Chương 139: Rouqi & Rouqin?

I opened my eyes and the first thing I realized was that I didn't have any eyes to open. In fact, I didn't have a body or anything physical at all. I was floating around like a spiritual consciousness that wasn't tied down to any flesh.

"Well," I sent my thoughts over to Azure, "this is different." Whenever I walked between different worlds before, I always woke up already inside some convenient corpse that somehow managed to recover from a deadly injury so I could start my new life. This ghost floating around looking for a new body situation was new to me.

"Maybe it is because we used the Genesis Seed's fruit instead of whatever it is that usually makes you travel between worlds," Azure suggested.

"The mechanics must be different." I nodded, or at least I did whatever the spiritual equivalent of a nod was since I obviously didn't have an actual head.

"That makes sense. We can't assume everything works the same way here, but I have to admit that I'm a little bit disappointed about the energy in this place." The world around us felt thin. The ambient qi, assuming you could even call it that, was nothing like that primal force I sensed coming from the golden fruit. It was a lot weaker and diluted, it felt like somebody took qi and watered it down until it was barely recognizable anymore.

"The primal energy we sensed likely came from the Genesis Seed itself," Azure theorized.

"It was probably the power that allowed you to world-walk, it isn't a representation of this world's energy."

"Yeah, that tracks." I let out a sigh while watching a wispy little tendril of local energy drift past me.

"Still, what is this? It feels like qi, but it isn't quite there?" Before Azure could respond, I noticed my surroundings for the first time. I was floating above what looked like a city, even though calling it a city was generous. The buildings were a mess of architectural styles that ranged from ancient Chinese influences all the way over to something more industrial looking.

Most of them were in various states of disrepair, with crumbling walls and patched up roofs that looked more like they suffered from long-term decay instead of being destroyed by techniques or attacks. The streets below were dimly lit up by what looked like crystal lanterns, though a lot of them were cracked or kept flickering. The people who were walking around out at this late hour were hurrying along and keeping their heads down, and their clothes were a mix of traditional robes and more practical working gear.

Everything had this worn and tired quality on it, like a painting that was left out in the sun for too long and its colors were slowly fading away into nothing.

"We should gather some information," Azure suggested.

"But you need to be mindful of your soul essence consumption. Without a physical vessel to use, you are burning through it by existing here." Right. That was something I needed to keep an eye on. With the decision on what to do next made, I drifted down toward what looked like the local equivalent of a pub. The big wooden sign up above the door was too faded for me to read it, but the loud sounds of conversation and the smell of cheap alcohol were apparently universal constants.

I passed through the wall, and I found myself inside a room that could have been pulled directly out of a wuxia novel's local tavern template. There were round tables, wooden stools, and the distinct smell of whatever they tried to pass off as baiju in this world. The only thing missing in there was some mysterious old expert drinking by himself in the corner. Instead of that, the clientele seemed to be mostly made out of middle-aged men, and their clothes suggested they had various working-class jobs.

A group of what looked like dock workers were occupying one of the corners, while what I guessed were some sort of craftsmen were clustered around a different table. Their conversations were overlapping with each other and it created this steady murmur of voices that were discussing everything ranging from daily complaints over to...

"... telling you right now, it's getting worse," this one particularly vocal man was saying, and he punctuated his words by slamming his cup down on the table. His dirty face and calloused hands marked him as somebody who worked using his hands, though the slight shimmer of energy floating around him suggested he had at least some level of cultivation.

"My grandfather used to always say that back in his day, you could feel the rouqi thick in the air like it was soup. Now? It's like trying to breathe through a wet cloth." His companions all gave glum nods. One of them, who was a thin man with a thick beard, leaned forward.

"Ever since the Celestial Sovereign vanished, everything's been going downhill. My oldest son recently began training, and do you know what the instructor went and told me? He said there hasn't been a single breakthrough to Tier 3 in centuries. Centuries!" That managed to catch my attention. Tier 3? And what is this stuff about a Celestial Sovereign?

"It's not just that," another man chimed in, and this guy was wearing what looked like merchant's robes even though they had seen some much better days.

"The old stories always say that back a few millennia ago, breaking through to Tier 5 wasn't even considered impressive. Now? We're lucky if someone manages to reach Tier 2 before all their hair turns gray."

"The rouqi is running out," the first speaker declared, letting out a sloppy blurp.

"Soon there won't be any Rouqin left, mark my words on that. We will all end up as nothing but a bunch of mortals scrambling around in the dust." I floated there while processing everything I heard. Rouqi instead of qi, Rouqin instead of cultivators, and an entire world that was dying. The implications of all that were pretty troubling.

"Azure," I thought to him, "what do you make of this?"

"It appears this world is experiencing some form of energy decay," he replied.

"Though whether this will result in entropy, or perhaps a natural transition into a different type of civilization like Earth, is unclear." I was about to respond when Azure's tone shifted over into something urgent.

"Master, your soul essence is depleting a lot faster than we anticipated, it is at seventy percent now. We need to find you a vessel soon." A quick internal check confirmed that he was right. The simple act of existing inside this world as a spiritual entity was consuming my energy at an alarming rate. I needed to find a body and I needed to get one fast. Preferably a nice fresh corpse because I already had more than enough experience dealing with those to feel comfortable doing that arrangement.

The thought of trying to possess a living person made my non-existent stomach turn on me. It was one thing for me to inhabit an empty vessel so I could give new purpose to a body where its original owner had already moved on, but deciding to forcibly enter into someone else's living body? That felt wrong. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Even living inside a cultivation world, where morality usually ended up taking a back seat to raw power, there were still some lines I preferred not to cross.

"There are pragmatic concerns regarding that as well," Azure pointed out.

"A living host would likely resist your possession attempt, which would end up making the process significantly more difficult and dangerous for both parties." He had a solid point there. The streets were mostly empty at this hour, but I went ahead and searched methodically by checking out all the dark alleys and doorways looking for anybody who was recently deceased.

I even managed to find this promising location that was a small shrine where the local custom apparently seemed to be leaving dead bodies out for collection in the morning. Unfortunately, the only corpse there was already several days old, so it was too decomposed to serve as a viable vessel for me.

I tried a few animal corpses next, like a stray dog and a cat that looked like it lost a fight against something a lot bigger than it, but every attempt I made at possession failed, it felt like I was trying to push myself through a wall made out of solid rubber. There was this resistance, and then a sudden recoil that sent me tumbling backward through the air. Apparently, the rules governing this world were a lot more than I'd hoped they would be.

"Master," Azure warned me, "your soul essence is now below fifty percent." I could feel all my energy fading away with every single moment I remained trapped inside this spectral state. If I didn't manage to find a solution soon...

"Maybe..." I thought back to him reluctantly, "maybe we could find someone who wouldn't mind sharing their body temporarily? Just until we find a vessel. Like someone stuck in a bad situation who might welcome the help?"

"And you would release control back over to them afterward?" Azure asked me carefully.

"Of course I would," I nodded.

"I'd make sure to make it worth their while too; I could help them improve their cultivation and leave them some powerful techniques or something to compensate them for the intrusion." It still felt wrong to do, but it was miles better than simply taking over someone's life permanently. With that compromise firmly in mind, I began searching all the streets again, except this time around I was looking for the living instead of looking for the dead.

It obviously wasn't a solution, but I didn't have any other option left. The first potential candidate I found was a young man who looked like he was some sort of hunter, judging by his worn leather gear and the bow he had strapped across his back. He was sleeping inside an alley, probably having spent his remaining coins buying drinks, but a lot more importantly, I could easily sense that his cultivation was stagnant and he wasn't even at the first tier yet.

Maybe I could help him advance his cultivation in exchange for temporary using his physical body? I moved closer and tried to enter the hunter's body, I was expecting that usual smooth transition I'd always experienced before, but instead, I felt that same rubbery-type resistance from before and I was forcefully pushed back out. The hunter shifted around slightly in his sleep but otherwise he showed no sign of noticing the attempted possession on him.

"Well," I sighed after regaining my equilibrium, "that was unpleasant."

"Perhaps we need to consider some different criteria for compatibility," Azure suggested. The problem was, time was running out, and I had no idea what the criteria was.

The next hour was spent possesing various people like drunks, beggars, and even a few cultivators, or Rouqin I supposed I should call them here. But every attempt ended the same way, with me forcefully ejected backwards while my intended vessel remained blissfully unaware of it. It wasn't until I came across an old man who was collapsed in a side street that things changed for me. He was near death, and his breath kept coming out in shallow gasps while he shivered in the freezing cold night air.

As I approached him, something unexpected happened.

"Who's there?" the old man wheezed out, his rheumy eyes frantically searching through the darkness. I froze in place.

"You can hear me?" The old man's eyes widened in terror as his eyes somehow focused on me, and he desperately tried to scramble backward away from me, his movements weak and uncoordinated.

"No, no, no... please not yet! Please, I'm not ready!"

"Wait," I said, but he was already frantically babbling out prayers.

"Great Celestial Sovereign, please protect your humble servant..." His words devolved down into incoherent muttering while random passersby stepped around him, they were apparently used to seeing the sight of ranting drunks in the street. And then, right in the middle of his prayer, the old man's eyes glazed over and his tired body slumped down, and his last breath left him. Just like that, another soul had departed from this slowly dying world.

"Well," I said quietly after a moment passed by, "that was depressing."

"But it was informative," Azure noted.

"He could clearly see you, maybe because he was already close to death's door? Anyways, we can figure that out later on, your soul essence is at thirty percent now, so you need to enter his body now." Without wasting any time, I flew into the old man's body. This time I didn't feel any resistance. The body wasn't rejecting me, but it wasn't accepting me either. It was empty and freezing cold. It was an empty shell without the necessary spark needed to sustain life.

"What if," I said slowly as I left the corpse behind, "we need something in between? Someone who isn't fully alive but isn't dead either?"

"You mean somebody stuck in a state between life and death?" Azure considered this idea.

"It's possible, it would explain why the old man was able to interact with you earlier."

"But where are we supposed to find someone who's dying but isn't quite dead yet? It's not something you can put a public advertisement out for."

"More pressingly," Azure interrupted my thoughts, "your soul essence is now below twenty-five percent. I'm not certain what will happen whenever it reaches zero, but I doubt it will be pleasant." That was a good point. A very good point. The last thing I needed was to find out what happened to a world-walking soul when it ran out of energy in a foreign reality. Would I cease to exist? Would I return to my body in the cultivation world?

Or maybe I would be trapped here as a ghost that would haunt this dying world forever? None of those options were appealing. I was about to suggest that we try using a different approach when I heard something that made me freeze, it was the unmistakable loud sound of steel hitting on steel and it was accompanied by angry shouts.

"Well," I said, already moving quickly toward the noise, "either that's someone trying to die, or it's someone trying to help someone else die. But either way, it might be worth checking out." The sounds led me to what appeared to be a warehouse district. The buildings around here were larger, made out of stone and heavy metal instead of wood, and they had these high windows and heavy doors. They were built for storing goods or for hiding a lot of less legitimate activities.

As I approached the area, I was able to make out the details of what was going on. Three dark figures were facing off against a single opponent in what looked like a loading area between two warehouses. The three attackers were moving around with the coordinated precision of professional killers, while their target was young. The young man was probably in his early twenties, wearing what looked like expensive merchant's robes, even though they were torn and bloodied up now.

He was holding his own surprisingly well, and his fluid movements suggested he had at least some decent martial training, but it was clear that he was outmatched.

"Rouqin," Azure murmured, noting the faint shimmer of energy floating around the four combatants.

"The three attackers appear to be at the late Tier 1 stage, and their target seems to have only just broken through to Tier 1." I watched as the young merchant barely managed to avoid a lethal thrust that would have gone straight through the throat, only to end up catching a brutal kick to his ribs that sent him stumbling backwards. He somehow managed to turn his stumble into a desperate roll and came back up with his sword still ready, but I could see that he was tiring out fast.

"Young Master Han," one of the attackers called out, "why make this difficult? Lord Zhou merely wishes to discuss some business matters with you."

"Lord Zhou can go fuck himself," the young man spat back, though the intimidating effect was somewhat ruined by the fresh blood trickling down from his split lip.

"I know what kind of discussion he has in mind." The leader let out a sigh.

"As you wish. We'll simply deliver your corpse then. I'm sure that will send an equally effective message over to your father." What ended up following that was brutal but efficient. Two of the attackers drove Young Master Han back by using a series of coordinated strikes while the third guy quietly circled all the way around behind him. The young merchant realized the trap too late, by the time he turned, a sharp blade was already plunging straight toward his unprotected back.

The heavy sword was angled upward so it would pierce through his lung. It was a killing blow, but it was designed to be slow instead of being quick. The young man's eyes widened in shock and pain as his legs gave out beneath him.

"Make sure he stays down," the leader ordered, "but keep him breathing for now. Lord Zhou wanted him to have some time to reflect on his choices." I watched closely while they withdrew their weapons and stepped back, leaving their dying victim gasping on the cold ground. They weren't going to finish him off, they were going to leave him lying there so he could slowly drown in his own blood while they watched it happen. That was charming of them.

"Master," Azure called out to me, "his current state..."

"Yeah," I nodded, already moving closer to him.

"He is dying but he isn't dead yet. And I don't think he's too attached to his current situation either." The young man's soul was starting to loosen its hold on his body, the shock and physical trauma were creating the kind of in-between state we'd been looking for, but more importantly, there was something else in the young man, a fierce determination to not die here, and not like this. This was perfect.

"You are dying. Do you want to live?" I called out, taking on the role of a mysterious helper.

"Power? Revenge? I can give you both. All you have to do is accept me." For a few seconds, there was no response, and I was worried that he had died. Then I heard it, it was only a whisper, but a whisper was all I needed.

"Yes."