Chapter 172: Ready to go

A heart that is still transparent after rolling in the mud?

After hearing the old master’s explanation, my brows furrowed slightly… I couldn’t understand the deep meaning behind this sentence, because in my understanding, the most transparent heart is the heart of a newborn… A small child is the purest and most innocent, but after growing up, various causes and effects and emotional entanglements have to be cut off one by one in order to return to the innocent heart of that time.

On this basis, there is more of one’s own thinking and the ability to judge things… that is the perfect heart that a cultivator should have. As for what about rolling in the mud? That is too deliberate.

However, I am not here to argue with the old master. Everyone has their own way of thinking, and there is no need to argue about it. So, I watched the old master’s back as he walked into the room, and I was silent.

“Come in,” the old master said to me as he turned around.

I glanced inside the dark door and walked in… Once inside, the old master lit the only oil lamp in the cave, and I felt a surge of spiritual energy. This feeling made me feel both dazed and familiar… like I had returned to the mountain gate of my time.

I never thought that such a place existed in this world… But compared to the vastness of the world I was in before, this small cave seemed too small.

It was just a cave less than 10 square meters in size… The walls were covered with blocks of raw stone, and I could tell at a glance that there were jade stones among them… Jade stones are good at storing qi and magnetic fields, and it makes sense that they exist here in the form of raw stone, a kind of arrangement full of positive cycles.

Then, under these uneven rocks, there is a large bookshelf… There are not many books on it, but they are all full of a simple and ancient flavor. I even saw bamboo slips on it. Through Chen Chengyi’s memory, I knew that bamboo slips were an ancient recording tool in this world, and I didn’t expect to find them preserved here.

“Here, there are all kinds of Taoist exercises, miscellaneous books… It is the entire collection of my Snow Mountain lineage… I have seen your performance in the underground cave, and your use of Taoist techniques has reached a very high level, completely surpassing the scope of the younger generation, but there is still some awkwardness. These books will be helpful to you. I think with your ability, it shouldn’t be difficult to understand them, right?” The old headmaster said to me.

I remained silent, but walked over to the bookshelf and carefully picked up a book, leafing through it.

The old master sighed and said, “You are not him, so I was worried for nothing… However, the will of the same soul is the same at the root. I only hope that this great problem can be solved from this point.”

I gently closed the ancient book in my hands… Even if this ancient heritage is well protected, I still have to be careful when handling it to avoid damage… In any case, the heritage of great effort is worth cherishing and treasuring.

“Do you know anything?” I put down the ancient book in my hand and asked lightly. After all, the situation between Chen Chengyi and I is a secret. Except for Chen Chengyi’s master, no one else should know.

But if he doesn’t give me an answer, I don’t care… How things turn out is all up to fate, and I don’t care what outsiders think. If he uses this to ask me to be expelled from the Snow Mountain lineage, but I promised Chen Chengyi that I would complete the task, I will still go and complete it.

“I don’t know much, but I have a hunch that the Chen Chengyi in front of me is not the real Chen Chengyi… and the soul’s aura hasn’t changed, so it must be the soul’s will that’s at fault… this kind of situation is very rare, but it’s not unheard of. But I don’t want to delve into it…” The old master looked at me and said his judgment very calmly.

“Why don’t you want to investigate further?” I just asked a follow-up question. After all, the soul will is the core of the soul. If the soul will changes, it can be said that it fundamentally changes a person. Why didn’t the old master pursue it?

“Through various connections, you have been confirmed as the head of the Snow Mountain lineage. No matter who you are, the ancestral teachings do not mention that those who pass the test will be expelled. Under any circumstances, it is impossible… you are still the head of the Snow Mountain lineage. And my personal preferences don’t mean anything.” The old headmaster responded very directly.

“Oh? Actually, I really want to know why you like Chen Chengyi so much.” I was originally not very curious about anything, but these days, I have no choice but to share a body with Chen Chengyi and have experienced a completely different life experience from before.

My future life is here to fulfill a karmic debt from my past life. I can say that every arrangement in Chen Chengyi’s destiny is full of deep meaning, but I can’t understand it at all… It’s just that sometimes I don’t agree with the way Chen Chengyi does things. The rules are ruthless, just like the outcome of things, which is predetermined… So in order to achieve the best result, for the greater good, some minor details don’t need to be taken care of at all.

I very much agree with that saying. Sometimes the smallest kindness is the greatest cruelty.

“Because Chen Chengyi is full of humanity, and you are too high and mighty… In my heart, no matter what towering tree, it is always rooted in the ground… Just like every fairy, it also comes from mortals.” The old master just looked at me and said this sentence lightly.

We fell into a short silence, I was thinking about his words, and after a while of silence, he said, “Since the Snow Mountain lineage is completely open to you, you don’t need to be polite. This is the best place for practice in the Snow Mountain lineage, and the most secret scriptures… If you need anything else, you can just ask… We will also do our best to provide you with medicinal materials. Don’t worry, this is just our duty, because you are the head of the sect.”

After saying this, he said the way to find him after that and left… It turned out that he was also practicing in this large cave, but in the only small cave full of spiritual energy in the cave, only I was qualified to practice in it, and he could not enter it either.

It seems that the rules of the Snow Mountain Sect are very strict… I don’t really care. Having this cave is of course good, and it doesn’t matter if I don’t have it… I carefully recalled the methods in my memory that could quickly improve my strength. As long as I had the support of the resources of the Snow Mountain Sect, the speed would not be slow.

I’m just afraid that in this world, I’m afraid there aren’t such good conditions… This is a very similar world, but it’s still different after all.

I don’t even know where I was before, and where exactly am I now? After all, according to Chen Chengyi’s vision, he couldn’t possibly give me a concrete answer… Maybe there are some doubts in his rich memories, but I don’t want to remember them one by one.

I’m afraid that in the end, after the memories have completely merged, not only will Chen Chengyi disappear, but I will also become something other than myself… I would rather die in accordance with the natural order of things than to be something other than myself…

In the cave, apart from this shelf of books, there is also a mat, but that’s all there is… The most basic conditions are also the most luxurious conditions in the Snow Mountain.

In fact, I was very satisfied with the conditions here, and I didn’t think about it anymore at the moment… Instead, I entered into asceticism… It seems that in Chen Chengyi’s memory, there were not many days of such pure asceticism, and even if there were, there were no such conditions… Perhaps this was also one of the reasons that limited him.

There is no time in cultivation… In this cave, my days passed one by one. I didn’t feel lonely or bored. On the contrary, I felt that I had been given the best environment to immerse myself in cultivation and focus on it.

However, in the face of my situation, the old master, who would occasionally send me things, only commented that any kind of addiction is extreme. Even if you are addicted to cultivation and the Dao, it is still an addiction, and once you are addicted, it is difficult to see through the essence clearly. I hope you will pay attention.

I didn’t take this too seriously… because I thought it was just a superficial truth. In fact, the Dao is the Dao. If you immerse yourself in it and understand it, you become the Dao. What’s wrong with that?

Fortunately, he didn’t argue with me about it.

Apart from him, the one who often came to see me was the Elder Qiu… and he was the one who brought me information from the outside world… The world had already begun to fall apart, with the forces led by Yang Sheng and the forces led by the Snow Mountain Sect beginning to collide in various ways.

This collision not only includes friction of “using force,” but also mutual espionage, mutual information collection, and even the placement of spies… So all kinds of news constantly surfaced, and these news were all organized and sent to me.

The circle of cultivators is not ‘simpler’ than the various circles in the outside world. As long as there are people, there will be struggles. This seems to be an unchanging truth, almost a law of the universe, but the essence of the law of the universe is the hardest to see… Just as the truth you know is not necessarily the true essence of the law of the universe, so I cannot make a rash judgment.

From the various pieces of information gathered, it seems that things are very complicated, but when you look at it through, the essence is very simple… Yang Sheng has mastered a power that can “go against the heavens,” and this power is not alone, the only one… Therefore, he has the help of the forces, and behind this there is also a mysterious shadow.

I don’t really care about these things… It’s just that the casualties are shocking, because by this point, the clashes between each other are no longer small… The largest-scale use of force even alarmed the part of the circle of cultivators that is related to the government, and then it was suppressed with great effort.

At this time, everything is like a taut string. Is the battle of the great era about to begin?

At this time, I have been practicing for 20 days, and I will not leave this small cave unless it is necessary. I have not set foot outside the large cave.