When it was time to head out, Liu Daoran grew even more hesitant and evasive. He even had Liu Xiaolou pay Phoenix Perch on his behalf while he hid off to the side, lowering his head and pretending to be deep in thought. Only after Liu Xiaolou had shelled out over twenty taels of silver did Liu Daoran snap out of it with a quiet, "uh." He trailed behind Liu Xiaolou as they left the Taiping Lake market, all the while anxiously rubbing his face with his hands.
The night was already late, and who was even around to notice what he looked like? Liu Xiaolou couldn’t quite make sense of it. Back in the day, when his teacher, Master Sanxuan, was in Wuchao Town's First Alley, hadn’t he always lingered by the alley entrance, joking with Sister Qing and Mama Zhang, even greeting acquaintances passing by? He was open, easygoing, and carried himself with flair. And weren’t the heroes of Wulong Mountain the same when they strolled down that street, laughing and chatting in groups of three or five?
This wasn’t anything shameful. Why act like that? Even if his fierce wife at home were to find out, so what? At worst, it would mean a divorce letter.
And what’s so terrible about a divorce letter? He himself would be getting one in half a year anyway. When the time came, he’d make sure to keep it safe, treat it like something precious. After all, he had once been the son-in-law of the Su family of Shenwu Mountain. With that kind of standing, his influence on Wulong Mountain would only grow. If anyone dared look down on him, he could just whip out that divorce letter and shake it in their face.
And besides, if another chance came around to marry into a family, wouldn’t his odds of being chosen be higher?
Liu Daoran, having received a five-inch piece of Bewitching Fragrance, naturally kept his promise and began teaching Liu Xiaolou the secret talisman-engraving method passed down in his sect.
He said to Liu Xiaolou, "Look, you’ve already watched me etch the talismans. I’m sure you picked up a thing or two. And you’ve even tried it yourself a couple times… No need to look embarrassed. If I let you watch, it means I didn’t mind you learning." He paused, then continued, "You’ve given it a try, so you must realize by now that you can’t grasp the Heaven’s Origin, Beginning to End Method just by copying the hand movements. Without the true qi circulation technique, you won’t be able to sustain it."
Liu Xiaolou asked respectfully, "I would be grateful for your guidance, Brother Daoran."
Liu Daoran gave a small smile. “When you watched me engrave talismans, your eyes were fixed on my fingertips. You saw the true qi flowing there, drawn in and released, tracing the lines onto the jade pendant. My fingers moved like dragons and serpents, shards of jade scattering, and then the talisman took shape. Am I right?”
Liu Xiaolou nodded. “That’s right. But when you say channeling true qi, Brother Daoran, how should it be done?”
Liu Daoran rotated his wrist in a half-circle. “Watch closely, brother.”
He closed his hand into a fist, leaving a hollow space inside. Within that hollow, there seemed to be a hidden surge of wind and cloud, faint yet distinct, almost visible to the naked eye.
“Brother, pick an egg and hold it in your palm. From the Laogong acupoint in your hand, release your true qi and send it into the egg. Make the yolk and the white inside spin. Nine turns forward, nine turns back, and keep it going without stopping. With time, you’ll feel as if your palm contains heaven and earth, with a vision of primal chaos taking shape within.”
“How long does it take to master?”
“For the slow, ten days. For the quick, just one.”
“And how long did it take you, Brother Daoran?”
“Three days.”
“That’s pretty fast, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Not bad.”
So Liu Xiaolou went to fetch an egg and followed the method Daoran had taught him, trying to sense heaven and earth within his palm, to glimpse the image of the mysterious primordial chaos.
This practice wasn’t hard to grasp. By the end of the first day, he had already learned to draw true qi from his Laogong acupoint and send it through the shell into the egg.
By the third day, the yolk and white inside began to swirl with his true qi, turning nine times left, then nine times right.
Everything went smoothly, but he still couldn’t match Liu Daoran. It wasn’t until the fifth day that he finally set aside the egg and, with an empty hand, sensed the chaos of heaven and earth. His progress was neither fast nor slow, about average.
Next, Liu Daoran taught him the second step. “The Heaven’s Origin, Beginning to End Method may sound profound, but in truth it comes down to a single formula: ‘Nine Stars of the Origin, one beginning and one end.’”
The meaning of the “Nine Stars of the Origin” was simple. Once you had heaven and earth within your palm, you would condense your true qi into nine clusters, like nine stars. If you tried to do this from an empty state, the qi would disperse immediately. But now that he had cultivated the sense of primal chaos, those nine clusters could take root within it and endure.
The way to condense them wasn’t complicated. It used the same “nine turns forward, nine turns back” rotation he had practiced before.
Liu Xiaolou spent a single day condensing the nine stars. He could faintly see them surging and colliding within the heaven-and-earth of his palm, a wondrous sight.
“This is incredible, unbelievable. Brother Daoran, I’m not imagining things, am I? Or hallucinating? These nine stars... they’re really in my hand, aren’t they? Look, they’re even sparking with lightning…”
“You’ll know soon enough when you etch a talisman.”
“And how do I etch one?”
“The second half of the formula is: one beginning, one end.”
“What does that mean?”
“You draw the true qi out from the heaven and earth within your palm, then focus your mind on the talisman. Keep your attention only on the starting point and the finishing point. Don’t think about the strokes in between. Let the true qi complete them on its own. That way the lines will flow together seamlessly, half-seen and half-hidden.”
Liu Xiaolou tried it first on a piece of stone, but he could never get it right. His mind instinctively clung to the middle strokes, watching the channels of the talisman take shape. Because of that, he couldn’t achieve “one beginning, one end.”
At first, Liu Daoran was patient, reminding him from time to time where his focus should be. But after several days with no progress, even he began scratching his head. “Brother, this really is simple. Forget the process. Fix your mind only on the first stroke and the last.”
Liu Xiaolou slumped. “I know exactly what my problem is. It clashes with my cultivation method.”
And it really did. The Yin-Yang arts of the Sanxuan Sect emphasized the process above all, demanding awareness of every subtle feedback, every tiny shift, in order to respond and adjust. Now he was being told to focus only on the beginning and the end, ignoring everything in between. How could that still be called a dual cultivation method?
It took time to work through, to break old habits and force his instincts into a new pattern. Only after half a month did Liu Xiaolou finally master the Heaven’s Origin, Beginning to End Method. With the cultivation of the fifth layer of Qi Refinement, he completed the Dispersed True Essence Talisman formation disk.
With that, the basic refining of the three formation disks for the Li Nine Palace Micro Formation was finished. The next step was material fusion, which means refining the various spirit materials needed for the illusory formation into spirit liquid, then channeling them into the matching pathways inscribed on the talismans.
The two of them spent three days working out which liquid should flow through which channel, and together they finalized the design.
Liu Xiaolou gained greatly from this, so in return he shared the method of melting Bewitching Fragrance, along with his approach to merging it into a formation.
Liu Daoran threw himself into his studies with intense focus. Two weeks later, he completed the final refinement of the Cloudscape Talisman formation disk. This particular disk was infused with half an inch of Bewitching Fragrance. And when he tested it for the first time, auspicious clouds rose into the sky. Light shimmered across their surfaces, projecting a host of phantasms that left onlookers flushed and wide-eyed.
Liu Xiaolou was satisfied, but Liu Daoran was not. "It's too crude," he said, frowning. "Too straightforward. It’s nowhere near as dynamic or rich in detail as your Abyssal Blackstone Formation, with its ever-changing scenes and the way everything feels so alive and connected.”
Liu Xiaolou reassured him. “That’s just a matter of experience. Once you’ve gained more, you’ll be able to refine it further. Anyway, time to get back to business. Brother, you’d better hurry and refine another Cloudscape Talisman formation disk. Keep this one for yourself; you can’t hand it in. And don’t forget the other two, the Three Treasures True Cloud Talisman and the Dispersed True Essence Talisman formation disks. The deadline is coming up fast.”
Liu Daoran nodded. “I know. Where are you headed?”
Liu Xiaolou gave a wry smile. “Master Tang’s been pressing me nonstop. There’s too much to take care of. I can’t just stay here making formation disks. Reaching out and managing connections, that’s my real job.”
Liu Daoran waved him off. “Go, go.”