TWWDS - Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Chao Qingxiu had never deliberately cleared the area around her, nor had she ever expressed a wish that no one remain close by. For reasons unknown, however, both Li Yao and Li Yi assumed that Chao Qingxiu enjoyed peace and quiet. They usually spent their time outside the inner garden and rarely came around the back.
During the days she had lived at the residence, Chao Qingxiu had already given Medical Arts a rough read. Now she had started from the beginning and was reading through it carefully again, making very slow progress overall. It reminded her of studying ahead for the following term during her school holidays.
Her teacher had been right: the ability to teach oneself was a precious one, especially for a transmigrator.
Perhaps because she had cultivated Qingxin Formula, Chao Qingxiu could now calm and gather her thoughts more easily, and she soon became absorbed in the book.
Only as the light began to fade did Li Yi appear in the doorway to call her to supper.
The day had been no different from any other, as if Xu Feiqu had not suddenly come to visit and tell Chao Qingxiu about her past.
As night deepened, the sky seemed like a huge black bowl inverted over the earth. The lamps in Li Yao and Li Yi's quarters had gone out, and the silence was broken only by the rustle of fine rain. Only then did Chao Qingxiu once more take out the white jade bottle.
She ran her fingers over the bottle and examined it closely for a long time.
Thanks to the wealth of information she had accumulated before transmigrating, Chao Qingxiu did not take it for granted that Fake A-Su's target had to be the medicine.
The medicine had come from the old woman, and so had the bottle. If so, why could Fake A-Su's target not include this jade bottle as well?
Chao Qingxiu examined the pattern on the bottle closely. Perhaps because of her limited vision, she never found any particularly notable clues. She therefore planned to wait until the next morning, go to the market, buy a more transparent crystal, grind it into a magnifying glass, and re-examine the bottle...
Before the thought had even fully formed, another notification flashed across the Detective Panel:
[System: User has obtained the microcarving on the jade bottle, "Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture: General Principles Chapter".]
Chao Qingxiu: "..."
There had been no prompt when she first obtained it, nor after she had spent half a day thinking. Only when she was about to use a magnifying glass did the prompt finally arrive, telling her she had found the right answer. Every inch of it seemed determined not to let its owner cut too many corners.
Now that Chao Qingxiu had found the key to decrypting it, the Detective System was finally lending a hand. Another message appeared immediately:
[System: After testing, the user is in the novice stage and may choose to directly extract the text related to "Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture: General Principles" as a book. Extract? Yes/No]
Chao Qingxiu chose yes. Soon, a book of ordinary appearance and moderate thickness appeared in her system space.
She flipped through a few pages and immediately thought of the Untitled Scroll she had found on Fake A-Su.
When she had examined the Untitled Scroll previously, Chao Qingxiu had vaguely sensed that its contents resembled those of a martial arts manual. Its wording was disordered, however, and much of it was obscure and incoherent. Even though she had only begun training in martial arts not long before, she could tell that if she really practiced it, the best she could hope for was an internal-energy imbalance. She had therefore put the Untitled Scroll aside and ignored it.
Now, after roughly leafing through the book titled Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture: General Principles, Chao Qingxiu suddenly had some new ideas. She believed that what the General Principles recorded was actually the correct way to interpret the Untitled Scroll. Only with the General Principles in hand could the Untitled Scroll held by Fake A-Su become a manual that could actually be practiced.
Xu Feiqu's judgment had been right: Fake A-Su's target really was the jade bottle Chao Qingxiu had received from an elder of her family.
Li Yi had been at the Chao residence for more than half a month and had come to understand Chao Qingxiu's daily routine. Her life was highly regular: after breakfast, she would walk around the courtyard for a moment to digest her meal, then return to read quietly until evening.
Even if Chao Qingxiu really was the solitary hermit Li Yao had guessed, she was unquestionably a hermit who had not entirely given up her drive to improve herself.
That day, however, Chao Qingxiu did not continue reading in the veranda. She brewed a pot of hot tea, went into her room, spread out paper and brush, and seriously wrote something.
Li Yi naturally had no idea that Chao Qingxiu was piecing together the contents of the Untitled Scroll.
After studying Qingxin Formula, Chao Qingxiu had gained some understanding of inner strength. Whenever she became too deeply absorbed while transcribing Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, the vital energy in her lower abdomen would begin to move beyond her control.
Merely reading it could produce abnormal changes in her inner breath, and every sign indicated that Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture was no ordinary manual.
Chao Qingxiu's judgment was entirely correct. It took her two full days of writing to piece the manual together and make it viewable in the Detective System.
The Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture: General Principles was blue, while the complete Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture appeared purple in the Detective System and had already begun to show a faint tendency to turn orange. Apart from the breathing method, it also recorded external techniques such as punches and kicks.
Chao Qingxiu's feelings were somewhat mixed.
The previous three manuals had all been green. This time, the new manual ranged from blue in its General Principles to purple in its complete form—a considerable leap.
[Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture: A Taoist method of inner cultivation, subtle and profound, suited to both movement and stillness.]
It was also a Taoist method of inner cultivation, but its description no longer included the words "balanced and harmonious."
After considering for a moment, Chao Qingxiu decided that the book was not suitable for immediate placement in a Skill Slot.
Using Qingxin Formula as an example, as soon as she had equipped that book, a surge of vital energy had formed inside her, even though her lower abdomen and meridians had never been conditioned. Fortunately, Qingxin Formula was not an overly forceful martial art, and the limited boost provided by a green-quality cultivation method allowed Chao Qingxiu to withstand the additional power. If she had switched to Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, however, she felt intuitively that her hardware might not be able to withstand the onslaught of vital energy.
To be safe, Chao Qingxiu decided that she had better not rely too heavily on the Skill Slot to increase her strength.
As a transmigrator, unlike the native martial world fighters, she had no master to guide her and could only work things out for herself. Fortunately, the breathing method in this Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture also progressed from basic to advanced. Though she lacked experience, she had no trouble practicing its opening portion.
Chao Qingxiu opened the book, read the opening section carefully four or five times, then closed her eyes and sat cross-legged. Following the manual's instructions, she slowly guided the vital energy within her. She had already made some progress with Qingxin Formula, and her control over inner breath was steadily improving. Qingxin Formula was balanced and harmonious and did not conflict with any martial art. Building on this foundation, continued cultivation of Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture would instead help her take the first steps.
Advanced cultivation methods were often harder to practice than ordinary ones. It took Chao Qingxiu four hours to guide her vital energy through the Shaoyang Meridian for one minor heavenly cycle (1).
Chao Qingxiu opened her eyes and carefully sensed the changes in her meridians. Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture was indeed very different from Qingxin Formula. With Qingxin Formula, she usually had to practice for half a day before she felt the vital energy in her lower abdomen grow, but after only one circuit with Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, her inner breath already felt more solid.
After settling her breath for a moment, Chao Qingxiu took out an iron needle about an inch long from her sleeve and flicked her wrist. The needle shot out, skimmed the edge of a passing insect, and embedded itself in the beam above.
Chao Qingxiu gave a slight nod, feeling that she had been right. First, an increase in internal power also improved her control over her limbs. Second, threading a line through the iron needle really would make the hidden weapon easier to retrieve, especially for someone like her, who had gone through several cases in a row without drawing so much as one lightness technique manual...
Since obtaining Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, Chao Qingxiu had spent much less time sitting in the veranda and reading. With rain falling so often of late, Li Yao and Li Yi both assumed that Chao Qingxiu had moved indoors because of the weather.
The fine drizzle was hazy, like silk and mist. In the back garden, the wild plants that Li Yao had weeded only two days before were growing lush and thick again.
Because it kept raining, the ward officer even made a special visit to collect a one-time labor-service levy for hiring workers and gather the workers he had hired to clear the silt from the river channel.
Chao Qingxiu paid one string of cash for her own share. Li Yi and Li Yao, meanwhile, both eagerly ran to sign up as workers. The labor-service workers did not merely avoid the fee; they were even paid wages. Gaofang Prefecture paid them a generous wage: seventy copper coins plus about a quart of rice each day. They did not have to work a full day; the average working day lasted only about six hours. The Chao residence on Clear River Street was not far from the river, making the daily trip convenient.
Before heading out to work, Li Yao tidied the house and then said to Chao Qingxiu, "For the next two days, we won't be home during the day. If you need to do anything, Miss Chao, and it isn't urgent, wait until evening."
Chao Qingxiu sensed that Li Yao's tone was full of concern for someone who spent their days at home.
She thought back over her own ability to manage daily life...
Li Yao was right to worry.
Chao Qingxiu smiled and replied, "All right."
Li Yao and Li Yi left, casting a backward glance every few steps. The house suddenly held only Chao Qingxiu. Chao Qingxiu stood in the courtyard for a moment, then took out a volume of Yuxuan Taiyin Scripture, opened it, and carefully read the pages recording external techniques.
At the top of those pages was a set of palm techniques called Yuxuan Taiyin Palm, a name stylistically consistent with the manual. Chao Qingxiu did not have the ability of a martial-arts novel protagonist who could glance over a form twice and learn an entire martial art. She could only practice one move at a time, and to date she had learned just three moves from the set. Fortunately, with no modern forms of entertainment to distract her, she had plenty of time on her hands and was willing to practice them again and again.
During her practice of Yuxuan Taiyin Palm, Chao Qingxiu could feel that as long as each move was accurate, it would set the vital energy circulating within her. She ran through the three moves in succession fifty times, and the more she practiced, the more effortless and exhilarating it became.
As the vital energy circulated, all five of her senses sharpened. Suddenly, she heard four horses approaching.
The hoofbeats were fast but orderly, showing that the horses were well trained. The lead rider dismounted in front of the residence, stood at the gate for a moment, and then knocked.
Chao Qingxiu opened the gate and saw four tall, upright strangers, each roughly thirty years old. They wore conical hats, had thin cords tied around their cuffs, and wore tall boots. They carried travel bundles on their backs, while their mounts were loaded with boxes and wicker cases. Their appearance plainly showed that they were dressed for a long journey.
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