Lie Huo Jiao Chou

The two people inside and outside the sword were stunned. In theory, the life-bound sword should not be able to cut himself—otherwise, Xuan Ji would have been paralyzed a long time ago if he had inserted the sword into his back every day.

Sheng Lingyuan didn't expect that this iron "chicken" could run two steps and then take off. He was distracted for a moment, and the sword blade touched the human skin and flesh. The desire for blood overwhelmed his rationality. When he came to his senses, it was too late.

The skin on the human hand is thin and the blood vessels are numerous. The heavy sword was embedded in Xuan Ji's palm, and the blood flowed like a fountain. The sword’s groove was filled in the blink of an eye. Luo Cuicui heard the noise and looked out. "Oh my God!" He was so scared that she sprouted. The green vine grew panickedly and circled around her neck. He said greenly, "Blood! My mother! So much blood! Quickly stop the car... no, that... hurry up and save your life!"

Old Luo shouted hard, and he shrank so quickly as though he was afraid of being touched by the blood.

Ping Qianru finally jumped up in a panic, forgetting to unlock the seat belt, and the chocolates and fish skins rolled all over the ground. Only Yang Chao was still calm. He was about to come and help when he just took two steps. This sneezing monster raised his head to the sky and prepared to erupt. Xuan Ji was afraid that the wound would be stained with a lot of mucus, so he quickly refused his kindness.

The sword blade seemed to be embedded in his palm, greedily sucking his blood and qi.

Sheng Lingyuan had a "since it has come, then accept it" temperament. Since he had cut it, he simply sucked the blood to his heart's content. He seemed to have been hungry and cold for a long time, and he drank a bowl of hot meat soup. Even if his mouth was burned by the hot soup, he still didn't want to spit it out. More and more fresh blood poured into the sword body. His mind suddenly became much clearer, and his vision suddenly expanded. For a moment, he could even see all the people and things in the cabin through the heavy sword.

In the noise of the plane, Xuan Ji seemed to hear a sigh of "how fresh..." in his ear.

Xuan Ji's arm was trembling, and he didn't care about fire being forbidden on the plane. With the other hand dipped in blood, he quickly drew a complex rune on the sword body. The heavy sword burned. With a "bang", it fell off from his palm, and the voice in his ear hummed lightly, but it seemed to ignore this attack and hummed lowly and laughed.

Before the fire alarm sounded, Xuan Ji stretched out his hand and gathered the flames on the sword body into his palm. When the fire swept past, he saw a pair of gentle and affectionate eyes in the reflection of the sword body. They were red from the fire, but still smiling, with a creepy gentleness.

Ping Qianru finally broke free from the seat belt and ran over like a gust of wind. Xuan Ji was afraid that she would touch this dangerous sword, so he stepped on the heavy sword on the ground and pushed it under the seat. Sheng Lingyuan had just benefitted, and he didn't care about the honor or disgrace of being stepped on.

"Director, are you okay, Director? Where did you cut it? "Ping Qianru was shocked by the blood on the ground and asked with a crying voice, "Is it the aorta?"

Xuan Ji said helplessly: "Girl, do you expect me to be okay?"

"Wait, we have a first-aid kit. I'll find it for you. You can hold on for a while." Ping Qianru ran around in a hurry and turned back to call, "Hold on for a while!"

"Ah," Xuan Ji nodded helplessly to her, "Slow down, don't fall."

After all, the life-bound sword was the life-bound sword. As soon as it left his palm, the wound began to heal on its own. In a few words, the severed muscles had begun to repair themselves. Xuan Ji supported his wounded hand and his gaze fell on the sword handle exposed under the seat. His expression was unfathomable.

He was silent for a moment, and then he lowered his voice with the noise of the plane and said, "You are a bit ungrateful... this 'majesty'?"

Xuan Ji began to doubt his life-bound sword. It was from the pile of classics that Dao Yi gave him before his noon break—it was from the tattered "Dongchuan Witches Book". It said that the heavenly demon is "a great power fallen, leading the demon qi of heaven and earth into the flesh, even if the flesh is destroyed, if its will arises again, there will still be the gathering of demon qi and the return to the human world. The name of the human demon cannot be spoken or thought of, and it must not be disturbed".

In short, no matter what it was at the beginning, once it changed from "human" to "demon", it became another kind of existence. The original shell was like a bottle of water, and when the bottle broke, the water would definitely spill, but under certain conditions of time, place, and people, the spilled liquid still had a chance to gather together.

Theoretically, demons can attach to other things with spirituality.

Xuan Ji didn't know if his sword counted as "spiritual", although it had never made a sound before and had never shown any potential to become a spirit, but Xuan Ji always felt that it was not a dead thing. Since he had memory, this sword had been with him all the time, it seemed to be able to catch every subtle thought of his, even those that he hadn't reacted to himself.

And the mysterious and inseparable connection between man and sword suddenly disappeared after the sword was splashed with demon blood.

The sword became colder and colder, and at the moment when Xuan Ji was awakened by Xiao Zheng's call at noon, he had a strong feeling - as if there was another person's breathing in the sword.

What really made him sure that there was something wrong with the sword was actually the Mirror Flower Water Moon Butterfly. When he approached the butterfly, the pair of smiling faces on its wings changed, one changed to a frightened face, and the other changed to a crying face - the fear was understandable, they all said he belonged to fire, fire was the natural nemesis of these things, and the butterfly seeing him was probably equivalent to seeing a large crematorium.

But what about the little crying face?

If the butterfly had no extra ability to evolve besides its extraordinary longevity, it could only be that it felt the existence of another person... or something else.

Xuan Ji was born in the raging fire, and his life-bound sword should theoretically be avoided by all evils, and nothing evil should be attached to it. But if it was that heavenly demon... it was not impossible for such a strange thing to happen, after all, even the ring was protecting the demon.

The demon head said something when he killed Bi Chunsheng regardless of the Yin Sacrifice contract, and only Xuan Ji, who was closest to him, heard it. There were two words in the sentence that made him pay attention, one was "I" and the other was "you all".

"You" seems to imply that there is someone behind Bi Chunsheng, and "I" reveals more information.

Before the great chaos – to be precise, before the first "Pingyuan War", "I" meant "I", theoretically anyone could use it. Later, when the emperor's ambition expanded and began to conquer the Chiyuan, he made this word something that only the royal family could use. People who said this out loud were either people born before the Ping Dynasty, or some emperors after that, or leaders of some minority ethnic groups imitating the Central Plains system. And the demon head said "Qingping Division" when he was in the Red Marsh Hospital. The Qingping Division did not exist before Qi Ping Emperor, it was an original institution created by Sheng Xiao, the son of Ping Emperor and the Great Emperor of Qi, so the demon probably belonged to the second group.

Xuan Ji decided to be vague and pretend to try.

Unexpectedly, as soon as his words fell, he heard a hoarse voice laughing low beside his ear: "So what do you want me to do to repay you?"

This sentence was nothing, and then there was an even more shocking sentence - Xuan Ji heard the demon head in the sword say: "Want to cheat me? This little demon is not small in courage."

Xuan Ji's mind was blank for a moment, and then his whole body's hair exploded: "Damn, he can hear what I'm thinking!"

At the same time, Sheng Lingyuan in the sword obviously "heard" his swearing, and realized something.

These two people belong to the type with thousands of tricks and fathomless eyes. Unexpectedly, one day they were forced to "understand each other's minds" with a stranger whose position was unclear.

They were connected even more tightly!

The reactions of the two were quite consistent. Almost at the same time, they emptied their brains and forced themselves to focus on one thing, cutting off all thoughts – Xuan Ji began to count Luo Cuicui's hair on his head, and Sheng Lingyuan in the sword recited an incomprehensible ancient scripture.

People with deep minds can control their microexpressions, and some masters can even accurately arrange their body language, but who can control their own brains?
Comrade Luo Cuicui was rather finite, Xuan Ji soon counted them all, and a thought still could not help but emerge: "I've seen a ghost, what broken situation is this?"

Sheng Lingyuan recited his ancient scripture with grinding teeth.

Xuan Ji's thoughts ran wild: "The Bureau has pitted me, and they haven't paid my fourteen months' salary yet, this matter is not over."

Although Sheng Lingyuan's scripture that he was reciting was incomprehensible to anyone else, Xuan Ji could tell from his intonation that he had repeated one sentence three or four times, and then he couldn't help but let out a sentence: "I will cut the one who initiated the Yin Sacrifice ritual into a thousand pieces."

Xuan Ji's mind stirred: "So there is someone who initiated the Yin Sacrifice rituall? Is Bi Chunsheng really just a puppet on the surface?"

He threw out a question, and two voices came out from Sheng Lingyuan's side at the same time. 

One was the unhurried and relaxed tone he used when he spoke, accompanied by a light laugh: "You guess."

The other was cold: "Nonsense."

Xuan Ji: "..."

Master Demon, you are so sharp.

Sheng Lingyuan's contradictory response was instinctive, and after he said it, he reacted: "What does 'sharp' mean?"

"Sharp means..." Xuan Ji couldn't explain clearly for a moment, his mind was in chaos, and the noise in his heart gathered into a group, finally converging into a sentence, "I'm going crazy, what a mess."

No one on the plane knew that in the blink of an eye, the calm and wooden Xuan Master and his sword had a chain reaction in his mind. Ping Qianru took out the first-aid kit and ran back: "How is it? Master, I've never used this first-aid kit before, do you know how to use it"

"Give me a wet tissue first." Xuan Ji raised his injured hand for her to see, and the wound that had been bleeding profusely was now only left with a shallow white mark, "Then tell me, the carpet cleaning fee can be reimbursed, right?"

Ping Qianru stared at his intact hand in a daze.

Xuan Ji: "Sorry, you came too late, you didn't get to see it healing."

The good thing about the special world is that everyone's special abilities are not too similar, so when everyone finds that the other person has some incredible abilities, most of them are not too surprised. The last time Ping Qianru went on a business trip with this new boss was unforgettable - thunder and lightning, fire and ice, and two buildings were blown up. Compared with this, the wound healing quickly seemed not so shocking, so she just shocked for a moment, accepted the setting, and started to help him clean up the blood.

Xuan Ji emptied his mind through the mechanical wiping work, and Sheng Lingyuan recited the classics and histories back and forth several times. After cleaning up the blood, the two finally calmed down from the chaos.

Then Xuan Ji found that his "thirst for the sword" had relapsed, and the strong sense of anxiety was even more fierce than before. He was like a hungry ghost seeing steamed buns, and the craving of an addict broke all rationality. Xuan Ji endured with inhuman perseverance for five minutes, and then his rationality collapsed, and he "asked" the heavy sword out from under the seat with both hands, trembling and started "sucking the sword".

Sheng Lingyuan: "Impudent!"

Xuan Ji avoided the sword edge, desperately rubbing the cold sword body: "I said, Senior, you don't want us to be like this, do you have any ideas?"

Sheng Lingyuan was brief and concise: "Let me out."

Xuan Ji: "Do you think I don't want to? I don't even know how you got in!"

Sheng Lingyuan didn't say anything out loud, but he thought darkly in his heart: "Once the owner of the sword dies, the life-bound sword will destroy itself."

Xuan Ji forcibly suppressed the impulse to stick his face to the sword body, and said in despair: "OK, great lord, you’re welcome to try."

Sheng Lingyuan looked at Xuan Ji's neck artery from the sword body, and his voice was very dangerous: "Little demon, I am parasitized in this sword, and I will be able to control the sword body in time. If you don't want to be headless in your dream one day, it's better to break the sword."

Xuan Ji sighed: "But I don't have this skill."

His "separation anxiety" with his life-bound sword was not only unbearable without touching the sword for a while, he couldn't even think of breaking the sword in his mind. As soon as he had this thought, he was in pain all over, as if his own body was smashed. Besides, his sword was immune to fire and water, and could melt gold and break jade. Even if he was willing to give up, he really didn't know how to break it.

They were forced to be honest with each other and hiding was no longer an option, both of them knew what was going on. Sheng Lingyuan found out that the little demon was as he had guessed, completely clueless and ignorant. Xuan Ji found out that the big demon had no memory and his memory was like a fog, no beginning and no end.

The two of them had exposed each other's shallow depths, so they could only stand side by side in a deadlock amidst the sound of the plane engine. While thinking of how to kill each other, they also had a hint of sympathy for each other in this strange tacit understanding.

After a while, Xuan Ji started to actively solve the problem. He tried to put aside his grievances and negotiate with the big demon who was connected to his mind: "Senior, why don't we try to share information and be honest with each other? I think that in life, we can tell people everything, right?"

Before he finished speaking, Sheng Lingyuan heard the little demon say uncontrollably: "Like hell."

The big demon also chuckled and said: "That's right, what you said makes sense."

Along with the thought of "like hell" that was sent back.

Next, the two of them quickly exchanged insults with their minds. Xuan Ji saw that this was not a solution, so he fully demonstrated the glorious qualities of modern society, bending and stretching, and quickly adjusted his mentality: "Senior, although we both want to send each other to the end, no one can do it in a short time, right? You don't want to be so exposed either."

Sheng Lingyuan didn't explain, he understood the meaning of "privacy" according to the context. After a moment of silence, Xuan Ji heard him go through a lot of spiritual techniques that he had never heard of in his mind. Before he could "hear" clearly, Sheng Lingyuan said: "Unite the mind and enter a state of concentration, and you can eliminate distractions."

Xuan Ji: "..."

Sheng Lingyuan: "You don't even know what entering a state of concentration is?"

Xuan Ji did know what it was, the ancient books of his clan had detailed how to enter a state of concentration. People who enter a state of concentration do not need to eat or sleep, and are not affected by external objects – he understood the principle, but now it was working hours, his colleagues were discussing the case and waiting for him to assign tasks, and he was closing his eyes and meditating next to them, how could that be possible?

What's more, he couldn't do it either.

Sheng Lingyuan thought he had heard it wrong: "What can't you do?"

Can't enter a state of concentration?

How did you grow up then?

Xuan Ji may have some physical defects, he couldn't even learn meditation. When he was working in the company before, the company's employee assistance program invited a psychological counselor to take the employees to do "positive meditation" exercises, which was similar to meditation. Xuan Ji didn't need much guidance, and he could easily enter that "body and mind as a mirror" state, but every time he was "awakened" by an inexplicable fear and panic for no reason, it was as if there was a mechanism on his body to prevent him. After trying twice or three times, he started to instinctively reject this activity, and he never participated in it afterwards.

"This is interesting, I have never seen someone who can't enter a state of concentration before, it really is a big world, full of surprises," Sheng Lingyuan saw his memory, and then said very casually, "It doesn't matter, I will do it."

"Wait a minute," Xuan Ji shouted to him, "Senior, you... you are knowledgeable, isn't there a better way? Entering a state of concentration is inconvenient."

Sheng Lingyuan entering a state of concentration unilaterally could indeed isolate the two from each other's perception. This was equivalent to erecting a door in the unexpectedly connected sea of knowledge between the two. The only problem was that this door was "locked" - the big demon could open it whenever he wanted.

Sheng Lingyuan's voice carried a smile: "It can't be more inconvenient than it is now, so it's settled."

Xuan Ji: "No! I don't agree, this is unfair!"

The big demon laughed out loud, without hesitation, in the blink of an eye, there was no sound from him. Xuan Ji could only vaguely hear the long and even breathing in his original sword.

Damn it!

The plane threw the broken negotiations and the bitter aftertaste behind, and flew to Dongchuan.