Li Nanzhu closed her eyes.
She recalled the scene shortly after she had first stepped onto the path of cultivation, when she first tried to use the Eight Principles of Yong as a foundation to execute an attack.
Back then, her spiritual energy was still shallow. She had countless times faced the void, attempting to write out the character "Yong" in its entirety, hoping it would draw upon the great power of heaven and earth.
However, every time the final "Zhe" stroke fell and a complete "Yong" character condensed in the air, it was always a mere facade—well-structured, with clear strokes and flowing spiritual light, looking exactly as it should, but…
It possessed no power at all.
It was like a castle built of sand, exquisite yet fragile, scattering the moment a breeze blew.
It was merely an empty shell, a pure and meaningless spiritual energy framework.
At the time, she was completely baffled. Only later did she understand that the essence of the Eight Principles of Yong lay in the "brush intent" rather than the "character shape."
Broken down, every stroke contained independent intent and power. Forcibly combining them into a complete "character" instead restricted them to a rigid form, losing their spirit and becoming a superficial frame.
'Framework… empty shell… meaningless structure…' Li Nanzhu chewed on these words repeatedly in her mind.
She suddenly snapped her eyes open, a flash of realization crossing her pupils.
The Wanxiang Brush moved!
No longer was it a water-like attack form using the Ce stroke; it returned to the most basic, most simple outlining of strokes.
There was no flowing water, no intent to attack, only a solid, stable line of spiritual energy that followed the law of the first stroke of the character "Yong."
The Wanxiang Brush swept through the void, leaving behind faint golden trails that condensed without dissipating.
Those trails contained the essence of the Eight Principles of Yong—the flexibility of the Ce stroke, the gravity of the Le stroke, the uprightness of the Nu stroke, the momentum of the Ti stroke, the agility of the second Ce stroke, the speed of the Lüe stroke, the precision of the Zhuo stroke, and the thickness of the Zhe stroke.
One stroke, then another.
Her movements were not fast; they were even somewhat slow, as she treated every stroke with extreme seriousness.
Zhu Yinxi and the other three, who had been struggling to communicate using the object language, stopped simultaneously. They stared at Li Nanzhu in astonishment.
They saw that before Li Nanzhu, following the dance of the Wanxiang Brush, a perfectly structured "Yong" character composed of faint golden spiritual lines was clearly emerging, stroke by stroke!
"This…!" Zhu Yinxi's pupils constricted.
Writing characters to communicate was absolutely forbidden. Why had the rules not reacted?
Feng Weilan even seemed to foresee that the character would crumble and annihilate in the next second.
Jiang Yifan and Duan Xianxing also held their breath, their eyes fixed on the scene.
However, nothing happened.
That complete "Yong" character simply hung there, stable and secure in the void before Li Nanzhu. Its spiritual light flowed within a solid structure, like an exquisitely carved creation of spiritual energy, quietly emitting a faint golden shimmer.
It did not crumble, it did not vanish, and it did not attract any interference from the power of the rules.
It simply existed.
High above on the platform, before the water mirror.
When Li Nanzhu took out the Wanxiang Brush and began to "write" in the void, everyone held their breath, expecting to see a repeat of the scene where the brush and paper were instantly annihilated.
However, when that complete, light-flowing "Yong" character floated steadily in the void, clearly visible and rejected by no rules—
The entire platform fell into a dead silence.
You could hear a pin drop.
Bu Qingwei’s hand, which had been stroking his beard, froze in mid-air. He didn't even notice that he had accidentally plucked out several hairs, his eyes wide as he stared at the water mirror.
Immortal Venerable Ling Xiao stood up abruptly, his expression changing drastically.
Shock, bewilderment, and disbelief filled the faces of Liu Changhe, Rong Lingmeng, and the others!
"Ch-characters?! She actually wrote characters?"
"Where are the rules! The rules of the Domain of Silence have failed!"
"No! It wasn't erased! This character… is stable! It truly exists!"
"How did she do it?!"
Inside the illusion.
Looking at the complete "Yong" character floating before her, Li Nanzhu finally revealed a smile that was both relieved and certain.
"It worked!"
She had gambled correctly!
The rules of this space prohibited the act and the result of "conveying information" or "recording information." When you wrote with the intent of "I want to tell someone something," the strokes and the medium would be annihilated.
But at this moment, what was the "essence" of the "Yong" character she had written?
Was it an attack? No, it had no power; it was a "failed product" of an attack intent.
Was it a talisman? No, it had not drawn upon the spiritual resonance of heaven and earth, nor did it constitute any functional structure; it was an "empty shell" of a talisman-drawing intent.
It was a "framework," an energy frame based on the stroke intent of the Eight Principles of Yong, outlined purely with spiritual energy, possessing no "practical function" and only having a "form"!
Just like the countless failed products she had outlined when she first started practicing, she was merely attempting to create a new method of attack.
It was only the character "Yong" because the world and she herself had bestowed that "meaning" upon it.
But the framework itself was "innocent" and "neutral."
Its "meaning" was "interpreted" by the viewer based on their own cognition, rather than being "encoded" into it by Li Nanzhu.
In essence, it was still an act of "creation" rather than "recording" or "conveying"!
It was just like those ores and magic tool fragments scattered on the ground.
They had no "meaning" inherently. It was Li Nanzhu and the others who had given them "meaning" to build an object language.
The rules had not erased those ores and fragments because it judged them to be merely "items" rather than "information carriers."
By the same logic, in the eyes of the rules, this "Yong" framework was perhaps just a unique, meaningless "item" or "pattern" composed of spiritual energy!
To put it more plainly, it was like a failed talisman.
Could you say that the ruined talisman paper once carried the drawer's intent of "wanting to succeed"?
Of course you could.
But after the drawing failed, did the crooked, incoherent spiritual runes remaining on the paper still count as a "talisman"?
No.
It was merely a scrap of paper stained with chaotic spiritual energy—a "created item with missing functionality."
Its "essence" was an item, a failed and useless object, not an "information carrier."
This "Yong" framework Li Nanzhu had outlined was just such a "failed product"—a pure "spiritual energy framework item" that attempted to attack but lacked power, and attempted to become a talisman but lacked effect.
It did not carry the intent of "I want to tell you this is the character for Yong" that would be captured by the rules; it was merely a "neutral result" of Li Nanzhu's creative act.
The rules prohibited the "act and result of conveying information," but they could not prohibit the "act and result of creating items," even if the shape of that item happened to be identical to a certain character.
Li Nanzhu hesitated no longer.
She raised her hand and gave a light wipe, and the floating "Yong" framework dissipated like thin smoke.
Immediately after, the Wanxiang Brush moved again!
This time, it wasn't a complete framework. Instead, she completely dismantled, scattered, and reorganized the strokes of the Eight Principles of Yong.
Ce, Le, Nu, Ti, Ce, Lüe, Zhuo, Zhe… stroke after stroke of solid, faint golden spiritual energy lines followed her brush like an extension of her own arm, crisscrossing through the air.
The brush tip flowed as the spiritual light traced an outline.
Soon, a new "combination of frames" appeared in the air—it was the shape of the character for "I."
Not all of its strokes originated from the Eight Principles of Yong, but with those principles as a foundation, evolving a similar structure was child's play for Li Nanzhu.
This "I" framework was also perfectly structured, with spiritual light contained within. It floated there, silent and still.
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