Volume One, Chapter 153: The Way Knows No Great or Small

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“Lu Jinyuan!”

The girl’s voice was like a clear mountain stream, tinkling sweetly as it flowed.

For one fleeting moment, the pitch-black depths of Lu Jinyuan’s eyes cleared.

At that same instant, the oppressive force surrounding them weakened slightly.

Before the villagers could even draw a breath, the pressure surged again!

The Longyi Great Sword had already appeared in Qin Yu’s hand. Its blade trembled with excitement, as though it could hardly wait to stretch its arms and legs and cleave everything apart in a single stroke.

Qin Yu shot it a sideways glance, and it obediently settled down.

“Lu Jinyuan, can you hear me?”

Qin Yu softened her voice, infusing it with wisps of spiritual energy. Using the air as a medium, they wove themselves into a dense web of spirit.

Silently, they spread toward Lu Jinyuan, like dandelion seeds drifting on the wind, carrying hope as they fluttered down one after another around him. There, they took root, sprouted, and grew.

“Lu Jinyuan, it’s Qin Yu. Wake up.”

As the girl called to him, the spiritual energy grew faster and faster.

But the black baleful energy was no pushover. The moment the spiritual energy drew near Lu Jinyuan, it swallowed every trace of it.

Qin Yu calmly formed a hand seal with her right hand. From the tiny “dandelions” crawled miniature spirit dolls, all trained to perfection. They marched in neat formation, crying out, “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!” Their cuteness was almost unbearable.

“Form up!”

The tiny, grandmotherly voice issued the command.

The other dolls cried, “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!” as they climbed atop one another. Before long, they had formed an eighteen-tier Arhat formation.

“Boss, ready!”

The doll’s tiny voice reported to Qin Yu.

Qin Yu snapped her fingers. The spiritual energy within her surged forward, swiftly enveloping the little dolls.

Layer after layer wrapped around them. No one knew how many layers there were in all.

The eighteen spirit dolls, originally no larger than a palm, had now been wrapped into a spiritual-energy sphere half a meter in diameter.

Qin Yu pointed at Lu Jinyuan.

“Received!”

The muffled, childish voice drifted out from inside the sphere.

The sphere immediately shot toward Lu Jinyuan at top speed.

The baleful energy devoured and destroyed the spiritual energy on the outermost layer first. But as the sphere rolled forward, it was always the outermost layer that bore the losses.

Thus, the spiritual-energy sphere escorted the eighteen innermost spirit dolls closer and closer.

Although Lu Jinyuan’s body was consuming baleful energy even as it generated more, the amount it produced was nowhere near enough to keep up with the sphere’s rate of consumption.

Gradually, a brief little path was cleared through the darkness around Lu Jinyuan. Seizing the opening, the spirit dolls plunged into his body in one determined rush.

The nimble spirit dolls circulated within him, and the grayish-gold radiance enveloping his body began to recover as if by a miracle—

until it became a clear, brilliant gold.

The golden light gradually separated Lu Jinyuan’s body from the baleful energy.

His pure-black pupils slowly returned to normal, and his consciousness began to recover as well.

The intense stench of blood in the air made Lu Jinyuan frown uncomfortably. Lowering his eyes slightly, he saw that both his hands were covered in blood.

The image of him tearing Old Jia Three apart flashed through his mind.

He felt so sick that his stomach churned.

When he raised his head, he saw Old Jia Three not far away, blood pouring from all seven orifices.

The dead man stared at Lu Jinyuan with eyes that refused to close.

“Lu Jinyuan, are you all right?”

Qin Yu’s voice was somewhat weak.

Footsteps approached from behind. Instinctively, Lu Jinyuan refused to turn around.

“Don’t come over!”

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Qin Yu’s delicate brows drew together slightly. Respecting his wishes, she did not continue forward.

The saliva glands in Lu Jinyuan’s mouth kept secreting. He forcibly suppressed the urge to vomit.

“I want to be alone for a while. Don’t come over.”

With that, he fled like a sudden gust of wind.

Only after he had gone did the villagers, who felt as though they had been granted a new lease on life, finally release the breath they had been holding.

The way they looked at Qin Yu was as if she were some demon or monster. Before long, they scattered in groups of three or five, scrambling and rolling away like frightened birds and beasts.

Qin Yu rolled her eyes. She could not have cared less.

She glanced at Old Jia Three’s abandoned corpse on the ground, her expression turning cold.

“Someone this wicked and vile should never have been allowed to soil Lu Jinyuan’s hands.”

She had just begun forming a hand seal when a small black ball hurriedly bounced out.

That’s right—it was our adorable Mu Ling!

“Oh, my heavens! My dear girl, don’t use any more spiritual energy!”

“It’s fine. The Longyi Great Sword can help me restore it!”

Qin Yu dared to squander her spiritual energy so recklessly because she had the Longyi Great Sword to rely on.

Mu Ling folded his arms across his chest and rolled his eyes dramatically at her before offering a friendly reminder.

“The Longyi Great Sword can only restore the spiritual energy you expend. It can’t restore the spiritual energy you willingly give away!”

“???”

Qin Yu wore an expression of utter bewilderment.

“What’s the difference?”

“Of course there’s a difference!”

It was rare for Mu Ling to encounter something Qin Yu did not understand. He decided to show off a little in front of her, so he cleared his throat and said, “The spiritual energy on the outside of the sphere just now counted as expenditure. The energy in the inner layers that entered Lu Jinyuan’s body counts as something you willingly gave away.”

The eighteen-tier spirit-doll formation had been the core of the entire array. It had used nearly eighty percent of her spiritual energy.

Qin Yu felt her entire state of mind collapsing.

Her face fell. Without expression, she extinguished the flame she had just lit with spiritual energy.

“Next time, tell me about things like this sooner, all right?”

The thought that most of her spiritual energy could never be restored left Qin Yu heartbroken and physically pained.

Mu Ling rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “As if you would have refused to save him if I had told you.”

When he thought of how Qin Yu had once again given away all the merit she had cultivated, Mu Ling did not know what to say.

Qin Yu always looked more heartless than anyone else, yet in truth, she was more devoted than anyone.

So long as someone did not cross her bottom line, she would help everyone equally.

Looking thoroughly displeased, Qin Yu took out cinnabar and talisman paper.

The force behind each stroke was so fierce it nearly pierced through the paper, making it obvious that she was truly upset.

Once the talisman was finished, Qin Yu held it between two fingers and softly recited an incantation.

When she finished, the talisman seemed to be pulled by an unseen force and flew onto the two halves of the corpse lying on the ground.

Flames immediately sprang up where it made contact.

The air soon filled with the stench of burning flesh.

“Little Yu, you…”

Mu Ling hesitated, seeming to want to say something.

Qin Yu helplessly waved a hand.

“This is something I owe him.”

Mu Ling did not understand and shouted, “What happened between you two behind my back? How do you owe him anything?”

Qin Yu gave him an enigmatic smile.

“Heaven’s secrets cannot be revealed.”

Mu Ling’s mouth twitched violently.

“Why are you always copying your master?”

Qin Yu blinked at him playfully.

“Isn’t it perfectly normal for an apprentice to resemble her master?”

Mu Ling: “…”

What she said made so much sense that he was completely unable to argue.

—

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Lu Jinyuan had washed his hands in the stream more than ten times, yet he could still smell that nauseating stench of blood.

The horrific sight of Old Jia Three’s death continued to linger in his mind.

His face was frighteningly grim, as though he might chop off his own hands at any moment.

The mountain air was heavy with morning dew, and the fierce winds of the previous night had only made matters worse. By now, Lu Jinyuan’s hands were bright red.

Qin Yu stopped some distance away.

She seemed to see in Lu Jinyuan the way she had looked during her first ghost hunt.

It had been a water ghost, one that had already killed numerous children.

When Qin Yu found it, it had been in the midst of committing another murder.

The child it had attacked was already on the verge of death. At the critical moment, Qin Yu had flung out a talisman.

She had intended to use a binding talisman, but in her panic, she had drawn an explosive talisman instead.

The water ghost had died on the spot, its soul shattered into countless pieces.

Qin Yu had still been young then, and her cultivation had been insufficient.

Fragments of the ghost’s soul had even cut the back of her hand. To this day, a faint pink scar remained there.

That had been the first ghost she ever killed.

When she returned home, she fell gravely ill and remained unconscious for three days and three nights.

When she finally awoke, her master was beside her, simmering radish soup.

She remembered asking him in her childish voice, “If I hadn’t used the wrong talisman, would that water ghost have had a chance to be reborn?”

Her master smiled mysteriously.

“My good apprentice, that creature had committed countless wicked deeds. You were justified in killing it.”

His kindly gaze fell upon the back of her hand.

“It only wounded your hand.”

“But…”

“Apprentice.” Lin Changxiu interrupted her. “Let me ask you this: what was your original intention when you killed it?”

“The child was about to suffocate. I meant to use a binding talisman, but I accidentally used an explosive one instead.”

Qin Yu felt deeply guilty.

“Since your intention was to save a life, it cannot be considered evil. How can right and wrong be explained in merely a sentence or two? As long as we do not defy the laws of Heaven and can remain free of shame before our own hearts, that is enough.”

Qin Yu had not understood him at the time. Only later, after seeing more of the world and capturing more ghosts, did she come to understand:

Everyone had a path of their own to walk.

So long as that path was upright and was not built upon harming others, it was a good path.

Its greatness or insignificance did not matter.

After thinking for a long while, she finally stepped forward.

Perhaps he had been washing too intently. It was only when the clear surface of the stream reflected Qin Yu’s lovely face that Lu Jinyuan noticed her.

Not wanting her to see him in his current state, Lu Jinyuan did not pull his hands from the water. Instead, he submerged them even deeper.

Qin Yu glanced at his reddened, frostbitten hands, and spiritual energy began to flow between her fingers.

In an instant, the icy water slowly warmed.

Lu Jinyuan’s hands had long since gone numb from the cold, however, and he felt nothing.

Qin Yu withdrew her hand without making a fuss.

“You don’t need to blame yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

Lu Jinyuan said nothing. His handsome, sensual lips were pressed tightly together.

“Your intention was to protect me and save a life. You did nothing wrong.”

“I was too confident in myself. I thought I could control it…”

Although Old Jia Three had deserved death a thousand times over, he had still been a living human being—the very kind of life Lu Jinyuan yearned for most.

“It wasn’t your fault. If I had been in your place, I wouldn’t have been able to control it either.”

Beside the stream, Qin Yu tilted her head slightly. Her exquisitely drawn features seemed to carry a strange and compelling strength.

Lu Jinyuan looked up at her face, then pulled his hands from the water with visible disgust.

“It reeks!”

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