Chapter 189: Enlightenment on a Cow in the Wind and Snow, the Mountain is High and the Birds Are Gone, and People Are the Peaks!
The golden sunlight spread all over the mountains and rivers. Chen Jue rode a yak all the way westward. The wind and snow began to subside gradually, and everywhere he looked was a scene of gray, white and blue interwoven together.
Gray is the original color of the Qilian Mountains, white is the ice and snow, and above is the clear blue sky with a few clouds occasionally floating among the mountains.
The altitude nearby has risen to more than 4,000 meters. The yak carrying Chen Jue, who weighs nearly 200 kilograms, began to pant after walking dozens of miles on the mountain road, and white smoke kept coming out of its mouth and nose.
Chen Jue looked at the continuous snow-white ridges around him, and then at the rising and falling back of the wild yak. He found that the earth and living things had extremely similar appearances in some aspects.
"Huff, huff." Chen Jue could hear the yak's breathing becoming heavier and the oxygen in the air becoming thinner. Even a strong animal like the wild yak had to bow its head in submission before nature.
Patting the yak's neck to signal it to stop, Chen Jue climbed off the yak's back, dug up some grass roots from the snow and fed them to the silly yak.
"Moo!" The yak let out a long cry, obviously wanting Chen Jue, its temporary master who understood and cared about yak life. It knelt on the ground, chewing grass roots while staring at Chen Jue.
Chen Jue saw the docility, wildness, and awe and affection towards him in the bull's pure black eyes.
It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. If people look at each other for a long time, they will be able to sense each other's emotions from their eyes, which will affect their own mood, and their tear glands will uncontrollably secrete tears.
The same principle applies to looking into the eyes of a yak. Because Chen Jue has mastered three eye skills, his vision is extraordinary. He can see many things in the eyes of a yak that ordinary people cannot see.
As the saying goes, all things have spirits, and plants and trees also have hearts.
This is a wild animal looking at the world through its eyes. It also has its own emotions and thoughts, but its mind is not as complicated as that of humans. Most of them are driven by survival instinct.
In addition, Chen Jue also saw his own reflection in the yak's eyes. Looking into the eyes like a mirror, reflecting his own body, Chen Jue found that although the self in the yak's eyes was real, it seemed to be integrated with the world, and he had a sense of transcendence of "harmony between man and nature" and being integrated into nature.
"You are such a gentle, kind-hearted idiot!" Chen Jue reached out and touched the yak's head. With a slight smile, he leaned against it and rested for a while.
…
Leaning on the yak, Chen Jue felt the amazing heat radiating from its body, which was the heat produced after weight-bearing exercise.
Chen Jue listened to its panting and the mooing sound that sounded like thunder, and suddenly realized that the yak's physique was not weaker than the tiger he encountered in the old forest of Gongshan before. The blood in its body was surging, and its heartbeat was dull and powerful. It was estimated that the power it could burst out was definitely over a thousand pounds.
"The thundering sound of tigers and leopards can strengthen the internal organs and strengthen the marrow. I didn't expect that the sound of cows penetrating the body can also have similar effects."
"The creatures of nature are indeed the teachers of mankind." Chen Jue sighed, and remembered that he had seen the Ox Tongue Palm in Baguazhang when he was exchanging martial arts with his fellow apprentice brothers Li Xiang and Li Wei. It was derived from the artistic conception of a cow eating thatch.
The thatch is extremely sharp, and my skin was often cut when I was playing in the fields when I was a child. But when it falls into the mouth of a cow, it enjoys it very much. No matter how sharp the thatch is, it will go into its belly with just one roll of its tongue.
The Ox Tongue Palm in Baguazhang is a basic skill of Baguazhang that allows one to wield a sharp blade with bare hands. When practiced to a high level, one can even break a sharp steel sword into several pieces with one palm strike, which shows its power.
…
After sitting and resting for two hours, the man and the ox set out on their journey again, walking and stopping, along the long snow line on the ridge of the mountains, traveling as the sun rises and resting as the sun sets.
After spending several days together, Chen Jue established a very deep friendship with the wild yak.
Sometimes when they encounter a ridge that the beast cannot climb, Chen Jue will simply carry it on his back and walk a few hundred meters.
As he went deeper into the Qilian Mountains, Chen Jue's heart began to become more and more peaceful. There was no one to disturb him. He was only accompanied by the icy and snowy nature and the mute yaks around him.
And the absence of worldly life in these few days also made Chen Jue realize the loneliness of "the birds have flown away from the thousands of mountains, and the people have disappeared from the thousands of paths".
The journey of walking alone begins with a single step. Walking on the snow and sleeping on the snow, a man and a cow accompanied each other and left long footprints in the vast Qilian Mountains.
By the time they reached the Daxue Mountain, the main peak of the Qilian Mountains, five full days had passed, and the food in Chen Jue's backpack was almost gone.
Looking up at the huge snow-capped mountain in front of him that pierced into the sea of clouds, Chen Jue felt indescribable emotion.
As for the wild yak beside him, it bit a corner of Chen Jue's cassock and obviously didn't want to move forward anymore.
The Snow Mountain is extremely steep, and some cliffs are as high as ladders to heaven, covered with ice and snow. Even these darlings of nature cannot climb up. Only birds with wings have a chance to fly over it.
In the eyes of herdsmen and yaks, the Great Snow Mountain is the incarnation of gods, unattainable, majestic and revered.
"Cow, are you scared?" Chen Jue read some fear and respect in the other's eyes. He smiled slightly, reached out and touched its head to comfort it.
Seeing that it was reluctant to move, obviously out of an instinctive reverence for the Snow Mountain, Chen Jue had no choice but not to force it, but let it lie down at the foot of the mountain and wait for him.
After taking off his backpack and tying it with cow hair, Chen Jue placed it on the cow's back. He then stretched his whole body, and his muscles and bones rumbled like thunder. He took off his cassock, revealing the thin outer coat underneath.
With a leap, the whole person began to fly rapidly towards the top of the mountain along the steep ridge, like a falcon flying in the snow.
With the help of [As Light as a Swallow] and [Flying Through Flowers and Playing with Butterflies], as well as his powerful physical attributes, Chen Jue could leap three or four meters in one step, and the ice and snow under his feet made a crackling sound when he stepped on them.
When encountering a steep rock wall, Chen Jue would stretch out his ten fingers and leave rows of finger holes on the rock wall, using the force to continue climbing upwards. His movements were so agile that even the snow mountain macaques that live in the snowfields and glaciers all year round could not match him.
The yak lying at the foot of the mountain raised its head and stared at Chen Jue as he climbed higher and higher, until his figure disappeared in the clouds and mist. Then it lowered its head and lay obediently and docilely in the snow.
The heavy snow gradually covered its gray-black fur with a layer of white, while Chen Jue was climbing rapidly along the steep rocks of the Snow Mountain.
Ordinary people need to rely on mountaineering tools, ropes, oxygen cylinders and other equipment, and it takes a whole day to climb the snow-capped mountain. But Chen Jue reached the top in less than twenty minutes.
The higher he got, the more Chen Jue could feel the temperature around him dropping rapidly. Although it was not as harsh as in Antarctica, the biting cold wind still made him feel a little uncomfortable in his thin coat.
The higher he climbed, the more Chen Jue could feel the humidity in the air increasing. The fog in front of him was so thick that it seemed impossible to dissolve. Water droplets and frost hung on his clothes, hair, and eyelashes. There was only the whistling cold wind in his ears, slapping his cheeks.
Being in such an environment is like walking on a spiritual path with no end in sight.
Faced with the impenetrable fog in front of me, I feel confused, fearful, and have a loss of direction. I have obsessions that make me retreat, and all kinds of complicated thoughts come one after another.
This is the instinct of human beings when facing an unknown environment, and it is also Chen Jue’s mental journey along the way.
Only after he mustered up his courage and climbed the last straight rock wall with a nearly 90-degree angle and a height of about 20 meters covered with solid ice with his bare hands, did Chen Jue use his arms to exert force through the finger holes and leap out of the clouds above his head that were about to condense into rain. He landed steadily on the narrow peak of the Snow Mountain. Only then did Chen Jue feel that his eyes suddenly became bright!
Under your feet is an endless sea of white clouds, rolling and boundless.
In the east was a rising sun, as bright as a golden disk. The golden sunlight filled the clouds and created bursts of purple halos.
To the west there was a full moon, the sun and the moon shone together, illuminating Chen Jue standing on the top of the mountain like a saint between heaven and earth.
Facing the magnificent view above the clouds of the snow-capped mountains, Chen Jue, like an ordinary person climbing to the top of the mountain, could not help but let out a long roar, venting all the thoughts in his mind in this challenge to the limits of nature.
At this moment, Chen Jue felt that he was the master of all living things in this world, and his heart was filled with pride.
If we say that the previous Chen Jue used the worldly world to temper his mind, observe others and reflect on himself, he realized from the long journey of life that being ordinary is the "true" nature.
Now, he is using nature as a mirror, and in the gap between living things and nature, he is seeking to let his spiritual will reach a higher level!
Looking at the sun and the moon shining against each other above the sea of clouds, Chen Jue slowly closed his mouth and stopped his long howl. Staring at the opposing shapes of the sun and the moon, Chen Jue seemed to suddenly remember the line of poetry he had learned in his student days: "Nature is full of wonders, yin and yang divide dusk and dawn".
"The sun is yang and the moon is yin."
"This is a natural Tai Chi diagram, and it is indeed the most wonderful creation in the world." Chen determinedly sighed at the wisdom of the ancient ancestors. His mind moved as he wished, he spread his legs, raised his hands and the Tai Chi Lazy Tie Clothes posture stood on the top of the mountain in the sea of clouds.
Slowly, each move of Tai Chi, which embodies the concept of unity between man and nature, was performed on this solitary snowy mountain like mercury flowing on the ground.
With the rolling clouds, the shining sun and moon, and the sound of the wind, Chen Jue gradually developed a sense of mutual tolerance and independence among heaven, earth, and humans, and harmonious coexistence of all things.
When the rolling sea of clouds around him was penetrated by the sunlight, revealing the endless Qilian Snow Mountain beneath the clouds, which looked like a silver dragon, Chen's mind suddenly moved, and he felt that the obsession in his heart would fade away with the wind and disappear like the sea of clouds.
After finishing his practice, he stood quietly, overlooking the vast world, and Chen Jue whispered to himself: "When the mountains are high and the birds are gone, people will reach the peaks. My method, my way, and my practice are all in the exploration of the truth of the universe."
As soon as he finished speaking, Chen Jue heard a "ding" sound in his mind. The panel that had been updated for almost half a month finally moved at this moment!
