Chapter 1790: Mutual Probing

Dong Rui looked over as instructed, only to see another "Dong Rui" standing a few yards away, also holding a lotus flower from the offering table, looking at him with a face full of astonishment!

What shocked him most was that He Lingchuan and the Ghost Ape were also standing beside this "Dong Rui." The damn monkey was even pointing at him, chattering and shrieking!

He could understand the Ghost Ape:

"Another master, the master in the mirror can move!"

Hell! He felt his hair stand on end instantly. He looked around, only to find that there was no He Lingchuan beside him, let alone a Ghost Ape!

Qian Huan asked him, "Now, do you think you are real or an illusion?"

The source of the voice was wrong.

Dong Rui looked again and saw that Qian Huan was actually standing beside He Lingchuan, several yards away from him.

They—they all seemed to be standing in front of an invisible mirror, standing in a row, staring straight at him in the mirror! "I..." He opened his mouth, unable to find the rest of his sentence within two seconds, "I, I am of course real!"

Yet He Lingchuan looked enlightened, pointing at him and saying something profound: "When the real is taken for the fake, the fake becomes real."

Dong Rui felt his hair stand on end: "Hey, hey, don't be like this!"

Are we still good teammates or not?

Qian Huan asked him, "Now you can't find the mirror, so the boundary for you to distinguish between real and illusion is only yourself. If there is consciousness, it is real; if there is no consciousness, it is an illusion, right?"

With the mirror as a reference point gone, Dong Rui could only look for the next reference point to distinguish between real and illusion.

The harder and more abstract this reference point was, the harder it was for a person to make an accurate judgment.

"Right..." Dong Rui suddenly shivered and hurriedly waved his hands, "Stop playing, stop playing, don't make my consciousness disappear!"

The current reference point was his "consciousness." If this Great Mirage Immortal ran into his mind and stirred things up, making him unable to distinguish between reality and imagination from then on, wouldn't he be ruined?

Qian Huan walked straight to his front, took the lotus flower from his hand, and casually inserted it back into the vase: "Alright, that's enough."

Dong Rui felt his shoulder sink; it was the Ghost Ape jumping onto his shoulder to sit down, baring its teeth and making a face at him, which made him want to punch it in the face.

Turning his head, He Lingchuan was right beside him.

Dong Rui let out a long breath, feeling relieved.

He stretched his neck to look behind Qian Huan again; it was empty, with nothing there.

This was the other party putting away their illusion technique.

"Illusion techniques are not necessarily simple tricks to deceive the eyes," Qian Huan said indifferently. "Blurring the boundary between real and illusion confuses the real and illusion themselves."

What is a boundary? A boundary is a fulcrum, a fulcrum for judging real and illusion. If you take it away or blur it, who can still tell what is real and what is illusion? He Lingchuan was thoughtful: "The boundary the Immortal Venerable speaks of is actually just rules, right? To transform from void to reality, one must at least make the rules between void and reality become blurred."

Qian Huan glanced at him, somewhat surprised.

"You are somewhat close. At your age, you can actually figure this out?"

His words rarely carried two parts of praise.

He Lingchuan bluffed: "Just a flash of inspiration."

Actually, he had thought of the Panlong world.

Why say that world is void? Following Qian Huan's logic, it was because the Great Fang Hu itself was the boundary. Outside the pot is real; inside the pot is void.

If...

He Lingchuan's heartbeat quickened. If the Great Fang Hu, acting as a boundary, became blurred? If one couldn't tell the difference between inside and outside the pot, then is it possible for the Panlong world and the real world to "confuse" together and merge with each other? Thinking of this layer, the gloom in his heart vanished, and his thoughts seemed to clear up.

"It seems the Immortal Venerable's sixty years of seclusion have been highly effective." He Lingchuan cupped his hands in a salute to Qian Huan, the joy on his face coming from the heart, "Congratulations!"

Those who didn't know would think he was sincerely congratulating Qian Huan.

"To advance one step further from the top of a hundred-foot pole is fraught with difficulties," Qian Huan said gloomily. "When you reach my cultivation level one day, you will know that human power has its limits, yet the mysteries of heaven and earth are endless."

"Can the Great Expansion Heavenly Bead not help the Immortal Venerable achieve the right fruit?"

Qian Huan sneered slightly: "A piece or two of supreme treasure can let you peek at the Great Dao? How could it be that easy?"

He asked He Lingchuan again: "Who is your master?"

"I haven't formally apprenticed under anyone; I either ponder things myself or practice in the army."

Qian Huan walked toward the sand table: "The army? After the medieval period, practitioners began to advocate entering the Dao through martial arts and proving the Dao through killing, because it is a shortcut. However, in the ancient times, this method was the least desirable, as it leads to killing karma disturbing the mind and karmic retribution entangling the body, making it hard to have a good end."

His meaning was very clear: practitioners in the late medieval period had limited progress and could choose to enter the Dao through martial arts. But in an environment where the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was abundant and the cultivation ceiling was raised, this path was not suitable.

He Lingchuan subconsciously looked at the sand table. Proving the Dao through killing leads to karmic retribution, so what about turning one's hand to wipe out the living beings on the island? Was there no karmic retribution? Or was it a case of the disciple doing the work for the master? This time, it was Qian Huan who took the initiative to say: "From you, I seem to see two parts of an old friend's demeanor."

"Oh?" He Lingchuan asked curiously, "Which old friend?"

"Neither like a Heavenly Demon nor like an Immortal," Qian Huan said leisurely. "Have you heard of 'General Red' or Panlongcheng?"

He Lingchuan's heartbeat quickened instantly; he never expected General Red to be mentioned in this occasion and in this form.

But his face was truly thick enough to remain unchanged even if a mountain collapsed before him:

"I have heard of her; she was an unparalleled military talent from over a hundred years ago, and that was a small city that resisted Beijia until the very last moment. The Immortal Venerable was in charge of Ling Mountain at that time, right? How did you see her?"

"Fate brings people together, and world affairs are unpredictable." Qian Huan asked him, "You said earlier, where are you from?"

"Yangshan Archipelago."

Qian Huan's gaze was like a torch: "No, where is your origin?"

"Right in the Panlong Desert. I grew up listening to the stories of Panlongcheng." He Lingchuan didn't think there was anything to hide. Qian Huan wouldn't suddenly be interested in a "small character" like him unless he discovered some clues, such as his ability to pull away the Haoyuan Golden Mirror, which meant there was a power hidden behind him capable of destroying the "rules" of the small cave heaven.

He Lingchuan even suspected that the eaves bell, the token Ling Mountain asked him to bring, contained certain information in its ringing, very likely mentioning He Lingchuan's own information.

Otherwise, with Ling Mountain full of talent, why did Wang Xingyi insist that He Lingchuan must be the one to find the Upside-Down Sea?

Ling Mountain knew He Lingchuan's secret and knew he had a deep connection with the Great Fang Hu. Now, Qian Huan knew too, right? If so, Ling Mountain sending him over had no good intentions at all.

Thinking of this, He Lingchuan was not angry.

It didn't matter; he had long harbored ill intentions toward True Person Qian Huan, so he had to allow others to return the favor.

Besides, he had always suspected that True Person Qian Huan had some entanglement with the historical Panlongcheng, so True Person Qian Huan, who was in charge of Ling Mountain over 150 years ago, was very likely to be particularly attentive to people and things related to Panlongcheng and the Great Fang Hu. ===== CHAPTER 1791 =====