“Aren’t you dead yet?”
Chu Mingxi did not know why but the moment she heard her nephew sleepily mutter those words, she felt a chill crawl down her spine.
‘What did he mean by that? Is it from the surprise of seeing me who looks very similar to his deceased mother? Yes, that must be it.’ She rationalized his statement as quickly as she could. ‘But what is with his tone? He sounded nonchalant and… disappointed.’
Unfortunately, before she could make any more deductions, Wuzhi seemed to snap fully into consciousness. “Aunt Mingxi,” he called her name.
Wuzhi raised his hand and stared at his palm. He then proceeded to touch his forehead, nose, mouth, neck, and chest. “How many days has it been since I last lost consciousness?”
“Five days,” replied the Everfrost Fairy, shelving her nonsensical thoughts from earlier and tending to her nephew first. Seeing the dazed look on his face, she playfully pinched his cheek and said, “Rascal boy, do you have any idea how much suffering you’ve caused for your poor aunt’s heart?”
“No. Not really,” Wuzhi coolly answered. He then turned and stared unflinchingly into Chu Mingxi’s eyes and asked, “Do tell me, Aunt Mingxi.”
“I…” Chu Mingxi fell quiet, unsure of how to continue. Her earlier sentence had obviously been in jest. “I-- It was a joke, Wuzhi.”
“Ah, a joke. Yes. I understand,” answered the boy. He then stared at her; his face warping into a strange and ugly smile as he unenthusiastically laughed. “Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Chu Mingxi’s relieved features morphed back into one of worry and concern. “Wuzhi, is something wrong? Do not hide anything and tell me if something’s wrong. You are acting… different from before?”
“Different?” the boy seemed genuinely surprised at her answer. “Different how, Aunt Mingxi?”
“Your speech. Your words. Your tone,” replied his aunt. “You are behaving… strange.”
Strange was the lightest way that she could put it. Everything about him was different. His voice lacked its usual cheerfulness and warmth and instead sounded cold and distant. His aura which normally felt friendly and inviting, now felt strange and alien.
To put it in a single sentence, it felt like a completely different person was now occupying the skin of Wuzhi.
“Strange. Ah,” repeated the scholar. He then suddenly chuckled and said, “It was a joke. I was simply joking, Aunt Mingxi.” Wuzhi proceeded to warmly laugh.
Chu Mingxi saw and heard her nephew’s warm laughter and felt another chill run down her spine.
Something had changed about him. Wuzhi was... different.
---
25th Day of the First Month in the Year 736 NCE.
Piercing Windflower Compound, Sacred Snow Heart Sect.
Wuzhi sat in a wheelchair underneath a gazebo. He stared appreciatively toward the serene scenery of brilliant white snow and distant white mountains in front of him.
“Such magnificent beauty,” he muttered. A stray gust of cool wind gently caressed his porcelain cheeks, causing his untied indigo-coloured hair to dance freely. “Don’t you agree, Sister Baixue?” he asked, without turning his head.
Baixue, the tall and cool-faced female heroine whom he had met in the South Aislan Continent, kept her silence for a moment before stiffly replying, “Indeed. It is a beautiful sight.”
Wuzhi turned to gaze at the immortal fairy-like woman and spoke with a smile, “Sister Baixue agrees with me. I am glad.”
That was it. Baixue was no longer able to hold back her inner thoughts.
“What is the Heaven is wrong with you? Did something happen with the treatment? Why are you acting so strange!?” Baixue exploded, her face flushing red from the strain. “Please tell me if something is wrong. I’m your friend, aren’t I? Tell me what’s wrong so that I will be able to help you!”
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Facing her cries of concern, Wuzhi blankly chuckled before looking away into the distance. He then nonchalantly began, “Strange. That is the thirteenth time I’ve heard that word today.”
“’ Why are you acting strange? What is wrong with you? Please tell us what is wrong?’” Wuzhi mimicked. “My answer to these questions is the same; nothing. There is nothing wrong with me. I feel good. Great, even." He then paused for a moment, pointing to his paralysed legs. "Well, except for the lack of functional legs but that is an issue that I can resolve with time.”
“No,” Baixue unhesitatingly rebutted him. “You are not fine. Something is wrong with you. You aren’t like before.”
“Ah!” The scholar suddenly exclaimed, snapping his head in the direction of Baixue. “There it is again. ‘Not like before.’ Tell me, Sister Baixue, do you know me so well that you know exactly how I was before?”
At that question, Baixue did not immediately reply. Instead, she kept her silence for a few minutes before saying, “I do not claim to know you fully. But I am certain that I know enough about you to understand that the ‘current you’ is definitely not fine. There is something wrong with you, Wuzhi, and I will not rest until I make sure that whatever is wrong with you is made right.”
“I see,” Wuzhi curtly said. “Then, Sister Baixue, can you tell me what exactly it is that is different about me so that I may be able to right that part about myself.” He smiled a smile that wasn’t really a smile.
Seeing that smile, Baixue felt her breath still. A bout of unknown nervousness gripped her heart. “You. Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?” asked Wuzhi, entirely unsure what she was referencing.
“Stop smiling like that!” Baixue screamed.
The eerie, unfamiliar smile on Wuzhi’s face disappeared. His exquisite face turned still and cold. His brilliant argent eyes became withdrawn and indifferent. Any warmth or friendliness that Wuzhi had previously possessed was all but entirely absent.
Baixue, Aunt Mingxi, and the others were all correct in their assumptions. He had changed. He had become different. But not because there was something wrong with him.
No, they were wrong about that. He was fine. Great, even. The fracturing of his psyche had stopped and the large fissures and missing chunks were in the process of being restored. His cure had worked, just as he had expected it to.
That said, however, his treatment was not complete; far from it actually. To fully restore the damage to his psyche and to prevent more of such from ever happening in the future, Wuzhi needed to do more.
And fortunately, he knew exactly what to do.
[Five Essence Physique Reconstruction Technique]. It was a revolutionary creation tailor-made for him, by him. It was a technique by which an ordinary mortal physique could be remodelled into a Special Physique, similar to the Ice-Heart Physique possessed by Collette Rosemark.
What was fantastic about this technique was that by switching the ‘five essences,’ or in other words, five materials that are used in this technique, one can customize the final physique to suit their personal requirements.
For example, say that someone is a [Fire Path] practitioner; possessing the Ice-Heart Physique or the Brilliant Lightning Physique would be obviously detrimental towards their Path. However, should this person possess the Burning Yang Physique, then not only would this be extremely beneficial towards his/her Path but it would be akin to the proverbial tiger gaining wings!
It must also be mentioned that Physiques were something innate; that is, it was something that a person was born with and not some special technique that everybody could practice. However, Wuzhi, being the blessed ‘Childe of the Heavens’ had exactly done that and had created a technique that would grant a special, personalized physique to anyone who practised it.
He had quite literally broken Heaven’s monopoly on granting physiques to mortal humans.
By no means was the [Five Essence Physique Reconstruction Technique] a simple or cheap technique to practice. On the contrary, it required a cultivator to possess a firm Heart, extraordinary psyche, and immense, unimaginable wealth.
Why wealth? It was because the five materials that were required to fuel this technique and circumvent the Heavens were by no means common treasures found in every corner apothecary’s shop.
Let us consider the special Unnamed Physique that Wuzhi was seeking to construct for himself. The five materials that were required for this purpose were, in no particular order;
1. The Permafrost Lotus: A one-of-a-kind elixir of Heaven and Earth that was found only in the coldest regions of this world. Also, every single stalk of this plant required three thousand years to fully mature from inception. The Sacred Snow Heart Sect quite possibly possessed the only stalk of this treasure in the entire world.
2. Ancient Ichor: It is rumoured to be the blood of some ancient deity from a bygone era. No force is known to possess this treasure and its very name is only known due to passing mentions in a few ancient tomes.
3. Dragon Heart: The beating heart of an Adult Dragon, a member of the Seven Ancient Races, all of which have gone extinct in the current Era. It is rumoured that the Mu Household possesses the one and only Dragon Heart in existence; however, the veracity of these rumours is dubious at best.
4. Elder Mind: It was the brain of the Stygian Leviathan, a Pseudo-Sovereign Rank creature and the leader of one of the oceanic Wild Beast Societies. More than a few brave cultivators had ventured into the seas to hunt this creature in the past. None ever returned.
5. Fragment of the Edge: It is a shard of the Planes Boundary, found at the World’s Edge.
The value and rarity of every single item on this list was inestimable; and required all of them. Best of all, he had to collect all these items within two years.
Failure to do so would result in a violent relapse of his earlier condition and would most definitely end in his permanent death.
Such was the will of the Heavens.