In the small courtyard, Xue Mingzhao sat cross-legged on her bed. She took a deep breath and turned her gaze toward her dantian.
Adopting a voice so gentle it could practically melt water, she said, “So... Little Bead, how about we have a chat?”
There was absolutely no response from her dantian.
Forget showing itself; not even a single ripple stirred.
Undeterred, Xue Mingzhao continued to reason with it, a sweet smile plastered on her face. “Look, I've already delivered the spiritual energy right to your doorstep. All you have to do is let it in.
“It wasn't easy for me to gather that spiritual energy, you know. It's really quite rude of you to keep blocking them outside like this.”
Still, there was no movement in her dantian.
“Think about it, we're a team. If I'm strong, you're strong; if I'm weak, you're weak. If I remain a useless mortal for the rest of my life, you'll be stuck in this forgotten corner forever. Doesn't that feel suffocating?”
“Little Bead, let me speak to you from the bottom of my heart—do you know what the people outside are saying about us?”
“They say I'm a useless trash body without a spiritual root. Trash! Just listen to that. Can you really tolerate this? I don't mind personally; they can mock me all they want since I have thick skin.
“But what about you? You are a unique, transparent spiritual root, the only one of your kind across all four continents. Yet, people are claiming you 'don't exist.' Can you really swallow that insult?”
After a long silence, there was still no movement in her dantian. The transparent spiritual bead didn't even bother to flash its outline.
It was so quiet that Xue Mingzhao began to wonder if she had just been seeing things yesterday.
Had that bead ever actually existed?
Or had she gone mad from flipping through books all night, and her mind had simply conjured up a hallucination?
She remained silent for a long moment, then expressionlessly drew a dagger from beneath her pillow. She unsheathed it and pointed the tip directly at her dantian.
Her voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. “Since you refuse to accept spiritual energy, I can't cultivate anyway. Keeping you around is pointless and only ruins my mood every day. I might as well just destroy my dantian and live peacefully as a mortal. At least that will put an end to my lingering hopes.”
The blade gleamed coldly in the morning light. Still, there was no movement in her dantian.
Hardening her heart, Xue Mingzhao pressed the dagger down.
The moment the tip of the blade pierced her skin, before a bead of blood could even well up, a violent tremor suddenly shook her dantian.
With a whoosh, the transparent bead finally revealed itself. Floating right in the center of her dantian, it spun frantically, moving as fast as a whipped top.
From the frequency of its spinning, Xue Mingzhao could practically read its thoughts: Are you out of your mind?!
Xue Mingzhao frowned. Judging by this reaction, this spiritual root possessed intelligence.
She moved the dagger slightly to the side, her voice turning cold. “Since you can understand me, why have you been playing dead this whole time?”
A long silence fell over her dantian.
Just as Xue Mingzhao thought it was going to play dead again, a tiny, somewhat guilty voice echoed in her mind.
“It's not that I won't let them in! It's just that this spiritual energy is toxic!”
Xue Mingzhao froze for a moment. Toxic?
Then she suddenly realized something was off. “Wait, you can talk?”
“Have you never seen a spiritual root that can talk?”
The transparent bead bobbed up and down in the center of her dantian, looking exactly like a little peacock flaunting its tail.
“Country bumpkin!”
Xue Mingzhao's mind raced.
Over the past two days, she had combed through the books in the Library Pavilion, reading everything from 《The Genealogy of Spiritual Roots》 to 《A Study of Ancient Mutated Spiritual Roots》. Yet, not a single text recorded that a spiritual root could speak.
A spiritual root was a talent, a channel, a qualification—but it was absolutely not a living creature.
What on earth was this thing?
Suppressing her shock, she set that question aside for now and focused her efforts on the most critical issue. “Since you can communicate, why were you playing dead earlier? And you say the spiritual energy is toxic—everyone in the entire sect is cultivating, so who exactly has been poisoned?”
“It really is toxic,” the transparent bead insisted, its tone not sounding like a lie. It even sounded a bit aggrieved.
“It's just that the toxicity is extremely faint, so faint that no one has noticed it. Given the concentration of spiritual energy here, it would take at least twenty years of cultivation for it to manifest. I just don't want to absorb such filthy things. Is that a crime?”
“Then why are you transparent? What is your elemental attribute?”
The transparent bead immediately played dead and refused to speak.
Without a second thought, Xue Mingzhao raised the dagger and thrust the tip back toward her dantian.
“I'll talk!” The transparent bead chickened out instantly. It cleared its throat and suddenly raised its voice, speaking with great solemnity as if announcing its grand titles.
“When heaven and earth first opened, there was Chaos. Only then did it split into the five elements, Yin and Yang, and the myriad energies.
“And I am the Chaos Spiritual Root, the ancestor of all spiritual roots!
“All spirits are born from me, and all phenomena are transformed by me!”
Xue Mingzhao: “Oh, that impressive?”
The Chaos Spiritual Root was so smug that its entire bead began to glow, its tone bursting with pride it couldn't hide. “Country bumpkin, you've never heard of it, have you? What's more, I can filter out the impurities in spiritual energy and directly absorb the purest energy—”
Mid-sentence, it suddenly froze.
Because the look in Xue Mingzhao's eyes had changed.
“Oh?” The corners of her mouth slowly curled up, her voice carrying a dangerous edge that sent a shiver down the Chaos Spiritual Root's spine. “You can filter it?”
The Chaos Spiritual Root's body stiffened.
“You're quite the scheming little transparent bead, aren't you?” Xue Mingzhao twirled the dagger between her fingers, a faint smile playing on her lips. “Since you can filter out the impurities, why don't you just absorb it? Since you can filter out the toxic parts anyway, doesn't that mean the spiritual energy isn't toxic to you at all?”
The Chaos Spiritual Root grew frantic. “What 'transparent bead'?! Who allowed you to call me a transparent bead?! Show some respect!”
Others described it as clear as thousand-year ice-soul, empty and pure like the spatial crystal of the nine heavens, completely colorless, blending into the aura of the dantian like a drop of water into an abyss, leaving no trace.
Only when its emotions surged or when it encountered extremely pure spiritual energy would a barely perceptible halo of Chaos rise at its edges, vanishing in an instant.
Xue Mingzhao listened expressionlessly, offering only a single word in response: “Oh.”
“What do you mean, 'Oh'?!”
“So, why exactly aren't you absorbing it?”
The Chaos Spiritual Root's momentum weakened again. Its tone shifted from righteous indignation to a quiet mumble. “Filtering impurities takes a lot of effort, okay?”
“Besides, you're too weak. Why should I listen to you?”
“If you don't absorb spiritual energy, how am I supposed to get stronger?”
“If you don't get stronger, why on earth should I listen to you?”
A perfect closed loop!
Rate on N.U.
