Chapter 46 — Hollow Bell Resonance

The smiling mannequin moved with the sole goal of getting closer to Lin Che, its joints bending at angles impossible for humans to replicate.

It covered the distance in a series of lurching accelerations, which were difficult for Lin Che to follow, even despite circulating the Liuhe Breathing Method and focussing entirely on his vision. Thankfully, Swallow Returns to the Nest made use of every single sense, and the feeling of the wind blowing from the mannequin’s movement was enough to cause Lin Che to dodge slightly out of the way.

Mid-air, the mannequin pushed a limb deep into the soil to prevent itself from landing wrong and rolling down the hill. It used its embedded leg as a fulcrum to swing itself around and launch another attack, which landed on the ball of Lin Che’s shoulder.

Lin Che redirected the next strike to the same region, eating the damage with the palm of his hand instead. The ends of the mannequin’s limbs were rough like stone, causing any contact to grate across Lin Che’s flesh.

He backed up slightly in the other direction.

The fundamental problem, Lin Che thought, was that the mannequin didn’t have a strategy. Strategy required a well thought out goal, but its apparent only goal was currently immediate proximity to Lin Che, seeing how it now ignored the other victim.

Of course, the mannequin didn’t have a consciousness, and was instead attracted to the Qi that Lin Che had been broadcasting earlier to aggravate it. All the mannequin wanted to do was stop the signal.

So Lin Che backed up and carried on broadcasting.

He didn’t care if local cultivators would notice him now — no, he was under the protection of the Shen Clan by proxy. There was no need to hide his strength, so long as he held information to guarantee that he would remain useful to the Shen Clan.

The Qi pulse he was sending out now was more like casting a line rather than throwing a net — a directional signal that radiated outwards in short beats. Keeping this directionality cost him concentration to maintain, but in return, the signal would be more concentrated.

A concentrated signal which was, as it turned out, deeply irritating to creatures that were attracted to Qi in the first place.

Lin Che drew the line like a tether made of aggravation, and moved further up the hill, away from the trees where the girl was hidden. The kiting required him to stay close enough to maintain the mannequin’s interest, whilst staying mobile enough that it couldn’t simply close the distance and pin him.

This was a much narrower margin than he would have preferred.

But then it hit him: this was not a problem of distance, but rather one of Qi.

The mannequin wasn’t attracted to him, per se. No, it was attracted to the signal, which meant the signal could be something more than simply bait.

Lin Che deepened the Liuhe circulation and began to draw the Qi inwards rather than outwards as he called upon the Hollow Bell technique. Previously, his enlightenment taught him that he could simply redefine the ‘self’ to extend the Hollow Bell technique outwards, but, perhaps he was still thinking about it the wrong way.

There was another, very similar method of thinking.

What if, instead of focussing on the self versus non-self, he thought more about the division between the two?

What if he placed more weight upon the barrier rather than the deeper concepts?

A region of coherent Qi suddenly extended in every direction from him, just over two and a half metres in radius. Instead of being a wall, it felt more like a cloud of resonance with the same quality as the bell itself: resonance so pure that it became exclusionary.

Lin Che let the Hollow Bell ring.

He felt it more than he heard it — a deep, slow vibration that moved outward from somewhere below his sternum and escaped into the air around him. The Qi environment around him immediately clarified, and the mannequin, mid-lurch towards him, slowed.

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It didn’t stop like it hit a wall or get pushed backwards, but instead moved extremely slowly, as though the friction from this resonant field around Lin Che was a thick tar.

The mannequin changed tactics.

Lin Che stopped backing up and now pushed forwards. He held the upper hand now.

The mannequin faced Lin Che, but scurried backwards on all four limbs and jumped intermittently to further increase the distance.

Lin Che gave chase.

Whenever the distance closed too far, the mannequin got faster. Whenever the distance was too great, the mannequin slowed down.

It was leading him somewhere.