Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 306: The Three Sutras

After Liu Xiaolou helped Green Bamboo patch up those three weak points in the formation, he spent the next three days wandering freely around Hengshan. When the waiting was done, it turned out patience had paid handsomely.In front of the bamboo pavilion by the curtain-like waterfall, Green Bamboo tossed three manuals to him. “See for yourself whether they're of any use,” she said.

Liu Xiaolou hurriedly caught them. His eyes landed on the yellowed cover of the top one, where the words Plain Heart Dragon Flame Method were written in bold strokes. He froze for a second. "The original?"

Qingzhu nodded. “Sister Meng gave it to me. I told her a copy would be fine, but she said it was a method an elder picked up in the southeast about twenty years ago. It doesn’t match their sect’s core techniques, so no one here can use it. She said I might as well give the whole thing to you.”

The value of an original manual obviously blew any copied version out of the water. No one ever knew what secrets might be hidden inside. Maybe you’d wake up in the middle of cultivation and, bam, get the shock of your life.

He flipped through it for a bit, and damn if the opening six meridians didn’t line up exactly with his own. A grin split his face. His heart damn near leapt out of his chest with joy.

Flipping back to the front, Liu Xiaolou saw a few short lines on the title page that explained where the manual came from: Secret Manual of the Su Xin Sect.

“The Su Xin Sect?” Liu Xiaolou asked, genuinely puzzled.

Green Bamboo lounged sideways on a recliner, feet kicked up and swinging lazily back and forth. “Who knows?" she said with a shrug. "I've never heard of any Su Xin Sect either. Maybe it was just like yours or mine; some old sect that got wiped out and forgotten?”

Liu Xiaolou thought for a moment. “Did your Sister Meng ever mention whether they found anything like... a sect leader’s token when they acquired this cultivation method?”

“I asked,” Green Bamboo said. “There wasn’t one.”

Liu Xiaolou sighed, disappointed. After hesitating, he worked up the nerve to ask another question. “So what do you usually use your Scarlet Spirit Sect’s sect leader token for?”

Green Bamboo eyed him sidelong. “What are you planning?”

“Sell it to me, then? I’ll pay a high price.”

She glared at him for a long moment. “That’s the sect leader’s token! The sect’s symbol of authority! And you're asking me to sell it to you? Are you out of your mind? What kind of wild idea is that?”

Liu Xiaolou muttered under his breath, “If you’re not using it anyway, you could rent it to me. Ever thought about that?”

Green Bamboo flipped upright and reached out to press a hand to his forehead. “Damn. You’re really burning up.”

Liu Xiaolou swatted her hand away. “All right, all right. If you don’t want to give it to me, forget it.”

Green Bamboo shot him a wounded look. “Xiaolou, you’ve changed. Back then, you wouldn’t have knocked my hand away.” A crooked smile tugged at her mouth. “You’d have taken the invitation and climbed right up my arm.... Why are you collecting sect leader tokens anyway?”

Liu Xiaolou thought for a moment, then decided to keep the truth to himself. “You already knew, didn’t you? Even back then, I’d already collected three of them. I’ve just got a thing for collecting tokens. And these two manuals, you copied them yourself? Your handwriting’s really delicate.”

She shot him an annoyed look. “You even know how to judge handwriting now? My hand was aching after all that copying!”

The two copied manuals had both come from another of Hengshan’s three altars, the Dongling Altar.

Lady Green Bamboo was a well-known formation master, and she and the Guangtian Altar Mistress were as close as sisters. Because of that, all the formations of the three Hengshan altars were handled by her, whether for repairs or improvements. After she made a request to the Dongling Altar, they were generous enough to let her copy out two cultivation methods.

One was called White Rainbow Sword Canon, the other Five Thunder Art. Like the Plain Heart Dragon Flame Method, both had been acquired from outside sources. They weren’t core methods of the three Hengshan altars, but they still counted as a sect’s foundation. The more cultivation methods a sect had, the more options new disciples could choose from. There was always bound to be one that suited you.

Both of these methods shared the same opening four meridians as Liu Xiaolou’s own. For him, that meant they were no longer worth cultivating personally. Still, that didn’t stop him from accepting them and adding them to beef up the foundation of his own Sanxuan Sect

Getting his hands on three cultivation methods at once, especially one like Plain Heart Dragon Flame Art, whose opening six meridians matched his perfectly and was an even better fit than Ruyi Finger Method, was a massive haul. Liu Xiaolou was loaded with gains and couldn't possibly be any happier.

“They're seriously not charging any spirit stones for these?” Liu Xiaolou asked. “How about I give you some anyway.”

She waved him off. “Look at you, suddenly generous. Got plenty of spirit stones now? Better hold onto them. You’ve felt it yourself... Once you reach Foundation Establishment, the demand for spiritual energy only gets worse. And the farther you go, the scarier it gets.”

Liu Xiaolou nodded, not pushing it any further.

Since reuniting, neither of them had said a word about how Liu Xiaolou had managed to achieve Foundation Establishment. He’d gone over it again and again in his head and still hadn’t figured out how to tell Green Bamboo. He honestly didn’t want to lie to her, but he also didn’t want to drag her into his troubles. Thankfully, she hadn’t brought it up even once, and that let him breathe a hell of a lot easier.

They also seemed to have an unspoken agreement not to mention the Su family, or Liu Xiaolou’s divorce. When it came to that mess, he genuinely had no clue how to bring it up. What worried him most was that the moment he did, she would turn around and leave again, just like last time.

What Green Bamboo cared about most, and what bothered her the most, was her Formation Path. She realized she could no longer keep Liu Xiaolou in check. It wasn’t just that he could pinpoint the flaws in her formations. When they talked shop about formations, pretty much every insight he dropped, every method he mentioned for refining and setting them up, hit her like a gut punch. The guy was putting real pressure on her now.

One technique in particular, an etching method for formation discs, left her baffled.

“Tell me,” she said, unable to hold back. “Where did you even learn something like that?”

Liu Xiaolou smiled and laid it all out without holding anything back. “It’s called the Heaven’s Origin, Beginning to End Method. It’s a hereditary technique from the Liu family of Bazhong. This is how you practice it. At first, you hold an egg in your hand. Once you get the feeling right, you take the egg away.”

After Green Bamboo tried it herself, she sighed with emotion. “Two years ago, when I went to Siming Mountain to refine formation discs, I ran into Master Diao. He mentioned you in passing and praised your skill with formations to the skies. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now I see why. Could it be that formations are where your true talent lies?”

Liu Xiaolou said, “You’re the one who really led me through the door into the Formation Path. Thank you.”

She waved it off. “If we’re talking that way, then I owe you for reaching the Foundation Establishment too. There’s no way to finish counting who owes whom.”

Liu Xiaolou nodded. “Right. No way to finish.”

Both of them fell quiet for a good while, just sitting there in the hush of the waterfall.

It was Green Bamboo who finally broke the silence. “Sister Meng said that based on the first three meridians you opened, your cultivation method seems somewhat similar to the Luofu lineage. So a trip to Luofu Mountain would be worth it. Whether it’s the Luofu Sect’s main mountain, its various branches, or even the independent cultivator families and sects that rely on Luofu Mountain for their cultivation, you can try them all. As long as you find a method whose first seven or eight meridians match the opening sequence of your True Mysteries Scripture, you’ll be able to cultivate it, and it won’t affect your future path to the Golden Core at all. Sister Meng is the head of a sect, after all. Her judgment can be trusted.”

Liu Xiaolou said, “Before I headed south, Han Wuwang of the Dongyang Sect told me the same thing. So next I’m planning to take a look around the Luofu Mountain market and see if I can find something that fits even better. What about you?”

She let out a sigh. “I was supposed to head back to Lianxi in a couple of days. But thanks to the three flaws you pointed out, that’s not happening. Even though they’re patched up now, I can tell the entire formation needs to be reworked and fine-tuned. Otherwise, problems will crop up once it’s been running for a while. I’m stuck here for the rest of the month.”

After a brief hesitation, Liu Xiaolou asked, “If I run into any tough problems with formations later on... or, um, have some new insights… could I come to Green Bamboo Garden and ask you for advice?”

Green Bamboo stretched lazily. “Sure. Do you know where it is? From Siming Mountain, head northeast for sixty li. Follow the stream into the mountains and you’ll come to a bamboo grove. Alright, I’m heading back to Huiyan Peak. I won’t walk you out.”

Liu Xiaolou shoved down the rush of joy bubbling up inside him, said his goodbyes, and headed out. His steps were damn near bouncing as he made his way down the mountain.

He hadn’t gone far down the trail when Green Bamboo suddenly came chasing after him. She stopped higher up on the mountain path behind him, grabbing hold of a thick vine. “Elder Lu from Tianmu Mountain caught the Five Arrows of Xuanyuan Mountain,” she called out. “Have you heard about that?”

Liu Xiaolou thought for a moment. “Xuanyuan Mountain? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

Green Bamboo grinned. “Neither have I… go on!”