Turn back the clock to yesterday:
Cha Wenbin was the first to wake up, he found himself waking up from a deep sleep, although his body still had some soreness but his spirit was very full, he was surprised to find that the sky had sun!
Those four guys were still sprawled out in the inflatable boat, and at first they went to check everyone's condition. Breathing was all stable, except for clothes that were already tattered, it was as if each of them had just come off the battlefield, covered in bloodstains.
Cha Wenbin looked at each of them one by one, and surprisingly didn't find any wounds. Moreover, Old Wang's hair had returned to its original appearance, his fingernails were gone, and everything was back to how it was when they first arrived.
It's not just these things that have changed, but also the surrounding environment.
The kayak floated quietly on the surface of a clear and transparent lake, with blue sky and white clouds stretching far away. A gentle breeze blew over him, making him feel comfortable. After calling out to his companions several times without waking them up, Zhang Wenbin looked at his own disheveled appearance and decided to jump into the lake for a swim.
The water here is really comfortable, when he soaked in it, every pore opened up. The filthy air was washed away by the lake water, clean and refreshing.
He lay on the water's surface like that until he heard Old Wang shouting his name, then it was Heng Roulian waking up, followed by Zhuo Xiong. Only Chaozi was still unconscious, but there was no problem with his vital signs.
All four of them discovered the change. While rejoicing at having survived the disaster, they were also worried about Chaozi's awakening, until today he finally woke up.
On this day of waiting for him to wake up, Cha Wenbin thought about the pros and cons of things alone. From their experiences, that bloody battle was real and had been experienced. The tattered clothes and bloodstains were the best evidence, and the consumption of ammunition also became another strong proof.
Zha Wenbin's hand trembled slightly as he stroked the Seven Star Sword, his mind repeatedly replaying the circle and string of characters. He tried to draw them, but found it was probably the most difficult thing to do in this world. Unwilling to give up, he took out pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, trying to reproduce the clear characters etched in his mind on paper, but each time he finished drawing, he felt there were some flaws. It's like when we clearly know how to write the character "two", but every time you write it, it ends up being a "one" instead.
"This is definitely not a dream." Old Wang said, he was very glad that the black hair had come back.
Zha Wenbin wiped the Seven Star Sword and lowered his head: "That's not a dream, it's different from our first encounter, besides, there's him."
"Who is he?" Old Wang asked.
"It's nothing." Cha Wenbin lowered his head and stopped talking. After a while, he suddenly seemed to remember something and raised his head to ask: "Were we originally in Fengyuan?"
Old Wang also didn't dare to confirm it, and said: "According to our speculation and statement, we call that place Fengyuan. As for whether it is true or not, who knows? They are all legendary things."
Zha Wenbin also said: "If we assume that the red lake is the real Naihe Blood Sea, Congxuefengyuan. I was looking for Shengmen in a westerly direction, which is another place, so is this..."
"Where is it?" Old Wang's eyes widened.
"Deep!"
"Heavens! Is there really such a place?" Old Wang asked incredulously.
Zha Wenbin said: "If Fengyuan is the source of evil in the world, then Shenyuan is the source of goodness. This good and evil are opposing each other, and they have existed since the creation of heaven and earth. Where there is yin, there must be yang; where there is evil, there must be good. In order to distinguish between these two opposing forces, Shenyuan was created."
"Are we in Shen Yuan now? How far have we walked to get here?" Old Wang still remembered the endless bloody sea of Fengyuan, but the lake water here was clear and transparent. How did they arrive here in just one day?
Cha Wenbin stood at the bow of the boat, craned his neck and looked up at the sky, answering: "Still in place!"
"What's going on here?" Old Wang was completely bewildered.
"Look over there," said Cha Wenbin, pointing into the distance.
In the distance, it seemed like a vast expanse of sandy beach, not very clear. Old Wang took out his military binoculars and looked at it, losing his voice as he said: "Mulberry trees..."
Zha Wenbin suddenly looked up at the sky and laughed, leaving everyone confused. With his back to the crowd, Zha Wenbin gazed into the distance and said: "I understand one thing now - Fengyuan is actually Shen Yuan, Shen Yuan is also Fengyuan. It's like a piece of white paper, with red painted on one side, while the other side is blank. Let's assume our boat is a point that has traveled from the red front side of this paper. If we can keep this point still..."
He looked at those people with a bewildered expression, so he simply took out a blank talisman from his bag, drew a cross on one side, poked a hole in the middle of the paper, and then put a yellow bean into the hole. He said:
"Let's assume this soybean is a boat, we originally walked from the side with the cross to this middle position, and then encountered those strange things. Now it seems that the terrible thing about Fengyuan is not its evilness, but through guiding our inner fears and thoughts and presenting them here."
Zhuo Xiong first thought of the white-bearded old man, and as a result, he appeared. Because in Zhuo Xiong's heart, he was his deceased grandfather, so what emerged was a ghostly spirit that I could exorcise with Taoist magic. However, because of his appearance, Chao Zi thought of those Di people in the cave of Qi Feng Shan, and since they were real entities, we encountered that rift again, reuniting us in the same scene once more.
The Di people are alive, and can only use the methods of the living to resist with force. We have all been defeated, and in the world of Fengyuan, it can be said that we have thoroughly died. However, this death is not equivalent to death in the real sense. Our deaths were completed after we had conquered our own hearts. In simple terms, using Daoist language, it means seeing through life and death. If a person has already convinced themselves of the information about their own death, then what remains is just an empty shell.
As he said that, Cha Wenbin flipped the paper over, but the soybean's position remained unchanged, still resting on that blank space. He said:
"Since there is yin and yang, good and evil, we conquer the dark suggestions in our hearts by sacrificing life in an evil world, and then come back to life in a good world. Do you understand? It's like a transparent glass, we penetrate from one side to the other."
"This explanation made Old Wang somewhat understand, but he still felt that there was something wrong with it: 'Doesn't that mean we've already died once?'"
Cha Wenbin shook his head: "Not dead, but at the boundary of death, on the edge. In the last moment, I really thought of him, that vague figure in my mind, and then he appeared, only I couldn't understand what that action of his meant?"
Lao Wang felt that Cha Wenbin liked to say half of what he meant, and asked with a sense of discontent: "Who? You're talking about him again, who is he?"
"A familiar stranger." Cha Wenbin didn't dodge this time. Yes, it's probably most suitable to describe him as a familiar stranger, because he himself doesn't know who he is either.
"He made a gesture like this for me." Zhang Wenbin imitated his action and drew a circle on the surface of the lake, but the accuracy of this circle was far from comparable to his.
"Circle?"
"Yes, it's a circle, a perfect and flawless circle."
Zhuo Xiong listened to this for half a day, and then imitated Wen Bin's gesture, drawing a circle in the air. After some deliberation, he blurted out: "Brother Wen Bin, you said it was an old friend, is it also a Daoist priest?"
How long? Zha Wenbin suddenly seemed to wake up, and the eagle-like fingers painted with lake water were inlaid in that circle. What is this circle!
"I finally understand!" Zhang Wenbin suddenly said, then knelt down on the kayak with his knees facing west and made a deep bow of three bows and nine knocks towards the sky, shouting: "Senior, great kindness and virtue, junior will never forget!"
He stood up, hastily set up a small table, laid out some offerings of wine and water, respectfully lit three incense sticks, and then knelt down to kowtow. Only after that did he stand up, speaking in a manner as if reciting from the Heavenly Book: "The Ultimateless is zero, is a circle; the Supreme Ultimate is one, is a dot at the center of the circle. This dot transforms into one within the circle, called the Center. The circle divides into two halves, and the Two Principles are born! Since the circle is the Ultimateless, Pangu was the one who opened up heaven and earth after the creation. This seal is what remains from that chaotic era. Chaos is the circle, the circle is the Ultimateless; we stand at this point which is the center, dividing into the two fish of yin and yang. The sealed deep is yin, the profound deep is yang, but ultimately, the two levels of yin and yang cannot escape the Ultimateless!"
Looking at Cha Wenbin's relieved expression, Old Wang finally let out a sigh of relief. As for these things, he could only listen to the general idea, but Cha Wenbin was in a good mood and said: "The circle, Wuji is the Tao! The circle can be the pattern of the world, the eternal virtues are not different, and the nature returns to the true Tao that cannot be exhausted. Therefore, the original meaning of Wuji is the Tao, which means that the Tao is inexhaustible, so we don't have the concept of a dead end, and only by being placed in a desperate situation can one come back to life, so we are alive!"
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