Chapter 283 The Great Dao and the Master (Part )

The cave is very dry. Although it is several meters below the ground, it was obviously carefully designed when it was built. After entering, not only do you not feel any discomfort, you can even feel the breeze blowing across your cheeks, and there is not even a trace of dampness.

What is particularly amazing is that even after countless years, the eternal lamp in the crypt can still be lit successfully. The flame sways with the breeze, making the corridor under the stone stairs look particularly long and secluded.

"Should I stay here and wait?" You Chuan suggested, looking into the dark depths.

"What? Are you scared?" Chi Meng frowned.

"Of course not." You Chuan explained: "We just used brute force to break through the barrier, causing the mechanism to be completely destroyed. Now the entrance is wide open. If we are not prepared and the intersection is blocked, the situation will be extremely unfavorable to us..."

"Huh?" Chi Meng was shocked. This idiot You Chuan actually has moments when his brain works well?
"Okay." Xiao Yan nodded and said, "It's right to be careful, but there may be traps ahead. If you stay here, you may have to wait until we come out before you can join us. Have you thought about it?"

You Chuan did not answer, but just nodded calmly.

Naturally, they would not force You Chuan to go in with them, and what the latter said made a lot of sense, so there was no need to be suspicious.

Watching the four figures gradually disappear in the depths of the corridor, You Chuan suddenly hit his head with his hand, and then walked out of the dungeon as if a little confused, and slowly half-knelt down in front of the huge statue.

In his ears, it seemed that slowly, slowly, a ringing sound was ringing from the depths of his soul.

------

After walking through the corridor, they found a sloping stone staircase. The four of them went up without hesitation and entered a circular secret room.

Ji Ruxue took out a fire starter and lit the five stone lamps in the five directions of the secret room. Then she could see the recessed lampstands on the surrounding stone walls also burning with candlelight, illuminating all around.

The dust under their feet was thick, and the footprints were brought in by four people, indicating that they were the first visitors in decades or even hundreds of years.

The five stone lantern towers formed a five-element formation, and each stone lantern tower corresponded to a copper ingot wooden door. The five doors faced each other, were the same size, and were made of the same material, without any difference at all.

In addition, there is a wind chime hanging outside each door, made of gold-plated material. Even after so many years, it still shines brightly in the firelight.

Looking at these five doors, Chi Meng subconsciously felt troubled. She put her fingers to the corners of her mouth and thought hard for a long time, but couldn't figure out anything, so she looked at Hou Qing: "Hey, didn't you say you could find dragons... uh, acupuncture points?"

Hou Qing nodded, then used his bone flute to tap on the stone carvings and ornaments on all sides that were clearly made in the Han Dynasty. He then looked around and spoke, "Based on my previous experience in learning tomb robbing, this orientation is most likely a five-element formation. These five doors correspond to gold, wood, water, fire, and earth. In this way, the most likely way out is in the northeast, which is the earth position."

Chi Meng was stunned after hearing what she heard, but she had no doubt. She still trusted Hou Qing's ability. It was just that he had a hard time understanding music. So she immediately stepped forward and tried to open the wooden door.

"Not urgent."

Xiao Yan had just observed Ji Ruxue staring at the bell on the door in thought, so he said, "It seems that the wind chime on the door cannot be just for decoration. Since this place was left by the Twelve Caves, it cannot be as simple as a five-element formation. The most likely thing that ordinary people can think of is a trick. Don't open the door casually, be careful of the trap behind it."

Chi Meng immediately stopped obediently, and Hou Qing seemed to be thinking about something, and said, "Master Xiao Yan is right."

"..." Xiao Yan did not respond, but walked forward, waved his hands in the air, and used his internal energy to move a wind chime.

The wind chimes swayed, and Ji Ruxue's ears moved subconsciously.

Xiao Yan looked at her, and at her nod, he activated the other four wind chimes.

"It's not the Five Elements Formation."

Ji Ruxue closed her eyes and thought for a while, then opened her eyes and looked around, saying: "These five doors may correspond to Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, and Yu..."

"Five tones?" Hou Qing thought for a moment while playing the bone flute.

Ever since he had decided to learn how to control poison with music, he had specially supplemented his knowledge of music. Controlling poison is the goal, while music is the means, and there is no difference between the two. Therefore, when he was in Shu, he spent a lot of money to visit the famous Shu brothels for a long time, and earned a strange nickname of "liking music but not women".

But even so, Hou Qing did not hear any different tones from the five wind chimes, so he looked at Chi Meng.

Chi Meng shook his head honestly: "I didn't hear anything different, it's just the normal sound of wind chimes, the same as the wind chimes I hung in front of the window before..."

Xiao Yan still knew nothing about this. He had learned very little in his previous life and had only a sword with him for decades. All he did was kill people and practice. Playing chess in his spare time was a rare pastime. There were many fairies who wanted to teach him music, but most of them were righteous fairies who wanted to kill him, so he never learned it until his death.

Seeing the three of them like this, Ji Ruxue explained carefully: "It is said in Huainanzi that the sound is based on the five tones..."

Ji Ruxue's voice continued, but after hearing this, Xiao Yan suddenly frowned. A flash of light flashed through his mind, as if he had caught something in an instant.

The three of them did not notice Xiao Yan's abnormality. Ji Ruxue knocked on the wind chime behind her and continued, "According to the law of fifths, this is the only correct tone among the five tones, while the other four are all variations. If I am right, the craftsman must have mixed something from the rotten bones into the copper used to make the bell, which caused this slight difference."

Then she explained, "You can't tell the difference between the correct and altered sounds, not because you are not good at music. I was adopted by Huanyinfang when I was young. Because we had to practice Huanyin Jue, we were given a kind of magic drug to drink from a young age. After that, people will enter a state where the sound is amplified, and any difference in sound and rhythm can be distinguished.

Over time, even without the catalysis of the drug, the sounds I hear will be louder and more detailed than those heard by ordinary people."

"Wow..." Chi Meng opened his mouth wide, and then couldn't help but applaud: "So that's how it is... Miss sister is so amazing!"

Ji Ruxue smiled and then looked at Xiao Yan.

The latter relaxed his brows, smiled and nodded.

Ji Ruxue placed her hand on the copper buckle on the wooden door, hesitated for a moment, and slowly pulled it open.

With a creaking sound, the endless darkness behind the door suddenly lit up with candlelight, one by one, leading straight to the depths of the corridor.

Chi Meng patted his chest and let out a long sigh.

Fortunately, there really was no trap! She was almost nervous to death in that second.

Ji Ruxue was also somewhat delighted. She turned around and saw Xiao Yan secretly giving her a thumbs up. She then smiled and walked into the next corridor with a few others, leaving a trail of footprints on the ground.

Xiao Yan walked at the end. He looked around at the five wind chimes, his eyes flickering slightly, as if he understood something, but he just calmed down and continued walking inside.

In this way, the four of them passed through many corridors and dark rooms, but they continued to move forward.

Time passed, and ethereal bell sounds continued to ring in this deep underground cave. Ji Ruxue closed her eyes and opened them again and again, and each time she was able to point out the correct path. The footsteps of several people continued, and finally stopped in front of another door.

"The people who built this place are so boring..."

Walking through these secret rooms, Chi Meng seemed to be hallucinating. There were echoes of wind chimes in his ears. He walked slowly and stood in front of the door with his hands clasped together, muttering: "Please help me, this must be the last room, it must be..."

Ji Ruxue and Xiao Yan, who were following behind her, just chuckled, while Hou Qing carefully stroked the bone flute, thinking about Ji Ruxue's performance along the way.

This kind of pretentious art of showing off in front of others, although subtle and silent, is truly admirable.

He couldn't help but look up at the backs of Xiao Yan and the other person and nodded secretly.

This pair are both masters of invisible pretense...

Well, it’s worth learning.

In front, Chi Meng, who had finished muttering, closed his eyes, pushed the door open carefully, then opened his eyes and sighed again.

"Why isn't it over yet..."

"It has ended."

Xiao Yan smiled and patted her shoulder, then walked in. With the help of the firelight, he looked with his hands behind his back at the five doors without wind chimes, as well as the huge copper bell hanging in the center.

It is not quite accurate to call it a copper bell. According to its size, this thing can be classified as a huge bell. It is larger than Chi Meng, who is half a person.

"Eh, it seems so."

Chi Meng walked in and took a walk around. As expected, she saw that the wind chimes were gone from the five doors. However, they seemed to be still able to be opened. However, she did not dare to act rashly. After walking around, she returned to the huge bell hanging in the air.

The huge bell is also made of gilded material, with strange patterns engraved on it. A red cloth hangs in the center of the bell, shaking gently.

Ji Ruxue and Hou Qing also walked over and saw the words on the cloth.

"No, don't, pull, me..." Chi Meng muttered word by word. After he finished reading it once, he read it again in surprise. Obviously, he didn't expect that the thing hidden in this last secret room would be such a weird thing.

"What do you mean?" Ji Ruxue frowned, puzzled.

Hou Qing walked a few steps, stood in front of a door, knocked on it, and then put his ear close to it to listen to the sound.

"literal meaning."

Xiao Yan smiled and said, "Everyone, move away."

Upon hearing this, Chi Meng and Ji Ruxue each took a few steps back and stared at Xiao Yan's actions.

At this time, Xiao Yan, who had been waiting for a long time and traveled hundreds or thousands of miles just to come here, suddenly hesitated.

He turned his back to the group, staring at the words on the cloth. He reached out his hand but did not move for a long time.

Chi Meng was a little confused and looked at Ji Ruxue.

The latter shook his head gently at her, signaling her not to speak.

Xiao Yan thought for a long time, thinking about the first few years of his previous life when he traveled through time. He was ignorant and lived in fear in a world without laws and heaven. At that time, he was only seven or eight years old, living worse than a mule. The world was in chaos, with refugees everywhere. Everywhere you could see immortals fighting for resources wantonly. Ordinary people couldn't even guarantee a basic living space, let alone any good or evil thoughts. As long as they didn't die, they could have any thoughts.

Those two or three years were the most difficult, tiring and the ones when Xiao Yan wanted to die the most. However, he was too greedy to survive and wandered along the way, dodging the flesh-eating bandits, killing the beggars who competed with him for food, and escaping the slave owners who trafficked people, all for the sake of greed for that glimmer of life and the obsession of not wanting to die like this.

Finally, it was his adoptive parents in the previous life who did not despise him and took him in as their son, a skinny refugee, and raised him until he was fifteen years old. Even though it was only because the male owner was infertile that they took a fancy to Xiao Yan, who was strong and good-looking at a young age, but even so, Xiao Yan's gratitude to them was not reduced in the slightest.

That family was not wealthy, but after discovering Xiao Yan's talent, they still spent a lot of money to let Xiao Yan practice martial arts. Regardless of the purpose, it was the main reason why Xiao Yan was able to embark on that path in the future.

The seven or eight years that Xiao Yan lived with that family were the most fulfilling years of his life. He had no distractions and only wanted to acquire skills to repay that family.

Later, Xiao Yan awakened his "sword spirit" and was noticed by a guest disciple from the largest sect in the Central Plains. He was accepted as a disciple and successfully embarked on the path of cultivation. Later, he rose all the way, from a lower sect to a higher sect, from a guest disciple to a sect master's personal disciple. His legend spread throughout the Central Plains. The immortals he had to look up to when he was wandering, now don't even have the qualifications to look up to him.

But Xiao Yan's rise was too fast, too fast indeed. His "Sword Intention" allowed him to easily achieve what those so-called geniuses could only achieve after decades or hundreds of years in just ten years. Because of this, the master whom he regarded as the most respected took control of Xiao Yan's adoptive parents, claiming that Xiao Yan had too many enemies and protecting them was to solve Xiao Yan's worries, but in reality, it was house arrest, which became one of the means to take advantage of Xiao Yan's weakness.

Later, the Sword Sect tried its best to expand, and the whole world became a vassal of this first sect. The emperors of the dynasty had to bow their heads when they saw Xiao Yan, for they were all afraid that this god of death would replace the emperor at will if he was in a bad mood.

The so-called righteous path regards Xiao Yan as the first person who must be killed, while the leader of the Sword Sect is ranked slightly lower. How interesting.

Xiao Yan got everything. Anything that people in the world could imagine was in his pocket, and anything that people in the world could not imagine was just his casual words.

But these were obtained through constant and endless killing, endless plundering, and endless killing. Xiao Yan couldn't stop, he couldn't stop, and what awaited him was only killing and being killed.

The person Xiao Yan hated the most when he was wandering eventually became himself.

……

Xiao Yan thought about this life. Since he first woke up on the snowy night, he was still on the path of killing people.

This seemed like a cycle, with nothing ahead, but he had to move forward.

Perhaps it is to atone his sins, or perhaps it is to end this cycle of reincarnation. He has no choice but to continue killing and keep moving forward to calm down this chaotic world, kill all the ambitious people with his sword, and stop the killing and being killed. Only then can he get away completely and have the opportunity to wash his bloody hands with a glorious and prosperous era.

But is this really right? Can this really work the way he wants?
Yuan Tiangang, Zhu Wen, Li Keyong, Li Maozhen... and countless people and countless mountains after them, as if there was no end in sight. Everyone has his own script and everyone has his own ambition.

Why can you, Xiao Yan, act out your script? Why can you, Xiao Yan, end this chaotic world? Why can you, Xiao Yan, talk about murder so righteously?
They are just birds of a feather!
Xiao Yan didn't want to think about these things, but he couldn't think about why Jiang Chen said that he could easily become a demon. This was the reason.

Xiao Yan himself is a devil.

"Xiao Yan."

A voice calling from behind made him turn around in a daze.

Ji Ruxue crossed her arms, her face was cold, but there was worry in her eyes: "What are you thinking about?"

"Little Guoguo, don't worry. Even if there's nothing in there, we can definitely save dad! Also, you've always wanted to find some wind, right? Now that you're here, who cares? Even if there's no wind, you still have us!"

Chi Meng clenched his fist and waved it vigorously.

Hou Qing nodded, indicating that Master Chi Meng's words had some taste.

Xiao Yan smiled suddenly.

Yeah, what is he thinking about...

Want to come here from thousands of miles away, but not find what you want?

Thinking of everything first, trying to be one step ahead of others, but in the end it's all in vain?

Do you think you can overcome the obstacle that you have been unable to overcome for decades in one step today?
How funny.

Now that we have come to this, what else is there to think about!

"Wow—"

As the cloth was pulled by Xiao Yan's gravity, a sound like a silk thread being pulled out suddenly rang out, and the huge bell shook and fell straight down.

The loud bang of a bell was so deafening that the four of them closed their eyes at the same time to avoid the flying dust.

"Swish, swish, swish..."

At the same time, five doors opened at the same time, and a fresh breeze blew away all the dust in an instant, making the room suddenly bright.

"Cough cough cough..." Chi Meng coughed a few times. When he opened his eyes, he saw this strange scene and was shocked.

The five doors opened at the same time, but there was nothing inside except stone walls.

"There is a book here." Ji Ruxue stepped forward and picked up an old book under the huge bell, but Xiao Yan had already stepped forward, picked up the lampstand, and started looking from the stone wall behind the first door at the entrance with the help of the firelight.

Behind the door, it said:

Blunt its sharpness, resolve its conflicts, soften its light, and blend it with the dust.

The three people behind him seemed to be thinking about something, but Xiao Yan had a calm look and walked to the second place.

It is said:

Be empty but not submissive, move and produce more, talk too much and you will be exhausted, it is better to keep to the middle.

"Tao Te Ching..." Ji Ruxue muttered to herself.

Xiao Yan had already looked towards the third place.

It is said:

See simplicity and embrace simplicity, be less selfish and have few desires.

Fourth place:
Therefore, a gusty wind does not last all morning, and a sudden downpour does not last all day. Who is responsible for this? Heaven and earth. Heaven and earth cannot last forever, let alone man?
Fifth place:
If you don't see yourself, you will be clear; if you don't know yourself, you will be clear; if you don't cut yourself off, you will be successful; if you are not proud of yourself, you will be strong; if you don't fight, no one in the world can compete with you.

"..."

Five gates and five sentences, every sentence is excerpted from the Tao Te Ching, every word is simple and elegant, and every word is a question of the heart.

Xiao Yan held the lamp in his hand, his eyes sparkling.

"What does that mean?" Chi Meng asked in confusion.

Ji Ruxue shook her head. She was not familiar with Taoist studies, but she still explained: "Li Chunfeng of the Tang Dynasty was appointed as a military official by Emperor Taizong of Tang three hundred years ago. It is said that he is a master of astronomy, calendar calculation, yin and yang, and Taoism. He knows the world for thousands of years to come... These words may have been carved by him."

Chi Meng opened her mouth wide. Three hundred years ago, didn’t that mean her father’s father wasn’t born yet?

“Oh, this book.”

Ji Ruxue handed the old book to Xiao Yan. There was a line of words written on the cover: "You have found the wrong book. They have moved away."

Xiao Yan's expression remained unchanged and he turned to the next page.

"Although I am dead, I still ordered people to build this place a hundred years later. It shows that I have good intentions..."

This sentence is particularly serious.

Further down, the style of painting suddenly changed.

"Hehe, kid, is it a surprise? He must have died unexpectedly. It's interesting to think about it. Tsk tsk, it's an accident, but I didn't expect you to have such a divination with me. Haha, we meet again after 300 years. Is the world really as Yuan Tiangang said, and is it still the Li family?

It doesn't matter whether your last name is Li or not. Remember, go back and read the Taoist books carefully. Don't misunderstand my kindness. Your life and property depend on your hard work. By the way, you have seen this letter. It seems that Yuan Tiangang is one step behind me again. Hahaha, how happy it is..."

Chi Meng was so confused that his face was filled with black lines. Is this the master who has achieved the pinnacle of mastery over the past three hundred years that the young lady mentioned?
Xiao Yan read it very seriously and turned to the next page.

"The Twelve Caves have escaped a disaster. Logically speaking, they should have no connection with the world for thousands of years. However, according to Yuan Tiangang's stubborn character, I'm afraid the Twelve Caves can't help themselves. If you read this book, go a little further. Of course, your trip will not be in vain. You may find some surprises~"

"Oh, right, when I visited mountains and rivers, I saw the scenery of the Tang Dynasty and felt the elegance of the prosperous times. I wanted to forge two swords to pass on to future generations, but then I thought, the Tang Dynasty will be gone in three hundred years, let alone prosperity, and there will be no peace. What's the point of forging swords? In this case, if you are a hard-working person, you can help me forge these two swords. As for the names of the swords, I have already thought of them——"

"One is prosperity, the other is peace."

"Remember, if you don't work hard, don't waste my sword name... Of course, if you are thick-skinned, I can't do anything about it. Alas, who told you to die."

Seeing this, Ji Ruxue's face looked strange and a little shocked, and she looked at Xiao Yan.

Xiao Yan smiled knowingly and turned to the last page.

"Finally, I'll give you a gift—"

------

"Li Taishi, is this all you need to do?"

In the dim lobby, a hooded old man with tattoos on his arms looked at the handsome young man with white hair in front of him.

"That's all. One hundred years later, let your descendants build the mechanism and bury the things." The white-haired young man laughed.

The hooded old man thought for a moment, then carefully pointed at the book and asked, "Can I take a look at it?"

“But it’s okay to watch.”

The white-haired young man waved his hand and walked away leisurely. "That's goodbye~"

The hooded old man stood up to see him off, but the man was gone. He felt lost for a long time and opened the book.

"Thus, a person who is pure and tranquil is the most virtuous person..."

“There are only five sounds, but their variations are endless to listen to. There are only five flavors, but their variations are endless to taste. There are only five colors, but their variations are endless to see.”

"So, as for the sound, the five notes are formed when the gong is established. As for the taste, the five tastes are formed when the sweetness is established. As for the color, the five colors are formed when the whiteness is established."

"Tao, once established, all things come into being."

(End of this chapter)