Chapter 3: Chapter 3

After the incense had burnt out, Shen Lian opened his eyes. His gaze was clearer and more soulful.

The stillness was followed by silence, and silence was followed by calmness.

Even though Shen Lian could no longer nourish his spirit and strengthen his soul, but practicing the Concentration Technique in the book of ‘The Mastery of Senses’ was fine.

Humans were fraught by distracting thoughts. It was imperative that one restrain their thought process and purify their mind, so as to avoid their psyche from burning out. Otherwise, one would act out of one’s foolishness and would bring doom to oneself.

Having sorted out the distracting thoughts in his mind, Shen Lian started pondering on the matter.

Judging from the real Shen Lian’s memories and the mannerism of the villagers, Shen Lian could deduce that the world he was in was similar to the ancient Chinese dynasties on Earth. The only difference was that the dynasties that he was familiar with – Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, and Tang – were not in the picture.

As to Celestialism, it was simply never part of his knowledge.

Having stood up, Shen Lian went to light an oil lamp. The flickering flame gave the room a mysterious hue.

Reaching out to the wall on his right, he felt the green tile. He took out the tile and revealed a secret compartment. Inside the secret compartment lied ‘The Mastery of Senses’.

This was the secret text of martial exercises left behind by the real Shen Lian, or rather, the real Shen Lian’s father.

On the cover page, there was a painting of a deity statue. Painted perfectly, the deity looked real and almost alive. This was the deity that Shen Lian pictured when he was trying to purify his mind from distracting thoughts. With the deity in his mind, Shen Lian attained concentration.

The other half of the book consisted of mainly words and meridian diagram of the human body. It detailed how the power of the spirit could be induced to travel through the body, just like the legendary inner Qi. Feasting on the vitality of the body, the spirit would be strengthened and eventually, the power of spirit would return to the Ancestral Cavity – the point between and behind one’s eyes.

This set of martial exercises focused on the Upper Cinnabar Fields, termed by the Ancients as the art of spiritual enhancement. Besides astral projections, there were many other uses for the power of spirit. However, physical bodies remained to be our anchor to the physical world.

‘The Mastery of Senses’ focused only on the art of spiritual enhancement but was lacking in provisions relating to the art of strength training. This was doomed to cause severe imbalances in one’s body.

If he were to continue strengthening his spirit, every last ounce of his vital Qi would likely to be sucked dry.

Having gone through the information boom of the modern society, coupled with his judgment as an adult and his expertise in modern medicine, Shen Lian managed to deduce at least that much.

On the other hand, the real Shen Lian was an orphaned teenager with limited knowledge, who mistakenly thought that he could emerge invincible from the mountains after decades of martial art training.

That might just be possible – as the plot of a novel. The reality, however, was often cruel.

As the saying goes, ‘The master leads you to the door, and the rest is up to you’. Without a master, one might just end up at the wrong door.

Fortunately, the martial exercise book was focused on the art of spiritual enhancement. If it were to be a book on the art of strength training, the real Shen Lian might have suffered internal injuries and be in a state of debility. If this was the case, even the Shen Lian now – the new Shen Lian, would not be able to do much.

Besides nursing his body back to good health, Shen Lian had been doing some serious thinking about the cultivation path instead of rushing into it just as the real Shen Lian did.

After much deliberation, he decided that first, he would have to gain some insight into the cultivation path of this world. The best way would be to learn from master teachers. He knew full well that he had to be cautious; if one were to be an apprentice to a master teacher with an evil intent, the outcome would be disastrous.

The new Shen Lian had always been conservative when it comes to risk-taking – precisely why he was content with staying put at his small clinic. Even though he had not been accumulating Qi energy to strengthen his spirit, he was able to control the massive power of the spirit within him through the Concentration Technique.

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One perk that came with having a strong spirit would be his perfect memory. With his newfound eidetic memory, he could commit hundreds and thousands of words to memory and recall them with ease.

He could even recall daily occurrences in his mind down to the most minute detail.

Even though he was still frail, but the impressive level of control he had over his body was in a league of its own.

He remembered from a book he once read, the protagonist raised a point – ‘The human body is the best machine that there is’.

With his incredibly strong spirit, Shen Lian’s body could execute his every command in perfection.

In spite of his frailty, he could utilize every ounce of energy that he could muster without wastage.

If he were to concentrate, he could feel the blood flowing through his body; with the intensity of a river, his blood whooshed through his blood vessels.

He could then protect himself from harm. On top of that, with his knowledge on human anatomy, he might be able to react instantly with precision and to take out enemies in just one hit; just like one of the martial art experts in Gulong’s novels.

Though, he would not be able to pit himself against a hundred men due to his physical limitations.

In comparison with the martial art experts, there was still much room for improvement for his destructive force. If his enemies were to be an expert in the Protectionary Art of Golden Shield and Iron Cloth, it would be really embarrassing if Shen Lian could not find their Achilles’ heel.

His predicament was similar to that of a child who ran into a sumo expert; he would have no choice but to escape.

Although Shen Lian refused to go back right away with Steward Wu, he did intend to keep his promise and to go back in a couple of days. He had to make prior preparations in order to protect himself.

Picking up the martial exercises book, Shen Lian set it on fire with the flame of the oil lamp. The brightness of the flame lit up the whole room, and eventually, what remained of the book fell onto the floor and crumbled into a pile of ashes.

Shen Lian squatted down to examine the ashes closely. Indeed, nothing was left of the book.

Considering how powerful the martial exercises were, it was no wonder that the author, Shen Lian’s biological father had recorded it with quality paper.

Perhaps in relation to the actual Celestialism, the book ;The Mastery of Senses’ would merely be considered as an entry-level work.

To check if there was any hidden content in the book, Shen Lian exhausted all known means, including those that he came across from novels. This led him to conclude that besides the part on the nourishment of spirit, there was nothing else in the book.

In spite of this, Shen Lian did not feel dejected at all. If anything, he considered himself lucky. Out of everyone who transcended space and time and ending up as an animal or a woman, he remained a man – a lucky occurrence that he was grateful for.

As for why did he burn the secret text of martial exercises away, it was simply because he was confident of his memory. Beside his biological connection with the Shen family, there was truly nothing that was holding him back in this world.

Unlike the antagonists in most novels, he did not have the habit of carrying around the secret text just to be discovered by others.

Anyhow, it would not be beneficial for others to know of one’s method of cultivation – exactly why he decided to burn the book down to ashes.

He would not think of keeping the book as some form of memento. What if he was not scripted to be a protagonist but was meant to be an antagonist, he would not want the protagonist to have a spirit as strong as his.

Being beaten by the protagonist? Not his fetish.

Even though the book was left behind by the father of this body – the body that he was trapped in, he was not about to keep the book for the sake of finding his father in the future.