Chapter 55: Dao Lord's Gift

Dao Lord's Gift

The first time Ruan Ci dreamed of returning to Qingjun's side was in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, in Qingjun's Daoist field. She sensed the mysterious and infinite experience of Qingjun 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 I don't know why, 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 seemed more like an accidental visitor. This third time was the same, still in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven, but she landed in the suburbs of a town, surrounded by mortals, and Qingjun was nowhere to be seen. If Ruan Ci's memory of the first dream of returning to Qingjun was not very deep, she would almost have thought that the first experience was her own illusion.

I don't know if she would land in the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven every time she traveled back, and if 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 at will—if other sword seeds were all annoying things like Diwu Cang, it would be fine, but unfortunately, how can there be such a good thing in the world, being able to pick and choose annoying sword seed souls to absorb.

Every cultivator's path is unique. Especially the path Ruan Ci is taking, there is not a single predecessor, and everything can only be explored by herself. She has many questions in her heart, pressing one down and another popping up. Since she didn't see Qingjun, she walked into the city, looking left and right along the way, and even tried to pick up the goods sold at a small stall. Unfortunately, her fingers passed through the silver hairpin, but 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 Grotto-Heaven great powers, but none of them could detect Ruan Ci peeking in the Daoist field.

Since Qingjun didn't intend to appear, Ruan Ci browsed the scenery in the city with great interest. She didn't know what era this was, or how many eons ago it was. The clothing and speech of the mortals in the city were not much different from Chen Guo and 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 inspect the restaurants in the city. 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. While feeling disappointed, she couldn't help but feel a trace of horror, thinking secretly, "Dao Ancestors are immortal, but the lives of mortals are extremely short. Perhaps in the eyes of Dao Ancestors, these Great Heavens are like dreams, and like their hallucinations at some moment... In fact, to Dao Ancestors, the every move of mortal beings is within their single thought. With a single thought, the Great Heaven can change accordingly. Then, then, how should Dao Ancestors distinguish between truth and illusion?"

"Is our universe also a good dream transformed from the thoughts of the Yin-Yang Five Elements Dao Ancestor? In my view, time is extremely clear, flowing slowly forward, and can never be recovered. To Dao Ancestors, is it just a river, no, is it just a hallucination 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 by what right can one 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? By what right can I be sure that I am Ruan Ci, and not Qu Pingting, not Chang Chunfeng, not Diwu Cang, not Xie Xie Yan Huan, not Qingjun?"

These are all questions that are difficult to think about on weekdays, but at this moment, they seemed to pop up one after another in Ruan Ci's mind due to this extremely mysterious experience. At this moment, it seemed that even the Qinghua Myriad Things Heaven was shaking under her questioning. The scene in front of her overlapped and shook, producing afterimages. In Ruan Ci's eyes, this large mortal city was very different from the Song Jing she grew up in and the Mandala she had lived in, but it was also extremely consistent. The languages spoken by people were different, and the clothing worn was also different, but they all lived the same days—these three cities seemed to overlap together. At this moment, she was on the street, but it was as if she was standing in the vast void. Everything around her was moving away rapidly, figures were passing by her eyes, faces were emerging, and she couldn't make up her mind, not knowing which one belonged to herself.

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

She was flustered for a moment, and quickly remembered, "My name is... my name is Ruan Ci!"

But this name did not cause a ripple 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 recite 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 had already been adopted into the mansion. Now that more than thirty years have passed, her deepest memory of childhood is the endless sand and dust, and a trace of faint green talisman power...

Yes! Talisman power! Sand and soil! The Song Jing where she grew up is not at all like this city. Song Jing has no wood, no 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 others' bodies, the feelings she experienced, will never be as engraved in her heart 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 guest, and smiled, "Half a shape of sea shell, please."

The guest handed him a small bag, and the peddler poured it into the measuring tool, not a bit off. The guest 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 secretly whether she could bring it back to the present world. But this thought was only for a moment, and more than half of her mind was immersed in the dangerous situation just now, stammering, "Dao Lord..."

Qingjun smiled slightly at her, "It is very dangerous for you to travel back and forth in time like this. If you cannot hold onto 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, when your heart moved, the imaginary number attacked, and you almost lost yourself forever and could never return."

Ruan Ci only then realized the danger of this intent-cultivation method. In fact, she had thought before that if the supply of time-based spiritual objects could be infinite, she could actually improve her cultivation endlessly until she reached the highest point of the soul's cultivation base. 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 put it aside. The rarity of time-based spiritual objects was secondary. Until now, she didn't know that frequent travel through illusionary realms had such dangers. She guessed, "Is it because I, I am only thirty-something 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 shame. After all, Qingjun is a Dao Ancestor who has lived for I don't know how many years since the creation of the world. Ruan Ci is too young in front of her. Although the two look similar, they are not really the same species. But Ruan Ci does not worship Qingjun because of this. Even she herself feels that she is 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 your will were not extremely firm, I'm afraid you would have been backlashed long ago. For most cultivators, the intent-cultivation method is used only once in a lifetime. Even some great power cultivators 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 very rare for you to travel frequently like this. Don't get carried away, and have a degree of urgency in your actions."

Her tone was intimate, just like Ruan Ci's teacher or elder sister. This did not match the faint impression left by the dream memories she often fell into when refining the Donghua Sword. She still remembered the majestic and high-and-mighty mood of the sword spirit when she dreamed back to the beginning of the creation of the Donghua Sword. She didn't expect Qingjun to be so romantic and unrestrained, 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 but laugh. Only then did Ruan Ci realize that she could read the thoughts in her brain—she was not very unfamiliar with this feeling. Xie Xie Yan Huan 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 hallucination, or she was Qingjun's hallucination...

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 imaginary numbers. With your cultivation base, you cannot control imaginary numbers. Coming here is already an anomaly. Don't think about some things now."

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

She asked this naturally because Qingjun was too kind to her. According to Ruan Ci's thinking, the cultivators she saw, Grotto-Heaven already put on airs, not to mention a Dao Ancestor?

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

A great eon is 129,000 years, and an eon is 10,800 years. Ruan Ci's second travel was more than 30,000 years before the Daoist field meeting of the old sword. 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?"

"Correct. In your time, I have already perished, 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 practiced time-based cultivation methods, wanting to travel back to the heyday of the Donghua Sword, borrow karma, attract true spirits, refine the broken 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. Only you, a little girl, have practiced the 'Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu', have the cultivation method, which is the bridge, and have absorbed so many souls. These souls have already left the body, but in the Donghua Sword, their vitality has not dissipated. Like me in your present world, you use the soul as the starting point of the present world, and the 'Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu' as the bridge to travel back to the past. Then the origin of all my true spirits must be the destination on the other side of this bridge. If there is no other opportunity, you are the only one who can build this bridge, and of course, you are the only one who can come here."

Although she was in the past, her words were like seeing it with her own eyes. Ruan Ci had no doubts. Qingjun's vision was not something she could compare with. Dao Ancestors are omnipresent, and perhaps also 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 also know how you perished?"

Qingjun shook her head, "I don't know—I knew when I perished."

Mentioning this mystery of time, her words became mysterious. This sentence sounded like nonsense at first, but if you delve into it, it has infinite charm. The deeper Ruan Ci thought, the more she felt the scene in front of her shaking. She didn't dare to think any further, just said what she had already thought, "The situation of the sword envoys in the future that the Dao Lord knows is read from my divine sense, so the tone is not certain, just speculation. Then, is it that if I know the truth of the Dao Lord's death and travel back to see the Dao Lord, the Dao Lord will know how she perished? And if the Dao Lord knows at this time, 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 sense. Things you don't want me to know, I won't know. Only things you want me to know, I can 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. In that period of time, the Dao Lord has already perished, so your supernatural powers cannot reach me, right?"

Qingjun smiled and said, "You are too smart—and have too many questions. Why does a little girl like you want to practice the 'Yin Jun Dan Ge Zhu'? Did you come to see me to find my 'Qinghua Transcendence Record'? In your time, this cultivation method must have been lost for a long time along with my death, right?"

Ruan Ci actually really wanted to ask Qingjun what it felt like to know that she would perish at some point in the future. However, she had a frustration that she was eager to express. This could not be told outside the illusion. She said, "I cannot practice the 'Qinghua Transcendence Record'! —I have a remnant volume in my hand, but I cannot practice it, because... because I cannot sense the Dao charm of the Dongyang Dao Ancestor. In the Langhuan Zhou Tian, if you cannot sense the Dao charm 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 through her at something in the distance. Ruan Ci turned her head sharply along her gaze. This touch of her eye consciousness saw that in the momentum field, her whole body emitted cloud-like spiritual light, drifting from the horizon. The spiritual light condensed a faint 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 seen everywhere in the Langhuan Zhou Tian, the Dongyang Dao charm.

Calling the name produces sensing! Even with the Donghua Sword suppressing it, and traveling in the illusion of the past, the four words "Dongyang Dao Ancestor" still attracted the Dao charm spiritual flower. Ruan Ci didn't know why, she was very flustered, and even more apologetic, as if she had caused some trouble for Qingjun. She turned her head and wanted to explain a few words to Qingjun, or apologize, but this turn of the head made her feel that Qingjun's figure was constantly moving away 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 if washed, her black hair like ink, hanging down faintly, but her expression could no longer be seen clearly.

It took her a while to realize that it was not Qingjun moving away, but herself being sucked into the spiritual mirror. Ruan Ci danced with her hands and feet, but was powerless to resist. She only heard a loud crash and fell into a deep pool like a mirror. She held her breath and swam upward with all her might. 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 along the 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, pushed aside the clouds and mist, and drilled out.

Ruan Ci opened her eyes, only feeling her hands and feet soft, extremely thirsty, as if even 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 much, hurriedly sat cross-legged, and fully operated the spiritual energy, 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.

Many thoughts flashed through her mind in an instant, but they were captured and analyzed calmly by her divine sense. This feeling of having wisdom in her grasp and endless divine sense was very similar to Diwu Cang's experience in the dream. Ruan Ci didn't dare to think about many sensitive questions, and the four words "Dongyang Dao Ancestor" were not even touched. She reached into her sleeve and touched empty air, her heart slightly relaxed, and there was some indescribable loss—it seems that Qingjun has indeed perished. Her gift in the past cannot be brought to the present world, and it is even more impossible to become her incarnation manifested in the world, or even a reliance for possession and rebirth.

Immediately, she laughed at herself, mocking her own petty heart. If Qingjun wanted to rely on rebirth, the most ideal reliance would naturally be the Donghua Sword in her hair, so why bother sending 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 perceive it so deeply.

After finishing these two things, she checked the inner-scene world, but there was no too 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 pass. And for Ruan Ci, breaking through the pass does not rely on her own cultivation. Even if she cannot forge a nine-layer Dao foundation, and only has six or seven layers, or is an eight-layer Dao foundation like Diwu Cang, it does not affect her breaking through the realm...

Wait.

In inner vision, Ruan Ci blinked her non-existent eyelashes, and even had the urge to rub her eyes.

How, how is it twelve layers??

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Updated, sorry for the wait, everyone. Little Ci has finally established her foundation~ Finally can 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 personalities and are grounded 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 to recommend them to me!

. Thanks to the little angels who cast overlord votes or irrigated nutrient solution for me between 2020-08-10 11:59:42~2020-08-11 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 Qingyuan (2); Dao Dao, Chen Jiao, Yu Yu Wan Yao, Li Li He Ping, La La La, truedfy, Bei Dao Guo Hao De Lizhi, Luo Yue Man Wu Liang, Shaoguang, Mo Yu Jun Zi Zhou, Zhi An, Shen Nie, Shijian De Wangyu (1);

Thanks to the little angels who irrigated nutrient solution: Ban Le 59 Pen De Hua (79 bottles); Qian Ruo (30 bottles); Feng Yu Chui Hua San (24 bottles); Yu Bao Yu Bao, Kan Dao BUG Jiu Xiang Qi Wen (20 bottles); csxupu, Ginaaaaaa (15 bottles); 3174182, Die Bei Bu Zhou San (10 bottles); sidewalker (6 bottles); Xin You Wei Chen, Xun Xi, Quanshui Dingdong, Zhang Da Chui, Peng Peng shadow (5 bottles); Chao Sheng Wu Gu You (2 bottles); Mo, Wa Wangwang, baby Leyao, Zou Zou, Du Zhe Zhi Zhong (1 bottle);

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