Chapter 73: The Second Layer of the Heart Technique Emerges

“Fourteenth Sister, with so little talent, when will it ever be enough to use?”
Eighth Lady had stayed behind, drawn by the chance to accumulate talent, but soon discovered that reading did indeed increase it—just with agonizing slowness. Two days later, her patience wore thin.
“Eighth Sister, this is still better than you all harming people,” Fourteenth Lady replied, untroubled.
“Harming? Fourteenth, don’t talk nonsense. They seek women, and we merely draw a bit of their talent; who are we harming?” Eighth Lady countered, full of self-righteousness.
“But when you take their talent, they can’t pass the examinations or become officials,” Fourteenth Lady pointed out.
Eighth Lady refused to back down. “Even if we don’t take their talent, it’s not as if they’d become officials anyway...”
Such quarrels broke out from time to time, growing more frequent as the days passed. Shen Shi never involved himself in these squabbles. He simply instructed Little Gulu to keep an eye on her. Having been so free all her life, Eighth Lady needed time to adjust to new restrictions. As long as she didn’t act recklessly, he let her be—even if she left, he would not interfere.
Despite all the arguing, Eighth Lady showed no intention of leaving. She understood that reading was slow but steady, while drawing talent from others was quicker but not everyone possessed such talent, nor was it so easy to take. The speed of the act itself was offset by the time needed to find, befriend, and approach the right people. In the end, drawing talent and reading took about the same amount of time.
More importantly, the talent gained from reading was truly her own. If she had started with study instead of appropriating others’ talent, she would not have confused “dragon energy” with talent—such a blasphemous misunderstanding, enough to make any language teacher turn in their grave.
“Young Master, don’t you agree with me?” Eighth Lady’s true target was Shen Shi; after a few lines, she tried to pull him into the debate.
But Shen Shi paid her no heed. He was in the midst of a breakthrough. After repelling the Liao army, he had felt his realm begin to shift, and he had spent these days cultivating, hoping to ascend further.
He sat upright and still, quietly drawing in the world’s vital energy. There was little spiritual essence in the air—one was lucky to encounter even a single wisp in a day—but tonight seemed promising.
The spiritual energy within him grew until it brimmed, ready to overflow. At that moment, Shen Shi summoned all his essence to assault the barrier in his cultivation. As he pressed against the bottleneck, his inner energy surged faster and faster, until even his breathing stopped. His breathing shifted inward, but it was not enough; his body hungered for more power.
Suddenly, his Officer’s Seal flew up, channeling force. The moonlight above seemed drawn to him, transforming into streams of cold energy that poured into his body. From the outside, Shen Shi was wrapped in a faint white glow, almost inhuman in appearance.
Eighth Lady was struck dumb.
Ordinarily, with his cultivation, Shen Shi would have been unable to draw in the essence of sun and moon. The deeper he delved into his practice, the more he realized the formidable nature of the Human Sect’s legacy: not only could one draw from the sun and moon from the very start, even the world’s fortune itself would sometimes come to lend aid during cultivation.

The power of fortune is the hardest force in all the world to command, and yet the Human Sect’s legacy could do just that.
With fortune now lending its strength, Shen Shi could feel the barrier between realms growing weaker and weaker.
Yet it was still not enough—neither spiritual energy nor the power of the moonlight alone could see him through.
Yin and yang intertwined. Radiance from the heavens streamed down, mingling with the moonlight. The sun’s glow coursed through the yang channels, the moon’s through the yin, flooding his entire body. A wave of satisfaction surged through him.
At last, with a resounding crack, the barrier shattered!
Every cell in his body seemed to rejoice as a stronger true essence flowed freely through his meridians. The sun and moon energies he had gathered fused ceaselessly with his own, swelling his reserves.
That burgeoning power was then converted into physical strength, pouring into his limbs and five elements. His body grew stronger by the moment. Cultivation was not merely an ascent of power, but an evolution of human life itself. At the highest levels, the practitioner’s body would transform from mere mortal flesh to a being of pure vital energy, even a soul-being—becoming, in essence, immortal and indestructible.
Though his outward appearance showed no change, Shen Shi’s body and cultivation had leapt far beyond what they were before.
His understanding of the Human Sect’s legacy also deepened: its tenet was materialism and self-reliance. All things under heaven bore virtue, even a straw dog could become immortal.
Shen Shi exhaled a long, turbid breath, ending his cultivation. He recalled the breathing technique he had learned from Fourteenth Lady, but what arose in his mind was instead: “Enter my Daoist gate, gather energy and become immortal. Energy divides into joy, celebration, decline, urgency...” The method had changed.
To test his memory, Shen Shi hurriedly retrieved the handwritten copy he had made at the time, fearing he would forget. Sure enough, upon reading it, the text was just as he remembered.
He looked again; the book itself was unchanged, not a single altered character. Yet new techniques filled his mind. It was truly wondrous.
Ah—so this was the true meaning of inheritance: it did not reside in the words.
Whoever had written this treatise had employed a technique of hidden wisdom. Lacking the Human Sect’s method of enlightenment, or sufficient cultivation, one could only skim the surface, never reach its depths. Like a band of fox spirits cultivating for centuries, but forever stuck at the same level. They could train their powers, but not ascend in realm. The true method lay in insight, not in writing. Only those who perceived could be counted as disciples of the Human Sect.
And if one wanted to think a bit more maliciously: the same Daoist text, parsed differently by each fox spirit—was this the intention of the Ten Sons of Xuan Yuan themselves? If anyone dared steal the Human Sect’s legacy, who better to trick than them? With their cultivation, it would not be difficult at all.

Noticing Shen Shi take out a book wreathed in Daoist energy, Eighth Lady instinctively wanted a look and reached toward it.
“Hey! Sister, don’t disturb the young master’s reading.” Fourteenth Lady, who had been watching her closely, slapped her hand away.
“Reading, reading. What’s the use of it, cultivation...”
Eighth Lady grew agitated, longing to leap ahead in a single bound.
Shen Shi understood her feelings. He reached out and patted her head. “I understand how you feel. But your foundation is too thin; even if you read it, you’d misunderstand.”
With his deepened insight, Shen Shi felt quite pleased.
But that gesture—a pat on the head—was infamous for its effect.
Before Eighth Lady could work up her anger, Little Gulu and Big Black rushed over, stretching out their heads for Shen Shi to pat as well.
Naturally, Shen Shi would not show favoritism: one hand for Little Gulu, one for Big Black. As for Xin Eighth Lady...
“I am not a dog!”
She was furious. She had spent centuries in human form, living as a person for hundreds of years. Head-patting was for pets—these two dogs had set a terrible example.
Little Gulu and Big Black glanced at her, snorting through their dog noses. They cared nothing for her outrage, instead proudly nuzzling Shen Shi’s hand, as if to say: I’m a pet, and proud of it!
Eighth Lady was so exasperated, she forgot everything else.