The Spiritual Pivot of Mortal Cultivation

When we came out of God's Hand Valley, it was already completely dark.

The mountain wind pushed outwards from the valley entrance, causing the withered grass on both sides to bend low, as if an invisible layer of water was slowly seeping out along the gravel path. Bai Xuanxin pulled her clothes tighter, but her pace was not fast. Only after passing the most bend in the mountain that was most likely to make people turn back did she truly slow down her breathing.

The smell of medicine in the valley was still lingering in his mind.

The pungent smells of fire grass, yangqi stone, cold and astringent odors, and the putrid smell of medicinal dregs... several scents that shouldn't be mixed together were crammed into one furnace, as if someone were trying to cram several different prescriptions into it. Bai Xuanxin had smelled such medicinal odors before, but never as mixed, as heavy, or as oppressive as they were today.

Adding the "eye spot" of the old pine tree behind the house, and Han Li's current state of being almost taut with tension, many of the guesses that were previously just speculations can now be settled.

The soul of the song has most likely already been formed.

As soon as this thought arose, Bai Xuanxin did not immediately feel any panic of "Oh no" or "It's too late." Instead, she gradually calmed down.

He didn't actually think of this only today.

From the very beginning, he chose "The Great Capturing Hand" not for the purpose of the fighting ring.

Luo Yanbu is used to avoid being caught in a blind spot.

The Great Capturing Hand technique is not for the superficial techniques of arm-locking, force-dissipating, and wrist-grabbing among outer disciples.

When he first chose this discipline, one reason was that he was aiming for "structural dismantling".

Whether a person is alive or half-dead, their bones and joints are still the same.

A sword or knife striking flesh may not necessarily cripple a person instantly.

However, if the shoulder and elbow joints are disintegrated and the knee and ankle joints are broken, many seemingly fierce attacks will often be reduced to nothing more than an empty shell.

Moreover, what Bai Xuanxin truly valued in the beginning was not the word "pain" in "The Great Capturing Hand," but rather the essence and strength behind the word "capture."

Traditional Chinese medicine states that "the twelve sinew meridians converge at the joints," with the three Yang and three Yin sinew meridians of the hands and feet mostly attaching to the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles—the points of transition. Western anatomy, on the other hand, focuses on joint capsules, ligaments, fascial chains, and the axis of force generation. The different terminology points to the same thing:

The strength of the human body does not arise from nothing, but is transmitted along the line of bones, tendons, membranes, and joints.

If the thread breaks, the force dissipates.

If the axis is off-center, death will follow.

So the training he underwent wasn't just about "pain".

However, his previous opponents were all living people—outer disciples, tough fighters from the Wild Wolf Gang, and desperate criminals on the medicine road. Living people feel pain, are startled, become flustered, and instinctively withdraw their hands, shrink their shoulders, and dodge. Therefore, the techniques he used, such as "dispersing force," "seizing tendons," and "severing breaths," always carried a layer of the inertia of living people.

However, if the opponent is truly a soul of music, then that layer may no longer be valid.

Bai Xuanxin returned to the room and did not light a lamp at first. Instead, she spread out the two handwritten martial arts manuals on the table by the faint moonlight outside the window.

The book "Luo Yan Bu" is on the left, and the book "Da Qin Na Shou" is on the right.

His gaze first lingered on "The Great Capturing Hand".

The edges of the pages were already frayed, clearly indicating that they had been turned very frequently. The middle few pages still contained many small annotations, some written when they were first copied, and others added recently after repeated revisions day and night. The ink marks varied in shade and were very close together, making it look at first glance as if someone had written a medical case into a martial arts manual.

Bai Xuanxin's fingertips gently landed on one of the pages.

"Twist the wrist in the opposite direction, first loosen the axis, then release the force."

"Don't be greedy for pain when locking the elbow; the key is to disable their way of retaliation."

"If you only focus on grabbing people in the shoulder hollow area, it would be a waste. You should take advantage of their retreat and use the momentum to your advantage."

"The knee bend and the outside of the ankle are not injured, but rather the stitches are broken."

These things were already there.

It wasn't that he suddenly had a flash of inspiration today and started from scratch, creating a new method for himself.

The real change is that after today, he can finally solidify his previously vague thoughts in one direction.

If Qu Hun is truly not a living person, then it means:

The technique of numbness on a living person can only temporarily disturb the condition; it may not truly stop it.

Acupressure to seal Qi will often be much less effective, because it may not retain the same Qi fluctuations as a living person.

Injuring flesh is of little use; you can make a dead person bleed, but that won't necessarily slow it down.

What's truly valuable isn't making it suffer, but rather rendering it incapable of killing Han Li.

in other words.

They don't want "pain," they want "immobility."

If this layer is broken down further, it will become even clearer.

For example, when a living person is attacked, pressing points like Quchi, Yangchi, Waiguan, and Jianjing can often disrupt their meridians and cause numbness in their hands, stagnation of qi, and imbalance in their shoulders and back. However, if the Qu Hun is already half-dead, its meridians and qi are mostly damaged. Pressing these points can at most cause it to pause its movements, but it may not be able to make it lose an arm immediately like it can do to a living person.

But if you take a "joint" instead of an "acupoint", then it's different.

If the shoulder joint dislocates, the humeral head will dislocate from its original position, and even if it doesn't feel pain, it won't be able to raise its arm in a round shape.

If the elbow axis is misaligned, the ulnar and radial axes will become disordered, and if the attacking strike is to be reversed, it will first have to be bent by half.

Once the knee separates, no matter how hard the Gallbladder Meridian of Foot-Shaoyang tries to hold on, it can only be a spent force.

Once the ankle is locked, the order of force on the talus, fibula and tibia is reversed, and the momentum under its feet can no longer be transmitted smoothly.

Ultimately, a living person can rely on their willpower to endure.

The dead and the half-dead cannot escape the musculoskeletal system itself.

Thinking of this, Bai Xuan finally raised his hand and lit the lamp.

A small flame leaped up, illuminating half of his profile and also revealing the thick wooden stake and several hemp ropes in the room.

The wooden stake was originally just an inanimate object he used for daily practice, but he had modified it many times in recent days. He nailed a horizontal beam to each side of the stake to serve as arms; the elbows were connected with rope knots so that they could be bent and turned; and at the bottom, he used old wooden knots and hemp rope to piece together a rough shape of knees and ankles. Although crude, it was enough to practice "disassembly".

Bai Xuanxin stood under the lamp, looked down at the wooden stake for a moment, and then slowly raised her hand.

The first step he took was to unload his shoulder.

It's not a new move, but simply a slight step forward from the original approach to taking someone down. The hand cuts in from in front of the shoulder, not aiming to flip them over in one go, but rather to first lock onto the line between the shoulder socket and the humeral head, which is most vulnerable to twisting, and then, taking advantage of the opponent's lunge, gently shift it.

If a living person were to be hit by this, they would feel the pain first.

The soul may not necessarily be in pain.

But once that half of its shoulder frame breaks, it will be difficult for it to swing its claw and pounce in a wide arc.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this technique is equivalent to first dispersing the tendons and muscles of the Hand Shaoyang and Hand Yangming meridians at the bone attachment points; anatomically, it means directly targeting the weakest point in the shoulder joint capsule, the anterior and inferior part, using a twisting and misalignment to cause the humeral head to deviate from its original stress groove. A living person would tremble in pain, while Qu Hun might not, but the arm joint would still collapse.

The second time, Bai Xuanxin tried the elbow lock.

This move wasn't meant to be fancy. Many people in the outer sect practice grappling, and they like to focus on the pain; once they grab someone, they want to break them, and they only consider it a success when they make the other person cry out. But Bai Xuanxin has never liked this kind of approach.

The most troublesome thing about the elbow isn't the pain, it's the skeletal structure.

If the axis is straight, the hand will still be active.

If the axis is crooked, the force will dissipate first.

With a press and a flip of his hand, and a slight downward pull, a soft crack was heard between the wooden joints, and half of the crossbeam that served as the arm bone immediately collapsed.

If this move lands on a living person's elbow, the first thing affected is the outer side of the iliac crest and the tendon behind the elbow; from a bone perspective, it involves shifting the point between the olecranon and the radius-ulna pivot. The greatest danger with human hand strength is when the pivot shifts halfway through the movement. No matter how much energy you have, if the bones are not aligned, it will all be wasted.

The third exercise involves bending the knee.

If a knee breaks, most living people will kneel down first.

The soul of the song may not necessarily kneel.

But as long as its forward-pressing center of gravity shifts slightly when it pounces, that moment of "emptiness" is enough for Han Li to survive.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the lateral aspect of the knee is a point where the Foot Shaoyang and Yangming meridians intersect and connect; anatomically, it's the lateral collateral ligament of the knee, the fibular head, and the mechanism of external rotation of the knee joint. There's no need to make a definitive judgment here; simply applying an unwanted lateral force will disrupt the entire lower body.

The fourth injury is a broken ankle.

It's not a broken bone, but a broken steering wheel.

His feet were still there, his legs were still there, and he was even standing. But as long as that pivot point on his ankle was blocked, Qu Hun's hard-hitting and pressing style would lose half its variety.

This move is both the most insidious and the most effective. When a living person's ankle is separated, the first thing to be confused is the pain; if a crooked soul is unaware of pain, the first thing to be confused is its orientation. The thin ligaments in front of the outer ankle are most vulnerable to lateral shearing force. Once they are separated, the foot is still there, but the attacking posture is already disorganized.

Finally, there was the one thing Bai Xuanxin valued most—the hinge.

Shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles are all external.

What truly allows a humanoid figure to be pounced upon and crushed is actually the thread inside.

The waist, hips, and spine—these are the "axis".

If that thing were still there, even if it broke your arm, it could still crush you.

However, if that axle is bent, forced off course, or broken, it will be like a heavy vehicle with its axle jammed; the force is still there, but the movement has already become chaotic.

Traditional Chinese medicine says that "the waist is the pivot of the body," with the Du meridian located in the center and leading all the Yang meridians. Western medicine, on the other hand, says that the spine, pelvis, and acetabulum are the central axis of the entire body's kinetic chain. Simply put, everything that falls, presses, twists, and turns must eventually pass through this axis. If the axis is off-center, no matter how fiercely the limbs swing, they will only be swinging erratically.

Bai Xuanxin practiced extremely slowly this time.

It was so slow it didn't feel like martial arts practice; it felt more like disassembling an extremely complicated mechanism.

Hand by hand,

Inch by inch.

It's not about speed or showing off, but about solidifying those scattered ideas in my mind one by one.

The room was quiet, with only the soft creaking of ropes being pulled tight and the occasional low thud of misaligned wooden joints. The flickering lamplight cast dappled light on Bai Xuanxin's sleeves, making his shadow appear elongated and pressed against the wall, giving him a particularly cold look.

This practice lasted for most of an hour.

When he finally stopped, the wooden arms on both sides of the stake had been removed twice, the rope at the knees and ankles had been twisted slightly, and even the old wooden strip that supported the spine had been repeatedly twisted half an inch off course.

Bai Xuanxin stood under the lamp with her hands hanging down, her chest not heaving violently, but there was already a fine sweat on her forehead.

He looked down at the crooked wooden stake, his eyes calmer and colder than before.

He has finally mastered the basics of this technique after practicing it for so long.

Today's trip wasn't because he suddenly realized that Qu Hun was difficult to acupuncture.

Quite the opposite.

He gradually pushed the elements originally hidden in "The Great Capture Hand" from the level of "dealing with living people" to the level of "dealing with Qu Hun".

This is not a new martial art.

However, the old methods, from this day forward, finally have a truly deadly use.

The night wind outside the window came in gusts, making the door rattle softly.

Bai Xuanxin did not stop immediately. Instead, he walked to the table, reopened the book "The Great Capturing Technique," and slowly added a few more sentences next to the original annotations.

"Living people can be ordered, inanimate objects should be demolished."

"First break the shoulder and elbow, then seize the lower body."

"If Qu Hun attacks Han, first block his pivot."

"All techniques aim not to cause injury or pain, but to render the opponent useless."

After writing the last word, he put down his pen and looked out the window.

Night had fallen, and the back mountain was shrouded in darkness; naturally, nothing could be seen from the distant Divine Hand Valley. But Bai Xuanxin knew better than anyone that place was now like a pot with its lid tightly shut, with Mo Juren adding ingredients, fueling the fire, and fueling the killing intent within, while Han Li was being held captive at the edge of the pot, slowly being boiled. If Qu Hun had truly been formed, then he was even more like a nail buried at the bottom of the pot.

And I can no longer just stand on the outside and make calculations.

Thinking of this, Bai Xuanxin finally sealed that sentence in her heart:

In this round, I will have to enter the game myself.

Only after entering the game can one be qualified to share the ink legacy and the next move.

This is no longer just a plan, nor is it simply a preemptive move based on familiarity with the plot.

Instead, he truly put himself into that dead end, figuring out where he should start that night, who to attack first, who to dismantle next, which move to hold back, and which move he absolutely could not make a mistake.

The light flickered slightly in his eyes.

Bai Xuanxin raised her hand, closed the book "The Great Capturing Technique," and placed it aside.

Luo Yanbu, this is called advancing.

The Great Capturing Hand technique is called "Dismantle".

Birds, you must avoid them first.

Mo Juren, you must be injured first.

The soul of the song must first be destroyed.

Han Li needs to be given a real opportunity to take action.

Only at this moment did the game truly take shape in his mind.

The wind slipped in through the cracks in the window, causing the lamplight to tilt slightly. The crooked wooden stake in the room cast a long, distorted shadow on the wall, like a monster that had not yet risen, lying there silently, waiting for that night to truly come.

Bai Xuanxin stared at the shadow for a long time without moving.

After a long while, he finally raised his hand and turned off the light.

The room suddenly went dark.

Only the sound of the wind outside the window continued to whistle in gusts, like someone slowly sharpening a knife in the dark.