Chương 49: Chapter 48 — Two Roads

"Stop staring at your hands and answer me," ordered Shen Yue.

"We're not even married yet. What gives you the right to be in my home?" Lin Che was taken aback. Yes, he'd been shouted at by Shen Yue before, but it was always out of concern for himself, for example, when he accidentally started signalling to the entire city that he was a cultivator. This time, however, there was so such thing, It was pure hostility, and, honestly, he wasn't sure why.

"Look, Shen Yue," he said, softly.

"We're getting married soon and I was given a key to the house. Your uncle said it was so we could get to know each other a little better."

"Well, you could have at least messaged me in advance," she argued back.

"You and Shen Bowen do not have the right to mess with my life without at least consulting me. Not in the car, and especially not in my home."

"You're right," said Lin Che.

"I should have messaged. I'm sorry." This appeared to land differently than she had anticipated. The momentum of the argument had clearly been building up towards a counter-argument, but instead Lin Che folded. Was he really that spineless? If so, her task was much easier than she had expected. In fact, Shen Yue had already received notice that Lin Che was to live with her — it had been decided to be that way from day one of the currently-postponed wedding ceremony.

She had already cleared out an extra room for him and doubled up on towels and toiletries in preparation for his arrival. In the wise words of Katy Perry, she was planning to be hot and then cold to him. Well, cold and then cold, so not really in her wise words. She just wanted to make the Katy Perry connection.

There was a chance that Lin Che was already at least somewhat enamoured with her, given as he still insisted on having a wedding despite having a way out of it, but, simultaneously, there was a chance that he wanted to marry her to get closer to a certain goal of his. Perhaps he wanted information out of her. She would first earn his trust with correct information, before slowly tweaking a couple of unimportant details and working up from there.

"Where did you get that core?" she probed, pivoting the conversation.

"Actually, whilst I was walking over here, I ran into something near the hill on Hongshan Road. It was some sort of mannequin that tried to attack me and a little girl." The kettle popped, indicating that the water was done boiling. Lin Che stood up and poured the water into the two prepared mugs, before handing one over to his soon-to-be wife.

"That's… strange. I'll ask around to see whose it was, because that's definitely not one of ours," she said.

"Was the little girl alright?"

"Now here's the strangest part. The little girl turned out to be Elder Wong." The teacup in Shen Yue's hand trembled slightly, causing a small amount of tea to spill onto the floor.

"Don't worry," said Lin Che, reaching into a cupboard and bringing out a paper napkin to wipe the liquid with.

"I'll get that for you." Shen Yue's eyes narrowed, but she remained silent.

"Oh, by the way, Hu Baolin said your prescription's ready."

"Yes, I received a text alert for it." A pause.

"You know Hu Baolin?"

"Vaguely," shrugged Lin Che. The conversation ended there, mainly because Shen Yue wasn't sure how to continue a conversation with a stranger she knew almost nothing about and seemingly knew everything about her. From her constitution down to where she kept the mugs and napkins.

"I'll prepare you a room down the corridor," she said, leaving the kitchen.

"Then I'll be in my study all night, so please don't disturb me. Feel free to make yourself at home."

"Goodnight," said Lin Che, still sitting down and sipping on his mug. He decided to leave the core alone on the table instead of fiddling with it, at least until he figured out what exactly to do with it.

Old Wen's bookshop was not how Lin Che had envisaged it. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Lin Che had been expecting something akin to Xu Fang's antique shop with cramped shelving and the smell of old paper in the room. Instead, the shopfront on Jianshe Road was modern and the internal lighting was warm. There was even a small cafe inside for people to sit down and read with a cup of coffee and a relaxing ambient jazz playlist.

Lin Che walked in and made his way to the counter at the back. Behind it, stood a young woman, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties, who looked up from her phone once she sensed Lin Che approaching. She noticed him so quickly that he suspected she was a cultivator, but concentrating on her signature revealed only emptiness — this was a mortal.

"Welcome," she said, pleasantly.

"Is Old Wen in?" asked Lin Che.

"She's just off in that direction," she said, pointing helpfully.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"I'm fine, thank you." He followed the direction of her finger past a shelf of historical fictions and towards a corner where the jazz got a little quieter. Old Wen was perched on a step stool with reading glasses on, reorganising a section of art history with magazines and old books layered on the floor across from her. She was a small woman, perhaps seventy, with shoulder-length grey hair, and she licked her fingers to flick through the pages.

"Hello," said Lin Che. She looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

"Elder Wong sent me here," he whispered to her. Old Wen looked down and continued organising the books.

"Hello?" The next book she picked up was an analysis of Monet's works, but, upon close examination, it was clear the author had no idea what he was talking about. Lin Che coughed to draw her attention. She ignored it.

"She said to mention Leixin to you." Old Wen was quiet for a moment. Then, she tucked the book she was holding back onto the shelf and took off her glasses and looked at him properly.

"Come with me."

The back room had a long table and a single strip of overhead lighting. Here, the jazz was completely gone, and it was clear that this was a section not reserved for customers. Old Wen set two tomes on the table in front of him and stood back, arms folded. They were both unremarkable to look at, both bound in dark cloth. The covers were equally empty, but the names of each technique was written on the spines of the books.

"You may take one," Old Wen said.

"I assume you're aware of the terms." Lin Che was. He looked at the first: The Boundless Intake Sutra. Lin Che reached out to touch it, but his hand was swatted away by Old Wen.

"The second you touch one, the other will self-immolate," she said.

"I have the descriptions for each written on a post-it note. Here," she said, holding out two small yellow squares of paper. The Boundless Intake Sutra: Every pore opens in sequence, the skin itself acting as a permeable membrane. Qi is drawn inwards from all directions simultaneously rather than through a single controlled channel. The technique is designed to be practiced in environments of exceptional Qi density: sacred grounds, active spirit veins and so on.

In the right conditions, a single session can compress weeks of conventional progress. Lin Che let out a breath of surprise. If he was reading this right, he would have absorbed Shen Yue's incense immediately instead of taking hours with the Liuhe Breathing Method. And, more importantly, that line about sacred grounds seemed perfect for the Lin Clan's ancient sites. He moved onto the next.

The Returning Mirror Refinement Art Works on the principle that Qi already present in a cultivator's body carries accumulated impurities. Qi that has been gathered quickly, or simply over a long period without adequate processing, develops what is known as grain: a subtle directionality that reduces how cleanly it responds to the practitioner's intent. The technique runs the body's existing reserves through a recursive internal cycle, each pass removing a layer of that grain. Lin Che's eyes widened.

These two techniques were clearly designed in complement to one another, but he could only have one. Of course, this limitation did not exist for him, given that he could always come back in another life, so, in reality, the question was as such: Which should he take in this life? After considering his plans for the upcoming few weeks, the decision was simple. He was going to re-explore the holy land for the Shen Clan, and only one of these techniques mentioned sacred grounds.

Lin Che placed his hand on the first tome, and watched as the second went up in flames. It burnt, clean and absolute, until all that remained on the table was an outline of ashes. The fire was unusual, in that its sole purpose was to destroy the book and nothing else, which meant that the wooden table was entirely spared. Unfortunately, there was a fire alarm in the room. Somewhere from the ceiling, a sprinkler head began to hiss.

"Out," said Old Wen, already moving. Lin Che tucked the tome under his arm and followed her back to the main shop, past the mini cafe setup, and out through the front door back onto Jianshe Road, where the young woman from the counter was standing on the pavement, still on her phone. Lin Che looked down at the tome and placed it in his satchel bag. He thought about the Returning Mirror Refinement Art, which was now gone from the world entirely. He supposed he'd have to come back for it soon.