He didn't reply, merely pursed his dry, chapped lips.
He could still endure.
It was just that few people cared about him, and everyone avoided him. After hesitating, he lowered his head and let out a muffled sound, "...No."
"Are you comprehending sword intent?" she asked again.
The ghost infant didn't want to bother with her anymore; he found her too noisy and disruptive to his meditation and enlightenment.
Gu Junshi understood the subtle resistance in his silence. She smiled faintly and immediately fell silent, leaving him in peace.
The ghost infant heard the faint footsteps gradually recede and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to speak harshly to her; he just wanted her to remain quiet and distant, for them to interfere with each other as little as possible.
The world feared and loathed him, and he lived apart from them.
He never needed anyone's pity or help. The only time he had let his guard down, his carelessness had cost him his arms.
Gu Junshi continued her monotonous chore of moving things, her mind now solely focused on saving money.
With a thousand contribution points, after deducting the ten percent intermediary fee for Hong Gu, she would net nine hundred. Adding the over two hundred contribution points accumulated from cleaning the arena yesterday, the thousand-plus contribution points weren't much, but she was familiar with the ways of financial investment and had always engaged in trades that aimed for big returns with small capital.
She planned to use these thousand-plus contribution points as her initial investment capital to earn the common currency of the cultivation world—spirit stones. She considered her current poverty and knew that to truly dote on someone, one inevitably had to "buy, buy, buy" and "gift, gift, gift" with great generosity.
Isn't there a simple, blunt saying to test love: spending money on you doesn't necessarily mean love, but someone unwilling to spend money on you definitely doesn't love you.
The domineering CEO always agreed with this. She wasn't stingy, but she refused to share the empire she had built throughout her life with someone she disliked. Similarly, if she was willing to spend money earned through considerable effort on someone, she would subtly come to like him.
What kind of logic was this? She thought this was what psychology called "sunk cost"—the more one invests, the more reluctant one is to let go.
Gu Junshi, who had never suffered a loss in matters of the heart, was digging herself deeper into her own flawed theory.
As time passed, the sun began to set, and faint afterglow like scattered gold sprinkled upon the pond. The cascading waterfall in the ravine stirred up damp mist. The daily temperature fluctuated significantly. The ghost infant had been sitting before the sword-washing pool for a full day, without eating or drinking.
His gaunt face began to bead with sweat, his lips pale, clearly suffering from severe exhaustion.
Gu Junshi had also completed her menial tasks, but she had been waiting for a result.
However, the outcome left her somewhat disappointed.
Judging by his condition, if he didn't comprehend his own path before the daylight vanished and night consumed the world, he would likely die of exhaustion here.
Thinking this, she casually tossed a cold, stale steamed bun onto his lap.
"If you don't want to die, eat this."
The ghost infant's leg muscles brushed against something cold, and he instinctively tightened them. He hesitantly reached out and grasped it.
He was cold and hungry now…
He didn't want to die…
He hadn't yet made a name for himself, hadn't completed his revenge…
How could he die!
With a surge of resentful fury, he no longer resisted. He brought the bun to his lips and took a large bite. The bite was dry and powdery, with no seasoning—it was the taste of the stale buns he had eaten for a year in the outer sect.
Seeing him gnawing on the stale bun, Gu Junshi noticed a faint smile appear in his eyes, a smile unique to a shrewd merchant anticipating a favorable deal.
If he had continued to refuse her, it would have been one thing. But if he had so much as compromised and reached out once… she wouldn't give up on extracting a price from him, as she was never a kind-hearted person.
Darkness fell completely, but the area around the sword-washing pool wasn't pitch black. The sunlight in the pond was gone, but at night, it emitted a shimmering, jade-green luminescence, appearing from a distance like a naturally polished piece of tourmaline.
With the stale bun in his belly for support, the ghost infant finally persevered with his tenacious will. Amidst the chaotic rocks and the cool night, a visible change occurred in his depleted aura, as if a piece of raw iron had been thrown into a furnace, tempered and opened—
Sharpness revealed!
Gu Junshi observed closely and realized he had finally grasped a trace of his own sword dao.
The dao stems from the heart, and the sword comprehends the dao. His sword dao would be the Dao Heart he cultivated in the future.
Although, at the beginning, no one's Dao Heart was truly unbreakable.
Like completing a grueling three-thousand-mile journey, the ghost infant could finally relax. Unfortunately, he forgot that his current state was comparable to that of a severely ill person.
He had barely managed to stand up when he toppled into the sword-washing pool, unconscious. Gu Junshi had intended not to intervene; he was merely temporarily weak and would awaken from the shock of the icy water. Moreover, the shallow pool wouldn't reach his waist, so he wouldn't drown.
However, she suddenly remembered Hong Gu's instructions. She instantly moved, and a second before he touched the water, she grabbed his collar and pulled him back.
But then, a change occurred in that instant. A bizarre and dazzling red light erupted from the unconscious ghost infant. The air seemed to be sucked dry, and the temperature plummeted. Gu Junshi felt a chill run through her, a premonition of unprecedented danger warning her to let go.
The red light transformed into strange "threads" that extended into the sky, twisting and weaving into a pair of enormous, blood-red eyes. They were so alien and chilling, belonging neither to humans nor beasts. They stared down blankly and mechanically. The sky was covered by heavy dark clouds, and under the absence of moonlight, they appeared so dim and sinister.
Gu Junshi was stunned for a moment, then her eyes hardened with resolve.
These blood-red eyes… possessed a shared demonic aura with the red pupils she had seen within the Heavenly Gate before her rebirth. The only difference was that they appeared much weaker.
The red pupils within the sockets spun rapidly before fixing abruptly on Gu Junshi.
Just as Gu Junshi expected them to attack or do something to her, the ghost infant began to stir. It seemed to be constrained, emitting a silent, struggling, and unwilling sharp fluctuation, then transforming back into a red light and re-entering the ghost infant's body.
When the ghost infant slowly woke up, he recalled what had happened before he fainted and felt the force pulling him from behind, immediately understanding what had occurred.
He felt both awkward and helpless—she… had helped him twice now.
His disposition was solitary and stubborn. He wasn't afraid of others' aversion or scorn, but he was particularly afraid of people being "kind" to him. Firstly, he was too simple to distinguish between feigned kindness and true sincerity. Secondly, as he was blind and disabled, he feared he wouldn't be able to repay them.
"Th-thank you."
His dim, clouded eyes were sightless, unaware that the person sincerely thanking him was regarding him with a cold, scrutinizing gaze.