You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

Chapter 119 The Sound of the Qin

"What's wrong?" Qi Fei opened his eyes.

"Sword" has been very active since boarding the ship, completely different from when it was on land.

At that time, it mostly stayed quietly inside the gourd, occasionally saying a few words.

But once it boarded the ship, it flew around, looking everywhere, finding everything it saw strange and wanting to ask about everything it heard.

"Sword" remained silent for a while, as if organizing its thoughts, and then began to tell Qi Fei about everything it had just seen and heard.

Qi Fei listened quietly without saying a word.

"And then?" "Sword" asked after he finished speaking.

After a moment of silence, "Sword" recounted the scene that had suddenly appeared in his consciousness.

"Is he coming back to life?" it said. "Is he coming back to life through me?"

Those scenes were so realistic.

It was so real that it didn't seem like an illusion, a dream, or the illusory, superficial, and easily shattered illusions that had been practiced hundreds of times in the Seven Illusion Sword Formation.

Those are traces of having lived, traces of a person who truly lived under the sun, in the sea breeze, and amidst the laughter of the nuns.

Qi Fei didn't answer immediately. He thought for a moment, and then spoke.

"Sometimes I also have certain impulses," he said, "but those impulses mostly come from bodily instincts."

"These things didn't come from my mind; they just emerged from my body. Humans are like biological organisms, like butterfly larvae, driven only by instinct and able to rely solely on instinct."

"Instinct is neither entirely wrong nor entirely right."

"Your original body contains the remnants of the consciousness of a cultivator from a thousand years ago, the remnants of the consciousness of a cultivator from a hundred years ago, and various illusions accumulated by the Seven Illusions Sword Formation over thousands of years. It's normal to have these consciousnesses and these images."

"Human," Jian's voice tightened, "what should I do?"

"You'll get used to it," Qi Fei said. "He won't come back. You are you after all. If you think of yourself as him—"

"Then have I become it?" Jian asked hastily.

"No," Qi Fei shook his head. "Then you're neither a conscious sword, nor a person, but a madman."

After saying that, he closed his eyes and continued his cultivation.

After listening, "Sword" remained silent.

The man and his sword remained silent until darkness slowly fell.

Suddenly, the cabin shook slightly, followed by the sound of a horn.

The horn, deep and resonant, pierced through the soundproofing array in the room, like the long roar of an ancient beast from the depths of the sea.

That was to tell the people in the cabin that the ship was about to weigh anchor.

Qi Fei didn't move. He knew the ship was about to set sail, and the "sword" flew out of the gourd again and landed in front of the window.

The docks outside the window, which were originally still, are slowly, inch by inch, receding. It's not the docks that are moving, but the ships.

This ship set sail towards the great sea bream in the south of the South China Sea.

Life at sea seemed very interesting at first.

The azure sea, the white waves, the flying fish that occasionally leap out of the water in the distance, and the seabirds that circle around the stern of the boat.

But after a while, it became boring. Outside the window, all I could see was the vast ocean.

Seeing it for three days is novel, seeing it for ten days is a habit, but after half a month, all that's left is boredom.

The same applies to the "sword".

At first, it was very curious and ran all over the boat. But after a few days, it got bored and lay in the gourd, too lazy to move.

Qi Fei, on the other hand, had been diligently cultivating for several days, which made him want to take a break. He calculated that he had been on the ship for more than ten days and had not left his room yet.

He tidied himself up a bit, tied the sword-nurturing gourd to his waist, and pushed open the door to go out.

He walked through the cabin corridor and turned a few corners until he arrived at an observation deck next to the deck.

Although it's called a viewing platform, it's actually more like an indoor garden.

On the side closest to the cabin, there are tables and chairs, with teapots and teacups on the tables, and a rockery in the middle. A stream flows around the rockery and then back into it.

The sound of flowing water made one feel as if they had returned to land.

In the middle of the viewing platform was a stage where people were playing musical instruments and singing. Some of the guests below were drinking tea, some were chatting, and some were dozing off in their chairs; no one seemed to care much.

After all, people come here just to kill time at sea.

Near the deck is a row of balconies, from which you can see the gray-blue sea stretching to the horizon, merging with the same gray-blue sky, making it impossible to distinguish where the sea ends and the sky begins.

Qi Fei casually found an empty seat under the stage and sat down.

On the stage, someone is telling the story of the South China Sea, about the Dragon King's divine power and the Seven Sea Guards who rule the South China Sea.

He spoke with great enthusiasm, spitting as he spoke. Some of the guests in the audience listened intently, while others scoffed. Qi Fei, however, found it interesting and listened for a while longer.

After the man finished telling the story, he took the reward money and went downstairs. Then a blind man came up.

The blind man wore a gray robe and carried a guqin (a traditional Chinese stringed instrument). As soon as he arrived, many people in the previously lively hall got up and left.

"It's that blind man again," someone muttered. "Such awful playing, and he still comes here to perform."

Qi Fei didn't leave. He sat there, watching the blind man. He could sense the restrained magical energy emanating from the blind man!

Unlike the other cultivators in the hall, the blind man was a true cultivator!

The blind man placed the guqin on his lap, and then he plucked the strings.

The sound of the piano was sharp and harsh, like scratching an iron plate with a fingernail, making one's teeth ache.

Then, the melody went up and down, fast and slow, like a headless fly bumping around the room, or like someone going crazy and playing random tunes.

Some people covered their ears, some frowned, and some simply stood up to leave.

Suddenly, the music changed.

It was ethereal, light, and soft, like moonlight falling on water, like snowflakes landing in the palm of your hand. The sound was so beautiful that those who were about to leave paused and stopped.

But the beautiful melody lasted only a few breaths. The music changed and became noisy again, even noisier than before, like a hundred people banging drums and gongs in your ear at the same time, or a thousand cats howling at the same time in the night.

People in the hall covered their ears, and some even stood up and walked outside without taking their teacups.

"Stop playing! Stop playing!" someone shouted, their voice filled with genuine pain, as if begging for mercy, or perhaps cursing.

The blind man didn't stop. His hands were still on the strings, plucking them one by one, his expression unchanged.

He didn't know if he couldn't hear those people shouting, or if he heard them but didn't care.

He just kept playing, and the music echoed in the hall, collided among the tables and chairs, and flowed among the artificial hills and streams.

When the song ended, everyone showed expressions of relief, and some people applauded.

The person clapping was Qi Fei.