39: Chapter 39 Secrets of Sword Pavilion

For three days after the Sword Testing Platform, Lu Mingyuan did not spar with anyone else.

Every morning, he climbed to the summit of Zhangren Peak to gather purple Qi; during the day, he entered the Sword Pavilion to observe manuals; and at night, he organized his insights in the guest house. He did not use spiritual power to repair the shallow mark on his green bamboo staff, allowing it to remain—it was both a record of defeat and a warning.

On the night of the third day, he once again passed through the waterfall and walked into the depths of the Sword Pavilion.

The grotto remained quiet, the ever-burning lamps flickering like stars under the refraction of the water curtain. Lu Mingyuan bypassed layers of stone niches and found Qingxuan at the innermost part of the grotto. The old Daoist was staring blankly at a yellowed sword manual, his fingertips lightly touching the paper as if conversing with an old friend across time.

"You've come?" Qingxuan asked without looking up.

"Junior has something he does not understand." Lu Mingyuan sat down beside him. "Qingcheng's sword Dao emphasizes 'singularity.' Senior Brother Jiang Yichen guarded a single sword for thirty years to reach his current Realm. Meanwhile, what I have learned is vast and mixed—Longhu Talisman methods, Wudang martial arts, Qingcheng Sword Intent... with every additional lineage I learn, I gain another measure of distracting thoughts. According to the way of Qingcheng, this path is clearly impassable. Yet Senior says that I am walking the path of 'Sword Heart Clarity'."

He paused: "Where does this contradiction lie?"

Qingxuan finally looked up, his gaze shifting from the manual to Lu Mingyuan's face. "What you are asking about is not a contradiction, but the 'Dao'."

The old Daoist set down the manual and lightly tapped the stone table with a withered finger. "Qingcheng emphasizes singularity, Longhu emphasizes change, and Wudang emphasizes protection—the Daos of these three schools may seem to conflict, but in reality, they are climbing the same mountain from different bases. Standing at the foot of the mountain, you only see the paths diverging, not their convergence at the summit."

Lu Mingyuan seemed to understand something. "The summit... what is it?"

"The mountain is named 'Great Dao,' and the summit is named 'Clarity'," Qingxuan said calmly. "Do you know how many have achieved 'Sword Heart Clarity' in the one thousand seven hundred years since Mount Qingcheng was founded?"

"Please enlighten me, Senior."

"Six people." Qingxuan held up his fingers. "Six people in one thousand seven hundred years. The most recent one was nine hundred years ago."

Nine hundred years ago. Lu Mingyuan's heart stirred, as if he had vaguely grasped something.

"None of those six achieved it through exclusively practicing Qingcheng sword techniques." Qingxuan looked at him with a profound gaze. "The first came from the Chan Sect; when he entered Qingcheng, he had already broken through the 'True Self' Realm. He discarded all he had learned in three years to practice the sword from scratch, achieving Clarity in ten years. The second was originally a Loose Cultivator, proficient in the sword techniques of seven sects; after entering Qingcheng, he fused the Sword Intent of those seven sects into one furnace, achieving Clarity in five years. The third..."

He listed all six, and not one was "pure."

"Therefore, Qingcheng emphasizes singularity because Clarity is too difficult; most Disciples need 'singularity' to break through 'attachment.' But those who truly reach the summit are all those who 'observe widely and extract the essence, accumulating deeply and releasing thinly.'" Qingxuan sighed softly. "Sect rules are for ordinary people to follow; a Genius walks their own path. Are you an ordinary person, or a Genius?"

Lu Mingyuan remained silent for a long time. "Junior does not know."

"If you do not know, then you are an ordinary person," Qingxuan changed the subject. "But for one with the talent of an ordinary person to walk the path of a Genius, it is not necessarily impossible to arrive. It is simply more bitter, slower, and more dangerous."

He stood up and walked to an inconspicuous stone niche. This niche was located in a corner and covered in a thick layer of dust, clearly neglected for many years. Inside the niche sat a sword manual with a titleless cover and edges eaten by insects.

"Do you know who wrote this?"

Lu Mingyuan shook his head.

Qingxuan gently brushed away the dust on the cover, revealing four faded ancient seal characters—"fragments of the heart sword".

"The author is nameless, leaving only the Daoist name 'Songyun'," Qingxuan flipped open the manual. The handwriting inside was sparse and elegant, the ink faded to a light brown. "This person entered Qingcheng nine hundred years ago. When he first arrived, he was already at Golden Core Perfection, yet he was willing to start as an Outer Sect Disciple. He stayed at Qingcheng for seven years, left this manual behind, and then departed, his whereabouts unknown."

Looking at that handwriting, Lu Mingyuan's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

This script... where had he seen it before?

He focused his mind and recalled, memories of the Talisman Scripture Pavilion on Longhu Mountain surfacing—that volume of "miscellaneous discourse on heart talismans"! The same sparse handwriting, the same habits in the strokes, even the same way of writing the character 'Yun'!

"This Senior Songyun... was he a grandmaster of the Talisman Dao?" Lu Mingyuan's voice trembled slightly.

Qingxuan glanced at him. "You have seen his insights on Talismans?"

"In the Talisman Scripture Pavilion of Longhu Mountain, the 'miscellaneous discourse on heart talismans'," Lu Mingyuan said. "Junior once used that book to comprehend 'integrating poetry into talismans'."

"Dual Cultivation of Talisman and Sword, drawing from a hundred schools." Qingxuan seemed to be lamenting, or perhaps sighing. "How similar he was back then in Qingcheng to how you are today."

Lu Mingyuan took the "fragments of the heart sword" and opened the first page.

"The sword is the edge of the heart; the Talisman is the vein of the heart. Both edge and vein are manifestations of the heart, essentially no different. However, people of the world are either attached to the sword or attached to the Talisman, forgetting their Origin, thus creating a barrier. I have traveled the world, observing the sword techniques of various sects and the Talismans of a hundred schools, and gradually realized one thing—if the heart is open, all laws are open; if the heart is obscured, all laws are obscured. One who has achieved Sword Heart Clarity need not hold a sword; one whose Talisman Dao has reached divinity need not draw a Talisman. The vessel can change, but the Dao does not change..."

He read on blankly, as if having a conversation across space with that Senior from nine hundred years ago.

Those fragments of words regarding the 'heart being the Xuan Shu of all laws' actually meshed so perfectly with his own vague insights. He continued reading:

"I once attempted to bring the Talisman into the sword, and the sword gained the variations of Talisman veins; I brought the sword into the Talisman, and the Talisman gained the sharpness of Sword Qi. Yet I always felt there was a layer of separation. Later, I observed the clouds in the mountains—clouds come out of the peaks without intent, stretching and curling with the sky, not attached to a single shape, yet forming ten thousand manifestations. I suddenly realized: my heart should be like the clouds, not attached to the Talisman, not attached to the sword, only then can it be both Talisman and sword at the same time. The conflict between Talisman and sword is fundamentally an attachment. If the heart is not attached, the Talisman is the sword, and the sword is the Talisman..."

When Lu Mingyuan reached this point, he suddenly remembered the scene on the Sword Testing Platform when he first successfully operated the Heaven and Earth swords. At that time, he had not forced a Fusion, but simply let the various intents 'return to their places'—was this not exactly 'the heart not being attached'?

He continued flipping through. The following pages were the sword forms and Talisman methods Senior Songyun had comprehended during his seven years at Qingcheng, as well as attempts to fuse the two. Some succeeded and were recorded in the manual; some failed and were also recorded, with the annotation: 'This path is impassable, let those who come after proceed with caution.'

On the final page, there were only a few lines:

"I am about to leave Qingcheng to travel the Eastern Sea. The world's Daoist laws are like a vast sea, and in my years, I have only glimpsed a grain of it. However, I have one word to leave for those who come after:

The Dao lies not in knowing all, but in connecting all.

Learning lies not in wide collection, but in returning to the source.

A thousand peaks and ten thousand valleys share this same moon.

Ten thousand laws in confusion share this same heart.

The heart is the Xuan Shu; all transformations follow it.

May those who come after not be attached to my methods, nor be mired in old conventions.

Simply guard this heart, and you will see the true chapter for yourself."

Lu Mingyuan closed the sword manual and remained silent for a long time.

He suddenly understood that Qingxuan had led him here not to show off Qingcheng's history, but to let him see: nine hundred years ago, there was once a person who walked a path similar to his—Dual Cultivation of Talisman and Sword, drawing from a hundred schools, who had also been confused, had also explored, and finally left behind this unfinished path.

"Senior Songyun... what happened to him later?" he asked.

Qingxuan shook his head. "No one knows. After he left Qingcheng, he never appeared again. Some say he met with disaster in the Eastern Sea, some say he shattered the Void Realm, and some say he lived in seclusion somewhere writing books. After a thousand years, he has become a legend."

He paused. "But the two things he left behind, one is at Longhu Mountain, and one is at Mount Qingcheng. You have already read the volume at Longhu Mountain; and today you have seen the volume at Mount Qingcheng. In nine hundred years, you are the second outsider to read both volumes simultaneously."

"Who was the first?"

"There was no first," Qingxuan said. "Longhu Mountain did not know he left a manual at Qingcheng, and Mount Qingcheng did not know he wrote a book at Longhu Mountain. The two sects are separated by thousands of miles and their Legacies are distinct. If you had not traveled here, these two volumes might never have known of each other's existence."

Lu Mingyuan's heart jolted.

When Senior Songyun hid his insights in the two sects back then, was it intentional, or was it left to fate? If it was intentional, what was he waiting for?

Waiting for someone who could set foot in both sects and read both volumes at the same time?

"Why did Senior tell Junior about this today?"

Qingxuan gazed at him for a long time before slowly saying, "Because that sword mark of yours on Wenjian Cliff is almost exactly the same as when Songyun first arrived at Qingcheng."

He took out a yellowed silk scroll from his sleeve and unfurled it—it was a rubbing of a sword mark, with a postscript below: 'Daoist Songyun first entered Qingcheng, left a mark on Wenjian Cliff, at the time of Foundation Establishment Middle Stage.'

The sword mark on the rubbing consisted of three parallel lines: one sharp like the trajectory of a Talisman, one steady like the Sword Dao Foundation, and one ethereal like a cloud without intent. Although their appearances differed, their charm was faintly connected to Lu Mingyuan's Chaos sword mark.

Lu Mingyuan stared blankly at the rubbing, as if seeing a young man standing before Wenjian Cliff nine hundred years ago, watching the cliff face reflect the sword in his heart—at that time, his sword also had three intents running in parallel, not yet formed into one.

"Senior means..."

"I said nothing." Qingxuan put away the rubbing and interrupted him. "Songyun is Songyun, and you are you. His path, you cannot walk; your path, he never walked. What he did not finish nine hundred years ago might not necessarily be continued by someone nine hundred years later. I am simply letting you see that there was once someone in this world similar to you."

He stood up and placed the "fragments of the heart sword" back into the stone niche. "It's getting late; you should go back."

Lu Mingyuan knew this was a signal to leave. He rose, bowed, and walked toward the exit of the Sword Pavilion.

When he reached the edge of the waterfall, he suddenly turned back. "Senior, when Senior Songyun left Qingcheng back then, what was his Realm?"

Qingxuan's back was to him, his voice calm. "Soul Transformation Early Stage."

"How many years did it take him?"

"Forty-seven years. From Qi Refining to Soul Transformation."

Forty-seven years was half a lifetime for a Mortal, but only a snap of the fingers for a Cultivator. From Foundation Establishment to Soul Transformation, how many Cultivators were stuck for a hundred years without making any progress? Songyun had finished it in only forty-seven years.

And for him, Lu Mingyuan, from Foundation Establishment to Soul Transformation, how much time was left?

He walked out of the Sword Pavilion, and the water curtain closed behind him.

The mountain moon was like a hook, hanging above the seventy-two peaks of Qingcheng. Lu Mingyuan walked alone on the stone path, the sound of the pines and the stream in his ears. He thought of Songyun's words, "May those who come after not be attached to my methods, nor be mired in old conventions," and then thought of what Jiang Yichen had said: "Be fast, but do not be chaotic."

He suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Standing in the middle of the stone path, he closed his eyes and looked inward. Various intents circulated within his body—Quietude, Haoran, Pure Yang, Wudang, Qingcheng, Talisman methods... and that wisp of Chaos Qi that could already freely differentiate into Heaven and Earth.

He no longer tried to "fuse" them, nor did he deliberately make them "return to their places." He simply watched quietly, like watching clouds roll and unfurl.

After a long while, he opened his eyes.

The moon was in the middle of the sky, and the mountain path was as if washed clean.

He suddenly smiled.

"Senior Songyun, the person you were waiting for might not necessarily be me," he whispered to himself. "But the path I am going to walk no longer needs to be the path you have walked."

The lights of the guest house in the distance were dimming, and he quickened his pace.

Tomorrow, he would continue to observe the manuals.