Zanxing looked at the cultivator beside Duan Xiangrao.
This was a man about thirty years old, with a narrow and long face, eyebrows and eyes slightly upturned, displaying a somewhat difficult and harsh demeanor. However, he should be quite wealthy – the sword at his waist had a beautiful green gemstone embedded in its scabbard.
Duan Xiangrao leaned against him like a delicate bird, looking at Zanxing with hidden smugness in her eyes, as if showing off her new boyfriend.
Zanxing was at a loss for words.
“What are you looking at, ugly woman?” This cultivator’s eyebrows furrowed, his tone carrying a wild and violent air.
Tian Fangfang stepped back and quietly reminded Zanxing, “Junior Sister Yang, this brother is called Hua Yue. He was first place in the selection competition and has already formed his Golden Core.”
Zanxing’s heart stirred. In the selection competition, the brother who took first place picked fifty-four Lianshan flowers in total, not because he climbed the highest, but because he robbed the most.
He had almost obtained first place through robbery, because he was already at the early Golden Core stage. Among the newly enrolled disciples this time, his cultivation was the highest.
Duan Xiangrao had found the top new student as her new boyfriend. Zanxing couldn’t help but marvel again at this social ability – it was truly amazing.
A wise person adapts to circumstances. Zanxing didn’t plan to start a dispute with this person now, deciding to avoid his aggressive edge. She shouldered her staff and silently turned to leave. Seeing this, Tian Fangfang quickly followed. Behind them came the unrestrained mocking laughter of Duan Xiangrao and Hua Yue, which Zanxing pretended not to hear.
She walked to Rainbow Platform, separated from Tian Fangfang, found a clearing in the forest abundant with spiritual energy and with no one around, and sat down. She took out “Qing E Nian Hua Gun” from her robes and browsed through it with her spiritual consciousness.
This secret manual didn’t say who had written it. Upon first reading, it carried waves of fragrant wind, like the floral scent carried by a woman’s body, aromatic and sweet. Immediately after, Zanxing’s vision gradually became blurred.
It was like being in chaotic white mist. After an unknown amount of time, the white mist gradually dispersed, and a young woman appeared before her eyes.
This woman wore flowing white clothes. Her face couldn’t be seen, but just from her silhouette, one could tell this was a peerless beauty. The beauty stood under a flourishing flower tree, holding an azure long staff. After a moment, she positioned the long staff horizontally in front of her body and began dancing with the azure staff in her hands.
Staff techniques were usually rigid and fierce, but in this woman’s hands, it was like a living willow branch – soft and agile. As she danced, she spoke, her voice crisp as silver bells: “Central and straight is the master of staff paths, meaning central, level, upright, and straight. Whether large gates or small gates, both body and weapon must form a straight line, which is called the meridian.”
After speaking, she held the staff and thrust it horizontally before her eyes, as if to clearly explain her words to someone.
Zanxing widened her eyes, not daring to miss even the slightest detail of this woman’s movements. Strangely enough, while people said it was unseemly for women to use staffs, when this white-clothed woman danced with the staff, it was like dancing – her posture graceful and particularly moving. The strong wind stirred up by the azure staff swayed the treetops, causing cherry-colored petals to fall rustling down, carpeting the ground.
Thus, above and below the tree, all was splendor. In the patch of rosy light, only this white-clothed woman’s solitary and cold figure remained, as if she would dance gracefully in the wind forever.
At first, her movements were very slow, allowing Zanxing to see every step. Gradually, the staff technique became faster, until later it was impossible to distinguish where the person was, where the flowers were, or where the staff were. One could only feel the peerless beauty, graceful as a startled swan, elegant as a swimming dragon.
The sky gradually darkened.
The rainbow in front of Rainbow Platform’s waterfall slowly dispersed. Sunlight completely disappeared into the clouds, and a few scattered stars poked their heads out, sprinkling starlight throughout the entire forest.
The woman in gauze robes sat motionless in the same spot, large drops of sweat gradually seeping from her forehead. The sweat rolled down to her nose tip, but she seemed completely unaware. In the night, countless stars gathered above her head, silently gazing at this person who had been cultivating for a day and night.
…
At dawn, autumn rain began falling on Gufeng Mountain.
Rainwater slipped through the unclosed window cracks, soaking the papers on the desk by the window. A loud cock’s crow awakened the entire morning, and students complained as they got up for class.
Zanxing rubbed her eyes and got up to wash.
After casually eating a couple of bites of flatbread left from last night, Zanxing took an umbrella and left.
Duan Xiangrao had already gone. Sometimes Zanxing admired this roommate, to displayed her most beautiful side in front of everyone. Duan Xiangrao got up half an hour early every day to groom and dress up. Zanxing couldn’t do that – being able to sleep an extra fifteen minutes was good enough.
In the instruction hall, disciples placed their folded oil-paper umbrellas at the entrance and wiped the mud spots off their shoes clean before entering. As soon as Zanxing sat down, Tian Fangfang at the next table asked in surprise: “Junior Sister, didn’t you sleep well? Why do you look so haggard?”
Zanxing yawned and said, “Yes, lack of sleep.”
It had been five days since she took away that “Qing E Nian Hua Gun,” and there were fewer than ten days until the sect assessment. Every day after public classes, Zanxing went to Rainbow Platform for self-study, staying until midnight. Her dark circles were visibly growing. She already had black marks left by demonic qi on her right face, and now looked even uglier.
This would have been fine – corporate slaves who often worked overtime were used to staying up until dawn. But what was hateful was that despite all her hard work, the staff technique still showed no progress.
She had mastered the movements of the Nian Hua staff technique, but when she wielded the iron staff, it looked just like ordinary staff techniques, completely unlike the power displayed by the white-clothed woman in her spiritual consciousness. This made Zanxing always feel like a clumsy buyer’s review – getting the form but not the spirit.
On the platform, Martial Uncle Yueguang was still slowly reading: “The crow flies with gold, the rabbit runs with jade, the three realms are one grain of millet. Mountains and rivers have been dust for many years, yin and yang are reversed, and enter the mysterious valley. Human life is like sparks and lightning, a few magpies lodge on branches. Mulberry fields and vast seas, spring returns to autumn, heaven and earth won’t let the departure cease… High in the nine heavens, the wind and moon are cold, immortals have no idle worries in their bellies…”
Zanxing was lost in thought about the bottleneck in her staff technique, so she didn’t notice Tian Fangfang desperately making eye signals at her, nor Yueguang Daoren’s figure already close by.
Two fingers tapped on Zanxing’s desk. Zanxing looked up to meet Yueguang Daoren’s kind gaze. He said, “This disciple, you tell us what the ‘Great Dao Song’ just said.”
Terrible – caught red-handed for spacing out in class. Duan Xiangrao stared at her gleefully, planning to watch Zanxing make a fool of herself.
Zanxing stood up and fabricated without changing expression: “This talks about how human life is very short, everything is illusory, telling us to cherish time and seize the present… All things in heaven and earth have their own ‘Dao,’ we shouldn’t be constrained by forms but should see the ‘truth’ within.”
Martial Uncle Yueguang smiled: “What is ‘truth’ and what is ‘illusion’?”
Zanxing spouted nonsense: “For example, it’s raining outside and everyone feels cold. The cold is ‘illusion,’ the rain is ‘truth.'”
Materialism versus idealism – who hasn’t studied that?
Martial Uncle Yueguang gently shook his head: “Heaven and earth are heartless. The flourishing and withering of all things is illusion; the great cycles of beginning and end are truth. So-called truth and illusion are originally human distinctions. A thousand people have a thousand faces, all different and varied. What you see is what truth and illusion are.”
This was too obscure. Zanxing didn’t understand. Just as she sat down, suddenly something flashed quickly through her mind.
Wait, truth and illusion?