UGB Chapter 25 Ancient Cultivation Methods
Chapter 25 Ancient Cultivation Methods
Upon hearing this, Song Quyou, who was listening to the advice, was taken aback, but then realized what was going on.
He took out a yellow talisman from his sleeve and folded it into a paper crane in a few quick movements. After regulating his breathing for a moment and waiting for his internal energy to recover, he aimed at the paper crane and gently exhaled a breath of fresh air.
The pure air was colorless and transparent, yet it could be vaguely seen from afar, like silk threads, entwined around the paper crane.
The paper crane trembled slightly, miraculously leaving my palm. It flapped its wings, circled the ancient pine a few times, and then landed on the ground.
Looking at the paper cranes folded from yellow talismans on the ground, Song Quyou couldn't help but smirk. He remembered the purification talisman in Shenxiao Temple that could summon flames, and combining it with this method would surely have an unexpected effect.
……
The next morning, a gentle breeze was blowing.
Song Quyou pushed open the door, squinted his eyes, and felt the warm sunshine. He stretched and went into the courtyard.
The flowers in the courtyard were glistening with morning dew. The wooden carving on the stone table, left uncollected yesterday, was soaked with dew and shone with a golden hue in the morning sun.
The old man was already in the sunlight, holding a bamboo-splitting knife, splitting the green bamboo in front of him into thin strips.
The bundle of strips had already been woven into a small bundle, suggesting that the old man had been working in the yard for quite some time, yet Song Quyou hadn't heard a sound.
"Uncle, let me do this work, you go and rest."
The old man looked up at Song Quyou and said, "This delicate work is best left to the old man. Young people should do the physical labor. You can go to the corner and chop up that pile of firewood."
Song Quyou looked at the pile of charcoal-like logs in the corner. They weren't there yesterday, and he didn't know when the old man had brought them there.
Reaching the corner, Song Quyou picked up the axe from the ground, gripping the rough, calloused handle. Looking at the black log already laid out on the ground, he gently lifted it and chopped it with all his might.
The axe handle was so sharp it hurt Song Quyou's hand, almost causing him to drop the axe. The black log, however, remained completely undamaged, without even a trace of the axe that had just been chopped.
But Song Quyou was certain that he had indeed chopped at that log.
"When you use this axe to chop wood, you need to circulate your qi and see where it hurts. When there is no pain in your whole body, the wood can be chopped."
Song Quyou nodded, gathered his strength, and chopped heavily at the black wood in front of him. The axe collided with the black wood, and his acupoints felt like they were being pricked by needles. The axe was completely out of his hand.
Fortunately, the axe was stuck deep in the black wood and didn't fly out.
Song Quyou felt a sharp pain that made his body go limp, and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. He could clearly feel the stagnation in the flow of his energy at the point of pain. His energy was swirling there, like a mountain stream that had to detour around rocks.
The old man remained there, fiddling with the weaving strips, completely ignoring Song Quyou.
But Song Quyou stared at the old man, mesmerized. The old man's breathing and the movement of the bamboo-splitting knife as he chopped bamboo seemed to fit a certain rhythm, or to keep a certain beat, appearing very natural, as if "chopping" was how it should be done.
"That's how it should be." Song Quyou tried to imitate it, but before he could even pick up the axe, he almost suffocated.
The old man was probably tired, so he squatted down and stretched his legs.
As Song Quyou gasped for breath, he realized that the old man was not wearing shoes at all, standing barefoot on the ground as if rooted to the ground like an old tree.
Song Quyou followed suit, taking off his shoes and socks and standing barefoot on the ground, continuing to try to imitate the old man's breathing.
As soon as his feet touched the soil, a chill ran up from the soles of his feet, and Song Quyou couldn't help but shiver.
But as Song Quyou's breathing became smoother, the coolness completely transformed into a solid, warm feeling, thick and all-encompassing.
Song Quyou was unconsciously immersed in that aura. Slowly, his mind, like a fish swimming upstream, followed the heat and left his body, arriving underground.
The underground is not silent, nor is it dark and without light. There you can hear the sound of earthworms turning over the soil, and countless bright threads grow and extend.
Song Quyou heard and saw clearly. Gradually, the heat under his feet became hotter and hotter, as if he were stepping on a small sun.
The old man realized that Song Quyou had entered a meditative state, so he stopped chopping bamboo and got up to look Song Quyou up and down.
"Streams are often blocked, while rivers flow unhindered. How can one govern one's own life force by relying solely on the energy within oneself? Heaven, Earth, and Man are inherently one. Man stands upright between Heaven and Earth, occupying the central position, and assists Heaven and Earth in their nurturing and transformative processes..."
At this moment, Song Quyou could no longer hear the old man's teachings.
It was because the Yongquan acupoint on the sole of his foot felt like a riverbank had been breached, and the earth's energy surged wildly into his body like a mighty river. The energy traveled up the three Yin meridians of the foot, past the knees, through the Dantian, through the Tanzhong acupoint, and straight to the Baihui acupoint. It circulated and accumulated at the Baihui acupoint, and finally, a sudden coolness appeared, and the Heavenly Gate opened.
After the Heavenly Gate opened, the pure and ethereal energy of the Nine Heavens poured down like a silver river, colliding violently with the earth's energy within Song Quyou's body.
The two streams of energy, like yin and yang interacting, swirled and twisted into an unprecedentedly vast primordial energy.
The river completely breached its banks, rushing wildly along the body's meridians, destroying everything in its path and swallowing up all that stood in its way.
Song Quyou could only watch quietly as this peculiar energy surged through his body, tearing holes in it.
Only after bursting through 365 holes did Song Quyou realize he was a drowning man, finally able to breathe a real breath. Every acupoint, every pore, was joyfully breathing deeply, and the world seemed to connect with him.
……
Song Quyou slowly opened his eyes and saw Yun Que, who had transformed into a young girl, standing close to him with her big, blinking eyes and round, chubby face that made him want to pinch her cheeks.
"You're finally awake?"
"I only stood there for a short while, didn't I?"
"You've been standing here like a pillar for three days, you know that? A full three days."
The old man and woman sat happily at the stone table, each holding a bamboo stick, one weaving a basket and the other weaving a straw hat.
"Boy, do you know what just happened inside your body?"
Song Quyou shook his head, cupped his hands and said, "I don't know, please enlighten me, sir."
"This is the first step for ancient cultivators to embark on the path of immortality. By connecting acquired breathing with innate Qi, you have a good chance of achieving immortality in the future, kid."
"Old man, how should one cultivate from now on?"
"Go with the flow. The ancient immortal path had no method; it relied on the interaction between man and heaven and earth."
After pondering for a moment, Song Quyou spoke again, "Uncle, the secret manual of my sect says: 'The spiritual aperture is the pivot point through which the human body communicates with heaven and earth.' But at this moment, I feel that every acupoint in my body has the same function as the spiritual aperture. Why is that?"
The old man, his hands still busy, replied, "The spiritual aperture you speak of is actually an open acupoint. The two are essentially the same thing."
However, the remaining schools of thought today often emphasize external techniques while neglecting the true fundamental principles, thus abandoning the essential for the trivial.
"Try using the Spray Transformation Technique on the white jade dog behind you now."
Song Quyou turned to look at the lifelike white jade dog statue and exhaled a breath of fresh air.
In an instant, the white jade dog statue actually started to move, running around the garden a few times as Song Quyou wished. However, although it could move, it still didn't quite capture the realism of the old man bringing the white dog to life.
But compared to a few days ago, when it could only make the fist-sized stone sculpture sway twice, it's already much better.