Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Remnant Soul in the Jade Hairpin
The instant spiritual qi entered her body, Shao Heng realized she could see within herself.
She matched what she sensed to what she’d memorized long ago—meridians, acupoints, pathways. The qi flowed through her channels like clear water through a freshly carved canal, washing, scouring, cleansing every point it touched.
At the same time, it condensed again and again, compressed into finer and finer wisps. By the time it sank into the qi sea dantian below her navel, it had become pure white droplets.
Comfort flooded her.
It wasn’t gentle comfort, either. It was overwhelming, almost indecent—pleasure braided with power, rising through her body until she had to clench her jaw to keep from making a sound.
Her meridians were tough and broad. The flowing qi brought no pain, only a fierce, impossible ease. And she could feel her strength climbing, surging past what years of martial training had given her, as if the old world had been made of paper and this was iron.
She focused inward.
In her qi sea, the liquid spiritual power began to spin faster and faster, drawing itself into a tight whirlpool. At the vortex’s heart, something new took shape—an oval seed, smooth and pale, condensing with relentless inevitability.
When it solidified, all the droplets of spiritual power slammed into it at once.
Pain exploded through her body—sharp, searing, sudden.
Shao Heng endured it without opening her eyes. The jade slip had described this: the cleansing of marrow and meridians that followed successful Qi Induction Realm entry.
The pain passed in a handful of breaths, as abruptly as it had come.
Only then did she return her full attention to the qi sea dantian.
At the vortex’s center floated the seed.
The Yellow Sprout.
The body was the cauldron; the dantian was the furnace fire. It burned the Yellow Sprout and tempered creation. In the future, as she cultivated different techniques, both her spiritual power and the Yellow Sprout would shift to match them.
This was supposed to be its purest, most initial state.
And yet—
Shao Heng frowned, unease prickling up her spine.
“Is something hiding inside my Yellow Sprout?”
The moment the thought formed, the Yellow Sprout trembled. A naturally formed sigil pushed outward from its surface—blue-gold, smooth as ancient seal script, yet shaped like a tree.
Tiny.
And still it made her feel as if she were staring up at a towering ancient trunk, roots deep enough to split the earth.
Shao Heng’s eyes snapped open.
Before she could think her way into fear, her body moved on instinct. She urged the tree-shaped sigil, and it responded as naturally as a limb obeying the mind.
In an instant, it drained the first furnace of spiritual power she had just condensed. The Yellow Sprout dimmed slightly, and a single drop of emerald liquid formed at Shao Heng’s fingertips.
Shao Heng stared at it.
“What is this…?”
The scent hit her next.
It was rich and clean at once, so tempting it made her mouth water.
Shao Heng licked her lips, hesitated a heartbeat, then raised her hand and fed the drop into her mouth.
It slid down her throat like warm spring water.
For a moment, she could only sit there, stunned by the comfort it left behind—soft and thorough, like the afterglow of marrow cleansing.
Then her qi sea changed again.
Gray mist appeared out of nowhere, blooming inside her dantian like smoke poured into still water. It collapsed rapidly, condensing into an oval cocoon that floated beside the Yellow Sprout and the tree-shaped sigil.
Shao Heng’s pupils tightened.
She remembered the crack of the Divine Voice in her skull. She remembered the sick feeling of something foreign forcing its way into her.
“This Gray Cocoon… this is what the Divine Voice brought into me.”
Her mind flashed back to that earlier discomfort, to the moment something had fought inside her, unseen.
“Was it this sigil?” she thought. “Was it fighting the Gray Cocoon?”
As if answering, the blue-gold sigil sent a pulse of emotion through her—warm, clingy affection laced with grievance.
It felt absurd.
And yet it was unmistakable. To Shao Heng, the sigil felt like a little cub. Like something of hers. Something that had been bullied outside and was now twisting and whining, complaining to her in outrage.
And the target of that complaint was clearly the Gray Cocoon.
Shao Heng pressed her lips together, thinking hard.
She knew too little. The problem turned in her hands like a lock without a key.
She let out a soft breath and forced herself to look away.
Something outside the window had changed.
It was no longer the deep night where she could only faintly see clouds sliding backward. Pale light spread across the world beyond the hull, warming into gold.
She leaned closer to the window, studying it.
The spirit ship was still flying. They hadn’t reached the True One Yuan Sect yet—otherwise the Cloud-Piercing Vessel would have already descended.
So she had spent most of the night on that single step.
Qi Induction Realm entry had taken her longer than she’d expected.
Shao Heng’s gaze shifted beyond the moving clouds—
And she froze.
A massive white eagle tore through the sky, wings spread wide. Its cry rang sharp even through the ship’s barrier. Feathers scattered as its talons flashed, shaping the wind into blades as it hunted a Crimson-Feather Sparrowbird whose wings burned with fire.
In the clouds, giant fish appeared and vanished, each movement accompanied by dull booming sounds. Slender green mayflies, thin as threads, drifted on the wind like living silk.
Creatures she had never seen. A world she hadn’t been able to imagine.
[So these are demons.]
The jade slip said their old land was so barren of qi that only ordinary wild beasts existed. Here, beasts could awaken intelligence and spiritual power, becoming demons. And once a beast became a demon and its bloodline transformed, its offspring would awaken more easily, step onto the cultivation path sooner. Over generations, that accumulation formed a structured Demon Clan.
Her old understanding of the world cracked, split, and kept splitting.
A thread of fear rose in her chest—fear born from the unknown.
Then something else surged up, hot and vast and inevitable.
Excitement.
It crashed through the fear, crushed it, and wiped it clean.
Shao Heng’s eyes burned as she watched the sky beyond the window. Her hand clenched until her knuckles whitened.
—
In another cabin, a newly recruited disciple would have found the room twice as spacious, elegant and bright. Light poured in through a wide window. Everything was arranged with quiet care.
Jiang Yun Jiang sat cross-legged on the bed, repeating the qi-sensing key points from her jade slip again and again.
A moment later, she opened her eyes and exhaled slowly. “Just a little more,” she murmured. “At most three days, and I’ll succeed.”
The White Lotus Jade Hairpin on her head suddenly flashed.
The glow was eerie, wrong—a cold, pale light that didn’t belong in anything living.
A wisp of smoke drifted out of the hairpin, gathering in midair until it formed the hazy outline of a person.
Jiang Yun Jiang didn’t scream. She didn’t even flinch. Calm and steady, she watched the figure.
A voice spoke from the smoke, dry and curious. “You’re not afraid of me?”
The figure sharpened. An old woman appeared—graying hair, kindly face, and a white-blue lotus mark on her forehead.
“What good would fear do?” Jiang Yun Jiang asked evenly.
Her shoulders trembled, just slightly, betraying her calm.
“There are immortals, demons, spirits, and monsters in this world,” she continued. “What are you?”
The old woman didn’t answer at first. She only stared at Jiang Yun Jiang in silence.
So Jiang Yun Jiang pressed on, voice still level. “I found this jade hairpin by chance. For the past three or four years, it never reacted. Was it because I was in the Mortal Realm? And now that we’ve entered a place rich with heaven and earth qi, you’ve awakened?”
The old woman’s expression shifted—small, but enough.
Jiang Yun Jiang’s heart eased. Her face became even more composed.
“Then you’re weak right now,” she said. “You showed yourself because you want something from me.”
She didn’t bother with politeness. She asked the only question that mattered. “What do I get?”