Mapping the Heart

Lin Xiao had his eyes closed, and the veins on his forehead were throbbing.

Lu Yuan's wisp of Soul Power felt like a needle, probing deep into his left shoulder. The pain wasn't from the flesh, but from the bone itself, a dull, aching ache that seeped from within.

He gritted his teeth, his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth.

"Observe the most subtle flow of Soul Power." Lu Yuan's voice was calm beside me. "Forget the cultivation technique, forget the 'correct' path. Just like when you first open your eyes, only look at where the water is flowing."

Disaster.

The inertia ingrained in his bones over the past decade or so caused his Soul Power to surge back to the old ways whenever he stirred. He had to use all his strength to suppress it in order to capture those almost non-existent sensations.

The wisps of smoke from the incense swirled inside the stone cave.

Lu Yuan sat cross-legged opposite him, a blank human figure drawing spread out on his knees, a charcoal pencil in his hand. He didn't look at Lin Xiao, his gaze was fixed on the void, and his index finger tapped lightly on his knee.

One after another.

He was calculating.

Time seemed to crawl by. Lin Xiao's forehead was beaded with sweat, and the muscles in his left shoulder twitched uncontrollably.

"Don't resist," Lu Yuan suddenly said. "The pain is because you're resisting the natural flow. Relax, follow my Soul Power, just feel it."

Lin Xiao let out a muffled groan.

Relax? Easier said than done.

But he did as instructed. He took a deep breath, gradually relaxing his shoulder and back muscles, focusing all his attention on that wisp of external Soul Power.

The sluggishness of chaos.

Then, it seems... a little different.

Beside the straight path prescribed by the exercise, there was a very faint tendency to "tilt" to the side and back. Like ripples on the surface of water, it disappeared in the blink of an eye.

He instinctively wanted to grab it.

His Soul Power suddenly shifted.

"Cough--!"

Lin Xiao's body trembled violently, a sharp pain like a knife cutting into his left shoulder caused his breathing to become erratic. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, his face deathly pale.

Lu Yuan withdrew his Soul Power.

"We went astray." His tone was like stating experimental results. "The old inertia was too strong; the Soul Power was pulled back half an inch, crashing into the hardest, most stagnant knot."

Lin Xiao braced himself on his knees, struggling to breathe.

A sense of frustration washed over me.

This is only the first point!

Lu Yuan offered no words of comfort. He picked up a charcoal pencil and drew a small cross on the left shoulder of the diagram, labeling it. "Inertial interference, path conflict, unsuccessful lateral tilt."

He looked up.

"Take a 15-minute break. Continue."

Lin Xiao raised his eyes, and blood vessels were visible in his pupils.

"Continue?" The voice was hoarse. "Was that... effective?"

"It's useful," Lu Yuan said. "At least we know there's a potential 'non-mainstream' path there, even if you didn't seize it. We also know how stubborn old habits can be."

He paused.

"Surveying and mapping is inherently a process of exploring inch by inch. Taking the wrong path and hitting walls are all part of the process."

Lin Xiao stared at him for a few seconds, then smirked.

You make it sound so easy.

"It's not easy for me," Lu Yuan shook his head. "I'm calculating. Calculating the frequency of your Soul Power fluctuations, the changes in energy density at the stagnation points, and the possible new path structures. Every time you feel pain, I have to overturn and recalculate most of the model in my mind."

He pointed to his temple.

"It's even more tiring here than for you."

Lin Xiao was stunned.

He suddenly realized that Lu Yuan's pressure and exhaustion during this seclusion were probably no less than his own. The success or failure of the bet, the verification of the theory, and that astronomical debt... all rested on the shoulders of this boy who was a few years younger than him.

He fell silent, grabbed the water pouch, and took a few gulps.

The cool water slid down my throat, calming my agitation.

Fifteen minutes later, Lu Yuan reached out his hand again.

"Again."

The first day passed by in a blur of repeated attempts, missteps, and excruciating pain.

The point on the left shoulder eventually marked a very vague "tributary" trend that meandered to the side and rear. Lu Yuan marked it on the map with a dotted line and wrote small words next to it.

Progress has been minimal.

The next day, another spot on my right shoulder.

The process was almost identical. Lin Xiao almost fainted twice from the pain and had to drink Qingzhu's calming medicine to continue.

On Lu Yuan's notepad, the number of crosses and question marks increased.

On the third day, under the left rib.

Day 4, defensive midfielder.

Time lost its meaning in the stone cave. Only the incense sticks burned out one by one, the scratching of charcoal pencils, and Lin Xiao's suppressed groans could be heard.

A sense of boredom began to creep in.

The tedium of seeing no progress and struggling in painful chaos day after day was more torturous than the pain itself. Lin Xiao began to feel anxious, his fingers unconsciously digging into the ground while he sat in meditation, and his breathing became heavy.

On the afternoon of the seventh day, the Soul Power went astray again, causing a small-scale aura to go berserk.

Lin Xiao slammed his fist into the stone wall.

"Bang!"

Stone chips flew everywhere, and the back of my hand was cut and bleeding.

"Useless!" he growled, his eyes bloodshot. "Completely useless! Lu Yuan, we're wasting our time! Even if we find these tributaries and underground rivers, what good will it do? They meander and twist, and our Soul Power diminishes by more than half as we travel them; it's not even as good as the original route!"

The cave was deathly silent.

Lu Yuan put down his charcoal pencil and watched him quietly.

I looked at it for a long time.

"Lin Xiao," he began, his voice flat, "Is the 'main path' your family taught you going smoothly?"

Lin Xiao choked.

"It's not smooth, that's why it's sluggish," Lu Yuan continued. "But why do they insist that it's the 'only correct' path? Because that path is fast, straight, and allows for a powerful burst of Soul Power, which aligns with their assessment of you as a 'top-tier Agility Attack System weapon.' As for whether it's comfortable to walk or whether it will leave hidden injuries, they don't care."

He picked up the human figure diagram covered in markings.

"What we're looking for now isn't the 'fastest' path, but the 'smoothest' path. It's about letting your Soul Power flow naturally like water, following the contours of the land. Even if it's circuitous, even if it's a little slower, it won't be blocked, it won't hurt, and it won't leave any hidden dangers."

He paused.

"Besides, who told you that tributaries are necessarily weak?"

Lin Xiao was panting and didn't say anything.

Lu Yuan spread out the map and pointed to several marked points.

"Look here, this dotted line behind your left shoulder. I've calculated it. If you connect it to this potential node under your right rib, then bypass the core of the spinal obstruction, and connect it to the Martial Soul Origin... the overall path length is only 20% longer than the old path, but the Soul Power is estimated to decrease by 40% due to resistance. More importantly—"

He looked up at Lin Xiao.

"This new path resonates even more with the 'profound and aloof' rhythmic fluctuations that your Martial Soul Mutation. I suspect that the true potential of your Martial Soul has been suppressed by that forcibly straightened 'main path' all along."

Lin Xiao's pupils contracted.

He recalled the cold, unruly stirring deep within his Martial Soul.

"... A higher compatibility?" The voice lowered.

"It's just speculation, it needs to be verified," Lu Yuan said frankly. "But this is the direction. Lin Xiao, you hate being defined, you hate being a puppet. So why do you still cling so tightly to the path your family has defined for you, even on something as fundamental as the circulation of Soul Power?"

These words were like a needle, piercing the most sensitive spot in Lin Xiao's heart.

He remained silent for a long time.

Then he wiped the sweat and dust off his face and sat up straight again.

"... continue."

Lu Yuan nodded, said nothing more, and relit the Concentration Incense.

Day 10.

The continuous meditation and perception brought Lin Xiao into a strange state. His body was extremely exhausted, but his mind was exceptionally clear due to his high level of concentration. Pain had become numb, turning into a continuous low hum in the background.

He was sensing the point where the meridians of his lungs and right arm intersected.

This is the twenty-first bottleneck, one of the most severe and stubborn areas of blockage. The family's cultivation technique requires Soul Power to rush through here at an almost right angle, straight through the arm. Every time Soul Skill is released, this place feels like it has been hit by an iron hammer.

Lu Yuan's Soul Power guidance has been withdrawn. Now he has to rely entirely on himself.

He cleared his mind, no longer "guiding," but simply "observing." The Soul Power, like a thin mist, naturally permeated that area, sensing every subtle tendency of its flow.

The inertia of the old path is still pulling.

But this time he neither resisted nor yielded. He simply watched, as if looking at two parallel rivers.

It is a wide and straight river, but the riverbed is full of rocks, and the current is rapid but it hits the walls everywhere.

The other one... was almost invisible. There was only a very faint tendency for it to "slide" to the side and downward, like a trickle of water seeping from a crack in the rock.

He had never noticed this "thin stream" before, because it was so inconspicuous and went against the principles of "vigorous progress and soaring to the heavens" advocated by the cultivation method.

But now, he suddenly felt an impulse.

Just give it a try.

He was extremely careful, separating a wisp of his Soul Power, no longer rushing towards the straight "main river channel," but gently placing it on the wisp that was sliding downwards.

Then, release the control.

The Soul Power flowed naturally along that trend.

At first it was very slow and very weak.

But then--

It was like a long-blocked spring suddenly being cleared.

The wisp of Soul Power glided smoothly along a winding, downward path it had never traveled before. Wherever it passed, the meridian walls felt an unprecedented, light, tingling sensation. It wasn't pain, it wasn't swelling, it was a feeling of unobstructed flow, a natural sensation.

What shocked him even more was that when this wisp of Soul Power flowed past the stubborn node, continued downwards, rounded a bend, and finally connected with a tiny meridian deeper in his arm—

His entire right arm, and even the shoulder and back area closely connected to his Martial Soul, trembled violently.

A cold and defiant tremor emanated from the depths of the Martial Soul Origin.

Like a slumbering Ferocious Beast, gently awakened by this unfamiliar yet remarkably compatible flow of Soul Power.

Lin Xiao suddenly opened his eyes.

In the dim light, his pupils shrank into dangerous vertical shapes, with a faint dark purple glint.

He looked at Lu Yuan, his lips moved, and his voice, hoarse and rapid, changed from extreme excitement:

"Here! This 'road'...!"

His fingers trembled as he poked at the area below his right chest.

"It... it seems to be going more smoothly! And... the Martial Soul is reacting!"

For the first time, a noticeable change appeared on Lu Yuan's usually calm face.

He quickly grabbed the recording paper, and with a charcoal pencil, drew a new mark at the location Lin Xiao pointed to. It wasn't a dotted line, but a solid one. Next to it, he quickly added the annotation: Lung-right arm junction point, side-downward detour path, actual resistance was extremely low, triggering deep resonance of the Martial Soul.

The pen tip almost pierced the paper because of the force applied.

He looked up at Lin Xiao's still faintly glowing vertical pupils, and a burning light shone in his eyes.

In that radiance, there was the sharpness of calculations being verified, the excitement of discovering a new continent, and even a hint of the heaviness of a great weight being lifted.

The first piece of the puzzle.

The first, truly revolutionary piece of the puzzle has been found.

Inside the stone cave, the smoke from the incense rose straight up.

Outside the cave, the barrier remained silent. A man with Qingzhu staff stood in the herb garden, looking up at the sky.

The sun has risen in the east and set in the west, completing its cycle ten times.

Ten days have passed since the three-month deadline.

Silent and still, yet as heavy as a mountain.