Exploring Immortality Cultivation-Chapter 169 - 131: Trustworthy in Life and Death, But Not With One’s Innermost Feelings
Long Shulin, four battles, three defeats.
Liu Shu, six battles, three defeats.
Wu Shiqin, five battles, one defeat.
By the third day of the Martial Arts Examination, Xinyue Immortal Institute had been pushed to the brink.
As for Langde Immortal Institute, the majority of its disciples had more victories than defeats. Especially the top-ranking ones, who were well-prepared with Hu Jianhao’s intelligence and devised killing moves specifically against Xinyue’s elite disciples, gaining a significant advantage.
Among them, Hu Jianhao won six consecutive victories, as did Ai Changyuan.
What was more regrettable, or rather anticipated, by the disciples of Langde was that Wu Shiqin, currently the best-performing disciple from Xinyue, hadn’t yet faced either Hu Jianhao or Ai Changyuan.
This fact was somewhat unbearable for some Xinyue disciples. According to Wang Qi’s perspective, these new disciples in some ways resembled certain university students he had seen in his previous life, who equated their self-worth with a diploma and drew a parallel between the school’s reputation and the value of the diploma. To them, entering an Immortal Institute was to honor their ancestors, and the reputation of the institute was naturally connected to the glory of their forebears.
In this state of mind, people began searching for Wang Qi. It was then, that most Xinyue disciples realized that Wang Qi seemingly hadn’t been observing the competition at all.
Long Shulin could not help but inquire about Wang Qi from the friends close to him. However, even Mao Zimiao could only respond with a bitter smile, "I haven’t seen him for three days meow. Maybe he’s gone somewhere to heal."
This explanation obviously couldn’t convince anyone. After all, the inn where the Immortal Institute was located still had Ai Qinglan, the True Inheritor of Jiyin Valley, on-site, and healing under her care was absolutely better than trying to recuperate alone.
Consequently, after the third day of the competition, many from Xinyue began their search for Wang Qi.
Meanwhile, Wang Qi was sitting atop a rock column.
In Jiongli, the landscape intermingled with mountains and rivers, with the riverbed eroded by flowing water over countless years, forming myriad rock columns and strange boulders. Such bizarre landscapes always attracted viewers, but the column Wang Qi chose was rather unremarkable in shape and thus not famous, with few visiting it.
But this rock column had one advantage—it was large. It stood merely thirty feet high, but the top was wide enough that besides an old tree growing there, there was spare room for a person to comfortably lie down.
Wang Qi leaned against the twisted roots of this old tree, resting his head upon them, his eyes slightly closed, motionless.
He didn’t know how long he had been sitting there; his clothes were covered with a layer of dust, and adorned with many dry leaves.
Though his limbs remained still, Wang Qi wasn’t idle. His soul was clear and bright, the Spirit Treasure Fractal Map sat at the center, and his "self" seemed to have detached from within, elevated, unaffected by the body or bloodline, all constraints released.
It was a mysterious state where the "Spirit Treasure," originally a product of "primal" "Dao Morality," had now, under the power of the fractal map, become independent.
Wang Qi’s actions were both a cultivation of law to refine the Divine Soul and a sorting of his own thoughts.
In a sense, Mao Zimiao wasn’t wrong—Wang Qi had indeed sought a place to heal. Healing the heart.
Psychology on the Shenzhou Immortal Path was not underdeveloped. On the contrary, Shenzhou Cultivators understood the relationship between the mind and the Divine Soul even better than Earth People. However, their psychology was not at all user-friendly for non-professionals and difficult to get to grips with.
Because the Yuanli Master held a much higher status in the minds of the Shenzhou People than Isaac Newton did with the Earth People, Shenzhou Cultivators valued mathematical proficiency more than Earth Scientists did. Unlike Freud’s psychoanalytic method, which was not even considered natural science on Earth and not readily based on scientific methods, such theories were even less grounded in Shenzhou. Despite this, psychoanalytic methods are an important part of clinical psychology.
In other words, psychologists, counseling psychologists, and confidantes, etc. were rare professions in Shenzhou.
Wang Qi didn’t know any Yangshen Pavilion Disciples and had no place to undergo psychological intervention, so he had to resort to traditional methods to sort through his thoughts and rebuild his spirit.
Zhen Chan hadn’t been wrong that day.
He had a Heart Demon.
After being exposed, Wang Qi immediately removed the mathematics Spirit Ring he never parted with and tucked it into his Storage Bag, silencing Zhen Chan in this way. Feeling that he wasn’t in the right state to meet anyone, he left the inn and came here to sort out his thoughts.
He had been sorting for three days.
When the sun set on the third day, Wang Qi lightly touched his Storage Bag and retrieved the ring.
"Kid, how many days has it been?"
The moment the ring touched his hand, the familiar, hoary voice echoed in his mind.
Zhen Chan had been trapped in the ring for ten thousand years, insensitive to time.
"Three days."
Zhen Chan let out a barely audible sigh, "Quite a long time indeed."
"Wannabe tortoise has no right to say that."
Zhen Chan did not take offense to Wang Qi’s impoliteness and asked, "What are your thoughts now?"
"What thoughts?"
"The Heart Demon."
Wang Qi grinned, "Believe it or not, I’ll throw you back?"
"Throw me, who’s afraid?" Zhen Chan responded rather defiantly, "Master has been waiting for ten thousand years, can’t I wait another year?"
"Ha-ha, watch out or I might seal you for another ten thousand years."
"You won’t," Zhen Chan stated confidently. "You’re too lonely, kid."
Wang Qi laughed in anger, "Me, lonely? Just look how many friends I have now, I don’t need one more like you."
"Many friends indeed, but not a single confidant."
Wang Qi fell silent for a moment, then asked, "What is a confidant? In your opinion, what are my friends? Besides, you’re an Ancient Method Practitioner and I’m a Modern Cultivator, it’s not your place to consider who my confidant should be, right?"
"Su Junyu, to you, is a ’Daoist Fellow,’ can be considered a ’buddy of shared interests,’ and given his guidance through your heartbreak, could even be seen as a half-brother. Xiang Qi, to you, is a benefactor, with a friendship cemented in life-and-death situations. Wu Shiqin, Mao Zimiao, to you, could be considered close secret friends," Zhen Chan explained at length.
Wang Qi laughed, "By your account, I have a whole host of friends I could trust with my life..."
"They can be trusted with your life but not your innermost feelings," Zhen Chan said. "Kid, you make friends in a really strange way."
The youth was silent again.
After a while, he asked, "How does one share innermost feelings?"
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"The New Year’s Eve should be in a few days," Zhen Chan said. "You, try finding someone to do that thing with you."
The youth categorically refused, "Impossible."
