Chapter 265 Night Talk on the Winter Cart 1
When I woke up, it was around 2 a.m., and it was probably still dark outside. I woke up in bed, and I vaguely remember practicing the technique of using the fake moon reflected in water before entering the dream. It was probably Ma Zao who, seeing that I was still asleep, moved me to the bed.
Ma Zao was lying on another bed in the room, her sleeping position all crooked. I checked the historical information of the thermal energy records stored in her body. It seemed that she originally planned to keep watch, but in the middle of the night she kept yawning and finally couldn't resist the sleepiness and accidentally fell asleep.
She's this tired after just staying up late for a little while; it's probably due to the trauma she's suffered. She always acts perfectly normal in front of me, but the deep wounds left by the great demon in her soul have definitely affected every aspect of her daily life. She's always just putting on a brave face.
I went over and positioned her arms and legs comfortably, then gently placed her head on the pillow. She seemed about to wake up, but then continued sleeping. I wanted her to rest a little longer in her dreams, so I moved her gently as much as possible, and finally covered her with the blanket.
After doing all that, I went back to the desk in the room, sat down, and took out my phone to look up the place name "Moon Hidden Mountain".
The Lord of the Divine Seal wasn't lying to me; this was indeed a location I could easily find. According to the search results, Moonshadow Mountain is a peak about three or four hundred kilometers away from the Fufeng base, and there's an ancient town at its foot.
Although it's called an ancient town, it's not particularly old; it's a town established about eighty years ago called "Moonlit Hidden Mountain Town." Tourism is its mainstay economy, but its popularity is lukewarm. Part of the Moonlit Hidden Mountain area is part of the tourist zone, while most of it is closed to the public. Based on my previous experience investigating ghost stories across the country, this phenomenon is actually quite normal.
Deep mountains and forests have always been accident-prone areas, with enthusiasts disappearing every year with half-hearted intentions. Some are eventually found dead, but many more are never recovered, becoming mere fodder for gossip.
Even in modern society, the deep mountains retain a mysterious aura in people's hearts, perhaps a collective unconscious inherited from the depths of their genes. Therefore, victims who disappear in the mountains are occasionally used by indifferent busybodies as material for fabricated ghost stories.
I'll go say goodbye to Fufeng as soon as it's light, and then it'll be about time to say goodbye to Dongche as well. Although I'm not entirely sure what caused Asaha's calamity-attracting constitution to coincidentally bring Dongche to the Fufeng base, considering that I'm going to Mount Yueyin to find Yinyue, who is holding Chang'an's soul hostage, perhaps Dongche's appearance was just to bring the senior researcher to Asaha and me, providing us with clues related to Yinyue.
Naturally, I wouldn't completely dismiss my doubts just because I had such a thought. The thermal energy signature left in Dongche's body was still there, and after sensing it slightly, I noticed that Dongche's movements were a bit strange.
He wasn't resting in his room right now, but was moving around in the hallway. Upon closer inspection, he didn't seem to be heading in any particular direction; it was more like he was taking a stroll.
Was he taking a walk to clear his head? Two in the morning, walking in the corridor to clear his head? I was a little suspicious at first, but then I understood. He was just a fourteen-year-old boy, practically under house arrest in the base, not allowed to go out, and suspected of having his life threatened by Fu Feng, a Great Completion Realm expert who had lived for hundreds of years. His state of mind must be extremely heavy and complicated. If he could clear his head outside the base, that would be one thing, but now he could only do so in the corridor.
He noticed my spying again. He suddenly looked up, his gloomy and serious expression turning into a bright and sunny smile. He greeted me, "Senior Zhuang Cheng, you're not sleeping either?"
His location wasn't far from our room. Knowing that we would be saying goodbye soon, I decided not to pretend I hadn't heard his greeting this time. Instead, I put a large bunch of fireflies in the room, then went out the door and headed to the winter car.
The corridor was deserted, but all the lights were still on, unnecessarily keeping the environment clean. There were benches for people to rest on, as well as vending machines and other public facilities. I bought two cans of Coke from the vending machine and tossed one to him. He caught it, flattered, and thanked me profusely. We sat down on a bench to chat, and I casually asked him why he was still up so late.
His expression darkened again, and he changed the subject, replying, "My spiritual practice has been somewhat hindered."
I didn't expose him, but his excuse piqued my curiosity about something else, so I asked, "Aren't you at the highest level now? I've heard that this level signifies the pinnacle of a demon hunter. At this stage, is there still room for improvement through training?"
I know that the next level above "Complete" is "Great Completion," so from that perspective, Dongche definitely still has room for improvement. But if that's the case, why is "Complete" considered the limit for a Witcher?
Ultimately, what determines the level of accomplishment and the rank of mastery?
When I asked Ma Zao if she was at the Great Completion level in her prime, she replied that she "didn't know," and then added that in her prime she should have been able to fight enemies of the level of Divine Spear and Chenlong. She clearly possesses the power of a Great Completion level, yet claims she doesn't know if she is. This seems to imply that there are factors beyond "power" that determine the difference between the Completion level and the Great Completion level.
The same applies to the levels of accomplishment and the great accomplishment stage. So, in the criteria for judging the great accomplishment stage and the great impermanence, are there unknown elements that I have never thought of before?
"...I'm sorry, I didn't express myself accurately just now."
Dongche seemed surprised by my probing questions. He pondered for a moment before explaining, "At my current level, normal training methods are no longer sufficient for my continued progress. Therefore, my current training is merely to maintain my existing power level and prevent it from regressing. After all, training, like learning, is like rowing against the current; if you don't advance, you fall behind. And this kind of 'going around in circles' doesn't involve being hindered or not."
"What's holding me back now is the path to the Great Completion stage, which is like a carp leaping over the Dragon Gate."
"Leaping over the Dragon Gate... what exactly does that mean? As you probably know, I'm a self-taught demon hunter, and there are many things I don't know. Although you call me senior, on this path, you are my senior. I want to ask you for guidance, and have you clear up my doubts," I said.
Upon hearing this, he seemed very pleased, revealing an extremely happy mood, and then said, "Senior Zhuang Cheng, are you familiar with the concept of 'obstacles of perception'?"
In my understanding, the so-called "barrier of knowledge" is the phenomenon where people, because they know something, are unable to think about things from the premise of not knowing. For example, people who grow up in modern society and receive scientific education cannot imagine how people in the ancient times of ignorance faced the infinitely unknown and mysterious natural world.
In my own experience, before encountering the supernatural world, I had endless imaginations about it; now, I've encountered Rozan and the Humanity Division, and through a series of adventures, I've come to know concepts like demon hunters and the Great Impermanence. So now, when I think of the supernatural world, my mind is filled with combinations of these concepts.
The infinite possibilities of the strange world in my consciousness have been reduced to a single one, and I can no longer find that infinitely mysterious "other world" in my mind.
This is the price I had to pay for coming into contact with a truly bizarre world; more broadly, it could be described as the price of growth.
Everyone has boundless curiosity about the world they live in during early childhood, but gradually, most people stop paying attention to the unknown. This is because most things in life have become established experiences in people's minds, making it impossible for them to rediscover their innocent and carefree spirit.
Upon hearing my answer, Dongche nodded in agreement.
“Many spiritual doctrines, including Taoist cultivation theories, believe that from the moment a person is born, from the very first breath of air they take, their spirituality is gradually polluted. While the body evolves from infancy to adulthood, the spirituality is constantly degenerating,” he said. “This is because we humans have an innate ability to learn; from birth, we instinctively receive and understand information from our surroundings.”
"Gradually, we will form experience, knowledge, and also 'obstacles to perception.' Precisely because thinking becomes orderly and systematic, inertia and patterns will also emerge unconsciously."
"The more we know about the outside world, the narrower our inner world becomes."
I couldn't immediately agree with his statement, and even felt it had a somewhat anti-intellectual flavor. Thousands of years ago, people believed that the sky was round and the earth was square. Some even thought that the world was carried on the back of a tortoise or surrounded by an enormous python.
Today, people are aware of the vastness of the universe, realizing that even the seemingly boundless Milky Way is but a drop in the ocean. This is a worldview expanded upon by countless advancements in knowledge and technology; how can it be described as narrow-minded?
However, I didn't immediately refute him. People from different cultures can't understand each other, and this was also true between me, who grew up in a secular society, and him, who grew up in the world of Witchers—it's a kind of cognitive barrier. Perhaps my thoughts weren't enough to refute him in his mind, or perhaps I was misinterpreting the true information he was trying to convey from my own perspective. Since I was the one asking for advice, I had a responsibility to let him finish what he had to say.
(End of this chapter)
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