Chapter 18 Dual Cultivation Method:
Rong Xie stared in astonishment at the drunkard who had climbed in through the window and was banging on the mirror as if it were a door, finding it hard to believe that he was Shen Bingsi.
The numbing effect of alcohol is negligible for cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage. If they wish, alcohol can evaporate and be expelled from their bodies instantly. Even the strongest liquor is like water to them.
The mirror made a strange sound, almost like it was breaking, and Rong Xie jumped up.
"Shen Bingsi, Shen Bingsi!" Rong Xie mobilized his spiritual power to pull Shen Bingsi away, to prevent her from being injured by his protective spiritual energy. However, Shen Bingsi hadn't activated her protective spiritual energy at all, and she rolled into his arms as soon as he pulled her.
Rong Xie was almost knocked over by him, and he barely managed to stand up by straining his legs.
"The first principle of this dual cultivation method... is, is..." Shen Bingsi muttered to herself.
"What did you say?" Rong Xie helped him sit down at the table, added a cushion for him, and made him sit properly in the chair. "Wait a moment, I'll go heat up some hangover soup."
"The Yang spirit emerges from the crown...and thus ceases to exert its power!" Shen Bingsi grabbed Rong Xie's sleeve, preventing him from leaving, nodding her head repeatedly as she muttered, "Do you know what...hiccup...the Yang spirit? The so-called Yang spirit is the...the...yang of a man..."
Rong Xie's cheeks flushed slightly. Of course, he knew what Yang Shen was. Yang Shen had many meanings and was often used to refer to a man's yang essence. However, he didn't want to talk about it now. Shen Bing Si had drunk too much and was bound to say some indecent things. He would probably feel very annoyed after he sobered up.
"Bing Si, sit for a while, I'll be right back." Rong Xie tugged at the corner of his sleeve, trying to pull it out of Shen Bing Si's hand.
Shen Bingsi refused to let go, and in the struggle, Rong Xie's sleeve made a tearing sound. He had no choice but to give up heating up the hangover soup and stand next to Shen Bingsi, waiting for him to finish spouting his nonsense.
"The key is...so that you don't act...so that you don't act...follow your instincts, but don't act, wait...wait until your spiritual energy has circulated...a full cycle, and don't...don't let it leak out..." Shen Bingsi mumbled indistinctly, repeatedly emphasizing, "This is very...very important! Very important!"
Upon hearing this, Rong Xie understood that Shen Bing Si wasn't talking nonsense, but was teaching him the method of dual cultivation!
Rong Xie had never read any books related to dual cultivation. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't borrow them. These books were only available to cultivators who had become Daoist partners. Therefore, although he had heard of dual cultivation for a long time, he knew nothing about it.
Upon suddenly hearing Shen Bingsi mention dual cultivation, Rong Xie wished he could plug his ears. His mind was filled with stimulating images and sounds, making it impossible for him to think about anything else.
Now, under Shen Bingsi's drunken state, he was forced to hear the words of the dual cultivation method. Only then did he realize that the dual cultivation method was indeed an internal energy cultivation technique. It was not something that could be succeeded by simply following one's instincts without knowing anything.
For example, there is a basic prerequisite for successful dual cultivation: the yang spirit must not be depleted.
The four sentences that Shen Bingsi recited conveyed this meaning.
The so-called "Yang Shen not being depleted" requires both practitioners to maintain a state of not depleting their yang spirit throughout the entire cultivation process. Once the yang spirit is depleted, the dual cultivation will fail.
"So that's how it is..." Rong Xie suddenly realized, as if struck by a sudden enlightenment, "No wonder..."
No wonder Shen Bingsi sighed at that time.
No wonder Shen Bingsi didn't continue after that.
So, so the reason for the failure of dual cultivation was actually Rong Xie—
His stamina was too poor, and the situation was so sudden that he couldn't withstand the touch of Shen Bingsi and broke his composure, so the dual cultivation naturally failed.
Rong Xie looked at Shen Bing Si with a complicated expression.
Shen Bingsi genuinely wanted to teach him, but she couldn't bring herself to say these things when she was sober. That's why she blurted them out in a drunken rage. It's pitiful that Shen Bingsi was so eager to help him build his foundation, but he was always thinking about other things.
"I understand, don't worry." Rong Xie gently patted Shen Bingsi's back.
Upon hearing these words, Shen Bingsi loosened her grip on the hem of her clothes, lowered her head, and fell silent.
Rong Xie looked him over, a slight pang of sadness in her heart.
Shen Bingsi got very drunk and didn't wake up until noon.
He jumped up, looked around, and realized he was in his bedroom.
With a sigh of relief, Shen Bingsi lay back down and took a good nap.
I slept until the afternoon this time.
"Huh? What's this?" When Shen Bingsi washed her face in front of the bronze mirror, she noticed that the side of her forehead was a little red, as if she had bumped into something.
Shen Bingsi suddenly remembered that he had drunk too much last night and seemed to have banged his head against someone's window...
Judging from the surrounding environment, it's very likely to be their own home.
Shen Bingsi channeled her spiritual power, and the red mark on her forehead disappeared in an instant.
It's all because of Lao Chu's newly brewed "April Day" wine. Lao Chu said that this wine is not very strong, but it can relax people, just like taking a boat ride on a lake in April when the flowers are in full bloom. You will be intoxicated without realizing it.
As a result, Shen Bingsi got so drunk that she was completely disoriented and didn't even know how she crawled home...
I don't know if I got drunk and acted out yesterday, or if I said or did anything I shouldn't have.
Shen Bingsi felt a pang of unease.
Shen Bingsi tidied herself up quickly, went outside, and strolled around the yard. Several times she passed by the kitchen and study, glancing through the crack in the door each time.
Finally, on her third walk toward the study, Shen Bingsi saw a white figure appear at the corner of the corridor outside the study, holding an axe in his hand.
Shen Bingsi was overjoyed and started walking up, but suddenly felt that something was wrong.
...Wait, an axe?
What is Rong Xie doing with the axe?
Several possibilities immediately came to mind.
The root of the problem lies in the steamy bathroom. In the bathtub, his usually gentle and obedient best friend desperately resisted him in his arms, his eyes red from crying. But he gave him no room to maneuver until he collapsed in the water, his eyes blank.
Shen Bingsi closed her eyes briefly.
He realized he wasn't as brave as he'd thought. He couldn't bear to see Rong Xie looking at him with disgust and fear. When they met the next morning, he kept staring at the mutton soup dumplings and didn't dare look at Rong Xie's expression.
...
What's meant to happen will happen, and no matter what his best friend decides to do, he will not back down.
Shen Bingsi walked up to her.
"You're up?" Rong Xie stopped and looked at Shen Bingsi gently. "Is your head still dizzy? Yesterday..."
Rong Xie's voice was like a gentle spring stream, flowing slowly through Shen Bingsi's heart. He could barely hear what Rong Xie said, but Rong Xie's attitude made all his worries disappear, and he felt like he had come back to life.
"Hmm, what are you doing with that axe?" Shen Bingsi asked when Rong Xie stopped talking.
Rong Xie sighed helplessly. He had just finished speaking when he said, "You broke the latch on the window yesterday, so I quickly chopped up a piece of wood to see if I could put it in."
"Oh..." Shen Bingsi felt a faint throbbing pain in the area of her forehead that had recovered. "So that's how it is."
Rong Xie, holding the freshly split wooden strip, went to the window inside the house, compared it to the window latch, and muttered to himself, "It's about right... but this side is too rough, I need to use a file to smooth it out."
"Let me see." Shen Bingsi leaned closer, bypassed Rong Xie's arm, and pushed the wooden strip in his hand towards the window. Their hands touched, and Rong Xie froze for a moment. He quickly withdrew his hand from the wooden strip and subconsciously turned his body to the side to give Shen Bingsi space.
Shen Bingsi paused slightly, but her hand still steadily pushed the wooden strip into the groove for the window bolt. Just as Rong Xie had said, the facade was too rough to fit it in.
"No need for a file." Shen Bingsi withdrew her arm and placed the wooden strip in front of her. In a moment, with a flash of sword light, the wooden strip was shaved into a flat rectangular block with six smooth sides as if it had been waxed. Shen Bingsi placed the wooden strip into the groove, and it fit perfectly, even better than the original window bolt.
“…Amazing!” Rong Xie exclaimed.
"What else is broken? Let's fix it all together." Shen Bingsi sheathed her flying sword, patted off imaginary dust from her hands, and asked cheerfully.
"And the mirror, it's dented. I'll go to town another day to find a repairman to fix it," Rong Xie continued.
"I'll fix it." Shen Bingsi looked around. "Which mirror?"
Rong Xie opened the door, revealing a full-length mirror behind it. The two looked at the large recessed part of the mirror again and again. The reflection in the mirror became very distorted, like two deformed people with small heads and large bodies standing side by side, their small heads squeezed together.
"Let's choose another one," Shen Bingsi said after observing for a moment.
All the work I could do has been done.
Shen Bingsi lowered her arms, unsure of what to do, and circled halfway around her body before turning her back to her.
With the doors and windows tightly closed, in the limited space, he and Rong Xie stood side by side. They could see each other with just a slight turn of their heads, but they seemed frozen in place, staring blankly at the two deformed people "head to head" in the mirror.
Shen Bingsi took a deep breath. No matter what, he should tell Rong Xie about that matter so that they could continue their cultivation.
"I have something to say..."
"Bing Si, that..."
The two spoke almost simultaneously, and then stopped at the same time.
The two little heads in the mirror turned around and faced each other, and the concave mirror made their noses seem to be embedded together.
"What do you want to say?" Shen Bingsi asked.
"I...it's nothing, you go first." Rong Xie clasped his hands in front of him, rubbing his right index finger with his left hand.
“I think…” We should still continue our cultivation. The first principle of the dual cultivation technique is to prevent the loss of Yang spirit—these words had never been so difficult to say before. They rolled around on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn’t say them. After a long while, Shen Bingsi said, “I want to go to town and take the mirror with me. I’ll get a new one that’s about the same size. Do you want to come with me?”
“Okay…” Rong Xie nodded.
Another silence fell.
"What were you trying to say?" Shen Bingsi pressed.
He harbored some unrealistic fantasies, hoping that Rong Xie would take the initiative to ask him why the dual cultivation had failed and if there was any way to make up for it. In this way, he could naturally tell him the crux of the problem, that as long as they studied and communicated together more, they could overcome these problems, and then smoothly arrange the time for the next "study and communication".
Rong Xie turned his face slightly away and looked at the ground, as if Shen Bing Si's overly naked gaze would burn his face.
“The head steward of the Shen family has been contacting me frequently lately, saying he wants to send a pageboy over. I’ve looked at the roster and the conditions are quite good.”
Rong Xie pondered for a moment before speaking.
"Why don't we select a few to stay at the manor and help me manage the daily affairs? Once they're skilled, I can even teach them how to count rare and precious herbs, so we won't have to borrow people from the inner sect."
"Besides, I also want to focus on my studies..."
Shen Bingsi felt something shatter with a "crack".
"Why?" He frowned. "Why let those people from the Shen family in? They'll only cause trouble; they're of no help at all. I don't agree!"
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