168: Chapter 168 It's getting dark

It was nearly dark when Gu Dusheng returned.

A jar of yellow wine and a whetstone. The items weren't hard to find, but he had to make three trips. On the first trip, the wine had been watered down; Bai Yu smelled it from across the courtyard wall and sent him back to buy it again. On the second trip, the whetstone was too fine; Bai Yu said it wouldn't do and that he needed a coarse one. The third trip finally passed muster.

Bai Yu took the yellow wine and pulled the stopper, but he didn't drink it. He poured the wine onto the whetstone, and the stone's surface was instantly soaked. The liquid seeped into the coarse grain, emitting a pungent scent of grain.

The old man leaned over from the stone bench to take a look.

"Soaking the stone with wine before sharpening a blade—who did you learn this craft from?"

"I didn't learn it from anyone." Bai Yu laid the Bone Knife across the whetstone. "It's in lock core's database; it was likely a habit of some swordsmith from the era of the old heavenly dao."

He began to sharpen the blade.

His movements were very slow. His right hand was translucent and lacked strength, so each stroke could only be pushed forward three inches. The Bone Knife moved across the coarse stone surface, making a rustling sound.

Faint white smoke rose from where the wine-soaked whetstone met the Bone Knife. It wasn't heat, but rather the residual malice within the Bone Knife clashing with the Yang Qi of the grain wine; the two forces were fighting on the surface of the stone.

Bai Yu ignored it and continued sharpening.

Everyone in the courtyard was busy with their own tasks. Pure Void Master was arranging Law characters atop the wall, golden characters floating into the sky one by one to form a semi-arc around the crack. Void Realm sat on the stone bench resting with eyes closed; his complexion was slightly better than it had been at noon, but it had only changed from a deathly gray to a living gray.

Medicine Not So brought a bowl of porridge out from the inner room.

Bai Yu didn't even look up. "Take it in to him. He must drink this before he's allowed to move."

"Eldest Senior Brother won't drink it." Medicine Not So set the bowl on the stone table. "He says he's not hungry and doesn't want to eat."

"Feed him. He must eat even if he doesn't want to."

"I tried to feed him. He pushed the bowl away; his attitude was very firm."

Bai Yu's hand paused for a moment.

"How did he push it?" he asked, his expression somewhat helpless.

Medicine Not So was stunned, not expecting him to ask that. "Just... pushed it with his hand, very lightly. He has no strength; he didn't even push the bowl an inch. But he simply won't open his mouth."

Bai Yu flipped the Bone Knife over and continued sharpening.

"He was like this before." His voice was flat, as if he were recounting something from a long time ago. "The year he first came up the mountain, he wouldn't eat. It wasn't that he wasn't hungry, but that he didn't know if he was allowed to eat. You've checked what kind of life he lived before coming to the mountain, so I don't need to say anything. Do you know how he eventually started eating?"

Medicine Not So shook his head.

"I sat across from him and took a bite first; only then was he willing to eat."

Bai Yu lifted the Bone Knife from the whetstone and checked the edge against the fading light. It still wasn't sharp enough. He put it back and continued sharpening.

"Go serve two bowls."

Medicine Not So carried two bowls of porridge into the inner room. Bai Yu followed behind him, his hands still stained with wine and stone dust, which he wiped on the doorframe before entering.

Bai Wuji was sitting on the couch. No one knew when he had sat up on his own, but he was leaning against the wall with his hands on his knees, his posture identical to the way Bai Yu sat on the low stool in the courtyard.

When he saw Bai Yu enter, his eyes moved slightly.

It wasn't that he recognized him. It was that he recognized 'the person who had been here before.'

Bai Yu sat down on a low stool, took a bowl of porridge from Medicine Not So, scooped up a spoonful, and put it into his own mouth.

The porridge was very hot. He swallowed it without any expression.

Bai Wuji stared at him for three seconds.

Then he reached out and took the other bowl from Medicine Not So's hand.

Medicine Not So's hand trembled slightly.

Bai Wuji lowered his head and took a sip. His movements were clumsy, and porridge trickled from the corner of his mouth, dripping down his chin and onto his collar. He raised his hand to wipe it, moving from left to right.

Bai Yu had taught him before—don't use your sleeves to wipe your mouth when eating; use the back of your hand, moving from left to right.

He didn't remember it. But his muscles did.

Bai Yu didn't watch his wiping motion, keeping his head down as he drank from his own bowl.

The two sat facing each other, one on the couch and one on the low stool, quietly drinking their porridge.

Bai Wuji drank most of the bowl before stopping.

"What is your name?" he asked.

Bai Yu set down his bowl. "Bai Yu."

Bai Wuji repeated it. "Bai Yu." After a pause, he asked again, "What is my name?"

"Bai Wuji."

"Who gave it to me?"

"I did."

Bai Wuji held the bowl and looked down at his reflection in the porridge. It was blurry, and his features were indistinguishable.

"Why this name?"

Bai Yu placed the bowl on the ground next to the low stool.

"Because on the day you came up the mountain, I asked what your name was, and you said you didn't have one. I thought about it for three days. On the third day, you had a fever and I stayed by your side all night; at dawn, I saw the mist on the back mountain disperse, revealing the summit. There was nothing on the summit; it was perfectly clean."

He paused for a moment.

"Wuji. Without end. I hope the path you walk in this life has no end."

Bai Wuji looked up.

In those empty eyes, the depths flickered once more. It was brighter than the last time.

But there was still no substance. It was just bright.

"I don't remember," he said.

"Mhm."

"But when you say it, here—" He patted his left chest again. "It feels even heavier than before."

Bai Yu stood up, stacked the two empty bowls together, and handed them to Medicine Not So at the door.

"Master," Medicine Not So said very softly as he took the bowls.

Bai Yu didn't respond and walked out of the inner room.

In the courtyard, the wind had picked up. The crack in the sky was even clearer in the night, with gray light seeping from the fissure, making the entire Heavenly Sword Sect look as if it were encased in a broken lantern.

Pure Void Master's Law characters were mostly arranged; the golden characters suspended around the crack looked like a circle of teeth that had not yet closed.

Bai Yu squatted back down by the whetstone and continued sharpening the blade.

After a dozen or so strokes, the Bone Knife suddenly vibrated.

It wasn't his hand shaking. The blade itself was trembling.

Bai Yu looked up.

Within the crack in the sky, the gray mist churned. It wasn't the previous seeping; it was being stirred by something from within.

Then, a voice spoke.

It didn't come from the crack. It came from within Bai Yu's chest.

The Pulse-Sealing Needle was blocking it, and his perception of the three powers had been cut off. However, that voice didn't travel through the power channels; it rang directly within his Divine Soul.

"Sit upon it."

Three words.

Low, steady, and emotionless. It was different from the voice of the old heavenly dao he had heard in the mirror. This voice was older and deeper, as if it had surfaced from the very bottom of time.

Bai Yu's hand tightened around the Bone Knife.

"The chair will not wait forever." After saying this, the voice vanished.

The gray mist in the sky calmed down. The crack returned to its previous state.

But on Bai Yu's brow, next to the Pulse-Sealing Needle, another white silk thread had appeared.

The fourth one.

Medicine Not So had said seven days.

Now, one day had passed.

Bai Yu looked down and saw half of his face reflected on the edge of the Bone Knife.

There was no expression on his face. But in the reflection on the blade, at his brow, four white silk threads were tangled together; they no longer looked like sprouts. They looked like roots.

They looked like roots.

Taking root deep into his Divine Soul.