Chapter 306: Chapter 306

Li Xun’s face was burning red now. He stomped heavily as he stepped into the study for the fifth time. He paced back and forth twice, about to leave again, when his eyes drifted across the desk. There lay a stone tablet, along with a brush holder and inkstone nearby.

A clear, ringing tone, like jade striking jade, seemed to echo in his mind, giving his fraying reason a brief pause. He stepped forward, staring at the stone tablet, frozen for a moment. Then, almost without warning, he slammed his palm down, shattering it into pieces.

“Found it!”

He flicked his sleeve, sending every last bit of shattered stone flying off the desk. He tossed the whole mess out the window, then scooped up a handful of fresh snow from the sill outside. Channeling a thread of true breath, he melted it in an instant. The water dripped steadily into the inkstone.

The ink itself was good quality. Unfortunately, the grinding was not. Watching the uneven, patchy blackness spread out in the inkstone, Li Xun felt his irritation rising. He shut his eyes tight, refusing to look, forced a couple deep breaths to calm the fuck down… then slammed his palm down on the desk again. A loud bang rang out; the inkstone jumped in place. Through gritted teeth, in the middle of that chaotic noise, he snarled: “Grind the damn ink!”

Yin Wanderer’s slender figure flickered into existence out of thin air at his command. She glided forward with light, graceful steps until she stood right in front of the desk. She gave the room a quick once-over, then her lips curved into a knowing smile. Finally her eyes settled on Li Xun’s face.

Li Xun turned his head aside, as if admiring the snowy scene outside the window. He did not acknowledge her, and he did not repeat himself.

Yin Wanderer did not seem to mind. She first spread out the paper with graceful hands and set down the paperweight. Only then did her left hand lift the horsetail whisk, resting it in the crook of her right arm. Her little finger hooked up her sleeve, revealing a forearm pale and smooth like white jade.

She picked up the ink stick, resting her index finger lightly against the top while her thumb and middle finger held it at the sides. It was the most proper, textbook grip, and she began to grind the ink slowly and evenly. She acted like she had no clue this was the absolute heart of Mingxin Sword Sect’s inner sanctum. Every movement, every casual gesture, was calm and completely at ease. Like she was the one in charge here, not someone who’d just been ordered around.

Compared to Li Xun’s clumsy grinding, her technique was on another level entirely. The ink stick moved with smooth, almost silent precision. Back and forth in just a few simple strokes, yet every motion carried this subtle, roundabout grace that felt strangely quiet and profound.

Li Xun happened to glance over, and once he did, he could not look away. As the dark ink shifted beneath those jade-like hands, he felt the agitation in his chest ease, if only a little.

Without realizing it, he dropped into the chair in front of the desk and picked up the brush. The wolf-hair tip drank up the ink, gradually turning jet black. Facing the snow-white paper, he steadied his breath. On the right side of the page, he wrote in medium regular script nine words… “A Direct Guide to the Essentials of Forbidden Arts.”

The moment the brush touched paper, all that pent-up fire and restlessness in his chest started pouring out through the tip. Every stroke sharp and aggressive, full of jagged edges and barely-contained fury, like swords drawn and bows strung tight. But when he got to the two words “Direct Essentials,” something shifted. The ink flowed smoother, the strokes became square and even, still strong and open, but much more restrained, pulling all that wild energy back inside.

After a brief pause to think, he swapped to a softer brush and went back to writing. This time in small regular script. Every bit of that pent-up agitation dissolved completely into those opening nine words. Now his mind felt clear and alert, ideas kept coming. Close to a thousand words outlining the essentials and preface flowed out in one seamless sweep, each phrase linking to the next like polished pearls on a string. The whole thing felt incredibly satisfying.

Only when the final stroke fell did Li Xun let out a long breath. The heaviness that had been weighing on him was completely gone. He set the brush down and was about to savor the piece before him, but Yin Wanderer reached out first and picked it up. She gently blew on the ink to dry it as she read. After only a few lines, she smiled.

“The tone is bold, but there’s real substance here. And it’s rare to see something this deep explained so clearly. Still, do you really plan to write all of this down?”

When Li Xun had first had the idea, it was partly about asserting his own standing. By the time he finished this preface, though, those petty thoughts had settled to the bottom. He genuinely wanted to produce a serious, substantial work.

So when Yin Wanderer asked, he nodded. “Got a solid idea for once. Why wouldn’t I run with it?”

That said, actually carrying it out was nowhere near as simple as he made it sound.

This preface… he’d approached it from way up high, brushstrokes kept simple and sparse, basically just laying out the main framework and key points. That part, at least, was not especially difficult.

Once he reached the main body of the work, Li Xun had far more to juggle. He needed to keep the overall system tight and coherent, while also making sure the theories, examples, and methods stayed strictly within the bounds of the Mingxin Sword Sect’s forbidden techniques. It was a real test of his ability to build from the simple to the complex, to draw ten insights from a single point and push each idea forward step by step.

By the time the long night passed and the sky began to pale, Li Xun had revised the draft several times. Even so, he had written just over two thousand words, laying out the basic principles behind inscribing, combining, and extrapolating forbidden talismans.

This portion of the manuscript was nothing like the rush of inspiration he had felt while writing the preface. Still, when he read it over, every line rang true, polished and precise, with the unmistakable air of a master’s hand. Li Xun was pleased with it. He felt that after a night of sustained thought, the foundation of his understanding of forbidden techniques had grown that much stronger.

He had been writing all night, and Yin Wanderer had been grinding ink beside him the entire time. From beginning to end, she remained calm and composed. Even her ink grinding was serene, and when he happened to glance her way, the sight was easy on the eyes, never tiring.

Every scholar dreams of nights like this, a beauty by lamplight, reading and writing till dawn… Even if all I have here is a Daoist nun and the scent of ink, it still leaves the mind refreshed. Really wonderful.

For once, his mind felt light and easy, no heavy thoughts weighing it down. Li Xun tossed the brush aside, stretched his arms way up in a massive, satisfying yawn of a stretch. The loud crack-crack-crack of his joints popping echoed through the room, and the sensation washed over him like sinking into a tub of warm water.

Yin Wanderer pressed his her together in a small smile as she turned this way, about to speak. Then her expression shifted slightly. She shot Li Xun a quick look, clearly a warning, and her body slipped into the void and vanished.

Li Xun was still frozen in the middle of a stretch, but every joint in his body had gone stiff. At the very moment Yin Wanderer withdrew, Li Xun glanced out through the study window. A familiar woman was drifting toward him outside. There was no mistaking it. It was Ming Ji.

Ming Ji was just as sharp in her senses. As soon as Li Xun’s gaze fell on her, she felt it and looked back his way. They were about a li apart, separated by the window, and they both smiled. Only Li Xun could tell that his own smile felt a bit forced.

Sure enough, sulking was never a good idea, and sulking at yourself was about as stupid as it got. Letting Yin Wanderer linger here had been far too risky!

As he was thinking this, Ming Ji ignored the front door and slipped in through the open window. Even so, she looked effortlessly graceful, strikingly so. Li Xun could only smile wryly and got to his feet to greet her. He noticed that she was holding a treasured sword in her hand. She had probably dug it out of the sect’s vault for him.

Seeing Li Xun’s eyes shift to the sword, Ming Ji smiled and handed it to him. “The sword is called Bitter Bamboo. It doesn’t have much of a reputation in this world, but the material is a good bit better than Azure Jade. Its best quality is how restrained it is. When you channel intent and qi through it, it should be far more balanced and fluid than Azure Jade ever was.”

Li Xun thanked her and accepted the sword with both hands. The scabbard was indeed plain and unadorned, the natural dull green of withered bamboo. Drawing the blade, he saw that its light was just as subdued. When he sent true breath into it, a faint, hazy glow rose from the blade, never glaring. The sword hummed softly with a low vibration, the sword-song carrying a deep sense of clarity and calm.

He tested the weight and balance and found it responded to him perfectly. From that alone, he could tell how much care Ming Ji had put into choosing it, and he couldn’t thank her enough.

Ming Ji didn’t seem to care about his thanks. She smiled. “I picked you a fine sword,” she said. “Now I need to see whether your skills are worthy of it. How about we go outside and trade a few moves?”

Li Xun knew there was no getting out of this and could only agree. He slid the sword back into its scabbard and turned to gather up the papers on his desk. Just then, a hand reached in from the side and pulled out the manuscript on top, the one with the preface.

Li Xun turned back with a helpless smile. “Fourth Martial Aunt…”

“What nerve you have!”

Ming Ji’s assessment wasn’t far off from someone else’s, though she was more straightforward about it. “I don’t quite understand the forbidden path,” she said, “but even just from this preface, I can tell there’s real substance here… What about the rest?”

Li Xun handed over the rest of the draft, smiling. “I’d appreciate your guidance.”

Ming Ji shot him a sideways glance, then kept reading.

What Li Xun had written so far dealt only with the fundamentals. Forget Ming Ji, even a newly initiated disciple could grasp it without much trouble. Naturally, Ming Ji wasn’t about to mock him for being too basic. In fact, after reading that sweeping, big-picture preface, she already knew what Li Xun was trying to do.

He was clearly aiming to create a complete manual on forbidden techniques. One that would lead the reader step by step, from the simplest foundations all the way to the deepest and most arcane principles.

There was no doubt this was a massive undertaking. It wasn’t something that could be finished in a few days or even a few months. This would demand years of dedication.

With Li Xun’s breadth of talent, if he could truly bring it to completion, then even if it fell short of the immortal classics of the Mystic Cycle, Xingji, and Unspoken sects, it would still be one of the most valuable secret texts of the Mingxin Sword Sect, worthy of being passed down to future generations.

Ming Ji’s eyes flicked back and forth between Li Xun and the manuscript, shining so intensely that Li Xun actually felt a little weak in the stomach.

After a long while, she finally let out a sigh. “If you can really write this work the way you promise in the preface, it’ll be enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with any of the predecessors of the great sects. And don’t tell me I’m flattering you. That’s just the truth. Honestly, most people write the main text first and add the preface afterward. You did it the other way around. That tells me you already have the whole thing mapped out in your head.”

With her words going that far, Li Xun stopped trying to argue. He simply smiled and gave a small nod. That quiet confidence spoke louder than anything he could have said.

“Good,” Ming Ji said, setting the manuscript back down. Then she immediately hooked the pommel of her sword over his shoulder. “Don’t think you can wriggle out of this. Even if you manage to write something like the Star Transformation Canon, you’re not getting away today. Come on. Let’s see just how much your cultivation has slipped.”

With his thoughts completely seen through by her, Li Xun could only drop his gaze to the “Bitter Bamboo” sword in his hand. His expression was so bitter it might as well have been dripping off his face.