The "here" here did not refer to this planet, but the world after ascension.
The Cultivation practitioners had cultivated in Chaotian for many years for the sake of ascending. As such, they had to think about the meaning of ascension.
Zhao Layue's statement to Cao Yuan had the same meaning.
Having said that, she turned around and walked to the gate of the temple. She sat on the high doorsill and looked at the small town in front of the mountain, her figure a bit bleak.
Many years ago, Jing Jiu was trapped in the deep part of the snowland in order to rescue Bai Zao. She had gone to the small temple in White Town and sat on the high doorsill for a long time.
Jing Jiu was nowhere to be found at the moment, and he was trapped as well. She sat on a similar spot again.
Zong Lizi and Ran Handong eyed each other, thinking that the scene in the novel had reappeared in front of their eyes; it was truly sentimental.
After all, this wasn't a movie or a game.
Cao Yuan handed two bottles of water to them.
Zong Lizi and Ran Handong were overwhelmed by the favor. They took a good look at him and found that his appearance was different from the one described in the novel.
The golden skin on the surface of this Buddha statue had peeled off a lot. The biggest change was that it was much smaller in size, but it looked a bit taller and a bit chubby.
"The purpose or reason for my ascension is simple; it's the basic curiosity."
Cao Yuan walked to the back of Zhao Layue and followed her line of sight to look at the believers in the small town. The resolute expression on his face grew a bit softer as he said, "I've always thought that this is the foundation of the path toward heaven."
Zhao Layue didn't turn her head around as she remarked lightly, "You're quite open-minded."
Cao Yuan said, "The Immortal told three stories before his ascension, and one of them is about me. Now that the whole world knows what happened to my family, we have to accept it even if we don't want to. Moreover, the Three Sages are dead anyway."
His background was indeed strange, and it was hard to describe what he had experienced. His Cultivation state had reached the point of ascension a long time ago, but he couldn't accept it until Jing Jiu pointed it out.
Zhao Layue said, "I'd like to drink some water too."
She had sat in the small temple in White Town for a year, so she was quite familiar with Cao Yuan, so she didn't mince her words.
Ada jumped into Zong Lizi's bosom after a meow, lifting his head to signal for her to feed him.
Cao Yuan uttered "hmm" and handed her another bottle of water, asking, "What's the situation in Chaotian right now? Where's Zen Master? "
Zhao Layue said, "The little monk is different from you. He is not so curious about the outside world."
Interestingly, back then, when Jing Jiu called Zen Master Little Monk, she was much younger than Zen Master, so she was used to calling him that.
Cao Yuan said, "I've been out of the Guocheng Temple for a short time, but I miss it somehow when I think of the Guocheng Temple after so many years."
Longing for something like this had nothing to do with one's realm or cultivation level, nor did it have anything to do with being heartless. It was just a very natural connection of cause and effect.
He missed Chaotian, and so did the other ascendants. Otherwise, the Joyous Monk wouldn't have built this city the same as White Town, and built such a temple and a Guocheng Temple in that city.
Zhao Layue didn't want to talk about the Joyous Monk with him, so she changed the topic and asked, "What was the result of your fight with the stone man on Chen Wu Mountain?"
Cao Yuan and Chen Ya had had an arduous fight on that planet in the Right King System. The large cracks on the surface of the planet were the evidence, but nobody knew the final outcome of the fight. Her initial question was why Cao Yuan was here.
"I won, but I didn't know what to do, so I chose to escape." Cao Yuan revealed his intention frankly. "He told me about this place and gave me the coffin."
"The coffin?" Zhao Layue was taken aback a bit, asking.
"Yes, I'm the coffin keeper now," said Cao Yuan while looking at the back of the small temple. "I wonder if this means something."
Zhao Layue, Ran Handong and Zong Lizi followed his line of sight. It was then that a cold wind blew in from outside the window, ruffling the cloth curtain behind the Buddha seat, exposing a coffin.
The coffin was very large, made of transparent glass. There were many beautiful sceneries and white cranes dancing in the air inside. General Li lay in the coffin in Silence with his eyes closed.
Ran Handong and Zong Lizi were shocked speechless. Zhao Layue felt surprised as well. She walked to the front of the huge transparent coffin and looked at the remains of the grandmasters in the glass world, remaining silent for a long time.
She knew how General Li died, and what his fairy bones and the fairy thread in his body meant. Many ascendants wanted to get their hands on them; why did Chen Ya give them to Cao Yuan?
"Chen Ya doesn't know you well. You're not a hero in the traditional sense, and the souls of the deceased can't move you. You're willing to guard the coffin because you want to perceive something. The problem is …" She turned to Cao Yuan and said, "Even though the old world seems to be alive, it's actually dead and on the verge of decaying. I don't think you can get any inspiration from it."
"I'm not guarding the remains of the old world. I just think the peace of the deceased is a sacred thing and shouldn't be disturbed. Besides, I need a quiet place where I can look at the humans and think about the future of the humans."
Cao Yuan stepped over the doorsill and came to the flat ground in front of the temple, his broken Kasaya quivering slightly in the cold wind.
Thinking about the future of the humans. If someone else had said this, they would have laughed at him, or they would have been regarded as a poet. But it was quite convincing coming from Cao Yuan's mouth.
"What did you see?" asked Zhao Layue.
"Come with me," said Cao Yuan.
Zhao Layue walked to the front of the huge transparent glass coffin and knelt down to bow to him as a disciple of the younger generation; then she followed Cao Yuan out of the small temple.
Cao Yuan led them to the highest spot of the snowy mountain.
The dancing wind and snow calmed down slowly, but Zhao Layue's messy hair was still tousling by her temples.
It was very cold on the top of the snowy mountain. Though Ran Handong had a high Cultivation state, she could still endure the coldness; but Zong Lizi couldn't stand it and started shivering like a Sensei.
By now, Cao Yuan remembered that there was a regular person in the room. With an apologetic expression, he was about to deploy the formation to ward off the cold. Zong Lizi waved her hand to indicate that there was no need for it. She took out the winter clothing from her backpack and put it on, holding Ada tighter in her bosom.
The higher they stood, the farther they could see. From here, they could see the large city outside the snowland, the straight roads and the pious believers walking forward on their knees like black dots.
The final destination of these believers was neither White Town nor the small temple, but this snowy mountain.
After taking a short rest in White Town, the believers set off again.
Wearing thick and shabby clothing, they walked forward on their knees along the snowy mountain while resisting the wind and snow and the cold.
Zhao Layue was fully aware that what Cao Yuan wanted her to see was not these. The so-called piety and perseverance were excellent human qualities and beautiful intentions, but there were still many levels of disparity between them and the problems he was thinking about.
"It's over there," said Cao Yuan while pointing to an icy peak in the west.
That icy peak was a bit shorter than the snowy mountain under their feet. It shone brightly under the setting sun, reminding Zhao Layue of the icy peak in the deep part of the snowland in Chaotian.
A few sadhus were climbing up the icy peak with difficulty. Their monk robes were thin and shabby, looking like a few pieces of rags. Many wounds could be seen on their bare feet, but they didn't bleed because of the ice and snow.
"Do these people have a high Cultivation state? They can climb to such a high place without any equipment, "Ran Handong exclaimed in surprise.
Zong Lizi put down the telescope in her hand and exclaimed incredulously, "Aren't they cold?"
The cold wind whistled, and the ice chips brushed past the faces and bodies of the sadhus like knives, leaving many bloody marks on their bodies, but they were soon frozen by the low temperature. Looking at the scene, one could imagine how harsh the environment was, how difficult it was to move forward, and how much pain the monks had to endure.
"These sadhus are all regular people. They don't know the martial arts of this world, and they refuse to accept the genetic modification …"
Before Cao Yuan could finish his sentence, a few rocks suddenly rolled down from the icy peak, causing a lot of snow to fall down.
The sadhus were in grave danger.
Zong Lizi picked up the telescope again and screamed in surprise.
Ran Handong looked at Zhao Layue, wondering if she would help them.
Zhao Layue looked at the icy peak in the distance in Silence; it was unclear what was on her mind.
"… But they have learned some marvelous skills," Cao Yuan continued.
The situation on the icy peak grew more and more dangerous. The sadhus were a bit panicked. As they were about to fall off the cliff, they somehow flew up while holding each other's hands.
The sadhus didn't fly very high from the ground, their bare feet only a few feet above the surface of the snow. They were on the verge of falling down, their faces pale. Soon after, they fell back to the ground, but they had successfully avoided being pushed off the peak.
Zong Lizi and Ran Handong felt relieved, but they couldn't figure out why those sadhus could fly up if they didn't know how to cultivate.
"There's no energy of heaven and earth here, so we can't practice the Zen methods. And the fairy energy is very weak." Zhao Layue pulled back her gaze and asked Cao Yuan, "What are you trying to say?"
"I don't know much about this kind of force. It might have something to do with belief."
Cao Yuan looked at the large city in the distance, the believers on the streets, the practitioners in White Town, and the sadhus on the icy peak. "I'm not saying that the humans need this kind of force in the future, but I'm trying to tell you that the humans have been looking for different ways to survive and improve themselves," he said.
Zong Lizi suddenly felt less cold. She looked at the icy peak under the sunlight while stroking Ada's hair, saying sentimentally, "The humans … are really outstanding."
Zhao Layue fell silent for a while before saying, "Yes, so the humans should survive."
Cao Yuan pulled back his gaze and stared into her eyes, saying, "If the survival of the humans requires Jing Jiu to die, what choice should we make?"
Zhao Layue pressed, "You know my answer; why do you still ask me?"
Cao Yuan said earnestly, "You came to me because you wanted to persuade me not to be as lazy as the immortal."
Zhao Layue said, "Do you know why Lian Sanyue was annoyed by you? It was because the monks of the Guocheng Temple talked too much. "
The monks of the Guocheng Temple were indeed talkative.
They were the Zen Master, Liu Shisui, and that middle-aged monk who had passed away in a sitting posture.
Cao Yuan was an outstanding figure in the history of the Cultivation circle in Chaotian, but he was still talkative.
It was probably for this reason that the Vow of Silence in the Guocheng Temple was the best.
Yet, what Cao Yuan said was correct. Zhao Layue had to persuade him if she wanted to ask him to help her. As such, the discussion that they were tired of hearing had to take place again.
"He is also a member of the humans. The humans have a reason to live, and so does he." She went on, "If you think he is not a member of the humans like the Great Grandmaster of Aoyama and that old woman do, why do you want him to die for you? Do your own things by yourself; this is something that even a young child should understand. You people have cultivated for hundreds of years or even thousands of years; is it all in vain? "
Ada meowed once in Zong Lizi's bosom, expressing his agreement, especially the last sentence.
Many people would say that Jing Jiu was a product created by the humans, or a product created by that god, so he should be sacrificed for the humans. However, the parents had given birth to their children and had done many things for them; should the children die for their parents? In fact, everybody understood the reasoning, and they were also aware that it was meaningless. It was the difference between the standpoint and the way of doing things; there was no right or wrong, good or evil.
Cao Yuan had the same opinion as Zhao Layue. He didn't think Jing Jiu should be sacrificed, but it was impossible for him to stand on the side of Jing Jiu like Zhao Layue and fight against the whole world for him. There were many people in this world, regardless of whether they were good or bad, who were trying their best to live like those ascetic monks on the icy peak. They had the right to live at all costs.
"Fortunately, he will die in a few dozen days. The humans won't have to worry about this issue anymore. "
As he said this, he and Zhao Layue stood by the shore of a large lake surrounded by snowy mountains.
The water of the lake was crystal clear. The white clouds in the sky reflected in it, forming a number vaguely.
It was the number of days.
…
…
I almost forgot to recommend Master Lin Hai's new book. The title of the book is "The Fox in the Forbidden Zone", which is obviously a tribute to the old Philip … I guessed it. The advertising slogan is similar to the introduction of the book: He is a natural striker and has never missed the direction of the goal!
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