Poor Taoist Qiu Chuji

Chapter 280: Awakening to the Virtue of Water, and Becoming Gonggong
Yang Kang took Yang Guo away.

As a 'father', Yang Kang still has a lot to teach Yang Guo.

Of course, a father’s love is always like the strong wind and the scorching sun. He will give me a lot of beatings, but he will also do me all the good things.

No matter how much help Yang Kang gives to Yang Guo now, when he turns around and transforms into the Ghost King of Qinling Mountains, he will cause him a lot of suffering.

What I believe in is that 'if jade is not polished, it cannot become a useful object'.

Without looking at the father and son for the time being, Qiu Chuji lay on the white clouds, venting those unnecessary emotions, and began to deduce and analyze the special Xiyi ghost "Qin Nanqin".

Before tonight, he only thought that the Xiyi ghost was more difficult to deal with than ordinary ghosts, but also more "harmless".

Because generally speaking, this kind of ghost does not exist in the conventional understanding, so naturally it will not have any impact on living beings.

The people she can influence should all have a very deep bond with her...such as Yang Guo.

But Qin Nanqin's specific performance shocked Qiu Chuji greatly.

Not only can she release the source of fear and shock the soul, but when she voluntarily releases Yang Guo at the cost of completely disappearing, she can even take away the memories of Yang Guo and Yang Kang, erasing all traces of her appearance from their memory and existence, returning everything to nothingness.

That’s amazing!
In other words, the Xiyi ghost was not as weak as Qiu Chuji originally understood.

They are special spiritual entities that are more dead than ghosts and should be more fragile. However, because of this fragility, they possess a certain almost unsolvable power.

"From the perspective of spiritual practice, strengthening the spirit, energy and spirit can promote the transition of the primordial spirit, and then guide the entire life to undergo a complete transformation. In a sense, it is a kind of 'dimensional upgrade'. When time, space and life span are no longer the limitations of survival, then whether it is immortals, gods or Buddhas, compared to ordinary humans, they can all be regarded as a kind of high-dimensional life."

"When a person dies and turns into a ghost, they lose their physical body and have more restrictions. It's like being demoted to a half-dimensional realm. For example, Qin Nanqin was directly isolated from the real dimension and fell to a lower level."

At this point, his thoughts calmed down a little. Qiu Chuji sat cross-legged again and sorted out his previous thoughts again, and then he came to a conclusion.

"However, the so-called dimensionality increase or decrease may not be in the form of a ladder, with the dimension where normal creatures are located in the middle, but may form an infinite circle."

“Perhaps the end point of spiritual practice is not to stand at the top of the ladder and become the spokesperson of a certain level, but to possess a commonality, that is, the forms and existences manifested in all dimensions will be presented in the Supreme Being.”

A flash of inspiration came to Qiu Chuji, and he couldn't help but have some daydreams. If his soul could be like Qin Nanqin, hidden in nothingness, yet able to pry open some kind of original emotional power between heaven and earth, does that mean that his soul flowed downwards and gained the common characteristics of the Xiyi dimension?
At this moment, sentences from the Tao Te Ching automatically emerged in Qiu Chuji's mind.

As the saying goes, 'existence and non-existence give rise to each other, difficulty and ease complement each other, length and shortness contrast each other, high and low incline towards each other, sounds harmonize with each other, and the past and the future follow each other', the mysteries and fundamentals of spiritual practice are all clearly written by the saints. However, if you do not reach the realm, the opportunity, and the level, it is useless to understand it even if you understand it, and it is useless even if you understand it.

That is, Qiu Chuji now understood something, but he could not apply this sentence to his own practice. He could only deduce it further and picked out the sentence 'The highest good is like water. Water benefits all things without contention. It stays where people hate, and so is close to the Tao.'

Water is not the real Tao, but it is close to and similar to Tao in its form of expression.

Although it is not Tao, it is close to Tao.

Qiu Chuji's soul successively incarnated into Ju Mang and Hou Tu, and mastered the essence of earth and wood. However, power came before the Tao. He used powerful spiritual energy to pave the way, guiding the huge primordial Qi of heaven and earth into the corresponding internal organs, deifying the internal organs, and then attained enlightenment due to the changes in his body.

This is also an option that many people who practice cultivation will naturally choose.

There are even Taoist manuals on the way of protection such as the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art, which uses the method of change to feel the different principles of heaven and earth, and then gain many enlightenments.

After all, for fish, controlling and sensing the flow of water is instinctive, and for trees, growth and releasing vitality are also common characteristics of their existence.

Changing the form of life and then sensing the instinct in a certain form of life is undoubtedly a shortcut to enlightenment and the key to breaking free from the shackles.

Instead, using the method of change to fight and kill is actually not much different from buying the box and returning the pearl.

At this time, Qiu Chuji wanted to imitate Xiyi's ghost and use the cause of enlightenment to reversely promote the changes in his own soul and improve his cultivation, so he needed a "key".

His soul cannot directly transform into a Xiyi ghost, but it can be close.

The thoughts became clearer and clearer, and there seemed to be a sound of rushing water coming from Qiu Chuji's body.

The surging and vast feeling first arises from the spirit platform, then flows from the spirit platform to the whole body, and turns into countless undercurrents that appear and disappear from time to time, converging towards a final destination.

In the spiritual platform, the primordial spirit undergoes the third transformation.

He has a human body with a python head, covered with black scales, a black dragon under his feet, and a green python wrapped around his hands. He is none other than Gonggong, the ancient water god.

After the third transformation of the soul, the power of water virtue was completely formed, deifying the kidneys of this body of his or hers and turning it into a sacred treasure.

The Shenzang corresponds to the Yuanshen, so there are many water-related magical powers.

At this point, among the five elements, Qiu Chuji has already occupied three of them, namely wood, earth and water, and can be called an innate civil engineering saint.

With a clap of his hands, he can perform the great building technique.

When the primordial spirit has undergone the third transformation, the daily progress will be completely maximized, and it can go through the thunder tribulation at any time and cultivate a yang spirit.

The primordial spirit disappeared, and Qiu Chuji casually wiped it on his head, and his presence in the world was greatly reduced.

If he hid all his supernatural powers and stepped into the mortal world like this, then even the smartest and most vigilant people would not notice his abnormality and would only regard him as an ordinary old man. "Unfortunately, what I have learned from Qin Nanqin has come to an end now."

“If you want to achieve the fourth or even fifth transformation of your primordial spirit, then apart from the direct path of overcoming the thunder tribulation and transforming your primordial spirit into a yang spirit, if you want to take shortcuts, you will have to look for another opportunity.” Qiu Chuji seemed to feel regretful in his heart, but in fact he was very happy.

This time I came here to do the mission, thinking that it would be just to let the Antarctic Immortal vent his anger.

Unexpectedly, there was an unexpected surprise.

After taking three or two steps, Qiu Chuji arrived at the foot of Mount Emei. With a wave of his hand, a wooden house that looked a little shabby was built at the foot of the mountain.

As a congenital civil engineering saint, Qiu Chuji's speed in building houses is still impressive... He can even manipulate the power of earth to make them look old.

Looking at the small wooden house and the shed in front of it, Qiu Chuji nodded with satisfaction.

From today on, he will be an "ordinary" tea seller at the foot of Mount Emei.

In this way, he can see the various forms of life, and at the same time wait and see if he can meet the person he wants and leave some other traces in this world.

Most of Yang Guo's affairs can be entrusted to Yang Kang. He only needs to play the role of Taoist Ying Yuan at the end and bestow the "Wuqiu Immortal Book".

Speaking of pretending to be a tea seller, if it had happened before, he would have been telling many people clearly that there was something wrong with him if he had done this.

After all, at the foot of Mount Emei, there is an old tea seller who looks like an immortal... The traces are too obvious. You don't need to be very educated, just listen to a few legendary stories told by storytellers and it will be easy to make associations.

However, now that his Gonggong spirit has been initially formed and he has mastered the concealment of water, his presence has been reduced. As long as he does not deliberately show it, even if there are some unreasonable things, they will be subconsciously ignored by others.

If you don't really have a connection with him, you need to have a truly pure heart to be able to see some of his truth.

The next morning, as expected, no one seemed to have any idea about the teahouse that suddenly appeared at the foot of the mountain.

People continued to rush into Mount Emei, looking for any place where immortals might be hiding, but they didn't know that the people they were looking for had already passed them by.

The third day, the fourth day, the fifth day... the tenth day, it was always like this.

Qiu Chuji was selling tea at the foot of the mountain. He would listen to the wanderers sitting in the tea stall chatting about stories that seemed very far away from him, and occasionally recalling some past events.

It's a bit of a pity for Qiu Chuji, as he doesn't seem to have much experience as a normal person in the martial arts world.

On the eleventh day, Qiu Chuji saw a few familiar faces.

Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu walked in, each carrying a large wooden box on their backs, followed by the old naughty boy Zhou Botong and Yinggu.

This combination is quite interesting.

I don't know how they got mixed up again.

Just as he was curious, he saw Zhou Botong running to Qiu Chuji's side, looking him up and down for several times, then circling around him a few times, repeatedly saying, "Strange!"

"What's strange?" Yinggu asked.

Zhou Botong said: "I am a little confused. I feel like I have seen him somewhere before."

Qiu Chuji was a little surprised, but felt relieved after thinking about it again.

Although Zhou Botong has many flaws, he still has a childlike heart. It is not surprising that he can see some clues through the concealment of water.

Of course, it is also because Zhou Botong and Qiu Chuji are very familiar with each other.

If they had only met once, or were not very familiar with each other, even Zhou Botong would not be able to feel it.

"When people get old, their skin becomes wrinkled and their faces dry, which is generally the same!"

"Don't be offended, old brother!" Qiu Chuji said to Zhou Botong.

Zhou Botong nodded: "That's right! How old are you? Are you older than me?"

Qiu Chuji laughed and said, "I am already seventy-eight years old this year!"

Zhou Botong said: "Then you have to be younger than me. I should be eighty this year!"

"Brother, you live younger than me. You look to be only in your early sixties!" Qiu Chuji told the truth.

The old naughty boy pouted and said, "Humph! You don't look like an old man even when you're old. I don't like it at all."

"By the way! Do you know martial arts?"

"If you hadn't learned martial arts, you could still live to be seventy-eight years old, that's pretty impressive!"

(End of this chapter)