Chapter 90: Chapter 88: "I Have Fathomed All Dao Under Heaven," the Lamenting Wanderer

Song Ciwan cultivated diligently in the Yellow Character Cave Mansion on Wangjiang Mountain for another two days.

During this time, she also sold the "Fox Charm" she had previously obtained from the Fox Demon.

[You have sold Fox Charm, the quest of a Core Formation Stage Great Demon—anger, obsession, enlightenment—weighing one jin and seven liang. You have obtained one volume of the "Reversed Seven Stars Array Daoist Book."]

’It’s a real book!’

This was a tangible, physical book, not like the times before when a scripture would descend from the void or a magic technique would be projected as an image.

It was completely different.

Song Ciwan took it out of the Heaven and Earth Scale and found the book was about half a finger thick. To the touch, it didn’t feel like ordinary paper; instead, it had the soft, smooth texture of fine silk. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

She opened it. On the flyleaf was a single line: "Having comprehended every Dao in the world, I now pluck the stars from the heavens to manifest the meaning of my own!"

On the second page was another line: "The paths of the Mortal World have reached their end. Whoever is fated to find this book and reads it to its conclusion shall receive the ultimate inheritance of the world’s Array Dao, but shall also suffer the endless agony of the Dao’s end!"

Below was a signature: Grieving Loose Cultivator.

Seeing this, Song Ciwan’s hand, which was turning the pages, froze.

Her gaze shifted back up to the line: "...but shall also suffer the endless agony of the Dao’s end!"

For some reason, her vision blurred for a moment.

She vaguely saw an infinite void, a desolate world.

The stars toppled from the heavens, and the sun and moon lost their light.

The earth fractured and split apart, and the vast oceans dried up completely.

Hundred-thousand-year-old trees snapped and withered, and mountains that were like pillars of heaven weathered into dust.

Gigantic, godlike figures lay prostrate on the ground, their flesh eventually sloughing off and their bones turning to ash.

All living things vanished. Only a sigh remained, like a rhythm of the Dao itself, echoing softly in the void.

The lingering echo resounded in Song Ciwan’s ears.

Song Ciwan’s hand trembled, and the Array Dao Book suddenly fell toward the ground.

The rush of air from its fall started to flip the pages. Song Ciwan immediately pointed, casting the Qi Absorption Technique. It instantly enveloped the book, narrowly preventing the subsequent pages from being truly opened.

Song Ciwan quickly picked it up again and shut it tight.

A lingering fear began to echo in her heart, sparked by that same line: "...but shall also suffer the endless agony of the Dao’s end!"

’It’s just too shocking. I wonder who this Grieving Loose Cultivator was to have the audacity to say such things.’

’And that vision I just saw in my daze, the one that came through that line of text—was it real or an illusion? Was it the past or the future? Of this world or another?’

She couldn’t say. She couldn’t tell the difference.

Song Ciwan could only suppress the tremors in her heart and restrain the impulse to reopen the Array Dao Book and study its profound mysteries.

She calmed herself and returned the book to the Heaven and Earth Scale.

’I can’t look at it anymore,’ she thought. ’At least for now, I don’t dare to read any further.’

Song Ciwan stood up and paced around the cave mansion for a long time.

The Big White Goose, lying nearby, lazily lifted its neck to glance at her, the very picture of a well-fed, carefree creature.

Song Ciwan loved this carefree look of the Big White Goose, and seeing it now made her smile.

"Ah, Big White, you’re the one who’s really living the good life." Song Ciwan walked over to the Big White Goose, squatting down to gently stroke its neck and back. The goose’s feathers were smooth and sleek, carrying the vivid warmth of a creature from the Mortal World. It felt wonderful.

After petting the goose for a while, Song Ciwan’s worries began to fade.

The human heart is always restless. If one doesn’t have distant worries, they will surely have immediate troubles. And even if one has neither distant nor immediate worries, some ethereal, phantom anxiety might occasionally bubble up.

Maintaining emotional stability at all times is no easy feat. It requires Cultivation and, more importantly, a philosophical attitude to face this constant state of flux.

Thus, Daoists seek to rein in the heart, Buddhists enter Meditation, Martial Artists must tame their restless minds, and Scholars cultivate a righteous spirit...

After she finished petting the goose, Song Ciwan got up and went to another quiet room in the cave mansion to prepare herself.

She took out the Copper Mirror and began to mold her face.

She molded her face back into the appearance of the delicate-featured youth she had used when she first rented the cave mansion.

Not ugly, but not exceptionally handsome either.

Plain enough to blend into a crowd, yet upon closer inspection, he seemed to have a certain approachable charm.

’Very good. From now on, this identity will be called Xin Mian. A Loose Cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage with a family heritage, someone who has just emerged from the deep mountains and old forests to enter the world.’

Song Ciwan needed this identity to make contact with the true Great Zhou Cultivation Realm!

She couldn’t just keep hiding away in her own little corner, viewing things from a mortal’s perspective forever. If you pretend to be a pig for too long, you might actually become one.

Of course, when it was time to lie low, she would still lie low.

That was why she couldn’t rely on just one identity.

She needed two more. One would be an ordinary mortal girl with a bit of family money and some decent Martial Arts, at the Bone Forging Stage of cultivation. This girl, Song Xun, would have traveled far to Pinglan City, seeking better cultivation resources.

The other would be a poor, down-on-his-luck young man with no family, no background, and nowhere good to go. But "he," Mu Dalang, would find work at the Demon Refining Platform in Pinglan City, becoming a Demon Cleaner who lived one day at a time.

From now on, the mortal girl, Song Xun, would be Song Ciwan’s public-facing identity.

The downtrodden youth, Mu Dalang, would be her professional persona.

And finally, the Qi Refining Stage Loose Cultivator, Xin Mian, would be the trump card among her personas.

As for her true self, after the incident of discussing the Dao with the Fox Demon, she had no intention of appearing before others anytime soon.

’No matter what, I should at least lie low until... Divinity Transformation, maybe?’

In any case, she was thankful for the Celestial Spirit Dao Skill, Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting. Its profound and extraordinary nature allowed her to switch between identities freely.

And now that she had broken through to the Qi Refining Stage, the Fetal Transformation Technique had advanced as well.

The Insight Technique panel displayed:

Song Ciwan: Age: 15 (Lifespan: 200 years)

Main Cultivation Method: Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting (First Layer: Master 26,765/100,000; Second Layer: Beginner 312/1,000)

Cultivation Realm: Qi Refining and Divinity Transformation (Early-Stage Qi Refining: 31,526/100,000)

Side Door Taoist Skill: Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting (First Layer: Mastery 1,512/10,000)

...

The Master Level Fetal Transformation and Shape-shifting was enough to allow Song Ciwan to maintain a transformation for over seventy-two hours at a time. Most importantly, this transformation was complete, from head to toe, inside and out!

It was true Transformation, not an Illusion Technique.

At this stage, Song Ciwan could even fabricate a corresponding cultivation aura for her persona. If she wanted to be a mortal, she had the aura of a mortal; if she wanted to be at Qi Transformation, she had the aura of Qi Transformation; if she wanted to be at Qi Refining, she had the aura of Qi Refining...

Of course, there was a limit to this fabrication. Song Ciwan couldn’t create an aura beyond Late-stage Qi Refining.

She also couldn’t imitate the aura of a Divinity Transformation Expert at her current level; that was beyond her comprehension.

With everything planned, Song Ciwan gave Yellow Character Cave Mansion Number 136 one final cleaning, using the Blazing Flame Technique to incinerate any lingering auras within it.

In her Sea of Consciousness, a figure had taken illusory form.

It was her own Divine Soul!

During the Qi Transformation Stage, her Divine Soul had been formless, and her body was still completely mortal. Even her lifespan was only at a mortal’s level, unless she increased it by selling off Malice through the Heaven and Earth Scale.

But after breaking through to Qi Refining, even though she had no Malice to sell this time, her Lifespan had naturally increased to 200 years.

Her Divine Soul had also undergone a qualitative change.

After her Divine Soul took form, Song Ciwan discovered she had gained a new perspective, one even more profound than Bright Vision.

The Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting called it Spiritual Sense.

With this Spiritual Sense, she didn’t need to cast any additional Magic to see directly that the cave mansion was now truly clean, with nothing left behind.

Song Ciwan thus put away her Duality Heart Protection Array Plate, picked up the Big White Goose, and stepped out of the cave mansion.