Chapter 45: Tracer (Part 9)

Shen Suwei silently landed in the Songtao Yuxue Courtyard and took a walk outside the Mingtang Pavilion.
The lights inside the pavilion had been extinguished; Xu Qianyu should be resting by now.
When he returned after finishing with Xu Qianyu, Xu Jiansu was still there, reading his book, probably trying to gauge what level he had reached.
Shen Suwei, unsure of his own mindset, spoke up, “If I were to slip up…”
“Isn’t slipping up quite normal?” Xu Jiansu interrupted him. “I already told you that you can’t catch up, yet you insisted on chasing. That thing is very cunning. Although it seems weak and won’t cause much of a stir, just let it be.”
“It’s not a demon,” Shen Suwei averted his gaze. “It’s someone else.”
“Someone else, and you slip up against someone else?” Xu Jiansu finally lifted his eyes from the book. “What kind of cultivation is that?”
“Qi Refinement.”
“Qi Refinement?” Xu Jiansu chuckled. “Are you joking with me?”
He understood Shen Suwei very well. His will was strong; he was the type who could concentrate on drawing a bow and shooting arrows even when the enemy was at the gates and fire was raging around him. It was possible to slip up against a demon, but against a person, it was impossible unless done intentionally. Xu Jiansu casually remarked, “So you really want to hit him.”
Shen Suwei said, “I didn’t; my hand just slipped.”
“Hand slipped?” Xu Jiansu approached, giving him a light pat on the shoulder, followed by two more playful slaps. With a smile, he looked at him and said, “Junior Brother, that was a slip on my part too. You mustn’t take it to heart, alright?”
After saying this, he laughed and walked away.
Shen Suwei ignored him and stood still, pondering.

According to Xu Jiansu, he wanted to hit Xu Qianyu, which is why he ended up hitting her. The reason he wanted to hit her was because he saw her being close to Master Wuzhen.
Following Xu Jiansu’s logic, the development of things in the world is quite strange. Because no matter how you look at it, there’s no reason for Xu Qianyu to be hit out of the blue just because she became a disciple; he also couldn’t vent his anger on a little girl.
He stopped following this dangerous line of thought but suddenly remembered something.
He had forgotten to remind Xu Qianyu that she shouldn’t practice internal skills for the time being after she went back.
Shen Suwei’s expression turned serious.
He had forgotten too many things lately.
Once he resolves this issue, he should shut himself in and cultivate for a while to clear his mind.
At this hour, if Xu Qianyu wanted to practice internal skills, she would have done so long ago. Her spiritual energy had been forcibly drawn out, and her meridians were weak; if she suddenly ate or starved, it could disrupt her energy flow, which is colloquially known as going into a demonic state.
Therefore, he directly sought her out. If something went wrong with Xu Qianyu, he would handle it for her; it would ultimately be his fault.

After all, he couldn’t understand and couldn’t accept that he had slipped up.
The room was clearly dark, yet the door creaked open, and Shen Suwei looked up.
A thinly clothed person stepped out from inside.
Xu Qianyu was only wearing a silk nightgown, her hair unkempt and flowing. The bangs on her forehead curled naturally to the sides, revealing the delicate vermilion at the center of her forehead. She hesitated as she looked toward him, appearing youthful and fragile, and showed a quietness that was rarely seen.
After watching for a moment, Xu Qianyu walked up to him, looking up and saying, “You’re here?”
In her eyes reflected the bright moon; in the night, they shone brightly with a look of suppressed grievance and intense focus.

When Shen Suwei saw that expression, he frozen. Before he could speak, Xu Qianyu curled her lips, dived into his embrace, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Why did you take so long to come?”
Shen Suwei had never been embraced like this before; he instantly stiffened, instinctively gripping her collar to pull her away a bit. However, Xu Qianyu held on too tightly, like a piece of taffy, and he tugged for a long while but couldn’t get free, so he just froze and let her hold him.
Xu Qianyu sweetly called out, “Mother.”
Shen Suwei: “…?”
When Xu Qianyu was young, due to her mother Shui Weiwei not loving her, despite being repeatedly told by her maternal grandmother and grandfather that she was indeed her biological mother, she didn’t believe it. She thought she must have a mother who loved her somewhere else, waiting for the right time to come and fetch her. After being pushed into the pond by Shui Weiwei and then pulled out, she was so traumatized that she began to sleepwalk at night.
The content of her sleepwalking was to look for this biological mother. She hugged pillars, tables, and naturally also her maternal grandmother and other maidservants. Later, her maternal grandmother asked a doctor for a prescription made of sour jujube seeds, he huan flowers, sautéed oysters, dragon bone, mixed with a handful of Guanyin earth for her to take, and even invited a shaman to “press the spirit” for three days before her sleepwalking finally stopped.
This was all before she turned eight. Who knew that due to the chaos in her spiritual energy, internal fire burning, it was reignited again?

Shen Suwei’s first reaction was some anger.
Aside from sharing a character in their names, what else was similar enough to get confused? He tugged at her collar again, trying to pull her away, but Xu Qianyu wouldn’t let go. As he touched her forehead, which was burning hot, he paused and lost his temper.
It wasn’t that she was deliberately teasing him; she was already not in her right mind and couldn’t help it.
He turned to take Xu Qianyu away, but she refused to let go of his waist. Shen Suwei dragged her for two steps before bending down and picking her up, passing through the wall.
In Penglai, there were also streams, with babbling water flowing into the spiritual pool.
Shen Suwei sat on a spiritual stone by the stream, while Xu Qianyu lay on his lap, holding onto a strand of his hair, insisting on gripping something tightly. Seeing her hair tips hanging into the water, he reached out and gathered it up, but after a moment, it fell again.

After struggling with her hair for a while, the sword master cut off a narrow strip of his own clothes and awkwardly tied it for her. He then reached up and plucked a blooming jade hairpin flower from a tree; the flower was large, with each petal straining outward. He dipped the flower in the water, held Xu Qianyu’s chin, turned her face toward him, and pressed the flower onto her forehead.
Xu Qianyu’s face was covered by the flower; she felt a cool comfort seeping into her body from her forehead, calming the heat within her, and she gradually settled down.
Shen Suwei took her hand, prepared to help her adjust her breathing. Turning around, he saw the water from the flower spill out, flowing down her cheek and into her collar, as if she were quietly crying beneath the flower.
He paused and wiped away the “tears” from Xu Qianyu’s face, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Suddenly, he felt an extremely intense pain, spreading from his hand to his heart like a wildfire.
Here we go again.
He concentrated and endured for a moment, then took Xu Qianyu on his lap, removed the flower, and directly shook Xu Qianyu awake, breaking this unbearable illusion in his heart.
Xu Qianyu indeed hadn’t been crying; she wiped the water from her face and flicked it aside. But when she opened her eyes, she looked at him with the same admiration she had for her mother.
Forget it.
Shen Suwei lowered his eyelashes, pressed two fingers to his forehead, and white light flickered as his features shifted.
But it wasn’t a drastic change as before. Instead, it was a softening of his jawline, lowering of his brow bone, rounding of his eyes, and slightly plumping of his lips, and in an instant, he transformed into a beautiful woman with a cold complexion.
He also had a pair of earrings, the same ones Xu Qianyu had seen before, now changing and quietly swaying, exuding elegance.
Xu Qianyu sat up, her eyes wide open, staring intently at his face.
Finally, she could see what she looked like.
Her mother was indeed a celestial being.
With a skin as smooth as ice and bones as exquisite as jade, she embodied heavenly fragrance and national beauty.
Thinking of this, Xu Qianyu couldn’t help but curve her lips in satisfaction.
Shen Suwei noticed her gaze fixed on him, a look of admiration, envy, and surprise in her eyes, blazing with intensity. Initially, he could hold her gaze, but after a moment, he shifted his eyes to the side. “What are you looking at me for?”
Xu Qianyu suddenly began to hurriedly wet her hair with water, unwilling to appear inferior in front of her mother.
Shen Suwei turned back, seeing her tilting her face to look at him, her expression seeming both expectant and shy. Suddenly inspired, he glanced her up and down and said indifferently, “You’re very pretty.”
Xu Qianyu received the answer she wanted, instantly smiling brightly like summer flowers. Lowering her head, she said, “I guess I’m okay, but not as pretty as you.”
Shen Suwei didn’t know how to respond.

After a moment, he said, “Give me your hand.”
Business was urgent.
However, as his spiritual power flowed into her palm, Xu Qianyu’s face changed instantly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It hurts.”
“…” Shen Suwei’s expression changed slightly.
How could it be? In just a few months, her spiritual palace’s meridians were all entangled and knotted together, impossible to untangle?
Looking again, Xu Qianyu had already begun to sob. He released her hand and said, “Stop crying.”
“Your internal energy, you…” Shen Suwei considered his words carefully. “Did you have any doubts while practicing?”
Xu Qianyu thought for a moment, wiping her tears with her sleeve, seeming very wronged. “I hit my head.”
“Hitting your head?”
“The illusions hit people,” she complained again. “Just started from the third section; I don’t understand it.”
Shen Suwei asked, “Which sect, which book’s third section?”
Xu Qianyu appeared dazed, unable to respond.
Shen Suwei changed his question: “Which section, what’s it called?”
This question struck Xu Qianyu vividly; she blurted out, “Observing Spiritual Meridians.”
Shen Suwei understood generally.
Indeed, she had no genuine teachings in internal energy; this was the internal energy of a spellcaster.
Compared to sword cultivators, spellcasters placed more emphasis on internal cultivation. Logically speaking, the foundational internal energy should be more solid.
Clearly, she had issues from the very foundation.
“Aside from observing spiritual meridians, is there anything else you don’t understand?”
“When I sink into the spiritual pool, I don’t understand anything else,” Xu Qianyu sniffled. “I only know how to draw energy into my body.” She wailed. “Just hitting my head.”
Shen Suwei sighed almost inaudibly, then tore off a piece of his garment to give her as a cloth. “Stop crying.”

Xu Qianyu made an “mm” sound, obediently stopping, not wanting to lose face in front of her mother. But after drying her tears, she plunged into his embrace again, pressing tightly against him, refusing to let go.
“…” Shen Suwei felt she was like a small animal.
But that was a very distant and vague memory.
Since he had become heavy with the aura of slaughter and with his water spiritual root entering the path of ice and snow, he had been extremely cold for many years. No animals, aside from his mount, dared to come near him, and he had never actively approached any animals.
Xu Qianyu clung to him stubbornly, her body warm, creating the illusion that only she and he depended on each other in this world.
At this moment, there was no one around, and there would be no one in the future. Who could know that the person closest to him over the years was this one before him?
After a moment, Shen Suwei said, “A person can cultivate because they have a spiritual palace and a spiritual root. The spiritual palace is where purified spiritual energy accumulates in the body, and when one forms a dan, it will be here, hence the name dantian. Do you know where the spiritual palace is?”
“In the lower abdomen.”
Looking down, he saw Xu Qianyu listening attentively, her hand brushing over her stomach. He gently held her hand and moved it just below her navel, lightly pressing down. “The lower abdomen.”
He continued, “However, a cultivator can absorb spiritual energy because they have a spiritual root. The spiritual root is usually present at birth; first, there is the spiritual root, then the spiritual pool, and only when one is seven or eight years old does the spiritual palace appear. Thus, the spiritual root is the beginning of cultivation. Do you know where the spiritual root is?”
At this point, he picked Xu Qianyu up and flipped her over so she was lying on her back.
“It’s at the tailbone; you can feel for it yourself.”
“The spiritual root for a cultivator is like a germ for grass and trees. During the great chaos a hundred years ago, when sects fought, to kill a cultivator, one only needed to remove a piece of their tailbone to obtain nearly all their value.”
“Only the tailbone with the spiritual root can possibly give rise to new life, but what exactly emerges from it is unknown. It is only known that a cultivator’s tailbone gave rise to a demon lord, and such a demon inherited all the powers of the cultivator as soon as it was born.”
“Have you found it?” Shen Suwei looking down.

Xu Qianyu was already dazed, reaching back to feel her spinal column; the position was quite uncomfortable. She only felt her mother speaking in a cold, detached tone, saying things she didn’t understand, watching her with a cold gaze and expecting her to do something very difficult, so she said plaintively, “I can’t find it; can’t you just feel it for me?”
But as soon as she said it, she regretted it. She reminded herself, This was her mother; she couldn’t be so fierce; she had to be a bit gentler.
Shen Suwei paused, his fingertips following her spinal column, counting the segments silently downwards until he stopped at the tailbone, pressing on it. “It’s here.”
Xu Qianyu made an “mm” sound.
“The spiritual pool is generated from the spiritual root, used for temporarily storing spiritual energy before the root. As for the so-called sinking into the spiritual pool—”
He paused, revealing a peculiar expression.
A moment later, he pressed two fingers against Xu Qianyu’s spiritual root and saw a tree within her spiritual pool.
It was indeed a tree, a loquat tree lush with branches and leaves.
Normally, a cultivator builds a spiritual pool by first entering meditation, then constructing their own form in illusion; that small figure with golden veins would represent their spiritual pool. Some cultivators, lacking clear self-awareness, may have discrepancies in height, back, and body shape, causing their spiritual pool to not resemble themselves. At most, some people might make mistakes and confuse genders.
But it should at least be a person; it shouldn’t be a tree.
Shen Suwei couldn’t help but glance at Xu Qianyu, who looked utterly bewildered.
His consciousness sank back into her spirit pool and struck out a wisp of sword energy. The loquat tree suddenly bent down two of its branches like a person, countering in a spinning motion, dispersing the sword energy.

“…”

He now understood why Xu Qianyu had always found it difficult to advance in rank and often leaked spiritual energy.
The loquat tree had grown to its peak, with its branches intertwined and completely obstructed at every tiny point. It would be strange if a tree could cultivate a person’s inner power well.
“Your spirit pool…” Shen Suwei said, “you’ve mistaken the variety.”
He used the sword energy to forcefully untangle the branches above; the ones he couldn’t untangle he simply cut off. The stagnant spiritual energy dispersed into the air, and Xu Qianyu began to cool down and fell into a deep sleep on her own.
Shen Suwei was not very happy.
This action only addressed the symptoms and not the root cause; those branches would grow back in no time. He at least needed to help her rebuild a proper spirit pool, which would require her to meditate and cooperate. He would need to find an opportunity to do this again.
He picked up Xu Qianyu and carried her back to the pavilion.
As he lifted the curtain to lay her down, Xu Qianyu suddenly murmured, “Senior Brother.”
Shen Suwei paused, having just switched back to his original form, and thought she had awakened, so he froze in place.
He didn’t know which senior brother she was calling and did not respond.
Xu Qianyu continued, “I got hit.”
In the sect, getting hit and hitting others were common occurrences, not at all rare; everyone had to learn to accept it.
But Shen Suwei heard himself ask, “Who hit you?”
“…” Xu Qianyu thought for a long while but couldn’t say anything.
“Sleep now.” Shen Suwei didn’t wait for her to respond. He pressed his finger to her forehead, lowered the curtain, and vanished.