Youbao Chapter 36 Immortal
Mr. Jiao stood upside down, shaking his head, and refused to vomit. The old Taoist priest did not stop me, but watched me tossing and turning.
After shaking it for a while, I was afraid that it would fall apart, so I put it back into my palm. The dragon was spitting out its tongue, and its belly was obviously bulging, as if something was moving inside.
I was so frightened when I saw this. It doesn't matter if you eat anything you want, but you will explode later. The old Taoist priest said, if you die, my life span will also be shortened.
The heaving of its stomach obviously made Jiao Ye uncomfortable, and it kept twisting its tiny body as if it was trying to digest the food. After a while, it suddenly calmed down and did not move.
I poked him twice with my fingers : Master Jiao? Master Jiao?
Taoist priest, is it dead? I almost cried.
The old Taoist shook his head: It’s not dead, just put it aside, it shouldn’t be a bad thing.
This is not a bad thing. They are hibernating in the middle of summer. Will they open and close their eyes and never open them again?
Its predecessor was a species of heaven and earth, with extraordinary abilities. It was born with great power after being destroyed. The bone fragments contain the power of heaven and earth. If it can be digested, it will be a good thing for it. Perhaps, it can be dissolved with itself, making it more powerful than before after it grows up.
What if I have indigestion?
Forget it. After all, this guy was a giant python about to transform into a dragon before he was reborn. He shouldn’t die so easily.
I put the obviously heavier Jiao Ye on the table aside and asked the Taoist: Why is this bone fragment so heavy? Is it really a human bone fragment?
Maybe not. The old Taoist said: Or maybe it is.
Damn it! I cursed in my heart.
The bone fragments of ordinary people are naturally not that heavy, but after practicing, the potential of the human body is discovered, and there will naturally be many changes. For example, after the death of a high monk, there will be a golden body and relics, which are all a kind of abnormal change. And in Taoism, there are three kinds of abnormal phenomena: ascension, corpse transformation or becoming an immortal on the spot.
It is easier to understand the concept of "ascension". According to legend, when Zhang Sanfeng was put into a coffin and then the coffin was opened, he disappeared, which was considered as ascension to heaven. This is an incomprehensible phenomenon that can only occur when there is true ascension, not the current explanation, which is a euphemism for the death of a Taoist priest.
The corpse-transmigrating immortals leave behind a body shell, while their spirit, energy, and energy ascend to heaven. For example, Ge Hongxian, who wrote the book Baopuzi on alchemy in ancient times, became soft and light as a piece of paper after his death, and people in the world all said that he became an immortal after his corpse-transmigrating.
As for becoming an immortal instantly, it is by taking elixirs or magical drugs. The most famous example is Chang'e taking the elixir and leaving Houyi to go to the moon.
No matter what kind of strange phenomenon it was, it had nothing to do with the bone fragment being extremely heavy. The old Taoist explained that if one used the power of Taoism to bless one's body, it would be possible to weigh thousands or tens of thousands of pounds, not to mention a few pounds. But it was unheard of that one could retain the power of Taoism after death, so that the bone fragments could undergo abnormal changes.
To put it bluntly, the old Taoist priest was just talking nonsense and didn't make any sense. Because he simply couldn't understand how the power of heaven and earth could still exist without anyone operating it.
Could it be that... this isn't a human at all? I carefully put forward my point of view.
Not a human? The old Taoist priest was also stunned for a moment, and then asked me: If not a human, then what is it?
Uh... I was stumped by his question. Yes, if not a human, then what else could it be?
For example, aliens, visitors from Mars, or maybe from another planet. I said with a wry smile.
The old Taoist priest ignored me. The power of Taoism is unique to this world, so how could it come from outer space? I also knew that what I said was nonsense, so I didn't dare to say more.
Looking at the pile of broken bones, I suddenly remembered the murals I saw in the mountain stream.
Although my impression is a little fuzzy after a few days, I can still vaguely remember the general idea.
The first painting has three people, one on top and two on the bottom. The person on top leans his head and seems to be looking at the two people below. The mural is very vivid, and the author's general idea is described with simple lines. When I saw the mural, there were many wavy stripes on the chest of the person on top from left to right.
I didn't understand what it was at first, but when I saw the table in front of my stomach, I suddenly felt that those stripes looked like ropes or something that separated people.
I told the old Taoist priest my idea, and he agreed with it, but he also proposed another opinion on the wavy stripes.
He said that the murals made by the ancients usually had simple lines and only needed to show the real objects. Unlike modern paintings, which pay great attention to details, if you draw a tiger, you can even tell how many hairs the tiger has with a magnifying glass.
So, he felt that the stripes were not ropes, but more like clouds.
Clouds? Someone standing behind them?
No, if those were really clouds, the people on them should be in the sky. Looking down from the sky at the people below... the first person painted on the mural is a god! ?
This conclusion surprised the old Taoist priest and me.
We both recalled the second and third murals together. The old Taoist took a pen and paper and carefully restored the original picture as much as possible.
In the second mural, there are still three people. One person is on top, and two people are on top, almost the same as before. However, the person on top is lying flat on top of the two people, while the person below is looking up.
This painting has many meanings. If the person in it is the same as the one in the first one, then this immortal... is sleeping?
But the two people below who he had spied on looked up at the same time, as if they had discovered him. If a deity could be discovered so easily, then he wouldn't be called a deity.
The old Taoist priest and I looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure out what it meant.
Since I couldn't understand it, I simply took the third painting and looked at it.
In the third picture, many people appeared. They formed a circle, and there was also a person in the circle, lying flat on the ground. There were white overlapping lines around the person, slightly obscuring his body. At this time, I noticed that there were still clouds above the picture. And behind the clouds, there were dark and blurred traces.
The old Taoist priest's restoration skills are very good. When I saw this picture, I remembered that the mural I saw at the beginning was indeed like this. The black thing was blurry and looked like a black fog.
The third painting had many characters, and the old Taoist priest and I studied it for a long time before we could understand it.
These two murals are to be viewed together.
In the third mural, there is a person lying on the ground, surrounded by people standing around, who are obviously onlookers. Needless to say, something exciting must have happened.
In the second painting, the god is also lying down. If the two paintings are a comic strip, it means that the god has fallen from heaven to the human world. Moreover, it made a huge noise, which even mortals on earth could hear. That is why the two people on earth looked up.
The deity in the third mural is lying flat on the ground, with overlapping lines around him, similar to the clouds we saw before. This means that this may not be a cloud, but more like an autonomous concealment spell.
Because there was another cloud above, in almost the same position as before. But this time, black fog appeared behind the cloud.
Unfortunately, the fourth and fifth murals have been eroded beyond recognition, and the old Taoist priest can only draw a few meaningless lines. Perhaps there are more than five murals in this section. If you can see all of them, you will understand what the ancients meant.
It's a pity, but after cracking the secrets of the three paintings, the old Taoist priest and I had the same guess.
Mysterious murals appeared in the passage of the mountain stream, and the pool in the valley was not only guarded by a red-spotted python, but also allowed one to enter a space where hanging coffins were buried.
Perhaps... the people buried in the hanging coffins are the gods in the murals?
This was an unbelievable conclusion. After reaching it, the old Taoist priest and I were both stunned.
What are immortals? There is a dialogue in the ancient book Zhonglu Chuandaoji.
Lu asked, "What is the so-called immortal?"
Zhong said: "The immortals are earthly immortals who are tired of living in the mortal world. They work hard, their joints are connected, lead is extracted and mercury is added, and gold is refined to the top. The jade liquid turns into elixir, and the five energies converge to the origin, and the three yangs gather at the top. When the work is complete, they forget their form and become immortals. When the yin is gone and the yang is pure, there is a body outside the body. They shed their material body and become immortals, transcending the ordinary and becoming saints. They say goodbye to the world and return to the Three Mountains, and they are called immortals."
It is also because of this that many experts today who study ancient alchemy have mentioned that the ancients refined sulfur, mercury, and lead, and that people died of poisoning if they ate too much of them.
I think that modern people know that the thing is poisonous, but the ancients might not have been unaware of it. Judging from the words "drawing lead", the ancients had a fixed procedure for ascending to heaven.
The first is to extract the lead in the body. Lead has a high density, and the ancients probably believed that too much of it would increase the body's impurities and affect the process of becoming an immortal. As mentioned earlier, the three Taoist anomalies ultimately result in the body being as light as a feather.
As for why mercury is added and finally the body is refined with gold, this is an ancient method and people today no longer know it.
There are too many records about gods and immortals, so I won’t mention them here. But from my personal point of view, I am willing to believe that there were gods and immortals in the world. But if there were a pile of bones of gods and immortals in front of me... it would be very disturbing.
The old Taoist priest was obviously troubled as well, frowning and thinking silently. If this was really the bone of a god, what would the zombie vein do with it? Did they want to turn the god into a zombie?
This is very likely, after all, they came first and took away almost everything. But the immortals left broken bones, which means the skeleton is not very complete. Even if they are transformed into zombies, they will have great trouble walking.
Putting aside the question of how the zombies can make flesh and blood grow on bones, the fact that this entire skeleton probably weighs tens of thousands of pounds shows that their methods are already astonishing.
What amazes me even more is how the ancients hung such a heavy skeleton on the mountain wall. And what kind of ropes could withstand tens of thousands of pounds of weight without decaying for at least hundreds of years?
This is another mystery, and perhaps only by returning to that strange place can we know the answer. But even if we know it, it will not help us in our current situation.
