Becoming a God from a Water Monkey

Chapter 1102 I'm a Turtle Too! (Two Chapters Combined)

As soon as Long Binglin fled, Long Yanrui surrounded him, eagerly pressing for answers.

"Elder, how is it?"

"Very good!" Liang Qu smiled broadly, turning his shoulders to loosen up his muscles and bones after a month of sitting in meditation.

What does it feel like to be in harmony with nature?

"An antenna was turned on, and it kept receiving signals."

"An antenna?" Long Yanrui didn't quite understand.

"An antenna is like a celestial eye, allowing you to see things that are normally invisible. You will receive many details that you would not normally notice, like a free fish that can clearly perceive every ripple and every small eddy around it, and know exactly where the water quality is good or bad."

"Oh, I get it!" Long Yanrui slapped his fist on the palm. "I understand now. Because they are so sensitive, it's easier to catch and escape a True Manifestation expert who has achieved oneness with Heaven and Man, right? And in hunting, they can sense where their prey is going and where it is moving, making predictions in advance? It's more complex and precise than acting on a whim? They can take the initiative and be more effective against external forces?"

"Uh," Liang Qu scratched his temple, "more or less?"

When the Tiger and the Elephant are about to experience a major event, they spontaneously generate warning signs. This is far superior to the concept of "harmony between man and nature," which leaps directly from weather balloons to big data analysis.

Moreover, Liang Qu could sense that, thanks to the favor of the Jianghuai region, his harmony with nature in the Huai River was three times stronger than when he was outside!
"Ha." Long Yanrui felt he was very quick-witted. He crossed his arms, hugged his neck, and looked up at the sky. "The Martial Saint has taken one step out of three steps. If he has completed more than 30%, then he has passed. Elder, you are about to become a Martial Saint. When are you going to take me to the Dragon Palace? I have heard the elders talk about it when I was a child, but I have never seen it with my own eyes."

"Stop rushing me! If you don't want to come out, go back to your seclusion!"

Long Eying glared at Long Yanrui, making him shrink back.

"It's alright, E'ying, it won't be long."

Liang Qu was full of vigor and high spirits.

The unity of heaven and man did not increase his physical strength, but it increased his ability to process information, which indirectly improved his actual combat capabilities and made it easier for him to survive when encountering enemies. It truly narrowed the gap between him and the dragon, from a thousand miles to nine hundred and ninety miles. This was a stage victory!
This will be especially helpful for Liangqu's upcoming "pest control" plan!

The beginning is always the hardest. Of the three steps to becoming a martial saint, only the Heavenly Gate and the Heavenly Pass remain!

Do not anticipate the future, do not be distracted by the present, and do not dwell on the past!

Before being crowned a king, shouldn't the house be cleaned thoroughly?
Clean and tidy.

Pure and innocent!

With such a great atmosphere, Long Yanrui immediately suggested a late-night snack to celebrate.

Liang Qu was immersed in the excitement of his breakthrough in cultivation, which was perfectly acceptable. But at this moment, a "brown-haired giant rat" emerged from the underground river from the west, covered in water, and rushed into the pond. It stretched out its claws to pry its way ashore from the rocks, shook its head from the top of its head to the tip of its tail, shook off the water, and put on the yellow robe in its arms again.

The otter bared its sharp teeth.

"Scarface?" Liang Qu flicked his sleeves, wiping the water off Scarface's body. "You swam across the Dragon River?"

Scarface nodded, pointing his claws toward Pingyang Prefecture, and gestured.

Liang Qu understood: "Master, are you asking me to go over?"

Scarface clasped his hands together.

"Perfect!" Liang Qu said with a smug look on his face. "Now that my cultivation has broken through, I should go to the prefectural city. E'ying, don't wait for me tonight."

"Ah."

"Alright, that's it, no more food." Long Yanrui put down the barbecue grill.

Thin, silvery clouds shone through the moonlight.

Although it was dark, it wasn't too late. Liang Qu reached out and pressed Otter's head, grabbed Scarface by the back of the neck, and threw him into the water. He used [Water Movement] to slide through a string of bubbles to the foot of Pingyang Temple, and then soared into the temple.

The shadows of the trees are dancing.

Scarface went to make tea.

"Grandmaster!"

"His eyes were sparkling with joy."

"Of course! The first step to becoming a Martial Saint, how could I not be happy? You must be happy too, right?" Liang Qu went to the study, found a futon, sat down, put his hands on his knees, straightened his back, looked energetic, and had eyes like stars. "Just now, when I was in harmony with heaven and man, you came to call me. Did the master sense it on the mountain early this morning?"

"Hmm, when one is in harmony with nature, do you ever feel the connection between your five senses?"

“Yes! Touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight—the five senses seem amplified, but then they all disappear completely, leaving a state of ignorance and confusion. Then a point appears between the eyebrows, and following that point outwards, the senses can be restored.” Liang Qu’s eyes lit up; he realized the mystery. “Could it be the Yogacara school?”

“Indeed,” the old monk smiled. “The sixth of the eight consciousnesses is mind consciousness.”

"Consciousness?" Liang Qu slightly suppressed his excitement, pondering the words. "So what I suddenly realized, is it the unity of heaven and man, or consciousness?"

The water mist is thick.

The scarred man carried a vermilion lacquered tray and offered fragrant tea.

"What is different now, what is different in the past? We are all on the same path. If you understand the nature of things, with a single point of enlightenment, all things cease to matter." Do you remember what I told you when we were learning "Subduing the Dragon and Tiger"? The old monk asked rhetorically.

Liang Quzheng asked with a serious expression, "Master, you said that Buddhists didn't talk about the dantian in the past, but it became useful later, so they started calling it the dantian. Is that right?"

The old monk nodded: "Buddhism does not call it the unity of heaven and man, but consciousness. It is the perception and thinking formed by the comprehensive senses of man. It takes the entire world as its object. You observe the world with your perception and the feedback you get is consciousness."

comprehend by analogy.

Liang Qu has an additional understanding of the unity of man and nature, and he draws inferences from one instance to another.

"In the end, it is humans who observe the world. If humans make judgments based on their observations, wouldn't they be prone to making mistakes? Or, is what we observe necessarily the truth?"

"If it were not so, then the Great Shun Dynasty would have the Imperial Observatory, the Four Fields Celestial Instrument, and the Qiankun Myriad Phenomena Instrument; the Great Qian Dynasty would have the Star and Destiny Plate, and the Northern Court would have the Longevity Heaven Broad Tent."

The power of the state is devoid of emotions and self-interest; its judgment is more accurate and its vision more far-reaching than that of humans. Furthermore, by harnessing the power of the entire nation, it can influence the very fabric of nature, acting against its natural order.

Say it.

Countless memories surfaced in my mind.

In the past, the Martial Saint Xuanbing of the River and Lake Bureau, which carried out surprise attacks on the Ghost Mother Sect, dealt with the Eight-Clawed King, and attacked the Pill Vein, all relied on the Imperial Observatory...

With different levels of understanding, perspectives, and insights, Liang Qu's many perceptions suddenly came together through personal experience, no longer just knowing what happened but not why.

Da Shun, Bei Ting, Nan Jiang, and Gui Mu all have the same thing: shielding and anti-shielding.

"I see..." Liang Qu suddenly realized, stroking his chin. "Then, can the existence of a Martial Saint be interfered with by a national treasure?"

"It is not possible now, therefore the Martial Saint is the pillar of the country and should not be acted upon rashly. The future is still unknown." The old monk shook his head. "Before the Great Qian Dynasty, there was the so-called Armillary Sphere, which the Martial Saint's Xuanbing could not conceal."

Liang Qu nodded, his excitement mixed with thoughtful consideration.

Martial arts are always about development and progress.

Never mistake a moment for eternity.

otherwise.

When something unconventional emerges in the future, those who are stubborn and opinionated will suffer greatly.

"If the Martial Saint could truly be blocked, wouldn't the world be thrown into chaos?" From this perspective, Liang Qu himself is rather conservative and not very willing to disrupt his current peaceful life.

That's how people are; when they're insignificant, they seek change, reform, and innovation.

When things are no longer completely clear, I hope to have a mud house and two acres of paddy fields. I just hope that nothing will change, not even the swallows nesting under the eaves, that there won't be an extra one next year.

"The future will be discussed by future generations. Interfering with Xuanbing is only a matter of one or two hundred years, and it is a far cry from interfering with Martial Saint."

Liang Qu breathed a sigh of relief.

Improving the thermal efficiency of a national instrument like the astronomical instrument is extremely difficult, much like improving the effective thermal efficiency of an internal combustion engine.

It's not something that can be improved by a single person having a flash of inspiration and coming up with a good idea. Rather, it requires a long period of development and continuous accumulation. At least for the next few decades, or even hundreds or thousands of years, we don't need to worry about major changes.

He then realized another problem.

“Master, you clearly gave me a method for cultivating consciousness back then, saying it could help people break through delusion. After practicing it, it did have this effect, so why now…”

"What was given at that time was the combined application of the five senses."

"I see. Does that mean that the essence of the various consciousnesses in the later parts of the Yogacara school must be understood by oneself?"

"Of course!"

Liang Qu understood.

Several years have passed since the old monk taught about the six consciousnesses, and the Yogacara school has not introduced any new teachings. Liang Qu has long wondered if something went wrong in the middle, or if there were no subsequent teachings at all.

Upon inspection today, it is indeed the case.

Not only that, even the sixth consciousness is only half true and half false.

The old monk fiddled with the prayer beads in his hand.

"The sixth consciousness is a derivative of the five consciousnesses. Like the unity of heaven and man, it requires personal understanding. Moreover, this consciousness is subject to the obstruction of perception. 'If you plant flowers with intention, they will not bloom; if you plant willows without intention, they will thrive.' Cultivating without intention is more beneficial than cultivating with intention. I was worried that you would know this in advance and would be deliberate, so I did not tell you. Instead, I gave you a method to combine the five consciousnesses to break through delusion."

Hey. Never mind.

Liang Quzhen really knows a bit about this stuff.

When a person is under stress at work, the areas responsible for attention and planning are constantly engaged in the intense work of collecting information and memorizing memories, making it difficult for inspiration to flow.

When a person is at rest, this area loses control of the mind. People no longer focus on sight, hearing, or smell, but instead can let their imagination run wild.

Therefore, people's memory and thinking ability are actually better when they go to the toilet and take a shower!

Because thoughts are scattered at this time, it is easier to grasp some "ethereal" inspirations!

Consciousness, sixth sense, and the unity of man and nature are precisely such "ethereal" things.

"I thought it was because of my extraordinary talent in slaying the dragon at the fifth level of the River God that I was able to achieve oneness with heaven and man so quickly. Now it seems that the first five senses of the Consciousness-Only Law should have helped. The two interact with each other... This news must be kept secret. I can't tell my senior brother and Eying."

Liang Qu's lineage and his close associates all practiced the Yogacara school.

Activating concepts through conscious thought, without speaking them aloud, is more conducive to spiritual practice.

"Master, what about the seventh and eighth consciousnesses in the Yogacara school?"

Back then, Liang Qu swallowed it whole.

The seventh consciousness is the potential consciousness; the eighth consciousness is the seed consciousness, the root of all things.

Apart from his name, I know nothing else about him.

The old monk replied: "The sixth consciousness is for observing the world outward; the seventh consciousness does the opposite, being the root of consciousness, seeking inward; the eighth consciousness is the origin of everything in the world, containing the 'seed' of all phenomena, and the 'one' of all things."

"Rumor has it that the furnace is meant to seize the Rank Fruit, which is the manifestation of a certain authority. Is the mystery here related to seeking within? Or is it subject to some kind of condition?" Liang Qu made a bold guess based on the opening of the Mysterious Light in the Hunting Tiger Cave and the unity of heaven and man in the Perfect Image.

"I don't know," the old monk shook his head.

Not disappointed.

All things considered, the old monk hadn't been an Arhat for many years at all, and his journey to the furnace was still a long way off.

I don’t know that’s normal.

However, Liang Qu himself was different.

Possessing the Ze Cauldron, he came into contact with many special things, such as [Favorability] and [Domination]!
Upon entering the water, Liangqu's experience became more profound. The "Favorability" clearly helped in achieving harmony between man and nature, and the perception of "ripples" became clearer. Apart from the "small stones" within a radius of several miles, one could even sense a "reef" further south, isolated from the world, like a black monument standing in the vast snowfield.

no doubt.

Ningjiang Prefecture.

King of Yue!

Sensing Ningjiang Prefecture but not the Frog King, the approximate area was quickly defined.

"A higher level of [dominance] requires introspection..."

Liang Qu couldn't help but recall the Hanging Temple in Datong Prefecture. The first time his [Favorability] turned into [Domination] was when he was at the Hanging Temple, and he had a change of mindset where he abandoned [Favorability] and took the initiative to seize the legacy!
A flash of inspiration, and my mind is itching to get started.

Liang Qu scratched his head and temples, his eyes looking up as if deep in thought.

The old monk was extremely surprised.

Why do you look so thoughtful and experienced after listening to this?
Is this... correct?
"Do you have any ideas?" the old monk asked.

Liang Qu spoke up: "The seventh consciousness is higher than the sixth consciousness, yet different from the sixth consciousness."

A very insightful but meaningless statement.

The old monk remained silent.

Liang Qu coughed twice to cover his embarrassment. For a moment, he didn't know how to explain. After thinking for a long time, he combined the "favor" factor and thought he had found a brilliant analogy.

"The sixth consciousness is that Heaven and Earth favor you, the seventh consciousness is that you make Heaven and Earth favor you, so according to this logic, the eighth consciousness, the seed consciousness, is that you favor Heaven and Earth?"

As he spoke, Liang Qu's thoughts began to wander.

The old monk frowned slightly, also lost in thought.

Four passes and seven routes.

Skin, flesh, bones, blood (internal organs).

Galloping horse, beacon fire, hunting tiger, and precious elephant.

Dragon, Furnace, Rainbow.

Whether true rainbow transformation exists in the world is unknown. It is not surprising that there are legends but no actual events. After all, the furnace must exist, and it is not surprising that people have expectations for rainbow transformation if the furnace exists.

There is no end to any realm of existence.

The road is made by walking; as long as you want to walk, is there an end?

The two sat facing each other in silence until the tea grew cold.

"Learning the Way is the greatest and most difficult thing in the world," the old monk sighed.

"Take your time," Liang Qu said with a grin. "If there's a path, go; if not, stop and enjoy the scenery. See how others are going. Follow along if you can, and if you can't, build a hut and enjoy the view!"

"Haha, clouds gather and disperse without dwelling on anything, yet we insist on 'emptying' them, which is reasonable."

They talked for a long time until late at night.

Liang Qu felt that he couldn't go to the Yang residence today, and it would be a bit of a disturbance in the middle of the night, so he decided to stay and exchange ideas with the old monk, and learn how to retrieve his Heavenly Soul and Earthly Soul.

It opens up the heavenly soul and cuts off the earthly soul.

Humans have three souls and seven spirits. The three souls are the 'heavenly soul, earthly soul, and human soul', which were anciently called 'fetal light, refreshing spirit, and hidden essence'.

The phrase "connecting heaven and severing earth" means cutting off the causal link between the heavenly soul and the earthly soul, preventing them from entering the heavenly path and the underworld, and keeping them firmly in their original state.

Everyone cuts things off in a different way.

"Light the lamp!" the old monk replied.

"Lighting a lamp?"

"Light the lamp, scorch the cotton thread, dry the lamp oil, and a wisp of wispy blue smoke rises..."

I benefited greatly.

Dawn.

After making a detour to visit the Yang residence, we stayed for breakfast and chatted with Madam Xu.

Liang Qu received a message from Long Pingjiang, who promised to come to his house for dinner the day after tomorrow, and hurriedly returned to the pond.

"Let's go, let's go!" Wu Cangshou waved his paw.

"Thank you for leading the way today, Master Shou. I will host the dinner in Dingtang again tomorrow."

"No problem, no problem. If you ever have snake demon meat to eat in the future, just call me again."

"must!"

Liang Qu and Long Ren leaped into the pond, along with their chief foreign minister, Fat Catfish, and followed Wu Cangshou westward.

noon.

Clang! Clang!
Against the backdrop of green hills and clear waters, two large, sturdy shrimp with their heads clashing together, creating a fierce, sharp screech.

"Who is coming?"

"Send your name!"

"It's me!" Wu Cangshou stepped forward slowly. "Why are there new shrimp again? Where are Jian Twelve and Thirteen?"

"Who do we have here? It's Master Shou! Let us through! Now, Master Shou, we are Sword Seventeen and Sword Eighteen. Sword Twelve and Brother Thirteen agreed to a duel yesterday and cut each other's shrimp veins, resulting in serious injuries. They're lying at home today, so we're temporarily filling in for them."

"I knew it! New face, if you're going to have a fight, then have a fight. Don't keep picking the shrimp veins all the time, it's too dangerous."

The sword shrimp separated at the first touch. Liang Qu followed behind Wu Cangshou, cupped his hands to the two unfamiliar sword shrimp, and the fat catfish followed suit, waving its long whiskers familiarly, trying to establish a relationship with the gatekeeper.

Muttering.

The sword shrimp exclaimed in surprise, "You're a turtle too?"

The fat catfish nodded vigorously, slammed its fist into its palm, and trembled angrily as it spread its arms wide.

When I was young, I was harmed by a snake demon. It tore off my tortoise shell, broke my limbs, and flattened my head!
Woo!
Bubbles are popping.

Liang Qu turned back, grabbed the fat catfish by its two long whiskers, pulled it forward by its mouth, and bowed to the two sword shrimp.

(End of this chapter)