Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)-Chapter 21: Way of reading

The first page was just an introduction. There were only a sentence in it and the rest of the page was blank. The sentence attracted every reader’s eyes and no one can miss this line when they flipped open the book.

Normally when people read this line, they would first think thoroughly about the actual meaning behind this sentence. Then with their own understanding, they would continue to read. But Chen Chang Sheng was different, he didn’t continue to flip to the next page. Rather he stood up and walked to a bookshelf and searched for couple of other books about Purification and skimmed through them quickly. After realizing every book’s introduction contained the same opening sentence, he returned to his spot and continued reading. His mind was concentrated upon the white paper and there was no other distraction in his eyes except the book.

The wording of “Purification” was simple, but he read very carefully. Not much later he has already finished the first chapter. This chapter talked about the way to nurture one’s spirit and mind. But he didn’t stop after this chapter to think or try. He continued reading and quickly the following chapters’ materials were all memorized in his head – they mainly talked about the way to nurture one’s spirit, finding the Destined Star, and absorbing the Starlight into one’s body.

He only used an hour to finish reading, and then he closed his book and started to meditate.

After taking ten deep breaths, he opened his eyes and started to flip through the pages again and re read the entire book.

This time he finished reading the book faster. It only took the amount of time to burn a few incenses.

Then he once again closed his eyes and thought about the materials in the book.

After a few breathes, he opened his eyes once again and started reading.

Even after repeating this procedure for a few times, the sunlight from outside of the window was still intense and burning.

He closed the pages of “Purification” one last time, however, this time he didn’t open it again.

He took out his ink and brush, but he didn’t open the book’s pages. He started to record his thoughts that popped up during reading and began to memorize the entire book.

Not for long, many words were written upon the white paper.

When Chen Chang Sheng finally set his brush upon the resting stone, the entire book of “Purification” was carved into his brain.

But the most important thing is, it’s not just memorization, it’s understanding.

This is Chen Chang Sheng’s way of reading.

This way was quite unique. His senior and him used almost ten years of continuous reading to create this precious technique. The old temple in Xi Ning Village may be unnoticeable, but the quantity and quality of the books stored in it was as deep and endless as the ocean. If they want to memorize all of them in such a short time, then they must use some special methods.

To use this method of reading, they don’t need to read the book over and over and over until the cover was hanging off the pages. As a matter of fact, the books stored inside the old temple of Xi Ning Village looked just as new as when it was made. However, the contents inside the books were memorized entirely by the two apprentices.

The most important part of this method would be the last step, note taking. It didn’t matter if he wrote the notes on a paper or inside his head. The meaning to it was to reorganize and accept the entire book. Only after completing this step, the reader could say he has completely transferred the wisdom in the book into his knowledge.

After reading “Purification” and closing its pages, Chen Chang Sheng didn’t stop learning. Rather he continued to do so in his mind and notebook. But what is the purpose of learning? It’s to practice. The reason he read “Purification” was to successfully Purify himself and begin the way of xiuxing.

The first step of the Purification stage was to concentrate one’s mind. The mind is the human’s core of spiritual strength. To explain it clearly, “it’s the thought that counts”. If one’s thought was concentrated and strong enough, then it would turn into a certain power.

Although it may sound easy, in reality it’s not. Even if an ordinary person struggled extremely hard and imagine that they can fly freely in the sky, they are still trapped on the ground. This is because the power of mind depends on the strength of one’s soul, and the soul’s strength depends solely on talent and is unrelated to one’s effort. Even if an ordinary person tried his best, how would his soul’s strength surpass that one of the reincarnation of the Sky Phoenix?

Chen Chang Sheng has prepared to xiuxing for many years. To be precise, it started when he was ten years old and an odd occurrence happened to his body. He kept on waiting for this day to come silently. He knew there were some problems with his veins, and that’s why his master said his was ill. His nine main veins in his body weren’t connected and his soul power couldn’t circulate throughout his body. The result of this was that his spiritual power kept on leaking out. Although this occurrence has been suppressed by his master using medicine and herbs, it was still was a problem. Or why else would the black Sensory Stone in the Heavenly Academy’s entrance test not detect any soul strength inside his body?

If his soul was not strong enough, then how could he solidify his spirit?

If there was no spirit, how would there be emission?

The first step of purification, how should he achieve it?

Chen chang Sheng did not feel disappointed like the people who found out they could not xiu xing, and of course he wouldn’t feel hopeless.

He believed that years ago there must have been people with great wisdom that solved this problem beforehand already because there were so many people like him. In the scrolls of the ways he had read, there were often people who couldn’t xiu xing in the beginning. Then they discovered a genius way and eventually became one of the strongest xiu xingists. One such example was Wang Zhi Ce. However he did not prepare to follow their steps because he never saw the same situation he had with in the books. Even his master said it’s incurable then it’s his destiny. He did not have extra time to fight against the destiny, he also didn’t think he could find a new genius method in such a short amount of time he was given. He liked to follow the trend. He thought that even if he followed the existent method in the world, he would also be able to solidify his spirit and begin xiu xing. He trusted the ancients’ wisdom more than anyone else.

“After reading hundreds of times, the meaning will reveal itself.”

All the books related to purification, had these marked words. Obviously, these words were the key to purification, which was what the ancients were trying to tell their next generations, but which book should he read?

Chen Chang Sheng looked at a densely packed table of contents at the back of the Purification. He looked at the names showing different methods the authors wrote down and shook his head. He didn’t expect that after coming to the capital, he still had to continue the life he had in Xi Ning Town.

If in the places like the Heavenly Academy or the Startaker Academy, if students needed to pass the purification stage, obviously there would be teachers telling them, the key of purification was to read massive amount of related books, so they could achieve the goal of strengthening soul, and therefore solidify their spirit at once.

Purification was simply the general principle. What one really needed to study were the forty nine books behind the cover.

Of course, this did not mean that all students had to read these forty books a hundred times in order to strengthen their soul to the extent they had solidified their spirit. Most of the time when they are reading, the readers’ spirits would already be solidified and they would complete the process.

It’s not true that the earlier the completion of the process the better. If one finished reading a book ten times and he solidified his spirit successfully, then this person would be the xiu xingist with the weakest spirit in history. Vice versa, the more books one read and the more times he read, his soul would became stronger and stronger and if he could still not break through that layer of thin paper after reading so much, then when he finally solidified his spirit, his spirit would truly be strong.

If there was one who could finish reading all of the forty nine books in the Purification’s table of contents a hundred times, then eventually he would solidified his spirit. He would have the possibility of achieving the perfect stage of purification. Such situation was extremely rare. Besides the lucky ones who possessed gifted inborn bloodlines, there is basically no one who could achieve it.

This was a very exciting process. As time passed the amount of books read and amount of times reread increased, one would expect oneself to become a genius with strong spirit. But also most likely, eventually one could not solidify his spirit at all, and could only stay as a regular person.

Hope and disappointment would continuously enlarge as the process of reading passed. Eventually this would become an extremely big gamble. The result of the game would only appear after you finished reading these books. After reading a hundred times, the result would automatically come out.

After reading a hundred times, the meaning will reveal itself.

That’s what the quote meant.

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After finishing “Purification” one time, Chen Chang Sheng didn’t feel any change occurred in his body and didn’t detect any soul power. Which means of course, he didn’t sense any spiritual strength. He didn’t start immediately reading the books again, but rather he started calculating.

He was confident that his rate of reading was faster than that of a regular person. Then he probably didn’t need to read a hundred times, perhaps twenty or thirty times would be enough. There were forty nine books on the index and using the average reading speed, he can finish seven books at most in one day. This means that he will finish reading all of the books once in seven days. Even if his speed increases over time, to finish reading all of these books for a hundred times would be approximately half a year. Does he have the leisure to read books for half a year? No. Then what should he do? For the first time after arriving to the capital he felt irritated.

If others knew his confusion now, they would definitely have a different feeling because in his calculation it’s so obvious that he would have to finish reading all of these books a hundred times. Then he would begin solidifying his spirit and if he could actually solidify his spirit, in another words, from the beginning to the end, even subconsciously, he had always consider himself on the same level or even higher than those geniuses.

It was not a wonder that the first time Tang Thirty Six had met him Tang Thirty Six had thought Chen Chang Sheng was arrogant. He may seem quiet and had good mannerism, but in fact he has complete confidence in himself in some areas. This made people feel that he was arrogant and self centered.

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Just when he was thinking, he felt a light breeze and a shadow covered him and the words on the book.

Chen Chang Sheng raised his head and saw a pretty young girl smiling coldly at him.

Because at this moment he was sitting on the ground, the girl was obviously looking down on him.

The young girl was Shuang Er from the General’s Mansion. She glanced at the book he was reading and understood his actions. She mocked “You began to Purify yourself when you are fourteen years old, don’t you think it’s a little too late?”

Chen Chang Sheng replied “There are early and late comers to the Way of Xiuxing. Some started early but arrived late. Some started late but arrived early.”

Shuang Er didn’t expect to hear this kind of reply. She was stunned for a moment and mocked again “Forty Nine scrolls of book, one hundred times, ten days. This is the record that my lady set when she started to Purify when she was four years old. Start late but arrive early? How early can you get?”

Chen Chang Sheng thought for a moment, but he didn’t know how to reply.

Editor Bing: T.T My hope be broken. I never knew that Shuang Er was so mean T.T my dreams be going bie bie.