Chapter 97 Spirituality

Hard to witness, impossible to observe.

He picked up his bowl and chopsticks, frowned, and pondered for a long time. In the end, he let out a long sigh and picked up a piece of food that was almost turning cold, putting it into his mouth.

Why bother thinking so much about things he could neither see nor hear?

Perhaps it truly existed, but it could only be said to exist within his own eyes; whether it was actively engaged in the outside world remained unknown.

Let alone any interconnection between it and other things.

Qi was fused from spiritual power and embryonic breathing, and the formation and appearance of these two were inseparably connected to the nourishment of spiritual aura.

It could be said that all these things originated from the spiritual mechanism.

Yet every blade of grass, every tree, every stone, and every insect outside his body had nothing whatsoever to do with the spiritual mechanism.

Unable to fully comprehend it for the moment, Chen Yu had to temporarily set it aside. This sudden flash of inspiration had linked together various previously distinct connections, and only after barely managing to do so did he realize that his understanding of this world seemed exceedingly superficial.

At this moment, he could not help but recall that thin veil he had vaguely perceived when utilizing a great deal of spiritual power to scrutinize minute details—that barrier shrouding the entire world. Thinking about it now, perhaps something else was hidden behind it.

Unfortunately, with his current spiritual strength, he was unable to reach it.

This was not a gap in quantity, but in quality, much like trying to pierce leather with a handful of grass fibers—utterly laughable.

"Eat, let's eat first!"

Food is the heaven of the people; he would consider these extraneous matters after finishing his meal.

......

People often say: All things possess a spirit.

Originally, when Chen Yu named the floating light particles drifting across the sea of consciousness in his mind the "spiritual mechanism," he had entertained the notion of capturing the very spirit of heaven and earth.

To a Daoist practitioner, the word "spirit" was by no means unfamiliar. Others might speak boastfully with only a superficial understanding, but in Daoist learning, the meaning represented by "spirit" was far beyond what a single word, a couple of terms, or a few biased sentences could encapsulate.

One could glimpse this somewhat simply from the term "living beings," which referred to hundreds of millions of living things.

And today, he applied the same name to the entity hidden within the Qi, lingering deep within the spirit, and permeating the spiritual aura.

It was not because of any profound hidden meaning, but rather considering its connection to the spiritual mechanism, spiritual aura, and spiritual liquid, bestowing upon it the name "spirit" was not entirely inappropriate.

Or perhaps, call it spiritual nature?

He muttered to himself, feeling that it was passable. A single character alone did indeed feel somewhat strange, whereas "spiritual nature" rolled much more smoothly off the tongue.

Immediately, his thoughts drifted. Earlier down the mountain, he had praised the old ox-leading man's grandson for having spiritual nature. Well, that settled it; this term was truly something he could no longer use casually from now on.

After all, for the time now, the only ones truly worthy of being called richly endowed with spiritual nature were probably the family of three belonging to the "spirit" lineage.

Nourished by spiritual aura, the human body grew; stimulated by spiritual liquid, plants matured; transformed by the spiritual mechanism, living creatures changed.

Then what use was spiritual nature? Chen Yu had not yet figured this out, but one way or another, it undoubtedly lay within the spiritual consciousness.

At the very least, it would lean toward that aspect.

"Another thing I don't understand." He swallowed his last grain of rice and cleared away the bowl and chopsticks.

As he walked, he observed his surroundings.

The flowers, trees, rubble, and water vats that had once been so overwhelmingly familiar to him now seemed to bear a faint, hazy glow in his eyes.

All were illusory images.

Chen Yu shook his head, and the scene before him dissipated. The pear tree remained that very pear tree, the dwarf pine laden with pine nuts harbored no brewing radiance, and as for the largest water vat, the flash of white truly gleaming under the sunlight was merely a black fish basking.

It seemed entirely unchanged, yet it also felt as though something had shifted.

All things possess a spirit? He did not know if this was the case, but perhaps one day he would be able to see it with his own eyes.

Still, if spiritual nature truly existed and was indeed related to the spirit, perhaps he would have to wait until his spiritual strength reached a higher level before he could achieve that step.

After lunch, he perused Daoist scriptures as usual.

Ever since he stopped recklessly manipulating Qi and laid aside the spell formations that had entangled him, Chen Yu suddenly found himself with an abundance of time. What had once felt like a giant, fluffy mass crammed into a bowl had now had its water squeezed out, leaving the greater half empty.

For a moment, he actually felt somewhat at a loss for what to do.

After reciting Daoist canons and subsequently skimming through medical texts for a while, he thought it over and took out his firewood chopper, deciding to make a trip up the mountain.

Suddenly finding himself idle, he felt restless; the state of mind he had managed to cultivate with such difficulty at the beginning seemed to be stirring with restlessness once more. Truly, a person could simply never afford to idle.

He would go cut some mountain bamboo and check on the bamboo shoots at the same time.

Not long ago, he had considered using Qi to write characters and carve books on bamboo slips. Upon careful calculation, this method was indeed a good idea; not to mention anything else, at the very least it saved him the trouble of buying brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.

With the mountains high and the roads long, making repeated trips up and down was such a hassle.

Of course, what was even more important was that Chen Yu had a craving for bamboo shoots with sliced meat. If there was no meat, bamboo shoots with ginger slices would do as well.

Boiled, stir-fried, braised, or stewed; they could also be made into soup or blanched and shredded for a cold salad. There were plenty of ways to prepare bamboo shoots, so he would have no trouble finding a method.

"When the time comes, I'll grind some yellow flour and steam a steamer basket of bamboo-shoot-filled steamed buns."

As for game, he wouldn't force it; unless some foolish fat rabbit genuinely dashed headfirst and knocked itself out against a tree stump, the dignified Master Chen simply didn't have the time to go running and stirring up trouble with creatures that called the mountain forests their home.

With a bamboo basket on his back and a hoe tucked inside, he strode swiftly into the mountains.

He no longer needed to scramble up and down like he did in the very beginning.

Stepping lightly underfoot, his figure leaped forward ceaselessly.

Felling bamboo was nothing out of the ordinary, and naturally, no foolish rabbit delivered itself to his doorstep, but he did unexpectedly stumble upon an abandoned bird's nest lodged among the twigs at the very peak of a bamboo stalk.

It had long since been deserted, leaving only patches of soiled traces.

Bamboo shoots could be harvested as early as June, but he had ignored them until now because the bamboos on Mount Qingtai—both spotted bamboo and moso bamboo—produced shoots slightly different from those in his previous life. They sprouted in June, but when eaten, far from being crisp and tender, they were exceptionally dry and astringent.

In his memories, his predecessor had harvested them once, and the impression was deeply engraved.

By October, however, the bamboo shoot flesh grew too old, making August the ideal time to pick them.

The summer sunlight blazed fiercely, and the foliage within the bamboo grove grew dense and lush.

Sunlight shattered against the canopy, casting sparse shadows. Chen Yu darted in and out several times; he hadn't dug up many bamboo shoots, but he had managed to catch a handful of bamboo beetles.

They possessed black-and-yellow patterned shells, elongated snouts—whether mouths or noses was hard to tell—and two slender antennae protruding from beneath their eyes. Their heads were round yet slightly oval, resembling longhorn beetles.

What caught the eye were the pairs of thorned, hook-like feet lined beneath their shells. They neither cried nor stirred, save for being somewhat "clinging."

"I didn't expect this world to have these as well."

In his past life, amidst catching fish and skimming shrimp, summer days relied on these little fellows for amusement—tethering them with fine strings, or snapping off the sharp, sour-tasting thorns from roadside bushes and inserting them into their jointed legs. Once released, the creatures would circle back and forth in the sky.

Naturally, he could no longer bring himself to do such things now. Besides, those sour-tasting bushes were also a medicinal herb, yet there was no trace of them growing in the Qingtai region; otherwise, they would not be absent from his memories.

Buzz-buzz-buzz—

One after another, the handful of bamboo beetles took flight, leaving only a tiny one still remaining in his hand, crawling past the creases of his palm toward his fingertips.

"Oh right, I seem to remember these are agricultural pests."

As the very last one flew away, Chen Yu finally clapped his hands in sudden realization. He vaguely recalled reading in a book during his childhood that these insects devoured bamboo shoots with alarming speed.

However, casting a glance at the bamboo grove before him, it remained as lush as ever in previous years when he hadn't interfered, and with him around, there was certainly no need to paint lily pads or perform superfluous tasks.

"Back to digging bamboo shoots!"

Channeling his Qi to lift the hoe, he looked down at the barely lined bottom of his back basket and decided he needed at least ten shoots today to make this trip worthwhile.