"It is time. Let's begin!"
Boom!
The crowd was overwhelmed by a majestic aura, which shook them greatly, and they almost fell to their knees prostrating despite themselves. The pressure eased in a flash; immediately after that, an unusual fragrance drifted out of the fog—delicate, gentle, and soothing.
The scent seemed to have a magical property, for it was concentrated at first, then fanned out and soon spread out from the mountain gate until it reached the entire crowd.
"Ha…"
You Yu felt a cooling sweet smell reaching into his nostrils, which slowly moved up and ran through his brain. He was immediately fully awake, with a clearer head. Looking around, he saw that everybody had a yearning in their now much brighter eyes—they had obviously all realized how remarkable the scent was.
Naturally, they knew that this was a blessing bestowed upon them by the immortals. Right after that, the half-real voice that seemed to be part of Nature itself rang out once more. "We all talk about the 5000-year history of our country, but exactly where did those 5000 years come from? The Shang Dynasty was 3000 years ago, Xia was over 4000 years ago, and only by dating back to the time of Three Emperors and Five Sovereigns do we have a history of 5000 years. "
'Hm?'
This first paragraph took everyone by surprise. That was not what they expected!
Wasn't the lecture of immortals supposed to be all about profundities where they used the confusing jargon of the classical style of writing, such as "There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth. How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger! It may be regarded as the Mother of all things. I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Dao…" blah blah blah?
Then, wasn't the audience supposed to be reacting in a thousand different ways—the geniuses smiled knowingly, the mediocre ones furrowed their eyebrows thinking hard, and the hopelessly dumb ones blanked out?
What he just said was remarkable, for everyone thought, 'Oh my god, I can understand that!'
"5000 years was such long a time ago that it was impossible to know how real it was, but our society and various concepts were carried down from one generation to the next since time began. They were created and they developed, prospered, declined, and got lost before something new was created again… it has always been the case throughout our history, from Qin, Han, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, to Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, and so on and so forth. Our modern state was founded 90 years ago, and our culture is not only inherited from the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China era, but was also influenced by the West as well, from which we came up with a social structure of our own. It is something the 2 billion people living on this land accepted and followed.
"However, you have to move on from that now, leaving the world as you knew behind—one that is now becoming a fetter and restraint to you. You need to quickly grasp and understand this new vastness, which is so full of novelty and unfathomable profound knowledge.
"Because what we're facing now is no longer an era that was handed down through a smooth transition, but one that sees huge gaps in cultivation, that has gone through the decline of Taoist skills, and one that is experiencing everything coming up without a warning…
"As someone bearing witness to this era, everything we do, see, and accept are both retrospective and prospective. We will have to look back to a thousand, or five thousand years ago when cultivation was in its heyday and when skills of Dan, talisman, and wizardry were all prospering. From there, we will look further back to the ancient time, when the world of men dominated and when the perfected, the supreme, the deity, and the saint lived until the eternity of time...
"Without such understanding, one will never achieve the Great Dao or immortality!"
"..."
The gambit was beyond the expectation of everyone.
That included the government officials and members of the monastery sitting in the manor, as well as the representative of various temples and their disciples listening obediently to the instructions everywhere.
The cameras the government prepared turned out to be redundant, and were used as recorders only. The foreign interpreters also made their own recordings while translating for the cultivators of their own countries.
Lu Yunqing sat in his chair, looking a little dazed. He then shook his head, and sighed with a smile. "Those words put me to shame. Layman Gu indeed deserves to make the opening speech."
"Yes!" all other priests of the monastery replied in unison with a solemn look on their faces.
They had expected Gu Yu to start the lecture by talking about Taoist theories and skills, which couldn't have been more wrong. The first thing Gu Yu chose to talk, or to inform the audience, about was the mentality of this age.
Every age had its specific ideology. Those that managed to catch up with it would become the first ones to succeed, while those that fell behind or even refused to make progress would end up being swept away by the tide, struggling for their lives in the vicissitude of time.
The lecture was about education.
In order to educate people, one had to be practical, give no empty or wild talks, and make perception the top priority.
***
"Dao is the origin of the universe and the fundamental law of how Nature works.
"If we must generalize it with a single concept, then Dao represents the natural change and potential state of everything. Nature creates Qi, Qi transforms into everything, and once objects are formed, the constituents forming them can form countless other objects. Such is how the world operates.
"Because of the differentiation of Qi, we have the energy of Yin and Yang, the energy of five elements, the energy of Heaven and Earth, the vital essence of living people, and the lifeless energy of ghosts and monsters…
"Nowadays, we have a general term of all those categories above: the spiritual essence."
After the opening lines, the man up on the mountain moved onto the specific concepts, and the first one he covered was the spiritual essence.
Maybe the audience was shocked by the way the lecture was carried out, or maybe that remarkable fragrance was doing its job properly, but not a sound was coming out of the crowd of tens of thousands of people. Everyone was listening calmly, focusing their minds on the voice at their ears.
"Why was the spiritual essence created? We might never know the answer. However, starting from mid to late Ming Dynasty, the spiritual essence was running out, until it disappeared completely. It only reappeared over a decade ago.
"That was a recovery period of 500 years!
"Therefore, we reasoned that like many things, the spiritual essence has its own great cycle—the same way as the rising and falling of tides and the waxing and waning of the moon. With every extinction, there follows a rebirth."
This was the very first time that someone explicitly raised the subject of the "Recovery Cycle of the Spiritual Essence".
It might not be correct, but up till now, it was the most recognized explanation by both the cultivation community and the state.
"Essentially, cultivation is to connect one's body to the spiritual essence by various means so that one could break out of the restraint of life and learn the truth about universe. It could work from inside out, outside in, or both at the same time.
"Knowing the essentials, cultivators naturally came up with a multitude of methods.
"The perfected men from the time immemorial could lead the universe, manipulate Yin and Yang, and live infinitely until even heaven and earth ran out of their time. Immortals of ancient times could achieve a state that was beyond the definition of life and death, with which they rose about the natural course of life and lived on with the help of consuming essences.
"After that were the Sword Immortals, whose resplendent weapons were pure and formidably tough, and allowed them to affect nature and wield their swords as if they were carrying out the supreme order.
"The masters of Dan method emerged later, and could transcend their physical body by refining their Yang spirit, which not only allowed them to travel the world freely, but also granted them long life and good health…"
Gu Yu did not compare the strength of essence-consuming method, sword skills, and Dan method, for that would be too petty.
He went on from the general to the specific, introducing to the audience in categories the Taoist view of the world, the concept of the spiritual essence, the nature of cultivation, as well as various schools and sect, which was interspersed with anecdotes of the ancient masters.
He was able to explain the profound in simple terms, incorporating a diversity of subjects.
"..."
The square remained silent. No one realized how long they had been standing there, nor were they aware of their exhaustion and hunger. Of the entire Bai Town and Phoenix Mountain, that voice seemed to be the only thing they were aware of, telling them about events of all ages.
They simply listened without a word.
The voiced talked about "One would appease his hunger by consuming six natural essences and quench his thirst with the midnight mist. The midday sunbeam was what one rinsed his mouth with, and the glory of dawn was to be held in one's mouth without swallowing. To keep one's spirit clear and pure, one had to take in the spiritual essence and get rid of all things filthy."
It talked about Ye Fashan taking Emperor Xuanzong flying across the country at night to Liang Zhou to see the lanterns lining the street for over ten miles, filled with precious horses and fragrant carriages, as well as streams of people coming and going busily; when they were back at the royal palace, the moon was still high up in the sky.
It talked about "The meter-long sword swept across both shores and the palace of a hundred deities stood above head. I casually lay my feathered clothes in my immortal cave, and step onto the gold lotus that represents the perfection of nature…"
With each sentence, a new door seemed to open in their minds, relieving them from their constraints one layer after another. They were presented with a world vaster than they'd ever imagined.
In this world were the ancient sages flying away by wind, Thunder Technique demonstrating its majestic power, wizards working in the most mysterious ways, the magnificence of the past five thousand years, as well as the countless Taoist skills, which up until a few years ago were still a ridiculous concept.
They had lost count of time while the sun rose from the eastern horizon to above their heads, then fell to the western sky.
The heat of summer made its way rampantly across the land, and the dozens square kilometers of Bai Town area suffered from the scorching heat. These tens of thousands of people at the foot of the mountain were the only ones that seemed to be taken to another world where everything was tranquil and pleasant.
"Heaven is eternal, the earth everlasting. How come they to be so? It is because they do not foster their own lives. That is why they live so long.
"What it means is that heaven and earth have a quietness in them, with which they show kindness to every life with no strings attached, unlike mortal men, who seek personal gain only even to the point of gaining profit at the cost of other people's well-being.
"But that is the state of the saints, which we are not to importune.
"Men are born out of Yin and Yang, and are destined to die one day the moment they are born. They are then brought up in a world filled with a multitude of desires. Therefore, the nature of cultivation is to fulfil this selfish desire of wanting immortality and the yearning of the meaning of life.
"They are different, but identical at the same time. You will be able to learn how that works yourselves if you enter the world of cultivation one day.
"I have talked about a lot of things in the lecture today. Some might learn something from it, while others might found it meaningless. You're all free to follow your own heart…"
At those words, the crowd knew that the lecture of the first day was coming to an end, and an involuntary commotion began to stir up in the square.
So many people wanted to ask questions, but dared not speak. The commotion then spread out frantically like a disease, filling every pair of eyes with a yearning.
Finally, a soft and a little childish voice rang out. "E-excuse me. You said cultivation is about rising above life and death. In that case, have you achieved that? Or, what do you think of life and death?"
The crowd turned in unison, and was surprised to find a teenage girl raising her hand while standing on her toe. She was blushing and looked flustered.
"..."
No answer came after her question. When the girl felt frustrated and the crowd disappointed, the voice came back.
"The creation of every life is a destruction on its own.
"For when transformed into lives, it is already a violation of the nature of Dao. In itself, Dao is an absolute unficiation. We're all a division of Dao; hence, cultivation is the pursuance of that unification.
"Like Yin and Yang or Qian and Kun, life and death is also a sub-level of the unification.
"Life is the transformation from a formless state to a certain form, and the other way around is death. When Qi gathers, there is life; when Qi dissipates, there is death. Life and death is a cycle, and neither should be considered alone.
"Do not be infatuated with life, and do not detest death. We should not be obsessed with what we have in this present life, nor should we linger over the idea of a life after death. Consider both as a transformation of matter. Only then could we break free of the constraint, and move onto a higher cultivation state, where we could truly experience the unification with nature."
Boom!
Immediately after those words, another wave of unfathomable pressure descended upon them, then gradually faded.
The person on the mountain seemed to have departed. All that was left was the faint fragrance from before.
"..."
The crowd remained standing there for long, some absent-minded, some pondering. Moments later, they moved in unison. Despite the narrow space that confined their movements, they still bent forward slightly, then hunched their backs, and lowered their heads.
The tens of thousands of people bowed together towards the person deep inside that fog!