Chapter 537: On the Path of Cultivation
As he walked down from the mountain peak, Chen Ping'an hesitated for a moment, then put on the black dharma robe. It was called the Hundred-Eye Taotie, and he had "picked it up" from Yang Ningxing of the Chongxuan Office in the Dayuan Dynasty.
The Golden Liquor dharma robe was still too conspicuous. He had previously swapped the Taotie robe for an ordinary green garment out of caution, worried that traveling along this strange great river that flowed into the sea at both ends might attract unwanted attention. But after following Qi Jinglong to the mountaintop to offer the sword, Chen Ping'an reconsidered. After all, he had now advanced to the Willow Tendon Realm, the most retention-prone stage, and wearing a dharma robe of decent quality could help him absorb the world's spiritual energy more quickly, benefiting his cultivation.
Luqiu Commandery was a premier local commandery in the Foqu Kingdom, with a strong literary atmosphere. Chen Ping'an bought quite a few miscellaneous books at the commandery city's bookshops, including a collection that had been gathering dust in a bookstore for years. It was a compilation of the imperial exhortations to agriculture issued in the early spring of each year throughout Foqu Kingdom's history. Some were eloquently written, others plain and simple. As he carefully flipped through the collection along the way, Chen Ping'an realized that the similar scenes he saw every spring across the three continents were actually all dictated by rules: the ceremonial plowing to pray for good harvests, the officials' tours, the encouragement of the people to farm.
The beauty of reading and traveling far is that, by chance, you might come across a book that feels like the sages of old have threaded a string for you, helping you connect the beads of worldly affairs and human sentiments into a dazzling array.
Chen Ping'an took a brief tour of the scenic spots within Luqiu Commandery city and stayed that night at an old, established inn in the commandery seat.
After entering Luqiu Commandery, he deliberately suppressed the spiritual-absorption effect of his dharma robe; otherwise, it would attract the attention of certain entities like the City God Pavilion and the Civil and Martial Temples.
In fact, every qi refiner—especially those in the mid-five realms—when traveling through the mortal world and secular dynasties, makes a commotion akin to a flood dragon traversing a river. It's not exactly small, but generally speaking, it is permissible for cultivators to absorb the spiritual energy of mountains and rivers after descending the mountain, as long as they don't go too far and show signs of draining the pond to catch the fish. The local mountain and river gods usually turn a blind eye.
In the night, Chen Ping'an lit the lamp on the table in his inn room, casually flipped through the collection of agricultural exhortations again, closed the book, and then immersed his mind.
Chen Ping'an wasn't relying on the Taotie robe to absorb the thin spiritual energy of the commandery city, but that didn't mean he wasn't cultivating. Absorbing spiritual energy was never the entirety of cultivation. All along the way, within the small universe of his own body, the two crucial acupoints resembling the Water Mansion and the Mountain Shrine—where spiritual energy was accumulated and refined—were also fundamental to cultivation. The mountain-water interdependence pattern of his two lifebound objects required him to cultivate a semblance of mountain root and water fortune. In simple terms, Chen Ping'an needed to refine spiritual energy and stabilize the foundations of the Water Mansion and Mountain Shrine. However, since his current accumulation of spiritual energy had not yet reached the point of fullness and overflow, the most pressing task was still to find an ownerless feng shui treasure land. This was no easy feat, so he could settle for the second best: retreat for a few days in a celestial inn like the Dragon Head Ferry of the Green Warbler Kingdom.
Alternatively, he could directly use immortal money imbued with spiritual energy, crushing it to refine into spiritual energy and absorb it into his qi mansion.
But Chen Ping'an hadn't even finished refining the spiritual energy he already had. Doing so would be more loss than gain. The lower one's realm, the slower the absorption of spiritual energy. The spiritual energy of immortal money was extremely pure and dissipated too quickly. It was like when many precious talismans "open a mountain" but cannot "seal the mountain"—you'd have to watch helplessly as a priceless talisman turns into worthless waste paper. Even if the immortal money could be crushed and refined, and the dharma robe could temporarily retain the energy, this would inevitably conflict with the illusion spell cast on the robe, making it even more conspicuous.
Every cultivator is the sovereign god of their own small universe, using their own skills to be their own sage.
The key lies in the territory size of each universe and the degree of control each "sovereign god" has. The path of cultivation is no different from an iron cavalry expanding its territory on the battlefield.
In the end, one's realm and the magnitude of one's Dao arts depend on how many mansions one has opened. There are thousands of house types in the world, each with its own rank, and the same goes for grotto-heavens. The best quality is naturally the blessed grotto-heaven.
After steadying his breath and concentrating his spirit, Chen Ping'an first arrived outside the gate of his Water Mansion. With a thought, he could naturally pass through walls, as if the rules of heaven and earth held no constraint—because he was the rule, and the rule was him.
Still, Chen Ping'an paused outside the gate for a moment. Two young lads in green opened the door shortly after, bowing and greeting this master with beaming faces.
Chen Ping'an's Water Mansion now had a suspended Water Character Seal and a Water Fortune mural as its two foundations—one large, one small. Those green-clad little ones, who finally had work to do, were now obviously in good spirits and very busy. No longer idle as before, they no longer squatted in neat rows on the ground, looking up at Chen Ping'an with resentful eyes and saying nothing whenever he came to tour his small universe and his own little grotto-mansion as a mustard-seed of his mind.
They were diligent little people, never slacking off, but having Chen Ping'an as their master—someone so indifferent to cultivation—was like a clever woman with no rice to cook. How could they not be sad?
Now the scene had completely changed. Everywhere in the Water Mansion was bustling with activity. The little ones ran around tirelessly, happily and willingly, enjoying themselves.
Chen Ping'an stood by a "small pond" that was like a narrow well mouth, and scooped up water with his hand. Ever since Cangyun Lake, he had gained quite a bit. Apart from the several streams of extremely pure and rich water fortune, he had also received a bottle of water elixir from the Cangyun Lake Lord. The green-clad children in the Water Mansion divided into two groups. One group used their innate abilities to send wisps of dark green water fortune toward the slowly rotating Water Character Seal.
The other group held tiny brushes that seemed to have materialized from nowhere. They "dipped ink" in the pond, then dashed toward the mural, meticulously adding colors and brilliance to the ink-brush line-drawing style water fortune wall painting. On the vast mural, they had already painted rice-grain-sized water gods and slightly larger shrines. Chen Ping'an recognized them as the water god temples, large and small, that he had personally visited—including the Biyou Mansion of the Mai River Water Goddess on Tongye Continent, though now it should be respectfully called Biyou Palace.
However, none of those water gods had their eyes dotted, and the water god shrines lacked the lively scene of curling incense smoke. For now, they were still lifeless things, unlike the surging river depicted on the mural, which was vivid and lively.
Standing by the small pond, Chen Ping'an lowered his head and gazed into it. Inside, a water fortune flood dragon, which the green-clad children had carried from Cangyun Lake, swam slowly. It had not been directly "killed" and refined into water fortune by the little green ones. Besides this, there was another phenomenon. The elixir pills gifted by Lake Lord Yin Hou—Chen Ping'an didn't know how the green-clad children had managed it—seemed to have all been refined into a single wondrous little pearl, resembling a green "li pearl." No matter how the little flood dragon in the pond swam, the pearl always hovered by its mouth, like a dragon holding a pearl, roaming freely through rivers and lakes, summoning clouds and rain.
Chen Ping'an intended to go check on the Mountain Shrine next. Some of the green-clad children smiled at him and raised their little fists, presumably encouraging him to keep up the good work?
Chen Ping'an felt somewhat helpless. Water fortune—the more it condensed into something like gleaming green jade, the more it was the fundamental Dao of water gods in the world. It was not so easy to find, and it was an item that immortal money could hardly buy. Just imagine: someone offering a hundred Guyu coins to buy the mountain foundation stone of a Mountain Shrine from Chen Ping'an. Even if Chen Ping'an knew it was a profitable deal, would he really be willing to sell? It was just a paper transaction. The cultivation of the Dao was never to be calculated that way.
Leaving the Water Mansion, Chen Ping'an began his distant "mountain-visiting." Standing at the foot of a mountain that resembled a blessed land, he looked up at the summit, where five-colored clouds swirled and drifted. The mountain body, like thick mist, appeared gray-black, still giving a sense of ethereal instability. The mountain's aura was far inferior to that of the Water Mansion.
Fortunately, at the foot of the mountain, there were some scenes of white stones gleaming like jade. But compared to the entire towering mountain, this patch of shimmering white territory was pitifully small. Yet this was already the fruit of Chen Ping'an's arduous cultivation since leaving the Green Warbler Kingdom's ferry.
The Great Sword Immortal of the Sword Qi Great Wall, Chen Qingdu, had keen eyes. He once asserted that if Chen Ping'an's destiny porcelain had not shattered, he would possess the aptitude of an earth immortal.
In the secular sense, land immortals included golden core cultivators and nascent soul cultivators; both were earth immortals.
But perhaps in the eyes of that old Great Sword Immortal, there was little difference between the two.
Thus, Chen Ping'an would neither be arrogant nor belittle himself.
He knew well in his heart that if the same Water Mansion and Mountain Shrine were given to a true genius like Qi Jinglong—someone who carried the fortune of an entire continent—the aura would only be grander.
But in the world of cultivators, geniuses were few and ordinary many. If Chen Ping'an didn't even have this much composure, his martial path would have already lost its momentum back at the Sword Qi Great Wall. As for cultivation, he would be repeatedly struck down until his state of mind shattered, not much better than a broken bridge of immortality. A qi refiner's bone structure—like Chen Ping'an's earth immortal aptitude—was a natural "iron rice bowl." But one also had to consider aptitude, which came in countless varieties. Finding the cultivation method best suited to oneself was itself the best.
Competing with others, whether in strength or reason, always had shortcomings and losses; a lifetime could hardly achieve perfection.
But competing with oneself brought long-term benefits. Every bit accumulated was one's own capital.
Every mistake, if one could recognize and correct it—when looking back at those once wrong paths—was like the riverbed of a babbling brook or a surging river. Even if the mental path remained hard to erase, the riverbed would last for a long time, and one no longer had to fear flooding. This was cultivating the heart, ensuring that no matter how great the obstacle or calamity encountered, as long as the person did not die, their Dao heart would not collapse. Looking at oneself through the state of mind, even if the mirror surface had cracks, did one truly have to believe that the person in the mirror was unrecognizable? Not necessarily.
Chen Ping'an had once feared becoming a mountain person, just as he feared that he and Gu Can would turn into the kind of people they had once despised the most. For example, the person who nearly beat Liu Xianyang to death back in Mud Vase Alley; the drunkard who kicked Gu Can in the belly earlier on; later Fu Nanhua, the Mountain-Shifting Ape; and even later Liu Zhimao and Jiang Shangzhen.
Chen Ping'an even feared that the theories of the old abbot of Guan Dao Temple would one day silently overwrite the sequential theories of Old Man Wensheng when used to weigh worldly affairs and human hearts, without him even realizing it.
But in truth, when one walks step by step with feet on the ground, the truths of the world—whether of the three teachings or a hundred schools—were never frightening. What was frightening was when one couldn't see clearly but thought they already "knew."
When truly opening one's eyes, one sees light.
This sentence, which came to Chen Ping'an after he closed his eyes for a deep sleep on the mountain peak and then opened them again, was not only thought of but also carefully carved onto a bamboo slip.
Chen Ping'an had recorded nearly countless poetic verses and phrases on bamboo slips, but the words he himself had realized and then solemnly carved onto bamboo slips could be counted on one hand.
Chen Ping'an left that five-colored "Mountain Shrine" and headed for a fortress.
Sword qi surged like a rainbow, like iron cavalry storming the pass, wave after wave, fierce and unstoppable, yet always failing to breach the impregnable city.
This was the final fortress of the Eighteen Stops of Sword Qi.
Chen Ping'an sat cross-legged on the mountain peak on one side where the iron cavalry faced the fortress, propping his cheek on his hand, silent for a long time.
After standing up, he went to two "sword graveyards," the refining grounds for First and Fifteenth.
The two flying swords, which appeared tiny in the mortal eye when manifested, were in Chen Ping'an's two qi mansions as large as mountain peaks, suspended upside down. Above two huge, flat stone platforms, the sword tips pressed against the stone platforms that had manifested from the Dragon-Slaying Platform. Sparks flew in all directions, and the entire qi mansion was a magnificent scene of sparks raining down like a downpour. Even though Chen Ping'an had long witnessed this scene, every time he saw it, his spirit still trembled.
One could imagine: if the two flying swords left the small universe of the qi mansion and returned to the vast grand world, and if they displayed such aura, how would an enemy facing them feel?
Chen Ping'an's mind withdrew from the sword-grinding place, collected his thoughts, and exited the small universe.
In fact, there was also a place of cultivation resembling a thatched hut by the shore of the heart-lake, but whether seen or not, it made no difference.
Because it was all himself.
Even without using divine thought to reflect inward, Chen Ping'an knew it clearly.
Opening his eyes, Chen Ping'an gently exhaled a mouthful of turbid qi, then closed his eyes again, slowly refining the spiritual energy of the Water Mansion and Mountain Shrine using breathing techniques.
Soon it was dawn. Chen Ping'an stopped refining spiritual energy, practiced his stake-pounding postures for an hour, then settled his bill and left the inn.
There were no celestial inns in Luqiu Commandery, nor any major immortal sects in Foqu Kingdom. Although not a vassal state of the Dayuan Dynasty, the emperors, generals, and ministers of Foqu Kingdom throughout the ages—both in court and among the people—all admired the literary lineage and Dao tradition of the Dayuan Dynasty to the point of infatuation and worship. Setting aside national power, this was somewhat similar to the early literary scene of the Great Li Dynasty, where almost all scholars stared intently at the moral essays and literary masterpieces of the Lu Clan and the Great Sui Dynasty. No matter how well their own scholars wrote, without the recognition of these two literary circles, it was still considered crude writing and poor scholarship. A young madman of the Lu Clan once declared that even if he wrote poems and essays with his toes gripping a brush, they would be better than the heartfelt writings of the Great Li barbarians.
Later, it was said that this mad scholar, who spent year after year drinking in frustration in the Lu Clan's capital, encountered the hooves and blades of the iron cavalry under Song Changjing of the Great Li Dynasty. No one knew the specifics, but in the end, the man transformed into one of the Great Li's stationed civil officials. Later, he went to the Great Li capital's Hanlin Academy, where he was tasked with compiling the history of the former Lu Dynasty. He personally wrote the biographies of loyal ministers and treacherous ministers, placing himself as the final entry in the treacherous ministers chapter. Afterwards, it was said he hanged himself.
Some said it was National Master Cui Chan, who detested the man, secretly poisoned him after he finished writing the two biographies and then staged it as a hanging. Others said that this mad scholar, who had never held any office in the Lu Dynasty his entire life, became a historian for the Great Li barbarians. Every time he wrote a biography of a loyal minister, he would set a pot of fine wine on his table, writing only at night while drinking, often shouting "How magnificent!" in the dead of night. For each biography of a treacherous minister, he wrote during the day, saying he wanted to expose these traitors and rebels under the bright sun. Then he would vomit blood into an empty cup, finally gathering it into a jar of "regret wine." So it was neither hanging nor poisoning; he died of melancholy.
Foqu Kingdom's neighboring country had an immortal ferry, with a dedicated route directly to the Dragon Palace Small Grotto-Heaven. The ferry route passed by most of the major scenic spots along the great river, with many stops for passengers to enjoy the landscapes and explore the secluded and beautiful places. This was essentially a sightseeing route; the buying and selling of immortal property was secondary. If not for the connection between the Chongxuan Office's Cloud Palace and Yang Ningxing, the Dragon Palace Grotto-Heaven would have been a must-visit. Chen Ping'an was determined to visit this famous grotto-heaven that was a source of wealth.
The Dragon Palace Grotto-Heaven was jointly owned by three parties: besides the Yang family of the Dayuan Dynasty's Chongxuan Office, the Floating Duckweed Sword Lake of the female sword immortal Li Cai was also one of them.
According to reason, the Floating Duckweed Sword Lake would be an important protective charm for Chen Ping'an's journey to the Dragon Palace Grotto-Heaven, certainly able to avoid many unexpected troubles.
But regarding favors and connections, one must be sparing when possible. According to the customs of his hometown—like the wine and dishes left over from New Year's Eve and the first day of the lunar new year—it was better to have some left over.
For ordinary friends, reciprocating favors must be possible; only then can you maintain the relationship.
Chen Ping'an didn't think he could currently repay the favors from Zhu Quan of the Hemp-Clad Sect or Li Cai of the Floating Duckweed Sword Lake.
As for Qi Jinglong, he was an exception.
Why be polite with him?
That would be underestimating this earthly flood dragon's choice of friends.
Chen Ping'an left Luqiu Commandery city without any incident. Carrying the Sword Immortal on his back and holding a green bamboo staff, he traversed mountains and rivers, moving slowly toward the neighboring country.
In the end, he had no chance to encounter that scholar of the commandery who called himself Lu Dun.
Life is often like this: you meet, part, and never see each other again.
Without those moments that make you feel that even though things have changed, the story remains in your heart.
Chen Ping'an walked on the path of cultivation.
So did everyone else.