Chapter 41

Yun Xiang Xiang's sudden words left the two sisters somewhat unexpected; not to mention the tangled ties of the Non-Birth Dao, the Void Dao, and the relationship between the imperial court and the Supreme Dao, just the future world's chessboard and the prophecy that Zhou Shuo will surely occupy a place under heaven left the two sisters somewhat startled.

Although her words were shocking, Yun Xiang Xiang did not intend to say more; she only spoke two sentences, urging the two sisters to return quickly to Yinzhou Jade Lotus Mountain, then she herself turned into a wisp of fragrance and departed. Her goal this time had been achieved: she had fortunately observed the 108 apertures of the Present Tathagata Sutra, and she had also done a favor, grasping a future trend.

After Yun Xiang Xiang left, Zhou Shuo inevitably had a conversation with the two sisters. These days, traveling back and forth between several worlds, his movements inevitably seemed strange, causing the two sisters some worry and suspicion; even when there was deep affection, they could not help but harbor doubts, lest they misplace trust in wicked persons.

Regarding the sisters' doubts, Zhou Shuo naturally had his own explanation: he claimed to be the child of a commoner family, his parents no longer in this world, having been abducted by the Non-Birth Dao and the Void Dao; he then learned martial arts from He Wusheng, and because he refused the task she gave him, he offended her, was pursued, and escaped.

Deceit is inferior to sincere clumsiness; from the books Zhou Shuo obtained from Wei Zhuang, many were writings of Han Fei, whose meaning he had pondered thoroughly. What he said were all true statements, and it is a fact that he is a small figure inadvertently caught in the undercurrents of power. After repeated consideration, the sisters also agreed with this, but they also shared the same conviction as Yun Xiang Xiang: that Zhou Shuo possesses fortune, because the sisters are well aware of their own affairs; this time they had not prepared to go to sea, and obtaining the Present Tathagata Sutra at sea was entirely due to Zhou Shuo.

The notion of fortune is real in this world; history is a chronicle of ages, and in each chapter there are some characters who can solely stand out, leading the era forward. These are the people who possess fortune; fortune never exhausts, and a person will never absolutely die—even if they fall into dire straits, there will always be a savior's miraculous encounter, allowing them to rise smoothly all the way to the heights.

"Ah Shuo, let's return together to Jade Lotus Mountain!" Yao Yue Ting, her double pupils gazing at Zhou Shuo, after pondering for a long time, suddenly spoke.

"I don't want to go." Zhou Shuo looked at the sister with the clear, double-pupiled gaze, then turned his eyes away and refused without a second thought.

"Why?" Yao Yue Ru looked at the unwilling Zhou Shuo, somewhat unable to understand; judging from today's reaction of Yun Xiang Xiang, she felt that her mother's side was actually not a big deal, but why was Zhou Shuo unwilling to go with her to the Jade Pool Sect?

"Don't you want to undertake a career? If you are willing, our Jade Pool Sect can support you." Yao Yue Ting said without hesitation.

"Your Jade Pool Sect supports me..." Zhou Shuo looked at the sister with the clear, double-pupiled gaze, merely restating the idea from another angle: the Jade Pool Sect's support for him was nothing more than taking note of his fortune; the two are separate, and the Jade Pool Sect will not fully accept him.

Yao Yue Ru was somewhat better; Yao Yue Ting's eyes no longer held the former bashfulness and timidity, that faint feeling having drifted away with the wind, replaced by thoughts of benefit. Although between people, even parents and children, there are inevitably entanglements of interest, when this point is raised, people inevitably become angry.

Faced with Zhou Shuo's somewhat indifferent tone, Yao Yue Ting's face turned pale for a moment; born in the Jade Pool Sect, she inevitably had to consider the sect, yet she also liked Zhou Shuo out of pure, vague affection, and once such feeling entered into calculations of interest, it inevitably gave rise to guilt.

Pure feeling drifted away, and Yao Yue Ting could no longer speak, feeling a faint regret; there is no regret medicine to take in this world, and Yao Yue Ru also could not speak; she merely simply wanted Zhou Shuo to cooperate with the Jade Pool Sect, but sometimes a simple idea, when developed, yields an unexpected notion.

With no further words, the two sisters memorized the 108 apertures of the Present Tathagata Sutra in their minds, gave the book to Zhou Shuo, also handed over a Jade Pool Token, and entrusted him with the residence of Ru Ting in the Divine Wind State; after setting a future rendezvous, they quickly set sail back to the Great Qian, having no choice but to return, for they are members of the Jade Pool Sect, their mother being the sect's matriarch, having grown up in the sect since childhood, receiving its resources, their fortune intertwined with the sect, thus they naturally have the duty to strengthen the Jade Pool Sect, and the Present Tathagata Sutra will be the most crucial link in strengthening the sect.

"Jade Pool Sect." Zhou Shuo stood on the dock of Peach Spirit Harbor, watching the distant sea where the ironclad steamships vanished, and the peach blossoms drifting in the air; he lowered his head to glance at the Jade Pool Token in his hand.

The passing of first love was somewhat melancholy, but Zhou Shuo was not so sorrowful, because this relationship was not a breakup, merely a period of adjusting to distance; the two sisters and the Jade Pool Sect are destined to remain intertwined, so he would make the Jade Pool Sect his own; thinking of this, Zhou Shuo clenched the Jade Pool Token in his hand, feeling he too must vie for the protagonist role.

"Hong Yi..." Zhou Shuo set down the Jade Pool Token he had been clutching, glanced at the blue expanse of sea, then turned with his hands behind his back and entered Peach Spirit Harbor.

With the two sisters temporarily away, Zhou Shuo found himself free; he entrusted the affairs of Ru Ting's residence to Fu Bo, calculated the time, and then returned to his dwelling in the Qin Era world, first beginning to cultivate the Human Immortal secret manuals he had obtained; he wanted to contend for the protagonist's role, and so he needed strength—without strength, everything would be in vain, strength being the supreme principle.

The path of martial arts trains the body's flesh, tendons, bones, and organs, washes the marrow and exchanges the blood; this is an external-to-internal process of shedding the old and being reborn, and this alone can only reach the level of Martial Saint. To attain higher levels, one must refine apertures; the human body possesses countless apertures, like the myriad stars of the heavens, and martial practitioners believe that multitudes of deities dwell within them. After training and developing these apertures, a mere gesture can shatter mountains.

Put simply, a martial practitioner refining apertures to become a Human Immortal is merely a way of developing bodily potential; the human body's apertures are as numerous as stars in the sky, and each star's existence is different, so the methods of training are likewise different.

The Great Monastery, once a holy site of cultivation, has on half of the Present Tathagata Sutra a listing of the 108 apertures; among them the most important are the Spirit Mountain (Primordial Yuan Upper Fetus), the Two Poles of the Earth, the Two Apertures of Clarity, and the Pure Altar Envoy (the Grain God's Aperture), etc., and the training method for each aperture is entirely different.

Zhou Shuo examined the measurement methods and cultivation ways for all 108 apertures in one go; since he could not possibly cultivate all of them at once, he must be selective in his training. Moreover, among these apertures, some places with exceptional representative potential, when singled out and combined with certain means, can greatly increase one's martial power in a short time—for example, the Spirit Mountain aperture.

The Spirit Mountain aperture is what the Great Monastery calls it; within the Supreme Dao, this aperture is named the 'Spirit of the Brain,' governing the hub of a person's blood, qi, spirit, and soul. Zhou Shuo once learned from He Wusheng a method to nurture the Spirit of the Brain; this is a technique developed from the Spirit of the Brain that can be paired with inner guardianship of the Dark Spirit, using blood and qi to nurture a mighty spirit, and after internal contemplation, it allows one to swiftly shed the old and be reborn. Zhou Shuo, precisely because of this, rapidly shed his former reclusive qi and proceeded to cultivate martial arts that advance a thousand li.

The technique transmitted by He Wusheng can only develop part of the Brain Spirit's functions; after observing the Spirit Mountain aperture, Zhou Shuo began to recast his training, and besides the Brain Spirit he also selected the Two Apertures of Clarity for cultivation. The Two Apertures of Clarity refer to the postnatal hearing aperture behind the ear and the celestial bright aperture in the solar plexus; training these two apertures enables one to expand eyesight and hearing to an extraordinary degree—able to see fleas on animal hair from several hundred meters away, and to hear a few cockroaches inside a house through a wall. The monks of the Great Monastery call these the Heavenly Eye and the Heavenly Ear.

After two days, Zhou Shuo measured the apertures of the Heavenly Ear and Heavenly Eye, then began to train them; these two apertures are not opened all at once, but must be gradually cultivated and enhanced, and one must also use the two apertures to sense the corresponding celestial bodies above, absorbing stellar power and even thunder, to temper one's physique. From this, Zhou Shuo confirmed a problem he had discovered.

Although he had not broken the barrier of life and death, as he gradually came into contact, Zhou Shuo could discover that each world he experienced possesses a unique ecological environment; these ecological aspects reveal the world's latent 'rules.' Studying basic things poses no problem, but once it involves the 'rules,' he fears it will be quite unpleasant.

Take one example: Zhou Shuo trains martial arts from flesh, tendons, bones, and organs, to washing marrow and exchanging blood while refining apertures; as long as he has a method, he can train freely, but once he uses apertures to sense heavenly and earthly energy, the problem becomes great—for instance, using apertures in the Qin Era world to mobilize that world's stellar power, then going to the Yang God World would immediately incur a backlash, because the stellar power residing in his body conflicts with the power of the Yang God World.

In the martial way, this is still relatively fine; as long as the body is strong enough, a person can adapt. Zhou Shuo's greatest concern is the heavenly tribulation problem: in Dao cultivation, breaking through the barrier of life and death, the spirit and soul, taking advantage of spring, fly into the sky to undergo the heavenly tribulation—first, borrowing the vital energy in the thunder to purge the spirit's yin impurities; second, moving the spirit and soul through the trial of Heaven and Earth's will, thereby strengthening them. One can say that the heavenly tribulation is a manifestation of a layer of Heaven and Earth's rules.

Whenever he thought of the danger of undergoing the heavenly tribulation, Zhou Shuo could not help but break out in a cold sweat; fortunately, he had first cultivated the Present Tathagata Sutra, rather than first breaking the barrier of life and death and then foolishly rushing to undergo the tribulation, making contact with the Yang God World's Heaven and Earth's will—otherwise the result would surely be dreadful, whether his soul and spirit would scatter or scatter.

Yet if he cannot undergo the heavenly tribulation, how is he to cultivate his spirit and soul? The difficulties he faces in cultivation have once again come back to his hands; Zhou Shuo feels waves of headache, but he cannot avoid confronting them, for he has embarked on a long and irreversible path.