171: Chapter 171 Leaving the Inner Room

The buzzing of the Bone Knife lasted for three breaths.

Bai Yu walked out of the inner room, his gaze falling on the Bone Knife stuck in the crack in the ground in the center of the courtyard. The blade was vibrating—not with a large amplitude, but at a high frequency. The amber luster polished onto the blade's surface flickered, as if something inside was panting.

He reached out to pull it out.

Just as his fingers touched the hilt, the Bone Knife suddenly became searing hot. It wasn't heat, but a sense of rejection transmitting from the hilt, the opposite of the feeling he had last night when he used his palm to sharpen the blade.

Last night, the knife recognized him. Now, it didn't.

Bai Yu didn't let go, gripping it firmly. The skin of his palm sizzled, and a scorched smell wafted out. After three breaths, the Bone Knife's vibration stopped, and the burning sensation receded. It allowed itself to be pulled out obediently.

The faint palm print on the blade was still there, but a ring of fine cracks had appeared around its edges.

"It's fighting you for this knife." Pure Void Master squatted at the base of the wall, staring at the Bone Knife.

"It can't take it away." Bai Yu sheathed the knife back at his waist.

"It's not fighting for an object," Pure Void Master stood up. "It's fighting for the right of use. Your right hand was writing uncontrollably last night, and the Bone Knife didn't recognize you this morning—this is the heart of the old heavenly dao inside your body testing the boundaries. For every part of you it rewrites, you lose a part of your control over your own things. The knife was nurtured by your wine and palm print; today it hesitated for three breaths before submitting to you. Tomorrow it might be six breaths. Acquired—"

"We'll talk about Acquired matters when it is Acquired," Bai Yu interrupted him.

He turned and walked back into the inner room. Bai Wuji had stopped chanting and was sitting quietly on the couch, his head tilted as he looked out the window. The sword mark from last night on the window frame glinted with the rough edges of wood splinters in the morning light.

"Are you hungry?" Bai Yu asked.

Bai Wuji thought for a moment and nodded.

Medicine Not So quickly brought over some porridge. This time, without needing Bai Yu to eat first, Bai Wuji took the bowl himself and lowered his head to drink. After three sips, he stopped and looked up at Bai Yu.

"Something is missing from your face."

Bai Yu paused. "What is it?"

"I don't know." Bai Wuji looked at his face seriously. "Yesterday there was something on your face, but today it's gone. It's not black or white; it was just there, and now it's gone."

Listening from the doorway, Medicine Not So felt a chill run down his spine.

Bai Wuji couldn't see the threads or the Pulse-Sealing Needles. He had no cultivation left, and his perception was even worse than a normal person's. Yet, he said something was "missing" from Bai Yu's face.

What was that thing?

Bai Yu knew.

It was expression.

Yesterday, he still had expressions in front of Bai Wuji—faint, but present. Today, as he looked into the water vat, his face was flat. It wasn't restraint; he simply couldn't make them anymore. That area of the Divine Soul responsible for "expression" had been partially stripped away during the resonance last night.

He didn't feel pain, panic, or sadness. It wasn't that he was enduring it; it was that the parts that allowed him to generate these emotional fluctuations had already been replaced.

"Eat your porridge," he said.

Bai Wuji lowered his head and continued drinking, asking no more.

In the courtyard, Void Realm stood up from the stone bench. His complexion looked a bit better than yesterday; at least he could stand steadily.

"The three seats of the heavenly dao," he spoke.

Everyone looked at him.

"The old heavenly dao is not a single person." Void Realm leaned against the stone table, his voice not loud but every word clear. "There are fragmented records in the lock core's database. I've read them before but never pieced them together fully. Three seats, three chairs, three positions. One governs 'Life,' one governs 'Extinction,' and one governs—"

He stopped.

"Governs what?" the old man pressed.

"Governs 'Negation'," Void Realm said. "Life and Extinction are the two poles of the Heavenly Dao's operation; Negation is the person in the middle who can call a halt. Of the three seats, one is missing, and it's this position. That sentence Bai Wuji said in his dream last night—what's missing isn't a person, but the one who says 'no'."

No one spoke in the courtyard. Wind poured down from the crack in the sky, blowing the Bone Knife at Bai Yu's waist, making it sway gently.

Pure Void Master was the first to pick up the thread: "So that chair—"

"Is the 'Negation' seat." Void Realm looked at Bai Yu. "The old heavenly dao carved your name and left a position for you. It doesn't want you to be the Heavenly Dao; it wants you to sit on it and become the person who can say 'no' to the Heavenly Dao."

Bai Yu leaned against the doorframe, his face devoid of any expression. It wasn't an act; there truly was none.

"The person who says no," he repeated.

"Yes. But once you sit on it, 'Bai Yu' will cease to exist." Void Realm's voice dropped half a pitch. "The negation seat doesn't need a personality, memories, or emotions. What it needs is a pure judgment mechanism. The moment you sit on it, you will no longer be human."

The old man's teapot lid clattered against the stone table with a crisp snap.

"Then what's the difference between that and being dead?"

"You won't die," Void Realm said. "The body remains, the Divine Soul remains, the power remains. It's just that 'you' are no longer there."

Bai Yu looked down at his right hand. It was translucent, the knuckles distinct, with the scorched marks from the Bone Knife's heat still lingering on his fingertips.

This hand was still his two days ago. Now, it could write on its own.

What about in another two days? Would it walk to that chair and sit down on its own?

The sound of a bowl clattering on the table came from the inner room.

Bai Wuji put down the porridge bowl and walked to the doorway, his bare feet stepping on the stone slabs. He didn't look at Void Realm, Pure Void Master, or the old man. He only looked at Bai Yu.

Then he walked over, stood beside Bai Yu, and reached out his hand.

His five fingers spread open, blocking the space in front of Bai Yu's brow.

Palm facing outward.

Medicine Not So's mouth hung open, his words stuck in his throat.

He had seen that hand gesture before. It was the first form of the Heavenly Sword Sect Orthodox Protector Sword Technique—using the palm as a sword to block all frontal intrusive external forces. When Bai Wuji was the Senior Brother, every time someone attacked Bai Yu, his first reaction was this movement.

He didn't remember.

But his hand remembered.

Bai Wuji stood in front of Bai Yu, his empty eyes staring at the crack in the distant sky, his lips moving slightly.

"Don't touch him."

Those three words seemed to be addressed to that crack, and yet also to some invisible entity.

His voice wasn't loud, lacking confidence, cultivation, and any sense of intimidation.

But the crack in the sky—shrank by a millimeter.

Everyone saw it.

The Golden Law Rings didn't fluctuate, Pure Void Master's formation didn't activate, and no external force intervened. It was simply after those three words were spoken that the edges of the crack retracted by a millimeter.

Then Bai Wuji's knees gave way, and Bai Yu caught him.

He was too weak. Those three words had almost drained what little essence he had left. His head bumped against Bai Yu's shoulder again, in the exact same spot as last night.

Bai Yu held him, standing by the doorframe.

The fifth thread at his brow stopped.

It didn't continue to grow.

It wasn't broken; it was suppressed by something.

Pure Void Master walked over, leaned in to look at Bai Yu's brow, and his pupils constricted.

"On top of the thread—there is a layer of Sword Intent."

Bai Yu's arms tightened by an inch.

Bai Wuji's Sword Intent.

That Sword Intent, honed through ten thousand strikes and etched into his very bones, hadn't been directed at the crack just now. It was directed at the heart of the old heavenly dao inside his brow.

The knife is wrong; a sword should be used.