Chapter 64: Strange

"This one isn't for sharpening the mind or passing the time."

Elder Kui appeared at some unknown moment and said quietly. Then he glanced at Mr. Zhuang, hesitated briefly, and added:

"At least, not for normal people."

Mr. Zhuang's brow furrowed slightly. "Have you ever seen a cultivation art like this?"

Elder Kui shook his head gently. "I've seen stranger cultivation arts, but one as strange as this — never…"

"I've seen bottlenecks that require spirit stones, spirit roots, spirit objects, meridians, bloodlines, even killing people, killing demon beasts, killing demonic cultivators, and even ones that need the blood qi, spiritual power, or divine sense of a living person as a primer. But a bottleneck that's a puzzle array in the sea of consciousness — this is the first time I've seen one."

Elder Kui added coolly, "These kinds of obscure, old-fashioned cultivation arts only exist in stubborn old sects like yours."

Mr. Zhuang sighed softly. "This is troublesome."

"I told you long ago — there's no need to be different, no need to learn cultivation arts no one else learns. This child Mo Hua has a poor spirit root to begin with, and now he's learned this obscure art. His cultivation is being held back, and his progress will be much slower." A hint of reproach colored Elder Kui's tone.

"Whatever one does, one should see it through to the end. I'll find a way."

"What do you plan to do? Don't forget you can't stay in this place too long." Elder Kui's gaze cooled slightly.

"I still have to teach him to solve arrays, so he can work out on his own how to break the puzzle array in his sea of consciousness," Mr. Zhuang said. "Given Mo Hua's comprehension, it shouldn't take too long. After that… it can only depend on his fate…"

"What about those two children of the Bai family? You're not going to look after them either?"

"Taking them as registered disciples was already an exception. I can't possibly take them as personal disciples. That junior sister of mine is overthinking too much — she's schemed against me her whole life. I can't let her scheme her way through everything."

"Fair enough. Your eye for picking disciples has always been terrible, and it's the same for picking cultivation arts."

Mr. Zhuang wanted to retort, but the words reached his lips and he realized Elder Kui was right, so he could only swallow them back down.

Mo Hua obtained the jade slip from Mr. Zhuang and couldn't wait to start reading it.

"Arrays derive from the patterns of heaven and earth, depict the myriad phenomena, possess the power to reshape the world, and carry a might beyond the grasp of gods and spirits. To be deeply versed in the Way of Heaven and Earth and the principles of arrays is to be able to both form arrays and solve them."

"Array medium, array patterns, array pivot, and array eye together compose an array. To damage the array medium and destroy the array eye is called breaking an array; to unravel the array patterns and reverse the array pivot is called solving an array."

"All things have their mutual generation and restraint, and array patterns are no different. Yin and yang restrain each other; the Three Talents reverse each other; the Four Images check each other; among the Five Elements, metal restrains wood, wood restrains earth, earth restrains water, water restrains fire, fire restrains metal…"

……

The jade slip's contents on solving arrays went on and on, page after page, voluminously.

Mo Hua seemed to understand some of it, but on closer thought, not really. While he sat frowning in thought, Bai Zisheng sneakily leaned his head over: "Huh? Why are you reading a book on solving arrays?"

"Mr. told me to."

"Oh."

"Can you solve arrays?" Mo Hua asked.

"A little, but I'm not really skilled at it."

Knowing a little still counts as knowing — at least better than himself.

Mo Hua pointed to a spot in the book and asked humbly, "What's the difference between breaking an array and solving an array as described here?"

Bai Zisheng didn't hold back either, and explained:

"Breaking an array generally means using force to destroy the array medium the array relies on to persist and the array eye through which the array operates, forcibly shattering the array. Without the array medium, the array can hardly exist; without the array eye, the array cannot operate — naturally, the array is broken…"

"Solving an array is much more troublesome. It relies on understanding the generation and restraint among the array patterns within an array, and drawing array patterns to unravel them. When the array patterns cancel each other out, the array is naturally solved. Generally, only array masters have the ability to solve arrays."

"Is it that you don't understand how to solve arrays?" Bai Zisheng asked again after finishing.

"No," Mo Hua said, a little embarrassed and slightly shy: "I just don't really understand the differences between the array eye, the array pivot, and the array medium…"

Bai Zisheng let out a "Wow." "How do you not know any of this?"

Mo Hua retorted, "If I already knew all of it, would I still need to ask you? If I didn't ask you, how would it show off how much you know?"

Bai Zisheng rubbed his chin. "Seems to make sense."

Turning his head, he caught the faint, ambiguous smile on his sister Bai Zixi's lips. Realizing what had happened, he yelped again:

"Still not right — I can't teach for free!"

"Then how about I bring you a plate of beef tomorrow?"

Bai Zisheng snorted. "What do you take me for? I'm a direct-line descendant of the Bai family, a proud son of heaven — and you think one plate of beef is enough to get rid of me?"

"Two plates?"

"…Deal."

"Then what are the differences between the array eye, the array medium, and the array pivot?"

Mo Hua seized the chance to ask.

Having secured two plates of beef, Bai Zisheng was thoroughly satisfied and explained:

"The array eye is the core of the array's operation, providing spiritual power for the array to run. Generally speaking, the array eye of a single array is a single spirit-gathering array pattern; the array eye of a composite array formed by multiple single arrays is a spirit-gathering array. The more powerful the array, the more spiritual power the array eye requires. The protective grand arrays of some Shijia Sect sects even use an entire spirit vein as the spiritual power supply for the array eye…"

"The array pivot is the hub of the array, and also the array's structure. There are a great many subtleties here — generally it follows the principles of 'heaven is round, earth is square,' the Two Forms and Four Images, and the Eight Trigrams positions. Array patterns of different attributes must be drawn in their corresponding positions, or the array patterns won't take effect…"

"Different schools and lineages of arrays have different array pivots. Talking about it would get far too complicated — don't even think about that. With our current experience of arrays, it's impossible for us to solve arrays through the array pivot…"

"The array medium is the carrier of the array — things like array paper, stone steles, bronze and iron, earth and wood that bear the array patterns. Once an array is drawn on them, they become the array medium. Some spiritual instruments, when arrays need to be inscribed on them, can also be regarded as array media…"

Seeing that Mo Hua only half-understood, Bai Zisheng gave an example:

"Simply put, the array eye is like the heart meridian, the array pivot is the main meridian through which qi and blood flow, and the array patterns are the branch meridians. Spiritual power is supplied by the array eye, with the array pivot as the hub, and is channeled into the array patterns — just as qi and blood flow out from the heart meridian, passing through the many blood vessels within the body's structure to circulate through the body…"

Bai Zisheng rattled on at length, then felt thirsty. Mo Hua personally poured a cup of tea and offered it to him.

"These… are pretty basic array knowledge, aren't they?" Mo Hua asked weakly.

"I suppose so. At least in our Bai family, these are all common knowledge for learning arrays," Bai Zisheng said, slightly pleased with himself.

Good thing he asked first — otherwise, taking such elementary questions to Mr. Zhuang, Mo Hua would really have been a bit embarrassed.

"I'll bring you a pot of osmanthus wine tomorrow as well."

"Mm-hm!" Bai Zisheng was overjoyed, nodding repeatedly.

Mo Hua asked a few more things — for instance, how arrays are usually solved, how they're broken, and what specific schools of array pivots there are.

Before he knew it, the sky was growing dark. Mo Hua bade farewell to Bai Zisheng and Bai Zixi, packed up his things, and prepared to head home.

"Mo Hua," Bai Zisheng suddenly called out to Mo Hua, his expression solemn as he said, "Don't forget the most important point…"

"What?" Mo Hua asked, looking at him in confusion.

"The beef absolutely has to be spicy!"

Bai Zisheng said with a perfectly serious face.