Chapter 419: Entering the Stele (2)

Not knowing how long had passed, he opened his eyes.

Day had already broken. The morning of the seventh day. Sunlight leaked from the cracks in the dome, falling on him and on the spirit beasts. He rose to his feet, and the spirit beasts rose too. He did not recall them into his dantian, nor did they wish to return. They followed behind him, exiting the rear hall, passing through the corridor, going through the courtyard with a tree, crossing the square, and climbing the steps of the altar.

Ninety-nine steps, he climbed them one step at a time.

Blue snake coiled around his right wrist, golden crow perched on his left shoulder, ice dragon coiled around his waist, pangolin lay on his right shoulder, white tiger followed behind him. The six breaths became six footfalls. He walked steadily, each step landing on the carvings of the steps, on the cloud patterns and animal shapes worn smooth by time. His shadow was stretched long by the morning light, with a tiger's shadow trailing behind him.

When he reached the top of the altar, he saw the stele waiting for him. Exactly as he had seen it seven days before, gray and hazy, chaos-colored. But this time he did not stop. He walked straight up to it, stood before the stele, within reach. The four characters on the stele did not glow; they simply sat there, carved into the stone, quiet and still.

He recalled the old man's words.

"When there is no distance between you and chaos, the wall will be gone."

Now the wall is gone. Not that the wall disappeared, but he crossed it. His Dao came alive, the spirit beasts came alive, the distance between him and chaos vanished. He raised his hand, his finger moved through the air with no resistance. Air was air, stele was stele, nothing in between. His finger continued forward, one inch, two inches, three inches.

He touched it.

His finger pressed against the stele.

The stele was cool. Not the cool of stone, but the cool of jade—warm and moist, smooth, like touching an old piece of jade. That coolness spread from his fingertip to his finger, then to his palm, wrist, arm, shoulder, and heart. It was not a cold chill but a clear coolness, like drinking a sip of well water in summer, cooling from throat to stomach, making his whole body awake.

His finger slid across the stele's surface.

He felt the patterns—raised, sunken, winding, intersecting. Seven days ago he had touched these patterns; then his finger merely moved over stone, like a blind man finding his way. Now it was different. As his finger moved along the patterns, the patterns responded to him—not with vibration or light, but with a sense of 'aliveness,' like a person turning his head when you touch his shoulder.

The stele turned its head to look at Wang Ping.

The four characters on the stele lit up. Not just a stroke of the 'stele' character, but every character, every stroke. Hun, Dun, Xian, Bei—each character lit up one by one. Not all at once, but stroke by stroke: first the topmost dot, then the horizontal below, then the left-falling stroke, then the right-falling stroke. Each stroke that lit up had a color—not the color of light, but the color of the Dao, the color of chaos.

When the Hun character lit, Wang Ping saw an expanse of chaos.

He saw it not with his eyes but with his Dao-heart. His eyes were still open, still able to see the stele, the altar, the morning light. But his Dao-heart had left the Immortal Palace, pulled into the stele, into the place where the Hun character glowed. There was no heaven, no earth, no light, no darkness, no sound, no color, no direction, no distance—only a mass of gray mist swirling, churning, waiting.

That mass of mist was not dead matter.

It was moving—not blown by wind, but moving of its own will. It had intention, emotion, desire. Its desire was to 'separate.' It no longer wanted to remain a single mass of chaos; it wanted to split, to become heaven and earth, light and dark, yin and yang, metal wood water fire earth, all things. Yet it could not split, for the law of chaos is non-separation, to stay mixed, to remain as is. It needed an external force, an opportunity, a 'change' born from within itself.

Wang Ping gazed at that mass of mist and understood.

That was not mist; it was the source of all Dao. Not the source of the Five Elements Dao, nor of Yin-Yang Dao, nor of Spacetime Dao. It was the source of all Dao. Every law, every Dao technique, every cultivation practice emanated from this mist. His Blue Wood Dao technique was a wisp of green qi split from it; his Golden Crow Dao technique was a wisp of golden qi split from it; he himself was also split from it.

Not the self of this lifetime, but the earliest self.

That self had not yet become human, nor spirit, nor any form. At that time he was a strand of chaos qi, drifting within that mist, mingling with other chaos qi. He had no name, no shape, no memory, no consciousness. Yet he existed. His existence was part of chaos, and chaos was part of him.

The Hun character finished glowing. Then came the Dun character.

When the Dun character lit, he saw something moving within that mist—tiny, vague, like a fish swimming in water. Not a fish, but a 'ling'—the spirit of chaos. It swam in the mist, having swum for a long time. It did not know where to go, for everywhere was the same. It did not know what it was, for nothing defined it. Yet it kept swimming, because it had a vague feeling, a sensation older than chaos itself.

It wanted to 'be born.'

Not the 'life' of living, but the 'birth' of being born. It wished to be born from chaos, to become something—anything: a blade of grass, an insect, a drop of water would do. It no longer wanted to be part of chaos; it wanted to become itself. This thought took root in its heart, growing larger. It began to draw circles in the mist—one, two, three. Each circle drawn caused the mist to stir. As the stirring increased, cracks appeared in the mist.

Wang Ping watched those cracks, his heart gave a jump.

He recognized them. Those cracks were exactly like the patterns on the stele. They were not carved later; they were chaos itself splitting open. When chaos split, those cracks became laws. The first crack was the boundary between yin and yang; the second, the division of the Five Elements; the third, the origin of spacetime; the fourth, the demarcation of life and death. Each crack was the birth of a law.

He watched for a long time, until he saw the moment the final crack appeared.

That crack was tiny, smaller than the others. But it appeared at the center of chaos. As soon as it appeared, all the cracks came alive. They were no longer gaps; they became channels—like leaf veins, like the body's meridians. Chaos qi began to flow through these channels, from the thickest to the finest, and back from the finest to the thickest. Circulation began.

Wang Ping's breath stopped.

Not that he was holding his breath; he had forgotten to breathe. Because he saw the truth of Dao techniques. Dao techniques are not cultivated; they 'flow.' Chaos qi flows through the channels; wherever it flows, that channel lights. The lit portion becomes law. Law is the channels of chaos; Dao technique is the qi flowing within them. Cultivating Dao technique means making one's body grow such channels, letting chaos qi flow within.

His Blue Wood Dao technique is simply a green-colored channel.

It arises from the dantian, runs up the spine, passes through the heart, and reaches the crown. What flows in that channel is a wisp of green qi split from chaos qi. When the green qi flows, the Blue Wood Dao technique manifests; when the green qi stills, the technique disperses. He had always thought cultivation meant absorbing external spiritual qi and refining it; now he knew cultivation is awakening the chaos qi within his body and setting it in motion.

Every person's body contains chaos qi, because everyone originates from chaos. But not everyone can awaken it. Awakening it requires a key. That key is 'alive.' Let your Dao come alive, so the chaos qi knows it can flow, can form channels, can become law. It has been waiting, waiting for you to utter that word.

Wang Ping spoke. In Gui Xu, when he told his five spirit beasts 'alive,' he was not speaking only to them; he was also speaking to the chaos qi within his body. He did not know it then, but his inner chaos qi heard the word and began to move—starting from his dantian, along his meridians, along his Dao-technique channels, slowly flowing. It flowed for over a hundred years, until today, until it reached before the Chaos Immortal Stele.

The Dun character glowed for a long time, longer than the Hun character.

Because 'Dun' is the process by which chaos differentiates all things, and that process takes a long time. From the first crack's appearance to the final forms of all myriad things, countless years passed. Wang Ping observed this process within the stele, not with his eyes but with his Dao-heart. He felt the pain of chaos splitting—not bodily pain, but the pain of existence being divided. Like a tree split in half, one half made into a boat, the other into a house. The boat floats on water, the house stands on shore; they still remember they were once a tree.

He understood that pain.

In Gui Xu, when he tore the blue lotus into five petals, he felt the same pain. He had thought it was the agony of his life soul being torn apart; now he knows it is the pain of chaos dividing. His life soul came from chaos; tearing it open repeats the chaos-division process. That is why his spirit beasts came alive, for they inherited the chaos qi within his life soul, and that chaos qi still remembers the pain of splitting and the rebirth after.

At last the Dun character finished glowing. Then came the Xian character.

When the Xian character lit, he saw something burst forth from the mist—not slowly emerging, but surging. Like a fish leaping from water, like a butterfly breaking its cocoon, like an infant born from its mother. It broke through chaos, burst open heaven and earth, and surged forth as itself. It became a point of light, bright, hot, blinding—like the sun, like a star, like a person's eye.

That point of light hovered within chaos, emitting light.

It was not light to illuminate the surroundings, but light to make itself seen. It was no longer a mass of chaos qi; it had its own shape, its own color, its own temperature. It had become an 'existence.' It was there, simply there—not part of chaos, but itself.

Wang Ping looked at that point of light and suddenly wanted to cry.

Not a sorrowful cry, but the cry of recognizing kin. That point of light was him—not the present him, but the original him. Not Wang Ping, but 'he.' The first existence to burst forth from chaos, the first to say 'I.' He did not know what that existence was called, nor need to. He only needed to know it was his root. His Dao-heart, his life soul, his body—all began from that point of light.

After that point of light burst out, more points of light began to ignite within chaos.

Not one by one, but in batches. Like spring flowers opening overnight. Each point of light is an existence, each having burst forth from chaos. Some are bright, some dim, some large, some small, some hot, some cold. They hover within chaos like a sky full of stars. Those stars are the first life. Not living beings, but life—the first batch of existence differentiated from chaos.

They gazed at each other, not knowing what to do.

Because they had no bodies, no language, no emotions. They possessed only existence, only light. Yet they shared a common memory—the memory of chaos. They remembered once being a mass of mist, remembered the pain of splitting, remembered the moment they burst forth. They looked at each other, knowing they came from the same place, were fragments of the same mist. Between them ran an invisible line.

Wang Ping's body trembled—not from fear, but from shock.

He beheld the true origin of all things—not what books say, not what legends tell, but the real origin. Those points of light later differentiated into heaven, earth, and all things. Some became stars, some became mountains and rivers, some became plants, some became beasts. Some became humans, some became immortals, some became even more ancient beings. But no matter what they became, they remembered chaos. They remembered that gray mist, remembered the pain of splitting, remembered the light of their emergence.

His spirit beasts were also watching.

The blue snake lifted its head from his wrist, its pair of green eyes reflecting the light on the stele. Its body trembled slightly, its scales rubbing together to make a faint sound. It saw its own origin—not the source of the Blue Wood Dao technique, but the source of its life. A wisp of green qi split from that mass of chaos qi, after countless years of circulation and countless gatherings and dispersals, finally in Gui Xu ignited by a strand of Wang Ping's life soul, becoming it.

The golden crow spread its wings on his shoulder, its golden feathers glittering in the stele's radiance. It made no cry, merely watched silently. In its eyes a flame flickered—not a spell's flame, but the flame of life. The source of that flame lay in chaos, where the Xian character shone, among the first points of light. It saw its ancestor, that primal flame.

The ice dragon raised its head from his waist, its silvery scales reflecting chaos's light. Its eyes were calm, like a frozen lake surface. Yet beneath that ice, a dark current stirred. It perceived the source of the chill—the primal cold. Not a temperature chill, but an existence chill. When chaos split, a portion of existence chose to cool, to solidify, to become ice. That was its ancestor.

The pangolin poked its head out from his right shoulder, its little eyes rolling. It did not look at the light on the stele; it gazed at the stele itself. That slab of stone, that grayish stone, its material differed from ordinary rock. It recognized it as stone formed after chaos solidified—not from tectonic movement, but from chaos itself congealing. This stone is chaos's bone.

The white tiger crouched behind Wang Ping, head raised, gazing at the radiance of the Xian character. Its white fur turned gray in the light, the gray of chaos. Its eyes remained white, but a different white—not the white of color, but the white of 'kill.' It beheld the origin of slaughter. When chaos split, a portion of existence surged most violently, smashing through chaos, through obstacles, through anything in its way. That was the origin of killing—not evil, but the surge.

The Xian character glowed for a long time, because 'Xian' is the awakening of existence.

The points of light that rushed out of chaos didn't know what they were. They simply existed there, emitting light. After a long time, one point of light suddenly shone brighter. It wasn't that it had absorbed more energy; it had become aware of itself. It became aware of its own existence, aware that it differed from the other points of light, aware that it could move, could change, could become more.

That point of light was the first immortal.

It was not an immortal attained through later cultivation, but an 'awakened' immortal. It needed no cultivation, for it was itself the essence of chaos. It needed no ascension, for it already dwelt in the highest place. All it required was to become aware of itself. The moment it became aware of itself, it became an immortal—not a status, but a state: knowing who it was, knowing where it came from, knowing what it could become.

Wang Ping looked at that point of light, and something in his heart was stirred.

He had cultivated immortality for many years, from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core, from Golden Core to Nascent Soul, from Nascent Soul to Spirit Transformation. He had always thought cultivation was a path, from mortal to immortal, from immortal to higher. Now he knew cultivation was not walking but awakening. The primordial immortal had walked no path; it had simply awakened. Once awakened, it became an immortal.

He himself was also on the road to awakening.

From the moment he uttered the word 'live' in the Return to the Void, he has been awakening. His spirit beasts are awakening, his Dao arts are awakening, his life soul is awakening. Now he stands before the Chaos Immortal Stele, gazing at the light of the character for 'immortal', and he feels the chaos within his body also awakening. It stirred once, faintly, like a fetus's first turn in the womb. Then a second stir, a third. It grew more lively, flowing from his dantian to his whole body, then back to the dantian.

In his dantian, something was growing.

It was not a Nascent Soul; his Nascent Soul had already become his body. It was not a Dao Seed; his Dao Seed had already blossomed. It was something new—a tiny point of light, exactly like the points of light in the character for 'immortal'. It glowed within his dantian, chaos-colored, a murky gray. Its light was weak, so weak it was almost invisible. But it was there.

Wang Ping's heart gave a beat, then stopped.

It wasn't that it had stopped beating; it was beating differently. Before, his heart beat on its own; now the point of light drove it. When the point brightened, his heart beat; when it dimmed, his heart stilled. His heartbeat became the pulse of the point; his breath became its expansion and contraction; his existence became the point's existence.

The light of the immortal character gradually withdrew, and the stele's characters lit up.

When the stele's characters brightened, all the light was drawn back—not vanished, but pulled into the stone tablet. The light of the 'chaos' character, the light of the 'void' character, the light of the 'immortal' character, all the light, like water, flowed from every direction back into the strokes of the stele's characters. The characters absorbed all the light, then began to draw it in themselves, stroke by stroke, from the final downward slash to the first horizontal, from that horizontal to the topmost dot.

Finished.

The stone tablet was no longer stone; it had become a gate.

The gate was chaos-colored, a murky gray, like mist, like smoke, like a dream. Its frame bore no patterns, no carvings, nothing at all. Yet Wang Ping saw that the frame was filled with law—not carved on, but the gate's own law. He did not recognize any of them, but he could feel each one. He did not know what lay beyond the gate, but he knew someone awaited him there.

He had seen that person before.

In the Azure Void Heaven Realm, when the silver stone gate opened, that person stood beyond it, smiled at him, and spoke a sentence. He had remembered those words for over a hundred years, every syllable clear: 'Live.' That single character. It was not a teaching of techniques, nor a transmission of Dao arts; it was a lesson in how to live. That person knew he would come to this day, knew he would tear his life soul apart in the Return to the Void, knew he would utter the word 'live' to his five spirit beasts.

Before the passage in the Return to the Void closed, that person appeared again.

At that moment he had just returned from the Sea of Laws, his body covered in wounds, his life soul shattered. The person stood before him, raised a hand, and touched his forehead. The touch was light, like a skimmer skimming water. Yet that touch halted the shattering of his life soul—not healed, but stopped. It was like a river on the verge of bursting its banks, suddenly frozen. The freeze gave him time to heal himself.

Now that person stands beyond the gate, waiting for him to enter.

Wang Ping stood before the gate, gazing at that light. The light beyond the gate was not bright; it was chaos—a murky gray like the sky before dawn, like the dusk after twilight, like the blank between dream and wakefulness. Within that light something moved—not life moving, but the light itself moving. It flowed like water, surged like clouds, spread like mist. It breathed.

Wang Ping's foot moved. Not because he willed it, but his body moved on its own.

His right foot lifted and crossed the threshold. The threshold was only three cun high, yet as his foot passed over it, it felt like crossing a river—a river that had flowed since his birth. One bank of that river was his past, the other his future. He now stood in the river, one foot on each bank.

His left foot also crossed over.

His whole body passed through the gate.

The world beyond the gate was nothing like he had imagined.

There was no sky, no earth, no direction, no distance. Only light—chaos-colored light—welling from all directions and drifting away again. It had no source, no end, no purpose. It simply was, like air, like water, like existence itself. Wang Ping floated in that light, not standing, not sitting, not lying. He merely was. His body was there, his primordial spirit was there, his Dao was there.

His five spirit beasts were there as well.