On a high slope in the deep forest, in the gentle autumn rain, a man was sitting on the ground, all wet, with his hands behind his back and a faint smile.

In the basin below, there is a lively little fox demon flapping about with blue fireflies, wearing red clothes and carrying a small green bamboo bookcase.

"Zhao Rong, are you crazy?" Sword Spirit asked patiently.

"People who hide from the rain laugh at people who don't hold umbrellas in the rain as lunatics. Then in the eyes of the latter, people who hide from the rain are also lunatics. Why should they hide?" he asked with a smile in the rain.

"Oh, it's so philosophical." Sword Spirit sincerely praised him, "Then when will our Great Sage Zhao attain enlightenment and ascend?"

Zhao Rong wiped his wet face again, with the smile still on his lips.

"Is there something wrong with my heart recently?" he asked suddenly.

"What's wrong?" Sword Spirit pretended to be stupid.

"It's just...a kind of strange feeling." Zhao Rong lowered his eyes and looked at the little fox demon below, while trying to formulate words to describe a certain change, "In the past, I obviously wouldn't make me feel guilty or remorseful, but these days

On the contrary, I miss him so much that I feel uneasy."

Silent for a while, he wiped his face again and said with a smile:

"Qingjun Qian'er and I were not like this before. I could eat the soft food in your mouth with peace of mind, but it's a bit strange these days. I actually came up with the idea of ​​​​escape from them out of guilt, and the idea was very reasonable.

Transparent and strong, I want to go south to cultivate myself with you."

Gui curled his lips, "Oh, it can't be that Mr. Zhao has experienced a desperate situation and his ideological consciousness has improved? His moral bottom line has moved up a little more? And isn't this a good thing?"

"It's not a good thing. I, the Peach Blossom Sword Master, can't do anything anymore. Even the soft rice doesn't taste good anymore, and I have no appetite to eat it. Gui, can you tell me the reason?"

Gui nodded, "Oh, I understand. By saying so much, you suspect that I have manipulated your heart? Is it all to seduce you to go south?"

Zhao Rong reached out and put away the small sachet, fearing that the poem inside would get wet. After thinking about it, he felt that the word "seduce" was not the right word.

He shook his head and said:

"No, it's not like you forcefully instilled these thoughts into me. At most, you're just fanning the flames. The thoughts I've had in the past few days are all thoughts that naturally arise in my heart. There are no traces of artificial carving. Everything comes naturally.

"

Gui raised his eyebrows.

Zhao Rong was quiet for a while, then reached out to catch the rain, "Well, in your words, I have indeed become more 'saint', and... the progress bar has suddenly moved forward a lot."

He made a strange metaphor, out of curiosity, "Progress bar?"

Zhao Rong tried to explain: "Since seeing the clear nature of the mind, my self-cultivation has been step-by-step. Knowledge and action are slowly and orderly integrated. Every time 'knowledge' improves a little, then 'action' slowly follows.

Make some small changes, and in the process of practicing the added 'knowledge', unite knowledge and action, and cultivate yourself in this way... Even if the 'knowledge' is a little contradictory to my current life, I can still calm down through 'action'

Make changes and slowly cultivate yourself.”

He looked at his palms, tilted his head in the rain, and tried to describe:

"But in the past few days...have I practiced one of the aspects of 'cultivation' too deeply? 'Knowledge' suddenly improved a lot. I looked around again and found that 'knowledge' and present

Some lives suddenly have great conflicts, which are difficult to resolve, and even have strong thoughts... "I am very ashamed of Qingjun Qian'er and feel that the life I am living now is not what I want", and I feel deeply guilty and even want to escape.

This home.”

Gui thought for a while and said curiously: "I understand better. What Mr. Zhao means is that your moral level has improved too much all of a sudden, which has caused conflicts with your current life, so you have been thinking wildly these past two days.

Running around? Want to take action and make a change?”

Zhao Rong nodded and shook his head, "That's why I had the idea of ​​going south to practice self-cultivation. I felt that my self-cultivation was not enough... Hehe, 'knowledge' suddenly improved very strangely, almost overflowing, but 'practice' did not.

To keep up, I haven’t modified the life around me into what I want.”

He laughed to himself.

It is precisely because of this that there is a serious gap between 'knowledge' and 'action'. He has been running around like a headless fly in the past few days, trying to find the 'action' that can make up for the gap between 'knowledge' and 'knowledge'!

At first, Zhao Rong wanted to use the 'practice' he had experienced in the south to make up for the gap with 'knowledge', but Zhu Yourong suggested another method for him...

Zhao Rong paused and murmured two words.

Gui's face was expressionless: "Oh, you explained so much to me, just to make excuses for you not to leave now?"

Zhao Rong smiled.

Guihehe sneered.

Zhao Rong suddenly asked: "Is it related to the nine-headed evil dragon that died deep in the lake of my heart?"

The sword spirit was startled.

"Really?" Zhao Rong narrowed his eyes.

"So you're still thinking about this? You thought you survived the catastrophe and your thoughts were all on those 'soft rice'."

"Eighty-one evil dragons from the Heart Lake, nine of them died, where did they go?" He shook his head.

"Where else can we go? You saw it that day and was eaten by the evil dragon that was a fusion of the evil dragon and the great dragon carp."

"What about the magic dragon?" Zhao Rong asked.

"Beheaded by my sword, he transformed into an evil dragon and a prototype of a dragon and carp, and returned to the bottom of the lake."

"What about the nine-headed evil dragon that it ate?" He said reluctantly.

The sword spirit thought for a while and said seriously: "It was digested in the belly of the demon dragon."

"What did it become after digestion? Or what did it become when it was dissolved?"

"Power, pure power, this power comes from the origin of the great road, allowing you to become a top-notch warrior with nine breaths, and kill Qin Jianfu in the underground palace of the emperor's mausoleum." Gui frowned and replied.

"I know, you said that the more powerful the power in the world, the more extreme negative emotions it brings. The evil dragon helped me swallow all kinds of evil thoughts and negative emotions in my heart, and fed back to me the Dao Dragon Carp Essence.

Pure power, the evil dragon and the dragon carp both check and balance each other, becoming stronger and stronger together, but..."

"But now the nine evil dragons are dead," he said.

The sword spirit suddenly fell silent.

"The original power provided by the nine evil dragons after their death allowed me to advance to the ninth level of martial arts." In the heavy rain, the man sitting on the ground was extremely calm, "But what about the evil thoughts and negative emotions they represent? Go

Where did it go? Why did the demon dragon disappear without a trace in the heart lake after its death?"

The sword spirit seemed to be thinking too, and said nothing for a while.

Zhao Rong wiped his face again, stood up, and looked up at the rain that was getting lighter.

In fact, he had wanted to ask this question for a long time. Zhao Rong had always had his own understanding of the mysterious inner lake that Sword Spirit had built for him.

The original ninety-nine and eighty-one evil dragons in the abyss of his heart should represent the collection of all the evil thoughts and negative emotions in his heart that are opposed to his conscience and kindness.

After Ming Xin Xing opened up this heart lake, there were eighty-one of them in total, and they continued to grow, but there were corresponding dragons and carps of the Great Dao that suppressed them.

But now, after the dragon ate the nine-headed evil dragon and died, nine of the evil thoughts and negative emotions disappeared out of thin air, leaving only seventy-two, which is equivalent to one-ninth gone.

According to the simple principle of correspondence and complementarity, if the "ultimate evil" in the heart is reduced by one-ninth, it is equivalent to an increase of one-ninth of the "ultimate good".

This is also the reason why Zhao Rong and Gui just analyzed that his "knowledge" progress bar has increased a lot, and it is also the source of the abnormal fluctuations in his mind in the past few days that he just concluded after thinking calmly in the heavy rain.

At this moment, Zhao Rong asked and returned.

Because these two techniques, the technique of cultivating Jiaoxin Lake and manifesting the demonic dragon, were provided to him by the sword spirit, it should know them best.

At this time, Gui Ma Ma Hu Hu also gave an explanation.

It muttered: "I don't know very well either. The two sets of extraterrestrial skills given to you come from the extraterrestrial warriors and demon dragons. I just modified and improved them to suit our Xuanhuang human race's practice. Logically speaking, they

The road is open to all."

The sword spirit nodded, "I think... maybe their avenues complement each other! After you practice two sets of exercises at the same time, at a certain link, they cancel each other out and cancel out the nine-headed evil dragon itself.

Evil thoughts and negative emotions.”

"Seriously?" Zhao Rong frowned, "Will it leave any unknown hidden dangers?"

Logically speaking, normal people should be happy if the evil thoughts and negative emotions in their hearts can be reduced. After all, being able to become more kind and upright is what people hope for.

Although in the past few days, because of the sudden disappearance of his evil thoughts and negative emotions, his character has improved a lot, resulting in all kinds of conflicts and troubles.

But for Confucian scholars, it is a dream.

And as long as Zhao Rong can properly handle this contradiction between knowledge and action, and resolve or alleviate the sequelae of the sudden increase in conscience, then his self-cultivation will be greatly improved, even more perfect than some gentlemen who have been cultivating themselves in Confucian academies for many years.

All touch upon the realm of self-cultivation of a Confucian gentleman.

So not long ago in the tomb passage, Zhu Yourong admired and sincerely praised his self-cultivation, which was enough in a sense.

As far as Zhao Rong knows, in Confucian temples and academies, in addition to paying attention to the realm of knowledge and practice, they also pay great attention to the realm of self-cultivation. Scholars, first-class scholars, gentlemen, etc. all have corresponding requirements for self-cultivation, so many

There are gentlemen with no spiritual energy in the academy...

But at this moment, even in the face of such foreseeable benefits, Zhao Rong still felt worried.

Because this is inconsistent with his worldview of yin and yang, good and evil.

At this time, Gui nodded and replied: "Right now, your inner lake is still stable. The evil dragon and the dragon carp are in their proper place. The water in the inner lake is still as clear as a mirror. I will keep an eye on you all day long.

, but I don’t see any hidden dangers. Besides, you are the only one in this world who takes this path. While you bear the benefits, you also have to bear the unknown risks, and you must be the first to eat crabs."

It was not as inspiring as Zhao Rong, and he shook his head, feeling that the sword spirit still had not answered his most fundamental doubts.
To be continued...