Confucian and Taoist Cultivation Starting from the Equipment Slot

"Hundreds of jade pieces?"

Upon hearing this news, Chen Zhuo subconsciously repeated it to himself.

At the same time, I was slightly surprised.

He doesn't have many jade pieces in his possession right now, while the maintenance fee for this official road alone costs hundreds of yuan every year.

Chen Zhuo took another look at the still glowing blue light band beneath his feet.

Suddenly I realized it wasn't just a road, but more like an artery.

A major artery that keeps burning through money.

With this major artery, literary talent could be transported from Shengtian Prefecture to Qingshan County along the official road.

Then it was diverted to various literary energy supply stations, and then infiltrated the array plates of the Literary Academy, the monitoring towers of the Celestial Surveillance Bureau, and the sealing arrays surrounding the ruins.

Without this road, the development of the heritage site would be impossible.

"Junior Brother!"

Gu Qing'e squatted on the other side of the ditch and watched for a long time.

Suddenly, he pointed to an unfinished section of the official road extending near the city gate and let out a soft exclamation.

Chen Zhuo went over to take a look and found that this section of road had unevenness and unevenness due to the deep grooves and trenches left before the construction of the Zhengqi piles.

This resulted in a very obvious fracture-like loosening remaining at the end of the last section of the official road.

Team leader He came over and took a look, his brows furrowing slightly.

"You can't just lay the runes on uneven roadbeds. You have to pry up the entire subbase and compact it before you can continue carving the runes."

As he spoke, he stomped his feet back and forth, muttering to himself.

"But now we are in the final stages, and the team's reserved manpower is fully booked for their respective processes, so we can't spare any more people."

It takes at least three people to pry up the subgrade and level it again: two to pry up the soil and one to tamp it down; it's all pure physical labor.

His gaze lingered between Chen Zhuo and Gu Qing'e.

Although he didn't speak, the meaning in his eyes was very clear.

Just as Chen Zhuo was about to say that they were just visiting, the junior sister next to him volunteered to speak up.

"let me!"

Gu Qing'e closed the palm-leaf fan in her hand and struck a pose as if she was eager to try.

Chen Zhuo thought she was going to teach some new literary technique.

So she simply rolled up her sleeves and pulled a pickaxe from the tool rack.

Then he picked up a ram and turned to look at Chen Zhuo.

"Junior brother, are you strong?"

Seeing his junior sister's eager expression, Chen Zhuo silently rolled up his sleeves and took the ramming hammer.

As soon as he started using it, he sensed something was wrong.

The weight of this hammerhead far exceeds expectations!

Keep in mind that his physique had been enhanced by the "Devouring" scripture, so even picking up the hammer was a bit of a struggle for him.

And the junior sister...

Chen Zhuo looked at Gu Qing'e and saw her swinging the hammer like a wooden stick, smashing it against the ground again and again.

"Could it be a literary effect?"

Chen Zhuo thought to himself that he couldn't think of any other explanation besides this reason.

Could it be that Junior Sister is born with superhuman strength and is suited to martial arts?

What a joke!

Chen Zhuo watched as Gu Qing'e smashed half a clod of rammed earth with a pickaxe, and then watched her swing the ramming hammer like a wooden stick to flatten the rubble. Finally, he couldn't help but watch.

"Senior sister, are you sure you're not also practicing martial arts?"

Gu Qing'e didn't even turn her head, and swung the pickaxe down again.

"Why would I practice martial arts? Your senior sister is a scholar, purely so."

She slammed the pickaxe into the ground, turned around, and said, "Do you remember that demon-slaying mission? I told you, I didn't use the 'sun' character script for my enlightenment."

Chen Zhuo nodded.

During the fight against the Sound Eater, the junior sister's "sun" character script was only at the mastery level, not as good as her junior brother's.

At the time, he thought she was just neglecting her practice, but now it seems there's more to it than meets the eye.

"You're practically a scholar now, so there's no harm in telling you."

Gu Qing'e patted the stone dust off her hands, walked to the edge of the ditch, squatted down, and pointed to the rammed earth road under her feet.

"The earliest literary skills that I, your senior sister, grasped were not from reading any scriptures, but evolved from my life experiences."

Gu Qing'e gazed into the distance, her eyes revealing neither joy nor sorrow.

"I was only nine years old that year. I was cornered by several older disciples at the Shengtianfu Academy. They called me an 'outsider'."

They asked me why my father was allowed to teach at Shengtian Prefecture, since I lacked literary skills, couldn't beat them in a fight, and couldn't out-argue them. Then I thought, why?

She said this in a very calm tone, as if she were telling someone else's story.

"At that moment, I only had one thought in my mind: to push them away, to push them away completely."

I don't know when, but this thought grew stronger and stronger, and finally it became a force that rushed out from my heart.

At that moment, I felt full of power, almost omnipotent. With a gentle push, I sent them all flying several steps.

Later I learned that this was the art of the character "力" (power/strength). It was not learned through understanding the characters of heaven and earth, but rather it was born from one's own heart.

The Mind Source School calls this "manifestation of thoughts," meaning that what you most want to do in your heart will spontaneously manifest as writing at a certain moment.

Chen Zhuo put down the tamping hammer and sat down on a roadbed stone next to him.

He said thoughtfully:

"So the essence of the word 'force' is not the force itself, but your obsession with pushing them away at that moment."

"right."

Gu Qing'e used a pickaxe to draw a circle on the rammed earth, and then drew a vertical line inside the circle, dividing the circle into two halves.

"Among the four major schools of literature and Taoism, the landscape is inspired by the natural world, including the sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, and peaks. The 'sun, moon,' and 'stones' you cultivate all follow this path."

Humanities draw inspiration from human relationships and society, including musical instruments, calligraphy and painting, and ritual systems. The strange kung fu technique used by the eldest sister and second brother is a product of this school.

The imperial court was modeled after the state apparatus, encompassing laws, regulations, military campaigns, and sacrificial rites. The county magistrate's seal was a typical example of imperial court documents.

She drew another circle outside the first one, with the two circles side by side and a gap in the middle.

"The mind does not take form from external things."

It does not draw strength from heaven and earth, nor from etiquette and law, nor from the imperial court.

It draws strength only from its own heart. Courage, obsession, love and hate, faith—the thing you feel you cannot compromise on is the seed of your inner spiritual art.

Therefore, the Xinyuan school does not have corresponding celestial and terrestrial characters.

She tapped the second circle with the tip of her pickaxe. "Or rather, each cultivator is themselves the script of heaven and earth."

My Heart Source Art is "Power". For someone else, it might be a different word. Even if it's the same "Power", the effect will not be exactly the same.

Because everyone's heart is different.

Gu Qing'e stood up and put the pickaxe back into the tool rack.

"The Heart Source Technique cannot be passed down or copied; each person's Heart Source is unique."

Those who can walk this path must either be exceptionally gifted or have extraordinary experiences.

"Senior sister, I think I got a little bit on both sides."

Chen Zhuo remained silent for a moment.

His junior sister's words answered a question that had been bothering him for a long time.

Why is Gu Qing'e's fighting style different from that of ordinary scholars he has met before?

It turns out that the paths they were walking on were different.