Tome of Troubled Times

Chapter 302: The Long-Awaited Blind Woman

Lady Three left.

Zhao Changhe returned to his room to rest, his head aching.

The Rejuvenation Art was not something he could handle at the moment. The mental pain caused by attempting to grasp the concept of a fundamental law had still not subsided. It had left him with no energy to talk with Lady Three, let alone flirt with her; and neither of them was in the mood for that.

On the other hand, this art was an unexpected gain that did not seem to directly improve his strength, but it held immense future potential. The only troublesome point was that it did not quite fit his style or meld well with his system of martial arts.

A berserker with a healing skill really just does not make much sense...

His current state was overly mixed. Even though he tried to integrate everything into a single coherent system, it was still a chaotic collection of techniques in the end.

To step into the first layer of the Profound Mysteries and become what people called a “master,” it was clear that it was not just about breaking through in terms of strength.[1] It required a thorough understanding and organization of one’s martial arts; it required one to create something uniquely their own.

For someone like Hu Lie, it was his scimitar merging with the sands. For Vulture Beak, it was the meteors falling upon the battlefield. For Yue Hongling, it was the setting sun reflected upon the river.

They had their unique styles, and their martial paths had a distinct essence and spirit.

Most of the other half-baked ninth-layer practitioners were unable to connect the bridge between heaven and earth, and it was because they were lacking in this specific aspect. They merely mimicked others, following the book, lacking their unique insights, and failing to create something of their own. They blindly increased their strength, but doing just that did not make them worthy of being recognized as a master.

Being challenged and defeated by opponents of lower cultivation was due to this lack of depth.

However, for Zhao Changhe, this chaotic mix was not exactly a bad thing. It represented breadth. It was only by experiencing a wide range of knowledge that one could cross-check and adopt the strengths of different options, ultimately making something of their own and returning to simplicity, returning to that singular vertical and horizontal slash.

For instance, this Rejuvenation Art... it could at least demonstrate how to influence another’s body and blood flow, and this was an important point of reference for the Vicious Blood Saber Art.

When the Vicious Blood Saber Art was practiced to a high level, beyond instilling fear, its most important effect was actually to cause the target’s blood flow to go crazy, leading to a horrible death from within. Zhao Changhe had never fully understood how to achieve this until now.

Under the moonlight, Zhao Changhe stood outside the courtyard holding Dragon Bird in his hand. He stood silently for a long time before suddenly swinging his saber.

The saber moved silently; the moonlight cast no shadows.

This was Hell on Earth, now incorporating the Yellow Sand Saber Art.

Hell could be noisy, and it could be silent. In the past, Zhao Changhe did not know how to swing a saber silently, always opting for fierce and violent strikes. But after the battle with Hu Lie, he understood how to strike soundlessly, perfecting Hell on Earth, which proved crucial during his assassination of the envoy in Batu’s army. That had been his process of verification.

A noisy hell was brutal and fierce, with flames raging everywhere, instilling fear.

A silent hell was oppressive and hopeless, shrouded in utter darkness, equally fearsome.

Different approaches, the same result, adapted to varying environments.

And then...

The soundless saber qi shot straight to the treetop, reaching a sparrow before it even sensed the danger and could fly away.

The bird felt its blood surge wildly, and even before the saber qi reached it, its blood had already burst out, causing it to die an extremely gruesome death.

This was Hell on Earth.

Hell on Earth was now perfected.

It was no longer just a saber art at the eighth layer of the Profound Gate... it was now at the level of the Profound Mysteries, peeking into the extremely subtle and mysterious door of martial arts.

Cui Wenjing, Tang Wanzhuang, and many others had said that the Vicious Blood Saber Art was excellent. It would have been easy for any of them to find Zhao Changhe a good saber art, yet they had not done so, reflecting just how excellent the Vicious Blood Saber Art was. Now, its brilliance was evident once more. At the level of the Profound Mysteries, the Vicious Blood Saber Art was no less impressive than other saber arts.

Of course, it still depended on who used it.

Zhao Changhe breathed a sigh of relief, sheathed his saber, and went back inside to rest.

His mind had yet to recover, and the saber practice made his head hurt even more. Leaning against the bed, Zhao Changhe soon fell asleep.

*

Several times he had expected the blind woman to appear, yet she never had.

This time, he had not thought about it at all, falling asleep in utter exhaustion, but she finally appeared.

Unlike at the beginning, when she stood before him without hesitation, or the recent times when she deliberately stayed further away from him, this time the blind woman hung on a treetop outside the window, where the sparrow had just been. She was neither too close nor too far, and it finally no longer felt awkward as it had been before. The distance between them felt like a much more natural distance for conversation.

Zhao Changhe sighed. “You’re here?”

The blind woman seemed to choke up as well. After such a long time without facing each other, suddenly appearing before him made her unsure of how to start the conversation. After a while, she finally said, “You have peeked into the doors of the Profound Mysteries. I sensed it, so I came to see you... Is there nothing you need clarification on?”

Zhao Changhe said calmly, “Besides not really knowing who you are, there isn’t really anything I need to ask you.”

The blind woman said, “Because you have integrated into this world, living your life with its joys and sorrows. You now also have your own understanding and path of exploration for martial arts and the previous era. Now, whether I am here or not makes no difference, unlike when you first arrived in this world and wanted guidance for everything.”

Zhao Changhe nodded. “Perhaps.”

Indeed, seeing her now did not stir up any emotions within him. The resentment and discomfort he felt before had faded a lot, and he really did feel that it made no difference whether she was around or not.

Unless she started causing trouble, in which case there would be no end to it.

The blind woman concluded, “You are now a person of this world.”

Zhao Changhe was silent for a moment, then asked with a strange expression, “Did you do all this just to achieve this result, always flattering me just for this?”

The blind man was puzzled. “When did I flatter you?”

“The Tome of Troubled Times is practically a book of flattery. People have long since begun to suspect that I have a relationship with the spirit of the tome. Did you really not realize it?”

The blind woman laughed. “Stop trying to figure out my identity. It’s meaningless... The Tome of Troubled Times is an embodiment of the Heavenly Dao. It only gives the evaluations it considers important. Your actions deserve that evaluation, and it has nothing to do with me.”

“Is that really the case? Then how do you explain its expectations that seem to come from my perspective?”

“It’s because the Heavenly Dao stands from everyone’s perspective. If someone else had done what you did, they would have received the same evaluation.”

“Alright.” Zhao Changhe originally wanted to ask her opinion on Xia Longyuan, but he found himself in a situation just like Lady Three’s—some time had passed and the anger had faded, so it did not seem worth asking anymore.

After thinking for a long time, Zhao Changhe realized he truly had nothing to ask the blind woman. As for deeper matters like specific events of the previous era, which gods and Buddhas were still lurking around, where they were, and what their purpose was, he knew that such questions would not be answered even if he asked, so why bother asking?

In the current situation, it might even be better if she did not exist. If that were the case, he would likely feel much more comfortable and free.

After thinking for a while, he asked a very direct question, “It feels like completely unsealing the golden foil is a distant goal. Does it require any treasures that I can go find?”

The blind woman replied, “It does not need that. What it requires is the spirit qi of heaven and earth, and... completeness.”

“Similar to what Ying Five is working toward? A complete world?”

“That’s one way. The key is that it itself is not complete.”

“The golden foil is incomplete? Why don’t I seem to have noticed?”

“The page is whole, but it’s still only one page.”

Zhao Changhe understood. To fully unseal the golden foil, he would probably need to collect all the pages of the Heavenly Tome, or at least most of them.

He asked directly, “How many pages are there in total?”

“Nine, nine is the number of extremes.”

“Do you have any clues you can give me on the other pages’ whereabouts?”

“None. It’s impossible for them to exist in the mortal world. They would be in various ancient secret realms, some of which are formed precisely because of the existence of a page of the Heavenly Tome.”

“Is it because heaven and man are separate? Is that why they wouldn’t fall in the mortal or human world?”

“You could say that.”

“Has anyone ever found any of them, such as Xia Longyuan?”

The blind woman was silent for a moment, then slowly said, “Maybe.”

Maybe... Zhao Changhe frowned, carefully scrutinizing the blind woman.

If she were the tome spirit, she could be unaware of other things, but not knowing where the pages of the Heavenly Tome are makes no sense. Could she really not be the tome spirit? Was my beauty cream wasted on her?

Or perhaps Xia Longyuan, with his great power, isolated her perception? Hm, that seems more likely. The feeling of being watched at all times was probably something that Xia Longyuan could not tolerate. He should have figured out a way to prevent himself from being surveilled all the time.

Zhao Changhe suddenly wondered, Can the blind woman watch when I’m having sex?

“Alright.” Zhao Changhe suddenly felt a lot better in a very self-deceptive way and smiled. “Anyway, what brought you here today? If you have something to say to me, just say it. There’s no need for small talk, we’re not exactly strangers to one another.”

The blind woman felt like she had lost her mystique, but she really had to get involved this time. The matter she had come to talk about was of extremely great importance, and it was not something she could play coy about. Besides, she could not hide it from Zhao Changhe anyway. He was truly quite smart.

She was silent for a long time before finally saying, “When you go to Kunlun, don’t just aim to get the Dragon Elephant Blood Ginseng. There will be many things of value there...”

“For example?”

“A page of the Heavenly Tome.”

Zhao Changhe almost laughed out loud, but he managed to hold it in. “Alright, I understand.”

This was the actual reason why blind woman had come to meet him after so long.

Everyone feared the unknown. People fear those they do not understand, those who do not seek anything, and those who purely seek pleasure or entertainment.

Now that he knew what she was after, she was much less frightening... Although he valued the Heavenly Tome greatly, and it seemed like the blind woman was providing him with some guidance on how to find more pages, was she not just essentially asking him to do her bidding?

Were they not all just people? They all had human desires and human needs... What need was there to pretend to be some god or Buddha!

1. In the raws, “master” is written as “宗师”, and I have translated “大宗师” as grandmaster in the past because of this. “Grandmaster” has been used for those at the third layer of the Profound Mysteries as far as I recall. ☜