Chapter 152

Chapter 152
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**Chapter 152: Unveiling the Peach Blossom Physique**

Training Zhuge Seol-ha was, in truth, something Baek Yang-hui had grown quite accustomed to doing. Each year, when he would spend several months at Gokyeol Mountain receiving instruction from Eun-hu, Zhuge Seol-ha would invariably pester him with one question after another.

*Come to think of it, I stubbornly insisted we were of the same age and made her address me as senior brother, yet she still trailed after me all the same.*

Indeed, Zhuge Seol-ha had followed Baek Yang-hui around since childhood as though he were her own brother—though it might be more accurate to say it was the fond devotion she reserved for her one and only friend.

*Hmm. I had planned to put her through a grueling trial, but my resolve is beginning to falter. No—those are separate matters. I will ensure she fully understands the weight of the misfortune she has brought upon herself. For now, though, I must tend to my own injuries first.*

“We will begin your training in a few days,” he told her. “For today, go on your way.”

Zhuge Seol-ha, who had been waiting on tenterhooks for his reply, slumped in visible relief the moment the words left his mouth.

“What?” she said. “From the way you spoke, I thought you would drag me straight to the training grounds.”

“Seol-ha, I drew upon my innate true qi. It is only my extraordinary natural talent keeping me upright at this very moment—I could have collapsed on the spot.”

Half a day had already passed since the conclusion of the battle. Any ordinary martial artist lacking pure qi would have immediately set to circulating their energy without delay; one wrong move would have spelled their end.

“Do you have any idea how selfish you are being?” he chided. “Taking up the time of someone who is seriously wounded.”

Most people would have felt remorse, but Zhuge Seol-ha merely huffed in disdain. She knew Baek Yang-hui far too well to feel any guilt whatsoever.

“Aside from your bloodied clothing, you appear perfectly unharmed on the outside,” she replied. “And knowing your character, senior brother—if you were truly in such dire straits, you would have sent everyone away and focused entirely on healing yourself.”

The Baek Yang-hui she knew was more level-headed than anyone, with priorities as clear as crystal. Had he been in genuine agony, he would have cut the conversation short without a moment’s hesitation.

*She has a point,* he admitted silently. His injuries would have been fatal without pure qi to sustain him, yet conversely, that very same pure qi made the pain far more bearable than he had anticipated. His condition was not nearly as critical as he had feared—so much so that even he found it remarkable. To understand exactly why, he needed to focus his mind on circulating his qi.

“Regardless, you should go now,” he said. “Let me tend to this in peace.”

“May I not stay?” she asked. “I am bored.”

“Here?” Baek Yang-hui scanned the room with exaggerated incredulity. “In another man’s bedchamber? A refined young lady of a distinguished household?”

“Hehe. Senior brother and junior sister might as well be siblings,” she said. “I shall keep perfectly quiet. Besides—you do not send A-du away, either.”

That was only because A-du refused to leave no matter what he said; he had long since given up trying to persuade him. Now he found himself with another equally persistent companion on his hands.

“Why not spend time with Heon-so or Yeon-yeon outside?” he suggested. “Or with the Tang siblings? Why remain here with me?”

“Um… with people I am not close to?”

He found himself rubbing his temples without thinking. The daughter of the Zhuge house would need to navigate countless social engagements as she grew older, yet with such a tendency to keep to herself…

*Given all she has been through, it is hardly surprising,* he reflected. In truth, the fact that she had opened up to Baek Yang-hui at all was something of a miracle. He had helped her when they were small, certainly—but even accounting for that, she clung to him more closely than anyone else, like a newly hatched duckling following its mother.

“What am I to do with you and your aversion to crowds?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she replied. “I can simply stay with senior brother. And we have the monk as well—do we not, monk?”

“Huh? Oh!” The monk looked up. “Would you like some rice cakes, Seol-ha?”

“That sounds lovely,” she said. “We shall eat rice cakes while watching senior brother circulate his qi.”

Displaying the process of qi circulation was generally considered taboo among martial artists, but he had done so many times before in front of these two. During their training at Gokyeol Mountain, they had even sat cross-legged side by side, guiding the great heavenly circuit together.

“Ugh…” He let out a long-suffering sigh. “You two shall be the death of me yet.”

He gave in, settling into the prescribed cross-legged posture and closing his eyes.

*Pure qi… the more I understand it, the more wondrous it appears.*

So far, he had identified two distinct capabilities inherent to pure qi: it guided the body toward health and wholeness, and it possessed the power to banish evil and subdue malevolent forces. *Perhaps today I shall discover a third.*

He had channeled a vast amount of innate true qi and unleashed it in a single burst—enough to stand his ground against Hyeong-san Eum-hyeol, who cultivated at a far higher level, though it had been an act verging on suicide. After all, innate true qi was the very life force inherent to all living things.

*Masters of the peak realm can replenish their innate true qi through cultivation…* At its core, innate true qi was still qi—an expression of the natural energy drawn from heaven and earth. Martial arts, too, were built upon drawing in that same energy and refining it until one could transcend the limits of ordinary humanity. Once a martial artist gained sufficient mastery to shape and direct their qi, they advanced to the next stage, gaining command over powers far beyond basic internal qi. The key to this progress lay in opening the two remaining dantians above the lower one.

*Lower dantian: inner qi. Middle dantian: origin qi. Upper dantian: spirit qi.*

Inner qi was natural energy drawn into the body and made one’s own. Origin qi was the primal life force inherent to every living being—in other words, innate true qi. Spirit qi was the power awakened when one opened the baihui point to connect directly with the celestial realm, forming the foundation of the mind-image qi, or intent qi, wielded by those of the ultra-peak realm.

“Inhale… exhale…” he murmured, drawing his breath slow and deep. His eyes were already shut, but he closed them once more, letting his consciousness sink ever deeper into the darkness within. And there, at the very center of his being, he found light.

*Origin qi.*

It was astonishing. He had expended so much of it, yet the light burned as brilliantly as ever—like a spring whose waters continued to rise, overflowing their banks. *Normally… this would require far longer—dozens, even hundreds of times longer than this.* He knew this well from his past life, having drawn upon innate true qi then as well; it was the purest energy under heaven and earth, and even masters of the peak realm needed years of rigorous practice to restore it. That was how it was meant to be.

*I understand now,* he realized. *It is the pure qi.*

From the moment he first received it, Baek Yang-hui had sensed as much—this energy was the clearest, most untainted force in all existence, sharing that fundamental quality with innate true qi. *But that is not all. The true power of pure qi…*

He now understood that pure qi possessed three distinct capabilities, all of which sprang from a single underlying truth: it guided the body toward wholeness, it corrected what was wrong and cast out corruption, and it accelerated the replenishment of innate true qi. *The common thread binding these three powers is…*

The moment that thought took shape, his inner vision fixed upon his lower dantian—the qihai acupoint, the very sea of qi itself. From its vast, crystalline depths rose the form of a dragon: the Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi, his own internal life force.

*My energy… moving of its own accord?*

He could have reined it in and forced it still, but he chose to let it follow its course. Movement revealed intent, and this intent was mind-image—the very path that led to the ultra-peak realm. For masters of the peak realm, the next great enlightenment lay in understanding the living nature of qi. *Mind gives rise to qi, and qi follows—this is the realization that elevates one to the peak realm. What comes next…* was vital intent qi: the step of infusing qi with the spark of life itself.

“Inhale… exhale…”

The Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi surged upward from the qihai, flowing along the broadest, most direct path toward the middle dantian: the Ren and Du meridians. It traveled the Ren meridian upward, passing through areas that had been strained and partially torn open when he forced his innate true qi to manifest—gaps through which energy could easily have leaked away.

*Looking back, it was reckless,* he admitted. *I let my emotions get the better of me when facing Hyeong-san Eum-hyeol.*

In his mind’s eye, the injury to his meridians looked like shattered pottery—once broken, it could not be put back together, and spilled water could never be recovered. Without pure qi, this damage would have been permanent, leaving a flaw that could never be healed. He let out a quiet breath of relief and turned his focus back to the flow of the Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi.

Then he saw it: the energy caressed the wounded channels and acupoints, weaving in and out of the middle dantian to invigorate and replenish the origin qi within. The entire process could be summed up in four words: *all things return to righteousness.*

*Ah!* What did righteousness mean for a living being? The answer was simple: life itself. Pure qi was the force that guided all things toward their true, uncorrupted nature—and that was why his innate true qi was being restored so swiftly, like life-giving rain falling upon parched, cracked earth.

*So that is how it works.*

A surge of joy flooded his spirit, breaking his meditative stillness. His awareness snapped back to the present, scattering outward like ripples on water.

“Ah…” Baek Yang-hui opened his eyes, a quiet sigh of regret escaping him. It was a bitter disappointment; a moment longer, and he might have grasped the very essence of vital intent qi—one of the foundational insights required to reach the ultra-peak realm.

*Enlightenment comes like lightning and vanishes like mist,* he reminded himself. It stung deeply, but he knew that with daily practice, he would eventually find his way back to that understanding. Even so, this single session had brought remarkable progress.

“Seol-ha? Why are you staring at me like that?”

Zhuge Seol-ha stared back as though she had seen a ghost.

“Senior brother…”

“Yes?”

“You… you lifted into the air.”

“What?”

“Your body! It rose up all on its own!”

“Truly?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“And Yang-hui—I saw it too!” added the monk. “Just like our monk here!”

*I thought I had only caught a glimpse of vital intent qi,* Baek Yang-hui thought, *but void grasping as well?* It was an extraordinarily promising sign. Levitation during qi circulation meant his energy was beginning to manifest direct physical power—the very subtlety of void grasping, another milestone on the path to the ultra-peak realm.

*The difficulty is… I have no idea how I did it.*

He reached out toward Zhuge Seol-ha, trying to summon the same effect he had wielded in his past life, but not a single strand of her hair stirred. He understood the principle in his mind, but it had not yet become part of his being. The enlightenment of void grasping required a fundamental transformation in the nature of one’s qi before it could be truly mastered.

*Still, I have found the path,* he told himself. *With practice, I shall make it mine.*

Three advances from a single period of meditation: a deeper understanding of the true nature of pure qi, and the first glimmerings of both vital intent qi and void grasping. The journey from the peak realm to the ultra-peak could take decades, or even a lifetime. *This proves I have already surpassed who I was in my previous life.*

As a quiet smile touched his lips, he caught sight of Zhuge Seol-ha’s expression. She looked more dejected than he had ever seen her, as though she were watching someone dear to her pull further and further away, leaving her behind.

“Senior brother…”

“Seol-ha?”

“Do not go too far ahead on your own. To me…” To her, he was more than a companion—he was the one who had stood by her longer than any blood relative.

Then he placed a warm, steady hand gently upon her head.

“Junior sister,” he said softly. “No brother in this world abandons his sister. Whether we are called senior and junior or not, that truth never changes.”

“Senior brother…”

“Ahem.” He straightened, clearing his throat. “I had intended to rest today, but we shall begin your training at once.”

If the thought of being left behind pained her, he would ensure she had the strength to keep pace—even if he had to pull her forward himself. Most might not have what it took, but Zhuge Seol-ha had the potential to go far.

“Chilju,” he said. “We shall awaken the righteous qi transcendence lying dormant within you.”

“Huh? Is such a thing even possible?”

“It is,” he said with a confident smile. “And you can do it, junior sister.”

Baek Yang-hui grinned in his familiar, easy way, yet there was a steadfastness to it that made it more reassuring than ever before.

“Come, then—it is time to draw forth the true power of that Peach Blossom Physique.”
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