Unparalleled Double Harmony

Chapter 618 The Mystery of the Myriad Sources
"How are you? Can you stand up on your own?" Zheng Dongxi asked as he helped Jiang Shouzheng up.

"No... I'm fine..." Jiang Shouzhen was indeed not injured. After all, he was not hit by the other party's proper "attack", but was just casually slapped away.

“Okay, I’ll go after the other one now. Keep an eye on the one lying on the ground for me.” Zheng Dongxi said, pointing to Zi, who was lying motionless in the distance, and added, “Don’t worry, I’ve subdued him. He can’t move for the time being.”

“Then…” Jiang Shouzhen was still a little hesitant, “What if he can move before you get back?”

Upon hearing this, Zheng Dongxi cast a disdainful glance at Jiang Shouzheng without any attempt to hide it: "Then you should pick a place to stand away from him. Anyway, his leg is injured like that. Even if he can barely move, you can run away before he gets close."

"Alright." Jiang Shouzhen nodded after listening. "I know what to do."

Some people might be wondering: judging from this exchange alone, it seems like the two of them have a pretty good relationship.

But actually, it's not "good", it's just "stable and efficient".

Friends who are "good" friends may not necessarily have a harmonious relationship. There are also friends who undermine and bicker with each other as soon as they meet, and even fight each other frequently, but when something happens, they really stand up for each other.

A "stable and efficient" relationship is different; such a relationship usually only occurs between two people whose abilities and status are either extremely equal or extremely unequal.

Zheng Dongxi and Jiang Shouzheng belong to the latter category...

Nowadays, Jiang Shouzheng has no dignity or secrets in front of Zheng Dongxi, especially in private; and Zheng Dongxi, in front of Jiang Shouzheng, this "dog," doesn't need to pretend to be righteous and honorable as usual.

Therefore, a seemingly harmonious atmosphere exists between them...

"Okay, I'll be right back." Seeing Jiang Shouzheng nod in agreement, Zheng Dongxi stopped talking and turned to chase after Bai Dun.

…………

After a while.

Deep in the forest, shrouded in a thin mist.

Bai, who had been running desperately for a while, was now leaning against an old tree, panting heavily.

To breathe more easily, he had already removed the cloth that had been covering his face during his escape.

Right now, Bai's right arm is completely immobile, hanging limply like a piece of dead flesh dangling from his shoulder.

As he gasped for breath, a trickle of blood unconsciously flowed from the corner of his mouth.

A drop of blood fell onto a clump of moss at his feet, blooming into a small, dark red flower.

That "dark color" is not a good omen.

"This is outrageous..." Bai thought to himself as he adjusted his breathing. "What kind of martial arts does this person practice? His internal energy is not only not dissipated after it enters my body, but it also runs around in my meridians like a living thing, making it difficult for me to circulate my energy normally... If this continues, let alone using my lightness skill to escape, I may not even have the strength to sit down and regulate my breathing immediately."

He was just worrying when suddenly!

"It must be tough, right?" Just like the first time he suddenly spoke to Bai and Zi from behind, Zheng Dongxi poked Bai without warning from a spot very close to him.

But at this moment, Bai no longer even had the ability to "get angry".

After a chill ran down his spine, his taut nerves finally snapped at those words.

Since he had run for so long, yet his opponent was still able to catch up in such a short time, and even conceal his voice and presence when closing in, Bai could only admit that this was an opponent he could never defeat, and could hardly even hope to match.

He accepted his fate.

After embracing despair, what follows is a feeling of relief.

"Heh..." After a moment, Bai simply sat down and replied with a cold laugh, "Your martial arts are indeed strange."

As he said these words, Zheng Dongxi slowly walked out of the woods.

"Heh..." Zheng Dongxi responded with a sneer to Bai's remarks, "Do you have the right to talk about me like that?"

But Bai didn't understand what he meant: "What do you mean?"

"Oh?" Zheng Dongxi could tell that the doubt in the other person's eyes was genuine. "Could it be... that you yourself don't know?"

These words made Bai's expression even more puzzled.

"Ha! Hahaha..." Zheng Dongxi saw the other party's expression and understood the answer to the question. He couldn't help but burst into laughter. "As expected of the sect of those two despicable villains, they not only engage in unorthodox practices, but they even deceive their own people..." As he spoke, his laughter gradually faded, and he said thoughtfully, "...But this also explains how your so-called Hunyuan Star Sect, whose origins are unknown, managed to attack Shaoshi Mountain."

Bai obviously wouldn't explicitly deny that Zheng Dongxi still considered himself a disciple of the Hunyuan Interstellar Sect, but he genuinely didn't understand the term "heretical sect"...

In Bai's mind, the internal energy cultivation technique he practiced, "Wanyuan Heart Method," originated from the noble "Wanyuan Sect." There should be no more orthodox and superior martial arts in the world, so how could it be considered "heretical"?
The book subtly reveals this, and it's not entirely his fault, because the true secret of the "Myriad Origins Heart Method" is known only to the successive sect leaders of the Myriad Origins Sect.

The secret is not complicated; the key words are just two: meteorite.

Do you all remember that in the previous book, Bai once used his strangely shaped sword to fight Sun Yixie's trident, and they ended up evenly matched?
The reason is that the base materials of these two precious weapons are similar.

Of course, they did not come from the same meteorite, but from two different meteorites. Let's call them meteorite A and meteorite B for now.

Sun Yixie's trident was forged from meteorite A that fell in a certain place in the Central Plains. Because meteorite A fell a long time ago and the remaining part after landing was already very small, it was basically "one piece" when it was forged.

The strangely shaped sword that Bai used was forged from a small piece that had broken off from a very large meteorite B.

As for the year that meteorite B fell, it wasn't that long ago... it was the year the Wanyuan Sect was founded.

By now, you, the readers, probably understand: the rapid rise of the Wanyuan Sect is inextricably linked to the meteorite B.

The sect leader who founded the sect was indeed a genius. After discovering some of the characteristics of meteorite B, he used those characteristics to create the martial art "Myriad Origins Heart Method".

That "characteristic," in modern terms, is... "radiation."

The biggest secret of the "Myriad Origins Heart Method" is that when the practitioner is within the radiation range of Meteorite B, the practice will exhibit a training efficiency several times stronger than normal internal energy cultivation.

But as Zheng Dongxi, or Gu Qiying, said, those who cultivate using that method actually reach a "false realm".

Therefore, those people all have a very fatal weakness: if they leave the radiation environment of meteorite B for too long, the true nature of their "false realm" will slowly become apparent—they will begin to weaken.

How weak is it?

Roughly speaking, the true level of the Myriad Origins Heart Sutra can take them to where their strength will eventually decline.

Of course, the first sect leader of the Wanyuan Sect must have thought about how to solve this problem.

First of all, it's not hard to guess that... the earliest Wanyuan Sect was built directly above the crater where meteorite B was located.

Apart from the successive sect leaders, no one else knew that there was a space beneath the sect containing meteorites, let alone how to enter it.

Even if someone discovered the secret passage and actually entered the underground cave, it wouldn't be a big problem... because the first sect leader was a very clever person. He deliberately designed the pit to be very messy and placed some ordinary rocks and cliffs near meteorite B to achieve the effect of hiding something in the forest. At the same time, he also placed a lot of gold and silver jewelry, martial arts manuals and the like deep in the other side of the cave... In this way, visitors who do not know the secret of the meteorite will only regard this place as a place to hide treasures and will never think that the most valuable treasure here is an inconspicuous big rock in the cave.

Secondly, the Wanyuan Sect has always only passed on the Wanyuan Heart Sutra to a group of inner disciples most trusted by the sect leader. These people originally lived in the sect and would not leave for too long when they went out on business.

As for the other disciples... didn't the Wanyuan Sect acquire a large number of martial arts techniques from other sects after unifying the Korean martial arts world? Passing on these is enough.

In fact, after the "unification", many sects in the Korean martial arts world just hung up the signboard of the Manwon Sect branch. The people were still the same group, and they still practiced the original martial arts. The only difference was that they had to "pay taxes" to the main sect from now on. After all, the Manwon Sect couldn't possibly ask people to dismantle their original sects and move all their families to the main sect.

Finally, what if a disciple who has learned the Myriad Origins Heart Method has to leave the sect for an extended period of time?

Well, as you all probably noticed—just have them carry a weapon made from meteorite.

They don't even need to each carry one. For example, Zi and Bai often act together, so one of them can carry one.

Unfortunately, since the disciples themselves did not know the secret of the Myriad Origins Heart Sutra, they all thought they were that strong. The sect leader could only tell them that these weapons were very precious and could not be given away or taken away from them casually. He could not say more... Therefore, accidents were inevitable.

For example, right now, because of the special nature of the mission, Bai did not bring his strangely shaped sword while lying in wait near Wudang Mountain.

In other words, Bai and Zi, who were instantly defeated by Gu Qiying, were actually already in a "decline period," but it hadn't been long enough for them to realize it themselves.

But this phenomenon did not escape Gu Qiying's notice.

Although Gu Qiying didn't understand the mystery behind it and wasn't particularly interested in understanding it, it was still very easy for him to see the problems in the two of them.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but insulting our Wu..." After a few seconds of thought, Bai became a little anxious and almost blurted out the words "Wanyuan Sect".

But in the end, Bai swallowed back the word "ten thousand" and insisted, "...Insulting our Hunyuan Star Gate is unacceptable! We practice absolutely nothing unorthodox or heretical! What do you know!"

"Hmph...you're still pretty stubborn." Gu Qiying laughed again upon hearing this, but this time it was a sinister laugh. "You're the kind of person who abandoned your brothers and ran away in times of crisis, and you can still put on this face to protect your sect when you're about to die...are you out of your mind?"

As he spoke, his figure moved forward like a ghost, and then he pressed a palm down on the other person's face.

That move, let's put it this way... you've all seen someone catch a ball with one hand on a basketball court, right?

Gu Qiying was actually quite calm, but Bai's somewhat hypocritical words suddenly stirred up memories of her brother being abandoned by those so-called "righteous brothers," causing her to lose control of her emotions.

Gu Qiying, who originally intended to capture one more person to take back for questioning, suddenly had a demonic impulse and, driven by an uncontrollable ruthlessness, grabbed Bai's face while uttering harsh words and delivered a "tomahawk dunk" to the tree trunk next to him, instantly covering the bark with a layer of sap.

After he calmed down, he was a little stunned.

But after only a few seconds of stunned silence, Gu Qiying revealed an ambiguous expression, shook his hand, and strode away.