Chapter 211: Ten Thousand Methods of Stele Interpretation (Part 2)
One person stood atop a broken fence, gazing at the setting sun in the distance, his face a mix of sorrow and joy. Another paced frantically around a dilapidated thatched hut, muttering incantations under his breath like a madman, his entire demeanor dazed. The scene indeed looked somewhat bizarre. Who could have imagined that these two youths were renowned disciples of the Lishan Sword Sect, members of the Divine Kingdom's Seven Laws?
Chen Changsheng was initially startled as well, but then he realized that Liang Banhu and Qijian must have gained some insights after viewing the stele and were now digesting them, so he refrained from disturbing them.
The dusk grew thicker, and more people returned to the thatched hut. Gou Hanshi’s expression remained calm as usual, suggesting that interpreting the stele had not drained his mental energy. Guan Feibai, whom he had forcibly brought back, was even more exaggerated than Liang Banhu and Qijian, staggering around like a drunkard, shouting repeatedly, “I can hold on a little longer… I can hold on a little longer…”
Chen Changsheng asked, “Is everything alright?”
“It’s fine, just excessive consumption of spiritual sense. The stele inscription’s impact on the sea of consciousness was too great.”
Gou Hanshi apologized for his junior brother’s loss of composure, lightly tapped his fingertip to put Guan Feibai to sleep, and then tossed him into the room.
Chen Changsheng had deliberately refrained from using his spiritual sense while observing the stele. Now, seeing Guan Feibai’s state, he thought to himself that caution was indeed warranted.
Tang Thirty-Six returned, his face full of exhaustion, too lazy to say a word. He waved at Chen Changsheng and went to the inner room to sleep. The last to return was Zhes Xiu. By then, the sky was pitch black, and the stars shone brightly, casting a pallor on his unusually pale face. Clearly, he too had overexerted his spiritual sense.
With the sun gone, Liang Banhu snapped out of his trance. Qijian, tired from pacing, wiped his sweat and walked back into the courtyard. Remembering what he had just done, he felt deeply embarrassed, his face turning bright red.
Chen Changsheng went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Gou Hanshi took Qijian to help. Before long, the room began to fill with the fragrant steam of rice being cooked a second time, along with other aromas. Qijian went to wake Guan Feibai and Tang Thirty-Six for dinner, while Gou Hanshi and Liang Banhu sat silently staring at two plates of cured meat on the table.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Changsheng asked.
The boiled cured meat had been sliced and divided into two plates—one stir-fried with scallion oil, the other candied with sugar.
Gou Hanshi said, “I… never thought cured meat could be paired with sugar.”
Liang Banhu’s face showed reluctance as he asked, “Can it taste good?”
“I had it twice before I was ten. It was delicious.” Chen Changsheng handed chopsticks to Gou Hanshi.
Gou Hanshi picked up a piece of the candied cured meat, frowned as he put it in his mouth, chewed for a moment, and then his brow relaxed.
Seeing his senior brother’s expression, Liang Banhu understood immediately. Delighted, he scooped several slices of candied cured meat into his bowl, then crouched by the doorstep and began eating noisily.
After dinner, Qijian washed the dishes. Guan Feibai sat at the table, his face still dark with displeasure at Gou Hanshi for dragging him away from the Heavenly Book Stele.
“Not happy?” Gou Hanshi asked calmly.
Guan Feibai’s expression instantly stiffened. He quickly stood up and bowed, saying, “Your junior brother wouldn’t dare.”
Gou Hanshi shook his head and said, “You still don’t want to leave the Zhaojing Stele.”
Guan Feibai said helplessly, “Those with far lower cultivation than mine are still persisting before the stele. I clearly could have looked a bit longer.”
Gou Hanshi replied, “What is the Heavenly Book Stele? How can reading and interpreting it be accomplished in a single day? Why must you fight over every moment?”
Guan Feibai said bitterly, “The Zhou Garden will open in a month. Time is too tight… Wang Po took a whole year to interpret thirty-one steles back then. My current cultivation is far inferior to his at that time. With only a month, how many steles can I interpret? Senior Brother, I have to rely on time to gain an edge.”
“As good as the Zhou Garden is, how can it compare to even a fraction of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum? Before we left, the Sect Master instructed that no matter what happens, our first task is to comprehend those steles at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum… The Sect Master surely knew that Senior Brother would open the Zhou Garden, so that must be what he meant. Of course, cultivation is a personal matter. Choose for yourselves.”
Gou Hanshi looked at Qijian and Liang Banhu washing dishes, then glanced at the closed door of the inner room, and said, “You all should think it over carefully.”
“You heard that too. Even the Sect Master of the Lishan Sword Sect thinks the same way.”
Chen Changsheng shook his head at Zhes Xiu, whose face was pale. He took a fine needle from his needle case, gently pressed his finger against the spot on Zhes Xiu’s shoulder blade, and slowly but steadily inserted the needle tip. He twisted it with his fingertip, the motion seeming casual yet rhythmic, and continued, “This is only the first stele. Why the rush?”
Zhes Xiu said expressionlessly, “Precisely because it’s the first stele, I’m in a hurry.”
Chen Changsheng channeled his true essence through the copper needle into Zhes Xiu’s body, carefully examining his meridian condition, and asked, “What’s the logic in that?”
Zhes Xiu looked out the window and said, “There used to be a stele in front of the Heavenly Book Mausoleum with many names carved on it. They were later chiseled off.”
Chen Changsheng knew the stele he was referring to. It once bore a ranking similar to the Azure Cloud List, arranged by the speed of stele interpretation. Over a hundred years ago, after Her Holiness the Empress ascended the Divine Path on behalf of the Emperor to offer sacrifices to heaven, she saw this stele and deemed that viewing steles was a way to glimpse the Heavenly Dao, and that such a ranking showed disrespect to the Heavenly Dao, so she ordered it destroyed.
“Though the ranking on that stele is gone, no one will ever forget those names.”
Zhes Xiu said, “Twenty-three people took only one day to interpret the Zhaojing Stele. As for Zhou Dufu back then, he merely glanced at the stele’s surface before moving on to the second one.”
Thinking of those legendary figures whose cultivation talents were so formidable as to be incomprehensible, Chen Changsheng could only remain silent.
Tang Thirty-Six had wrapped himself in a fur blanket and was lying on his side on the bed, watching Chen Changsheng treat Zhes Xiu. Hearing this, he grew somewhat irritated. “You failed to interpret the stele on your first day, so you feel embarrassed? Then what does that make us, who’ve been staring at it for two days?”
Zhes Xiu couldn’t turn his head, so he stared quietly out the window and said, “Idiots?”
Tang Thirty-Six was furious. “If you weren’t a patient, I’d kill you.”
Zhes Xiu said flatly, “If Chen Changsheng weren’t treating me, I’d have killed you during the Grand Examination.”
Chen Changsheng withdrew the copper needle from his neck and said, “There’s a problem with the layer connecting your main governing meridian to your sea of consciousness. So whenever your sea of consciousness stirs with hidden tides, your heart races. You’ve relied entirely on your strong willpower to hold on, but if you exhaust your mental energy too much and can’t suppress it, the issues in your meridians could erupt violently. Then who could save you?”
Zhes Xiu understood that he was advising him not to spend too long observing the stele or focus too intensely, as he had today, but he didn’t respond.
Chen Changsheng said, “You told me that compared to becoming stronger, staying alive and clear-headed is the most important thing.”
Zhes Xiu was silent for a moment before saying, “Yes, but in the place I come from, if you’re not strong enough, you won’t live long either.”
As Gou Hanshi had said, cultivation was a personal matter. Chen Changsheng couldn’t force the issue. He turned to Tang Thirty-Six and asked, “How did your stele interpretation go today?”
Tang Thirty-Six said casually, “Match the lines on the stele to your own meridians, then mobilize your true essence… That’s how the Zhaojing Stele has been interpreted since ancient times. What other method could there be?”
Guan Feibai’s mocking voice came from outside the door: “It’s been thousands of years, and you northerners still only know this stupid method. No wonder there are fewer and fewer capable people. How could the inscriptions on the Heavenly Book Steles possibly be routes for true essence circulation? They’re clearly methods for spiritual perception, alright?”
(Some classmates want activation codes for the game. I got a few dozen from the game company. I’ll send them out on WeChat later. If you want to play, just send me a message, and… well, I’ll just have to pick and give them out randomly. I don’t know how else to do it. See you tomorrow.)