Master Mu Chun originally had a beautiful idea - although the eldest disciple was open-minded, he was impetuous in nature; although the youngest disciple was able to concentrate and calm down, he was a nitpicker. If the two little guys could complement each other, it would be perfect.

Unfortunately, it seems that there is no time to neutralize the conflict, and the two are about to start fighting.

Master Mu Chun had no choice but to separate the two men violently. He ordered the Taoist boy to take Cheng Qian, who was sweating profusely from practicing sword skills, to take a bath and change clothes. Then he concentrated his firepower on dealing with his first disciple who was quite difficult to deal with. He started to mutter to himself the "Classic of Purity and Tranquility" again.

The master's chanting perfectly demonstrated what "impeding vision and hearing" meant. With his weasel-like posture and drake-like voice, he successfully made the hourglass on the table motionless, which made his founding disciple very upset and he almost wanted to bite him.

Yan Zhengming could no longer bear it, so he threw the carving knife onto the table and angrily asked, "Master, what are you doing?"

The master said without even raising his eyelids: "Disciple, your mind is not at peace. Let me recite a passage from the Pure and Tranquil Sutra to help you clear your mind."

Just as the master was scolding Yan Zhengming to the point of wanting to die, Cheng Qian came back. Yan Zhengming was having a headache and finally found an opportunity to make trouble. He sniffed slightly and said angrily, "You used sandalwood to fumigate his clothes? What's wrong with that? Are you going to become a monk tomorrow?"

The Taoist boy nodded timidly and did not dare to say that it was Cheng Qian's own wish.

Yan Zhengming yelled at the Taoist boy: "Change it to Furong——"

The voice of Master Mu Chun beside him became increasingly louder: "——So the sky is clear and the earth is turbid..."

The sound of his voice was like the creaking of sawing wood, and Yan Zhengming was simply convinced: "Master, how can I not be calm!"

Mu Chun raised his eyelids and said calmly, "If your mind is not at peace, you will be disturbed by external things and worry about sandalwood and hibiscus. How about this? Don't use your third junior brother as an incense burner. In order to help you practice, I will move to your gentle place today and read scriptures for you all night, okay?"

Yan Zhengming: “…”

This old weasel is addicted to chanting scriptures. He absolutely does what he says in this regard. Is there any chance of survival after being chanted by him all night?

Yan Zhengming had no choice but to sit down and swallow his anger, smelling the scent of sandalwood that seemed to him like rotten wood residue. He picked up a knife angrily and carved vertical stripes on the wood like a corpse whip.

Incense burner Cheng Qian sat down silently and continued his homework, feeling like a big furry rabbit was sitting next to him.

The master said that Han Yuan was restless and irritable, but I don’t know who was the real one. Han Yuan was at least only restless about himself, but this guy was so bad that he was causing trouble for everyone around him.

Cheng Qian began to discover the advantages of being with his senior brother—the difference between them was immediately apparent.

When Cheng Qian got serious, he was able to "not be disturbed by external things". He compared the rules of the sect on the wooden board in his memory, and copied the blind calligraphy meticulously. He soon immersed himself in the joy of writing, and the lingering sandalwood scent seemed to help calm his mind. He gradually forgot about his senior brother who had no concentration.

Yan Zhengming was secretly sulking and asking for snacks. After he finished eating, he felt choked and had to stand up and walk back and forth in the middle of the pavilion several times.

Soon, he found that no one was paying attention to him. The master was sitting upright on the cushion, his eyes on his nose, his nose on his mouth, meditating motionlessly, muttering to himself, still immersed in the scriptures he had just read. The new kid was writing words about him being worse than pigs and dogs like embroidery, without even raising his head once.

With the old man and the child present, the atmosphere in the pavilion was so quiet that it was almost stagnant. Even the Taoist children standing by could not help but hold their breath and concentrate.

This silence made Master Yan feel a little awkward and bored. He sat back in front of the hourglass helplessly, idle for a while, then resignedly picked up the carving knife again and started the same old exercises.

This time, he did not cause any trouble until the hourglass on the table suddenly made a slight sound. Yan Zhengming suddenly came to his senses and found that his spell time for the day had ended early.

The next few days were like this. Early in the morning, the four of them listened to the Master chanting with a look of despair.

No one knew where the master got so many sutras from. He recited one every day, and almost no one was repeated. After reciting the Taoist sutras, he recited the Buddhist sutras. After reciting the Buddhist sutras, he recited the sutras he compiled. The content of the sutras was wildly imaginative and was never restricted by any sect, so that he often contradicted himself.

After reciting the sutra, practice with the wooden sword.

Yan Zhengming shamelessly pretended that he had mastered the first three moves, and began to learn the fourth move from his master without seeking to understand it in detail. Li Yun also restrained himself a little because of the new sword moves he learned, and no longer played tricks on the mountain all day long. Cheng Qian was naturally not to be mentioned. Only Han Yuan was still firmly dragging everyone down, and heartlessly destroying all the bird nests near the preaching hall.

In the afternoon, Yan Zhengming was locked up in the preaching hall, carving wood under a gloomy sky. Cheng Qian was either doing his homework or helping the master prune flowers and trees. The master seemed to want to make up for the love he did not receive in his childhood. He would always leave him some snacks that children were interested in. When Yan Zhengming was carving wood with deep resentment, the master would specifically ask Cheng Qian to take a break and tell him some strange folk stories.

Yan Zhengming sometimes felt that this dwarf was just here to win favor, but he couldn't deny that with Cheng Qian by his side, he could sit there for a while.

On this day, the hourglass had run out, but Yan Zhengming's hand holding the carving knife was still a little numb, and he was in a daze. Just now, he felt the friction between the carving knife and the wood, which produced some kind of almost mysterious power.

A slightly hoarse voice exploded in his ears: "Concentrate your mind, draw the energy into the sea, the great is called passing away, passing away is called far away, far away is called returning, repeating over and over again, this has infinite uses -"

Cheng Qian was very perceptive. Without waiting for his master to say anything, he had already stood up and taken a step back. At the same time, he felt an indescribable airflow swirling around him for a moment, and then it returned to his eldest brother like a river flowing into the sea.

That was the first time he touched the oppressive secret realm of this world. Cheng Qian didn't know what Yan Zhengming felt at that time, but he heard a vague voice. At this time, the setting sun sank to the other side of Fuyao Mountain. This mountain full of spiritual energy was filled with some kind of echo that was about to be spoken but could not. Countless people gathered together countless voices. Cheng Qian suddenly had a strange feeling, as if at that moment, the distant past and the vague future were whispering across the years, and he tried desperately to hear clearly, but those voices were like quicksand in the years, and they left him behind lightly.

Cheng Qian was almost crazy.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder. Cheng Qian seemed to wake up from a bizarre nightmare. He shuddered and turned around to see Master Mu Chun.

Mu Chun stared down at him. Cheng Qian was startled to feel a slight chill on his face. He reached out his hand to wipe it and found that he had burst into tears without knowing when.

On the one hand, he was embarrassed, and on the other hand, he was confused, so he could only look at his master blankly.

"Five colors make people blind, five sounds make people deaf, and five flavors make people's mouths refreshing." Mu Chun Zhenren's voice seemed to condense into a line, piercing straight into Cheng Qian's ears, "Seeing more, hearing more, thinking more, and imagining more, what kind of freedom are you cultivating? Wake up!"

The word "wake up" was like a wake-up call. Cheng Qian's mind made a buzzing sound. When he opened his eyes again, the eldest brother was still sitting there, as if he was in a trance. There was a pile of messy carved wood scattered on the table.

Cheng Qian was stunned as Master Mu Chun rubbed his hair. He asked, "Master, I just heard someone talking..."

Master Mu Chun said, "Oh, those are the ancestors of my sect."

Cheng Qian was surprised.

Master Mu Chun said, "My sect has been passed down for thousands of years. What's so strange about having a group of ancestors?"

Cheng Qian: "Where are they now?"

Master Mu Chun said: "Of course they are all dead."

Cheng Qian's eyes widened: "Shouldn't he have attained enlightenment and ascended to heaven?"

Master Mu Chun lowered his head, looked at him kindly, and asked, "Is there any difference between attaining enlightenment and dying?"

Cheng Qian said: "Of course there is a difference. Doesn't attaining the Tao and ascending to heaven mean immortality?"

Mu Chun Zhenren was stunned for a moment, then seemed to be amused by him. He did not give a direct answer, but just said: "You... you are just a little kid, what are you talking about? You will understand these things when you grow up."

After saying that, he walked a few steps back to the main seat in the preaching hall, sat down, and looked at Yan Zhengming who was in meditation. He looked a little sad. Cheng Qian heard him muttering, "Why are you in meditation at this time? You really know how to pick the time. Where are you going to have dinner?"

Cheng Qian: “…”

As a result, dinner was moved to the preaching hall where "the preaching, instruction and answering of doubts" were held. Amid the scattered talismans and scriptures, a roasted chicken was lying, surrounded by a pile of side dishes and a eldest senior brother who was in a trance and unconscious.

Mu Chun asked Cheng Qian to sit on the floor with him. He lovingly picked up a piece of meat for Cheng Qian just like Uncle Han from the neighboring village, and put a piece of paper on which someone had copied scriptures on it on the table where the talisman was carved, and told him, "Eat more and grow taller. Come on, spit out the bones on this."

Cheng Qian silently picked up the bowl and felt that it would be difficult for him to have any awe for this missionary hall anymore.

After the meal, Mu Chun wanted to stay to protect his eldest senior brother, and asked the Taoist boy to pack half a pound of snacks for Cheng Qian in case he was hungry in the middle of the night. It was the fifteenth day, a legendary day when it was forbidden to trespass into caves, but Mu Chun did not give Cheng Qian many instructions, as if he was sure that Cheng Qian would honestly copy and memorize the sect rules when he returned home at night and would not go out to make trouble.

Cheng Qian certainly can’t do it, but that doesn’t mean others can’t do it.

As soon as he returned to Qing'anju, Han Yuan followed him. When Han Yuan entered the door, he made a fuss, then took away the snacks that Cheng Qian had left in the yard. He ate most of them with praise, and then said while spitting out the snack crumbs: "What's the point of you hanging out with the eldest brother all day - you might as well follow us every day. The second brother taught me several moves, and I've almost finished learning the first one."

Cheng Qian dodged the snack crumbs that were falling like a heavy snow, and looked at his junior brother, the fool, with a smile without saying a word. He thought, he has just learned the first move, and in two days, he will be able to go to heaven.

Han Yuan pointed at Cheng Qian's courtyard and said, "Your place is too shabby, only slightly better than Master's. Take a look at my courtyard tomorrow. My courtyard is ten times bigger than yours. There is a big pond in the back where you can swim in the summer. Can you swim? Oh, forget it. All of you kids who were raised at home don't dare to go out, let alone go into the water. I will take you there in the future. I guarantee that you will become a white shark in the waves in one summer."

Cheng Qian was really not interested in such a good offer. He really didn't want to hang out with a scum like Han Yuan.

The little beggar made use of the time he spent chatting about this and that to finish the snacks that Cheng Qian brought back. He finally stopped the meaningless chit-chat and got down to business.

He burped, sat up straight, and lowered his voice and said, "Do you still remember what Second Senior Brother said about... the cave?"

Cheng Qian had expected this, so he replied calmly: "Brother, that is against the sect rules. Since you have almost mastered the sword techniques of our sect, have you read all the words in the sect rules?"

Han Yuan felt that this senior brother who was younger than him was a little unreasonable, so he lectured him with a sense of superiority: "What's the point of memorizing the sect rules? I really have never seen anyone more stubborn than you. Didn't you hear what the second senior brother said? Without the sense of qi, even if you learn the full set of swordsmanship, it's still useless. If you take it step by step, how long will it take? People can't be too rigid... and rigid about that thing."

Cheng Qian: "Stick to the old ways."

Han Yuan waved his hand and said, "Love is what it is. Anyway, I'm going to the cave. Do you want to go?"

Cheng Qian spread out his "honest and loyal" face evenly for Han Yuan to see, and said, "I dare not."

He refused without even thinking about it. Han Yuan was disappointed at first, and then a little disdainful - this simple-minded and strong-limbed little boy usually couldn't stand Cheng Qian, a "submissive" boy who only knew how to follow the rules.

"I raised it at home." Han Yuan sucked his teeth and looked at Cheng Qian unhappily.

As for Cheng Qian, he completely regarded his junior fellow apprentice as a scabby dog ​​with questionable intelligence. He felt that all his love, hatred and grudges towards this person were a waste of emotions, so he picked up the teacup without any attitude.

Han Yuan looked at him twice more, and gradually lost his temper because of the bag of pine nut candy he had given him earlier. With a little pity for him and a sense of superiority like a wild dog looking down on a house cat, he shook his head and sighed at Cheng Qian again: "Children who grow up at home are all made of porcelain."

In the afternoon at the preaching hall, Cheng Qian had already felt the spirituality and hidden mysteries of this mountain. At the same time, he also knew what Li Yun was thinking. Li Yun must be curious about what was in the cave on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month, but he was unwilling to take the risk of breaking the rules of the sect. He probably had planned to find a scapegoat for himself a long time ago.

Han Yuan had a late-night snack at Cheng Qian's place. Although he failed to persuade him, it was not a complete failure. Cheng Qian, who was a "porcelain man", politely sent Han Yuan to the door, watched him leave, and waited to see what would happen to this fool.

"What will happen if I break the sect rules?" Cheng Qian thought casually, "Being beaten with a stick? Hitting the palm of the hand? Copying scriptures - if it's just copying scriptures, it's no big deal."

But he didn't expect that Han Yuan didn't come back until the next day.

The author has something to say: Note: "Great is called passing away, passing away is called far away, and far away is called returning" "The five colors make people blind, the five sounds make people deaf, and the five flavors make people refreshing" - Tao Te Ching