“Do you want to?” Yu Han asked. They had agreed to test whether things could be projected in reality too, starting with event projections and then objects. But if the crab didn’t want to, Yu Han wouldn’t force him.
Fei Rui nodded.
Yu Han took the pearl. It felt like glass on his fingers. Shiny, smooth.
Huang Niuniu closed in, an expectant look in her eyes. “Is it for me?”
“This isn’t jewellery,” Yu Han said. He handed her the pearl.
She held it against the light leaking in from the open door. The pearl caught the rays and cast an emerald shadow across her face as she squinted. “Senior Brother Feral Spot was the first to give me an ornament. Aren’t you ashamed?”
“This isn’t an ornament either,” Yu Han said.
“Then what is it?” Huang Niuniu brought the pearl to her eye, peering in as if it were a lens. “There’s something inside. Is that Fei Rui? Wow. He’s so big! Wait, is this the memory pearl?”
“It’s called a mnemonic pearl.”
“D-Demonic?”
“…Mnemonic.”
It had Yu Han’s memories of when Huang Niuniu’s stalkers from the Mad Bloodhounds had trespassed into his yard. They had chatted like no one was around, thinking their psychic misdirection artefact would mask their voices.
But I could. Just like with Fang Zhao’s ring. Am I immune to psychic manipulation? If so, that was a huge weight off his shoulders, but he couldn’t be sure yet. Maybe he was just resistant, not immune. Or maybe Existential Anchor really was behind this resistance, and he could train it in the future to become immune?
“Give it to Fei Rui,” Yu Han said. “Let’s see if it works.”
Huang Niuniu handed the shining green pearl to the crab.
“Eeek!” Huang Niuniu fell and stumbled towards Yu Han as if she’d seen a ghost. “W-what’s that?!”
On the opposite wall was a giant Fei Rui, supporting himself with his long legs, claws positioned over the window like a guillotine.
“I-is that Fei Rui?” Huang Niuniu shifted her gaze between the palm-sized crab and the eerie behemoth.
The projected Fei Rui went into full camouflage.
“Eek!” Huang Niuniu grabbed Yu Han tighter. It was only then did she notice the changed surroundings.
Though it was midday, it was as if a slice of midnight had been grafted over the world. The projection didn't flicker like a hologram. It possessed a jarring, heavy density that occupied the space as if it were truly there. Yet a spectral dissonance remained, a difference in phase between real objects in the hut and the echoed clones. And at the boundaries where the starlight of the night and the sun of the day failed to align, the light scattered into jagged, glitchy shimmers that betrayed the echo’s seams.
In the projection, the windows were closed. But in reality, they were open.
The colours were strange. Too vivid and saturated, yet in places, more greyish and darker.
The projection of Yu Han lay down, passing through the real person as it rested on the straw mat.
“There are two Han’ers!” Huang Niuniu screamed.
Whose memory is being projected here? If it was his, the view would have shifted to utter darkness because he had closed his eyes. But camouflaged, Fei Rui was still there. As was the dagger Yu Han grepped and Huang Niuniu on the bed.
“There’s two of me!” Huang Niuniu looked like she was losing it.
How big an area can I project? How many gigabytes of memory is this? Is there even a unit to speak of, or is this something more metaphysical?
In his dreamscape, Yu Han was able to see his whole body when the echo of him practising was projected from the memorycast pearl. The same logic might apply here.
About thirty seconds had passed. The memory would last seventy or so more.
Noise came from the door.
“No gaps.”
“Check the window. Peek in if you can first.”
“Aye, old man.”
The voices were distinct, but from time to time, they came through with the slightest hint of static. Like a sudden glitch in the waveform between each sound uttered. They came from outside the real hut, as if the projected reality could mimic the spatial and temporal properties of sound like a ventriloquist.
Huang Niuniu’s eyes widened. “T-this is… last night? Someone tried to break in? This is Fei Rui’s memory?”
“Smart girl. Almost,” Yu Han said. She had picked up on the clues and probably what Yu Han had shared about his dreamscape. “It’s a memory. Don’t know whose.”
The voices continued. “He didn’t shag the wisp, at least not today. The smell ain’t there. And dao companions wouldn’t sleep separately, right?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Huang Niuniu blushed deeply. “I’ll kill them!”
“Calm down—”
“I’ll blind them and burn their noses!”
“The girl’s a virgin; her primordial yin’s still there,” the old man said. “We’ll fetch a good price.”
Huang Niuniu fell silent, trembling. She closed her eyes. Her breathing got faster as if she were hyperventilating.
Oh, right. Yu Han was an idiot. I should’ve considered her trauma. She was almost raped by that ballless cock. He looked at Fei Rui. “Stop the projection—”
“Don’t!” Huang Niuniu shouted. “Don’t.”
Footsteps went around the hut. No more voices sounded. The projection ended soon after. The echo of the night overlaid with the daytime reality faded with a fuzzy transition, as did the Yu Han on the floor, the Huang Niuniu on the bed, and the Fei Rui on the wall.
They set up arrays. Those were mentioned in the Rookie Cheat Sheet and Ji’s Cultivation Contemplations. Also in Four Meditations. In xianxia novels, arrays were like magic circles or rituals from RPG games, complete with mysterious effects. Is it a wiretap? Are they listening in?
If so, it was too late now. Or maybe it couldn’t hear the projection?
Yu Han was surprised at how calm he was. Was this Johan? No, Johan would first throw a tantrum before suddenly becoming deathly calm.
The pearl no longer had its radiance. The lime-green colour had faded quite a bit, and the mirage inside was blurry.
There are different kinds of essences? Of course there are. Let’s ask Fang Zhao later. Yu Han was starting to feel grateful to the red-eyed boy. It was like having an encyclopaedia.
Of course, Fang Zhao didn’t know everything. But he knew enough about the basics thanks to his upbringing, and probably from his years of effort to solve his problem.
“They… could’ve broken in. They—Why didn’t you wake me?” Huang Niuniu demanded.
“I didn’t want to alert them.”
“But… fine,” she huffed.
“We’ll speak outside,” Yu Han said. He didn’t know if his house was bugged now.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go to my hut. I’ll cook—”
“No.” Her hut could be wiretapped, too.
Yu Han put every valuable thing he had in a bag. The books, scrolls, spirit stones, monster cores, tokens, and some other miscellaneous stuff. Then they went to Huang Niuniu’s and gathered her valuables too.
Before they could leave, Li Yao and Fang Zhao arrived. “What’re you guys up to?” Li Yao asked.
The sky was gloomy—perhaps it was about to rain. Yu Han took all of them to a secluded spot. After confirming with Fei Rui that no one was around, he explained what had happened the night before.
“This is troubling,” Fang Zhao said with a sharp glare. “Brother Yu is right. Some arrays and formations can record and transmit sights and sound. It’s a peculiar favourite of various organisations that work in the shadows.”
“Sounds about right. If our gang had one, I can think of a hundred ways to make some good cash out of it,” Li Yao added, then thumped Fang Zhao in the back. “How’d a young master like you know, though?”
“I’ve… had run-ins with the less desirable of the Divine Xia Capital,” Fang Zhao said. “First to find a cure, and then…” He looked away, ashamed.
Right, brothels and casinos.
“Did it help?” Li Yao asked.
Dude! Read the room. Yu Han rolled his eyes.
“It wasn’t totally useless. I was able to pass my tribulation pre-emptively.” Fang Zhao shook his head. “I don’t know if it was worth it, though. That pain… only near-demonic-level unorthodoxy could come up with such methods of training. I don’t even know—”
“You passed your tribulation?” Yu Han interrupted.
“I thought that if I could pass pre-emptively, I would cure my crippled cultivation. Originally, my tribulation was something that I wouldn’t be able to pass pre-emptively if I wanted to practise my clan’s unique arts. We’d tried; it didn’t work.” Fang Zhao stared down at the tiger-engraved gold ring. “After I gained the Red Fiend Ancestry, I was given an alternative option. I was exiled from the clan, but at least I could do something now. I sought help from an underground organisation from the Divine Xia Capital and successfully passed the tribulation. But as you know, it didn’t cure my ailment.”
“So the only thing stopping you from levelling up is the quantity of true qi. You don’t have any other barriers?”
“If you don’t count gaining 110 true qi before it gets depleted as a barrier.” Fang Zhao let out a bitter laugh. “Even with all the backing of my family with elixirs and pills, formations and artefacts, the most I could gain was thirty-seven true qi in a day. If I could have utilised the resources properly, it would have probably been enough for me to reach qi gathering before the month was over.”
“But only thirty-seven?” Yu Han asked. “Your family should have elixirs and pills that can grant far more than that, right?” Judging by the experience scaling, or rather, true qi scaling, thirty-seven true qi was nothing but chump change. Echoing Dreamscape at Level 6 needed 700 true qi to level up. If realm levels acted the same way, then even thousands of true qi would be a drop in the bucket for someone whose level was in the thirties or forties. “Wouldn't pills and elixirs for qi gathering realm cultivators and up give you way more true qi?”
“There was a limit to how good an elixir I could take. We even had pills for core formation realm elders. But had I consumed those, I would’ve died then and there. Not to mention, my clan and I were willing to risk my life, but not my bloodline! Taking too many exogenous supplements at level 0 would have without a doubt plummeted my chances of awakening the core traits of our Trueforge lineage at level 1. That is just how it works. There was a minor chance the traits might have mutated, but risking it was not even an option. In the end, I made the choice myself. I forsook the Trueforge lineage altogether the moment I downed the elixir for Red Fiend ancestry.”
“You wanted to grind your bloodline’s level so that it could protect you against the depletion, right?” Yu Han asked. “But what if you had enough blood to refine to 110 true qi at once with your Cyclic Lifeblood Conversion? Or rather, 111?”
Fang Zhao looked stumped. “Huh? I-I didn’t think of that.”
“Can’t your clan gather enough blood?”
“Wait, slow down a bit, Brother Yu.” Fang Zhao raised his hand. “They definitely could! They just probably need a few monsters in foundation building realm.” He then shook his head, even though his face showed clear excitement. “It won’t work. Same problem as before. I can’t refine nor consume the blood of such high-grade entities at my current mastery level of Cyclic Lifeblood Conversion. I’d be crippled for real. Or die. Or my trait would have been impacted, and the clan will not like that!”
“Which doesn’t matter now, since you gave that Trueforge lineage up,” Li Yao added. “No traits left to impact, remember?”
And you wouldn’t die. Not if you really are like the protagonists in the stories. Yu Han thought for a bit and said, “What if your clan gathers many low-level monsters and bleeds them into a pool? All you’d have to do is go in and start refining.”
“C-could it work? No way. No way?” Fang Zhao had a brain crash. “No. No, it won’t! I can’t possibly refine for so long. I don’t have so much lifeforce. No… I can! I have the healing potion of the blue-waved waters and a share of the—” Fang Zhao stopped, looked around to see if someone was there, and sighed in relief.
The underspore lanterns. Yu Han nodded. Does he need to heal after refining the blood?
“I’m exiled from the clan because I awakened a foreign bloodline.” Fang Zhao’s voice broke. “They won’t help me gather the blood. But I don’t have to mind ruining the clan’s traits now either. I should have had them gather the blood before I took the elixir.” His laugh was barely a buzz of hopelessness. A rasping sound, like stones grinding together. “Even if I start now, even if I had your help, it might take years. Maybe if I buy it gradually? No, it won’t work with old blood. It needs a degree of aliveness. Lifeforce still flowing. How can we even preserve so muc—”
Fang Zhao’s eyes went to his stone ring. He then cheered himself up with two loud slaps to his face. “I can do it. Let it take years or decades. I’ll do it!”
Li Yao cackled. “Dude, you’re like those wrinkled shrews in the brothels, going crazy after hitting thirty. What’s it called again?”
“Bipolar?” Yu Han said. He glanced at Huang Niuniu but hurriedly looked away.
“Not that. But I think that word works too!” Li Yao laughed more. He covered his mouth, his eyes narrowing. A cold anger settled in his voice as he said the next words. “Let’s talk about Fang Zhao’s issue later. Those Mad Bloodhounds are courting death. The question is, how do we deliver?”
Yu Han nodded, although he made a mental note to go through Four Meditations on the Hundred Thousand Waterways again. It might just have the answer to Fang Zhao’s levelling dilemma.
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Huang Niuniu - Cow girl. Nice, sweet, and after the ship arc, unpredictable.
Fang Zhao - Red-eyed cripple. Noble Young Master (one of the good ones?).
Xiao Zhuzi - His name literally means Little Bamboo, former beggar.
Hu Feng - Farmer’s son. Maybe a bit perverted.
Li Weidong - Almost drowned trying to clear his Tribulation.
Dong Tianlan - Granddaughter of Elder Scribe. Has an eternal frown.
Dong Chou - Ninth Scribe Official of the Outer Sect. Probably has high blood pressure.
Yong Lefan - Sarcastic Senior Bro with a stone book.
Shi Miao - Mysterious white-haired girl who may or may not resort to violence.
Song Yinuo - Mysterious pig-tailed spoiled brat.
Duan Xiaolong - Is cool. Has monkey.
Sima Yan - Son of Riversong Commandary City's City Lord. Is a-hole.
Pang Jiming - Sima Yan's lackey #1.
Ma San - Sima Yan's lackey #2. Bushy beard's less bushier brother.
Tan Ruoxuan - Pony-tailed Law Enforcement Lady.