Crossroads

Moonlight spilled quietly across the windowsill into the wing room, reflecting in Xu Xinyao's clear, water-bright eyes. Staring at her, there was a fleeting moment when Xu Yuan felt genuinely tempted. Finding every possible way to shrink volume while maximizing capacity—that had always been the essence of energy development. He understood why Xu Xinyao had brought up the soul ring at this moment. If the soul ring could house Old Man Luo's intent-soul, then naturally it could also store anomalies like demon-ghosts, which were composed of soul power. Yet soon enough, the spark of excitement in Xu Yuan's chest rapidly cooled. Feasibility aside, Xu Yuan had to admit Xu Xinyao was remarkably imaginative. As something capable of holding a Saint Tier intent-soul, if used to contain demon-ghosts, its energy capacity compared to a Source Crystal of equivalent volume would easily be a thousandfold higher or more. Back in the underground palace, a specially treated chest of Source Crystal bombs had blasted a Transcendent Realm aberrant ghost half to death at ground zero. If that were replaced by a chest of soul rings of the same size... An immortal-slaying weapon. All right, fantasy over. That was purely theoretical. Setting aside the exquisitely intricate formation script techniques required for Old Man Luo's soul ring, right now it was likely impossible even to gather the raw materials. And even if they could be found, the cost was simply not something the Prime Minister's Manor could afford at this stage. What was more... "Is Third Brother worried about the materials?" Noticing the light fade from Xu Yuan's eyes as his excitement cooled, Xu Xinyao spoke quickly in an undertone, "Although I haven't asked Senior Luo yet, the materials to craft a soul ring must be extraordinarily rare. But we don't actually need to make a one-to-one replica. The world is full of countless heavenly treasures and earthly wonders. Even if the original materials are extinct, we can always find lesser substitutes. Even if the resulting Soul-Nourishing Ring only achieves a tenth—or even a hundredth—of the original's efficacy, that will be more than enough." Listening to Xu Xinyao's pitch, Xu Yuan pondered for a moment, then chuckled and shook his head. By the mingling light of the moon and the inscribed lamps in the room, he looked at the young woman's pure, flawless face and smiled. "You should say this to Father." "..." Xu Xinyao pursed her thin lips and fell silent. Seeing the expression on his fourth sister's face, Xu Yuan understood at once. Evidently, she had already spoken to their father about it. "Turned down?" Xu Yuan said softly, before shaking his head. "Oh, no, Father wouldn't reject you outright. He probably said he would consider it." At his words, Xu Xinyao lowered her gaze and replied in a tiny voice, "Mm..." The moment she had made the discovery, she had gone straight to her father, but he had merely told her he would consider it and instructed her to get some rest. Xu Yuan lightly tapped his fingertips against the table and spoke ambiguously: "Honestly, if you had brought this up ten years earlier, or ten years later, Father would certainly have agreed. After all, he has always placed great value on the study of the principles of things." Here, Xu Yuan sighed softly. "But at this critical juncture, there's no way Father would agree." Xu Xinyao suddenly looked up, her voice laced with reluctance. "The Gewu Academy has plenty of money-burning projects! The value-to-cost ratio of this Soul-Nourishing Ring is definitely far more important than those!" "You're right," Xu Yuan nodded, following along with her reasoning in a tone of gentle comfort. "If it succeeds, it would be an unprecedented revolution for Great Yan." "Then why..." "Because of the investment and returns. And besides, there's no time." "..." Xu Xinyao stared at him stubbornly. She firmly believed her idea was sound. If it succeeded, all the formation scripts, civilian facilities, agricultural tools, and even travel conveyances that had previously been unfeasible due to massive energy consumption would undergo an earth-shaking transformation. Meeting her eyes for a moment, Xu Yuan said in a gentle, measured voice: "The number of formation script masters and artifact refiners in the Gewu Academy capable of contributing to your research is very limited. If they were reassigned to you, it would inevitably disrupt the progress of their existing projects..." Hearing this, Xu Xinyao's expression grew strained, and she bit her lip gently. Seeing this, Xu Yuan gave a soft grunt. "Yes. It's precisely the research on weapons of war and tactical formation scripts that would be disrupted by your project." Yet as he reached this point, the corner of Xu Yuan's mouth curled slightly, a trace of teasing entering his eyes. "Having ideals isn't shameful, but you have to keep your feet on the ground. "Even if the inventor's original intention was entirely different, any new technology will invariably be applied to military use first. No one should know that better than you..." "Brother!" Xu Xinyao gritted her teeth, a flicker of indignation surfacing in her watery eyes as she glared at him. "Xinyao." Ignoring her glare, Xu Yuan leaned back against the chair, crossed his legs, and continued at an unhurried pace: "Just imagine what would happen if the Soul-Nourishing Ring you want to make were used for the military." "..." After holding his gaze for two seconds, Xu Xinyao turned her head away in annoyance. "No matter what gets made, you people will always find a way to turn it into an instrument for killing." Xu Yuan chuckled softly and went on, "I'm merely stating facts. If you truly succeed with this, many brand-new weapons will be developed as a result. On a smaller scale, military formation-script repeating crossbows would become vastly more powerful once recharged by things like the Soul-Nourishing Ring, making them far more lethal. On a larger scale..." Here, Xu Yuan gently rapped on the mahogany table before him and smiled faintly. "If a Soul-Nourishing Ring the size of this table could be produced, it would take just one to reduce the entirety of Di'an City to ash." With those words, silence descended upon the wing room. Xu Yuan looked intently at the young woman across from him and scoffed lightly. "Even knowing that, do you still insist on pursuing this project?" Xu Xinyao's bright eyes flickered with conflicting emotions. After a long silence, her faint voice finally sounded: "If that's the case, why would Father refuse me?" Xu Yuan raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Even so, you're still willing to keep going?" "Whatever I make, you will end up using it for war anyway." Saying this, Xu Xinyao paused for a moment before continuing in a quiet, distant tone, "Besides, if it truly possesses that kind of power, perhaps fewer people would die on the battlefield." "..." Xu Yuan froze. He hadn't expected Xu Xinyao to say something like that, nor had he anticipated that she would grasp the potential consequences of such a weapon in an instant. Yet right after, he sighed inwardly. Because unfortunately, this was not his past world. Every single Saint was a living nuclear weapon, yet Xu Yuan had never seen war halt its advance simply because Saints existed. Even if Soul-Nourishing Rings could be mass-produced, war would not grind to a standstill over a weapon called the "Soul-Nourishing Ring." Back in the underground palace, the reason that chest of Source Crystal bombs could blast a Transcendent Realm aberrant ghost half to death was entirely because it possessed no sapience. Against any normal Transcendent Realm expert, there would be a hundred ways to evade it. "I was only describing the most ideal scenario," Xu Yuan said, shaking his head and lowering his voice. "As if such a thing could actually inflict effective harm on high-tier cultivators." "But it could be used on the battlefield," Xu Xinyao blurted out. "..." Xu Yuan blinked. "It might not break an ultra-large military array, but it should be able to breach one on a ten-thousand-man scale. It could be used to punch through strategic choke points," Xu Xinyao said, her voice turning hurried. "Too expensive. Completely impractical," Xu Yuan countered immediately. "If that method worked, the masters of the battlefield would have long since been Source Crystal bombs rather than the current military arrays..." "Brother!" Xu Xinyao pushed herself up slightly, her voice rising as she cut him off. "There will always be a place for military use!" "..." Xu Yuan fell silent, staring at her with a peculiar look. Military use? He had never imagined that one day he would hear such words come out of his saintly fourth sister's mouth. Realizing the dangerous nature of her own words, Xu Xinyao suddenly went quiet. After a long time, her faint, soft voice broke the silence of the room: "In your eyes... am I very foolish?" With an unreadable expression, Xu Yuan rubbed his chin. Instead of answering, he countered, "Have you finally seen reality for what it is?" At those words, Xu Xinyao's body trembled slightly. Her hands, resting on her lap, clutched tightly at her skirt, and a smile that looked more like crying crept across her face. "When I spoke with Father about this, I saw the contents of the memorial in his hands. "Because of the war with the sects, rivers of blood are flowing in the north. The dead number in the tens of millions, and the displaced in the hundreds of millions... "The greater trend has already come to this. "Brother... "Don't you think everything I did before is utterly laughable in the face of Father's grand plan?" The room was quiet, incense curling gently through the air. Xu Yuan rubbed the space between his brows. He had a feeling their father had done that entirely on purpose, and his goal had clearly been achieved. Amid the silence, Xu Yuan slowly stood up, walked over to her side, and gently placed a hand on her trembling shoulder. "This wasn't caused by you. Why make yourself suffer over it?" "How is it not?!" Xu Xinyao kept her eyes lowered, her fingertips digging through her skirt into the flesh of her thigh. Her voice sounded as though it had been suppressed for a very long time. "Our Prime Minister's Manor is one of the instigators—and one of the primary beneficiaries!!" "..." Hearing this, the scene of Xu Xinyao betraying the Prime Minister's Manor in Cangyuan immediately flashed in Xu Yuan's mind, because this was all too similar. [So our Prime Minister's Manor is the one behind all of this?] That was the question she had asked in Cangyuan. In Cangyuan, Xu Xinyao's betrayal had been a protracted process. From first learning that her father was the instigator of the war, to later witnessing the war refugees with her own eyes, to watching countless civilians wailing in despair as the Black Scale Army slaughtered entire cities... She had gone through more than a dozen plotlines before she finally turned to the sects' side. The moment the thought arose, Xu Yuan suppressed it. He knew full well how lost Xu Xinyao felt right now; she needed someone to guide her. The order and timing of a character's appearance mattered immensely. In Cangyuan, when his fourth sister received this revelation, the people beside her were the protagonist, Qin Mo, and a host of sect members. Under their guidance along the way, she had successfully strayed down the wrong path.