Chapter 132

The Vast Sea of Bitterness

Qing Jun's words were completely unexpected to Ruan Ci. She couldn't help but spread her sleeves to look at herself, asking in astonishment, "I... I have the thoughts of a young girl?"

To say she had never felt like a young lady would naturally be a lie, but Ruan Ci didn't consider herself like Meng Lingyue, who was infatuated and madly in love with someone. As for the kind of longing that "rises to the brows and sinks into the heart" for someone, that was also not the case. Generally speaking, the person she cared about most was herself, followed by the playmates and relatives around her, such as Tianlu and Wang Panpan. But to say she wanted to be lovey-dovey with them—she had truly never had such a thought; even just thinking about it made her feel it was quite ridiculous.

At this moment, looking at herself over and over again, she thought to herself, "But just now, apart from thinking of my Master, I didn't think of anyone else. And even with Master, it was only because he compared me to a little pig; that matter greatly offended me."

It is said that a Dao Ancestor is never wrong, but Ruan Ci was not at all restrained in front of Qing Jun, saying bluntly, "Is that so? But I don't feel it's like that at all. Looking at myself in the mirror, I only feel it's strange and novel, but I don't have much longing."

Qing Jun smiled slightly and said leisurely, "Then I must have guessed wrong. What is so strange about that? What I said just now was indeed poorly put, and even if it were correct, I couldn't tell you. In a person's life, the most precious thing is the hazy feeling during those years when one's heart first opens to love. If it is all told to you by others, or taught to you by others, you will develop resentment in the future."

For some reason, in front of Qing Jun, Ruan Ci always felt very close to her. Even though they had met for the first time, she was not afraid. Counting this, it was their fourth meeting. Sitting and chatting like this, she felt very satisfied. Knowing she had traveled through imaginary numbers to get here and should return early, she felt no anxiety at all, as if she only hoped this moment would last longer. She smiled and said, "So even a Dao Ancestor can guess wrong?"

Qing Jun said, "A Dao Ancestor is not all-knowing and all-powerful. Even my Master cannot do that, let alone me. Besides, I attained the Dao through the Green Sword. The moment I developed spiritual sense, I already merged with the Dao. I am, after all, different from you cultivators who have flesh and blood."

She suddenly sighed with melancholy, "This slight difference is a regret that even I, a Dao Ancestor, can never make up for."

She was still dressed in magnificent robes, looking real to the extreme, without a shred of the domineering majesty of the Donghua Sword's "one sword gives birth to all things." Ruan Ci found it hard to connect the two, yet she knew profoundly that this dashing and romantic big sister had once traced causes and effects, killed endless cultivators in the universe with one sword, and had also, through her, swung a sword across thousands of autumns and ten thousand generations, causing another Dao Ancestor trapped in the void of imaginary numbers to return to the imaginary numbers, and even escaped the Langhuan Zhou Tian. Although she was in the past life, she could still lay out plans for the future. And yet, even such a near-omnipotent, omnipresent Dao Ancestor had regrets that could not be made up for, and even had times when she envied mortals?

Conversing with Qing Jun was always both relaxing and exhausting. The relaxing part was naturally that Qing Jun could read all of Ruan Ci's unspoken words, while the exhausting part was that she had to control her thoughts, not seeking out things she didn't want to be discovered. However, Ruan Ci actually didn't know what things she had that were unsuitable for Qing Jun to know, so she just acted according to her own heart and preferences.

"A Dao Ancestor will of course envy mortals." Qing Jun naturally read her thoughts, leaned on the armrest, and smiled slightly. "Are Dao Ancestors and mortals not both creations of the universe? Only by cultivating to the level of the Lord, opening up a new universe, and proving the eternal Dao, without distinguishing between past and future, can one perhaps jump out of the scale of the universe. But even so, the Master also started as a mortal, cultivating step by step to the eternal realm. You think Dao Ancestors are high above, omnipotent, but you don't know that mortals are the masters of the universe. All the Dao Ancestors who have proven the second Dao were mortals who merged with the Dao."

Proving the first Dao allows one to be called a Dao Ancestor, but Ruan Ci knew that only by proving the second and third Dao could one hope to create one's own new universe and enter the eternal realm. But to hear that only human cultivation had the hope of proving the second Dao was something she heard for the first time. She couldn't help but be slightly stunned, very curious, and asked, "Why is that?"

Qing Jun pointed to Ruan Ci's head and smiled, "The answer is in your little head."

Ruan Ci was completely confused and was thinking carefully, but Qing Jun seemed to be pleased by her tilting her head and pouting, and covered her mouth to giggle, "No wonder your Grotto-Heaven Master said you look like a little pig—"

She had actually read Ruan Ci's inner voice just now. Ruan Ci's face burned red, and she said unhappily, "I am so thin, where do I look like a pig? I don't look like any animal."

Qing Jun couldn't stop laughing. Ruan Ci held it in for a while, then couldn't help but laugh along, and forced a defense for herself, "It's not that I'm petty—you saying this is nothing more than wanting to tease me. If I took it calmly, what fun would you have?"

Qing Jun nodded, "Hmm, what you say makes a lot of sense. It seems like I'm teasing you, but actually, you're coaxing me. Is that what you mean?"

Ruan Ci muttered a few words, also laughed at herself, and felt much more relaxed in her heart. Qing Jun smiled, "Finally a bit happier. You little girl, what did you come to see me for this time, with such a heavy heart?"

If one were to ask why Ruan Ci was unhappy, there were too many reasons. Regarding the Green Jade Bright Hall, she had successively killed more than twenty people, stirring the lineage's inheritance into smoke and clouds. Even True Person Fu had died at the hands of Qu Qu Tan Yue recently; this news was sent by Li Pingyan. To say she regretted it, there was none, but this constant killing made her very unhappy. Before she could recover, she entered a dream and saw Ling Yuan. Ruan Ci had always found it hard to let go of Ling Yuan's passing. She would rather Ling Yuan hate her than have it be like this. And there was that remnant soul, suffering through reincarnation life after life, just to stay in this world, not knowing what she was waiting for. All these sufferings of birth, old age, sickness, death, and reincarnation made her feel as if she were carrying a burden of thousands of catties. At this moment, her heart was turning over a thousand times, and she finally asked, "Dao Ancestor, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why is it that in a human life, there is always more bitterness than joy? Every day, what I hear is news that makes people unhappy. Looking around, past and future, it is all a vast sea of bitterness, with no Pure Land?"

Qing Jun looked at Ruan Ci, her expression seeming to smile and sigh. She reached out and brushed Ruan Ci's bangs. It turned out that unknowingly, she had returned to her own age, and those magnificent robes appeared slightly too large.

With slender fingers, she tidied her hair. Ruan Ci looked up at Qing Jun, listening to her say calmly, "This distress is an emotion that we can never experience. You cannot bear to see the suffering in the world, but to me, everything in the world is not bitterness, but a kind of necessity—if there is little bitterness, there is even less joy. There is bitterness in the world, and only then is there joy. Without the bitterness of hunger and thirst, where would the joy of being full come from? Without the bitterness of sinking, where would the joy of transcendence come from?"

"The rules of this world are inherently more bitterness than joy, or perhaps to you mortals, the world is just like this. If there is no greed, where does the bitterness come from? It is precisely because human nature is the greediest that, to humans, the world is always more bitter than joyful. Think about it, is this the logic? If you were born as a tree, with very few desires, your worries would also be very few, but would your joy increase because of that?"

She explained carefully, with great patience, just like preaching to a disciple. The restless emotions in Ruan Ci's heart gradually dissipated under Qing Jun's gentle voice. She murmured, "I understand. In the world, there is always greed first, then the bitterness of not getting what one wants, and then the joy of getting it. If a person were born with everything, wanting nothing, there would be nothing to enjoy. It is precisely because people are born with nothing that the world is the bitterness of not getting what one wants, and only then is there the joy of occasionally obtaining something."

Qing Jun lowered her eyes and said, "You understand. Like us innate Dao Ancestors, we hold a Dao the moment we are born. To us, this world is ours for the taking, so there is not a shred of joy, let alone the strength to climb to the upper realm. Only those countless mortals, tossing and turning in the sea of bitterness, sinking within reincarnation, have endless desires in their hearts, and even more strange and varied emotions—only these mortals are favored by the fortune of the universe. Among the myriad universes, the few who finally prove the eternal Dao are all of mortal origin."

"You strongly disagree with the Lord's Dao, thinking that only mortals can be reincarnated and it is unfair to cultivators. In fact, your beloved pet is right; the Lord's Dao is the fairest. In that endless time, many living beings won't even have a single chance to enter the Dao. Being able to open the meridians and enter the Dao is already a great opportunity. Even if one gives up halfway, one should not snatch others' opportunities again. If cultivators could be reincarnated, then mortals who haven't entered the Dao wouldn't even have that one chance. Both are just a bit of spirituality; do you think that is fair?"

It was not the first time Ruan Ci had heard such logic, but what Qing Jun said was naturally more convincing than Wang Panpan. After all, she had personally experienced the old universe and the days when those two Dao rules coexisted. Although she knew this made sense, thinking of Ling Yuan, Meng Lingyue, and those cultivators who died for some casual reason, she still found it hard to accept in her heart. She shook her head, "The logic may be so, but in my heart, I still don't accept this logic."

Qing Jun smiled happily, "This is exactly what makes you human cultivators enviable. You have these joys, angers, sorrows, and happiness, greed, hatred, ignorance, and delusion. You feel distressed while in the midst of it, not knowing that we seek it with all our might but cannot obtain it."

She pointed casually at the youth sitting on the pavilion steps and said, "Look at him. After I simulated him, I threw him into a Great Heaven, letting him spend a hundred years in the secular world before bringing him back. But his every word and action, you still feel is strange. A cultivator who has rolled in the red dust and been tempered should never speak like that, but he can only pretend to this extent."

The youth turned his head, smiled embarrassedly at Ruan Ci, and said, "Innate Dao Ancestors like us will never have true likes or dislikes in our hearts. Your heart is full of wavering, and hearing that you have developed feelings, you are slightly displeased, as if this were some harmful thing. To us, such intense emotions, even a trace, are like treasures we have never experienced."

Ruan Ci found it hard to imagine such a feeling of having no emotions. To her, the problem was only how to control emotions, so she didn't control them much. This kind of life, which had no emotions and was ours for the taking since birth, didn't sound very attractive. She thought for a while, not knowing how Qing Jun felt, and couldn't help but look at Qing Jun.

Qing Jun smiled, "Born holding the Dao, surviving by protecting the Dao, this is my feeling. Myriad worlds, infinite living beings, are all my ears and eyes, but what I see and hear has no impact on me, because I am a sword, and I have no heart."

She spoke calmly, without joy or anger, "If one can exist forever like this, it seems there is nothing bad about it. But unfortunately, the universe has an end. If one cannot prove the eternal Dao, one can only perish with the universe."

Ruan Ci had never thought that the universe would have a day of perishing. This seemed too far away to her, but she also knew that time had no meaning to a Dao Ancestor. The death of the universe might be far away to a Dao Ancestor, or it might be imminent. She couldn't help but widen her eyes and ask, "Then, then how should one transcend? To prove the second Dao, must one be of human cultivation origin?"

"Naturally," Qing Jun nodded, "The most numerous things in the universe are mortals. Many Great Daos are derived from the thoughts of mortals. Mortals are born with nothing. Wanting to hold a Dao is just like this, from nothing to something, chasing after it, all experiencing sweetness, bitterness, sinking, and floating, and all kinds of hardships. Therefore, their understanding of many principles in this universe is much deeper than that of innate Dao Ancestors. Just imagine, I don't even know what true joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness feel like, so how can I perceive the thousands of Great Daos formed by humans? How can my understanding of this universe be meticulous? I have never experienced the bitterness of seeking the Dao, so I will not have the ability to seek the Dao. The number of heaven is the fairest. You have seen fellow Daoists die because of emotional thoughts, so you think of emotion as a flood and a beast. I said your heart first opened to love, and you were shy and displeased, as if I were mocking and ridiculing you."

"Do you know," Qing Jun placed her slender hand on Ruan Ci's small hand, looked into Ruan Ci's eyes, and said softly, "This chance for you to develop feelings is, to me, how precious, how far away, and how rare."

Mist rose in her eyes, and she said softly, "Ah, Tai Yi is urging. You should go back. When we meet next time, what kind of story will you bring me?"

Ruan Ci couldn't describe the feeling in her heart. She really wanted to defend herself, saying she was not displeased, just that she truly didn't know who she had developed feelings for. But in Qing Jun's cloud-like eyes, her words were like raindrops, falling into the air, impossible to pick up. Before she knew it, she had already risen into the air, surrounded by magnificent clothes, flying back. Thinking of this parting and not knowing when they would meet again, and with many questions unanswered, she felt a thick reluctance. She stretched her arms toward Qing Jun and called out, "Qing Jun—"

In Qing Jun's eyes, there was a bit of helplessness and a bit of affection. Even if this emotion was faked, it was faked very well. She smiled and held Ruan Ci's arm, floated up, and accompanied her for another moment. With the tinkling of jade pendants and a beautiful face, she whispered in Ruan Ci's ear, "Be bold and love more. What's the big deal?"

Ruan Ci didn't expect her to suddenly get close. She turned her head in shock, but her earlobe happened to bump into her lips and teeth, and Qing Jun bit her earlobe with her jade teeth. She felt a slight sting in her earlobe and let out a soft cry. Qing Jun also pulled her hand away in surprise. In Ruan Ci's shocked eyes, she touched her lips, her brows curved, and she smiled again, waving goodbye to Ruan Ci. Ruan Ci reached out and wanted to grab her, but couldn't touch her. The scenery in front of her changed rapidly, and before she knew it, she returned to the light, gradually losing consciousness.

When she woke up again, she heard a 'clatter' in her heart. It was a drop of spiritual liquid that had rolled off the Dao foundation before she entered meditation, just falling into the jade pool. And that Dao foundation had silently condensed another layer. Now it was six layers solid, and the seventh layer was half-built, which was exactly the cultivation base before Ling Yuan entered silence.

Ruan Ci turned over and sat up, holding her heart, and pondered for a long time. The invisible depression from before had been swept away, but many more thoughts had emerged. Her brows were slightly furrowed, and she could finally think about the questions she didn't dare to think deeply about in the dream.

"Could I..." she thought to herself, "Could I be the reincarnation body that Qing Jun intentionally let fall, with her true spirit attached, to help her experience mortal emotions, from nothing to something, and merge with the Dao again?"

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Updated, sorry for the long wait everyone~

Do you agree with Qing Jun's words? Do you think Xiao Ci's guess makes sense?

Today for lunch I had taro boiled with dried bean curd sheets, it was also very delicious~

Thanks to the little angels who gave me overlord votes or watered nutrient solution between 2020-10-22 12:02:47 and 2020-10-23 12:05:02~

Thanks to the little angels who gave landmines: SweetLuna (2); Lu, Wu Mingya, ted, An Xiaoji, Yu Yu Wan Yao, Ma Daidai riding a horse (1);

Thanks to the little angels who watered nutrient solution: Lu (150 bottles); Sweet Chestnut and Sour Tangerine (50 bottles); yuyudog (29 bottles); minmin (26 bottles); Flower-crazy Sister (20 bottles); Laughing Heavenly Venerable Rabbit Didi (13 bottles); Fish Bao Fish Bao, Jing Hai Tian Lan, An Xiaoji, White Fluffy (10 bottles); Under the Moon Branch Tree (7 bottles); Sandwich Cookie, Ming Ji, Bobby (5 bottles); Lu Fei (4 bottles); 18205385, Hating Summer, Li Li, Not Very Meaningful, Wa Wangwang, Yihong Academy of the Green Building (1 bottle);

Thank you all very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!