Volume One: The Emperor's Sword Chapter 111: Two Solutions

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Si Ruonan’s past left anyone who heard it sighing in sorrow.

She had gone from a carefree direct disciple to a sect traitor falsely accused of murdering her master. Such a drastic reversal was enough to drive anyone mad.

Yun Que could understand how she felt.

He had endured something similar himself.

A catastrophe that struck his household in childhood had transformed him from the well-fed heir of a marquis’s estate into a pitiful orphan. His father had not only died fighting at the frontier, but had also been saddled with infamy.

Unlike Si Ruonan, however, Yun Que had never given up. Even when he learned that he possessed no spiritual root and could not cultivate, he had never considered surrender.

The word “struggle” had been carved into his bones ever since his father’s death.

Struggle against Heaven, struggle against Earth, struggle against men.

So long as life endured, the struggle would never end.

For a time, silence settled over the small courtyard. Seated beneath the eaves, the two of them quietly savored the bitterness that suffering had left behind.

Yun Que soon gathered his thoughts.

His expression turned solemn, and he asked in a low voice, “Sister Nan, does your Spirit-Restoration Formation truly have a chance of bringing the dead back to life?”

The Spirit-Restoration Formation Si Ruonan had spent years arranging had ultimately failed, but it had not been entirely without effect.

The Yaksha Fire-Drought had once said that Si Chen’s soul in the Netherworld had been devoured by it, which was why it had been able to take Si Chen’s place when summoned to the mortal realm.

Conversely, if Si Chen’s soul had not been devoured by the Fire-Drought, the Spirit-Restoration Formation should have been able to summon it into the human world.

Resurrection!

It was the faint hope Yun Que had always kept hidden in the depths of his heart.

How desperately he wished he could bring his father back to life and cease being an orphan without either parent.

Si Ruonan gazed silently at the sky and sighed.

“The Spirit-Restoration Formation is a mysterious array recorded in the Artifact-Mastery Heart Sutra. It is founded upon more than a hundred rare materials. Once completed, it has a chance of summoning a soul from the Netherworld. But there are prerequisites. The dead person’s corpse must be preserved in advance, and a fragment of the person’s remnant soul must be sealed within it.”

“Neither condition can be lacking. Even if both are fulfilled, there is no guarantee that the deceased’s complete soul will truly be summoned. No one knows what changes a soul may undergo after reaching the Netherworld. It may be incomplete, it may mutate, or it may be devoured by a powerful being of the Netherworld, as happened to Si Chen.”

“Only when every condition is resolved perfectly is there any chance of success. Even then, all it can bring back is the soul. The corpse’s vitality will have long since vanished. At best, the result will be a living corpse that possesses a soul.”

Si Ruonan’s mournful gaze fell upon the black doll beside her.

No further explanation was needed. Yun Que already understood the outcome.

Even if Si Chen’s soul returned to the mortal world, the best possible ending would be for him to become something like the black doll—a puppet resembling a humanoid construct.

A walking corpse that possessed a soul.

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Resurrection was an immortal art, far beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

Even among cultivators who had achieved great power, no one had ever truly accomplished it.

With the last trace of hope in his heart extinguished, Yun Que gave a bitter laugh, shook his head, and cast aside the impractical notion.

Afterward, he helped Si Ruonan destroy the secret chamber and fill it with earth and stone. Together with Si Chen’s scattered bones, it was buried forever.

The two mid-grade sabers Yun Que had used during the battle had been drained of their blood essence by the Yaksha and reduced to ordinary weapons. They were buried there as well.

At the site, Si Ruonan erected a gravestone.

It bore the words: “Tomb of My Younger Brother, Chen.”

She could not inscribe his full name. Si Chen had once been a disciple of the Treasure Artifact Sect, and doing so might allow the sect to trace him.

That was another sorrow belonging to a sect traitor.

“Sister Nan, don’t you intend to visit Hu Tieshan and Hu Congming? So many years have passed. The Treasure Artifact Sect’s people should have left the Kingdom of Yan by now,” Yun Que said.

“Not yet.”

Si Ruonan shook her head. “Though the Treasure Artifact Sect lies ten thousand miles from the Kingdom of Yan, they will not readily abandon the Artifact-Mastery Heart Sutra. They must have spent all these years searching for that extraordinary treasure. Remember this: never display it before anyone else, or you will certainly invite death.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not a child. How could I show anyone something that dangerous? When we get the chance, the two of us can return to the Treasure Artifact Sect together and butcher that elder. By the way, what was the name of the sect elder who harmed you?”

“Yang Chongguang.”

Deep wariness appeared in Si Ruonan’s eyes. “That man is utterly sinister. He presents himself as benevolent and righteous, and has won over many disciples. My master trusted him completely. Who could have imagined that he was such an ungrateful wretch?”

At the first mention of the unfamiliar name, Yun Que instinctively thought of the Goat among the twelve zodiac signs. Then he decided that was unlikely and dismissed the idea.

The surname Yang was rare, but not unheard of. It could not be that everyone named Yang had some connection to the zodiac.

“Two-faced swine. A man like that will never meet a good end,” Yun Que cursed.

Si Ruonan gave him a grateful smile.

She knew that, with her own abilities, she might never be able to avenge her master in this lifetime. Nor did she truly believe Yun Que could help her.

Yet, recalling the Yaksha’s disappearance, she vaguely felt that the younger brother she had acknowledged might not be as simple as he seemed.

Si Ruonan no longer mentioned the Treasure Artifact Sect. Instead, she asked Yun Que about Hu Tieshan and Hu Congming.

Yun Que began with their childhood.

He told her how the chubby little boy, sniffling with a runny nose, had followed at his heels as they tore around the entire town, bullying other children wherever they went.

He told her how miserly Hu Tieshan was, refusing to give him even a single magical artifact. In the end, Yun Que had exchanged the marquis’s estate for a sword in order to participate in the Sword-Trying Tournament.

The many stories made Si Ruonan unable to contain her amusement. Several times, she burst into laughter.

“Thank you for accompanying that father and son all these years.”

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Si Ruonan’s gratitude was heartfelt. She knew that although Yun Que had described Hu Tieshan as a penny-pinching miser, there had not been the slightest trace of resentment in his words.

Especially when he spoke of Hu Congming, both his tone and expression were exactly those of someone speaking about his own little brother.

Si Ruonan understood that feeling all too well.

Whenever she spoke of her younger brother, Si Chen, she used the same tone and wore the same expression.

“What are you thanking me for? Having that father and son as neighbors meant I wasn’t so lonely.”

Yun Que leaned against the wall, his hands pillowing the back of his head.

A plump white cloud drifted across the sky, resembling Hu Congming’s round face.

“Oh, right, Sister Nan!”

Remembering something, Yun Que asked, “Wu Dachuan said you’re highly skilled in grafting. He even hopes that one day you might graft a spiritual root onto him. I wonder, is there any way to remove a spiritual root? I have a friend with a dragon spiritual root. Unfortunately, she is a girl, and I’m afraid she won’t live much longer.”

Yun Que had promised Han Jiao that he would ask about dragon spiritual roots, so this was the perfect opportunity to see whether Si Ruonan knew of a solution.

“A dragon’s form in a woman’s body! Fate truly is unfair. How many male cultivators dream of possessing a dragon spiritual root, yet it happens to be born in a woman?”

Si Ruonan pressed her lips together bitterly and pondered. “I have conducted some research into grafting magical artifacts and living beings, but when it comes to the removal or transfer of spiritual roots, my abilities are still insufficient.”

“So there’s no way?” Yun Que asked regretfully.

If even Si Ruonan was helpless, he truly had no idea how he could help Han Jiao.

“It isn’t that there’s no way.”

Si Ruonan’s words rekindled his hope.

She raised two fingers.

“I know of two methods. One is recorded in the Artifact-Mastery Heart Sutra. It describes an ancient treasure called the Dragon-Patterned Cauldron. That cauldron can refine the Return-to-Dragon Pill, a lost elixir whose recipe has been forgotten for many years.”

“The Return-to-Dragon Pill gathers the dragon energy of Heaven and Earth and provides extraordinary assistance in forming a nascent soul. If its medicinal effects are activated in reverse, it can disperse dragon energy. That should resolve the flaw of a dragon’s form in a woman’s body.”

Si Ruonan’s voice faltered.

Yun Que frowned deeply as he listened. Setting aside whether the long-lost Return-to-Dragon Pill could even be refined, no one knew where the special ancient treasure required for its creation, the Dragon-Patterned Cauldron, might be found. Who knew how many years it would take before he could obtain the pill?

Even if he eventually had the chance to refine it, Han Jiao’s grave might already be overgrown with weeds several feet high.

“What is the other method?” Yun Que pressed.

“The second method concerns artificial spiritual roots.”

Si Ruonan’s tone grew strange, tinged with profound apprehension.