Chapter 51: Dao Lord's Gift

Dao Lord's Gift

The first time Ruan Ci dreamed back to Qingjun's side, it was in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, in Qingjun's Daoist field. She sensed Qingjun's mysterious and infinite experience as a Dao Ancestor. Although only a trace of the aftertaste remained after waking up from the dream, the feeling of being one with Qingjun was very clear. But for some reason, the second time she came to the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, she landed in a sea of bamboo, admiring the beautiful scenery of white cranes crossing the sky. Qingjun only manifested and met her later, which was more like an accidental visitor. The third time was the same, still in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, but she landed on the outskirts of a town. Looking around, they were all mortals, and Qingjun was nowhere to be seen. If Ruan Ci's memory of the first dream back to Qingjun wasn't very deep, she would almost think that the first experience was her own illusion.

She didn't know if she would land in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven every time she traveled back, and whether she could see Qingjun every time. If she didn't see her, would it affect the cultivation of the *Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu*? Unfortunately, this kind of thing involves time-based spiritual objects and cultivator souls, so it's not easy to experiment recklessly—if the other sword seeds were all disgusting people like Diwu Cang, it would be fine, but unfortunately, there is no such good thing in the world that can specifically choose the souls of annoying sword seeds to absorb.

Every cultivator's path is unique. Especially the path Ruan Ci is taking, there is no predecessor, and everything can only be explored by herself. She has many questions in her heart, pressing one down and another pops up. Since she didn't see Qingjun, she walked into the town, looking around, and even tried to pick up the goods sold at a small stall. Unfortunately, her fingers passed through the silver hairpin, and she couldn't grasp it. Only then did she remember that in this era, she was just an illusion. In Qingjun's Daoist field, there was no lack of Cave Heaven great powers, but none of them could detect Ruan Ci peeking in the Daoist field.

Since Qingjun had no intention of appearing, Ruan Ci browsed the scenery in the town with great interest. She didn't know what era it was, or how many epochs ago it was. The clothing and speech of the mortals in the town were not much different from those in the Chen Guo or even the Mandala. She didn't know if the Langhuan Zhou Tian was inherently vast and rich, with all kinds of clothing, or if in this universe, no matter what time it was, the lives of mortals were about the same.

Ruan Ci also went to a restaurant in the town to inspect it. Naturally, some of the ingredients were specialties of the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, but the cooking methods were no different. She came with a curious heart to explore, but there were no surprises. After being disappointed, she couldn't help but feel a trace of horror, thinking, "The Dao Ancestor is immortal, but the life of a mortal is very short. Perhaps in the eyes of the Dao Ancestor, these Great Heavens are like dreams, or like their illusions at some moment... In fact, to the Dao Ancestor, the every move of mortal beings is within their own thoughts. With a thought, the Great Heaven can change accordingly. Then, then, how should the Dao Ancestor distinguish between truth and illusion?"

"Is our universe also a good dream fantasized by the thoughts of the Yin-Yang Five Elements Dao Ancestor? In my view, time is extremely clear, flowing forward slowly, and can never be retrieved. To the Dao Ancestor, is it just a river, no, is it just an illusion of their own? The Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven and the Langhuan Zhou Tian I came from are separated by hundreds of millions of years, but the lives of mortals seem to be exactly the same. I... how should I distinguish the difference in time? Do these two worlds really have a chronological order in time? And on what basis can we say who is first and who is last?"

"Just like me and Qu Pingting, Chang Chunfeng, and that Diwu Cang, what is the difference between us? On what basis can I be sure that I am Ruan Ci, and not Qu Pingting, not Chang Chunfeng, not Diwu Cang, not Xie Yanhuan, not Qingjun?"

These are all questions that are difficult to think about on weekdays, but at this moment, they seem to be popping up in Ruan Ci's mind one after another because of this extremely mysterious experience. At this moment, it seems that even the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven is shaking in her questioning. The scene in front of her overlaps and shakes, producing afterimages. In Ruan Ci's eyes, this mortal city is very different from the Song Jing where she grew up and the Mandala where she once lived, but it is also extremely consistent. The languages spoken by people are different, and the clothes they wear are also different, but they all live the same life—these three cities seem to overlap. At this moment, she is on the street, but it is as if she is standing in the vast void. Everything around her is moving away rapidly, figures are passing by, faces are emerging, and she can't make up her mind, not knowing which one belongs to herself.

Myself... who am I? What is my name?

She was panicked for a moment, but soon remembered, "My name... my name is Ruan Ci!"

But this name did not cause any echo in the universe. This is not her true name. A true name is the most fundamental connection between oneself and the universe. As long as you chant your true name, you will not lose yourself and can find that trace of true self. But Ruan Ci does not know her true name. She couldn't help but feel a trace of loss—this is not to blame her. When she was still in swaddling clothes, she was adopted into the mansion. Now it has been more than thirty years. For her childhood, her deepest memory is the endless dust, and a trace of green talisman power...

Yes! Talisman power! Sand and soil! The Song Jing where she grew up is completely different from this city. Song Jing has no trees or flowers, no rain, Song Jing doesn't have a drop of rain. She grew up in Song Jing, grew up in the Ruan family. This is Ruan Ci's unique memory, the deepest memory. The memories she saw in other people's bodies and the feelings she experienced will never be as unforgettable as her own personal experience!

The phantom in front of her gradually faded, the void of the universe retreated, and Ruan Ci stood again on the bustling street. The peddler's hand passed through her hand, picked up the silver hairpin, handed it to the customer, and smiled, "Thank you for the half-shape sea shell."

The customer handed him a small pouch, and the peddler poured it into the measuring tool, without any difference. The customer then handed the silver hairpin to Ruan Ci, "If you like it, I'll give it to you."

Ruan Ci took the silver hairpin, weighed it lightly, and thought about whether she could bring it back to the present world, but this thought was only for a moment. More than half of her mind was immersed in the danger just now, and she muttered, "Dao Lord..."

Qingjun smiled at her, "It is very dangerous for you to travel back and forth in time like this. If you cannot hold on to your own heart and forget your true name, over time, it will be very easy to lose yourself and fall into the void of the universe. Just like just now, with a thought, the virtual number attacked, and you almost lost yourself forever and could never return."

It was only then that Ruan Ci realized the danger of this mind cultivation method. In fact, she had thought before that if this mind cultivation method was combined with time-based spiritual objects, and if the supply of spiritual objects could be infinite, she could actually improve her cultivation endlessly until she reached the highest point of the soul's cultivation. It was just because doing so seemed too cruel to the soul and didn't please her, so Ruan Ci just thought about it and threw it away. The rarity of time-based spiritual objects was secondary. Until this moment, she didn't know that frequent travel through illusions had such dangers. She guessed, "Is it because I, I am only over thirty years old, but I have successively entered the souls of cultivators who are much older than me and read their memories?"

Speaking of her age, she couldn't help but feel a trace of embarrassment. After all, Qingjun is a Dao Ancestor who has lived for an unknown number of years since the creation of the world. Ruan Ci is too young in front of her. Although the two look similar, they are not of the same kind. But Ruan Ci did not worship Qingjun because of this, and even she herself felt that she was a bit too arrogant.

"Yes, the years you experienced in the dream are already longer than your age." Qingjun did not look down on Ruan Ci because of this. The two walked side by side on the street. She looked no different from the pedestrians on the street. "If it weren't for your firm will, I'm afraid you would have been backlashed long ago. For most cultivators, the mind cultivation method is only used once in a lifetime. There are also some great power cultivators who seal their memories in segments and retrieve them one by one after reincarnation, but what they retrieve are all memories of their previous lives. It is rare for you to travel so frequently. You must not get carried away. There must be a degree of urgency in your actions."

Her tone was kind, just like Ruan Ci's teacher or elder sister, which did not match the faint impression left by the dream memories she often fell into when refining the Donghua Sword. She still remembered the sword spirit's majestic and high-above mood when she dreamed back to the beginning of the Donghua Sword's creation. She didn't expect Qingjun to be so romantic and unconstrained, and so concerned about this little cultivator who traveled from the future.

"Ah, that time was that time, this time is this time, this moment, that moment." Qingjun couldn't help laughing. Ruan Ci realized that she could read the thoughts in her brain—this feeling was not very strange to her. Xie Yanhuan had also seen through her thoughts, not to mention that she was now in a dream, and logically speaking, she and Qingjun were one and two, two and one. Even, even it could be said that Qingjun was her illusion, or she was Qingjun's illusion...

As soon as this thought arose, the scene around her fluctuated again. Qingjun sighed and laughed, "You really love to think wildly. Shh, remember what I said? Be careful of the backlash of the virtual number. With your cultivation, you cannot control the virtual number. Coming here is already an anomaly. Don't think about some things now."

Ruan Ci hurriedly collected her mind, but she was really curious. She thought that as long as she didn't think about distinguishing between truth and illusion, she wouldn't trigger the backlash of the virtual number, so she looked up and asked, "Dao Lord, this is my third time here, and which period of time did I land in? —Is it that you will see every visitor from the future who travels here?"

She asked this naturally because Qingjun was too kind to her. According to Ruan Ci's thinking, the cultivators she met, the Cave Heaven had already put on airs, let alone the Dao Ancestor?

"I know this is your third time," Qingjun was full of smiles, seeming to find Ruan Ci very fresh. She said happily, "This time is already six epochs after the meeting of the old sword in the Daoist field."

An epoch is 129,600 years, and an era is 10,800 years. Ruan Ci's second travel was more than 30,000 years before the meeting of the old sword in the Daoist field. To her, only one night had passed, but here in Qingjun, it spanned 100,000 years. Ruan Ci couldn't help but be immersed in this mysterious feeling for a long time, almost missing Qingjun's answer, "As for the other sword envoys, without the *Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu*, and without the soul that should have passed away but still remains, they cannot sense me and cannot come here."

"Should have passed away, but still remains?"

"Yes, in your time, I have already fallen, but my true spirit is broken and still remains in the world—although I am here, I am no longer here. I think there must be many sword envoys who have cultivated time techniques, wanting to travel back to the heyday of the Donghua Sword, borrow karma, attract the true spirit, refine the remnant sword again, and increase its power." Qingjun said, "But in their present world, there is no suitable anchor to anchor my traces in the past life. Only you, a little girl, have cultivated the *Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu*, and with the technique, you have a bridge. You have also absorbed so many souls. These souls have already left the body, but in the Donghua Sword, the vitality has not dissipated. Just like me in your present world, you take the soul as the starting point of the present world, and the *Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu* as the bridge, to travel to the past life. Then the origin of all my true spirits must be the destination of this bridge. Without other opportunities, you are the only one who can build this bridge, and naturally, you are the only one who comes here."

Although she was in the past life, what she said was like seeing it with her own eyes. Ruan Ci had no doubts. Qingjun's vision was not something she could compare with. The Dao Ancestor is omnipresent and perhaps omniscient. What she was most curious about at the moment was one point. "Dao Lord, you seem to have transcended time, so... so do you know how you fell?"

Qingjun shook her head and said, "I don't know—I knew when I fell."

Mentioning this mystery of time, her words became mysterious. This sentence sounded like nonsense at first, but if you study it carefully, it has endless charm. The deeper Ruan Ci thought, the more the scene in front of her shook. She was busy not daring to think about it anymore, just saying what she had already thought, "The situation of the sword envoys in the future world that the Dao Lord knows is read from my divine thoughts, so the tone is not certain, just a guess. Then, is it that if I know the truth of the Dao Lord's fall, and then travel back to see the Dao Lord, the Dao Lord will know how she fell? And if the Dao Lord at this time knows, then the Dao Lord of the past and future will also know?"

Qingjun looked at Ruan Ci and laughed for a long time. She neither admitted nor denied it, just touched Ruan Ci and smiled, "What a smart little girl—but one sentence is wrong. I cannot read all your divine thoughts. I will not know what you don't want me to know. I can only know what you want me to know."

Ruan Ci also touched the place where Qingjun touched her and couldn't help but pout—the people around her always treated her as a child.

But she was indeed a child in front of Qingjun. Ruan Ci looked up and asked, "I know, it's because I come from the future world, and in that period of time, the Dao Lord has already fallen, so your supernatural powers cannot reach me, right?"

Qingjun smiled and said, "You are too smart—and have too many questions. Little girl like you, why do you want to cultivate the *Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu*? You come to see me, do you want my *Qinghua Transcendence Record*? In your moment, presumably this technique has been lost for a long time along with my fall, right?"

Ruan Ci actually really wanted to ask Qingjun what it felt like to know that she would fall at some point in the future, but she had a frustration that she was eager to tell. She couldn't tell this even in the illusion. She said, "I cannot cultivate the *Qinghua Transcendence Record*!—I have a remnant volume in my hand, but I cannot cultivate it, because... because I cannot sense the Dao rhyme of the Dongyang Dao Ancestor. In the Langhuan Zhou Tian, if you cannot sense the Dao rhyme of the Dongyang Dao Ancestor, you cannot absorb spiritual energy."

In Qingjun's eyes, clouds and mist rose again. She looked at Ruan Ci faintly. The distance between the two seemed to be pulled very far in an instant. Qingjun looked at Ruan Ci, but it didn't look like she was looking at Ruan Ci, but looking at something in the distance through her. Ruan Ci suddenly turned her head along her line of sight. This touch of eye consciousness saw that in the momentum field, spiritual light in the shape of clouds and mist appeared all over her body, drifting from the horizon. The spiritual light condensed a green spiritual mirror in the depths of the clouds, emitting the Donghua Sword Qi she was very familiar with. At this moment, in the mirror, a familiar spiritual flower gradually condensed, which was the colorless spiritual flower that could be seen everywhere in the Langhuan Zhou Tian, the Dongyang Dao rhyme.

Calling the name produces induction! Even with the Donghua Sword suppressing it, and wandering in the illusion of the past life, the four words Dongyang Dao Ancestor still attracted the Dao rhyme spiritual flower. Ruan Ci didn't know why, she was very flustered, and even more guilty, as if she had caused some trouble for Qingjun. She turned her head to explain a few words to Qingjun, or to apologize, but this turn of the head made her feel that Qingjun's figure was moving away constantly and could no longer be approached. Even if she wanted to speak, she was blown by the strong wind and couldn't open her mouth. She could only see her looking up at Ruan Ci from afar, her white clothes as clean as washing, her black hair like ink, hanging down faintly, but her expression could no longer be seen clearly.

It took her a while to understand that it was not Qingjun moving away, but she was being sucked into the spiritual mirror. Ruan Ci danced with her hands and feet, but was powerless to resist. She only heard a loud bang, and fell into the deep pool like a mirror. She held her breath and swam up desperately. After a while, she swam to the surface of the water, only to see the waning moon cold on the lake, and a long ladder to the sky in the middle of the lake, all condensed from spiritual light. She climbed up the long ladder, walking higher and higher, and her steps became heavier and heavier. Before she was exhausted, she finally walked to the gap in the sky, pulled away the clouds and mist, and drilled out.

Ruan Ci opened her eyes, only feeling her hands and feet soft, extremely thirsty, as if everything from her throat to her dantian jade pool had dried up and cracked. The hairpin transformed by the Donghua Sword in her hair jumped lightly, sending pure spiritual energy into her body, which was as sweet and delicious as sweet dew. Ruan Ci couldn't care about anything else, hurriedly sat cross-legged, fully operated the spiritual energy, and didn't stop until the hunger and thirst in her body were slightly filled. Only then did she slightly divide her mind, while absorbing spiritual energy, while pondering the trip to the illusion just now.

There were many thoughts that flashed through her mind in an instant, but they were captured one by one and calmly analyzed by her divine thoughts. This feeling of holding the wisdom pearl and having inexhaustible divine thoughts was very similar to Diwu Cang's experience in the dream. Ruan Ci didn't dare to think about many sensitive questions. The four words Dongyang Dao Ancestor were not even touched. She reached into her sleeve and touched nothing. Her heart was slightly relaxed, and there was some indescribable loss—it seems that Qingjun has indeed fallen. Her gift in the past life could not be brought to the present world, let alone become her incarnation to manifest in the world, or even a medium for possession and rebirth.

Then she laughed at herself, mocking her own small-mindedness. If Qingjun wanted to be reborn with a medium, the most ideal medium would naturally be the Donghua Sword in her hair, so why send a silver hairpin? Ruan Ci closed her eyes and carefully connected with the Donghua Sword, wanting to investigate whether its power had recovered compared to before. However, with the current connection, she couldn't feel such a deep realization.

After finishing these two things, she checked the Inner Scene Heaven, but there was not much anxiety—she seemed to have climbed back to the present world along the jade pool and Dao foundation in her body just now. She had successfully established her foundation, and there was naturally no doubt about this. As for how many layers the Dao foundation was, this was not a big deal to Ruan Ci. The number of layers of the Dao foundation determines the upper limit of a cultivator's magic power and the difficulty of breaking through the barrier. And for Ruan Ci, breaking through the barrier does not rely on her own cultivation. Even if she cannot cast a nine-story Dao foundation, and only has six or seven layers, or is an eight-story Dao foundation like Diwu Cang, it does not affect her breaking through the barrier...

Wait.

Looking inside, Ruan Ci blinked her non-existent eyelashes, and even had the urge to rub her eyes.

Why, why is it twelve layers??

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Updated, sorry for the long wait, everyone. Xiao Ci has finally established her foundation~ She can finally go out and do dungeons, happy!

By the way, the reason I like *North and South Groceries* is because 1 the language has ancient charm 2 the native characters have distinct and grounded personalities 3 the natives' reaction to technology is reasonable, so I think it's particularly good! If you have similar infrastructure novels, please don't be stingy and recommend them to me!

. Thanks to the little angels who cast overlord votes or irrigated nutrient solution for me between 2020-08-10 11:59:42 and 2020-08-11 11:54:22~

Thanks to the little angels who cast hand grenades: Li Ge (1);

Thanks to the little angels who cast landmines: Li Ge, Xie Xie Xie Qingyuan (2); Dao Dao, Chen Jiao, Yu Wanyao, Li Heping, La La La, truedfy, The Lychee That Had Its Account Stolen, Falling Moon Fills the Beams, Shao Guang, Ink Fish Mushroom Porridge, Zhi An, Shen Nie, Time's Delusion (1);

Thanks to the little angels who irrigated nutrient solution: Moved 59 Pots of Flowers (79 bottles); Qian Ruo (30 bottles); Wind and Rain Blow Flowers Scatter (24 bottles); Fish Pack Fish Pack, Want to Abandon the Book When Seeing BUG (20 bottles); csxupu, Ginaaaaaa (15 bottles); 3174182, Quilt Folding Step 3 (10 bottles); sidewalker (6 bottles); Heart Has Micro Dust, Xunxi, Spring Water Dingdong, Zhang Da Chui, Peng Peng shadow (5 bottles); Chao Sheng Wu Gu You (2 bottles); Mo, Wa Wang Wang, baby Le Yao, Zou Zou, Among Readers (1 bottle);

Thank you all very much for your support, I will continue to work hard! ===== CHAPTER 56 =====