ragginovel Chapter 137 Heading North to Tai Xuan
Chapter 137 Heading North to Tai Xuan
The sound did not come from the ears, but from the depths of the brow, from the still undeveloped sea of consciousness.
Extremely faint and distant, it sounded like someone calling from the deepest depths of the earth. Across thousands of feet of rock and soil, by the time it reached her, only indistinct syllables remained.
She suddenly opened her eyes; the courtyard was empty.
The Moonflower Seedlings continued to grow quietly in the nursery, greedily absorbing the Primordial Light, while the Sunflower Seedlings' pale golden light flowed slowly in the other nursery.
The branches and leaves of the osmanthus tree rustled in the night breeze.
She focused her senses and probed into the ancestral aperture between her eyebrows, but found nothing.
The sound disappeared, as if it had just been her hallucination.
Yu Youwei remained calm.
She lived as a well-bred young lady in Chuzhou for over ten years, and the first thing she learned was to remain silent in uncertain situations.
She didn't tell anyone that Zhang Lin had left the sect and hadn't returned, that although her master Lu Yuanshan was teaching her cultivation, he hadn't formally become her disciple yet, and that her fellow disciples were all busy preparing for their foundation building.
She had no one to consult with.
She chose to continue observing.
The sound appeared again on the second night.
It was still around midnight, still coming from deep within my brow, still indistinct and unclear through layers of mountains.
This time she didn't open her eyes, but instead activated the Tai Su Jade Technique to its fullest extent, causing the pale silver thread between her brows to suddenly brighten a bit.
At the moment when the light was at its brightest, she vaguely caught a few broken syllables.
"……mysterious……"
"...The...Empress...Palace..."
Then silence returned.
Yu Youwei opened her eyes and silently memorized the two syllables.
The character "玄" is easy to understand; there are countless cultivation techniques and spells in the cultivation world that contain the character "玄".
The character “太” reminded her of the Tai Su Xuan Guang recorded in the "Hundred Herbs Elixir Classic" bestowed upon her by Lu Yuanshan.
Tai Su refers to the primordial Qi.
The Tai Su Jade Technique was created by the ancient Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden, and it can use the power of moonlight to condense the Tai Su Mysterious Light.
But when the three syllables are put together, it doesn't sound like any of the techniques she knows.
On the third night, she made a decision.
Instead of meditating under the eaves, she moved her prayer mat to the very center of the Sun and Moon Seedlings nursery, sitting cross-legged as if in the center of a Tai Chi diagram.
She formed the Tai Su Jade Mudra with both hands, and slowly opened the ancestral aperture between her eyebrows, letting the voice in.
The indistinct noise surged and receded like a tide, and after several repetitions, she finally heard the first complete sentence.
"The gate of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth."
Yu Youwei was startled.
This quote comes from the Tao Te Ching, a classic text that all Taoist practitioners must recite when practicing Qi cultivation.
But the voice that echoed in her mind at this moment was completely different from the words she had read in the Taoist scriptures. The voice was old, distant, and carried an indescribable heaviness, as if the person who spoke these words had existed in this world for countless years, and every word was imbued with the weight of time.
She didn't open her eyes, but focused even more intently on circulating the Tai Su Jade Technique.
The light from the tender leaves of the Sun and Moon Flower Seed rose slowly, drawn by the wisps of light between her brows, and merged into her ancestral aperture between her brows.
The moment the sunlight and moonlight entered his body, the voice became clearer.
"...the opening and closing mechanism, the exit of existence and the entry of non-existence."
"The root of heaven and earth, the gateway to all wonders."
"Tai Su is the beginning of Qi. Xuan Pin is the root of Heaven and Earth."
"Now that you have opened the gate of the mysterious female, you shall inherit the work of the Nine Heavens."
"Wait for the sun and moon to meet, for the elixir of profound light to condense, and for it to ascend northward to the Great Mystery."
"Heading north to Tai Xuan..."
The voice repeated those four words three times before slowly fading away.
It doesn't disappear suddenly, but fades away layer by layer like the receding tide, eventually returning to silence.
When Yu Youwei opened her eyes, the sky was already turning a pale white.
She looked down at the Sunflower seedlings in the nursery.
She had absorbed all the brilliance from the tender buds, but the tender leaves did not wither; instead, they became even brighter in the morning light.
Within the veins of the leaf, faint streaks of light flowed, circulating slowly like blood.
Heading north to Tai Xuan.
She didn't know where Tai Xuan was.
She searched through all the maps in the Danxia Sect's library, but there was no place called Taixuan on Yunmeng Continent, nor on Zhongshen Continent, and it seemed to be absent from all nine continents of the world.
She asked the elder of the Sutra Repository, who thought for a moment and said that Tai Xuan might be an ancient place name, or it might be in another star system, but no one knows its location now.
Seeing that there was no result, she stopped thinking about it. There was no point in thinking about it any further when she hadn't even reached the Foundation Establishment stage.
She buried this matter deep in her heart, even deeper than the piece of silver she brought from Chuzhou to Danxia Sect.
------
Qingluo City.
In the blink of an eye, Zhang Lin has been here for three months.
Qingluo City is bustling with activity today.
There were several times more cultivators in the city than usual, and the streets were crowded with people.
The area in front of Tianbao Pavilion was packed with people, with hundreds of cultivators queuing up to pay deposits and receive number plates.
Zhang Lin stood in line, his eyes scanning his surroundings.
Among the cultivators in line, the majority were at the Qi Refining stage, and quite a few were at the Foundation Establishment stage. Occasionally, one or two could be seen with unfathomable auras, probably at the late Foundation Establishment stage or even the Perfect Foundation Establishment stage.
The line moved forward slowly.
Ahead of Zhang Lin was a rogue cultivator in his forties, at the late stage of Qi Refining, wearing a faded gray Taoist robe with patches on the cuffs.
He clutched an old storage bag in his hand, his knuckles white from the force, and his lips moved slightly, as if he were silently calculating something.
Zhang Lin glanced at the storage bag in his hand. It was of low quality and had no privacy features. He secretly scanned it with his spiritual sense and found that it contained only a little over five hundred items.
At the auction, they couldn't even afford a decent ritual implement; they could only afford the entry deposit.
The rogue cultivator seemed to notice Zhang Lin's gaze, glanced back, gave an awkward smile, and whispered, "First time here, just wanted to broaden my horizons."
Zhang Lin nodded without saying anything.
The rogue cultivator, however, didn't feel embarrassed and continued talking to himself: "I heard there's a hundred-year-old spiritual item being auctioned today. Tsk tsk, I'm afraid I'll never be able to save enough for it in my lifetime."
He shook his head, a hint of self-deprecation in his voice, "But it's good to take a look. I can brag to my fellow enthusiasts when I get back, and that will show that I've seen the world."
Zhang Lin responded with a casual "Mm".
Seeing that Zhang Lin was unwilling to talk more, the rogue cultivator wisely stopped talking and turned away, but after a while he couldn't help but turn back and ask, "What are you here to film, fellow Daoist?"
"Just browsing."
Upon hearing this, the rogue cultivator's eyes flashed with disappointment, but he didn't dare to press further and could only awkwardly turn his head away.
The line moved forward a few more steps.
When it was the turn of the rogue cultivator, he took out five hundred spirit stones from his sleeve, held them with both hands and handed them to the steward, his movements as careful as if he were holding a fragile piece of porcelain.
The steward took the spirit stone, checked it and found it to be correct, then handed him a jade tablet engraved with "sixty-three". He took the jade tablet as if it were a treasure, carefully put it into his sleeve and quickly went upstairs.
Zhang Lin stepped forward, paid a deposit of five hundred spirit stones, received a jade token engraved with the words "Sanqi", and followed the crowd up to the third floor.
The auction hall is spacious and bright, and can accommodate hundreds of people.
On the platform directly in front of them stood a glowing jade disc, displaying the origin and function of the item being auctioned. The disc shimmered with light, and the characters were clearly legible.
The seating is divided into three tiers.
The front row was the VIP section, where cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage and above, as well as some prominent figures, sat.
Those people were all dressed in fine clothes and had an extraordinary air about them. Some of them even had spiritual tea and fruits placed in front of them, and were being served by the maids of Tianbao Pavilion.
The middle seats are for ordinary cultivators in the Qi Refining stage. Although they are not as comfortable as the VIP seats, at least they have seats.
The last row was standing room only; there were no seats, so everyone had to stand, packed tightly together, with at least a hundred people standing.
(Thanks to Baozi and Sunset Mist for the inspiration; this chapter is an extra one.)
(Thank you Baozi, 51893 for the fairy herb, thank you very much.)