Chapter Seventeen Borders

  "Huh? What?"

  "I want to eat mochi." Hu Xian said calmly and seriously, looking at me.

  I was taken aback, and my face twitched for a moment. Was this woman joking with me? But looking at her serious expression, it didn't seem like she was teasing me at all.

  Helplessly, all I can say is:

  "I'll go buy it for you later. You... tell me first?"

  "I want to eat mochi." The Fox Spirit looked at me, her expression unchanged, and said calmly.

  Although his face was expressionless, from the bright and shiny black eyes of Hu Xian, I got a message that is: unless you cut the cake for me, otherwise even if you beat me to death, I won't tell you!

  “……”

  The fox spirit woman really is beyond my comprehension, but no matter how I ask her, she won't tell me the way to lift the hypnosis spell unless I get the pastry.

  Helpless, I had no choice but to crawl out of the well and go buy some cut cake, spending all the little money I had left on me.

  Later on, I thought to myself that I was really quite silly. Because of a woman's inexplicable words, I ran all the way to buy a few pieces of mochi with a wounded heart, and no matter how I think about it, I feel like an idiot.

  In one's life, there will always be some things that even oneself finds inexplicable. However, thinking carefully, when I bought the cake for Hu Xian, although I complained incessantly, in my heart, I didn't have any real intention of blaming him.

  After feeding the fox spirit and eating the cut cake, the woman finally let out a satisfied sigh and gave me an answer:

  "To undo the soul-calling spell, just look into the eyes of the person who cast it and say one word."

  "What's going on? Tell me, don't keep me in suspense." I said anxiously as I looked at the fox spirit who was eating with relish.

  "Understood." The Fox Immortal said calmly.

  "What's next?"

  "It's all gone."

  "Just one word? 'Understand'?" I looked at the woman in front of me with some surprise.

  "Otherwise, what do you think?" The fox fairy looked at me with a silky gaze, without any playful meaning in her eyes.

  "Was it just for this one character that you made me run so far to buy a cake?" At that moment, I felt like the sky was spinning and the earth was crumbling down.

  "Don't get it wrong, Wang Yisheng." Hu Xian looked at me quietly. "A thousand pieces of gold can't buy a single word of truth. Chen Xuanzang traveled thousands of miles to the west for the true scriptures. Zhu Yizun's one poem is worth a thousand pieces of gold. Truly valuable things, no matter how simple or unremarkable they may seem, are not easily obtained. Knowing is knowing, and not knowing is not knowing. This is the difference. I just want you to understand this point."

  "But why... I think you just want to cut the cake." I looked at Hu Xian with some disdain.

  "One buys and one sells, each takes what they need." The Fox Fairy said calmly.

  I looked at Hu Xian with some suspicion, Hu Xian looked at me, her eyes fixed on mine, and slowly said:

  "Let me tell you one more thing. With your current cultivation level, once you dispel the Soul Hook Technique, the person who cast the technique on you won't be able to affect you with it again."

  "In other words, each person can only be controlled by me once?" I asked cautiously. But in my heart, I was a bit nervous, fortunately the fox spirit told me this, otherwise if I had used it rashly, I'm afraid I would have ended up dead without knowing how.

  "It was like this before the second boundary." The Fox Immortal said calmly.

  "Before the second boundary?"

  "Every time you upgrade your boundary, you can control others once more. Before the second level, there is only one time. Starting from the second level, it's twice, and the third level is three times..."

  "Is that so. I understand." I nodded. In other words, the number of times one can control a person is related to their own boundary level, right?

  "No, you don't understand." Hu Xian said calmly, "After reaching the sixth layer of condensing golden elixir, you can control people's hearts at will, without any restrictions on the number of times."

  "So that's the sixth level, is it the highest state?" I asked.

  "No." The Fox Spirit looked at me.

  Shook his head again, "There is an even higher realm."

  "Anything else?"

  "Alright, I'll give you a sentence, Wang Yisheng." The Fox Fairy said lightly to me, but her expression revealed a few hints of decline. Then, her vermilion lips opened slightly, and she slowly began to speak: "Crossing six kalpas, one can command an army of millions; crossing seven kalpas, one can possess a city; crossing eight kalpas, one can pacify the four seas. Crossing nine kalpas, one can unify the world under heaven. Crossing ten kalpas, one can overturn all living beings."

  "Unify all under heaven? Invert the multitude of living things? What... is this supposed to be?" Upon hearing the Fox Spirit's words, my heart was greatly shocked.

  "You might as well consider it the power of 'soul hooking technique'." The fox fairy looked at me and said calmly.

  It sounds like a myth to me: "According to you, by the time one reaches the tenth level, wouldn't the practitioner become a god? No way, it's impossible no matter how I think about it. If such a cultivation method really existed, humanity should have gone extinct long ago, right? There shouldn't be anyone in history who has achieved this, should there?"

  If what the Fox Spirit said was true, it would be ridiculous. This isn't cultivation, how can a person possibly reach that level? And if one person could control everyone in the world, then what's the difference between others being alive or dead?

  Besides, there has never been any record in history of anyone possessing the "Soul Hook Technique". If such a terrifying and evil technique really existed, how could it not have left behind a deep mark in history?

  "There is." The Fox Fairy looked at me, then let out a long sigh and said in a voice that was almost despairingly sad, "Moye Xi led Shang to destroy Xia, Daji misled Zhou and brought about the downfall of the country, Bao Si laughed and teased the feudal lords, Xi Shi cried at night and overturned Jin... and there's also Ye He Lao Nu who bore the reputation of being the greatest siren in the world. Which one wasn't a national beauty, a pearl on the palm that overturned the multitudes, a beautiful flower?"

  At this point, Hu Xian slightly lowered his head, and a hint of sadness and resentment flowed out from his eyes.

  When I heard the Fox Fairy's words, my heart was slightly shaken. The people mentioned by the Fox Fairy were all familiar to me - Mei Xi, Da Ji, Bao Si, Xi Ji, Xia Ji and other women who were notorious as beauties who brought disaster to their countries in history. Not only did they possess stunning beauty that could overthrow cities and states, but they also bore infamous reputations as seductresses. Many historians believed that the downfall of certain dynasties was closely related to those female demons who wreaked havoc on the country.

  "So they are all fox spirits who have cultivated to a certain level? Those kings who were infatuated with them, had they fallen under their soul-snaring spell?"

  "That's right." Hu Xian did not deny it.

  "But they... are all women, aren't they?" I watched Fox Spirit warily, realizing the most serious problem.

  "There are two kinds of people who can learn the Fox Spirit's magic." The Fox Spirit gazed at me quietly and said, "One is a woman."

  I swallowed hard and asked: "What about the other kind of person?"

  "Jurchen people." Hu Xian said lightly. "To put it bluntly, there are those with Jurchen bloodline. You're the latter kind."

  What about the blood of the Jurchen people? In other words... is there Manchu ancestry, right? But my mom is from Jiangsu Province, she shouldn't have any relation to the Manchu people... Unless, my dad is a Manchu person?

  Maybe. My dad left my mom and two sisters when I was very young. That man... didn't leave a deep impression on me, in fact, I don't have much of an impression of him at all. But according to Hu Xian's words, does that mean I can learn Hu Xian's magic because of my dad's bloodline?

  "Wang Yisheng, I've said it before, you're very similar to me." The Fox Fairy said in a hollow voice. "Because we have similar bloodlines."

  The fox fairy's words made me tremble again, I stared at the fox fairy and asked:

  "So you're also Manchu?"

  The fox spirit looked at me without answering. But from her calm eyes, I knew she was.

  Then, for a very long time, we both fell into silence.

  "Besides soul-calling technique, isn't there any other magic... for instance, can't you see through my mind?" I asked, recalling the conversation with Hu Xian just now.