Tome of Troubled Times-Chapter 729 (2): The Increasingly Human Blind Woman

Zhao Changhe could not help but think that if this was the blind woman’s revenge, then it seemed to have backfired on him. From the dilemma of having two women vying for his attention, he had suddenly been left utterly alone.

Still, Yue Hongling was not wrong. When it came to studying martial arts, not everything had to be done or could be done through dual cultivation. At the very least, practical training could not be done in that context.

With peace and quiet finally restored, it was the perfect time to focus on cultivating.

Zhao Changhe shook off the chaotic thoughts swirling in his head, along with any inappropriate daydreams involving the blind woman. He made his way back to the burial ground. The Spirit Tribe had already begun working on the site, diligently shoveling soil with bustling energy. Zhao Changhe did not disturb them. Instead, he found a quiet, secluded spot near a skeleton and began contemplating his studies with the Heavenly Tome.

After the insights he had gained the night before, he had advanced from his initial ignorance—where he only felt the eerie chill of the yin corpse qi without truly understanding it. Now, as he squatted by the skeleton, he could vaguely sense the presence of a static, unmoving death qi that was distinctly different from other forms of qi.

At this level of understanding, when paired with the Qi Observation Technique he had learned from the page of destiny in the Heavenly Tome, Zhao Changhe could faintly perceive the various distinct types of qi around him. He could distinguish earth qi, as well as the elemental qi of metal, wood, water, and fire. Additionally, he could sense the death qi coming from the corpse, and he could even see the life qi, blood qi, and vicious qi radiating from his own body. Each type of qi fell neatly into its own category, laid bare before his eyes.

It became clear that to a truly powerful practitioner, the world could be deconstructed into its fundamental components. Their perception of reality was vastly different from that of ordinary people.

One particularly striking realization was how life qi and death qi were two sides of the same coin. This suggested that for someone with mastery over life and death, these forces could potentially be interchangeable. In other words, a practitioner with such skill could likely revive a corpse—or just as easily extinguish the life of a living person in an instant.

A cold sweat broke out across Zhao Changhe’s back. At last, he understood why the blind woman had been so insistent, even desperate, in entering his dream to urge him to study yin corpse qi. She had been genuinely worried.

Had he ignored her warnings and chosen not to study it, the consequences of facing the Jiuyou unprepared would have been catastrophic. It would not just be his own inexplicable death—his companions, save perhaps Vermilion Bird, would have no chance of survival either.

This realization also proved another key point: the pages of the Heavenly Tome were not independent of one another. Every phenomenon in the world was interconnected, and the same was true for the principles described within the tome. Though the page of nature, page of life, page of light and shadow, page of destiny, and page of karma each appeared to stand alone, in truth, they were meant to be used together.

Take yin corpse qi as an example: it practically encompassed insights from all the pages. This was true even when it came to the page of light he had obtained on Skyrim Island—more accurately, it would be called the page of light and shadow. Where there is light, there is shadow. The interplay of brightness and darkness served as a crucial reference for understanding the interchange between life and death. This connection even extended into the realm of karma.

In hindsight, his previous approach to studying the Heavenly Tome had been far too shallow. Aside from the foundational page he used to develop martial arts techniques, he had only dabbled in the other pages, barely scratching the surface. It was a complete waste of the tome’s immense potential.

The page of life, in particular, likely held the key to countering yin corpse qi. This made it one of the most critical pages and, perhaps, the one that Jiuyou most coveted. After all, the page had been acquired within the Spirit Tribe’s secret realm. Jiuyou’s invasion of the Spirit Tribe, led by Underworld Guide, might very well have been driven by the desire to claim this page—or at least it was definitely one of their goals.

But it did not matter. There was still time to dive deeper into his studies.

Rejecting the Heavenly Tome outright had proven impossible. He had already used it countless times over the past weeks despite insisting he would not do so. Pretending to abstain from it while secretly relying on it was meaningless. If he was going to use it, he might as well use it fully and with confidence. As for concerns about hidden traps or backdoors? As long as his research into the Heavenly Sea-Suppressing Art remained obscured amidst his other activities, he could always have it as a contingency plan.

Besides, Zhao Changhe was starting to feel that the Heavenly Tome might not even have a backdoor, or at least not in the same way the Vicious Blood Art did. If there truly were a backdoor, the Back Eye would have been a much more straightforward method of control? So, with that being the case, why go through the trouble of complicating things unnecessarily?

If he could use his acceptance of the Heavenly Tome as a way to draw closer to the blind woman, to uncover what her true intentions were, then it would all be worth it. As for those stray fantasies... better to just leave them as passing thoughts. They were impossible, anyway.

“Sacred Envoy.” A timid voice snapped Zhao Changhe out of his thoughts. Turning his head, he saw a young maid holding a booklet. She held it out to him with her head tilted away, avoiding eye contact. “Her Majesty ordered me to bring you this, it’s our foundational Spirit Control Technique.”

Zhao Changhe glanced down and realized he had been lost in thought while unconsciously touching a skeleton. Worse, his hand had wandered to a particularly awkward part of the skeleton without him even realizing it. To the maid, he would undoubtedly seem like a massive pervert.

“I’m not a pervert,” Zhao Changhe said, accepting the booklet with a serious expression.

“Yes, Sacred Envoy,” the maid muttered, nodding quickly before spinning around and running off at full speed.

Zhao Changhe ground his teeth. “Blindie, you’re definitely messing with me.”

“Oh, am I?” The blind woman’s tone was light, almost cheerful. “I merely showed you a small example of the wonders of karma. Isn’t this what you wanted to learn? Observe closely and study well.”

Instead of being annoyed, Zhao Changhe found himself amused by The Blind Woman’s oddly humanlike display of humor. “Blindie...”

“What now?”

“You’re getting cuter.”

“Get lost!”

“Oh, so you’re saying you’ve always been cute?”

The blind woman was at a loss for words, utterly exasperated. “Spare me your crude flattery. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.”

Zhao Changhe immediately shifted gears. “So how exactly was this achieved? Even if Sisi gave the order for someone to fetch the techniques for me, how did you ensure this specific girl would show up at the exact moment my hand happened to be... well, in the wrong place? Without directly controlling her?”

“I didn’t control her,” the blind woman replied with a playful lilt. “I merely tugged lightly on the threads of causality. You must understand something: the same cause can lead to many different outcomes. For instance, in this situation, the outcome could have been nothing at all. Or, as she was on her way, she could have stepped into a hole and twisted her ankle. Or, perhaps, as she twisted her ankle, she might have fallen into your arms—adding yet another blossom to your romantic conquests.”

“I like that one.”

The blind woman ignored his comment. “Before something happens, a single cause branches out into countless potential outcomes, like a web of dotted lines. If you have the ability, you can guide which path is taken. On the surface, it appears entirely natural and inevitable. No one would suspect that their fate had been manipulated.”

Zhao Changhe fell silent, the weight of her explanation sinking in. The blind woman sensed his introspection and smiled faintly, choosing not to elaborate further.

Zhao Changhe was well aware that parts of his fate had been manipulated—some by himself. He had felt and suspected this before, so there was no point in hiding it. However, the blind woman could not help feeling a tinge of helplessness, as the majority of it had nothing to do with her.

Her interference had actually been very minimal; otherwise, certain events would not have unfolded the way they had. For instance, she had once attempted to prevent Lady Three and Zhao Changhe from getting together. She had even taken some measures to steer things otherwise, yet the situation stubbornly veered back to its original course. It was absurd. In truth, successful interventions were exceedingly rare. If Zhao Changhe genuinely believed every twist and turn of his fate was orchestrated by her, she would not even know how to begin explaining the reality to him.

But the question Zhao Changhe posed next caught her completely off guard. He didn’t comment on the feeling of his own fate being manipulated. Instead, he asked, “So, Blindie, can you see your own threads?”

The blind woman was stunned, and Zhao Changhe continued, “There’s an old saying that a doctor cannot heal themselves, and a diviner cannot foresee their own fate. I’m wondering—if I master these principles, could I control my own destiny?”

Her “gaze” lifted to the sky as though contemplating something profound. After a long silence, she finally said, “Every path of cultivation has its limits and its pinnacles. Perhaps at the highest level, one can truly command their own causality. But as for now, I can’t. Just as I cannot perfectly manipulate the fates of others.”

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

Her words carried a faint sense of self-justification, though it was unclear if Zhao Changhe picked up on it. He was too busy drawing in a sharp breath, seemingly astonished by the admission that even the blind woman had not reached the highest realm.

Suddenly, the blind woman smiled faintly. “You’re probably thinking, ‘If even she hasn’t reached the peak, then that’s good news—it means she’s not invincible.’”

“I don’t even know if you’re telling me the truth when you say you can’t do this and that.” Zhao Changhe chuckled. “I was just thinking that cultivation truly does seem to have no end. If even you haven’t reached the top, how long is this road? And how hard will it be for me to take control of my own fate?”

“What’s so strange about me not being at the top?” the blind woman said lazily. “I’ve already told you that I’m not the Heavenly Dao. And even though the Heavenly Dao is dead, that doesn’t mean I can replace it. On the contrary, the fact that the Heavenly Dao could die actually proves your point that cultivation is endless. There’s always a higher, more distant peak—one we can’t even see yet.”

Zhao Changhe nodded thoughtfully, then said, “If what you’re saying is true, and even you can’t control your own fate, it means that personal power has its limits. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to help you.”

“Save that nonsense for your women,” the blind woman said, her smile fading as she turned and walked away. “Focus on your training. All this juvenile probing and fumbling is just laughable.”