After practicing Taiji Fist for a while, Little Shiba was very disheartened. The practice was not nearly as perfect as he had thought, rather it was quite defective.
However, even though he was not exactly pleased with the results, it did not worry him because he knew what had gone wrong.
His lack of control between his own Internal Qi and his Qi and blood could only be fixed with time and practice. It definitely was not a problem that he would be able to handle in a single morning.
He looked at the sky, guessing that his family was probably awake. "If mom comes in without finding me, then I'm afraid I'll be beaten badly."
Thinking of this gave him a strong sense of uneasiness and convinced him that leaving was a wise choice. He turned around and started walking home, unaware that there was black smoke that had been blown here from a nearby cliff.
It was simply being guided by the wind at first, freely flying in the air. However, as it was less than 100 feet away from Little Shiba, it suddenly flew faster, as if it was attracted by him. Little Shiba was totally unaware of the faint smoke and was unguarded. As such, it did not take long before the black smoke caught up with him and burrowed into his head.
His body suddenly stiffened and a confused look appeared on his face afterward. "Thump!" His body made a loud sound and fell to the ground.
One hour later, the anxious Zhou family finally found Little Shiba behind their courtyard, lying on the ground unconscious. This left the family in a state of panic.
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How in the hell did I come back here again?
He felt himself fall into an infinite void, and atop of him floated a strange eye. Little Shiba felt somewhat dizzy and he figured out that he had really fainted. However, he had no idea why he had fainted. He was only awake for a short time and his body seemed to be recovering quite well. In his strange eyes, he simply could not find anything wrong with his body. If that was so, why did he suffer a blackout like that?
Soon after, he realized the answer.
Within this empty void, he caught a glimpse of something that simply did not belong there:
A cloud of black smoke.
It was floating not far from him. He could not figure out what it was, but he could sense danger from it. He quickly backed away from it.
It followed him as he stepped back. His heart nearly skipped a beat when he realized that. In his two lifetimes, he had never seen anything like this. The unknown was always a source of fear for people. Even though Little Shiba had the knowledge of two lifetimes, he still succumbed to fear.
The extremely strange smoke kept following Little Shiba. He did not know how long he had run for, but he knew that he could not get rid of it. It got closer and closer in an instant. Finally, it suddenly wrapped around his body.
Nooooo!
After the smoke had latched itself onto his body, Little Shiba tried to cry out but he could not. He was clueless to the fact that he was the same as that black smoke. The only difference was that he was much denser and thicker than the smoke that was pursuing him. This feeling of screaming was not an actual scream coming from his lungs, but rather, coming from his soul.
This is—
After he had felt himself screaming, Little Shiba realized that the situation was not as bad as he had thought. It was not as horrible as the bad spirits he had heard of in folktales, or as terrible as the body-possessing spirits that were depicted in many online novels.
Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword?!
The black smoke began to fuse with Little Shiba's body. All in a single moment, countless memories began to flow into his mind. He stopped running and started digesting all of the new information that was being crammed into his brain.
"Li Haoran, Elder of the Black Dragon Triad...!"
That was the first messaged he received.
"The One-eyed Wolf of West Mountain, evil beast... Inner Elixir...!"
That was the second message.
"That devilish Younger...!"
That was the third message.
"The wind is really fierce, it's going to blow my soul away!"
"... "
"... "
"... "
The last message, which was also the most complete, was
"Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword!"
This method of practice is quite strange. Its system seems totally different from Inner Force or Sword Qi.
After he had gotten the message about the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, Little Shiba started to contemplate slowly. From that message, he could understand what had happened.
It must have been a person's soul; the soul of a poor guy who was murdered. The only reason why it survived after the body had died was due to some sort of secret skill. It was because of this that he was able to be reborn by possessing others. He could have lived for a second time just like Little Shiba, but he was not so lucky.
Souls are incredibly weak. Usually, when people died, their souls would depart if there was no accident. And some people with strong will would maintain their souls after death for a while. However, no one could maintain their soul forever. As time went by, their willpower began to weaken and their soul began to fade. The clear exception would be those who had practiced a secret skill and, thus, had strong spiritual power. They could retain their spiritual sense after death and were able to be reborn by possessing others. But how many people could do this?
Not only that, even if one had practiced some sort of secret skill and his spiritual power was strong enough to possess others, there was a condition. The condition was that one could only possess others without external influences. No matter how strong spiritual power was, it was totally no match for natural power. A gust of wind could easily blow away the soul, let alone when one was out of luck and met some bad weather. Thunder was enough to tear the soul apart.
Li Haoran had practiced Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Although it was not a secret skill to enhance the soul, it could strengthen the soul as a great special technique. So when the body died, the soul did not depart and neither did its consciousness. However, he had died at West Mountain Pass, which was known to have strong winds. Therefore, the soul was blown away and had no spiritual sense at all in such a terrible condition. All that was left were deep memories in his mind. His memories were blown to the Zhou residence, which was exactly where Little Shiba was practicing.
The moment the remaining soul had noticed Little Shiba, it rushed toward him, for it instinctively saw him as a possible vessel.
Without its consciousness, that soul was nothing more than a culmination of memories all formed together. Such an amalgamation could never threaten anything. Hence, it did not take Little Shiba much time and effort to digest all of those memories.
Li Haoran's memories were scattered and incomplete. As such, other than the soul's name and identity, Little Shiba knew nothing about it. Of course, the memory of the Younger, who had slain him, was still very much alive and complete as the soul's final memory. After receiving all of those memories, Little Shiba was able to understand Li Haoran's hatred and fear of the Younger.
How did such an expert end up here? I even don't know what he comes here for, I just hope he doesn't start causing trouble!
Within Little Shiba's mind, there were fragments of the Younger killing others. The Younger's whole body emanated an aura that caused Little Shiba's whole body to shake in fear.
However, it was not long before Little Shiba started to concentrate on the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword. Being a warrior, the most profound things in his mind were cultivation methods of martial arts skills. Li Haoran was no exception. That cultivation method was etched into his very mind. Even though he had died and turned into a lonely soul, the Yin and Yang Heavenly Sword, which he got by accident, was still able to drive itself into his mind, completely and entirely.