Capítulo 873: Chapter 673: Zangxin’s Overt Plot The crescent moon hangs like a bow, and in the sky not yet dawn, stars still drape the wilds. Baili An walks between the palace paths, the full moon wine gourd clinking with jade and pearl in his hand, facing the moonlight, the clear wine lonely in its embrace. In the half month of cultivation at Chaling, the full moon wine gourd that had been nearly empty is now collected with over half of the moonlight wine, misty and starry, swirling within the jade-colored little gourd. The full moon wine gourd is a top-grade Immortal Artifact born of heaven and earth, though not an offensive artifact, it is a self-generating spiritual treasure, capable of nurturing the spirit and nourishing life. A sip of the moonlight wine brewed in this gourd can match the experience of an ordinary cultivator practicing for three months on blessed spiritual mountains. Baili An does not belong to the Human Race, nor does he specialize in Spiritual Power, because of the Yin Yang Tao Fish in his body, he possesses the rare body cultivated in both spirit and demon paths. Born as a corpse demon, the nodes of spiritual power within his body, which should be devoured and covered by black Demonic Qi, have miraculously opened ten channels like those of ordinary humans. It is precisely because of these spiritual power nodes that he can absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and learn human Taoist Techniques. Yet, he is not truly human; he is a corpse demon born from consuming blood, the dark blood energy within him inherently at odds with the life-and-death cycle of the world’s spiritual energy. Baili An is different from ordinary members of the Demon Clan, even in this great world of the Demon World; the cultivation growth of demons is closely tied to spiritual energy. Demons and humans share one thing in common, and that is ‘life.’ But corpse demons are of the deceased, the blood energy within cannot coexist with spiritual energy, much like the sun and moon cannot shine together. For a corpse demon, if accidentally absorbing the spiritual energy required by humans or demons, the dark blood energy within becomes extremely volatile and frenzied, pushing them to madness and annihilating the unrelated spiritual energy. Baili An is an exceptional aberration among spirit demons; his body can foster coexistence of spiritual energy and blood energy without interference or rejection between the two forces. This seems simple and easy, but who knows how dangerous it is to harbor two opposing forces in one body. Since his rebirth, Baili An seems to effortlessly switch and operate between these two utterly different forces, but even the slightest misstep, once the critical balance point between spiritual energy and dark blood energy is broken, only two possibilities remain. Darkness devours light, or light devours darkness. No matter the outcome, for Baili An, neither is a good ending. Si Li once told him he differs from other corpse demons only because he was not assimilated into one through normal traditional means. Corpse demons, though deceased, remain with an enduring obsession, unwilling to flow back into the cycle of reincarnation, sustained by powerful resentment to nurture their souls. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn novel⟡fire.net Such souls, known as Ghost Souls, after amassing sufficient resentful energy, transform into a supernatural existence, which is a corpse demon. However, Baili An was different; he died without obsession, resentment, and had a fragmentary soul, lacking any qualifications or conditions to become a corpse demon. If not for Jiang Chen forcibly performing the Bloodline Ceremony for him, planting the Yin Yang Tao Fish, he would not have been able to awaken as a corpse demon. Thus, because of the life-and-death balance of the opposing forces of yin and yang within him, today’s Si Chen was born. He cannot fully resurrect, nor become a complete corpse demon. Once internal balance is disrupted, one side in the battle between light and dark disappears, meaning the path between night and dawn will no longer exist, and the solitary path of Si Chen will be destroyed. All along, Baili An has been able to perfectly control this delicate balance with care. Until the explosion of the Heart Burning Fruit. A faint black bloodline spreads from his palm, slowly creeping up his arm, causing the three spiritual power nodes in his arm to turn jet black under the influence of the devouring blackness. Human spiritual power nodes either glow white when active or darken like stone when closed, never have they been so freely permeated in pitch black as now. He tentatively circulates the spiritual energy within through those three black nodes, the pure spiritual energy instantly tainted by those nodes, transforming into a third existence belonging to neither spiritual energy nor dark blood energy. The black-stained spiritual energy resembles an unremovable stubborn poisonous blot, invading and destroying the internal order and functions. Baili An drinks the entirety of the moonlight wine from the wine gourd, suppressing the spread of the black energy, forcing the blackness back into his palm, and restoring the spiritual power nodes to white. Looking at the fine bloodline in his palm, Baili An realizes this is a major hidden danger; the Moonlight Wine is extremely difficult to collect, taking half a month to gather even this much. If the black energy erupts again and the Moonlight Wine cannot be brewed in time, where will he go then? To solve this problem, Baili An must first understand why there is such a strange thing as the Heart Burning Fruit in his body. If calculated by age, his bone age in life was just sixteen, his cultivation level was mediocre, merely in the Seeking Tao Realm, a level extremely common in some third-rate Cultivation Sects. Who would use such a rare and hard-to-find forbidden fruit of the Demon World on a lowly cultivated youth like him? Given his cultivation level, he was far from worthy of someone investing in him at such a cost, meaning the answer must lie in investigating his identity further. Lost in thought, Baili An passes through a long, deep palace corridor, with the skies not yet clear, and palace attendants unseen.