“ARGHH! F*CK”

Zhao Chen dropped to his knees and hunched over. Gripping onto his chest tightly, he bit down onto his lips with as much pressure as possible. In a desperate attempt to not alert Zi Qingyun any further. Unfortunately he was too late, as Zhao Chen could hear fair footsteps approaching him.

“Brother Chen, are you okay?” Zi Qingyun called out as he neared the fifth floor.

Zhao Chen pushed an escaping yell down his throat before trying to use a voice that indicated that he wasn’t in excruciating pain.

“Wait! I’m good you don’t have to come up, keep guard downstairs in case someone comes up. It was just a book that fell on my foot.” Even Zhao Chen himself didn’t believe what was coming out of his mouth, but he prayed Zi Qingyun did.

Fortunately Zi Qingyun stopped his ascent but he paused in place. He stopped for a few moments before speaking up.

“You sure? It didn’t sound like just a book.”

“It was a really heavy book! Now go downstairs or both you and me are going to be screwed. I’m fine.”

Zhao Chen thanked the heavens for the first time in his life, as the sound of Zi Qingyuns footsteps trailing down the stairs.

If his chest wasn’t tight and his whole body didn’t feel like it had been set on fire and was being frozen solid at the same time, Zhao Chen might have laughed. It was if he had been cursed to relive the same two types of pain.

The amount of time Zhao Chen's body felt like it was shutting down was truly infuriating, but Zhao Chen had no one to blame. Even though Baifun was being unreasonable, Zhao Chen did in fact agree to the terms. So there was really nothing he could do but be thankful that he was still alive.

Drip, drip, drip.

Drop by drop, blood fell from Zhao Chen's lips. Though the pain from biting down on his lips wasn’t even a fraction of what he was feeling from whatever it was that Baifun had done to him, it definitely wasn’t helping.

Finally after a few minutes passed, which to Zhao Chen felt like hours, the pain gradually lessened. By the time Zhao Chen was sitting up, leaning his back against a bookshelf, the pain had fully dissipated.

‘I’m sick and tired of you, you stupid bat bastard. You are a true demon and I curse the next 18 generations of your family.’ Zhao Chen said as he arrived in his sea of consciousness.

There wasn’t much he could do as his body recovered, so he decided to come speak to the unwanted guest that was sharing his body. Zhao Chen expected no response, which seemed to be Baifuns way of saying he wasn’t interested in talking.

Unfortunately, Baifun did respond, and not in a way that Zhao Chen appreciated.

‘Hahaha, good, good, you idiot. I’ve already said that you and I are the same person. You’ve just cursed your next 18 generations.” If Baifun had a physical body he would be clutching his stomach and rolling on the ground.

Zhao Chen wanted to lash out at Baifun in anger but he couldn’t. However Bains words left a sour taste in his mouth. Zhao Chen did not appreciate Baifun saying that they were the same, not only because he refused to explain any further but because Zhao Chen could never be such a sadistic and shady person.

Just as Zhao Chen was about to scream and demand an answer for Baifuns actions, he was stopped as Baifun held up his hand.

‘You were going to ask me to explain. That is a personal question. You experienced the pain once, so you think you can bear it, but like I said before that was just a warning. Next time I will really kill you.’ Baifun paused for a moment, then suddenly his expression changed to what seemed to be, pity?

‘Rephrase the question so that it’s not personal.’ Baifun spoke quickly, like he didn’t want to be seen doing Zhao Chen a favour.

Zhao Chen stayed silent. Dumbfounded, he looked at Baifun in confusion. He wanted to ask a million questions about what had just come out of the bas- person's mouth in front of him, but he decided against it. He thought for a second, trying to figure out how he could rephrase the question, then it came to him.

‘What did that pain do to me?’ It wasn’t personal in the sense of their condition, so Zhao Chen assumed it was safe. And seeing as his body didn’t light up once more, he knew his assumption was correct.

‘Your qi stopped circulating.’ Baifun said swiftly.

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‘Y-you, wait, what?!’ Zhao Chen charged up to Baifun but he simply passed right through him. Zhao Chen knew that that would be the result but he couldn’t care less. If Baifun had infuriated him before, he had now pushed Zhao Chen to a place beyond anger.

To martial artists, Qi was their life force. If their Qi stopped circulating for too long, and the cause was anything other than a cultivation technique, that was it. They would cripple their cultivation and never be able to walk down that path again.

No amount of medicinal baths, pills, procedures or any form of treatment could help them recover. This was because once you start your path of cultivation, Qi could be equated to food and water. Your body needed it to survive.

Though it didn’t become an essential requirement to live, to martial artists and alchemists, its importance ranked above all else.

‘Will you relax. I stopped it right before you were crippled or even remotely injured. Now get out of here, I'd like to rest.’ Baifun waved his hand and Zhao Chen was swept away by some weird current.

Was it possible to send someone out of their own sea of consciousness? Were Baifun and him really the same person?

‘Waiii-’ Zhao Chen called out as he was whisked away but it provided him no help.

Baifun watched Zhao Chen, and only when confirmed that he was no longer in the sea of consciousness did he turn to the void and walk.

‘That was too far.’

The void offered no response.

On the first floor of the Thousand Whispers Library, two men dressed the exact same as the guard that had let Zhao Chen and Zi Qingyun into the pagoda arrived, interrogating Zi Qingyun immediately.

“How the hell did you get in here! The library is strictly off limits for the first week of the new year! Did you sneak in?” A short boy with a decent physique had grabbed onto Zi Qingyun and was questioning him without offering Zi Qingyun any space to answer.

The boy's partner, the complete opposite of him, tall and lanky, with long hair covering his eyes, walked around the first floor inspecting the shelves.

“Brother Ping, did you find anything? Should we report this to the dean? Or should we deal with them ourselves?” The short boy turned his attention to his partner and fired out a round of questions at him too.

The boy turned to face the other before walking up to him and placing his hands on Zi Qingyun's neck.

“You have 5 seconds. Tell us why you’re in here or I’ll kill you. We’re the disciplinary hall's top students, so as long as our excuse isn’t terrible, killing a newly inducted student isn’t something that will bring us a lot of trouble.” The boy spoke calmly and with a soft smile on his face, which only added to scary demeanor.

Just as Zi Qingyun was about to open his mouth, another figure dashed down the stairs and quickly arrived next to Zi Qingyun, knocking him out of the way before turning to the two youths.

“This junior sincerely apologizes to two seniors. Actually, when we were looking around, the guard in front of this pagoda told us that we should come inside to check it out.” Zhao Chen didn’t want to pin the blame on anyone, but he could tell the tall boy really planned on killing Zi Qingyun.

Zhao Chen planned on clearing up the confusion later, but for right now he had to focus on making sure neither he nor Zi Qingyun ended up dead on their first day at the academy.

The tall youth looked at Zi Qingyun who was now rising to his feet and then back at Zhao Chen before taking a look at his partner. The two youths seemed to whisper something to each other under their breaths before nodding their heads.

As they turned to face Zhao Chen and Zi Qingyun again, Zhao Chen prepared himself for a fight. From the aura the two exuded, they were definitely at the Foundational Harmony Realm, but there was a chance that they were even higher than that.

But for the first time after Zhao Chen's reincarnation, something went right.

“Ah, so it was that rascal Xu Xiaodan. He does like to play pranks on newbies, so I'd like to apologize on his behalf. I’d also like to apologize for our misunderstanding right now, you see the library is one of the most important things to the academy. We keep its security as our number 1 priority.” The boy spoke with such tranquility that Zhao Chen forgot that he was seconds away from killing Zi Qingyun.

“Nonsense, it was us two juniors fault. We hope seniors will forgive us .” Zhao Chen kept up the act, just because the youth lowered his guard didn’t mean Zhao Chen could.

“No worry junior brother, this matter will stay in between us. You two run along now, me and brother Shirong here will tidy up here.”

“Juniors thanks senior brother for being forgiving. We’ll take your leave.” Zhao Chen palmed his fist before quickly grabbing Zi Qingyun by the collar and rushing out of the library. He didn’t want to be there any longer.

When Zhao Chen and Zi Qingyun were fully out of the pagoda, the shorter youth turned to the other.

“Both you and me know he was lying. There are no guards assigned to the pagoda yet, why’d you let them leave?” For once the boy did not spit out questions.

“He seemed… interesting.” The tall boy looked down at the red spot on his arm that had come from Zhao Chen knocking Zi Qingyun out of his hand. He looked forward to seeing the pair in the future.

On the outside of the pagoda, Zhao Chen was darting off in the direction of the students dorms with Zi Qingyun following behind him.

“Brother Chen, why are we running? They already let us off so what’s the rush?” Zi Qingyun questioned Zhao Chen but nonetheless he didn’t stop running. He didn’t know why but he felt that there was just something that he could always trust about Zhao Chen. And that was his decision making.

Zhao Chen turned around, looking around their surroundings closely before abruptly stopping.

Once they had stopped running he took one more look around them before letting out a sigh of relief.

“They knew I was lying.” Zhao Chen panted as he caught his breath. He hadn’t exerted that much energy in a long time.

“What? How do you know?” Zi Qingyun cried out as he also shot a look back at the pagoda to ensure they weren’t being followed.

“I could just tell from their expressions after I explained why we were there. I don't know why they let us off but I doubt it’s from the goodness of their hearts.” Zhao Chen caught his breath and began to slowly walk.

Zi Qingyun took a second, with an expression of confusion on his face. Then after a few moments he caught up with Zhao Chen.

“While we’re on that topic, why didn’t we just tell them the truth? I mean we weren’t in the library for any malicious reasons.” Zi Qingyun was close to being of age, but he was still rather naïve.

Zhao Chen spoke without stopping, picking up the pace as he walked.

“Oh yeah, you’re right brother Qingyun. Let’s tell the people who would kill at the drop of the hat that we, teenage boys, were interested in literature. That doesn't sound suspicious in any way.” Zhao Chen responded sarcastically.

Zi Qingyun was about to speak up but at the last second he closed his mouth. The pair walked silently back to the dorms.

The two said their goodbyes and headed off to their own rooms.

In the hallway that led to his room, Zhao Chen paused in front of the painting of Bao Cao. He was unable to shake the feeling that he knew that man in the painting somewhere. It made no sense as Zhao Chen could have never known him, and Yang Chen didn’t even ascend from the Brightajade world.

So just where was the sensation coming from?

Zhao Chen stared for a few minutes before deciding that he would get to the bottom of that mystery another time. At the moment he had bigger things to worry about.

Zhao Chen sped down the hallway and into his room, shutting it slowly and without making any noise. Before sitting down on his bed and rolling up his sleeve.

Zhao Chen examined the black bracelet on his wrist, the material resembled the scales of some kind of lizard, but none of those details were important.

He pulled the bracelet off of his wrist and channeled his qi into it. The bracelet vibrated for a few moments. It stopped and then the next second it was enveloped in smoke.

Clang!

A large metallic object emerged from the smoke. Zhao Chen bent down to pick it up.

It was a sabre!

Zhao Chen examined it closely. The blade was light grey, and it emitted a faint hum, as if it was alive. The hilt of the sabre was pitch black, but it had golden letters engraved onto it that Zhao Chen couldn’t quite make out. A red plume hung off the hilt and attached to it was a jade in the shape of a circle.

“Where in the world did this come from!?”