75. The Dao of Terrible Timing

I am poked awake by Ling’er. The candle has burned down to a stub. The window is dark, and I do not remember closing my eyes.

“Master,” she says. “It’s dawn.”

I sit up. My neck is stiff and my shoulders ache. The days of constant vigilance have pressed themselves into my bones like water into old wood, and now, my body finally took matters into its own hands.

“Did you stay up all night?”

She nods. “But I finished.”

Ling’er gestures to the desk. The paper is stacked in neat piles, weighted down by the ink stone.

“Six new Foundation Establishment techniques,” she says. “From the tournament. A mix of elements and approaches. I thought about which ones you might need. I broke some down into ways that are better for your mixed root, Master.”

She says it with pride, practically preening. I flip through the pages. Water. Earth. Wind. One that seems to combine fire and metal in a way I have not seen before. They would be a substantial addition to my arsenal, which is severely lacking outside of sword and ice techniques.

The last volume is thinner. The cover is plain, with a title written in Ling’er’s neat, precise hand.

Defensive Theories Against Soul Arts and Illusion Cultivators.

“You… wrote this?”

“Yes, Master. A set of guidelines based on what I’ve observed against her so far. It won’t be much, but if we ever encounter cultivators like her, we won’t be caught off-guard.”

I open the manual. The first dozen pages show a diagram of the mind, or what Ling’er imagines the mind to be, and various entry points for attack.

I activate the Gaze.

I close the manual. My hands are steady. My face is calm. Inside, something is churning.

Xu Wuyin is not someone Ling’er can simply copy. Her technique is too strange, too layered, too rooted in a constitution and bloodline that Ling’er does not share.

And yet.

She still produced this. A manual of defenses. She watched Xu Wuyin fight twice and conjured potential defenses against a branch of cultivation she had never encountered before. A branch that major sects spend decades studying. That experts dedicate their lives to understanding.

I look at her. She is sitting on the bed, her hands in her lap, watching me with tired but perceptive eyes. I wonder what kind of world she sees through them.

“Master,” she says. “Is it useful?”

I hold the manual.

“It might save someone’s life. This will be included in the sect’s curriculum. I trust you can impart this knowledge to the others when we return?”

Ling’er nods, sharp and confident.

“Yes, Master!”

I reach out and ruffle her hair. She complains but does not move away.

Then she shows another manual, hidden behind her back. Thinner than the others. A single volume.

“What is this?”

“Sound transmission,” she says. “I copied it.”

I stare at her in disbelief again. Sound transmission? From what I remember, it delivers a thought directly into a target’s consciousness. But the ‘how’ wasn’t something this body knew, and the mechanics varied wildly from novel to novel in my past life; Some required precise qi control. Others relied on spiritual sense. The mechanics varied wildly. Whatever the method here, it clearly wasn’t something every Foundation Establishment cultivator could do automatically.

“There’s no visual signifier for sound transmission. How’d you copy a technique that can’t be seen or heard?”

“When the guards caught them, I tried to hear what they were doing. I could not hear the words, but I could feel the qi.” She pauses. “Then I compared it to how sound transmission stones work. The threads are similar.”

I open the manual. The diagrams are rough, but I can follow them.

“The people in the crowd,” she continues. “Many of them were using it. I did not realize at first. But after I saw the threads, I could not unsee them. So I learned.”

She closes her eyes. Her voice appears in my head, not spoken aloud. Just there, reverberating behind my forehead like a bell that has been struck and is still singing.

‘Master. Can you hear me?’

I jolt. My hand goes to my temple.

She opens her eyes. “Sorry. Too loud?”

“Not loud. Just… surprising.”

She frowns. Her voice softens to a whisper inside my skull.

‘Like this?’

“Better. Quieter.”

She nods, satisfied.

I read the manual. The instructions are clear, written in her careful hand.

Channel qi through the throat, but not in the way one would use to amplify the voice. Project it toward a specific person’s spiritual sense rather than the open air.

‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

Ling’er tilts her head like a confused dog.

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“I can hear something,” she says. “But it is muddied. Like water in my ears.”

I try again. Adjust the qi flow. Shape the sound differently.

‘Now?’

“Better.” She tilts her head the other way. “Still not clear. But better.”

I close the manual. I will not get it perfect on the first try. But this is invaluable; this will make betting much easier.

“How far can you send?”

“As far as I can see,” she says. “Maybe further. I have not tested.”

“Can you send it to mortals?”

She shakes her head. “They have no qi. No spiritual sense. The message would pass through them like wind through empty air.”

Shen Qiao cannot receive. Unfortunate. But between the two of us, it is a private channel. No sound transmission stones. No clerks listening. Just her voice in my head and mine in hers.

“Can you eavesdrop on others?”

She frowns. “I can perceive when someone uses the technique. After some practice, I could tell who was sending them in the tournament. But I cannot hear what they were saying. The threads only show me the transmission, not the content.”

I nod. A private channel, then. Not perfect. But far better than hand signals across a screaming arena.

“Time to get moving,” I say. “Check if Shen Qiao is awake.”

She closes her eyes. A moment passes. Then another.