This is what an immortal should be like

Chapter 31: The Foundation Dojo and the Unfindable Utopia

Going to find the Peach Blossom Spring?
When this matter was reported to the officials of the county government, most of them thought it was a bit absurd, but of course some of them became quite interested.

But whether you like it or not, the county magistrate's order has been given.

Lu Jing selected a dozen servants in total. They requisitioned five boats from Wuling Wharf and set off from Wuling Port together with the boatmen.

The waterway to Taohuayuan is downstream in the main waterway area of Wuling River, so the speed is relatively fast when setting off.

Zhao Chenyu and Lu Jing were both on the largest main ship, while the small boat was operating nearby. The former repeated what Tao Yuanming had said before to others, mainly to the boatman.

The boatman relied on his familiarity with the waterway and judged how to sail based on what Zhao Chenyu said.

After sailing for about half a day, the five boats left the main waterway and entered the winding and complex mountain waters.

At this time, the small boats had sped up. Relying on their speed advantage, the four small boats split into several directions to explore the way, while the large ship stayed in one place for the time being.

At this time, the boat was in the deep mountain waters. Zhao Chenyu and the people on the boat listened to the calls of monkeys and birds in the surrounding mountains and forests. They felt a sense of emptiness and tranquility, and were also looking forward to the Peach Blossom Spring.

Although I had many complaints about the orders from above before coming here, my anticipation grew stronger as I got closer. Who doesn't yearn for the beauty of the Peach Blossom Spring?
At about the same time, in the school of Yinxian Valley, students were picking up their pens and writing, repeating the few words they had just learned.

Zhuang Lin sat behind the teacher's desk, concentrating quietly and sensing the subtle changes in the valley.

Ever since he confirmed that the Hidden Immortal Valley as a whole was in the Jin Dynasty, Zhuang Lin has been trying to feel the formations in the entire valley.

Compared to the first time when he used it roughly and without knowing what to do, Zhuang Lin now hopes to understand and make perfect use of this unique formation in the Hidden Immortal Valley.

After all, in addition to the Tuyue Valley itself, several nearby mountains are also included in the range of the formation. All of this is simply the legendary blessed land.

If this can truly be used as the foundation for practicing Taoism, it would be perfect!
In fact, the formation structure in the valley is quite easy for Zhuang Lin to explore now. He has accumulated enough experience during this period. He can feel the progress every day, and the feeling every day is clearer than the day before.

Of course, this was not only due to Zhuang Lin's improved understanding of the battle formation, but also because his cultivation had begun to improve over this period of time.

It is also necessary to use the spare time besides teaching to walk around the valley in person, feel the details, and feel the resonance between your own spirituality and the natural spirituality.

At this moment, Zhuang Lin's mind was moving along the places in the valley where natural spirituality was more obvious, and the flow rate of spiritual energy accelerated wherever he passed.

The feeling he had when he first witnessed the Dao of Heaven and Earth reappeared. Zhuang Lin seemed to see many magnificent colors in his consciousness, and there was even mist and haze surrounding the valley.

This step has been carried out every day recently.

However, today was a little different. As Zhuang Lin's perception deepened, many nodes in the valley began to show some light, and the spirituality belonging to the world of this valley clearly began to become active.

Zhuang Lin's mind was slightly moved, and he restrained himself from immediately following this spiritual commonality.

This was the first time in a while that he clearly felt the movement of the formation starting from the most subtle part, and spreading in the transformation of yin and yang.

But what Zhuang Lin wanted was control rather than rough activation.

Sure enough, with Zhuang Lin's intervention, the movement in the valley, like his mind, gradually calmed down from the fluctuations. There was no "earth-shaking" like last time, and the stars in the sky naturally did not appear, but the rhythm did not disappear.

Zhuang Lin raised the corners of his mouth slightly. After so long of searching, he finally found the feeling!
At this moment, in Zhuang Lin's perception, he seemed to be carefully touching the rhythmic lines, and as if he was using his invisible hands to tune some special musical instrument between heaven and earth and adapt to it.

Wow, the formation is indeed imperfect, but it is not flawed!

The old Taoist priest had already completely set up the formation back then, and it was precisely because of this that his life quickly declined. Perhaps he had thought of using the special terrain of the valley to activate the formation at that time?
The more such moments happened, the more amazed Zhuang Lin felt.

Because the old Taoist priest completely relied on the power of mountains and rivers to set up the formation in a physical way, and he was able to get everything right, or at least the deviation was not big. How much effort did it take?
The real formation was put into action after Zhuang Lin’s attempt.

But before that, just based on the constructed valley structure, the power of this formation will definitely be able to attract spiritual energy.

However, considering the time and the profoundness of this formation, it took the Hidden Immortal Valley several years to accumulate such a small amount of heaven and earth spiritual charm? At least it is completely incomparable to the Hidden Immortal Valley in its current period.

Zhuang Lin's thoughts were flowing but his mind was constantly extending.

Gradually, Zhuang Lin and the rhythm of Yinxian Valley became closer and more consistent.

At this moment, Zhuang Lin seemed to rapidly expand his perception through this feeling, extending it to the edge of the fog, as if he could "see clearly" everything in the huge area inside and outside the valley from the perspective of feeling!
At the same time, some formation information that Zhuang Lin had not yet figured out naturally emerged in his mind at this moment.

Zhuang Lin's mind was stirred slightly, causing the spiritual energy in his entire perception area to change, even causing the mountain wind within the area to tremble.
No wonder Zhuang Lin couldn't keep his composure just now. The range was even larger than he had imagined!

Just when Zhuang Lin was delighted that he had truly mastered the formation, he suddenly made a new discovery.

"Ok?"

Zhuang Lin vaguely saw the ships from Wuling County and the officials on them. In just a moment, he guessed the purpose of these people's visit.

After all, it is all written in Peach Blossom Spring.
However, it is not as written in "Peach Blossom Spring" that the fisherman from Wuling led people to search, after all, Tao Yuanming was not there.

Zhuang Lin slowly opened his eyes. At this moment, some of the lazy students immediately straightened their movements, holding their pens and writing carefully, fearing that the teacher would come to check their handwriting.

However, even though he was well aware of the students' little movements and even thoughts, it was obvious that Zhuang Lin had no intention of going down to check the homework at this time.

Zhuang Lin found the piece of array paper he had drawn casually before and spread it on the table.

Then Zhuang Lin smiled slightly, dipped his index finger in the inkstone beside him to get a little ink, and gently drew a circle on the edge of the paper according to his feeling.

At this moment, the heart and the formation are connected, even if it is an impromptu graffiti, it can be transformed into a bond at will!
There was clearly only a tiny bit of ink on the paper, but the ink seemed to flow continuously along Zhuang Lin's fingers, forming a complete circular closed loop.

And this full ink ring is like too much ink, constantly extending on the rice paper.

With just a simple stroke, Zhuang Lin not only activated the formation, but also integrated his own spirituality from a spiritual level to fill in some minor discordant omissions in the original formation.

I am also a part of the formation!
During this process, the paper seemed to melt into the ink and disappeared directly on the table.
On the other side of the mountain waterway, a small boat came back and waved to the big ship, indicating that it had found the marked waterway.

The large boat immediately carried Lu Jing and the others, and they followed the small boat forward. "Sir, there are signs on the trees by the water ahead, and the direction of the current has changed. There's also some mist ahead, but just follow me!"

The boatman on the small boat shouted, asking the big boat to follow him closely.

Lu Jing didn't wait for the other boats to come back and gave the order to go forward.

As the two boats traveled together, they found that after entering a certain area of water, the direction of the water flow reversed, causing the speed of the boats to slow down a lot.

But this just ignited everyone's enthusiasm, and even the boatman worked harder than before.

Soon, people on the big ship also discovered the marks on the nearby shore.

"Look over there, the bark is cut—"

Lu Jing and others looked in the direction of the speaker's finger, and sure enough, they saw a tree on the nearby shore with a line drawn on it, which also cheered everyone up.

The most excited person was Zhao Chenyu.

"Hurry, follow the mark!"

"I understand, Mr. Zhao—"

The boatman shouted and began to row hard.

But before I knew it, the fog around me started to grow thicker and thicker.

As a result, later on, the two or three marks that could be seen in the mist before were gradually reduced to only one. If there was a fork in the water at this time, it would be easy to take the wrong path.

The waterways in the mountains also become more and more complicated here.

After going back and forth several times and taking the wrong path, both the big ship and the small boat were lost in the fog.

At first, you could still hear each other shouting, but as the distance got a little further, the echo in the mountains made it impossible to tell the source of the sound.

Perhaps another party took the wrong path, causing the echo to be unclear.
The police on the big ship were still shouting.

"Boatman—Brother He—where are you—"

The same shouts echoed from the nearby mountains, as if it was the mountain's response.
-
At the same time, in the Hidden Immortal Valley Academy, Zhuang Lin sensed everything through the formation. Although his naked eyes could not see it, he knew what was happening from another novel perspective.

Zhuang Lin shook his head slightly, and then his mind moved. At this moment, the spiritual energy in the valley flowed along with the spiritual power of the formation, and the heaven and earth seemed to begin to tremble.

At this moment, the moon-shaped valley reflected the sky, and the stars of the day emerged one after another, shifting the stars and changing the constellations, changing the world.
The shaking of the world upside down only existed in Zhuang Lin's perception. No one in the Hidden Immortal Valley noticed it, including Liu Hongyu who was writing seriously at the moment.
-
On the boats searching for the Peach Blossom Spring in the deep mountains and waters, the people who repeatedly got lost in the fog seemed to have gradually given up struggling and had to stay where they were for the time being.

"The fog seems to have thinned?"

Someone said this unintentionally, and it quickly attracted the attention of others.

"It seems so." "An illusion, right?"

"hold on?"

It seems that because the sun has risen to the center, the fog is thinning faster under the scorching sunlight.

"Look, the mark!"

Someone on the boat saw the mark on the distant shore again, and everyone became excited again.

The boat continued to move forward, and the rowing seemed to become easier with the excitement. This time, the fog was less obstructive, and everything went smoothly, although we still made a few wrong turns to mark the distance.
Another hour and a half later, the ship stopped at the end of a bay.

This was the third time they had stopped like this.

Although we were sailing according to the signs, we kept hitting dead ends. Since there was no peach blossom forest, the road must be wrong, so the boatman turned and took the previous fork.

But no matter how many times I changed directions, I couldn't find the peach blossom forest, let alone any gorge on the shore that was passable. Continuing forward would either lead to a dead end or back to some other body of water.
Even the direction of the water flow changed unconsciously, but the people who had gone around the road many times could no longer tell the order, and it was even more difficult to determine whether it was an illusion.

When the fog became thinner, several other small boats had already gathered together, but they also found nothing.

The sun began to set and people's excitement cooled down.

Zhao Chenyu, who had been standing for a long time, sat down at the bow of the boat in a somewhat dejected manner.

"How could it be? How could I not find it? Did Yuan Liang lie to me? How could he lie to me?"

Zhao Chenyu murmured, looking into the water, and saw peach blossoms remaining in the current.

"Peach blossoms, there are peach blossoms!"

Zhao Chenyu became slightly excited again, but then became depressed again. The fog had disappeared, but he no longer had the feeling that he might have found the Utopia.

“The peach blossoms are still flowing in the water, but why can’t I find the Peach Blossom Spring?”

There was heavy fog before, and the people on the boat were only busy looking for signs and finding the way, so no one paid much attention to the water. Only after hearing what Zhao Chenyu said did they look carefully at the nearby water flow.

"There really are peach blossoms." "But just these few petals isn't enough evidence."

"Maybe it fell from a wild peach tree on the nearby hill?"

Lu Jing on the side also looked into the water. Sure enough, there were still some peach petals floating in the water. He looked up at his surroundings. The mountains and rivers were fascinating. Although there were red flowers on the cliffs, most of them were mountain rhododendrons. There were no peach trees with branches full of flowers, let alone peach forests.

In the mountains, only the calls of the surrounding animals are echoing.
"We've searched everywhere, let's go back."

(End of this chapter)