Chapter 233: The Wild Geese Cry (Part 2)
Suddenly, the birdsong in the forest vanished without a trace, as if they knew that someone even more noisy than them had arrived on the scene. Looking at Tang Thirty-Six as he appeared before the stele hut, Chen Changsheng felt somewhat puzzled. According to the routine of the past few days, this fellow shouldn't have been willing to leave the Heavenly Book Stele until deep dusk.
"Do you know who those two people are?" Tang Thirty-Six asked, raising an eyebrow slightly as he looked toward the mountain path.
"I don't know their origins. Two..." Chen Changsheng searched for the right words, "...clueless people."
Seeing the expression on his face, Tang Thirty-Six realized that Chen Changsheng truly didn't care about the deliberate humiliation and mockery from those two. He said irritably, "Even if they're clueless people, does that mean you can just ignore them?"
Chen Changsheng replied, "Never mind that. Why are you out here?"
Only then did Tang Thirty-Six remember why he had come. He stared into Chen Changsheng's eyes and said with a hint of pride, "I saw the third stele."
Chen Changsheng was taken aback. "Didn't that happen the day before yesterday?"
Tang Thirty-Six was clearly dissatisfied with his reaction. Raising his voice, he said, "The important thing is, I'm about to break through to the next realm."
Chen Changsheng paused, then a joyful smile spread across his face. He said sincerely, "Really? That's wonderful."
Tang Thirty-Six felt helpless. "I'm about to surpass you, understand?"
"I've been waiting for this day," Chen Changsheng said, his face full of delight. He took a medicine box from his bosom and handed it to him. "Inside are instructions on how to take the medicine. Breaking through to the Ethereal Opening realm is a major event, so we can't be careless. You must not make a mistake about which pill to take at which stage or the dosage each time. I'll ask Zhe Xiu to keep an eye on it tonight."
The box contained pills refined by the Li Palace priests before the Grand Examination, using the precious herbs he and Tang Thirty-Six had stolen from the Hundred Herbs Garden and the rare medicinal ingredients Luo Luo had her clan prepare. These were specifically designed to help Meditation Realm cultivators break through to Ethereal Opening. In terms of medicinal potency alone, they were likely no worse than the Academy's Ji Tian Pills.
Tang Thirty-Six took the medicine box, speechless. He had wanted to motivate this guy, so how had the conversation ended up like this? Suddenly, it occurred to him—was Chen Changsheng's behavior a sign that he had truly given up on deciphering the stele? At this thought, his mood immediately grew heavy.
The sense of spring grew clearer by the day. More and more flocks of snow geese returning from the Western Continent arrived in the capital. Twenty days had passed since this year's top three examination candidates entered the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books. During this time, people had successively deciphered the Zhaojing Stele. Only Chen Changsheng still sat before the stele hut every day. Compared to the initial bustle, this stele hut now seemed very desolate.
Gou Hanshi believed that something might truly be wrong with his state of mind. Even Tang Thirty-Six and Zhe Xiu had begun to lose faith in him. The stele attendants who had been secretly watching him had lost interest, not to mention the other stele observers. When they looked at his figure outside the stele hut, the mocking expressions on their faces could no longer be hidden.
The situation in the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books was accurately transmitted to the capital. The fact that Chen Changsheng still hadn't succeeded in deciphering a stele triggered many different reactions. In the Eastern Divine General's Mansion, Madam Xu, in a rare display, lost her temper at Xu Shiji, saying that the family banquet should have been postponed. Xu Shiji remained silent and smashed a precious Ru kiln porcelain cup. The atmosphere in the Religious Council became somewhat oppressive. Melisande spent each day half-reclining with closed eyes in the room full of plum blossoms, as if asleep, but Priest Xin had clearly heard the old man's regretful muttering several times: Had they pushed the boy too hard?
When Lady Moyu had free time, she would still go to that small building in the National Academy and lie down for a while on Chen Changsheng's bed. But the clean scent of that young man on the bedding and pillow grew fainter and fainter, and her mood grew increasingly irritable. When reviewing memorials for Her Majesty, she gave two prefects a thorough scolding without any restraint. Tianhai Shengxue had returned to Yongxue Pass, which didn't affect the mood of this foremost family on the continent. Several mansions in the capital held banquets one after another, with literati and scholars moving among them like lackeys. The family head and several important members of the Tianhai family appeared calm, but in truth, they felt much more relaxed.
Chen Changsheng's inability to decipher the stele sparked countless discussions in the capital. People tried to explain this situation but found it impossible to make sense of. A slightly mocking remark made by the Tianhai family head at a certain banquet eventually became the consensus of the vast majority: "No matter how brilliant a diamond, after burning so fiercely, what remains besides a few wisps of coal smoke? Remember, he burned for an entire year last year."
From the Green Vine Banquet to the Grand Examination, the boy from Xining Town had given this continent too many shocks, even miracles. Now the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books had become a towering peak before him. No one believed the boy could continue to create miracles. Everyone thought he would, like those fallen geniuses in history, fade into silence from then on.
Only one person still had faith in Chen Changsheng. On the top floor of that hall in the Academy, Luo Luo stood by the railing, shading her eyes with her hand. She disliked the false sunlight of this world as she gazed into the distance, but could only see unchanging perfection, not the real Mausoleum of Heavenly Books in the real world, nor her teacher observing the stele within.
"Teacher has never cared about what hopes others place in him. He only lives for himself. But if you place hope in him, has he ever let you down?"
She turned to face Jin Yulu, her pretty little face full of trust and pride: "I don't know why he still hasn't deciphered the first Heavenly Book Stele, but I'm very certain it's not because he can't. It's because of some other reason. If he succeeds, he will surely leave everyone speechless and stunned once again."
He still woke at five in the morning, quietly opening his eyes, getting up to wash, cooking meals, cleaning, and then heading to the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books.
Spring is the best of the year, morning is the best of the day. A spring morning is the most beautiful time, though slightly cold. Chen Changsheng tightened his collar and sat down outside the stele hut. He had been sitting here for many days, never moving from his spot except occasionally to take shelter under the eaves from rain or scorching sun. The bluestone beneath him had no dust at all and had even become somewhat smooth.
Xun Mei's notes—he had read them from beginning to end many times, memorizing them thoroughly. The inscriptions on the Heavenly Book Stele, those intricate lines, were deeply etched into his sea of consciousness. Though he hadn't had enough time to observe all the changes in the inscriptions through the four seasons, he had mastered the daily changes. So he didn't need to look anymore; he simply closed his eyes.
Footsteps sounded, hurrying past from afar. More footsteps sounded, slowly passing before him. Muffled discussions rose from the mountain path. Deliberately loud, mocking words rang in his ears. Then those sounds gradually faded, leaving only silence and the birdsong in the forest.
The chirping of forest birds suddenly grew dense, and then cries of wild geese came from the high sky, one of them exceptionally clear and bright.
Chen Changsheng opened his eyes and looked up into the azure sky. A flock of snow geese flew in from the east. He didn't know which batch of snow geese returning to the capital this was. So much snow in the spring sky—it was truly beautiful, he thought. That clear goose cry must have come from a young goose, perhaps making its first long journey.
The snow geese continued flying into the distance. They might stay in the capital for a few days, then continue westward.
"It has to be this way."
Chen Changsheng stood up, said a regretful sentence, and walked into the stele hut.
Looking at the cold stone stele and the lines on it that he had grown tired of seeing, he shook his head, thinking that his talent and aptitude were indeed insufficient.
Xun Mei's notes had brought great benefits to him and the other youths in the thatched cottage. Guan Feibai and the others had deciphered steles so smoothly because they had approached the wisdom of the ancients through those notes and gained some inspiration. The benefit Chen Changsheng had gained was having many more reference points.
In the notes, Xun Mei had left many approaches to deciphering steles. For the Zhaojing Stele alone, there were more than ten kinds. But the first sentence of Wang Zhice's notes, which he had found in the Lingyan Pavilion, said that positions were relative. So what Chen Changsheng wanted to do was not to decipher the stele following those approaches, but to avoid them and blaze an entirely new path.
By observing the natural changes of the inscriptions between heaven and earth, he wanted to find an answer entirely his own. This was how he intended to decipher the stele.
This approach was most likely correct, but for his requirements, it was still quite incomplete, or rather, not pure enough. It was still a variation of the three most mainstream, most orthodox methods of deciphering—taking the meaning, taking the form, taking the momentum. Or rather, this deciphering method still hadn't completely broken free from the influence of these ingrained approaches.
He was dissatisfied with this, so he had pondered bitterly for more than twenty days. Regrettably, he still hadn't succeeded.
More importantly, as he had once said to Gou Hanshi, he cultivated by following his heart. He always felt that this deciphering method, even the methods used by countless powerful figures and sages of the past, were all wrong. He always felt that this Mausoleum of Heavenly Books, these stone steles, should have a deeper meaning. That was what he wanted to see.
It was truly regrettable. He had no more time.
That clear goose cry had awakened him. Time really flew. In the blink of an eye, only a few days remained until the Garden of Zhou opened.
On the first day he entered the Mausoleum of Heavenly Books, Gou Hanshi had asked him whether he wanted to go to the Garden of Zhou or stay longer in the mausoleum. He had said he would think about it then. Over these past few days, he had figured out his choice.
If he couldn't defy heaven to change his fate, or cultivate to the Divine Concealment realm, then he had only five years left to live.
Of course he wanted to go to more places, see more scenery, meet more people.
He wanted to go to the Garden of Zhou. He had to go to the Garden of Zhou. So he had to start deciphering the stele.
And so, he began.
He raised his right hand, pointed at a certain spot on the stele, and said, "This is the character 'home.'"
At this moment, the sky was clear and bright. Among the incredibly intricate lines on the stele's surface, a few were carved slightly shallower, illuminated as if they had floated to the surface, faintly suggesting a character.
Then he pointed to another spot on the stele and said, "This is the character 'river.'"
Immediately after, without any pause, he looked toward a place at the top of the stele where absolutely no one could discern any text, and said, "Light."
"Mist."
"Shining."
"Eaves."
"Autumn."
"Thicket."
In an instant, without stopping, he spoke twenty-eight characters. These were all characters on the stele.
The last character was "light."
His voice was clear and bright, like that goose cry from before. Toward the unknown world, he felt no fear, only anticipation, full of confidence.
Then, a gentle breeze arose.
He vanished from before the stele.
(Cool. There will be a next chapter, but it will definitely be very late. Friends who go to bed early don't need to wait.)