Chapter 436 Findings
The force of the mysterious golden pattern once prompted heart-broken Lin Luoran to copy the pattern. By doing so, she caused the gathering and purifying of the Reiki near the hospital which saved Baojia on the operating table.
After that, Lin Luoran sank into a coma. In the dream she peeped at the golden pattern being made by the man in a robe in the primitive land. As he drew, the surroundings were changing dramatically. Suddenly the man looked up to Lin Luoran, which hurt her spiritual mind. It took a long time for her to recover.
Since then, she has known that the golden pattern is beyond her reach for a long time to go. She no longer aspires to learn how to draw it. Cultivation of personal ability requires her to learn a great deal, including how to make elixirs, refine weapons and form magic circles. Therefore, she almost forgets the pattern.
She doesn’t expect to see it in the palace within the stone tablet!
Lin Luoran is confused. At first, she was convinced that the person who had come to the stone tablet was not the man in a robe, but now it’s difficult to justify herself.
Who else can make the pattern except him?
Lin Luoran calms down from the initial shock and takes a closer look at the paper in her hand. She finds the pattern lacks the quaintness and magnificence of the original, for the lines are not made in a natural way… It is more of an unfinished product of one’s exercise than a complete figure.
Obviously, it wasn’t drawn by the man in a robe.
Did anyone try to copy the golden pattern after seeing the man make it, just like herself once did though it was beyond her capacity? If this is the case, the existence of those paintings of the man can be explained.
However, who on earth is the master here?
The person has seen the man in a robe and knows about alien civilization. Suddenly, Lin Luoran remembers why she has come here. The fake saintess!
She paces up and down the bluestone stairs in front of the palace in excitement.
It must be the fake saintess.
Yes. Images of the emerald planet somehow crossed her mind when she was coerced by the fake saintess at the Tower of Babel. If these scenes have happened before, it may help explain many things. The fake saintess saw the man in a robe who had gone to the emerald planet. She even watched him make the golden pattern. Is that the case?
Lin Luoran can’t help clenching the painting in her hand. Having found some clues, she can think coherently like never before.
The man in a robe has been to other planets. Or, he may even not be an earthling. Therefore, he may be the reason why the fake saintess came to earth, right?
The man in a robe comes from the primitive era, but the fake saintess is from the ancient times.
… Did she stay on the earth for so long because she didn’t find him at that time?
Lin Luoran thinks of what the crazy Taoist said about the fake saintess’s conspiracy to spoil the world of personal ability on the earth. The fake saintess may be linked to the man in a robe, but the man can also be closely related to Lin Luoran. Therefore, Lin Luoran can’t tell for the moment with whom the man would take sides.
Lin Luoran has regarded the man in a robe as a kind person until now.
It was Lin Luoran’s instinct. She never doubted that.
But what can be inferred now indicates otherwise. Lin Luoran is perplexed. She grabs the painting and rushes out of the palace all the way back to where she came from.
Before she knows it, she has returned to the emerald-like modern city.
Is it the hometown of the fake saintess? As Lin Luoran examines the green city, she thinks of the primitive land parallel to it. The fake saintess has, during her lifetime, stayed on the earth for thousands of years, maybe longer than the time she spent on her home planet.
She has singlehandedly turned the once splendid civilization of cultivation into an increasingly scientific and technological civilization behind the scenes. Considering that, the fake saintess is also a prominent figure. But as a cultivator, Lin Luoran is destined to run counter to the fake saintess.
They will inevitably go separate ways.
Lin Luoran no longer appreciates the green city as she recalls the Alpha Alliance’s intrusion into the earth and their suppression of the cultivators. The earth, her home planet was once bright and amazing like this star, but now it has been ravaged. Certainly, these extraterrestrial creatures are to blame!
The brocade has been breached, which cannot be repaired by anyone who pretends to do so.
Personal ability has no national or planetary boundaries, but cultivators have their motherland. This is probably one of the time-honored universal rules.
At this moment, Lin Luoran feels that her moral mind is strong like never before. All her misgivings have been dispelled.
The moment she comes to herself, she finds something awkward.
How can she go out of the world?
…
Lin Luoran walks from the far west to the far north, and then from east to south. Such a seemingly measurable place turns out to be boundless.
The roads appear to be endless.
If she didn’t have a similar experience on the Spirit Mountain, she would be driven mad now by the dead silence. In the vast world, she is all by herself.
Without the sacred pearl and the three monsters, she doesn’t know how to return to where she came from. After all, she has entered this place only by her spiritual mind. Therefore, she is at a loss now.
On second thought, this may not be the former residence of the fake saintess. Instead, it’s probably her prison.
Lin Luoran doesn’t want to be trapped in this prison forever. Therefore, after searching blindly like a headless chicken, she goes back to the deserted palace. It’s so cold. She doesn’t like it at all. She thinks the former house of the Lin’s is the best for her.
As Lin Luoran watches, the palace shakes for some time and tumbles down. It is reconstructed in the style of the former house of the Lin’s.
Bluestone bricks, red-lacquered gates and green bamboos grown in the backyard—all are the same as what was in the former house of the Lin’s.
Lin Luoran is almost moved to tears. In fact, the former house of the Lin’s was destroyed during the war. Seen in this light, the fake saintess’ staying in the prison was not without blessings.
As the palace turns into an old-fashioned house of Ming and Qing dynasties, the paintings of the man in a robe are gone. What remains is the golden pattern, which is held tightly by Lin Luoran and therefore has not disappeared.
She ponders for a while and then unfolds the painting of the golden pattern on the table.
Following her heart, she conjures up a writing brush and some ink so that she can practice drawing the golden pattern.
As she picks up the writing brush, Lin Luoran realizes she has forgotten the art of calligraphy that she learned as a child. It takes her great efforts to write a few words. However, if she can’t use the brush and ink properly, how can she manage to paint the golden pattern?
Heaving a sigh, Lin Luoran unfolds a piece of paper and starts to practice handwriting. After all, how can one learn to run before he/she is able to walk?
She is unaware of the pa.s.sage of time in the tablet. However, in the real world, three creatures in s.p.a.ce are all concerned about her.
“She has been in that tablet for three days, hasn’t she?”
The swing remains the same, but the apple tree has changed. The fire phoenix is pushing the silver fish on the swing. King Fire Phoenix looks gloomy.
The wood wolf asks guiltily, “What’s the good of the tablet?”
The fire phoenix gives it a glance. “It’s used to suppress souls. I worry that Linny will be imprisoned and can’t escape. We will all be finished then.”
The wood wolf thinks for a while. “Suppressing souls? In fact, I have heard of such a tablet, but wasn’t it taken away by the Joy School? It’s said to have become Queen Wu’s wordless tomb stele. How did it end up here?”
Speaking of Queen Wu’s wordless tomb stele, the fire phoenix, which is out of touch, can’t join in the discussion. While White Fairy, who hasn’t spoken a word by far, is a little surprised. “Have you heard of Wu Mei’er of the Joy School?”
The wood wolf is taken aback by her look and nods involuntarily.
White Fairy steps forward and says, “I died in the third year during the reign of Queen Wu of Zhou, after Wu Mei’er went to the human world to be the queen. Now that you know what happened after her death… Tell me, how come the Gathering Vitality cultivators disappeared thousands of years ago?”
White Fairy had been trapped in the abyss for thousands of years. When she managed to escape, she found things had undergone great changes. Is the one she cares about dead or still living but has left the earth? That’s an unsolved puzzle for White Fairy. No wonder she’s excited when she learns that the wood wolf happens to have lived in that critical period.
Even the fire phoenix stares at the wood wolf in surprise. “Well, you little wolf is so dishonest. Linny has been investigating the legal case dating back to thousands of years ago. Why don’t you tell her what you know about?”
Wood wolf is intimidated by the gaze of the three. It retorts, “None of you has asked me… ”
In fact, this matter is related to the great shame buried in its heart. If it didn’t blurt it out just now, it would have never talked about it. However, it appears to have been defeated by the three’s gaze and hesitates whether to speak the truth.
Before it opens its mouth, the fire phoenix suddenly cries out.
“Someone is moving Linny’s body!”
Everyone’s attention is shifted to Lin Luoran, so the wood wolf is spared. It breathes a sigh of relief before it hears the fire phoenix yelling in a strange voice. “Stop! Stay there and let me see what you monster look like.”
On the one hand, the wood wolf bursts into laughter, and White Fairy also feels that the fire phoenix is out of tune. On the other hand, the fire phoenix breathes fire into a fire mirror which shows the situation outside the sacred pearl.
Someone is shedding tears over the body of Lin Luoran, whose eyes are closed.
The fire phoenix screams. The fire mirror cannot be maintained and shatters.
The reflex arc of the silver fish is extremely long, for it makes no response until the mirror is broken. It exclaims and rubs its eyes in disbelief.
“Brother fire phoenix… Look carefully.”
The silver fish is trembling, which is rarely seen. The White Fairy and wood wolf are both perplexed and a little jealous. The reason is that, compared to the fire phoenix and silver fish, they are newcomers to Lin Luoran’s life!
But who did they see?
…
In the stone tablet, Lin Luoran has acquired good calligraphy by practicing without knowing the time. At this time, she can learn to draw the golden pattern with ease and has made great progress in this job.
Since the one here is the humanized spiritual mind, she never gets tired or stops practicing. One day, she has become skilled at reproducing the golden pattern. The pattern she draws bears a striking resemblance to the original one… Subsequently, a vortex has formed to pull her out of the stone tablet.
Her spiritual mind returns to her body, and her limbs are warming up. What’s firmly held in her right hand should be the stone tablet, she thinks. However, the first thing she notices is a bitter taste in her mouth.
Familiar with the properties of medicine, Lin Luoran knows immediately that it is the juice of sealwort. How did she take a mouthful of sealwort? Who feeds it to her?
Because the spiritual mind has just returned to her body after being away for a long time, Lin Luoran suffers from a headache. She struggles to open her eyes. She finds a pair of clean and translucent eyes gazing at her in tears against the fluorescent background. The eyes light up when she wakes up.
Lin Luoran can’t help but shudder when she sees the green animal with silk-like fur, small furry claws.
There are tens of thousands of foxes in the world. However, there is only one cyan little fox, which is the one she once raised—
Lin Luoran and the fox look at each other. They haven’t seen each other since they parted three hundred years ago. Tears glint in Lin Luoran’s eyes. She murmurs, “cyan little fox… Cyan little fox, I’ve found you at long last.”