Chapter 145: Chapter 142: Who’s Afraid? A Straw Cloak Against a Lifetime of Mist and Rain

Song Ciwan stood in place, her hands hidden in her sleeves forming a Finger Technique. The gentle, drizzling rain from the Ganlin Spell continued to fall without end, a sign of her unhurried and masterful control.

But no one could know that in this very moment, a storm was raging in her heart, turning her world upside down!

If you consider the Mortal World a cage, then a person’s life is nothing but a ceaseless struggle within it.

Why practice Cultivation?

To break free from the cage, to escape the rut, to seize control of one’s own destiny and become a carefree Immortal!

’But the threads of fate are everywhere. Is it truly so easy to control?’

For instance, after Song Ciwan entered Illusory Nether City, she first encountered the whispering Wooden Man. She shattered the Wooden Man and obtained a Primordial Longevity Pearl. By selling the Primordial Longevity Pearl through the Heaven and Earth Scale, she then obtained the Ancestral Dragon Coins.

The Ancestral Dragon Coins possessed the power of Divination, so Song Ciwan used them to divine the path forward.

Perhaps, from the moment she used the Ancestral Dragon Coins for Divination, she had already stepped into the Abyss of Illusory Nether City.

After that, whether it was meeting Xie Yunxiang again, killing bizarre creatures to collect Primordial Longevity Pearls, stepping into the clear light to fly up to the Floating Platform, or pushing open the door on that platform—every single step was very likely on a predetermined path of fate.

And it wasn’t just her. Of all the Cultivators who entered Illusory Nether City, who hadn’t been guided, who hadn’t been led along a planned route?

Recalling the past, she realized that since awakening her Innate Wisdom, the most carefree days of her life seemed to be... back in Su Yang City, when she spent her days performing Washing Demon rituals, practicing her cultivation, observing the myriad facets of the Mortal World, and savoring the wind and snow of winter alone.

As the saying goes, a cliff that stands a thousand fathoms is unyielding, for it is without desire. True strength is found in wanting nothing.

While the Song Ciwan of that time couldn’t be said to be completely without wants or needs, at the very least, her ambitions were small—things she could reach out and grasp!

There was a unique sense of peace in being content with a small city.

Once you step past that line of safety, once you leave that comfort zone, you see the vast Grand Thousand Worlds. Where isn’t there a magnificent view? But behind that scenery, where isn’t there also a crisis?

Yet, if one were to ask if Song Ciwan regretted it?

She would ask her heart and answer: no regrets.

All freedom comes at a price. Without strength, freedom is but a flower in a mirror, the moon’s reflection in water.

An illusion, a fleeting dream, born at dawn only to die at dusk—that was absolutely not what she sought!

Su Yang was too small. Ever since the incident at Bibo Lake, its earth veins had been severed, and its Vitality was gone. At that time, because she had used the Profound City Life and Death Seal, Song Ciwan only had a little over sixty years left of her Lifespan.

If she had stayed in Su Yang, ignorant of the vastness of the heavens and the earth, she would have wasted the opportunity presented by the Heaven and Earth Scale. Even if she had lived out her days and died of old age, it would have been a pathetic, stifled death.

The path of survival isn’t about turning a perfectly good person into a pig, content to merely exist!

Song Ciwan maintained the Finger Technique, continuously casting the Ganlin Spell. At the same time, the True Qi within her body roiled and surged. Inside her True Qi Pool, the energy churned like thick slurry.

The Ming Zhu, the vessel for the Vast Sea Grotto Heaven, rose and fell like a full moon in the churning True Qi. At the same moment, Song Ciwan’s Insight Technique panel opened.

Her Cultivation began to rise slowly, but the experience for her Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting shot up as if riding a Flying Sword, increasing at an incredible speed.

Song Ciwan: Age 16 (Lifespan: 567 years)

Main Cultivation Method: Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting (First Layer Masterful Skill 365,712/1,000,000, Second Layer Mastery 77,986/100,000)

Cultivation Realm: Qi Refining and Divinity Transformation (Mid-Stage Qi Refining 937,981/1,000,000)

...

Her Cultivation was at Mid-Stage Qi Refining, on the verge of breaking through to the Late Stage.

This breakthrough wasn’t particularly difficult; the main issue was that she currently had no time.

If she had the time, she had plenty of "Qi" stored in her Heaven and Earth Scale. Once she returned to the real world, she would only need to rent a grotto-abode on Wangjiang Mountain for a few days and continuously exchange for cultivation time. Forget breaking through to Late-stage Qi Refining; Song Ciwan felt that even reaching Qi Refining Perfection would not be a problem.

The real problem was that Song Ciwan did not yet have the Cultivation Technique for the Third Layer of the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting.

Furthermore, she hadn’t cultivated either the First Layer or the Second Layer to Perfection.

The practice of a Cultivation Technique and the growth of one’s Cultivation were interrelated, but not entirely the same.

One could say that the Cultivation Technique is the skeleton, and Cultivation is the flesh and blood.

To use an analogy, it’s not hard for a person to gain weight. With enough diligent effort and constant nourishment, even the skinniest person will eventually put on some pounds.

Not gaining weight? That could only mean there’s a problem with their skeleton.

But for a person to grow their skeleton, the difficulty is much greater. Diligent, arduous practice is only one aspect. More importantly, it requires fateful opportunities and moments of Enlightenment!

A profound and mysterious Cultivation Technique like the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting especially required such moments of Enlightenment.

Without achieving Enlightenment, what good are a hundred years of bitter cultivation?

But with Enlightenment, one can become a sage between dawn and dusk.

Song Ciwan felt she was still far from being a sage, but at this moment, reflecting on her current situation and recalling all that had passed, a verse she had once read suddenly surfaced in her mind: ’Heed not the sound of rain beating through the forest, / Why not stroll and chant at a leisurely pace? / A bamboo staff and straw shoes are lighter than a horse. / Who fears? / In a coat of straw, I’ll weather the storms of a lifetime!’ 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

A surge of heroic spirit instantly swelled in her chest.

It was the sentiment of a lofty scholar—fearless in the face of all tribulations, facing the world’s storms head-on, yet able to hold fast to one’s self with transcendent open-mindedness.

The world is full of mediocre people; to experience even a moment of such transcendence is to rise far above the mundane.

This was cultivating the heart!

On the Insight Technique panel, the experience points for the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting leaped up as if they’d become a vertical line: (First Layer Masterful Skill 569,876/1,000,000, Second Layer Mastery 96,515/100,000)

(First Layer Masterful Skill 953,126/1,000,000, Second Layer Mastery 98,765/100,000)

...

(First Layer Mastery 13,654/10,000,000, Second Layer Mastery 99,861/100,000)

A breakthrough!

At that very moment, the First Layer of Song Ciwan’s Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting had finally broken through to the highest realm currently possible for the technique: Mastery!

What did Mastery mean?

It meant entering the Transformation Realm, transcending the original framework, innovating, and thereby reaching a different kind of Perfection.

Not every Cultivation Technique’s practice could reach the Transformation Realm, nor did everyone necessarily reach Perfection before advancing further.

In this world, most people only knew the ’how’ of things, not the ’why’!

As Song Ciwan cultivated the First Layer of the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting to Mastery, she suddenly felt as if, within a vast whiteness, she had grown a skeleton, a torso, limbs, and a head...

She had too many insights to describe in words. They could only be transformed into nourishment, flowing continuously into the center of her Sea of Consciousness.

In the center of her Sea of Consciousness, the Heart Sutra Fire burned quietly, a Heart Demon Seed swayed and unfurled, and there was a speck of Spiritual Light—

This speck of Spiritual Light was originally her vague and unformed Divine Soul, but at this very moment, her Divine Soul suddenly took on a clear form!

That Divine Soul tilted its head up slightly from within the flames and abruptly opened its eyes.

With divinity’s arrival, heaven and earth connect.

Never before had Song Ciwan’s vision been as clear as it was in this moment.

Her Divine Eye Opening had occurred. Peering through the endless void, she followed the gazes that came from all directions, gazes that seemed to be everywhere, and she saw!

She saw Wangjiang Peak and four screens of light.

Upon the screens of light, there were four scenes.

And below the screens of light were countless gazes!

In the crowd, someone frowned, saying with unease, "Something’s not right. Why do I suddenly have the feeling of being watched?"