- On the Dao of Food, son, ones' mind must be clear and free of worries. You must taste the food in an orderly and conscious manner and understand what it does to your souls, as well as what your souls do to it. You are young and haven't begun to learn the Dao of the Mind yet. So, father will answer your question, but you must do your best to keep your heart still and think on your fathers' words before answering, okay?
Ye Han prepared to answer to his son, as two people entered the room.
The first was a messenger by the name Ye Huan. The second was Ye Hung, the East Gate General under the Ye Family. Ye Hung bowed his head while Ye Huan bowed from the waist.
- Ye Hung reports to the master. Ye Huan and Ye Hui have been dispatched to observe the situation at the Sects' East Gate. Ye Hung urges the master to listen to it.
- An urgent meeting is indeed something unsettling. Not many people will be able to eat after you have barged in like this, General Ye.
- Ye Hung asks masters' forgiveness for intruding, but Ye Hung asks master to listen to his report!
Ye Han raised from his seat, while dismissing dinner.
- Those who are able to eat the right way are free to remain in the room. Others must be taken to the gardens and entertained until their minds have been cleared or a full hour has passed. Then they may eat.
In the end, only Ye Shin was truly able to eat while listening to the Generals' urgent report, so all servants and Ye Huang went obediently to the garden.
Once Ye Han gave orders, it was just natural to follow them.
***
Inside the dinning hall, Ye Hung hurriedly gave his report.
- The Ma family is being unreasonable. This kind of conflict could harm the entire sect.
This was what Ye Hung feared to hear the most.
- Sir, the horde is right at our door. If we deal with the Ma family now of all times… I fear we will have many causalities.
- We will not. - Ye Shin answered.
- Indeed. Me and my wife will deal with this personally.
Ye Hung shivered in fear.
- Master, your dignified presence may be too much. If the horde doesn't come back next year, our new recruits won't have a battleground to train…
The Blue Mountain Sect would never be bothered with a simple barbarian horde. However, the East Gates' horde was a good training grounds for the new recruits of the many families present in the sect.
Except for the Ye and a couple other families, the coming of the horde was usually a very welcomed sight.
Criminals with a death penalty on their heads would be placed outside of the walls dressed like farmers and small nobility, and the sect disciples would be placed as the criminals "soldiers" to "fight the enemy". If the horde was particularly big, other disciples would quickly arrive in order to help the "soldiers" reverse the tide of battle.
Those criminals who survived would receive the benefit of being released from the punishment and only exiled.
The horde masters would be happy with the pitiful loot and run away, even with a certain number of causalities amongst them.
Ye Hung liked this tactic quite a bit, and a big number of his best subordinates had been through this "baptism of fire".
Of course, the chance of dying in the battlefield was always present, but, nonetheless, many disciples decided to head that way and temper themselves with blood.
- Don't worry, that won't happen - Ye Han reassured the general.
- Besides, it will be a good chance for little Huang to learn about the question he asked you. - Ye Shin complemented.
Ye Hungs' forehead was already drenched in sweat.
If the master was going to take his own and only son there, wouldn't that mean that the Ma family would be used as a practical example on how to deal with internal affairs and conflict?
On his mind, the only thing present was an urge to call his wife's parents and friends and tell them to leave the Ma family as soon as possible.
***
Ye Huang stared at the plate on his knees. It was colorful and smelled good. The food in it had been prepared specially for him, and he could feel that his body and mind would both enjoy tasting it.
However, he had to follow his father's orders, and that meant forgetting about worldly worries and concentrating on eating. How could a young child understand such complicated concepts?
Because they weren't complicated at all!
His parents had easily imparted him with the meaning behind these words by attentively looking at his body language, words and posture, and then correcting his mind and perceptions accordingly. They didn't even need to look deeply into his qi flow or souls in order to know which state of spirit he was experiencing - and, indeed, wouldn't do it so soon, as doing so would create a small mark of instinctive fear and a sensation of being violated on him.
Only by doing so could two parents show a young child what a good, cultivation-wise, state of spirit was - that is, after knowing which states of spirit it meant being, or, more accurately, which states of spirit it meant not being "free of worldly affairs", the young Ye Huang could instinctively feel when he was free of those anxieties and when he was not.
Indeed, most of the time he would keep himself free from them, since that didn't mean becoming a hermit or abstaining from life but, rather, keeping awareness of everything around oneself, limiting one's imagination to designated imagining and contemplating times of the day, maintaining an instinctive curiosity which allowed for fast and instinctive learning, and, above all, seeing beyond appearances and turning every single action and moment on cultivation practice - that is, just as a butcher learns the dao of butchering by immersing himself on his practice every single day, a cultivator should learn all of the dao around him by immersing himself on his every action, perception and reaction.
Still, he couldn't do it this time - because something unusual happened, and he couldn't easily come in terms with it.
Indeed, that weird anxiety on his heart tightened its grip, and he couldn't calmly control his spirit. He would be able to forcefully quench it by drowning the fire in his heart's blood with his kidneys original water, by means of using his willpower, and that would allow for his spirit to re-enter his heart and calmly take root on the blood inside - but that would be a waste of kidney essence and also a temporary relief which may even impart his cultivation later on.
Acceptance was a must for all kinds of cultivation. Without accepting what was happening around him, how could Ye Huang cultivate at all? He wouldn't be able to clearly see what was happening with that kind of fire in his heart's blood, and if he forcefully drowned it with water from his kidneys, then he would create a mental blockade around that subject in his mind - as he would have to reduce his spleen's activity in order to avoid diminishing it's constriction power over his Kidney's original water.
It was a terrible path to take, and one which would create inner demons if repeated enough times. So, Ye Huang, which had the fortune of having been gestated and taught by two great masters, wouldn't resort to this sort of means.
However, that anxiety was still a problem. It constricted his breath and filled his mind of thoughts. Excess fire restricted the metal element on his body and produced a surplus of harmful earth - humidity!
However, how to attain peace of mind?
Ye Huang looked at the plate at his knees again. What a predicament!