Coughing up a mouthful of blood, he staggered backward until he was back on the fan. Gasping for breath, he looked over at the sovereign’s head, completely flummoxed by the situation with the qi flow.
“How do I extract it…?” he thought. Off to the side, Bai Xiaochi looked equally stunned and confused, and had no advice to give.
Half a month passed, during which time Bai Xiaochun tried everything he could think of. Each time, he met with failure, coughed up blood, and waited to recover before trying again.
Eventually, he was beginning to lose hope. Sitting there on the fan, he stared at the sovereign’s head, considering if it might be possible to drag it into the face of the fan.
It did not seem possible to extract the qi flow through ordinary means. As far as destroying the head… not only was he unable, even if he had been, he wouldn’t stoop to that level. He had a bottom line in life, and repaying kindness with enmity was not something he would do. After all, in some ways, the Immortal Imperator was his Master!
And Bai Xiaochi would obviously not tolerate such profane behavior.
Bai Xiaochun sat there with a frown on his face for five days, thinking. Eventually, his brow furrowed even more deeply as a new idea occurred to him.
“There seem to be two possibilities as to why I can’t extract the qi flow…. Either my methods are wrong, or I don’t qualify. If I qualified, then I should be able to just beckon to the qi flow, and have it fly out to me….
“Therefore, I really only have one choice. I need to… trick the qi flow into thinking that I'm the Immortal Imperator!!” His eyes began to shine brightly at the audacity of the idea. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it seemed like a definite possibility.
“To trick the qi flow, I could use… my Sutra of Future Pāramitā to connect the Immortal Imperator’s fate to my own…. If that’s not enough, I could use my Sutra of Former Reincarnation to try to gain access to some of the sovereign’s memories, whatever is left in his head….
“If I can understand his life by experiencing his memories… then I will be him, and he will be me….” After pondering the situation a bit more, he blurred into motion, heading directly toward the sovereign’s head, specifically, the forehead. As he got close, he reached out and touched the skin!
Next, he performed an incantation gesture with his left hand, unleashing his Sutra of Future Pāramitā. Red strands swirled out into his left hand, transforming into a crimson pāramitā lily. The instant the flower entered the sovereign’s head, Bai Xiaochun’s mind rumbled, and something profoundly ancient filled him.
At the same time, a trembling scream erupted from his mouth….
“My head… my head….” After connecting his fate to the sovereign’s, it suddenly felt like his own head had been chopped off. The pain, and the sensation of death, were overwhelmingly realistic.
Thankfully, he had been prepared for something like this, and managed to hold on to consciousness. Then, to his excitement, the scrap of qi flow began to stir and move in his direction. Although it didn’t come all the way, it covered nearly half the distance.
Immediately, he brightened up.
“So, it's working. Well, now I need to see if I can fuse with his memories….” His left hand blurred again as he unleashed the Sutra of Former Reincarnation. The instant he touched the sovereign’s forehead, a tremor passed through him, and his eyes went blank. Suddenly, he didn’t seem like himself, as though his soul were leaving his body, and entering a world filled with mists….
This world was so huge that Bai Xiaochun began to turn completely blank, forgetting time, forgetting everything around him. Eventually, he felt someone pushing and prodding him.
“Wake up, Little Chen….” Previous Chapter Next Chapter
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Chapter
1239: That Year
Bai Xiaochun felt like he was being prodded awake from a deep sleep. He opened his eyes, and it was as if his soul had lost access to all of his previous memories. He had no idea who he was, and only knew that he felt very cold….
White, fluffy snowflakes fell from above, completely obscuring the sky, and also covering the ground, making even the distant mountains a pale white color.
Bai Xiaochun found himself in a forest of withered trees. In fact, the trees were covered with so much snow that many of their branches had already snapped. The scattered branches that remained intact seemed like spots of black within the wider world of whiteness.
“Do not fall asleep, Little Chen,” someone said. “Stay awake….”
Bai Xiaochun felt like he had been dreaming, except he couldn’t remember what the dream had been about. Now that he was awake, everything was all a blur.
All he knew was that it was cold, so cold that he felt like he might freeze. Perhaps the cold had sealed his memories.
But then… he felt himself being prodded a few times, and a face appeared in front of him, white with frost.
It was a youngster, about thirteen or fourteen years old. He was gaunt, and apparently injured, as his clothing was torn and stained with blood. He looked very weak, but there was something about his eyes that was completely unforgettable. They shimmered like stars, but at the same time, contained a ruthlessness that belied his young age. And yet, when he gazed at Bai Xiaochun, that ruthlessness vanished, to be replaced with warmth and love.
“Brother….” Bai Xiaochun murmured, his lips quivering. Yes, his memories were telling him that this was indeed… his older brother, a blood brother with whom he shared both father and mother!
Even saying that one word, brother, caused a wave of exhaustion to pass through him. He almost wasn’t sure he could deal with the biting wind, a wild wind that filled him with bleakness and desolation.
It was obviously the dead of winter, what with the falling snowflakes. However, as he looked up into the sky, he realized that there were also bugs flying high up in the sky… pale white locusts!
Apparently, their presence within the snowstorm was what had led to the famine which gripped the lands. There were other people in the area, refugees who huddled against the wind, their gaunt frames and listless expressions making it difficult to tell if they were even alive….
They all feared the cold, and yet, no one seemed willing to start a fire. Not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t dare…. When Bai Xiaochun looked at the locusts in the snowstorm, he could instantly tell that they were unique in more than one way. Not only could they survive in this icy cold, but it was also obvious that fire would attract their attention. And in the dead of winter, when food was scarce, they would eat anything they could find.
The weight of all of these thoughts seemed to weaken him, to the point where he could barely lift his hand. However, he somehow managed to do that, and when he did, he saw the hand of a seven-or eight-year-old. His hand dropped back down, and he struggled to keep his eyes open….
The young man who had spoken moments ago seemed relieved to see Bai Xiaochun awake. However, he could also see how weak he was, and how he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He prodded him anxiously a few more times, clearly grieving at the fact that his younger brother was having trouble hanging on to life. The problem was hunger; only if he could find food to eat would his brother have the strength to keep on living.
“Hang in there a bit longer, Little Chen. I’ll get some food for you. Just wait, I’ll be back right away!” Determination flashed in the youngster’s eyes, and as he turned away from his younger brother, the ruthlessness returned to his face. Looking like a lone wolf, he stalked off into the forest.