Chapter 2: Possession of the Demonic Soul

At the village entrance, the shadow of the old locust tree slanted askew into the river.

In the sky, a gray hawk swept past, startling the small fish that had been nibbling at the moss.

With a faint crease between his brows, Ling Xuan’s lips trembled. “Wif... wife, I really jumped into this?”

“Of course. If Grandfather hadn’t pulled you up, with that little cultivation of yours, you’d have suffocated to death.” Then, as if suddenly remembering something, Ye Ziyan’s bright eyes flashed with a trace of recollection. “Do you remember Grandfather sticking a few needles into you? Did he seal your cultivation?”

Seal cultivation with needles?

That sounded exactly like a trope from web fiction, and one from a fantasy novel at that. If Old Master Chu had really jabbed him with needles and still failed to recognize that he was not the real Chu Lingxuan, then was the old man merely a quack?

Yet before leaving, Old Master Chu had specifically told him to study acupuncture, and had even mentioned that it could seal cultivation. That clearly meant his medical skill was profound. But why?

Looking at Ye Ziyan, like a brilliant sight walking the earth—graceful, slender, and supple as the wind—Ling Xuan’s eyes lit up. Could it be for her?

To make Old Master Chu swallow his anger without a word, knowing full well she was a fierce tigress and still forcing his own grandson into marriage, Ye Ziyan’s background could not be simple.

His hand habitually drifted to his earlobe as Ling Xuan said carelessly, “Wife, what kind of cultivation is it that can suppress me so completely?”

“Get out. Go to Grandfather’s room.”

Ye Ziyan scolded him in annoyance, her jade-like hand sweeping out to point at the wooden door. “Grandfather ordered that you are not to act recklessly again. How many years have you trained, and what have you even managed to cultivate?”

“Mm...”

Before he could react, a blur of legs flashed before his eyes. There was no dodging it. His body was instantly lifted off the ground, feet leaving the floor, and he smashed straight toward the wooden door.

With a soft creak, the door opened on its own in the windless room. His body suddenly lightened, and in the next instant he had been kicked inside.

With a bang, the door snapped shut at once, and Ye Ziyan’s crisp laughter rang out outside. “Grandfather said that if you cannot find a way to recover, you may never come out.”

“What?”

Ling Xuan was stunned. Old Master Chu had not only seen through the fact that he was an impostor, he was even going to confine him? Could this all have been merely to placate Ye Ziyan, using him as a substitute to take the blame?

In front of that tigress, he was nothing more than a rabbit, with no room to resist at all.

He had to find a way out, or his life would truly be in danger.

His gaze skimmed over the acupuncture chart on the wall, and he held his breath. It was exactly the same as the one Grandfather had once shown him. “Tai Chi Needles?”

Ancestral acupuncture, the Tai Chi Needle Method: the left hand represented yang, the right hand yin. Yin and yang working together to regulate body and spirit.

What puzzled Ling Xuan, however, was that the ancestral Tai Chi needle chart should have contained nine diagrams, yet here there were only eight. The lines also seemed to contain extra strokes. But when he looked at the grand outline at the center, his eyes instantly blurred with tears.

Hanging there was a painting of a man and a woman. The man was tall and imposing; the woman refined and intelligent.

The man and woman in the painting overlapped with his memories. Trembling, he reached out and touched their faces, whispering softly, “Father, Mother... is it really you?”

His chest rose and fell; his heartbeat quickened. His vision swam. It seemed that the parents in the painting were extending their hands in the very posture used to hold the needles in the Tai Chi Method, empty palms embracing the moon.

In a hurry, he raised his hand and formed the next movement, yin and yang balanced in his palm.

As his fingertips touched, a sharp pain burst from the crescent-shaped birthmark on his chest. The thing flowing through his body began to surge wildly in every direction, and a blurred memory flooded back to him.

A rainy night. Flickering lamplight.

Grandfather pressed down on his trembling little hand, the needle tip lightly touching the surface of the water. “Watch closely, Xuan’er.”

Ripples spread across the water. A leftward whirl was yang, a rightward whirl was yin.

The silver needle pierced the water. The twin spins of yin and yang condensed into a Taiji pattern that lingered for a long time without dispersing.

“The art of needles is like flowing water. Follow the current, and yin and yang will arise of themselves.”

Without realizing it, Ling Xuan imitated the hand gesture in the painting. Two silver needles slipped from his sleeve.

One hissed into the wooden table, the tail of the needle lifting a wisp of black smoke; the other sank into the crack between bricks, and frost crawled over the moss.

“This is... the forces of yin and yang? There really are forces of yin and yang?”

Staring at his own hands, Ling Xuan could hardly believe it. In his ears, Grandfather’s voice seemed to sound again: “Needles are divided into yin and yang; people have good and evil...”

Clink.

Something seemed to have fallen.

Looking down, he saw a copper coin on the floor.

At first, Ling Xuan still thought he was dreaming. That coin was far too familiar. The words “Heavenly Fortune” were clearly visible, and more importantly, above the square hole was a tiny character for “Xuan.”

That character for “Xuan” looked exactly like the one he had carved himself, almost identical to what he had scratched as a child. Yet that coin had been swept away with Grandfather by the flood. How could it be here now?

“Could it really be Grandfather?”

His vision blurred. The parents in the painting seemed to come alive, their hands moving as each drew out a thin thread, one bright and one dark, pulling a human silhouette out from the acupuncture chart.

The silhouette twisted and overlapped. The paired strands of light and shadow surged in as well, winding around each other before suddenly separating. The bright strand gathered into the image of a blazing sun, while the dark strand outlined the shape of a crescent moon.

That crescent moon looked strikingly like the birthmark on his chest.

“What is going on?”

Ling Xuan was stunned. The heat on his chest felt so real that his mind roared with explosions. “Did you do this?”

He vaguely remembered that after drinking himself drunk, a faint warmth had already appeared on his chest. The first time he drank, he had thought the wine was bad.

As he drifted into a dazed sleep, a blurred Taiji pattern appeared before his eyes, spinning at high speed, and something seemed to move within his body. Back then, he had only thought it was an illusion.

But now, fully awake, the same thing was happening again. Could it be that this birthmark was what had carried him across worlds?

In the haze, the parents’ hands pushed outward, and the silhouette twisted into a scarlet giant serpent that lunged toward him and bore straight into his mind.

The brain instantly rang with a violent buzzing, a burst of shattering force. Crimson, orange, green-black, blue, purple, and other colors intertwined endlessly, condensing into a seven-hued sphere of light.

That flowing force inside his body surged madly toward his chest, nearly choking him, leaving him gasping for breath in suffocating misery.

Bang.

A cloud of blood-red mist exploded from his chest. He collapsed onto the floor, his head spinning, while seven-colored light flickered. Suddenly, a stream of information welled up in his mind.

“Tai Chi is boundless, acupuncture and meridians joining as one; the two qi of yin and yang circulate naturally...”

Ling Xuan stared, mouth agape, wide enough to fit five eggs. “The Tai Chi Needle Method... so there is actually something like this?”

There was nothing on the acupuncture chart about how to cultivate the two qi of yin and yang. The portrait of his parents had said nothing. Even the information flooding into his mind had offered no explanation.

Yet within his body, a current of energy was circulating. After a brief daze, he suddenly wondered: had Old Master Chu’s needles actually opened his Ren and Du meridians?

The Ren meridian governs blood; the Du meridian governs qi. They are the seas of the yin and yang meridians, respectively—one yin, one yang. And the current of energy happened to be flowing between them.

Looking again at the acupuncture chart on the wall, the lines had vanished, leaving behind nothing of their former spirit.

The portrait of his parents was eerily calm. A crooked smile touched Ling Xuan’s lips. “Old Master Chu, no matter how much you resemble Grandfather, before I’m sure of anything, being a substitute is not so easy. On the contrary, I’ve gained the advantage.”

Then his gaze fell to his chest, and the smile froze at once. He drew in a sharp breath.

Could what that little girl in the hospital said have been true?

A childish voice faintly echoed in his ears: “Big brother, this crescent of yours... it seems like a curse... something about a moon-binding... don’t let anyone find out... otherwise... there’ll be terrible disaster...”

Now, on the crescent birthmark, a tiny scarlet serpent mark had coiled itself around it, its triangular head raised, its tongue flickering faintly. What was strange was that it had only one eye, and that eye was not open but tightly shut, standing vertically in the center of its head.

An inexplicable curse had appeared, and it was wrapped by a one-eyed serpent with closed eyes. Ling Xuan felt like crying and laughing at once. Could this be the true reason he had crossed over—destined to fulfill this curse?

But the little girl had said other things as well. For a moment, he could not remember them.

Tilting his head, a sly curve on his lips, he looked again at the portrait of his parents and noticed a line of small characters. Ling Xuan nearly jumped up on the spot.

“First year of the Great Sui Divine Dynasty’s Great Undertaking era?”

Was it really the Sui Dynasty at this time? In his original world, that was more than a thousand years ago. But why was it called a divine dynasty? Could it be merely a coincidence?

He had always been interested in history. In his memory, in the second year after Emperor Yang of Sui ascended the throne, he changed the era name to Great Undertaking and began construction of the world-famous Grand Canal of the Capital and the River.

But from that moment on, the Sui Dynasty began its decline after its zenith and entered a countdown to destruction. Later, popular resentment boiled over, uprisings broke out everywhere, the realm fell into turmoil, and the next dynasty would be Tang.

Before his thoughts could drift back any further, a commotion arose outside.

“Old Master Chu, hurry, please save Uncle Gou!”

“His left arm has grown scales, and his pupils have turned blood-red!”

“The demon soul possesses him. It must be demon possession!”

...

Demon soul?

As if falling into an ice cavern, Ling Xuan shuddered all over. Stunned, he wondered: could that scarlet little serpent be a demon soul? Twined around the crescent birthmark, forming a curse?