Back at the palace, Hui released Gu Tian and slumped against the wall, panting. Scary, scary! He pushed his hair out of his face and glanced back up at the window. No one chased them yet. The night remained dark and quiet.

He breathed out. Thank goodness.

Something trembled in his other hand. Hui uncurled his fingers to reveal the lotus seed. The black seal carved into its surface, but failed to burrow through. Powerful life qi dwelled inside the shell, preventing it from digging any deeper.

Hui took a deep breath. He closed his hand back around it and squeezed tight. I have her now, safely sealed away. In the future… what should I do? Give her to Bai Xue? At the very least, I should give her back to the Bai Clan. She doesn’t have much consciousness right now, but there’s no guarantee she won’t regain it later. She was just born, after all.

He hesitated, then flickered his fingers and stored it in his storage ring.

I took care of the tablet, the lotus, the qi seeds… all that’s left is the gropey garden patch. He shuddered, then shook his head. Don’t give up, Hui! Life qi. Life qi!

Life qi…

Hui put a hand to his chin. He swept his mind through his storage ring, taking in the petrified wood and the leg he’d stolen from Bai Jingwen.

Petrified wood. Death qi. Soft plants, growing rapidly. Life qi. Can I combine both into one body cultivation method? Swap between the two, the way Bai Xue swaps between genders? Tough, hard crystal when I need to take a blow, giving and rapidly regenerating when I need to fake an injury or heal. In life qi mode, I can lose a limb with almost no cost, then swap to death qi mode and retain the injury in a tough, hard to break body until I’m ready to heal it.

“I feel like I’m so close…” Hui muttered to himself, frowning. So close to comprehending this body cultivation technique of mine! There’s just something missing. Some critical element. It might only be a thought or a word, but until I find it, I won’t be able to finish it!

“You’re close? To what?” Gu Tian asked.

Hui looked up, startled. Oh right! I forgot about Gu Tian! “Er… nothing, Elder Brother. I’m trying to comprehend a new technique, that’s all.”

“You’re cultivating, even now?” Gu Tian said, startled.

“Eh? Shouldn’t I be?”

“No, it’s just… what diligence,” Gu Tian commented. He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why I’m stuck at second realm.”

Hui laughed and scratched his head. “I, er, Elder Brother, I don’t know if I can recommend any of my cultivation technique to anyone else.” Someone like me, who has to sneak around as a fake death cultivator of a demonic sect despite being an inheritance disciple in a righteous sect because his master is… too much of a genius and can’t actually teach anything, isn’t someone anyone should aspire to!

Eh… is that why I ended up in the demonic sect? I sure learned a lot, but… was that why I joined?

A…anyways! I’m just a small disciple, an ordinary cultivator! Not someone worth looking up to!

“Well, you’re a death cultivator, after all. It’s not like a living cultivator can cultivate death qi so easily.”

“Yeah! Haha…” Hui laughed nervously, glancing aside. Right. It’s hard for living cultivators to cultivate death qi…

Ah, even for me, it’s dangerous. I have my second set of meridians that allow me to cultivate death qi, but if the death qi ever crosses over into my ordinary qi or my flesh… it’s still dangerous!

Though… that manual of mine… didn’t it show a technique to cultivate death qi? I haven’t looked at it in so long, I barely remember. After I created my second meridians and diverged from it, it wasn’t as useful for me. His hand twitched toward his storage ring, but Hui stopped short. He glanced at Gu Tian. Now isn’t the time. Later, later.

Beams of light darted around the trees outside as cultivators rushed around. No alarms rang, nor were hundreds of cultivators mobilized. The dozens of beams rushed around, but the entire sect wasn’t roused. Hui watched quietly, rising to his feet to stand by the window. So the entire sect likely doesn’t know about the Sect Master’s cooperation with Black Asp Sect, as I suspected. Only Huang Yan, the other cultivators in that hidden area, and the triplets.

I wonder who the triplets are to the sect, that they’re so trusted despite only being third realm cultivators. Before they split… maybe, were they… some immensely powerful senior?

Hui shook his head. Don’t be ridiculous. They’re too stupid for that!

But… if their intelligence split into three… and their power split into three… then, isn’t it possible…

Gu Tian stood, distracting Hui. “I’m going outside. I want to practice my sword arts.”

“This late?” Hui asked.

Gu Tian nodded. “If I keep complaining forever, I’ll never catch up to the younger generation. Instead, I should train hard, and keep growing, even in my second life.”

Hui nodded. “Elder Brother’s words are wise. I should cultivate as well.” I still haven’t perfected the snake skin technique, and on top of that, I’m missing some key insight to put together my body cultivation technique.

I want to steal the life qi—ahem! I want to disarm the trap in the garden patch as well. But I should wait until the hubbub from messing with the lotus dies down, or else this small cultivator will get caught! So I might as well cultivate quietly until the sect quiets down. It’s not as if I lack things to contemplate, after all.

Gu Tian stepped out into the night. Hui wandered into a corner and sat down. He drew out the piece of petrified wood and the leg from Bai Jingwen and began to cultivate.

Petrified wood… death qi. Growth and regeneration… life qi. Combine the two into one, and they cancel one another. Separate the two, and they can flourish. Two modes, like Bai Xue. Instead of yin and yang. Death and life. Two sides of the same coin, which cannot touch.

Two sets of meridians, coursing through my body.

Through… my body?

Hui furrowed his brows. He focused on his qi and death qi meridians. My qi passages and meridians are in my body. I can feel them. But the death qi… those passages are superimposed. As if they’re taking up the same space, but not. Almost… illusory. But I know they aren’t. I use them constantly!

Wait. When I used death qi for the sealing talisman, my blood decayed and turned black. If my death qi meridians were in my body, how would my flesh survive?

Then… where are my death qi meridians?

Hui sent his awareness inward, into his body. Qi passages coiled through him, glowing faintly, thrumming with power. He frowned. No death qi?

Turning his attention to his dantian, he found the songbirds flitting about. The death ducks swam around in the void, as usual, and yet didn’t taint his qi. How…?

His vision shifted. The third eye on his soul opened, and he saw his soul within his body. Death qi flowed through it, dark and cold. It collected in his soul’s dantian and circulated there, the ducks swimming about. The death qi, too, made a hollow void, and the ducks swam happily in the empty space.

I… huh. Hui lifted his soul’s hands out of his body. Black qi coursed through their passages, visible through his translucent arms. Though the marks had always been there, without him looking for them, he hadn’t consciously seen them. He flexed his hands, then looked down at his fleshly body. With his third eye, he saw glowing qi and glimmering gold life qi swirling through his flesh. Death qi in my soul, qi and life qi in my body.

But… I’m trying to cultivate my body, not my body and soul! It does me no good if I can petrify my soul. It won’t protect my body at all… if petrification of the soul is even possible!

A cold cough sounded in his ear. Hui jumped and fell back into his body. Right, right! I don’t want to bother Reaper-Sis.

He circulated his qi outward, pushing it into the petrified wood and the leg. There’s something. Something I’m missing. Focus, Hui. Figure out how to put it all together!