Chapter 56: The Eighteen Wooing Techniques and a Dream of Cosmic Fusion

Ye Xingchen cleared his throat, a serious expression on his face, and declared, “Cough, cough, from today onwards, you must call me ‘Brother Xingchen,’ not ‘Brother Chen’ anymore.

Otherwise, I fear one day a Damocles’ sword might truly hang over my head…”

The mere thought of the Yaochi Saintess involuntarily brought to mind the colossal swords suspended above the Kings in the anime ‘K’.

Those were swords of judgment, poised to fall at any moment.

“Damocles’ sword?” Liu Yuxuan, diligently scribbling down the ‘Eighteen Wooing Techniques,’ looked up in confusion at Ye Xingchen, who was on the opposite bunk.

“Just a real man with a sword hanging over his head,” Ye Xingchen replied offhandedly, rolling over to prepare for sleep. “Do you want to hear it? If not, I’m sleeping.”

“Yes, yes, yes! Please continue, Brother Xingchen, I’m noting everything down!” Liu Yuxuan eagerly assented, his pen moving so fast it seemed to spark.

This very morning, this esteemed individual had orchestrated a scene of flying swords dancing wildly during the familiar spirit summoning ritual, and had even openly embraced Su Liyue, the campus belle.

Now, he was speaking of becoming a ‘true man with a sword suspended above his head’… if this didn’t qualify as a true man, then perhaps no men existed in the world!

Ye Xingchen sat cross-legged on the bed, adopting the air of a reclusive master.

“Alright, then listen closely…”

He began spouting nonsense again, occasionally interspersing anecdotes from his past with the Yaochi Saintess to bolster his claims, much like the illustrative stories found in ‘The Art of War and the Thirty-Six Stratagems’.

When he finally concocted the eighteenth technique, ‘A Man Who Isn’t Bad Isn’t Loved by Women,’ Ye Xingchen secretly let out a long sigh of relief.

He had finally managed to get this dreadful task over with.

As for whether this foolish boy, Liu Yuxuan, could grasp its meaning, that was no longer his concern.

Liu Yuxuan recorded everything with lightning speed, meticulously copying every single one of the so-called ‘Eighteen Wooing Techniques’ into his small notebook.

The more he wrote, the more he felt that Brother Xingchen was truly unfathomable, and it was no wonder he had effortlessly captivated Su Liyue, the campus belle ranked first in the entire academy.

Having absorbed these eighteen techniques, he felt as though he could already envision the campus belles queuing up to embrace him tomorrow.

“But Brother Xingchen,” Liu Yuxuan suddenly scratched his head, “isn’t your tenth technique, ‘Women Are Like Water, To Be Savored Slowly,’ a bit contradictory to your eighteenth technique, ‘A Man Who Isn’t Bad Isn’t Loved by Women’? You’re saying we should be both gentle and mischievous…”

Ye Xingchen promptly turned to face the wall, muttering, “Contradictory? A woman’s heart is a needle at the bottom of the sea. Pursuing a girl is like savoring tea; only with an initial bitterness followed by sweetness does it truly taste good.

If you can’t even fathom their thoughts, what kind of romance are you talking about? A mere taste will never let you experience the profound meaning of a soul connection.”

He tugged at his blanket. “As for ‘A Man Who Isn’t Bad Isn’t Loved by Women,’ it means you must know how to create atmosphere in a relationship.

Tricks have always won hearts, and if life lacks a bit of surprise, emotions will stagnate like dead water, devoid of their necessary vitality.

Now, ponder it yourself; I’m going to sleep.”

“So that’s it!” Liu Yuxuan’s mind was suddenly enlightened, and he quickly added annotations to his notes.

Beside the tenth technique, he densely scrawled: ‘Proceed gradually, like savoring tea.’ Beneath the eighteenth technique, he marked: ‘Create small surprises at opportune moments to maintain freshness.’

Liu Yuxuan solemnly wrote ‘Eighteen Wooing Techniques’ in large characters on the cover of his notebook, then suddenly slapped his thigh. “I get it!

The highest realm of wooing isn’t about throwing money around like that upstart Xiao Qicai, but about using your heart to feel that… that soul resonance!

Brother Xingchen, after hearing you say all this, I suddenly yearn for love!”

“Yearn for your head!”

Ye Xingchen nearly leaped off the bed, his mind frantically complaining: ‘If this kid had seen his classmates on Earth, who called their wives ‘little darling’ before marriage and then knelt on washboards, crying ‘tigress’ every day after, it would cure his sixteen-year single streak on the spot!’

He rolled over, burying his face in his pillow, and mumbled, “Stop being so lovesick; go to sleep quickly!

If you’re late for morning class tomorrow, someone might just use ice magic to wake you up again.”

Upon hearing this, Liu Yuxuan immediately recoiled, obediently closing his notebook.

However, before falling asleep, he couldn’t help but softly murmur, “But Brother Xingchen and Campus Belle Su really do seem very sweet…”

In the darkness, Ye Xingchen silently clutched the corner of his blanket, thinking, ‘That’s because you haven’t seen the Yaochi Saintess chasing me for three streets with a greatsword!’

***

In the girls’ dormitory, Su Liyue suddenly laughed aloud.

Qizai asked curiously, “What happy thought crossed Master’s mind?”

“Nothing…” Su Liyue gazed at the moonlight outside the window. “I just suddenly feel that being an utterly oblivious straight man is quite difficult too…”

As the dormitory lights dimmed, Su Liyue and Ye Xingchen both drifted into slumber.

Deep within the dream, Ye Xingchen’s consciousness floated in a vast sea of stars, sensing the river of spiritual energy flowing through the cosmos.

The spiritual energy, as dazzling as the Milky Way and as gentle as a stream, meandered among the stars.

He subconsciously extended his right hand to touch it, only to realize with a start that his palm had transformed into Su Liyue’s slender, fair, and delicate hand.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t grasp the flowing spiritual energy.

Just then, Ye Xingchen, in his male form, suddenly appeared on the opposite bank of the spiritual energy river, gazing at her from across the starlit expanse.

In the next instant, the male Ye Xingchen was by her side, his strong arms gently lifting her.

In that moment of yin and yang convergence (TL Note: A concept in Chinese philosophy where opposing yet complementary forces unite), the previously unidirectional flow of spiritual energy suddenly created a wondrous backcurrent, as if space and time resonated at that very moment, forming brilliant stellar vortices around the two of them.

Su Liyue abruptly recalled the understanding of time and space in ‘Qimen Dunjia’ (TL Note: An ancient Chinese divination method): Time is like water, drifting with the current; space is like a riverbed, guiding direction.

Only when time and space converge can one glimpse the changes of yin and yang in the cosmos and the natural operation of the Heavenly Dao.

The Innate Bagua (TL Note: An arrangement of eight trigrams in Chinese cosmology, used for divination and understanding natural processes) can trace the past, while the Acquired Bagua can observe the future.

The universe is like an eternal recorder, both engraving the trajectories of the past and extrapolating the possibilities of the future.

This power, which transcends time and space, is referred to by cultivators as ‘Spatial-Temporal Power,’ but to disturb the river of time and space would inevitably incur unimaginable karmic backlash…

However, at this profound moment, a gentle surge of demonic energy suddenly flowed naturally from within Su Liyue, merging into the river of spiritual energy like smoke and mist.

Su Liyue’s pupils contracted sharply; she clearly perceived two energies undergoing an incredible fusion.

Outwardly, it appeared like two different colored streams of water converging, calm and undisturbed; yet internally, it was like a deep-sea undercurrent, stirring up heart-pounding energy vortices.

This stark contrast between external tranquility and internal turbulence reminded her of the ancient Earth idiom, ‘Still waters run deep.’

Even more shocking to her was that, deep within this converging energy, two distinct energies were intertwining and permeating each other, with the demonic energy darting like active fish through the coral-like structures of spiritual energy, each touch stirring up subtle energy ripples.

Faintly, the blurred outline of a doorway even emerged, with a hint of spatial-temporal fluctuations emanating from its缝 (fèng).

In reality, the contract sign(wénlù) on the back of Su Liyue’s hand suddenly glowed faintly.

In his sleep, Ye Xingchen unconsciously clutched the corner of his blanket; his spiritual platform (TL Note: A metaphorical term in cultivation for the mind or spiritual essence) also reflected this anomaly.

Each fusion of the two energies in the dream river made the contract mark brighter, as if weaving a subtle connection…

Outside the window, the first ray of dawn pierced through the clouds, waking the birds on the treetops.

Amidst their crisp chirping, the dream receded like a tide, leaving only a lingering shimmer of starlight on the pillow.