ILSITM Chapter 44

“This is the Xuandu Jade Capital Seven Treasure Mountain, with a circumference of 90,000 miles, above the Great Firmament. On the mountain, there’s a Seven Treasure Palace, inside which is a Seven Treasure Platform. Within the city are the Upper, Middle, and Lower Palaces. The Upper Palace is where the Pangu Real Person, the Primordial Heavenly King, and the Great Yuan Holy Mother reside. The Middle Palace is where the Supreme Real Person, the Golden Tower Old Lord, stays. The Lower Palace is governed by the Nine Heavens Real Emperor and the Three Heavens Real King. This mountain grows trees of seven treasures, one tree covering the entire sky, and eight trees covering the eight directions of the Great Firmament. We’ve entered the Immortal Realm, and Tianma is definitely taking us to the mountain to pay respects to the Primordial Heavenly Lord, the ancestor who presides over the Heavenly Realm,” Old Lin said with a chuckle.

Old Lin was well-versed in ancient novels such as the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*, *Records of the Gods*, *The Investiture of the Gods*, and *Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Through the Ages*, and he also loved reading Taoist classics such as the *Tao Te Ching*, *Zhuangzi*, *Yellow Emperor’s Yin Talisman Classic*, and *Classic of Purity and Tranquility*.

He said that the content of Taoist scriptures was all-encompassing, not only recording Taoist doctrines, precepts, cultivation techniques, and sacrificial rituals, but also preserving valuable information on ancient philosophy, literature, medicine, health preservation, chemistry, music, geography, and other disciplines.

“However, later generations of Taoism emphasize techniques over learning, and learning and techniques are severely imbalanced. Many abbots of temples not only can’t understand the Taoist scriptures, but even mistakenly recite Buddhist scriptures as Taoist scriptures. The abbots and believers of the temples generally have low quality,” Old Lin said, his face full of worry.

The three of us sat on Tianma’s back, listening to Old Lin talk about Taoist techniques and Taoist learning.

“Shifu, which is more important, Taoist techniques or Taoist learning?” I asked, looking at Old Lin.

“Techniques must have learning to guide them, so that they don’t become vulgar and inferior. The deeper the techniques, the higher the cultivation should be, so that they won’t be used for evil,” Old Lin explained.

“What are techniques? And what is learning?” Wen Rourou asked when she didn’t understand.

“Techniques refer to rituals, Feng Shui, divination, and fortune-telling. Learning refers to the interpretation of the principles of the scriptures. Relatively speaking, later generations pay more attention to the five techniques of mountain, medicine, destiny, divination, and appearance. The ‘mountain’ in the five techniques, also known as the Immortal Path, includes meditation, Qi refining, health preservation, medicinal elixirs, and spiritual cultivation; ‘medicine’ refers to acupuncture, prescriptions, massage, diet therapy, and spiritual healing; ‘destiny’ refers to Purple Star Numerology, Eight Characters, Four Pillars, etc.; ‘appearance’ refers to palmistry, face reading, bone reading, name reading, tomb reading, house reading, Feng Shui surveying, etc.; ‘divination’ refers to I Ching divination, Six Ren, Taiyi Divine Technique, and other divination techniques,” Old Lin was indeed quite knowledgeable in Taoism, and he spoke eloquently about these things.

As we listened to Old Lin talking about techniques and learning, Tianma had already ascended to the top of the mountain.

We saw an immortal mansion on the top of the mountain, named: Xuandu Jade Capital.

“Which immortal lives here?” Wen Rourou asked in surprise.

“Xuandu Jade Capital is the immortal mansion where the Primordial Heavenly Lord resides,” Old Lin replied.

Tianma stopped at the entrance of the immortal mansion.

The four of us dismounted.

Walking into the immortal mansion, we saw that the ground was paved with gold, and the steps were made of jade.

In the distance, we saw an immortal sitting in the center of the main hall on a futon, with a halo on his head and wearing seventy-two colors, his left hand empty and his right hand empty.

On both sides of the hall, there were many immortals also sitting on futons.

“The one sitting in the center of the hall is the Primordial Heavenly Lord, the ancestor who presides over the Heavenly Realm. All the immortals have to pay respects to him on time every day,” Old Lin said to us in a low voice.

“Who comes?” The Primordial Heavenly Lord, sitting in the middle of the main hall, spoke in a voice as loud as a bell.

The three of us followed Old Lin towards the main hall.

“We were guided here by Tianma. Now that we see this mansion named Xuandu Jade Capital, we know it is the residence of the Primordial Heavenly Lord, so we have come here to pay our respects,” Old Lin replied politely and respectfully.

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. Can you understand the profound meaning of this?” The Primordial Heavenly Lord asked, quoting a passage from the *Tao Te Ching*.

“Man follows the earth, the earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows nature,” Old Lin cleverly used a passage from the *Tao Te Ching* to answer.

“The good do not argue, and those who argue are not good,” the Primordial Heavenly Lord asked again, quoting a passage from the *Tao Te Ching*.

“The way of heaven benefits and does not harm; the way of the sage acts and does not compete,” Old Lin was indeed well-versed in the *Tao Te Ching*, and he cleverly used a passage from the *Tao Te Ching* to answer.

“Hahaha,” laughter echoed throughout the hall.

“You, a mortal, actually have such a Taoist cultivation. It is a pity that you do not go to the mortal world to save all living beings. This deity bestows upon you the title of ‘Real Person’ and will send you on your way,” the Primordial Heavenly Lord said with a smile, and suddenly stretched out a hand.

That hand was extremely large, like a mountain, pressing down on our heads.

I was familiar with this feeling, like when I was swimming in the river and my head was suddenly pressed down to the bottom of the water.

Just as I was about to suffocate, the big hand suddenly released.

I slowly floated to the surface from the bottom of the water and found myself in darkness.

After I climbed ashore, I heard the sound of someone paddling in the water.

Soon, Wen Rourou, Old Lin, and Old Zhang also swam ashore one after another.

The four of us stood on the shore, each groping in our backpacks for our headlamps and putting them on.

The moment the headlamps lit up, we found ourselves standing next to an underground cave.

“Didn’t we swim ashore from the water before? Why is there not a drop of water in this underground cave in front of us?” Wen Rourou asked, shining the headlamp around the cave and looking at the three of us in surprise.

“Isn’t this the underground cave under the Jiudong City Pedestrian Street? How did we get back here?” Old Zhang also said in surprise.

“This underground cave is one that we haven’t traveled through before. It should be the sixth underground cave under the Pedestrian Street. We have already traveled through the seventh, eighth, and ninth underground caves,” I said with certainty.

Old Lin’s expression was a bit strange, as if he was muttering to himself, or as if he wasn’t saying anything at all.

We walked from the passage connecting the nine underground caves all the way to the manhole, and then climbed up the soft ladder from the manhole to the Pedestrian Street. It was already past two in the morning.

Since I started traveling through the underground caves, I had started a live broadcast almost every time I traveled to a place, but it was a bit of a pity that I couldn’t start a live broadcast normally after entering the Immortal Realm this time.

We were all a bit tired, and after returning to our respective homes, we fell asleep.

There is one thing that needs to be specially explained here: after we traveled back to Jiudong City from the Immortal Realm, the immortal power also disappeared with it.

After eating breakfast in the morning, Wen Rourou, Old Zhang, and I went to see Zhu Youxiao.

When we walked into Zhu Youxiao’s “Royal Carpenter” shop, he was live-streaming himself doing carpentry for a customer.

His girlfriend was sitting next to the computer, helping him process online orders.

After this trip back, Old Lin seemed like a different person.

He stayed at home all day, never going out, writing books day and night.

After returning from the Immortal Realm, the three of us went to his house once.

He didn’t seem to have time to entertain us, and he was sitting at the computer typing non-stop.

The three of us sat for a while and had to leave awkwardly.

I called Pan Jinlian and told her that we had traveled back and that we should get together when we had time.

Pan Jinlian said that she and “Wu Dalang” had recently taken on a new play, and the filming location was in another province. When they finished filming this play, they would return to Jiudong City and meet up with us.

Old Zhang had become obsessed with fishing during this time, leaving early and returning late.

Wen Rourou returned to San Tong City. Her mother called and said that her father had been hospitalized due to a traffic accident.

I edited the videos of traveling to the Black Hole Star, the Tang Dynasty, and the Kingdom of Silla, and produced the third season of the television documentary *Under Jiudong*.

Old Lin finished writing *Xuandu Hermit Talks About Tao* in less than three days, a book of 220,000 words.

In this book, Old Lin called himself “Xuandu Hermit”.

As soon as he finished writing the book, he immediately started a live broadcast, talking about Taoism online.

What was shocking was that after he started the live broadcast, he gained nearly ten million fans in just a few days. It seems that there are quite a few people who like Taoism now.

Today, I called to ask about Wen Rourou’s father’s condition. She said that her father was in a deep coma due to intracranial hemorrhage, and the doctor said that it might take one to two months for her father to wake up.

I decided to fly to San Tong City the next day.

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