Techniques and Dao

Chapter 97 Transcendence

The Buddha said that one instant is one thought, twenty thoughts are one moment, twenty moments are one snap of the fingers, twenty snaps of the fingers are one raja, twenty raja are one sustenance, and thirty sustenances are one day.

A moment is a thought, which is 0.013 seconds.

What is this world really like? Due to the limitations of the physical body, the world seen by the human eye is certainly not the origin or reality of the world.

If not, then what is the point of believing in this world?

Which is more important, the world you believe in or the real world?

"Wake up! This so-called reality should not trap you! What matters is your choice—which reality you choose to believe is real!"

Tai Shang Xiao Jun shook Hua Sheng's shoulders with both hands, her fingers pinching until the shoulders became increasingly sore.

Hua Sheng stood there, stunned. He was leaning on his crutch, his foot injury not yet fully healed, and every step he took felt like stepping on a knife's edge, like the mermaid in the fairy tale whose tail had just been cut off.

This excruciating pain doesn't seem fake.

He shoved Tai Shang Xiao Jun away with such force that one of his canes fell to the ground. He endured the excruciating pain and barely managed to support himself on the cane, the only thing he could rely on.

His hospital gown sleeve was pulled up, and he saw the scar on his left arm.

It says: Never believe in gods.

Yes. This real world is what he should be familiar with.

Hua Sheng, leaning on his crutch, hopped back a few steps, straightened up, and stared with bloodshot eyes, asking, "Who exactly are you?"

"I am Taishang Xiaojun!" Taishang Xiaojun said with an anxious expression.

"No! You don't exist at all! There are only two possibilities: either you are just an ordinary person around me, but I've imagined you as a deity; or you are a completely fabricated character, and you don't exist in the world at all! You don't exist! You are an illusion!"

With that, Hua Sheng turned and walked into the hospital.

Tai Shang Xiao Jun stepped forward and grabbed his arm, but Hua Sheng pushed him away. This time, however, Hua Sheng fell to the ground himself.

"Are you alright?" Tai Shang Xiao Jun stepped forward.

"Don't touch me! Stay away from me!"

Hua Sheng stretched out her arm to keep her distance from him, saying, "I never want to be a patient again! Get out! I finally became a normal person! I want to be a good person and live a good life in the future. I'm an orphan, not some rich kid. No one will support me forever. I have to support myself in the future! I don't want to be a useless person for the rest of my life, staying in this mental hospital forever! Please don't show up again. Let me be a normal person again!"

"But this world is fake! Hanamori, it's all fake!"

"Shut up! This is the world I grew up in!"

"This isn't the real human world! This is a world you've imagined!"

"How can a person live in their own imagined world without even realizing it?" Hua Shenggang was taken aback when he asked this question.

"Hua Sheng, you've been cursed. Do you remember what my grandfather said? The Jupiter Veil is not a celestial object, and anyone who destroys it will suffer eternal damnation! This eternal damnation is the spell covering the Jupiter Veil."

"What, what kind of magic?" Hua Sheng's eyes widened.

"Do you remember our spells? The lowest level is Illusionary Magic, then the next level is Profound Clarity, then the Sky Soaring, and finally the Boundless. Remember?"

Although Hanamori was unwilling to admit it, these things were deeply imprinted in his mind.

Tai Shang Xiao Jun said, "Among all spells, the illusion level is just an illusion. It can only deceive people, but it cannot bring anything real. However, there is a spell on the Jupiter Veil. Once the Jupiter Veil is torn, the person who destroys it will be affected by the spell. This spell is an immeasurable illusion."

"Illusionary magic of immeasurable power."

Illusion-level is Illusion-level, and Boundless-level is Boundless-level. How could they be confused? Isn't Boundless-level Illusion-level contradictory to the level classification?

"As you know, Hanamori, illusion magic can deceive people's senses. Everything you see, hear, and touch is an illusion. Many fox spirit legends describe this scenario: a person spends the night in a mansion, only to wake up the next day to find themselves lying in the wilderness. Because the illusion disappears, all these things will vanish; it's all fake."

Hua Sheng did not answer.

“But the illusions of the immeasurable level are different. Like the Penfield experiment, they are not designed to deceive your external sensory organs,” Tai Shang Xiao Jun continued.

"Then what is it deceiving?"

"Your central nervous system is being deceived!"

"What central nervous system?"

"In the boundless illusion, everything you perceive feels real! Including your sense of time. Time has no taste, no color, you can't touch it or see it, but why can people sense it? The sense of time comes from intuition," said Tai Shang Xiao Jun. "Hua Sheng, you are not in normal time. You are trapped in a world you've imagined, and only in a fleeting moment. A fleeting moment is a single thought. You feel like months have passed here, but it's all within a single thought! If you don't break free, your entire life will be but a single thought, and your brain will age and die within that single thought!"

A spell cast directly on the central nervous system of the human brain. It severs all neural connections in the brain, isolating it. The brain becomes unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, and even unable to perceive time.

Hua Sheng had never heard of this before and couldn't believe it.

"You say you are the Supreme Lord Xiaojun?"

"correct."

"Since time has almost stopped, how did you end up here?"

"Remember? If I traveled to the past in the Panxian Cave, my past self would disappear. Immortals are beings that are not bound by the passage of time because they are not made of matter."

"Then show me your magic! Make this hospital disappear, or make this lawn bloom with flowers! Prove you know magic!"

"Hua Sheng, I told you this is a world you've imagined. I can only enter your mind, but everything here is your imagination. You don't believe in the existence of immortals right now, so I can only be an ordinary person here. All my magical spells are useless in this imagined world because you believe it's a so-called real world without immortals."

Hua Sheng's mind was in complete chaos.

Just then, the cat nurse's voice came from behind: "Are you alright? Who are you talking to?"

Hanamori turned his head and saw the cat nurse walking towards him. He immediately pointed at Taishang Xiaojun and said, "Nurse, it's him!"

"Where's anyone?" the nurse asked, looking up at the outside with a puzzled expression. Then her face turned pale. "Hua Sheng! Has she had another attack? There are only the two of us here!"

“He said his name is Taishang Xiaojun,” Hua Sheng said, looking at Taishang Xiaojun.

"You've forgotten what Taishang Xiaojun is, it's all in your imagination. Don't give up! You've recovered very well these past few days. Don't let all your efforts go to waste!" With that, the nurse picked up the crutches that had fallen to the side. "I'll prove it to you right now! Where is Taishang Xiaojun you mentioned?"

Hua Sheng pointed towards Tai Shang Xiao Jun.

The nurse, holding her cane, swung it with all her might at the spot Hana was pointing to.

Hua Sheng saw the cane pass through Tai Shang Xiao Jun's body without touching anything. She swung it back and forth a few more times.

"See? There's nothing here!" the nurse said. "Come on! Let's go!"

The nurse helped Hua Sheng up from the ground, put his cane on him, and helped him walk to the hospital.

Hua Sheng struggled to walk back.

He told himself not to believe, not to believe, not to believe! There are no gods in the world, no Supreme Lords!

"Hua Sheng, remember this! This is your world, and you decide what to believe! Perhaps you hope to become a mediocre office worker in the future. But don't forget, everything you see and experience in your entire life is just a pre-designed world. They call this fate. You are forever trapped in this moment! Will you die in a hospital bed decades later, or will you become a hero riding on auspicious clouds, fighting alongside 30,000 immortals in the stratosphere to win the war to save the world? What you see is not important; what matters is what you choose to believe! Don't forget, your conviction will shape you, allowing you to walk this path until you reach the world you truly desire!"

He heard Taishang Xiaojun shout behind him:

"The Tao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things. Don't believe what you've seen before! Don't be fooled by others! I'm telling you now, Two is Yin and Yang, and Three is opposition. Tell me, what is One? Answer me! What exactly is One!"

That night, Hua Sheng couldn't sleep a wink.

He hadn't had insomnia for a very long time. Since accepting reality, he rarely suffered from it anymore. He had thought he could accept reality and live an ordinary life step by step.

But the appearance of Tai Shang Xiao Jun made him wonder if his illness was still recurring. Or perhaps, he dared not think further.

This wire bed is very hard, so lying on it isn't very comfortable. If you stay awake for a long time without changing positions, your lower body will ache.

He began to ponder the last question that Taishang Xiaojun had asked him.

That was a phrase all too familiar. Not just Saint Pingning, but even many five-year-olds in the human world could recite it—

"Dao begets one, one life two, two begets three, three begets everything."

Intuitively speaking, the implication is that all things in the world are born from the Tao.

In other words, all things in the universe are born from "three". This is not much different from what Hanamori previously understood: three is opposition, and everything in the universe is a unity of opposites, a conflicting combination that shapes all things.

Therefore, the existence of the world is a process of opposition and interaction between opposites. Everything is interdependent from the outside to the inside; without the support of this interdependence, everything will collapse and fall into so-called "nothingness."

This is common sense; nothing visible exists without any support. Where there is existence, there must be something supporting it.

But why did Taishang Xiaojun ask him this question and tell him that three is opposition, and two is yin and yang. Of course, two must refer to yin and yang.

This is also an explanation of the statement. Because of Yin and Yang, the opposition of "three" was created. Taoism cannot be separated from Yin and Yang, or rather, there is nothing in the universe that can truly escape Yin and Yang.

But the question is, if Yin and Yang are the supreme source of revelation, then why did Taishang Xiaojun ask him "What is One?"

Isn't "One" the same as "Tao"?

No, no, "the Tao gives birth to One," so the Tao is definitely not One. "The Tao gives birth to Yin and Yang" is also incorrect. There must be something between the Tao and Yin and Yang, and that thing is "One."

If "one" were obvious, then the Supreme Lord would never have asked him that question.

Hua Sheng suddenly thought of something.

"One, two, and three" are not just numbers, but should also refer to a certain "order".

In other words, there is something that surpasses even the concepts of "yin and yang," "opposition," and the universe itself. This thing is second only to the "Tao" itself.

Hanamori had previously been told that the universe truly contains oneness, and also all things. Oneness is the origin of the universe, hidden within all things.

This statement can be interpreted as the existence of Tao in the universe, the origin of the universe, and its presence hidden within all things.

This should be the "Tao," but it is clearly not the answer, so "One" and "Tao" are actually different things.

Think about it again! Hua Sheng became confused; he couldn't figure out the answer. Or rather, he didn't know if the Supreme Lord Xiaojun truly existed; perhaps it was just a symptom of his illness.

A disease is a disease.

Just like "pain," what is pain? Why does it feel this way? That's not important. What matters is that it's unbearable. If we can make it disappear, that's far more important than repeatedly discussing and researching why pain is what it is.

Just as one should no longer dwell on the pain itself, if the root cause of the pain can be completely and permanently eliminated, then one should naturally not linger in it or repeatedly experience the feeling of pain.

Then, Hua Sheng fell into a deep sleep.

Dr. Yu Ran took Hua Sheng's recurring symptoms very seriously. The three attending physicians then held a consultation regarding his condition. They unanimously agreed that Hua Sheng needed to remain hospitalized for observation. The best approach was to increase his academic workload to prevent him from having any more time for overthinking.

To complement this, they needed to further enhance his presence in the real world. The nurse told Hanamori that his book had attracted the interest of a publisher, and the possibility of publication was increasing. Her boyfriend asked her to suggest that if Hanamori wasn't too concerned about royalties, they could even print two thousand copies and release them to test the waters first.

The nurse said that the publishing industry is also struggling right now, but she could help Huasheng put the content online. She joked with Huasheng that because the content was a bit mixed, she didn't know whether to categorize the book as fantasy, mythology, or science fiction.

However, the more people around him cared about Hanamori, the greater his pressure became. Although St. Pingning Hospital was just a small hospital with dilapidated facilities, he truly saw hope for life there. Facing the many doctors and nurses who had never given up on him during his difficulties, he felt warmth in this place.

Human life is just like that of a mayfly, living only a day and dying in a day.

If, as Taishang Xiaojun said, this is only a fleeting moment, then what is the difference between a fleeting moment that feels like a hundred years and a real fleeting moment?

Even if we leave this place, even if we really go to the Holy Peace Wonderland, in that seemingly vast wonderland, isn't it just a single tear in the East Sea?

What the truth is is not important; what matters is what kind of truth you want.

(End of this chapter)