Twenty-eight percent.
On the morning of the fifth day, when Gu Wujiu opened his eyes, he had only one thought: He had to get past that breakpoint today.
Not because he was ready, but because he couldn't afford to wait.
Among the news Zhou Xiao'an had brought yesterday, one detail made him deeply uneasy—the inner sect had recently begun selecting outer disciples to bolster its manpower, and the requirement was to be above the third level of Qi Condensation. That meant inner sect members would be appearing in the outer sect more often. The more people there were, the more variables there would be. Before the outer sect became even livelier, he needed to get through that most vulnerable quarter hour.
“System, confirm something for me. What exactly happens at the thirty-percent breakpoint?”
“The old and new streams of qi will clash violently in your dantian for approximately one quarter of an hour. During that time, you will lose most of your ability to act. You will be unable to move, circulate qi, or even control your voice.”
“Unable to control my voice?”
“The pain will cause involuntary vocalizations. In layman’s terms—you’ll scream.”
Gu Wujiu’s brow furrowed.
He’d scream.
In the Heart-Eater Sect, screaming in the middle of the night was the same as sticking a flag over his head that read: “I’m here. Come take a look.”
“Is there any way not to scream?”
“Bite something. The effect is limited.”
Leaning against the wall, he tapped his fingers against his knee five times.
The abandoned storage room wouldn’t work. There was a crack in the back wall, and sound would leak out. The disciple dormitory was even worse; someone else lived right next door.
The dry well.
He had spotted it while scouting the area before—the dry well west of the square, covered by a stone slab and two zhang deep, with a dry bottom. Most importantly, its walls were thick. Once the slab was put back over it, sound from inside would have a hard time getting out.
The drawbacks were obvious too: the space was too small, and if anything went wrong, he wouldn’t even be able to turn over. Besides, getting in was easy and getting out was hard. He had to make sure he could climb back out after a quarter of an hour.
“System, what will my physical condition be like after the breakpoint?”
“Weak, but mobile. Roughly equivalent to having just completed a full marathon.”
As long as he could move, that was enough.
He dug a length of hemp rope out of the corner. It was something he had picked up a few days ago, and it was still fairly sturdy. Then he found a finger-thick stick among the pile of scrap metal and broken odds and ends, sharpened it against a stone, and tucked it into his shirt.
Something to bite.
Once the preparations were complete, he waited until nightfall.
The fog was thicker at night than during the day.
Gu Wujiu kept close to the base of the walls, circling around most of the outer disciple area and avoiding every route where someone might be present. It took him twice as long as usual to reach the western side of the square.
The dry well was right there. The moss on the stone slab showed no sign of having been disturbed. It was exactly as he remembered it.
He crouched down, tied one end of the hemp rope around the roots of a nearby crooked, dead tree, and tugged it three times to make sure it was secure. Then he moved the stone slab aside—very slowly, careful not to make a sound.
The well mouth was exposed. It was pitch-black, like an open mouth.
He looked down. He couldn’t see a thing. Only a cool, shadowy breath of air rose from below.
“Host,” the Merit System said in a low voice, “the temperature at the bottom of the well is low. The spiritual energy concentration is normal. No signs of biological activity detected.”
“No snakes?”
“No snakes.”
“Good enough.”
He fed the hemp rope into the well, took a deep breath, and lowered himself down.
The well walls were rough stone, with places for his hands and feet to brace against, but the space really was narrow. His shoulders nearly brushed both sides of the well, as if he had been stuffed into a coffin made of stone.
When his feet touched the bottom, he looked up. The well mouth was a round patch of gray light, like a moon hanging overhead.
He reached up and pulled the stone slab back into place, covering the well mouth.
Darkness swallowed everything in an instant.
He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The air smelled of damp earth and carried the chill of stone. It was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.
“System.”
“I’m here.”
“Begin.”
“Host,” the system’s tone suddenly changed. It became unusually serious, without a trace of sarcasm. “Once this begins, it cannot be stopped midway. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then I’ll give you one final reminder—if you’re interrupted, all progress will reset to zero. You’ll have to start over from zero percent.”
“I know.”
“There’s one more thing I didn’t mention before.”
Gu Wujiu’s fingers stopped.
“When the breakpoint clash begins, your body will instinctively resist. Your brain will send out an extremely powerful signal telling you to stop—so powerful that you’ll feel as if you’ll die if you endure even one more second. But that’s false. You won’t die.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because people who know about it in advance are actually more likely to give up in that moment. People who don’t know will grit their teeth and endure on instinct. But you’re not someone who survives on instinct. You survive through judgment. So I’m telling you now—that feeling of ‘I’m going to die’ is false. Remember that.”
Gu Wujiu was silent for three seconds.
“Is this your way of caring about me?”
“This is the system protecting its assets. If you die, I’ll have to restart too. What a hassle.”
“…Fine.”
He closed his eyes, placed the stick crosswise in his mouth, and clamped down on it.
Then he began circulating his qi.
Twenty-eight percent. Twenty-nine.
The new qi and old qi shoved against each other in his meridians, like two people squeezing past each other in a narrow alley. It hurt, but it was still within a manageable range. He had already grown accustomed to pain of this degree.
Twenty-nine point five.
His breathing began to grow unstable. Something seemed to be expanding in his dantian, pressing against his organs from within.
Twenty-nine point eight.
Sweat appeared on his forehead. Not hot sweat. Cold sweat.
Thirty.
—It exploded.
There was no other word for what happened in that instant. It exploded.
The two streams of qi in his dantian were like two wild beasts locked in the same cage, going berserk at the same time. They weren’t shoving against each other anymore. They were tearing, crushing, and devouring each other. Every collision traveled along his meridians and spread through his entire body, like someone repeatedly threading a red-hot wire through his blood vessels.
The stick creaked between his teeth.
His back slammed into the well wall, and his whole body curled up like a shrimp. His fingers dug into the cracks in the stone. Two fingernails broke, but he couldn’t feel it.
The system was right. His brain was screaming, “Stop!” It wasn’t a metaphor. It was literally screaming. Every nerve was sending out the same signal—you’re going to die, stop, stop right now, you’ll die if you hold on for one more second.
He didn’t stop.
Not because he was brave. Because he remembered what the system had said—that feeling was false.
And he had experienced something similar in his previous life.
When he was seventeen, he had gone to collect a debt for Third Brother and been cornered in an alley and beaten for ten minutes. Two ribs had broken, his left eye had swollen shut, and his mouth had filled with blood. At the eight-minute mark, his brain had also started shouting, “You’re going to die.” But he hadn’t died. He had lain on the ground and pretended to be dead. After the men left, he had crawled to the roadside and flagged down a taxi to the hospital himself.
That was when he learned one thing: People weren’t as easy to kill as they thought.
The stick snapped.
Splinters lodged between his teeth, filling his mouth with the taste of wood dust. He bit down on his sleeve, forcing the sound that was about to burst from his throat back down.
One minute.
Two minutes.
He began counting. Back when Third Brother had taught him a trick while he was being beaten in that alley—counting. No matter how much it hurt, as long as you were still counting, your brain was still working. As long as your brain was working, you wouldn’t pass out.
Three minutes. Four minutes. Five minutes.
The clash in his dantian began to change. It wasn’t weakening. It was… transforming. The two streams of qi went from tearing at each other to intertwining, like two snakes twisted together until it was impossible to tell which was which.
The pain changed from “a red-hot wire” to “a dull knife sawing through flesh.”
It still hurt. But it was different.
Six minutes. Seven minutes.
His consciousness began to blur. It wasn’t unconsciousness, but the daze that came with extreme exhaustion. Fragments appeared before his eyes—not his memories, but the body’s original owner’s.
Darkness. A door. Light leaking through the crack beneath it.
Then that voice: “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
Pain. Falling. Cold.
He clenched his teeth and forcibly dragged himself out of those fragments.
Not now. He couldn’t lose focus now.
Eight minutes. Nine minutes.
The two streams of qi in his dantian twisted tighter and tighter, like two ropes being wrung into one. The scorching sensation in his meridians began to fade, replaced by a strange tingling, as if something were growing along the walls of his meridians.
Ten minutes.
The pain suddenly eased by half.
His breathing changed from rapid to deep and steady, like a drowning person finally breaking the surface.
Eleven minutes. Twelve minutes.
His dantian fell silent.
Not the silence of emptiness, but the silence of fullness. Like a pot of water that had boiled and was slowly cooling, its surface calm while the bottom remained scalding hot.
Thirteen minutes. Fourteen minutes.
He sensed something different.
The qi in his meridians was no longer divided into two streams. It had become one. The new and old qi had fused, and the way it flowed was completely different from before—before, it had been like two people squeezing through a narrow alley. Now it was like one person walking along an open road. Smooth. Natural.
Fifteen minutes.
Ding—
First-stage synchronization complete. Progress: Thirty percent. Effect: Meridional compatibility increased. Spiritual energy circulation efficiency increased by approximately twenty percent. Additional effect unlocked: Aura Concealment (passive).
Gu Wujiu leaned against the well wall, gasping for breath.
His whole body felt as if it had been washed clean. Sweat soaked through his clothes, and his hair clung to his forehead. His mouth was full of the taste of wood dust and blood—he had bitten his tongue while biting down on his sleeve.
But he was alive.
And he could feel that “additional effect.”
Aura Concealment.
It wasn’t something he had to activate. His body did it automatically. He could feel his spiritual energy fluctuations shrinking, like a lamp being turned down until it was almost impossible to sense from outside.
“System.” His voice was as hoarse as sandpaper.
“I’m here. Congratulations, Host, on passing the first-stage breakpoint.” There was no sarcasm in its tone. It even carried a hint of sincerity.
“What does Aura Concealment mean?”
“It means your spiritual energy fluctuations will automatically be suppressed to an extremely low level. To cultivators of the same realm or lower, your presence will be greatly diminished. In layman’s terms—”
“I’m harder to detect.”
“Yes.” The system paused. “To Qi Condensation cultivators, you’re practically invisible now. Against Foundation Establishment cultivators and above, however, the effect is limited. Their divine sense is strong enough to pierce through this layer of suppression.”
“Limited is good enough.”
He raised his head and looked at the stone slab overhead. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he knew it was there.
Aura Concealment.
This ability might not seem like much to other people. To him, however, it was the best gift he could have received.
He didn’t need to be able to beat other people. He needed not to be discovered.
When he had been hiding from debt collectors in his previous life, what he had wanted most wasn’t a knife. It was an invisibility cloak.
Now he had one. Even if it was only half of one.
He rested for roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, until he had recovered enough strength to move. Then he grabbed the hemp rope and began climbing upward inch by inch.
His arms trembled. When his fingers, with their broken nails, touched the hemp rope, the pain made him gasp. But he gritted his teeth and kept inching upward.
When he had climbed down from the third floor using a drainpipe to hide from debt collectors in his previous life, it had been even harder than this.
He pushed the stone slab aside. Cool air poured in, carrying the dampness of the fog.
The moment he crawled out of the well, he lay facedown on the ground, cheek pressed against the cold stone, and panted for a full thirty breaths.
Then he heard footsteps.
Very far away. Coming from the east.
His body moved before his brain did—he rolled behind the dead tree, pushed the stone slab back into place, curled into a ball, and held his breath.
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
It wasn’t one person. It was two. Their footsteps came one after the other. The person in front was almost silent. The one behind was heavy and rhythmic.
He peered out through the gaps in the dead tree.
The fog was too thick. He could only make out two blurry silhouettes. The one in front wore a black robe, its hood pulled low. The one behind—
The one behind wasn’t wearing a black robe. It was gray. But the way he walked didn’t resemble an outer disciple. It was too steady, too steady to belong to someone in Qi Condensation.
The two people walked along the edge of the square and headed southeast.
Southeast.
The utility room.
Gu Wujiu lay motionless behind the dead tree, waiting until the footsteps had completely disappeared.
Then he slowly sat up, leaned against the trunk, and closed his eyes.
Two people.
Before, it had always been one person. Tonight, there were two.
And the second person was wearing a gray robe, yet the way he walked didn’t resemble an outer disciple.
“System.”
“I’m here.”
“Can you detect the second person’s cultivation level?”
“The distance is too great, and the fog is causing severe interference. However, analysis of the second person’s step frequency and stride length indicates that his physical capabilities are significantly higher than those of an ordinary Qi Condensation disciple.”
“A Foundation Establishment cultivator disguised in a gray robe.”
“Possible.”
A Foundation Establishment cultivator disguised as an outer disciple.
Was he the same person who had stood outside the disciple dormitory door for five seconds that day?
He didn’t know. But another piece had been added to the puzzle.
The man in black came to the utility room regularly. This time, he had brought someone disguised as an outer disciple. That meant what was happening in the utility room wasn’t being done by one person. There were at least two.
A mastermind at the level of an elder. And someone in charge of carrying things out. There might be even more.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Then he stood up, dusted himself off, and limped toward the abandoned storage room.
This time, the limp wasn’t an act.
He really couldn’t walk properly.
He squeezed through the crack in the back wall and sat down in the darkness. He pulled out the last fasting pill from his shirt—hesitated for one second, then stuffed it into his mouth.
He was too weak. Without eating, he wouldn’t make it until tomorrow.
Ding—
The system panel popped up:
Current Status: Merit Points: 60 Cultivation Method Synchronization: 30% (First stage complete) Fasting Pills: 2 Passive Skill: Aura Concealment (nearly invisible within Qi Condensation; limited effect against Foundation Establishment and above) Information Fragments: 2 Allies: Zhou Xiao'an (outer disciple), Qian Youde (outer sect steward, informant)
He stared at “Aura Concealment” for a long time.
Then the corner of his mouth slowly curled upward.
It wasn’t a smile, but a very subtle expression. Like someone who had been groping through the darkness for a long time finally finding a match.
The match was tiny. But it was enough to light a cigarette.
He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep amid the exhaustion the dry well had brought him.
Tomorrow, he was going to use this new ability to do one thing.
Not go to the utility room.
He was going to see the face of the man in black.
Now he could get closer.
Outside the window, the fog hung heavy.
In the distance, toward the utility room, the night was no longer quiet.
Two figures disappeared into the fog.