Chapter Seventeen: A Thread of True Qi

Inside the ancestral hall of the village by the creek, corpses littered the floor. Half the villagers who had sought refuge within had already perished. The woman in the green dress, her long hair trailing on the ground, clutched the first man who had confronted her.

"Spare me, spare me!" the man pleaded desperately. "I never should have cut your hair while you were gravely ill. I was wrong!"

The corpse-woman’s face, mottled with the marks of death, remained expressionless. She slowly tightened her grip on the man's hair and yanked outward—

With the scalp torn clean off, the man screamed in agony.

Her cold, dead eyes glinted as her hair writhed and wrapped itself around the man. In moments, he was engulfed, his shrieks abruptly silenced.

The hair unfurled, revealing nothing but a heap of withered bones. The woman's hair had grown even longer.

“Ha ha ha, look how long her hair is!”

“Long hair, long life, la la la la la…”

“Oh, isn’t that Little Jade? Such a pretty girl. Shall I find a husband for you?”

The remaining villagers had lost their minds, pointing at the corpse-woman and babbling nonsense.

A furious expression twisted her deathly features. Her hair swept out, blanketing the rest, swallowing them whole.

Soon, none of the villagers in the hall remained alive. Only a wailing infant, the child of one of the villagers, survived.

“Die… die…” the corpse-woman croaked, her voice flat and empty, hair snaking toward the baby.

“He had no part in what happened to you…”

A voice rang out behind her. She spun around, hate and savagery burning in her eyes.

From the darkness emerged a man carrying a wooden box—Fang Mu had arrived.

He had rushed over upon hearing the screams, only to find this grisly scene. To be honest, he felt little sympathy for the villagers. But he had come just in time to see the corpse-woman reaching for the swaddled infant.

"Die, die, die! DIE!"

Her hair surged wildly toward Fang Mu, trailing a strange, seductive fragrance.

Fang Mu’s heart pounded. Her hair had grown terrifyingly long.

Upon closer look, her hair dragged along the ground—her power had increased dramatically.

“Hairpin Assault!”

He swept out the Ghost Needle in his hand, infusing it with true energy, and struck at the corpse-woman’s brow like a bolt of lightning.

Once charged with true energy, the needle flared with fierce fire, incinerating the hair that came near.

But the closer he pressed, the denser and tougher her hair became. The flames on the Ghost Needle flickered and began to falter.

With a sputter, the fire died. The Ghost Needle halted.

“I’m doomed.”

Alarmed, Fang Mu hastily spread his true energy across his whole body, creating a dense shield.

His body glowed red as the thick hair wound around him, cocooning him into a ball.

Crushing pressure bore down—his true energy shield kept him alive, but the effort drained him rapidly.

The hair in contact with him began to vaporize, but fresh locks replaced them in a never-ending tide.

“Die… die…”

The strange fragrance grew stronger. Fang Mu felt his strength ebbing, his true energy nearly spent.

A brutal rage poured through the black hair, clouding his mind.

His consciousness faded. Then, the jade hairpin atop his head sent a wave of refreshing coolness, bringing him back from the brink.

Yet his true energy was all but gone, and the suffocating hair left no path to survival.

Visions began to flicker before his eyes, a dizzying parade of images.

The bloodstained undergarment—worth a try!

With the last of his strength, Fang Mu pushed outward, creating a small pocket of space, and pulled out the bloodstained undergarment, pressing it against the hair.

The constricting hair paused, immobilized for five seconds. Fang Mu seized the moment to hack his way free.

Boom!

The five seconds vanished in a flash. The hair tightened again, and as he reapplied the undergarment, he noticed something troubling.

The instant he reapplied the bloodstained cloth, the hair he’d cut away regenerated, whole once more.

Fang Mu: “…”

It grew faster than he could cut; the undergarment was losing its effectiveness.

He reached into his chest and pulled out an odd porcelain vial, his expression turning strange.

It was a peculiar little bottle, darkly glazed, containing nothing other than the mysterious potion he’d acquired.

From what he’d learned in the corpse-woman’s home, the potion enhanced one’s supernatural abilities.

For the corpse-woman, that meant her hair.

For Qing Ruowu, it was her crimson talisman-sword.

Fang Mu wasn’t sure what his own ability was. But with only this potion left, he decided to take a gamble—he’d swallow it all in one go.

He reasoned that one bottle wouldn’t kill him; only a second dose posed a risk.

His true energy waned dangerously low. In a moment of crisis, Fang Mu bit down, unplugged the wooden stopper, and was met with a heady scent.

Gulping it down, he smacked his lips. “Not bad…”

Five seconds up, the hair tightened again, even more forcefully than before.

Fang Mu gasped, his whole body flushed red, steam rising where the hair pressed against him.

After drinking the mysterious potion, he felt the nine strands of true energy within him shift. Nine became ten!

As the saying goes, quantity begets quality. The ten strands merged, visible to the naked eye.

No longer strands, but a thread—a single thread of true energy!

This strand coursed through him, and at last Fang Mu understood what Qing Ruowu had said.

Each cultivator’s breakthrough was unique, but at the critical point, the revelation came naturally.

The single thread of true energy moved on its own, flowing from his crown to limbs, slowly but steadily, like a river.

Against the current, against the current—could it be that true energy would one day flow like a river?

For now, it was with the current, just one step shy of the breakthrough.

Fang Mu considered: the potion should have enhanced his supernatural gift, but all it did was strengthen his true energy. Could it be he had no supernatural talent after all?

But there was no time for reflection—the danger had not yet passed.

Ten strands became one thread, and the change was earth-shattering.

Feeling the crushing force from without, the single strand of true energy within him erupted.

Boom!

A fiery red blaze shot out, the Ghost Needle cleaving through the black hair before him.

Wild flames roared, devouring the dark hair at a visible pace.