The Langhuan Blessed Land was also known as the Langhuan Grotto-Heaven.
Back when that scumbag Wuyazi and Li Qiushui had lived in seclusion on Mount Wuliang, the two had built this hidden paradise together.
Not only were there houses for daily living here, but there was also a secret chamber where the two practiced and refined their skills away from others-the very place Xu Xiao had found.
Incidentally, this place had once been filled with all manner of martial arts manuals from the Carefree Sect, as well as collected martial texts from the hundred schools of the Central Plains martial world.
Later, however, Li Qiushui's daughter, Li Qingluo, who was also Wang Yuyan's mother, had taken them back to Swallow Dock in Gusu.
This was why Wang Yuyan was known as a living martial arts encyclopedia, versed in the martial arts of a hundred schools.
Today, this secret chamber, sealed in dust for decades, welcomed new guests once more.
A statue of a woman carved entirely from white jade stood in the chamber, with light shining down upon it through the surface of the lake above.
At first glance from outside the chamber, it did indeed possess an otherworldly, ethereal beauty.
Ignoring Duan Yu's excited cries, Xu Xiao was the first to enter.
He wasn't about to make a fuss over a statue like Duan Yu.
Of course, that wasn't because the statue of Li Qiushui wasn't beautiful.
In all fairness, Li Qiushui's looks were first-rate, and Wuyazi's carving skills could also be called those of a grandmaster.
The statue he had carved from white jade was almost indistinguishable from a living person.
But Xu Xiao merely gave it a couple of glances, as though appreciating a work of art, before he began searching for the Northern Darkness Divine Art manual.
To put it bluntly, no matter how beautiful Li Qiushui's statue was, it was still just a lifeless object. There was no point in being infatuated with a statue. If he truly liked her, he could go and seize her.
Li Qiushui might be old and faded, but didn't she still have a granddaughter, Wang Yuyan?
What great man need worry about finding a wife?
There was no shortage of peerless beauties in the world. Once he had power, how could he fail to find one?
Xu Xiao looked around and spotted the meditation cushion beneath Li Qiushui's jade statue. According to the plot, the Northern Darkness Divine Art was inside it.
With a wave of his hand, the cushion flew into his grasp. A slight movement of his Telekinesis tore the fabric open of its own accord, revealing a bundle inside.
The bundle contained a silk painting scroll and a piece of silk bearing written words.
Xu Xiao passed over the silk written by Li Qiushui and unrolled the painting scroll instead.
The first line read "Northern Darkness Divine Art," in graceful yet forceful handwriting.
After the manual's title came the opening principles, beginning with a quotation from "Free and Easy Wandering" in Zhuangzi:
"North of the barren wilderness lies the Dark Sea, the heavenly lake. There is a fish in it, several thousand li in breadth; no one knows its length." It also says, "If water is not deep enough, it cannot bear a great boat. Pour a cup of water into a hollow on the floor, and a mustard seed will serve as a boat; set the cup there, and it runs aground, for the water is shallow and the boat is large." Thus, the foremost principle of our sect's martial arts is the accumulation of internal force. Once internal force is abundant, [all martial arts under heaven can be put to my use], just as the Northern Darkness bears boats great and small and holds fish large and little.
He unrolled the silk scroll farther. The long scroll was filled from end to end with paintings of naked women, some standing, some reclining, some showing their breasts and others their backs. All had the same face, but their expressions differed: some joyful, some sorrowful, some gazing affectionately, and some lightly pouting in anger.
There were thirty-six images in all. Each was marked with fine colored lines indicating the locations of acupoints and the formulas for practicing the art.
Just as I thought. Li Qiushui really did leave the Northern Darkness Divine Art here.
Xu Xiao slowly examined the images on the scroll, then rolled it up and put it away. As for the other piece of silk bearing Li Qiushui's demands, he casually tossed it aside.
After Wuyazi abandoned this woman, something had gone wrong in her head. She demanded that anyone who learned the Northern Darkness Divine Art swear an oath to kill every disciple of the Carefree Sect.
Heh, dumbass.
Expecting people to obey a mere scrap of writing? She could only fool a halfwit like Duan Yu with that. No, that wasn't right.
To be precise, even a halfwit like Duan Yu hadn't taken those words seriously in the original plot, much less Xu Xiao.
With the manual in hand and Duan Yu still circling the statue with a foolish grin, Xu Xiao could only walk over in speechless exasperation and wake him from his daze.
"Young Master Duan, it's time to get down to business. Help me decipher and comprehend this martial arts manual. Once I've grasped the basics, I'll consider your task complete."
"After that, I'll naturally help you rescue your little sweetheart, Miss Zhong."
As he spoke, Xu Xiao handed him the rolled-up Northern Darkness Divine Art scroll.
"Really?"
Duan Yu accepted the scroll with some delight and opened it, only to blush and snap it shut again at once.
"This... Senior, why is this an erotic painting?"
"Oh? You've seen erotic paintings before!" Xu Xiao watched Duan Yu with a playful look on his face. Only when the other man's face turned scarlet did he speak with a grin:
"Look closely. Those aren't erotic paintings, but diagrams analyzing the pathways through which the art is practiced. The acupoints are marked on them."
Hearing this, Duan Yu opened the scroll again. Sure enough, just as Xu Xiao had said, the paintings of naked women were marked with acupoints and meridians, with small characters written beside them.
He had only given it a hurried glance earlier and seen the naked women, so he had assumed it was an erotic painting.
At the thought, Duan Yu felt even more ashamed and was too embarrassed to raise his head.
Seeing how shy Duan Yu was, Xu Xiao couldn't bear to tease him any further.
"All right, Young Master Duan. Don't act like a bashful young girl. Hurry up and study the manual. The sooner you teach me, the sooner your Miss Zhong can escape their clutches."
He wasn't using Duan Yu to amuse himself. He didn't care what became of Duan Yu; he only cared that the man helped him decipher the Northern Darkness Divine Art so he could begin cultivating internal force soon.
Seeing that Xu Xiao had stopped laughing at him, and anxious for Zhong Ling's safety besides, Duan Yu immediately began studying the scroll in his hands.
The small characters and acupoints on the diagrams were nothing to him, and he was familiar with the circulation pathways and cultivation formulas as well.
Although he had never practiced martial arts since childhood, the Dali Duan Clan was a prominent family in the jianghu, and Duan Yu had learned about such things through constant exposure.
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, a quarter of an hour passed, and Duan Yu had gained a rough understanding of all thirty-six images.
"Senior, this martial art is truly overbearing and unorthodox. Absorbing other people's internal force for your own use goes against the harmony of heaven. Are you sure you want to practice it?"
Duan Yu had read through the entire manual. It contained many methods for cultivating the various meridians, all of them ways to take other people's internal force.
Duan Yu was a gentleman who had read Buddhist scriptures and Daoist texts from childhood, so he couldn't help feeling that this martial art went against his nature. Seeing that Xu Xiao didn't look like a vicious man, he spoke up to advise him.
"That's prejudice. How can martial arts be inherently good or bad?" Xu Xiao paid no heed to Duan Yu's advice and instead tried to persuade him.
"How are martial arts any different from blades and weapons? They're all just tools. Whether they're righteous or evil depends on the person using them, not on the martial arts themselves."
"If a villain learns a righteous martial art, does that mean he won't commit evil and kill? If a good man learns an evil sect's secret art, does that mean he can't do good and punish evil?"
"Young Master Duan, you've read books and Buddhist scriptures. You should know that Buddhism also speaks of acting with the heart of a bodhisattva and the methods of a vajra. Buddhism is merciful, yet even vajras glare in wrath."
"It's people who decide everything, not cultivation methods or anything else. Or do you think I'm an evil man, Young Master Duan?"
When Xu Xiao finished, he looked straight at Duan Yu, putting him under pressure.
"That... that's not what I meant. I... I only..." Duan Yu hesitated.
He very much wanted to say, "I don't believe you aren't an evil man."
But he considered that Xu Xiao had not overstepped in the slightest along the way, and had even been more courteous than those martial artists who had shouted for his beating and death simply because he had tried to stop them from fighting.
"No more 'I only.' Miss Zhong Ling is still in the hands of the Wuliang Sword Sect. The longer you hesitate, Young Master Duan, the more time you waste."
Xu Xiao gave Duan Yu little time to think, cutting through the tangled mess with a swift stroke.
While reminding him of Zhong Ling, he had already taken Duan Yu by the hand and led him to sit down in an open space nearby.
With a casual point of his finger, the scroll in Duan Yu's hands unfurled and floated in midair.
"Come, Young Master Duan, please decipher it for me, line by line!"
With a calm expression, Xu Xiao pointed to the first sentence of the Northern Darkness Divine Art and began seeking his instruction.