Chapter 169 The Realm of Trials (Part 20)

The outskirts of Linhua City.

Jiang Gu's primordial spirit, which he had just reassembled, was severely damaged and needed to be reforged. He found a secluded spot and turned around to see Wei Feng following closely behind him.

"Aren't you going back to report?" Jiang Gu said coldly.

"No rush, there are still two days." Wei Feng walked to his side and said in a low voice, "Just make up an excuse to get by."

Jiang Gu glanced at him indifferently, and Wei Feng immediately gave him a well-behaved smile. His rotten hand gripped Jiang Gu's sleeve tightly, staining the snow-white fabric red.

"Heal yourself." Jiang Gu pulled out his sleeve.

Wei Feng didn't mind his coldness and aloofness, and grabbed his sleeve again, "Master, I can't heal myself without returning to the Blood Sea, please help me."

Jiang Gu lifted his eyelids in displeasure, but Wei Feng shamelessly grinned and said, "Master, your curved blade is really powerful; it even shattered my bones."

Jiang Gu said, "The primordial spirit has no bones."

"It hurts more than having your bones shattered." Wei Feng immediately changed his tune.

"..." Jiang Gu was silent for a moment. In that short time, Wei Feng had already smeared all the blood on his hands onto his sleeve. Everything in the second realm was formed from primordial spirits. This was no different from smearing his own primordial spirit onto Jiang Gu's primordial spirit. His sinister intentions were obvious. "Get into the formation."

Wei Feng looked with some disappointment at the fact that the blood formed from his primordial spirit was blocked by the jade armor, and reluctantly stepped into Jiang Gu's magic array for repairing his primordial spirit.

Jiang Gu's spiritual power was pure and powerful, a clean metal-elemental spiritual power. Wei Feng felt the warmth emanating from his entire primordial spirit and comfortably squinted his eyes.

Jiang Gu sat cross-legged in front of the formation and began to repair his primordial spirit with his spiritual power. He originally wanted to repair the outer shell of his primordial spirit that had been kneaded together first. Wei Feng could absorb spiritual power on his own in the formation. However, before his spiritual power could touch the mixed primordial spirit, Wei Feng had already turned into black mist, which took the lead in binding and annihilating the spiritual power in his formation and swallowing it all into his stomach.

Jiang Gu paused slightly, then decided to repair his primordial spirit first.

But Wei Feng wasn't satisfied with that. The murky black mist, following the source of his spiritual energy that he had channeled into the formation, blatantly penetrated the jade armor protecting his spirit and adhered to his primordial spirit without any obstruction. Wei Feng's aggrieved yet ingratiating voice rang in his ear, "Master, relying solely on the formation is too slow. By the time it's repaired, a whole day will have passed. I've finally managed to get out, and spiritual communication is more beneficial for the recovery of my primordial spirit. Master, please consider it another detoxification for me, okay?"

Jiang Gu slowly opened his eyes and met Wei Feng's eyes, which were churning with desire. He wanted to crush Wei Feng's head to see what was inside.

Wei Feng sighed in disappointment, raised his hand to support his shoulder, and settled for second best, "Then let's kiss."

He leaned in, and just as he was about to touch Jiang Gu's lips, the cold tip of the sword pressed against his neck. His Adam's apple bobbed slightly, and he moved forward without hesitation. Sure enough, the Crimson Snow Sword disappeared from its spot in the next instant.

Jiang Gu turned his head away, and Wei Feng's dry lips brushed against his earlobe before he pressed his entire body against him. Wei Feng's burning soul seemed to have just been pulled out of a fire, and he held Jiang Gu tightly in his arms, letting out a satisfied sigh.

This is really... hard to explain.

Jiang Gu frowned deeply, reached out and placed his hand on Wei Feng's back, cautiously releasing a wisp of spiritual energy to probe. As soon as the wisp of spiritual energy touched Wei Feng, it was eagerly wrapped up by a ghostly pattern, which licked it twice before swallowing it whole and disappearing without a trace.

Wei Feng lazily leaned on his shoulder, slowly rubbing his cheek against his neck. "Master, do you know what happens if you abstain from sex for too long in the Six Desires Path?"

Jiang Gu grabbed the back of his neck and forced him to lift his head. Wei Feng's eyes seemed to be glowing with a green light as he looked at him, but his voice was slow and deliberate, "You'll suffocate."

Wei Feng transformed into mist and passed through the jade armor. The two were now in close contact with each other without any obstruction. However, Wei Feng dared not make any rash moves. Ever since Jiang Gu agreed to let him enter the great formation to repair his primordial spirit, he felt as if he had been tormented and boiled on a charcoal fire. Jiang Gu's primordial spirit was the only clear spring that could quench his thirst.

But Jiang Gu sat cross-legged in place, motionless, his expression calm and indifferent, completely unaffected by the mist or the primordial spirit clinging to him.

“It’s normal for the Six Desires Path to be obsessed with desires. Try refining them into spiritual power to aid your cultivation. It should be of great benefit.” Jiang Gu analyzed for him without changing his expression, never forgetting to teach and discipline him. “Don’t be controlled by desires. Your Dao Heart was unstable before, which is why you were controlled by the Golden Spirit Mace. Compared to a divine weapon, you yourself are more like a weapon.”

Wei Feng gritted his teeth in anger, "My Dao heart is very stable, Master, please help me."

A hint of impatience flashed in Jiang Gu's eyes, "If you even need help refining spiritual energy—"

Before he could finish speaking, a bloody claw grabbed his wrist and pressed him into a thick black mist. Even though he was only a primordial spirit, the touch and temperature were still quite clear.

The scene seemed familiar. Before Jiang Gu could even turn hostile, Wei Feng's restrained and aggrieved voice rang in his ears, "I can't do it myself."

Jiang Gu's expression went blank for a moment.

Before Jiang Gu could process the news, Wei Feng gritted his teeth and said with a desperate look, "When I first came to Wangyue, I cleverly sealed my Six Desires Dao Heart. As a result, my Yuan Dan was dug out and my Yuan Shen was shattered. When I tried to put it back together, I found that my Dao Heart was solidified and I could not advance at all. I tried many methods, but none of them had much effect. It should be because I have been separated from my body for too long. But because of this, my Yuan Shen is too slow to merge. I cannot sever the connection with the Blood Bodhi. I can only become soil and be constantly absorbed by it."

"you--"

“The Six Desires and the Daoist Mind are somewhat related to this,” Wei Feng said confidently. “Master, you are my only hope now, but you refuse to communicate with me spiritually. Can you at least help me out?”

He initially tried to be serious, but the more he spoke, the redder his face became. In the end, he stared at Jiang Gu with a flushed face, but his hand refused to loosen its grip even slightly.

"Nonsense!" Jiang Gu shouted sternly, his face darkening as he warned him, "Let go."

Wei Feng stubbornly refused, his eyes filled with a damp and dark mist. "You have no idea how painful this is for the Six Desires Path. I feel like my primordial spirit is about to explode all the time, but I dare not let anyone touch me because you don't like it."

His words were blunt and audacious. Jiang Gu was just gathering his strength to disperse the black mist when Wei Feng suddenly let go of his hand, looking at him with red eyes as if he had suffered an extremely heavy blow, and asked him in a hoarse voice, "Am I really that disgusting to you?"

An unspeakable silence fell over the surroundings.

Wei Feng chuckled self-deprecatingly, lowered his eyes dejectedly, and skillfully prepared to use his primordial spirit to forcibly suppress it. Jiang Gu, who had been silent all along, suddenly formed a hand seal and pressed it against his lower abdomen.

Wei Feng looked up in surprise, only to see Jiang Gu coldly lowering his eyes, making a hand seal with one hand and setting up an array with the other, re-incorporating all the meridians of his primordial spirit into the array for repairing the primordial spirit. Then, a trickle of golden spiritual power flowed into his dark and turbid primordial spirit.

"The way of the six desires is better to guide than to block." He spoke slowly, guiding Wei Feng's primordial spirit to condense his meridians, using his own spiritual power as a guide to clear the stagnant energy accumulated in his body.

Wei Feng sensed the changes in his internal energy and stared intently at him. Jiang Gu cleverly and cunningly avoided his questioning, adopting a businesslike demeanor that was both infuriating and captivating.

Jiang Gu's long, slender, and pale fingers formed complex hand seals and pressed them onto the acupoints around his body. "The Dao Heart is established by comprehending the rules of heaven and earth. No matter what kind of Dao Heart it is, one can glimpse heaven and earth in every little detail. The Dao Heart is me, and I am heaven and earth. It is not about relying on a specific thing, whether it is a person or an object. Do you understand?"

The desire churning within him was like oil being poured on a raging fire. Wei Feng clenched his fists, his hands resting on his knees, the veins on the back of his hands bulging. He lifted his sweat-dampened eyelashes and understood that Jiang Gu was subtly telling him something—it was enlightenment, it was also instruction.

Jiang Gu knew how he had established the Six Desires Dao Heart.

He was merely a figure seen amidst the thunderous roar; his Six Desires Dao Heart was not for heaven and earth, nor for himself, but solely for Jiang Gu from beginning to end.

Jiang Gu had known all along.

That makes sense. He's so smart; even his approach to me has ulterior motives. How could I not know?

Wei Feng's taut hands were damp with black mist. He hated Jiang Gu's indifference and was even more tormented by the solution Jiang Gu had come up with. The surging desire was forcibly channeled into his meridians and refined into spiritual power. He felt as if he were on the verge of heaven and hell, with extreme bliss on one side and extreme suffering on the other, but he could not grasp either side.

Jiang Gu personally guided him on how to refine and consolidate his Dao heart, and taught him how to accumulate spiritual power in the meridians expanded by his primordial spirit. No matter how Wei Feng resisted, his steps were flawless, and he showed no mercy when forcibly expanding the meridians.

There are no meridians in the primordial spirit, so doing this is no different from slowly and deliberately cutting the primordial spirit with a curved knife.

Wei Feng's breathing trembled. After Jiang Gu led him through a complete cycle of the Great Heavenly Cycle, he was in so much pain that his vision became somewhat dazed. Then, a feeling of pleasure akin to spiritual communion swept over his primordial spirit from within and without, and he stared in astonishment.

Jiang Gu frowned slightly as he looked at his primordial spirit, which had been repaired by the magic array. "Have you remembered all the cultivation techniques I just taught you?"

Wei Feng opened his mouth, a mixture of shock, elation, and confusion burning his ears as if they were about to bleed. "Master, Master, you...I—"

"Everyone has seven emotions and six desires, though some are more and some are less. Taking them too seriously can easily lead to obsession, while taking them too lightly can easily lead to demonic possession." Jiang Gu didn't take it to heart. "You need to learn to control them."

“But you cultivate the Path of Ruthlessness, so you wouldn’t also have…” Wei Feng looked at him, somewhat bewildered, “…desire?”

He spoke the last two words very softly, with a hint of doubt. In his mind, Jiang Gu and those two words seemed completely unrelated.

The Way of Ruthlessness should be one that severs all feelings and love, and is devoid of desires and wants.

“Of course.” Jiang Gu readily admitted it. He raised his hand, placed a concentration talisman between Wei Feng’s eyebrows with his fingertips, his gaze calm and his voice even more subdued than the talisman.

"Living in this world, I also have desires."