Ge a slight nod.

"Master, what is that?"

"Cold dipper true qi."

Chen Heng drew the strand of true qi back into his sleeve.

"Merely lodging inside my body without stirring, it nearly tormented me to death. I had to take Small White Sun Pills just to barely suppress it. Now, by a lucky stroke, I've swallowed an elephant like a snake and refined it. Tell me..."

"If I drove it to erupt with all its strength, could that burst freeze Tong Gaolu for a moment, even if he is at the seventh level of Qi Refining?"

Tu Shan Ge looked stunned, then burst into laughter.

"Bring Tong Yi up. I need to make use of him," Chen Heng said calmly.

Soon, Tu Shan Zhuang brought Tong Yi into the upper cabin.

After these few days, the boy's face no longer bore that air of arrogance and debauchery, and he looked considerably more dispirited. At the sight of Chen Heng, his body shook, and he involuntarily shuddered.

"Y-you... what are you going to do to me?!"

Tong Yi's voice and expression were fierce.

"Greetings, young fellow." Chen Heng offered no answer, merely cupping his hands slightly.

Those words frightened Tong Yi out of his wits. When they first met, this man had said exactly the same thing before sending a bolt of lightning from his sleeve and severing his arm.

"My father is Tong Gao-"

Just as Tong Yi expected, before he could finish his shout, a strand of blue-green true qi shot from Chen Heng's sleeve straight toward his face.

Pfft!

There was no dodging it. The instant the blue-green true qi touched his face, it melted into his body's meridians.

Shocked and terrified, Tong Yi rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot.

"This brat's pretty heavy. Listen to that thud..."

Tu Shan Ge stepped back disdainfully to keep Tong Yi from landing on his feet. "Master, do you intend to kill Tong Jizhen first, then join forces with the Rong Kingdom's imperial family to wipe out Tong Gaolu?"

Chen Heng nodded.

"While you were in seclusion these past few days, Master, I pried another story about Tong Jizhen out of Tong Yi. It might be useful to you."

"You certainly know your way around interrogation."

"Heh-heh, there's an old saying: a wise man knows which way the wind blows. With all the instruments of torture I have now, I needn't worry about failing to pry his mouth open!" Tu Shan Ge smiled proudly.

He sidled furtively up to Chen Heng and spoke to him at some length. Even with Chen Heng's temperament, his brow furrowed as he listened.

"Are you certain?"

Chen Heng asked once Tu Shan Ge finished.

"Absolutely certain."

"Tong Jizhen actually has a taste for men?"

Chen Heng glanced at Tu Shan Zhuang. The fox felt his fur tighten and instinctively reached for the door, ready to slip away.

"You're skilled in transformation arts, aren't you?" Though Chen Heng phrased it as a question, his tone was entirely certain.

Tu Shan Zhuang: "..."

Nearby, Tu Shan Ge rocked back and forth with laughter.

"You go help him too. With two of you, you can look out for each other."

Before he could finish enjoying himself, Chen Heng turned to him as well. "Don't stir the grass and startle the snake. Don't let Tong Gaolu notice."

Tu Shan Ge's face darkened.

Yuanjing, Rong Kingdom.

A bright red covered sedan chair stopped outside a residence. Supported by several brothel attendants, a man wearing only thin gauze stepped out, his makeup alluring and his expression puzzled and curious.

His name was Ji Yu, and he was currently the most sought-after courtesan at the Spring Splendor House in the Rong Kingdom. The Spring Splendor House was one of Yuanjing's foremost male brothels. Given Ji Yu's present worth, getting him to come out and entertain a client should not have been easy.

But there was no helping it. This client had offered far too much.

A full chest of gold and silver right from the start-with such extravagance, even an immortal would have been unable to resist!

Thus, Ji Yu disregarded his passionate affair with Tong Jizhen, secretly arranged a sedan chair, and came to the residence.

Yet the moment he entered the courtyard gate, Ji Yu sensed that something was amiss.

Such a spacious residence had only two servants, and even the ground was not particularly clean. It looked as though someone had hurriedly swept the surface and could not be bothered with anything more.

That was not even the most important part.

The looks those two servants gave him were especially complicated: hatred, bewilderment, blankness, incomprehension, and something else even Ji Yu could not fathom.

Were those the eyes of people diligently studying and imitating him?

Ji Yu wanted nothing more than to turn and run, call over the brothel attendants outside, climb into his sedan chair, and leave at once.

But remembering that whole chest of gold and silver, he abandoned the thought and silently bolstered his courage.

While his thoughts ran wild.

The two servants had already led him into a small courtyard. One of them, an especially burly fellow, had a particularly nasty attitude and even stealthily stuck out a leg, trying to trip him.

"What sort of diversion would my lord like today? This humble one is proficient in all eighteen arts of pleasure-light caresses, slow twists, strokes and flicks, blowing, drawing, plucking and singing. I'm skilled in every one, and..."

Absentmindedly reciting the patter his madam had taught him, Ji Yu looked up and froze.

The man standing quietly in the courtyard truly was an immortal figure.

A wooden hairpin held his raven-black hair, and his long robes were white as snow, flowing with soft, cold light beneath the moon. Without any adornment, he possessed an extraordinary elegance. The distant chill in his brows and eyes seemed like the heavy frost of early spring. One casual glance from him made every thought feel as though it had nowhere to hide and would be seen clean through.

Before such a person, anyone, no matter how proudly they usually boasted of their beauty, would feel uneasy standing there, ashamed of their own plainness.

Wait!

Ji Yu's mind raced. This is today's client?

No!

Who exactly is paying to bed whom here?

I've landed an incredible bargain! Hahahaha!

Jackpot!

Ji Yu made a show of straightening his clothes and was just about to smile and speak when a burst of qi knocked him unconscious to the ground.

"All right, discuss it between yourselves."

Chen Heng withdrew his finger and said calmly:

"Which of you will impersonate him?"

Thanks to Dream One Illusion None for the 500-point tip, to Book Friend 20190726234619981 for the 100-point tip, to OJLO for the 100-point tip, and to I Am A Pan for the 100-point tip.