Chapter 119: Seeking the Dragon and Pointing to the Acupoint

There are several ways for the ancients to ascend; among them is "Ascending by Riding a Dragon." Before the Yellow Emperor spread the rumor of "Ascending by Riding a Woman," there was already the legend of "Ascending by Riding a Dragon."

Of course, historical records state: "The Yellow Emperor passed away and was buried at Qiaoshan."

Although Xu Jia is neither riding a dragon nor ascending, he can be considered to be "riding a flood dragon."

The evening breeze blows, gently fluttering his hair.

The moonlight is dappled, and the startled birds in the surrounding woods serve as a backdrop; the strange rocks and grotesque stones, each with its own form, seem to possess spirits, as if they are about to come alive.

"Go there!"

Xu Jia points to the spiritual mountain Daochang he had set his sights on early on.

Although Chang Yu very much wants to shake off this chattering person on his head, he still obediently climbs the rock, heading toward the summit.

These three mountains look like three sticks of incense on a large Incense Burner; the mountain Chang Yu is climbing is the middle one, which is Yuxu Peak.

Yuxu Peak is rugged with strange rocks, and ancient trees grow on the cliffs and precipices, with hanging vines and creepers, offering a unique landscape.

The other two large snakes carry Hu Jinhua and Huang Pipo up the mountains on either side.

Just in time for dawn, the Cloud Sea is right under their feet, soft and fluffy, making one unable to resist the urge to throw oneself down to see if it has the texture of cotton.

A line of white light at the horizon is level with the double light; the sun has risen.

Ten thousand golden scales shroud the layered clouds, and the mist in the mountains rises; Chang Yu opens his mouth to inhale, swallowing clouds and spitting out mist.

Xu Jia also receives the spiritual Qi of heaven and earth from the high vantage point, his eyes containing the sun, absorbing the purple Qi, making a swallowing motion; his whole body feels light and begins to heat up, warm and cozy, his Fetal Breath circulating the Qi, becoming one with heaven and earth, as if breathing in unison with the universe.

"Like a single grain of millet in the vast ocean, a mayfly in the universe." After Xu Jia finishes his breathing exercises, the sun has already risen above the cloud layer, forming the character "Dan" (dawn).

Because of the wind's assistance, the clouds are like a vast ocean, with waves and tides; occasionally seeing birds darting through the clouds is like fish leaping in water.

Such a scene has the appearance of "water and sky becoming one."

With the Kan hexagram above and the Qian hexagram below, water is in the clouds and sky.

Xu Jia suddenly gains a flash of inspiration, calculates a hexagram, and obtains the "Need Hexagram."

There is sincerity, bright success, and perseverance brings good fortune. It is advantageous to cross the great river.

It is an auspicious hexagram.

It is just that the clouds are in the blue sky but it has not yet rained; it still requires waiting for the right moment.

Seeing Xu Jia's Wisdom Light stir, and thinking he is still smarter than himself, Chang Yu asks: "How is it?"

"This place has beautiful scenery, but unfortunately it is not yet famous; it is no less than the Three Mountains and Wuyue."

"The Three Mountains and Wuyue? Have you been there?"

"Naturally I have been. Among the Three Mountains, besides Lushan, there are Huangshan and Yandang Mountain; compared to this mountain, they are still inferior. Among the Wuyue, only the sheer danger of Huashan surpasses this place."

"How are the Dragon Veins of the Three Mountains and Wuyue?" Chang Yu only cares about this question.

"They have all flourished," Xu Jia says. "Throughout history, how many heroes and champions have emerged from the surrounding areas, vying for kingship and hegemony."

Xu Jia adds: "Building an altar right here would be the most wonderful and best choice!"

"There isn't even a place to shelter from the wind and rain; if you want to build a house here, there isn't even a road."

Chang Yu says: "You might as well go to the cave where I practice; the Daoist from the former Shanju Guan used to practice in my Dongfu."

The places where demons practice are called "Yao Caves"; viewed from the Dharma Realm, they are filled with demonic Qi, and various kinds of demonic Qi and thoughts are attached to the Yao Cave, naturally making it easy to breed all sorts of strange things.

"Let's forget about that; I like places with good lighting."

"Being too high makes it easy to be struck by lightning," Chang Yu advises. "Every year from spring to summer, there is lightning for half the year. I used to have elders who thought high places were good for better gathering moonlight, and they ended up being struck dead."

"That's even better," Xu Jia says. "I practice Thunder Law and need to collect Thunder Sha, which only appears after thunderstorms."

Seeing that he cannot be persuaded, Chang Yu shakes his head and thinks to himself: This person's brain is likely problematic. And some "man with all Five Blessings," he must be a swindler.

Waiting until about the Chen hour, the clouds and mist dissipate, allowing a direct view of the mountain and forest terrain; one can vaguely see a thousand miles, and looking far into the distance, he sees Yushan County, which looks like the size of a small matchbox, and sees the Xin River, which looks like nothing more than a white line.

Xu Jia also sees the "Wugong-shaped Mountain Range"; the mountain is long, flat, and has many distinct segments. Xu Jia asks Chang Yu: "Have you been to that mountain?"

"I have, but I don't like it there."

Chang Yu says: "There is a flower there called the Wugong Ganzhe Flower, which is a medicinal herb specifically for treating snake venom, and there are many centipedes around, though not many have attained a significant level of Qi."

"Then let's go take a look."

Chang Yu then leaps, jumping from the mountain top, spreading his body, swimming and gliding.

Xu Jia is startled, feeling like he is about to be thrown off, but fortunately, a steady suction force keeps his body fixed.

The large snake glides for several miles and lands on the trees, still steady and without any "feeling of falling."

Soon, he brings Xu Jia to the vicinity of Wugong Shan. Xu Jia jumps off Chang Yu's body and climbs the mountain.

This mountain is covered in low shrubs, a type of "rhododendron" called "Monkey-head Rhododendron"; many flowers bloom clustered together, and on the same plant, the flower colors differ, making it look like a flower-faced monkey head.

Of course, from Xu Jia's perspective, this mountain can still be considered a "treasure mountain"; many medicinal herbs grow here, and they all grow very well, all being medicines for "calming the wind" and "invigorating blood to remove stasis."

There is another characteristic here, which is "little wind"; logically, the wind in the mountains should be strong and rapid, but here there is only a soft, gentle breeze.

In Feng Shui, the "Centipede Dragon" is not a Sha-filled land. Although the centipede is one of the Five Poisons, in terms of Feng Shui, the centipede is agile, has a head and a tail, has many nodes, gathers Qi cleverly, and has the suitability of "holding a treasure."

What is meant by holding a treasure? It means that when a centipede produces centipede eggs, it will hold them; some, even if they don't produce eggs, will hold a stone. The ancients believed that centipedes have spirituality, and the stone they hold can, like an old clam holding a pearl, be held into a treasure, which is the "Centipede Pearl," also called by people the centipede Inner Elixir, Earth Treasure Dragon Pearl, or Wind Calming Pill.

If such a huge centipede can hold a treasure, it possesses the advantage of "occupying all the Feng Shui"; if ancestors hide it there, their descendants can produce First Rank high officials, being enfeoffed as marquises and serving as prime ministers.

This Wugong Shan is where Huang Muchun suppressed and killed the thousand-year-old centipede spirit. As the saying goes, "a centipede dies but never stiffens"; although the centipede's body is dead, the Qi within its body is still circulating.

Especially since the Mountain God has become evil, turning into the evil god image of a Centipede Dragon; if it "returns to its soul and enters its orifice," it would not be as simple as Xu Jia "resurrecting."

Such a large centipede, even if it only moves slightly, without that much Dharma Power to support it for long, would be enough to cause a great disaster.

Moreover, the centipede does not just hold a pearl; the "poison sac" within its body breeds Earth Li Qi, which easily causes all living things within a radius of ten-plus miles to die out.

However, usually such poisonous lands are in "swamps" or on large lakes; when triggered by heavenly thunder, the evil Qi formed at the bottom of the lake over thousands or tens of thousands of years disperses, and because it is denser than air, it poisons countless living things.

This is Earth Li Qi.

When an earthquake erupts, poisonous Qi from deep within the earth will also spew out, and the poisonous gas is colorless and odorless; the poisonous Qi is one thing, but the death of a large number of living things will lead to decay, producing even more poisonous plague miasma.

Once all living things die out, I fear it will not recover for several hundred years, and Yushan County will henceforth be reduced to a ghost city.

The great snake's aura exerts a strong deterrent effect on the surrounding living creatures; a large number of small insects are fleeing this place, indeed all of them are "multi-segmented" insects like "centipedes" and "hundred-jointed worms."

"Only if it is not stiff will it move about; if one wants it not to move, it must be made stiff!"

In traditional Chinese medicine, to process a centipede, one uses two bamboo strips to clamp the centipede, then air-dries it to make it stiff and straight.

If one could "sever the head," that would naturally be good, but there is no such great ability here to blow up a mountain, and destroying nature is too excessive.

That is what is commonly known as "Beheading Dragon."

But to behead a dragon, one must behead the centipede-dragon formed after the Mountain God has been corrupted, in order to coordinate with destroying the terrain, damaging its spirit, injuring its form, severing its foundation, and ensuring it never amounts to anything.

Then there is only the second method: flying sand to dot the stars, seeking the dragon and probing the acupoint, to fix the centipede-dragon firmly in place so that even if it wants to leave, it cannot escape.

As the saying goes, ten years to Seek Dragon, three years to Dot the Acupoint; the ancients had no drones or satellite maps, so the results were naturally slow.

Xu Jia looked left and right, discerning the key to "breaking the situation."

The centipede's Five Elements fear water; what kind of centipede is stiff? Naturally, it is a drowned centipede.

But for such a large centipede, "drowning" it is simply not feasible.

Only by storing water at its "head" and "tail" can the Dragon Qi of the centipede-dragon be drained into the water.

Using external force to divert water is very troublesome, but as long as one finds the Water Vein, it is still possible to draw out the groundwater.

Xu Jia silently calculated in his heart and marked several locations; these are the places that must be "nailed shut."

Just as people nail down a Dragon Vein, they use wooden nails wrapped in a layer of iron; the short ones are several feet long, the long ones nearly a zhang, which can drain the Dragon Qi.

The method Xu Jia uses is inseparable from this approach, but what he will set are "Water Nails," which means he must dig a Well in these few places.

After digging the Well, it is best to also build a "Spring Pavilion."

Besides these, the place of the Centipede-Holding-Pearl happens to have a natural giant rock; although it is not very round and looks a bit like a "little lion," it is indeed an "Earth Treasure."

Then one can drive an iron nail into it.

If a treasure has a "flaw," it is no longer a treasure.

To be even more ruthless, one could drill a hole and pour sulfur, mercury, and cinnabar into it, which would completely destroy it.

But that would be a bit too "heaven-defying and people-resenting," creating bad Cause and Effect with the earth; moreover, Xu Jia still intends to establish a Daochang in the vicinity, so it would be a pity to destroy such a treasure land just like that.

As Xu Jia was deep in thought, he saw trails of white smoke emerging from the place where the centipede-dragon's head was.

"Why is there white smoke coming out?" Chang Yu carried Xu Jia and slithered toward that side; Xu Jia then discovered it was not white smoke, but a type of white insect that looked like small Cotton.

Xu Jia reached out and scooped one up; his hand felt oily. It turned out to be a "Wax Insect," and the oiliness was a layer of wax on its skin.

"This place, it seems, is the mouthpart of the centipede."

The great snake flicked its tongue, rolled up some insects, and then silently spat them out: "Spicy."

"Fire nature is naturally spicy in taste!"

(End of this chapter)