He opened the door to find Xiaoyan standing outside, looking lovely. Her long hair was draped casually over her shoulders, and every ti her limpid eyes fell on Lu Xuan, they filled with unconcealed joy.
She was holding a large box, which she thrust toward him.
"Quick, see what this is... It’s so heavy!"
"What? You’re almost a Grandmaster yourself, and you still find things heavy..." Before he could finish, Lu Xuan took the cardboard box and his expression froze.
’Huh?’
’Sothing’s not right. It actually is a bit heavy...’
That was rather startling.
With his current Physique, a casual strike from one hand could deliver at least a hundred thousand catties of force. If he went all out, there was no telling what the limit was...
’What in the world is in this box??’
’For it to be this heavy, how has the cardboard not been crushed?’
As he mulled it over, Lu Xuan gently placed the box on the ground. The tiled floor showed no signs of cracking, which only deepened his confusion. ’This makes no sense.’
Filled with doubt, Lu Xuan carefully opened the box. Xiaoyan leaned in, her eyes full of curiosity.
Inside the box, composed of sixteen bamboo segnts of varying lengths, was... a Fishing Drum??
The Fishing Drum looked perfectly ordinary, yet it exuded an aura of the Great Dao’s ultimate simplicity. It was engraved with so profound and mysterious patterns, but they seed to have faded after eons of ti and cataclysmic battles, becoming unclear and even broken in many places.
Beneath the Fishing Drum lay a thin token.
Lu Xuan and Xiaoyan stared at each other, wide-eyed.
"What is this..." Xiaoyan cupped her small face with her delicate white hands, her round eyes wide with confusion.
Lu Xuan also scratched his head in a daze. When he tried to lift the Fishing Drum, he was even more shocked.
The mont he touched the Fishing Drum, he realized its weight was far greater than the box itself!
With his current Physique, he actually found it sowhat strenuous to lift!
Subconsciously, Lu Xuan wanted to shake it, to play the Fishing Drum, but he was stopped by a sudden premonition that arose from his True Spirit.
After a mont’s thought, he held the Fishing Drum in one hand and picked up the token from the bottom of the box with the other, slowly unfolding it.
[I have had many disciples, but you shall be the last.]
[We will dispense with the discipleship ceremony. My sect has few trivial rules; we keep things simple.]
[This Heaven-Reaching Fishing Drum is my gift to you for accepting as your master. Keep it well, and use it with caution before your Ascension to Immortality.]
The token contained only these few words, yet each ordinary character emanated a mysterious quality. Every stroke—horizontal, falling, vertical, and pressing—was like the edge of a sword, possessing the power to slice the heavens and sunder the earth.
Gazing at it closely was like watching a young Daoist perform a sword dance above the world. Wherever the blade passed, heaven and earth dissolved into Chaos and all things turned to nothingness. When the Daoist finally sheathed his sword, Yin and Yang returned to singularity, and the entire universe entered Nirvana!
Lu Xuan stared blankly at every stroke of every character, gradually becoming lost in them, as if srized.
Only when Xiaoyan gently nudged his shoulder for the fourth ti did the young man startle and co back to his senses.
"Xiaolu..." Yan Jiangxue asked with charming innocence, "Who is this? Is it that mysterious master of yours?"
Lu Xuan stamred for a mont, equally bewildered.
"I... I don’t know either... I think... I think it’s my Third Master-Uncle?"
"Third Master-Uncle!" Yan Jiangxue asked, still confused. "How did your Third Master-Uncle beco your master now? Didn’t the token say he was taking you as his Closed-door Disciple?"
Lu Xuan scratched his head, just as perplexed. The questions piled up.
He looked at the Master’s Token and the Heaven-Reaching Fishing Drum in his hands, but after thinking for a long ti, he couldn’t make sense of it.
"Oh, well. Whatever... In any case, it can’t be a bad thing."
With that, Lu Xuan tilted his head and smiled.
"My senior brother once told that my master, Second Master-Uncle, and Third Master-Uncle are like one and the sa, with no hierarchy among them, which is why I call them all Master-Uncle... It’s strange, actually. A descendant of my Second Master-Uncle once ca looking for , telling to perform the discipleship ceremony and take Second Master-Uncle as my master..."
Yan Jiangxue only grew more confused.
After a mont, she sat down on a nearby chair, her small, fair feet with a rosy blush swinging happily in the air.
"Xiaolu, I’m bored. Wanna go out and have so fun?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere is fine."
"Let’s go?"
"Let’s go!"
Yan Jiangxue hopped off the high chair and scampered over with a PITTER-PATTER, linking her arm with Lu Xuan’s and excitedly dragging him toward the door.
With a thought from Lu Xuan, the Heaven-Reaching Fishing Drum and the single-page Master’s Token vanished into his body, sent into his Spiritual World. He then let Xiaoyan pull him along as they left together.
It was nearing dusk. Much of the day’s searing heat had dissipated, and the cool night breeze rustled the clusters of trees lining the road. In the sky, the Great Sun was setting in the west, painting the sky with brilliant evening clouds, while a crescent moon was beginning to rise, its light as soft as water.
For a brief mont, the sun and moon coexisted.
The streets weren’t as bustling as before, but at least there were people around. You could see passersby walking, so in a hurry, others at a leisurely pace. Occasionally, you could even spot two or three children roughhousing.
So of the more arrogant prodigies had been intimidated, so for the past month or so, no one had caused any trouble. If not for the occasional Celestial Human streaking across the sky like a Great Sun, one might almost think things had returned to how they used to be.
The young man and woman walked side by side under the shade of the trees lining the long street, strolling leisurely. They listened to the whoosh of the evening wind, watched the sunset and moonrise, and walked through the lively, worldly hustle and bustle of the Human World.
Everything was silently, peacefully beautiful.
"Xiaolu," Yan Jiangxue said suddenly. "The ruins... they’re about to open, aren’t they?"
Lu Xuan nodded silently.
"Yeah. The rumors said the sixth day of the sixth month, so it should be in the next day or two."
"Will it be dangerous?" Yan Jiangxue asked in her clear, crisp voice.
"Definitely. But you can’t just stop moving forward because you might encounter danger and face tribulations."
As Lu Xuan spoke, he held the girl’s warm, soft hand, gazing at the tall buildings on either side, at the countless lights of the city twinkling like a brilliant galaxy of stars.
A thought suddenly stirred in his heart. He inexplicably recalled the scene of viewing the Master’s Token—each stroke seed ordinary, but if one delved into its depths, one could see the Daoist bringing the world to a state of quiescent nirvana. With the rise and fall of his sword, the universe was reduced to ruins.
’If I can see the Daoist of the End in ordinary handwriting, can I see the true nature of other things in the ten thousand things of creation?’
’My eyes can see tangible things, so why can’t they see the intangible?’
’Just because sothing is formless and shapeless, does that an it can’t be seen?’
’If it can’t be seen, then how was I able to see the image of the Daoist’s sword dance in those characters, to see Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water returning to one?’
’To see only the tangible is to be mortal.’
’To see the intangible, to perceive the true nature of all things—that is to be a true person.’
Under Xiaoyan’s puzzled gaze, Lu Xuan stopped, closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Before his eyes, all things were analyzed, perceived, and understood.
The world in his vision was no longer superficial. With a single glance, he could see the individual specks of dust on a buzzing gnat, as well as everything inside its tiny body. At the finest level, he could even see the minuscule cells that composed it.
Probing deeper, he could faintly perceive the most fundantal fluctuation of life within the gnat, see the mont of its birth, trace it back to the birth of its prival ancestor, and see the fine threads of the [Dao].
Although it only lasted for an Instant, and although directly perceiving the true nature of all things caused intense pain in his eyes, Lu Xuan laughed lightly, a look of sudden realization on his face.
"What’s wrong?" Xiaoyan asked softly.
"Nothing..." Lu Xuan closed and opened his eyes again, and the ancient, profound state of perceiving the true nature of all things faded from his gaze.
He said,
"The human body has three hundred and sixty-five acupoints, corresponding to the number of stars in a celestial Circulation. However, only three hundred and sixty of them can be refined and ford within the physical body."
After a pause, Lu Xuan continued,
"I once thought the remaining five acupoints were the five internal organs, and that these organs could be further developed. In fact, that does seem to be the case... but now, I’ve made a new discovery."
Yan Jiangxue leaned her head closer and asked, impressed without fully understanding,
"What is it?"
Inhaling the faint, pleasant scent from the girl, Lu Xuan’s face flushed, and he stamred,
"The body’s final five mysterious acupoints can be the five organs, but that should be the inferior path. They can also be five other things—things used to perceive the true nature of reality. This should be the middle or superior path."
Yan Jiangxue was a little lost, blinking her big eyes.
"Are you saying that the five acupoints of the Extre Realm aren’t actually fixed?"
"Mhm."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because..." Lu Xuan smiled. "I found one."
The three hundred and sixty-first acupoint, the Form Acupoint, opened.
What the eye sees is Form.
An ordinary person can see the surface Form of things with their eyes. Lu Xuan, with his Form Acupoint, can see the fundantal Form of things. He can see the extrely vast and the extrely minuscule; he can see all that is tangible and intangible.
He had a premonition that the Cultivation of the Form Acupoint would likely not end at the Jade Tower stage. If he could cultivate it to Perfection in the future, he might even be able to directly perceive the originally ethereal and elusive [Dao].
The Three Thousand Great Dao, can they be seen directly?
The answer:
"Yes."
Lu Xuan let out a hearty laugh. After the [Form Acupoint] was pioneered and his diation of Creation was activated, during the alternating transition between peak prosperity and decay,
his Physique grew stronger once again.
Although the increase was minimal, it ant his [upper limit] had been pushed higher, even if only by a tiny fraction.
When he looked upon the Red Dust and the city’s myriad lights again,
Lu Xuan could now see the joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, and fear of the people in their hos and on the streets. He could truly [see] it, transforming the intangible into sothing tangible before his eyes.
"This is a Great Divine Technique," he comnted to himself.
Forcing thoughts of Cultivation to the back of his mind, Lu Xuan focused wholeheartedly on strolling through the streets with Xiaoyan... Okay, he couldn’t actually focus wholeheartedly at all.
He kept involuntarily activating the Form Acupoint, directly seeing the love between a young couple, the joy of an old man on a leisurely walk, the anger of a woman shouting curses in the street,
and sotis, he could even glimpse the brief, montary [Future Form] of things. He saw a leaf blown off by the wind before it fell, saw a pedestrian stop walking before they halted, and saw the crescent moon dominate the sky before the Great Sun had completely set...
A mont later, that very leaf was indeed blown off by the wind, fluttering to the ground. The pedestrian did indeed stop, waiting for a car to pass. The Great Sun sank completely below the horizon, and its last trace of afterglow vanished.
In a daze, for a single Instant, Lu Xuan even saw a glimpse of the fallen leaf decaying into mud!
He knew this was just the most likely of many possible futures, but...
’Could I moonlight as a fortune teller now?’
The ability to see monts into the future and the past was another one of the [Form Acupoint]’s unfathomable wonders!
"Xiaolu, the bubble tea shop is open too!"
Xiaoyan’s cheerful voice interrupted the shock in Lu Xuan’s heart.
He chuckled and waved his hand magnanimously.
"Let’s get so! My treat!"
"Yay, yay!" Xiaoyan’s smile grew even brighter, her eyes curving into crescents, just like the crescent moon.
No, she was even more beautiful than the crescent moon in the sky.
Much more beautiful.
...
「Late at night.」
「The old cetery.」
The Bronze Stele still stood tall. The rust on its surface had completely peeled away, and the three words—[Lu Xuan’s Tomb]—were vigorous and powerful, flowing with the aura of ancient Years.
"The restriction is about to disappear." In the deep pit, a Celestial Human from Sakata Heavy Industries said with focused concentration, "If nothing unexpected happens... it will be tomorrow!"
「anwhile, in the villa in the city center.」
"Goodnight, Xiaolu!"
"Goodnight, Xiaoyan!"
He watched the girl in bear-print pajamas bounce back to her room.
Only then did Lu Xuan gently close his door.
’See no evil, see no evil, see no evil...’ he silently chanted to himself.
’This Form Acupoint is great and all, but I’m not skilled enough with it yet. I keep activating it involuntarily.’
’Seeing monts into the future or past, or seeing emotions like joy and anger is one thing. The problem is I can also see the internal organs of a bird, or the bones and blood in a human body.’
’And sotis, I don’t see that deep, I just, I just...’
Lu Xuan’s face flushed red. He slapped himself, then shrank back, feeling as guilty as a thief.
After a while, having cald his thoughts, he slowly lay down on his bed and drifted off to sleep.
’Mmm, I’ll have to ask Master what’s going on with Second Master-Uncle and Third Master-Uncle... It all feels so strange.’
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