Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 317: Sound Transmission

About four hours later, the skiff was seventy or eighty li out to sea. Lin Twin Fish squinted and looked ahead to the right. The light suddenly dimmed. From the depths of the ocean, a mass of dark clouds rolled in and quickly swallowed the southern sky. Then the wind came up hard, blowing stronger by the second. The waves followed fast, rising from a foot to two, then three, four, five.The little boat pitched and bucked in the swell, thrown up and down as if it might be flipped over at any moment.

Lin Twin Fish lifted a finger, and the lone sail dropped at once. The boat steadied a bit, but not nearly enough. It still rocked wildly, swaying side to side and heaving up and down. So violently that Liu Xiaolou’s stomach tightened with fear.

All of a sudden, rain came pouring in sideways, lashing at them so hard Liu Xiaolou could barely keep his eyes open. He had no real experience at sea. Whatever drifting he had done years ago on the Wuchao River was nothing compared to this. All he could do was struggle to see through the rain and watch Lin Twin Fish, waiting to see what she would do.

The wind howled, filling heaven and earth with a long, mournful wail. Without warning, Lin Twin Fish surged with her true qi. A sharp burst of force cut straight through the roar of the storm and rang clear in Liu Xiaolou’s ears.

“Hold the course from the stern,” she shouted. “I’ll take the bow and break the waves!”

Liu Xiaolou had heard about it long ago. Among high-level cultivators, there was a technique for sending your voice directly to another person's mind. He had never actually seen it done. Around Wulong Mountain, most people were just Qi Refinement cultivators, with hardly any true experts. As for the Su clan over at Shenwu Mountain Manor, the few real masters there rarely bothered with him. So he had never gotten a glimpse of how the technique really worked.

Even so, he knew the basics. Supposedly, you gathered your true qi into a thin thread and, using the same principle as flying swords, sent it vibrating straight to the other person’s ear. Just now, in the howling wind and crashing waves, when Lin Twin Fish had “shouted” to him, it felt exactly like that. Sure, the words came through choppy and broken in the gale, but the flavor was unmistakable. What really reassured Liu Xiaolou was that it did not seem tied to any particular method. At most, it felt like a clever little trick.

So as he listened, he learned, paying close attention and feeling out how it worked.

“Liu, a bit to the left.”

“Centered. That’s it, right on line.”

“Hold it steady, put a little more strength into it.”

“Lighter. Yes, just like that, perfect.”

Liu Xiaolou listened for a bit and felt like he was finally getting the hang of it. He gathered his true qi and let it circulate once around his body. In the end, it returned to the area below his navel, then continued downward. He discovered that between his legs was a natural outlet for releasing true qi. So he sent it out from between his crotch.

It was his first attempt, and he was still not used to it. His lower belly instinctively jerked forward.

The true qi turned into a thin, wandering stream of qi and shot out from between his legs, only to scatter and vanish in the raging wind and rain, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Naturally, he did not get discouraged. Right away, he gathered another stream of qi and fired it out again. Learning from the first try, he condensed it more this time, and it flew about two feet farther.

Still not enough. Lin Twin Fish was far ahead.

Up front, Lin Twin Fish kept calling instructions as he steered the boat.

“Do not stop. Put more force into it.”

“Do not wobble. Keep it straight down the middle.”

“When I split the waves in front, you need to support me from the back.”

As her voice whispered by his ear, Liu Xiaolou's understanding of the trick became clearer and clearer. His true qi condensed into thread-thin strands, fine and tough, solid and unbreakable. They pierced through the howling sea wind, finally reaching Lin Twin Fish's side.

He strained to straighten his waist and sway his hips, carefully guiding the qi strand toward Lin Twin Fish’s ear.

In the middle of everything, Lin Twin Fish glanced back. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

Liu Xiaolou clenched his teeth and sent out his very first true voice transmission since he began cultivating.

Right then, a huge wave crashed over them. His control slipped, and the qi strand veered off, surging toward the bridge of her nose instead. She finally received Liu Xiaolou’s message, but the position was off, so she could not hear it clearly. She asked again, “What did you say?”

No matter how you looked at it, this was Liu Xiaolou’s first time, and it should count as a success. After all, Lin Twin Fish heard something. That was why he asked what Liu Xiaolou had said.

These little tricks were once mysterious secrets that he could hear about during the Qi Refinement stage but never truly understand. Now, one by one, he was mastering them himself. And little by little, he was starting to feel the real pleasure of cultivation.

Urged on by Lin Twin Fish, Liu Xiaolou sent another voice transmission. This time, it finally reached her ear.

“Okay.”

Lin Twin Fish smiled. “Not much strength there. Pretty weak.”

Once the two of them were communicating smoothly, the small boat moved through the wind and waves with greater stability and speed. In less than an hour, a small island appeared ahead, as if it had suddenly burst out of the storm. In the blink of an eye, it was right in front of them. The skiff had no time to slow down, and there was no need to. It went straight up onto the rocky shore.

Liu Xiaolou’s attention, however, was not on the island itself. In wind and rain this fierce, there was not much to see anyway. The moment the skiff ran aground, his gaze had already shifted to a reef off to the front left.

This reef stood amid the crashing waves, rising more than ten feet above the surface of the sea. Someone sat cross-legged on top of it, hands forming seals. As his wrists turned, a long sword hovered upright in front of the rock, its tip lightly touching the waves, bobbing up and down with the surge and retreat of the sea.

Wasn't this same guy he’d once toppled with a single strike of his Mysterious True Cord. Liu Xiaolou couldn’t help but zone out for a second. Su Jing. Su the Thirteenth Young Master.

Seven or eight years had passed. He had reached Foundation Establishment too. And now, like this, he actually got a bit of that expert vibe going on.

The long sword borrowed momentum from the crests of the waves, swaying up and down with their churn. The sword’s intent drank in the power of the swelling waves, building bigger and fiercer by the second. When it finally hit its limit, Su Jing formed a hand seal and slammed it downward!

The waves suddenly surged backward, rolling away for more than thirty feet and laying bare the rocky base below, along with a broad stretch of sloping seabed. Seaweed, sand, stones, and hollowed crevices were all exposed to the air. Farther out, the waves roared like countless galloping horses, straining to charge back in and flatten everything in their path, but they were stopped by an invisible force. Frustrated, they only grew wilder and more violent.

The longsword quivered in midair. It not only held the waves at bay but also blocked the howling wind and rain, creating a safe pocket beneath what felt like a transparent, protective dome. A few crabs crawled out from cracks in the rocks, peering around in curiosity, clearly confused about what had just happened.

Then Su Jing drew back his sword technique. The longsword shot straight into the sky and vanished behind his head. At last, the waves were free to rush back in, thundering forward like a stampede and crashing against the reef in towering sprays of foam.

Lin Twin Fish broke into a grin and called out to Su Jing on the reef. “Junior Brother Su, congratulations on breaking through to the third level of the Tide-Viewing Sword Art!”

Su Jing, still standing on the reef, turned his head. Then he suddenly leapt into the air and, in the blink of an eye, landed on the small boat. Overwhelmed with excitement, he threw an arm around Liu Xiaolou’s shoulders. “Brother-in-law!”

He had been training relentlessly on the reef for days, and especially today he’d been immersed in sword intent, building up the power of the tides. He still hadn’t fully come out of that focused state. Liu Xiaolou felt a crushing force lock around him, so strong he could barely break free.

He laughed and praised him on the spot. “Thirteenth Brother, you’ve really improved!”

Lin Twin Fish said, “Junior Brother Su, let’s talk inside the Sword Hut.”

Su Jing smacked the back of his head. “Look at me, getting carried away!” He grabbed Liu Xiaolou by the arm and headed toward the island, laughing loudly, his voice carrying far into the wind and rain.