Chapter 118 – The Starlight Between My Fingers (2) (1/2)

Chapter 118 – Starlight Between the Fingers (II)

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

If one's fingers were to slightly exert their strength and close together, they could hold things. However, some things were very difficult to grab hold of, like sand, the sea breeze, sunlight, starlight, or time.

Chen Changsheng spread apart his fingers, and the starlight leaked out.

In those countless nights from spring until the late autumn, did that starlight falling upon his body trickle out just like this?

The beginning of cultivation was the lighting of one's Fated Star and then drawing in starlight for Purification. For thousands of years, countless cultivators had repeated this same course. The radiance of the stars that fell from their Fated Stars silently changed their bodies, from their hair, fingers, and skin, all the way to their bones, muscles, and organs. There had never been a case in which the starlight leaked out from the body of a cultivator.

The body of a cultivator was not made of colored glass, nor was it made of water.

Chen Changsheng was well-versed in the Daoist Canon, but even he had not read of any similar case. However, when he was reading the appendix of the 'Four Classics on Meditation', he had seen a certain passage regarding a medical case. A hundred-some years ago, a southerner had mysteriously combusted. Later on, when the authorities and a neighboring sect went to investigate the cause of this person's death, they were unable to turn up any hints. The only thing they found out was that this person had undergone Purification for thirteen years but had never succeeded.

As someone who had been learning the medical arts from Daoist Ji since he was a child, Chen Changsheng noticed several details of this case. The author mentioned that this southerner who had combusted was afflicted with a leakage disease.

A leakage disease referred to an inborn deficiency of Qi and blood, making the body weak. What did it have to do with combusting to death?

From this passage, the bizarre medical case, and his own strange situation, Chen Changsheng obtained a most audacious and absurd hypothesis.

The leakage disease that afflicted this southerner who had combusted was actually just a result of his rather unique body. When he drew in starlight for Purification, the starlight did not cause any changes in his hair or skin but went directly through it, entering the deepest part of his body.

That person had undergone Purification for thirteen years, so it could be imagined how much starlight had ultimately accumulated in that person's body. Later on, for some reason—a reason that Chen Changsheng could already vaguely guess at—the radiance of the stars that had accumulated for so many years had suddenly exploded, catching the person completely unawares.

This sort of hypothesis seemed rather difficult to accept—why was starlight able to pass through one's skin? Though when this was carefully considered, one realized that when a cultivator meditated, not even the roof or his clothes could cut off the connection between the cultivator and his Fated Star, nor could they cut off the starlight. Thus, why couldn't starlight pass through the skin and directly enter one's body?

And if this was a complete impossibility, why had that virtuous predecessor of the Orthodoxy so solemnly recorded this medical case in the appendix of the 'Four Classics on Meditation' several hundred years ago?

The main reason Chen Changsheng had developed such an audacious hypothesis was still that he had encountered too many incomprehensible problems in his cultivation. That he was able to light his Fated Star was proof that his spiritual sense was strong enough. Logically speaking, the steps that followed should be like water flowing through a canal, a right and expected matter. Who would ever expect to be stopped at Purification for half a year?

Even if it was because his meridians were different from others and he could not practice Purification in the same manner as normal people, where had all the starlight gone? Had it all truly just scattered without a trace?

No, he did not believe that. After all these nights, he had long had his doubts about the matter, but he still felt that such a thing was baseless. If the Heavenly Dao was said to reward the diligent, was there anyone in the world as diligent as him? Of course, if the Heavenly Dao truly was unfair, then there was nothing he could say. However, at this very moment, he firmly believed that in drawing starlight for Purification, he had at least accomplished drawing in starlight.

Yet even an expert like Jin Yulu could not sense a single ripple of true essence within his body. If the starlight he had drawn in over those many nights was all in his body, where was it? How could he find it and then begin to use it?

Just like when searching for one's Fated Star, when one wanted to learn the situation in one's own body, oneself was the best observer.

Chen Changsheng knew what he had to do.

He had to perform Meditative Introspection.

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