Having no fixed abode meant drifting. But having a place to settle was like a small boat dropping anchor; even if the vast ocean still surrounded it, even if it still had to rise and fall with the waves, it could still feel a distinct sense of ease and calm.
Han Jie gazed at the countless lights twinkling outside the window. It was clearly an utterly unfamiliar sight, yet it drew out a fine thread within him, connecting back to his childhood before the age of six.
If most of his life had come to a standstill in that year, then at this moment, some parts of it finally showed signs of moving again.
The heart sword Wumang trembled faintly several times within his soul, as if somewhat afraid.
He paid it no mind and silently digested the knowledge he had just learned not long ago.
Meng Qingtong had brought him here and spent a full two hours explaining every single thing in this room to him in meticulous detail. Seeing how enthusiastic she was, Han Jie felt too embarrassed to say that the excessive amount of information stored in his sea of consciousness was more than enough to help him deal with such minor matters.
Now that the room had quieted down, he thought to himself that perhaps there had been another reason he had not said so, and that was… he had wanted that girl to stay a little longer.
When she was here, she was a little noisy, but for some reason, it felt very good.
Once she was gone, even this small apartment seemed much emptier.
The place consisted of one bedroom, one living room, and one bathroom, with a small balcony that could barely fit two people standing inside after a washing machine had been placed there. It was on the sixth floor of a seven-story building.
Even without throwing it into the database in his sea of consciousness for evaluation, Han Jie could still judge that this place was far from good. There were probably only two reasons for choosing it: first, he could move in immediately; second, it was cheap.
After standing on the balcony and looking toward the windows opposite, he immediately added a third reason: convenient communication—Meng Qingtong lived there, only about a dozen meters away in a straight line.
If she did not draw the curtains over there, her bedroom would be entirely visible to him.
At the moment, she had not yet returned home. The window was open for ventilation. The furnishings in her bedroom were extremely simple and plain. The only larger pieces of furniture were a bed, a five-drawer chest, and a three-door wardrobe. The top of the wardrobe was piled full of unopened packs of talisman paper. Apart from a large pink thermos cup, the five-drawer chest was covered everywhere with books such as The Dao of Talismans, 108 Practical Secrets for Speeding Up Spiritual Formations, Dancing with Talismans… On the bed was an enormous plush teddy bear. Judging by its appearance, it had been around for quite a few years; several places on its outer skin had even been patched. A few posters were pasted on the wall, all of them, like the charm hanging from the zipper of her backpack, featuring beautiful young men in an ancient-style anime aesthetic. Judging by the slogans, they seemed to come from some famous mobile game series.
Compared to the apartment Han Jie had just rented, she did not have much more over there. He did not know whether she had already prepared to move after finishing something, or whether she was simply too stingy to bear buying anything.
He rubbed the spot between his brows and closed his eyes. From his sea of consciousness, he casually searched up a few spiritual arts practitioners who did not care much about personal privacy and were willing to trade their living conditions for online traffic. After comparing them, he found that Meng Qingtong was indeed living a little too “out of step” with others.
To say nothing else, as long as she stockpiled two fewer packs of high-grade talisman paper on top of her wardrobe, it would be enough for her to move into the high-end school-district apartments opposite the main gate of the Second Academy. Besides, why did she not live in an even cheaper dormitory? If Dean Fang said a word, it would not be strange for that bit of cost to be waived for her, would it?
Bored, Han Jie released his spiritual sense and began observing the living conditions of the households in these two buildings, treating it as reference and study.
Eating, drinking, excreting, sleeping; moving, sitting, lying, walking—once the veneer brought by development was stripped away, it was actually largely the same as in the ages before. What had changed was only the state of living, not life itself.
Only, to him, it was just as unfamiliar. The unfamiliarity of this era also carried the complexity brought by countless changes.
When a newlywed couple as inseparable as glue and lacquer began to feel amorous, Han Jie knew it was inappropriate and slowly withdrew his spiritual sense. Opening his eyes, he looked toward the opposite side, only then discovering that Meng Qingtong had still not returned.
From his place to the residence opposite, given that girl’s temperament and skills, the longest hand on the clock should not even be able to complete two rotations.
So late at night, what had she gone to do?
No sooner had this doubt arisen than the doorbell rang.
Naturally, it would not be anyone else. In this world, Han Jie only knew Meng Qingtong—though the female student working as a part-time cashier during the holidays at that self-service barbecue restaurant had tried to strike up a conversation and ask for his contact information. Unfortunately, before he had figured out what she meant, Meng Qingtong had urged him to leave.
He opened the door. Meng Qingtong walked in with a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, holding a box in her hands. As she took it apart, she said, “Whew, phones for spiritual arts practitioners aren’t easy to buy at this hour. I found an acquaintance and got a secondhand one first. Just follow the instructions and record the communication sigil. I already registered the account with your information, and I’ve topped up the call credit too. For now, it’s the same cost-effective package I use. If you’re not satisfied, after you get your share of the payment later, you can think it over and change it yourself.”
Han Jie said softly, “Qingtong, there is no need to be in such a hurry.”
“The sooner you learn everything, the less likely people are to see through you.” She handed over the phone that was waiting for information entry and looked around the room. “When we get back from Suiyin, I’ll buy you some daily necessities. No need for anything in the kitchen. When we’re busy with commissions, we’ll eat outside; when we’re not, we’ll eat at the nearby street stalls. The small restaurants around here are tasty and not expensive. They can feed the two of us full.”
She glanced up at the wall clock. “All right, if there’s nothing else, I’ll head back. If you want to rest, rest; if you want to cultivate, cultivate. This place isn’t too far from the Second Academy, and there are a few spiritual cultivation beginner schools nearby, so the residents know a little more than ordinary people, but they don’t really understand, which actually makes them the easiest to fool. No need to worry too much.”
As she spoke, she walked toward the door. Her way of handling matters was just like her speaking speed, leaving no chance for anyone to interrupt.
By the time Han Jie finished entering his information with a frown and felt he ought to politely say good night, the front door of his apartment had already been pulled shut behind Meng Qingtong.
Sure enough, just as he had expected, he had only just opened a social app for spiritual arts practitioners on his phone and had not yet begun filling in the registration information when the sound of Meng Qingtong opening her door came from the room opposite.
The curtains over there were swiftly drawn shut. Not long after, they were swiftly pulled open again.
Han Jie walked to the balcony and, unsurprised, found Meng Qingtong half-leaning over the windowsill, both hands propping up her cheeks as she looked this way.
She had changed into a sports tank top and shorts, and was also wearing a sweatband, seemingly preparing to do some fitness training before bed.
Not knowing how to exchange pleasantries, Han Jie pondered for a moment and decided to lower his head and continue studying the phone, waiting for her to be unable to resist speaking first.
“Han Jie.”
“Mm.”
“If I buy you ancient-style pajamas, will you wear them?”
“Mm.” He felt that was too perfunctory, so he raised his head and said seriously, “I am more accustomed to dressing like that to begin with.”
Meng Qingtong looked at him with a smiling expression. “It’s fine. You don’t have to force yourself to talk more. My problem is that I ramble, so the two of us working together complements each other perfectly. If you like saying mm, then say mm. If you don’t even want to say mm, just move your chin a little and I’ll take it as a nod all the same.”
Taking advantage of the opportunity, he nodded.
After the spiritual pattern settings on the phone were completed and the corresponding spiritual-sense communication function was activated, he thought for a moment and called Meng Qingtong through the number she had left.
Attaching to the phone signal and using spiritual energy to bridge the connection, allowing even the weakest spiritual arts practitioner to send a thought across ten thousand li—it was indeed an extraordinary invention.
He was sighing with emotion when the girl opposite picked up. She widened her eyes in confusion, pressed her lips together, and spoke with spiritual sense: “What are you doing? It’s true calling like this doesn’t use call credit, but it consumes a lot of mental energy, you know.”
“Er…” He thought for a moment and, for the time being, found a topic. “I wanted to ask, has there been any conclusion about the origins of the Nine Demon-Suppressing Cauldrons?”
“No. I thought you knew, and I was planning to ask you once we were a bit more familiar. The records that can be found at present only go back to a little over eighteen hundred years ago at the earliest. It couldn’t have been you who made them, then forgot after exhausting your spiritual power, could it?”
“It was not me.” He asked again, “The four Cauldrons of East, West, South, and North are easy enough to understand. As for the names of the four Cauldrons of Yan, Bing, Huang, and Zheng, I can more or less understand them too. But what is going on with Wuding? Why is it called that? Is there a cauldron or not?”
“Mm, hmm…” Meng Qingtong thought for a while, then answered, “There is, and there isn’t. Wuding Region has studied it for so many years, but still hasn’t found any trace of that Demon-Suppressing Cauldron. But spiritual energy is indeed being attracted by that large empty plot in the center of Wuding City, and nothing can be built there either. No matter how people mess with it, it’ll be restored by some miraculous force, and anyone who tries to force it will meet with trouble. The other eight Cauldrons have remained steady and unchanged for thousands of years. As for that empty plot in Wuding, it’s said to have expanded three or four times over in just the past few decades. Pretty much all the top spiritual scholars from the nine major regions have gone there, but none of them have figured anything out. As for the name… that’s what it was called in the ancient texts. In earlier years, some people suggested changing it to Kongding, but it didn’t pass.”
Legend had it that it was precisely thanks to the suppression of the Nine Cauldrons that all living beings in the mortal world had endured the invasion of evil demons until the emergence of spiritual cultivation. Thus, since ancient times, people had settled around the Demon-Suppressing Cauldrons. Now, the nine Demon-Suppressing Cauldrons were the core of the nine major regions’ cores. Meng Qingtong was only a seventeen-year-old student; even living in an era of advanced information networks, it was impossible for her to know too many secrets.
Sooner or later, he would have to go see them with his own eyes. Having made up his mind, Han Jie asked no further and returned to silence.
Meng Qingtong propped up her cheeks and admired his appearance for a while. Then, looking at the time, she waved with a smile and said, “I’m going to exercise. It won’t look pretty, so I’m closing the curtains. Good night. See you tomorrow morning.”
Han Jie nodded, crooked his finger, and pulled a chair over through the air. He sat down leaning against the balcony and continued fiddling with the phone.
According to the shallow understanding he had hastily crammed from his sea of consciousness, exercise for girls of this age should mean laying out a yoga mat and doing aerobics or the like. But Meng Qingtong’s physique did not look as if it had been trained that way. She probably had some more extreme method. For the moment, he could not imagine what about it would look bad.
After seeing so many senior sisters who seemed ethereal and untouched by the mortal world, Meng Qingtong’s manner instead carried a fresh charm of the mundane world. With such a lively appearance, even if she were covered in beads of sweat and panting from exhaustion, he imagined she would still look good.
He was considering whether sending over a strand of spiritual sense to take a peek would be somewhat offensive when he noticed that the situation opposite did not seem to be what he had imagined.
Behind the curtains came very clear, even intense, fluctuations of spiritual power.
What was she doing?
Han Jie turned his head to look and immediately understood—that girl was drawing talismans.
That made sense. Spiritual arts practitioners in this world did not have that much spiritual energy of heaven and earth to use, and their own spiritual power was extremely limited. They did indeed need to replenish commonly used spiritual talismans whenever they had some leeway.
Since Meng Qingtong’s main specialization was the talisman system, using up the spiritual power she could recover with one night’s sleep before bed to restock was both review and exercise. It was not bad.
He continued fiddling with the phone, feeling somewhat curious. It was only drawing talismans; why change into sportswear? How unsightly could it be? It could not be that she was uniquely gifted and had invented some bizarre posture that allowed her to draw talismans faster and better, could it?
After thinking it over, he still felt it was not good to spy, and decided to ask her directly tomorrow.
Half an hour passed. Han Jie’s ears caught the sound of heavier breathing from across the way.
Drawing talismans… was this tiring?
Very soon, the breathing was even mixed with an obvious note of pain.
Han Jie turned his head and looked over.
The curtains were very thick. It was impossible to see anything.
So he was only hesitating, afraid that a moment of curiosity might bring about an inappropriate offense and affect the fragile relationship the two of them had just established through their cooperation.
He did not want to have only just dropped an anchor, only for the boat to capsize.
Before long, the pained breathing gradually turned into restrained muffled groans. It was clear that Meng Qingtong was enduring with great effort, trying not to let the sound travel outside the room.
Only an expert with hearing as exceptional as Han Jie’s could still hear it without using spiritual sense.
After several thoughts turned through his mind, combined with what she had said about exercise, he suddenly guessed at a possibility.
No one in his former world needed to do such a thing, because the spiritual energy between heaven and earth was abundant enough. What cultivators needed to take great pains to learn was how to more efficiently convert spiritual energy to increase their own spiritual power.
In this current world, spiritual energy was so thin that powerful conversion methods had already lost their meaning. Cultivators devoted more thought to how to efficiently use their limited spiritual power, even dividing systems further for in-depth study, in order to conserve unnecessary consumption of spiritual sense.
Thus, compared to the dazzling variety of spiritual arts that left him overwhelmed, the efficiency of this world’s methods for cultivating one’s own spiritual power was simply not worth mentioning. If not for the disappearance of sects after the war and the resulting great integration of knowledge in the field of cultivation, with common cultivation methods improving their conversion efficiency under the research of independent scholars, these students would not even be able to completely absorb spiritual energy this thin.
Then, if one felt dissatisfied with the speed at which one’s own spiritual power increased, there was only one option: to ponder a new path.
Without a doubt, Meng Qingtong was the kind of genius willing to research deeply.
She had truly stumbled onto a method that ordinary cultivators would never think of.
That was overdrawing.
Spiritual power came from spiritual energy; spiritual energy came from the souls of living beings and all things in heaven and earth. Humans were the foremost of all spirits. In that case, a spiritual arts practitioner’s soul could naturally be squeezed for some spiritual energy and temporarily converted into spiritual power.
Han Jie had seen more than once the scene of someone forced to squeeze their soul and overdraw spiritual power at a critical juncture in battle. But using this as a means to train spiritual power—across both of his lives, this was the first time he had seen it.
He guessed that Meng Qingtong had probably borrowed inspiration from methods of training the physical body.
When muscles exerted force continuously until they were extremely fatigued, even to the point of pain, they would become stronger after recovery. Then, if spiritual power were consumed all the way to the point of overdrawing the soul, would it produce the same effect after recovery?
In terms of results alone, it should be effective. Otherwise, no matter how much of a genius a young girl was, it would be impossible for her, in a world like this, to possess such abundant spiritual power at the age of seventeen.
But this also meant that, most likely from a very young age, she had been using this accumulated, drop-by-drop method that wore through stone with time, supplementing normal cultivation with it.
Just what was it that made her rather suffer this kind of pain every day from childhood, impatiently forcing herself to become stronger?
Now, Han Jie also understood the fundamental reason she had chosen the talisman system as her main specialization.
With this kind of training method, only converting her power into spiritual talismans that could be stored for later use would prevent waste.
She really was a stingy little miser who made one’s heart ache…