Chapter 193 - Portraits

It was not the first time that Shen Lian had entered the Taiwei Pavilion. Back then a long time ago, he knew that only with Huandan then only could he enter the second level.

At that time, he did not know how to get up but now he knew.

It was simple. He just has to think about going to the second level and naturally, he was in. Because it was so simple that it was abstruse. It involved the profoundness of space and time which was not what Shen Lian could comprehend now. A thought flashed by. If he could cultivate to a certain state, could he have an epiphany of the subtleness of space and time and head back to where he came from?

Now, he completely did not understand how he got here.

This thought flashed past and was gone. He did not give it much thought and began scanning the second level of the pavilion.

The second level was an enclosed space but this space was very bright. There were no burning rays of light as there was only soft light, but the source of the light could not be found. He also made an intriguing discovery. He did not have any shadows.

Since the light-filled every corner, that was why the shadow did not exist. By right, light and shadow should co-exist but here, there was only light.

Space was huge that was crowded with many floating jade scrolls. Shen Lian simply grabbed one jade scroll and a tremendous swarm of information flooded in. Finally, he understood the Dao technique that was recorded within – Taishang Pure Yang Qi Cultivation Incantation.

As Shen Lian loosen the grip on the jade scroll, the scroll floating back to its original place. The information that was mapped into his mind soon disappeared bit by bit.

This was not strange at all. There was no use to solely memorize incantation for formidable the incantation or supernatural power. Unless one understood and digested it, there was no way to remember it.

Back then, if Gu Caiwei had not done an introduction to the Taixu Strategy, there was no way she could have taught him.

As for the jade scrolls in here, there was no way of bringing it out. No one was allowed to. On one hand, it was the rules. On another hand, it was because the items here could not be taken away after all; they were not real objects. They were only a form of representation of the information.

Unless one could understand and be well versed in it, turning it into your own knowledge.

As long as one could enter the second level of the Taiwei Pavilion, one could simply flip and browse through the records of the Dao technique and supernatural powers within the jade scroll.

But to bring these things out, especially the martial arts kind, one had to put into the work to understand and digest.

The time of a cultivator was long, it was also temporary. The things being recorded here were formidable and could not be understood by going through it once. Even if there was a genius that could be well versed in different Dao techniques and cultivate it simultaneously, the amount of required energy to be spent was unknown.

To minor in several martial exercises, generally, it was because one's martial exercise was ordinary. To be able to search for similar minors, perhaps one could expand on a new way of thinking and achieve a Dao technique for oneself.

This was because there was never the best martial exercises, only the martial exercises that were the most suitable for oneself.

Every person's qualification and mind were not the same. Even when one cultivates the same Dao technique, aside from the quick or slow progress, the end result would also have some slight difference.

The Dao technique was only the seed, as to what kind of tree it would grow into, it subjects to individual and the established practice.

There were no any two trees that are completely the same. However, because one cultivates the same kind of Dao technique, fundamentally there would be a lot of similarities and the differences are the minor details.

Shen Lian really liked it here. As his cultivation experience became higher and higher, he could pick up many of the ordinary Dao techniques with just a simple glance. As for the matters that could be easily learned, it truly did not benefit him much.

Like someone who had learned divination for many years, only to have him learn something as simple as basic math, even though it was stress-free but it was no fun either.

However, Shen Lian temporarily did not focus on the jade scroll. Around the seemingly smooth jade walls hung many portraits. Each portrait had a human figure in it. Some of them dressed up as a Confucian scholar, some of them stood holding a sword, some of them had a kerchief on and seemed happy and cheerful amongst the mountains and water, some of them seemed half drunk as they held a wine cup. Not one of them was the same.

Each of the portraits had its individual charm.

These portraits were successive generations of the immortal Zhenren. There were forty portraits.

Shen Lian even saw his own founding master, Ziling Fairy. But there were two people in her portrait. One clad in green and another in purple. They looked the same only that their expressions were very different.

The one in green had a chilling look while the purple one's lips were slightly arched, showing a hint of cunningness.

Shen Lian also saw the old Daoist's portrait. Actually, he was not certain initially because in that portrait, there was a gentle and quiet Daoist with a dancing life-like butterfly, as though it was close to coming to life.

Shen Lian suddenly thought of this verse "Once upon a time I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt I was a butterfly. Flapping my wings in true butterfly fashion, I was happy as could be, and I knew nothing of any person named Zhuang Zhou. But suddenly, I awakened, astonished to be Zhuang Zhou. I still don't know whether as Zhuang Zhou I was dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether as a butterfly I was dreaming I was Zhuang Zhou. There ought to be a difference between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly, but this is called the transformation of things."

The principle of his verse was somewhat similar to the transformation of the caterpillar after being glanced at by the old Daoist, but there were many differences too.

The old Daoist had really undergone metamorphosis, he had even reached a more ingenious state and Shen Lian still had not detached 'himself' from the substance.

Every portrait had different charms to it, the deep principle was beyond expression as it caused Shen Lian to suddenly have a happy expression, to suddenly frowned in confusion, to suddenly bellowed out in laughter and then to suddenly hammer the ground.

Within a short span of time, thousands of emotions spun through within him and finally with a body of sweat, his mind and spirit were languished, as though he had woken up from a dream.

He collapsed beside the final portrait. This portrait was a lady. At first glance, she looked very ordinary but by looking closely, he then felt she has a thousand gestures.

This was the founder of the Taixu Strategy—Grandmaster Qingshui.

Before that, Ziling Fairy herself once made a drawing of rambling clouds and shadows over pools of water as a drawing for the Grandmaster Qingshui. Now, there was a similarity between the two.

The clouds had a hundred thousand gestures, the clear pool of water was still like the lady in the drawing. There was no special charm at first glance. By savoring slowly, there were hundreds of thousands of gestures. As though Dao begets One, One begets Two, Two begets Three, Three begets all things 1 .

After looking at this portrait, Shen Lian's mind and spirit eventually calmed down. There was a kind of satisfying leisure akin to "lying down and wondering whether the sky full of clouds move or not, then realizing that the clouds are moving in the east as I am. 2 "

Actually, if other people from Qing Xuan knew that Shen Lian could view all forty portraits at his first entrance, they would be shocked speechless.

This was because all this while, the Huandan cultivators would enter the pavilion before Chen Jianmei left he came here once, but he could only see the portrait of the Grandmaster of the Shapeless Sword Incantation.

There were curious ones who tried to look for portraits of other grandmaster but the most they could see were not even close to twenty. They would have already spent all their strength.

For Shen Lian to be able to look at all forty portraits, there would not be another in the history of successors of Huandan cultivation to have his strong mind and spirit.

Even Shen Lian did not know about the strengths of his spirit and where his limits lie because his spirit would become stronger as long as he cultivates using the Mastery of Senses. So far, he had not met a juncture where he could not cross over. 道生一,一生二,二生三,三生万物 - Taken from "The Classic of the Way and the Natural Virtue by the Old Master" by Laozi. The full verse is Dao begets One (nothingness; or reason of being), One begets Two (yin and yang), Two begets Three (Heaven, Earth and Man; or yin, yang and breath qi), Three begets all things. All things carry the females and embrace the male. And by breathing together, they live in harmony. 卧看满天云不动,不知云与我俱东 - This poem was written by Chen Yuyi from the Song Dynasty. The poem starts out with the poet lying in a boat and looking up at the blue skies and white clouds. He wondered whether the cloud were moving with him and then came to the realization that the clouds were quietly following him towards east.