Chương 47: Chapter 46 — Hollow Bell Resonance

The smiling mannequin moved with the sole goal of getting closer to Lin Che, its joints bending at angles impossible for humans to replicate. It covered the distance in a series of lurching accelerations, which were difficult for Lin Che to follow, even despite circulating the Liuhe Breathing Method and focussing entirely on his vision.

Thankfully, Swallow Returns to the Nest made use of every single sense, and the feeling of the wind blowing from the mannequin's movement was enough to cause Lin Che to dodge slightly out of the way. Mid-air, the mannequin pushed a limb deep into the soil to prevent itself from landing wrong and rolling down the hill. It used its embedded leg as a fulcrum to swing itself around and launch another attack, which landed on the ball of Lin Che's shoulder.

Lin Che redirected the next strike to the same region, eating the damage with the palm of his hand instead. The ends of the mannequin's limbs were rough like stone, causing any contact to grate across Lin Che's flesh. He backed up slightly in the other direction. The fundamental problem, Lin Che thought, was that the mannequin didn't have a strategy. Strategy required a well thought out goal, but its apparent only goal was currently immediate proximity to Lin Che, seeing how it now ignored the other victim.

Of course, the mannequin didn't have a consciousness, and was instead attracted to the Qi that Lin Che had been broadcasting earlier to aggravate it. All the mannequin wanted to do was stop the signal. So Lin Che backed up and carried on broadcasting. He didn't care if local cultivators would notice him now — no, he was under the protection of the Shen Clan by proxy. There was no need to hide his strength, so long as he held information to guarantee that he would remain useful to the Shen Clan.

The Qi pulse he was sending out now was more like casting a line rather than throwing a net — a directional signal that radiated outwards in short beats. Keeping this directionality cost him concentration to maintain, but in return, the signal would be more concentrated. A concentrated signal which was, as it turned out, deeply irritating to creatures that were attracted to Qi in the first place.

Lin Che drew the line like a tether made of aggravation, and moved further up the hill, away from the trees where the girl was hidden. The kiting required him to stay close enough to maintain the mannequin's interest, whilst staying mobile enough that it couldn't simply close the distance and pin him. This was a much narrower margin than he would have preferred. But then it hit him: this was not a problem of distance, but rather one of Qi. The mannequin wasn't attracted to him, per se.

No, it was attracted to the signal, which meant the signal could be something more than simply bait. Lin Che deepened the Liuhe circulation and began to draw the Qi inwards rather than outwards as he called upon the Hollow Bell technique. Previously, his enlightenment taught him that he could simply redefine the 'self' to extend the Hollow Bell technique outwards, but, perhaps he was still thinking about it the wrong way. There was another, very similar method of thinking.

What if, instead of focussing on the self versus non-self, he thought more about the division between the two? What if he placed more weight upon the barrier rather than the deeper concepts? A region of coherent Qi suddenly extended in every direction from him, just over two and a half metres in radius. Instead of being a wall, it felt more like a cloud of resonance with the same quality as the bell itself: resonance so pure that it became exclusionary. Lin Che let the Hollow Bell ring.

He felt it more than he heard it — a deep, slow vibration that moved outward from somewhere below his sternum and escaped into the air around him. The Qi environment around him immediately clarified, and the mannequin, mid-lurch towards him, slowed. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. It didn't stop like it hit a wall or get pushed backwards, but instead moved extremely slowly, as though the friction from this resonant field around Lin Che was a thick tar.

The mannequin changed tactics. Lin Che stopped backing up and now pushed forwards. He held the upper hand now. The mannequin faced Lin Che, but scurried backwards on all four limbs and jumped intermittently to further increase the distance. Lin Che gave chase. Whenever the distance closed too far, the mannequin got faster. Whenever the distance was too great, the mannequin slowed down. It was leading him somewhere.

If they continued in this direction, it would walk him northeast, up and over the hill's ridge, and down towards the older part of the park beyond. Lin Che kept the broadcasting pulse running in one direction, and lowered the Hollow Bell resonant field around him to conserve his resources. He refused to get lured elsewhere. Swallow Returns to the Nest activated — consciously, and time slowed around him.

The technique usually processed the sum total of available sensory information and made decisions that his conscious attention couldn't make fast enough. This time, with conscious activation, he was overloaded with sensory information that caused his head to pound.

But the information was still there, and it allowed Lin Che to see the most direct path to the mannequin that would cause the most damage: right in that gap between the mannequin's fourth and fifth joint on the right side which went unguarded during the transition from one acceleration to the next. Lin Che moved to strike, and time began to flow as usual. The mannequin moved to dodge, but it was far too late.

Lin Che concentrated all his strength on this one attack, his fist blowing off an entire limb and launching it into the shrubbery. The mannequin kept running. The old trees now came into view, and the mannequin was stuck between two large pillars of wood. It hadn't planned to be here. And now it was cornered. Lin Che opened his mouth. What came out was still in its infancy — his sound arts still hadn't been developed properly.

But, at close range, pressed against a creature who was already sitting in a field of resonant Qi, it required neither range nor amplification. It simply needed enough frequency delivered to the right point with enough conviction behind it. The sound hit the mannequin from inside the contact point, and the Hollow Bell hit it from every direction simultaneously. The mannequin came apart like an oversqueezed stress ball. Lin Che stood over it and breathed carefully.

The Hollow Bell wound down slowly and he stopped the broadcasting pulse. The sudden quiet in his Qi awareness now reminded him just how much this exchange had cost him. No longer focussing on the external world, his actual self came into view, and he realised now that adrenaline and this breakthrough in application were the only things that kept this life from coming to a short end. He assumed avoiding the mannequin in previous lives would provide him with a rough estimate of its strength level.

He had encountered a weakened one at the warehouse where he was restrained from fighting back. He had severely underestimated the mannequin. Lin Che gathered what was left of the mannequin's inert form and carried it to the base of a large tree. He found a section of upheaved root that created a natural hollow in the disturbed earth behind it and placed the remains inside. Then, he pushed the soil back over with his foot until it was covered and mentally made note of this location.

Then, he stood back and walked back towards civilisation.

"I had assumed the Lin Clan lost most of its sect records," came a young voice from above. Lin Che froze in place. He turned around and craned his neck upwards. The young girl who had been screaming was crouched, squatting on a branch that was far too thin to support her weight.

"But it appears I was mistaken," she said.

"They say the Lin Clan's techniques always took the form of whichever sects were nearby… and I'm sure I've seen disciples of the Shen Clan use very, very similar techniques."

"I—" began Lin Che, but his voice was sealed.

"No speaking for you; no sound arts for you. Let a lady speak," she humphed.

"Although our clans were on historically good terms, we were never geographically close enough for your sect to have developed something so eerily similar to the Hollow Bell technique, nor the Swallow Returns to the Nest, and especially not the fundamental Liuhe Breathing method, which I personally developed that they all base themselves on." Her figure blurred, and now she was suddenly in front of Lin Che, standing on a rock which previously was not in front of him, which put her on eye-level with him.

"I suppose the Lin Clan's revival is imminent," she said.