Xu Ying flushed slightly and said, "I'll return it once I finish reading it! I haven't finished yet, have I? Look how anxious you are, as if I'd embezzle your book."
This black bear was a demon from Mount Xiao and an old acquaintance of his.
Children of poor families grew up fast. As a snake catcher of Lingling, Xu Ying regularly roamed all over the mountains and wilderness in search of strange snakes. Walking the wild paths so often, running into demons was inevitable.
Though an honest boy at heart, he had cultivated the Taiyi Guiding Technique since childhood. His qi and blood were immensely robust, so ordinary demons were truly no match for him. Thus, Xu Ying had come to know many demons in the mountains of Lingling by "trading blows before becoming friends."
Because he had practiced the Taiyi Guiding Technique for years and reached the apex of his cultivation with nowhere further to go, he had resorted to extorting these demons, demanding their scriptures to study in an attempt to find a path forward.
The bear demon, Xiong Qianli, was one of his victims.
"Are we really not going to eat him?" The snake demon Yuan Qi glanced at the black bear, licked his lips, and whispered, "I'm a bit hungry."
Xiong Qianli glared with indignation. "You, Xu! You really do want to eat me!"
Xu Ying mollified him, saying, "Qianli, you know me. I'm a kind, good-looking boy; I don't eat demons. If I were going to eat you, I would have eaten you years ago." As he spoke, his stomach let out a traitorous rumble.
Xiong Qianli jumped in fright, shrinking deeper into the corner and daring not come out.
Xu Ying rummaged through the cave. The bronze bell behind him followed along, clanging as it bumped against the surroundings. Fortunately, the pouring rain made mountain climbing impossible, or the racket surely would have drawn pursuers.
After searching for a good while, he found only some pots, pans, and bowls, a few old books, and some sweet potatoes—no other food.
Xu Ying glanced at Xiong Qianli in the corner. The black bear shivered and shouted, "Don't look at me! I don't eat humans! Last time, you told me not to harm people, and I even quit eating chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs! There's no meat here! Look at the plot outside the cave—all these sweet potatoes were grown in my field!"
Xu Ying scratched his head and said, "You can still eat some wild game from time to time. Ah well, it's not like I can't survive without meat. Eating some sweet potatoes won't kill me."
He grabbed some sweet potatoes and roasted them in the fire. Before long, a mouthwatering aroma drifted out.
The black bear was hungry too, edging forward gingerly to beg for a few.
Seeing his spineless behavior, the snake demon Yuan Qi couldn't help getting annoyed and called out, "This is your cave! You grew these sweet potatoes, not him! Do you really need to be this cautious?"
The black bear wiped away his tears and choked, "You've never been beaten by him..."
Tears welled up in Yuan Qi's eyes as well. "Brother, so you suffered the same fate as me."
Xu Ying set down his roasted sweet potato and said displeasedly, "Qianli, I thought we were friends. I never expected you to talk like that!"
The black bear shrank back subserviently, sat beside Yuan Qi, and whispered, "He even picked up a rock and squeezed juice out of it, saying that if I didn't hand over my scripture, he'd squeeze the juice out of my head and make me drink it!"
Xu Ying heard every word. With a dark face, he kept silent, burying his head in eating his sweet potato, thinking, 'You clearly agreed to be friends with me, yet you badmouth me behind my back! Humph!'
The snake demon Yuan Qi cast a furtive glance at Xu Ying and whispered, "When he threatened me to hand over my scripture, he squeezed juice from a stone too, crushing water right out of it. It was terrifying!"
Xiong Qianli lowered his voice and said, "Utter thug behavior! Not refined like us demons at all!"
Yuan Qi nodded repeatedly. "Brother, what books do you usually read?"
Xiong Qianli was pleasantly surprised. "You like reading too?"
The two demons felt an instant kinship as if meeting their soulmates. They had so much to say, but unfortunately, Xu Ying was in the way.
Xu Ying finished brewing the medicine, dividing it into topical ointment and oral decoction, and applied it to Yuan Qi. Wrapping his tail around the large pot, Yuan Qi gulped down the medicinal brew.
Xu Ying then tended to his own wounds. His internal injuries were not too severe, but his flesh wounds were substantial and needed prompt treatment.
Once the medicine was applied, Xu Ying looked outside. Though the sky was dark, it was not yet time for sunset.
"Yuan Qi, the bronze bell taught me a method of internal observation. It can heal internal injuries to the five viscera and six bowels, and it can also enhance cultivation by transforming the qi of the five viscera into primordial qi. I will pass it on to you."
Sitting before the campfire, Xu Ying explained how to condense consciousness into divine sense, use divine sense to open the gate, and unlock the Realm of Xiyi. He said, "Once you open the Realm of Xiyi within your body, you can see your five viscera and six bowels, with your heart and lungs hanging upside down like mountains. The five viscera hold five qis, radiating divine light of five colors, which you can see in combination with Great Sun body tempering. When you gather the five qis, you can achieve Five Qis Facing the Origin and cultivate primordial qi. Reach this step, and your power will advance by leaps and bounds; becoming a Demon King won't be difficult."
The snake demon Yuan Qi listened raptly, while the bear demon Xiong Qianli also listened by the fire, looking rather bewildered.
Having finished his explanation, Xu Ying left them to cultivate and resumed his own internal observation, his divine sense entering the Realm of Xiyi within.
Yuan Qi was a strange snake whose strength had originally been roughly on par with Xu Ying's, having fought him for three days and three nights before being captured; his natural aptitude was extraordinary. After Xu Ying explained it once, he grasped a great deal, soon fixing his gaze upon his nose and his nose upon his heart as he entered deep meditation.
The black bear wasn't quite as sharp, so he could only sit by the fire and slowly ponder it.
Xu Ying sat before the campfire, his intent focused on Taiyi. His eyes half-open and half-closed, divine light flickered beneath his eyelids like sprouting golden buds.
Before him, the white jade gate reappeared. He pushed it open and entered, stepping once more into the Realm of Xiyi inside his body.
His previous visit had been too brief for him to linger. This time, the torrential downpour kept pursuers at bay, giving him ample time to explore this inner world.
Even though this was his second time entering the Realm of Xiyi, the awe he felt was not diminished in the slightest!
Floating in midair, Xu Ying looked around. The kaleidoscopic colors of the Realm of Xiyi—hues that could never exist in the mortal world—held him deeply enchanted.
Primordial qi flowed through the air, streaming across the vast expanse like rainbows. The heart and lungs loomed high above like inverted mountains, while the five qis cascaded like waterfalls, drifting down to converge into origin.
Primordial qi steamed upward, turning into rain upon meeting thunder, or clustering together into a scorching sun that traveled among the mountains and rivers, illuminating the viscera and bowels.
Xu Ying felt refreshed and invigorated. His divine sense drifted through the world alongside the currents of primordial qi, using the primordial qi to heal his internal wounds.
Within the clouds, bolts of lightning were so distinct and dazzling that he could see every fine detail, brimming with power and sharpness!
'The bell said I only cared about harvesting qi without knowing internal observation and visualization. Now I've learned internal observation, but what is visualization?' Xu Ying wondered.
To save his life, the bronze bell had exhausted the last of its might clashing against the City God and Zhou Yihang and was currently asleep; Xu Ying had no way to contact it. As such, he had no means of knowing what visualization was.
Xu Ying roamed the Realm of Xiyi for a long time. Suddenly, aided by the brilliant flashes bursting from the lightning tempering his body, he noticed that there were many dark regions within him that he had never observed before!
'What is that place?'
With the flashes of lightning, he faintly made out towering mountain ranges in the darkness, undulating like giant dragons, originating from who knew where. When he followed the range's contours under the lightning's glow, he saw that the mountains seemed to descend from the sky above, falling from the heavens!
Startled and bewildered, Xu Ying suddenly saw a surging river rolling tumultuously from the horizon as if to submerge the mountains!
Beside that mountain range, a heavenly river seemed to hang suspended upside down!
The flash of lightning faded in an instant, and the colossal mountain range and churning river vanished back into the dark.
Xu Ying steadied his mind. The lightning within his body flared once more, and amidst the flashes, he vaguely saw a colossal gate between the mountains and the river, standing between heaven and earth, severing the mountain range from the heavenly river!
In the lightning's gleam, that gate shone with the luster of dark iron!
Once the lightning passed, the dark iron gate receded into darkness as well.
"That gate..."
Shaken to his core, Xu Ying flew upward with his divine sense, attempting to draw closer for a better look. To his surprise, the moment he reached the edge of the darkness, his vision blurred, and his divine sense showed signs of crumbling.
He hesitated a moment before pressing forward. His divine sense grew hazy and abruptly collapsed.
Xu Ying snapped out of internal observation. Just as he tried to get up, the world spun violently around him, and with a thud, he collapsed to the ground, blacking out.
In this blackout, Xu Ying felt a splitting headache in his sleep. In his muddled state, nightmare after nightmare plagued him in rapid succession—bizarre, horrifying, like an invasion of inner demons.
When he gradually regained consciousness, he couldn't remember a single dream.
Slowly opening his eyes, Xu Ying felt an agonizing pain inside his skull, as though an axe had struck the left side of his head and was still lodged there, unremoved.
His vision cleared gradually to reveal the faces of the snake demon Yuan Qi and Xiong Qianli. The two great demons were gazing at him with concern; seeing him wake, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
"You suddenly passed out and scared the living daylights out of us brothers!" Yuan Qi cried.
Seeing Xu Ying's confusion, he quickly explained, "While you were out cold, Qianli and I hit it off and swore brotherhood. I'm the older brother."
"I'm the younger brother!" Xiong Qianli said excitedly. "For the first time, we realized we have so much in common! If we didn't become sworn brothers, our only other option would have been to get married!"
Over the course of the night, the bear demon and snake demon had talked about Xu Ying and found endless things to say.
Xu Ying shook his head and slapped it forcefully, but the migraine persisted. The two great demons looked full of concern, yet their eyes held a flicker of anticipation—as if wondering whether, with just a bit more force, he might slap his own head open.
After a while, Xu Ying finally felt somewhat better. Lost in thought for a moment, he said in a hoarse voice, "Earlier, in the Realm of Xiyi, I think I saw the mystic pass leading from the Qi Harvesting stage to the realm beyond."
Yuan Qi froze, and Xiong Qianli shuddered violently.
The two demons exchanged a glance. Yuan Qi asked with a trembling voice, "Ah Ying, what did you say?"
Xu Ying thought about it and made sure he hadn't seen wrong. "Practicing the Taiyi Guiding Technique, I've long felt that I had reached the absolute peak, with the momentum of my qi and blood surging to break through a pass, but there was no pass to break through, no path forward. But just now, observing within myself, I saw that mystic pass—a pitch-black gate hidden in the darkness! I have a feeling that if I break through that mystic pass, an entirely new world awaits!"
Yuan Qi was incomparably thrilled, his voice shaking. "You really saw that mystic pass? There really is a path behind it?"
Xiong Qianli could not contain his excitement either, his eyes wide as he waited for Xu Ying's answer.
Xu Ying nodded firmly. "There is definitely a path!"
Yuan Qi stood dumbfounded, tears suddenly streaming down his face as he murmured, "There really is a path... there really is a path... Hahaha! Wonderful! There really is a path! Ah Ying, you are the great hero of our demon race!"
He was ecstatic, overwhelmed with emotion, cheering without end.
Xiong Qianli was moved to tears as well, hugging the snake demon and hopping about, laughter bubbling from him ceaselessly.
When demons practiced cultivation, they could only reach the Qi Harvesting stage. At most, they could become Demon Kings, unable to advance any further. Nearly every great demon who cultivated to the peak of the Qi Harvesting stage felt their qi and blood surging to break through, yet had no pass to breach, completely barred from entering the next realm!
If Xu Ying could truly locate the gateway to the next realm, it would be an earth-shattering blessing for the demon race!
"Rise of the demon race!" Xiong Qianli cheered feverishly, pumping his tightly clenched fist into the air.
"Overthrow human tyranny!" Yuan Qi shouted, wild with delirium.
The two demons looked at each other and cried in unison, "Shenzhou belongs to humans now, but in the end, it will belong to demons!"
Xu Ying sat up, taking no part in the two demons' revelry. He murmured, "Don't you find it strange, though? Up to now, neither of you has mastered internal observation or entered the Realm of Xiyi. Instead, a human like me mastered it first. Doesn't that mean demon techniques might not actually be demon techniques?"
Recalling the bronze bell's words that demon arts were techniques of Qi Refiners, he said, "I think demon arts might not be demon arts at all. Perhaps they are human techniques—methods cultivated by human Qi Refiners. For some reason, they were lost to history..."
"Why must they be human Qi Refiners? Why can't they be demon Qi Refiners?"
Xiong Qianli threw an arm over Xu Ying's shoulder and exclaimed, "Seventh Brother and I discussed it all night and reached an important conclusion: you must be a demon that looks like a human! A humanoid variant among demons!"
Yuan Qi slithered over from the other side, slinging his body over Xu Ying's shoulder with a chuckle. "Ah Ying, sooner or later, you'll reveal your true form!"
Chapter 16