Chapter 3670: Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

"Now?"

Ye Chen's words left Lin Wanan, who was always exceptionally intelligent, somewhat puzzled.

She asked Ye Chen with a face full of confusion: "Young Master, it's currently winter in Antarctica, aren't there no ships that can pass through the Devil's Westerlies?"

Ye Chen smiled and said: "I never said we were taking a ship back."

Lin Wanan was even more surprised and couldn't help but ask: "Then do we have to take a plane back? Ordinary planes taking off and landing on the Antarctic ice cap would be quite difficult, wouldn't they?"

Ye Chen shook his head with a mysterious expression and said with a smile: "Not a plane either."

Lin Wanan only felt strange, thinking that to return from the Antarctic continent to Jin Ling, there were only two routes—by sea or by air—but Ye Chen had said neither was the case, so could there be another possibility?

At this moment, she suddenly recalled the teleportation array Ye Chen had used when he first brought her in, and exclaimed in utter shock: "Young Master, could there still be a teleportation array here capable of leaving the Antarctic continent?!"

Ye Chen looked at Lin Wanan's delighted expression. He knew Lin Wanan was intelligent, but she continually surpassed his expectations.

He couldn't help but sigh: "Miss Lin truly possesses exceptional talent—she guessed it right away!"

Lin Wanan smiled humbly and said: "Young Master flatters me. The reason I was able to deduce it was a teleportation array is mainly because Young Master just let me personally experience one; otherwise, even if I pondered for three days and three nights, I couldn't have figured it out."

Ye Chen laughed: "Then it's still thanks to your intelligence!"

After speaking, Ye Chen added: "Miss Lin guessed correctly—this place has nine teleportation arrays, each corresponding to a different location on Earth, basically covering all continents. I'll first take Miss Lin back to Huaxia, and after we move the Mother of Universal Tea from Zijin Mountain Villa, I'll take you to experience the other teleportation arrays."

Lin Wanan nodded happily and said: "I've already been looking forward to it!"

Ye Chen took her hand, and in his mind appeared the entire underground city's teleportation arrays: the Four Directions Pagoda has nine levels, each with a teleportation array, and the Eight Trigrams diagram capable of teleporting to places worldwide is located on the fifth level of the Four Directions Pagoda.

As for what else is on the other eight levels of the Four Directions Pagoda, Ye Chen didn't have time to examine them one by one last time, so he returned to the research station. He plans to study them slowly after returning from Jin Ling this time.

Simply by silently reciting the mantra of the teleportation array on the fifth level of the Four Directions Pagoda in his heart, Ye Chen and Lin Wanan instantly appeared in the space of that Eight Trigrams compass from that day.

Lin Wanan, who is well-versed in the Zhouyi Eight Trigrams, upon seeing the light rings in the eight directions of Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui, and Qian, immediately exclaimed: "These light rings in different directions must be the teleportation arrays leading to various places around the world, right?"

Ye Chen nodded and pointed to the central light ring, saying to Lin Wanan: "There are nine teleportation arrays in total, but only this central one leads to Huaxia. To return to Jin Ling, we must first pass through this array to reach Huaxia, then figure out how to get there."

Lin Wanan asked him: "Young Master, do you know exactly where in Huaxia this teleportation array leads to?"

Ye Chen said: "Shu West, He Ming Mountain."

Lin Wanan nodded with sudden realization and sighed: "He Ming Mountain—indeed, it makes sense. That place is the birthplace of Daoism, and likely also a holy land for cultivators. Perhaps those cultivators from before the Dharma-Ending Age attained enlightenment and entered the Dao right there on He Ming Mountain."

Ye Chen nodded, his brows slightly furrowed, and said: "But there's one thing I don't quite understand."

Lin Wanan looked at him and said: "Young Master, please speak—I'll see if I can help answer your question."

Ye Chen took her hand and came to the central light ring, saying seriously: "Let's talk as we walk."

In the next instant, the two appeared in that special cave within He Ming Mountain.

Lin Wanan, having already become accustomed to teleportation after the previous two times, showed no surprise. Ye Chen took her hand and, familiar with the way, led her toward the cave's exit.

As they walked, Ye Chen voiced his doubt: "Miss Lin, I've looked into some history—the founding of the Daoist sect should be around 140 CE, meaning less than two thousand years ago. If the Daoist sect we speak of is the ancestral school of cultivation, then the entire history of cultivation would be only just over a thousand to less than two thousand years. Yet, from Meng Changsheng's biography, we can roughly determine he was born in 664 CE, by which time the world had already entered the Dharma-Ending Age. This means that from the beginning of cultivation to the arrival of the Dharma-Ending Age, there's only about five hundred years. But Meng Changsheng lived for a thousand years, and for high-level cultivators, lifespans are likely even longer. How could such a short five-hundred-year timeline accommodate several generations of cultivators' training and transmission?"

Lin Wanan listened to Ye Chen's doubt, pondered briefly, and asked: "Young Master, human civilization's development history is also only about five thousand years—do you think a five-thousand-year timeline could accommodate the development of the cultivation path?"

Ye Chen thought for a moment, then said seriously: "Based on my current understanding of cultivation, I'm afraid I've only seen the tip of the iceberg. Precisely because of this, I always feel that cultivation's history must require an extremely long time to slowly evolve. Not to mention our earlier calculation of five hundred years—even if there were truly five thousand years, it seems far from enough for cultivation to go from birth to rise, then flourishing, followed by decline and the Dharma-Ending Age—these epochal transformations. If we view it against Earth's developmental history, an epoch might well require tens of millions of years."

Lin Wanan smiled and nodded, saying: "Modern human civilization, under Earth's natural environment, might only be sustainable for a few hundred thousand years. After that, all traces of human construction would likely vanish like smoke. So, in the several-billion-year-long river of Earth's history, if there truly once existed a cultivation-centered civilization, even if they possessed great supernatural powers and endured the vicissitudes of time, the traces they could leave behind would probably be minuscule."

Saying this, the two had already walked hand in hand to the cave's exit. Lin Wanan turned back to look at the completely traceless rocks, marveling at this miraculous technique, and suddenly gained a hint of understanding.

Lin Wanan, while enjoying the long-missed, lush mountain scenery, suddenly realized and said to Ye Chen: "I understand now! Although the traces left behind by great supernatural powers for posterity are minuscule, they are certainly not nonexistent. There must indeed be some retention of supernatural abilities—just like the underground city we visited earlier. Based on this, I infer that He Ming Mountain is the birthplace of Daoism precisely because, long, long ago, cultivators were already active here. In other words, Daoism did not originate the cultivation path; rather, the cultivation path left behind these traces, and it wasn't until two thousand years ago that the founder of Daoism, inspired by the divine traces they left here, established Daoism!"

Ye Chen's face lit up with sudden realization as he exclaimed: "So my initial line of thinking was wrong! This question isn't about 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' but rather 'where did the chicken come from, and who are its ancestors?' If I recall correctly, the chicken's ancestor is the dinosaur!"