Upon hearing the noises outside, Doctor Sun unhappily got dressed and walked out of the tent before looking in the direction of the mountaintop in the northwest alongside the rest of the Dragon Army troops. In the first rays of the morning sun, Golden Roc Castle was aflame, looking like a shining star, with the only difference being that it was slightly bigger.
"The Dragon King. It must be the Dragon King who started the fire," Tie Linglong yelled excitedly. The Dragon King had been away for several days now. Her heart had been torn with anxiety just like the others.
Doctor Sun covered his mouth with his hand and yawned. "Why would he burn down Golden Roc Castle? Isn't it better to keep it as the Dragon King's palace?"
'It's neither Golden Roc Castle nor the palace that matters. What matters is that the Dragon King is still alive.' Tie Linglong put her palms together devoutly and started praying silently.
Doctor Sun glanced at Chu Nanping, who was not far away, and found that there was a trace of uneasiness in his handsome face. With a smile, he shook his head, instantly dispelling his sleepiness. "Is the Dragon King trying to take the Golden Roc Castle in advance? Because that would be great. I've been meaning to return to northern Jade City for a long time. These old bones of mine are about to break apart after staying in this camp for so long. Alas."
Doctor Sun sighed in the same way that Luo Ningcha always did. He was only half a day's journey from his warm, comfortable home, but he couldn't move a single step closer to it, which made him feel pensive.
As long as Golden Roc Castle or Waning Moon Hall still existed, then by no means did Doctor Sun dare move an inch out of the Dragon Army's encampment.
Han Wuxian, who was also taking shelter in this camp like him, looked in the direction of the distant fire and smiled somewhat stiffly. "That fire was set by Waning Moon Hall."
"How do you know that? Is there anything special about a fire set by Waning Moon Hall?" Tie Linglong remained unconvinced.
"All fire is the same. But if the Dragon King's victory is certain, then what's the point of setting fire?" Han Wuxian turned and faced Doctor Sun. "This is your contribution."
Doctor Sun was startled. "How does this have anything to do with me?"
"It was with your help that Lotus figured out the secret of the Female Gu and why she then absorbed Han Xuan's internal energy, which led her to believe that she was powerful enough to defeat the Unique King. That is why she decided to set fire to Golden Roc Castle."
Doctor Sun shook his head and waved his hands. "Hall Leader Han overestimates me. How could I be that tough? Back in Waning Moon Hall, they merely forced me into making a few batches of pills, and the two Female Gu had scarcely been delivered when I fled. And I didn't even have any time to research them. The Tenth Young Master… Shangguan Ru can prove this."
Doctor Sun was uneasy. The reason why he had fled was indeed because he didn't want to help Waning Moon Hall produce Female Gu. But before that, he had already made some progress, which could have possibly proved very helpful to Waning Moon Hall.
Han Wuxian's smile grew even more tender and sweet. "Lotus will come to you and thank you herself. There's still a lot you can do for her."
Doctor Sun was transfixed with shock. After quite a while, he mumbled, "What have I done… "
Lotus knew what Doctor Sun had done.
Just as Han Wuxian expected, Doctor Sun had been more helpful than he had imagined. Before he fled, he had gathered enough data for Waning Moon Hall. With some effort from Lotus as well as some other disciples, they finally managed to uncover the fundamentals principles of making Female Gu. To do so, they had to keep poisoning the subject, and at the same time, they had to use specially-designed drugs to prevent the poison from taking effect, just like how a dam allowed a lake to store more water.
With regards to what kind of water it would store, there were many choices. Shangguan Shaomin's body had been turned into a lethal weapon, while Han Xuan's body was used to store an enormous amount of internal energy. The latter was more difficult to do and also took a longer amount of time.
The cultivation of internal energy was an arduous and winding journey for everybody. There were numerous twists and turns, and even retrogression at times. Just like the cultivation of the Gu family's Balanced Power, there was often more retrogression in the process, since people were always worried that their bodies might fail to contain the power, which would result in Qi deviation.
But this was not a problem for someone who used another person's body to cultivate the internal energy. Han Xuan had worked hard for many years, but she had never been a kung fu expert because most of her meridians had been blocked. Her internal Qi had increased uncontrollably, but she herself could barely use it.
The method of producing Female Gu was one of Han Wuxian's cutting edge undertakings, which she was very invested in. She had spent a lot of time seeking suitable infants. She had failed dozens of times before she finally found Han Xuan. In order to not arouse suspicion among her disciples, she had specifically sent the young Female Gu to a far-off area in the Western Regions and assigned her most trusted subordinate to impart kung fu to her every year.
Unaware of the truth, Han Xuan had continued to practice internal energy, making progress all the time without any setbacks, and the rate of her internal energy increase was ten times that of a common person.
Han Wuxian had also been constantly ingesting drugs in order to strengthen her meridians. She had hoped that one day, she would enjoy the fruits of her hard work towards the Female Gu and drastically boost her internal energy overnight.
Doctor Sun had found out the general truth. It was just that he hadn't figured out the specific process as well as a way to extract the internal energy.
Lotus had perused many secret manuals of the Waning Moon Hall and finally found the method to extract internal energy from a Female Gu. However, she didn't have enough time to strengthen her meridians like Han Wuxian, so she had found another way. She decided to absorb only a small part of the internal energy in Han Xuan at a time, and to do it multiple times until she absorbed all of it.
This was very dangerous and the process of absorbing internal energy was torturous. And after that, Lotus had to spend even more time integrating the foreign Qi with her own.
But Han Xuan found that her physical condition was improving, so she was very grateful to Lotus, believing that Lotus was "very good" to her.
Lotus' method of extracting the internal Qi step by step did save Han Xuan. If Han Xuan had fallen into Han Wuxian's hands, then all of her internal energy would have been taken away in less than two hours. This would inevitably result in the collapse of her entire meridian network and eventually, her inevitable death.
The internal energy of the Waning Moon Hall and that of Golden Roc Castle had the same origin, which was why there had been no intense conflict between the former and Lotus' Daoless Divine Power. She absorbed the internal energy of the Female Gu every six or seven days, allowing her power to swell rapidly. Finally, she had entered the phase of dispersing her internal energy.
The Daoless Divine Power was very effective, but just like the internal energy of any other sect, people who practiced this kung fu faced the threat of Qi deviation. Lotus didn't choose to deal with the threat regularly, which was a safer method, and instead chose to accumulate all of the hidden dangers of the cultivation process and then eliminate them all at once when her internal energy reached a certain level.
After Lotus extracted sixty to seventy percent of Han Xuan's internal energy, her Daoless Divine Power had accumulated too much impure Qi and was in grave danger of deviation, so she had to disperse her internal energy right away.
During the period of dispersing internal energy, Lotus was no different from a common person, and any sabersman could kill her easily. The Master Commander of the Waning Moon Hall didn't trust anybody, so she had adopted an extreme means of protection. She had "sent" her trusted subordinate Han Fen to the Dragon King and had let Han Wuxian take back Han Xuan, who only had a small part of her internal energy left. By doing this, she had managed to create a semblance of an adequate defense against sneak attacks.
Apart from her enemies, Lotus had also been keeping an eye on those who were on her side, especially Wild Horse, who had allied himself with the Waning Moon Hall.
She had to make sure that this one-armed killer with sharp eyes would be busy doing something important, so she had imparted "the complete Death Sutra" to him.
Shangguan Hong had also benefited from this. Every certain number of days, he would come to Lotus and receive a couple of pills, but he never knew that the "Lotus" giving him pills was just an average disciple of the Waning Moon Hall in disguise.
All disciples of the Waning Moon Hall as well as those of the Essence Pavilion concentrated on practicing the amazing swordsmanship that the Master Commander had selflessly offered to them. In order to improve their kung fu, they had ruthlessly assassinated a lot of people in Jade City, naturally ignoring Lotus' actions.
Lotus wasn't worried that some of her disciples might become more powerful than her. She only imparted the Death Sutra that she believed was right, refraining from showing them a small part of the most important annotations. She believed that when the period of dispersing internal energy was over, she, who possessed a brand-new Daoless Divine Power as well as the complete Death Sutra Swordsmanship, would still be the most powerful practitioner, even more powerful than that haughty Dragon King.
It was him who was determined to find Lotus, which had resulted in Han Wuxian discovering the truth about her dispersing her internal energy in advance.
Lotus had adopted a tactic that the Unique King had once used. Via Han Fen, she claimed that she was not going to meet the Dragon King until a month later, when actually, there was only ten days before her period of dispersing internal energy was over.
These ten days were the most difficult for Lotus. She had to change locations almost two or three times a day in order to hide from the scouts of Golden Roc Castle as well as Wild Horse and the others. Han Xuan, who had been taken back by Han Fen, was her only protector.
Han Xuan knew nothing about the Female Gu. The only thing she knew was that Lotus was a kind person who had relieved her pain as well as the master whom her close friend, Han Fen, served wholeheartedly.
Lotus had thus had a second experience of living as common person. Jade City, which used to be like a courtyard of her house, was now like a jungle full of thistles and thorns. Those short courtyard walls and houses became insurmountable obstacles. When she walked through those winding small alleys, she found, for the first time, that she was not familiar with southern Jade City at all.
And her sword, which used to be like part of her, and which she could once wield as freely as her fingers, suddenly revealed its true self – its weight, which was merely one kilogram, felt so heavy that Lotus had to have Han Xuan carry it around for her.
She finally understood the so-called meaning of "freedom" that Old Man Mu had once mentioned. The reason why that old devil had practiced kung fu so hard was because he wanted a life free of restrictions. And once he lost his power, he had to yield to the Dragon King and accept harsh conditions in exchange for protection, plunging from a boundless world into a small, narrow "prison."
She also came to understand the meaning of the words carved into that stone tablet in front of the shrine of Golden Roc Castle: "Cyclic reincarnations and endless killing." The people who had ordered these words be carved had been sighing at the thought that life was limited while the pursuit of martial arts was endless.
Lotus, who had temporarily lost all her internal energy, gradually began to philosophize. Reviewing her previous life, she calmly realized the profound impact that kung fu had made on her. That pointy-faced teenager called Servant Yao had become a vague, ridiculous memory by now.
She found it surprising that a person as strange and selfish as him had become an inseparable obstacle between her and the Dragon King. As distinctly as she knew that, it was still because of the Death Sutra. She, who was now a common person, still felt that it was incredible.
There had been several occasions where she wanted to find the Dragon King and tell him, "You're the only one I trust. Protect me."
But she couldn't. Servant Yao was no longer someone between her and the Dragon King, but instead, there were groups of killers and sabersmen. These people sniffed around like hounds. Even a tiny trace of Waning Moon Hall would bring her death.
On the last night of her period of dispersing internal energy, as she sat in an icy cold room, Lotus sadly discovered that she was about to regain her "freedom." But at the same time, Servant Yao had also come back into her heart. In the form of a little devil, he continued to incite her to hate the Dragon King.
Before the pointy-faced teenager died, he had once said to Servant Huan, "You're not getting away with this. I'll be waiting for you in hell."
If Lotus knew about this curse, she might have had an even stronger sense of destiny.
Han Xuan was sitting beside a primitive stove, warming herself. Occasionally, she walked to the doorway and looked out. In disguise, her features were even more unattractive.
As Lotus looked at her, the first stream of her Qi abruptly started circulating.
Lotus felt like she had been reborn. She still remembered every thought that she had had in these past days, but like what a stern teacher would do to a students' poor assignments, she ruthlessly tossed those thoughts of hers into the stove.
In honor of this "rebirth," she decided to do something that went completely against the Waning Moon Hall's usual policy: take revenge on Golden Roc Castle in public and directly challenge the Unique King.
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