Chapter Twenty-Four: Becoming the Formation

The next day, after completing his chores, Liang Yan hurried back to his dormitory, took out the scroll of “The Art of the Unsettled Mind,” and unrolled it in his hands. The first line of the general outline read:

“The mind is unfettered; I am but selfless. The circle turns without end; change is ceaseless.”

Liang Yan continued reading, finding this “Art of the Unsettled Mind” utterly bizarre, yet infused everywhere with a sense of unbridled freedom. Whether in the circulation of spiritual power or the casting of secret arts, everything seemed to come effortlessly, almost carelessly.

A strange feeling welled up within Liang Yan; this “Withered Wood Sage” must have been an extraordinary man.

Little did he know, the Withered Wood Sage had achieved the Golden Core through the art of chess—a life marked by meticulous discipline. His secret techniques emphasized assessing an enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, anticipating their moves, and engaging in battle only after careful planning. Yet, as the end of his life approached and he was unable to advance his cultivation further, despair transformed his temperament. Having exhausted a lifetime of calculation, he ended his days with wild abandon, acting on whims, and created this “Art of the Unsettled Mind.” To say he had seen through life and death and transcended his mortal bonds would not be an exaggeration.

Liang Yan, of course, knew nothing of this. Nevertheless, the more he read, the more he felt this “Art of the Unsettled Mind” suited him far better than the “Muddled Technique.” By the end, he was so enraptured that he began to move and gesture with excitement, unconsciously following the scroll’s instructions as if in a dance.

Had Li Dali passed by at that moment, he would have dragged his junior brother away, fearing that Liang Yan had already fallen into demonic deviation.

After committing the contents of the scroll to memory, Liang Yan conjured a fireball and burned the bamboo slip to ashes. Having been on the Immortal path for some time, he understood full well the rule that “the law is not passed on to a sixth ear.” Since the Withered Wood Sage had created this technique himself, it was never to be transmitted without his consent. So Liang Yan simply destroyed the bamboo slip.

That night, Liang Yan returned to the Spirit Spring Cave, sat cross-legged, and began cultivating the “Art of the Unsettled Mind.”

Following the scroll’s instructions, he silently guided his spiritual power through a great circuit within his body. Suddenly, he felt a jolt in his dantian, and a faint sense of energy began to rise. Liang Yan was overjoyed, not daring to relax for a moment, and continued to circulate his energy according to the technique.

But just as he was steadily guiding the spiritual energy into his dantian, the hint of Confucian power within him abruptly vanished, as if a clay ox had sunk into the sea.

Liang Yan’s heart sank. Assuming he had made a mistake in his cultivation, he calmed his mind and tried again. Yet, as before, the Confucian power dissipated without a trace the moment he tried to settle it in his dantian.

“How strange!” Liang Yan was startled. He tried several more times, but each attempt ended the same way—whenever the energy returned to its source, it would mysteriously vanish.

This time, however, he could clearly sense that the dissipation of spiritual power had nothing to do with his own aptitude. It felt more as if the two types of spiritual energy within him were in conflict.

“Could it be that these two techniques restrain each other?” Liang Yan considered the possibility.

In truth, his guess was not far off. In this world, though a hundred schools of cultivation flourished, among the human race, the Buddhist, Daoist, Demonic, and Confucian paths were the four great traditions, each with vastly different techniques and mutually opposing spiritual properties. Never had anyone heard of a Buddhist or Daoist master cultivating Confucian techniques simultaneously.

The old monk had brought him to the Starry Chess Pavilion because there were no great Buddhist sects in the neighboring countries, and he himself had a karmic connection with Lin Fei of the Starry Chess Pavilion. Even so, the monk had advised Liang Yan to choose a Buddhist technique from the Transmission Hall. He had expected that, since Lin Fei had brought Liang Yan into the Starry Chess Pavilion, the boy might become an outer disciple—who would have thought he would end up as a mere servant?

Fate, indeed, is full of twists and turns.

Though Liang Yan suspected the two techniques were at odds, he did not realize this was an iron law among the four great traditions. He believed it was merely a matter of incompatible attributes and racked his brain, searching desperately for a solution. After all, this was his only remaining chance to advance on the Immortal path.

Just as he was about to give up, a sudden flash of inspiration struck him. “Wait! How could I have forgotten that?”

...

The next afternoon, in front of the Apricot Grove Pavilion, Wang Yuan was snoring at his desk when a young man hurried up the path and slipped into the library without so much as a greeting. Wang Yuan’s ears twitched; he awoke and glanced at the boy’s retreating figure.

“So, it’s him,” Wang Yuan muttered, shaking his head before returning to his nap.

The visitor was indeed Liang Yan. Inside the library, he strode straight to the last shelf. Unlike the others, which were seven-tiered and painted vermilion, this one was only three shelves high, old and chipped. It held mostly miscellaneous discussions on formations or biographies of formation masters—no systematic texts.

Liang Yan pulled out a thin, gray-covered book entitled “The Twin Fish Life Array.” He opened it and began to read intently.

The entire book focused on this one formation, though the writing was scrawled and much of it was vague, as if the author had not fully grasped the array’s principles himself.

Most curiously, the only clear effect of the “Twin Fish Life Array” seemed to be the harmonious blending of yin and yang; it appeared to have no other purpose.

Liang Yan had read it before but had never paid it much mind. Now, with new insights in his heart, he realized the array’s patterns and implements were not meant for grand external formations, but rather resembled the meridians and acupoints of the human body.

The more he pondered, the more plausible it seemed. Much of the book’s ambiguity now struck him as subtle guidance for channeling and gathering spiritual power within oneself.

“Could it really be possible to use the body itself as a formation?” he murmured.

The book left much unclear, as if the author himself was uncertain. Still, it provided Liang Yan with a crucial stepping stone—he needed only to build a few more small steps to reach the threshold.

Growing more excited, Liang Yan sat down on the spot and began to work out the formation’s intricacies.

For the next several days, he neither slept nor ate, hunched on the library floor, scribbling and calculating, neglecting even his morning chores.

Wang Yuan was full of complaints, but uncertain of Liang Yan’s connection to Zhuo Bufan, he dared not act rashly.

One day, an outer disciple in Confucian robes arrived at the library. Though Formation disciples usually spent their time at the Transmission Hall, some occasionally came to borrow books. This disciple, Li Feng, had come to consult a formation.

He greeted Wang Yuan, then entered the library. Passing a few shelves, he spotted a youth in gray linen, seated on the floor with his back turned, scribbling away.

Just as Li Feng was about to ignore him, the youth suddenly shouted, “I’ve done it! Haha, I’ve done it!”

He bounced up from the floor, spun around, and Li Feng finally saw his face—sunken eyes, disheveled hair, parched lips, and a stubble-covered chin. Despite his haggard appearance, his eyes shone with delight. He hopped and gestured wildly, his behavior thoroughly bizarre.

“Is he mad?” Li Feng wondered. Before he could react, the youth rushed over at astonishing speed, grabbed him in a tight embrace, and shouted, “I did it! I’ve succeeded! Hahaha!”

Furious, Li Feng—fastidiously clean by nature—summoned a white jade disk, which spun into the air and struck the youth’s side with half his spiritual force. Sect rules forbade killing or maiming one’s fellows, but Li Feng intended for the boy to spend a year bedridden.

Yet, after taking the blow, the youth merely yelped, rolled on the ground, then got up, dusted himself off, and bowed. “Senior brother, forgive me! I was overexcited and forgot myself—please don’t take offense!”

Li Feng narrowed his eyes, stared at him, then left the library without a word.

Naturally, the crazed youth was none other than Liang Yan. After ten sleepless days in meditation, he had finally completed the “Twin Fish Life Array.”

Though cultivators could survive ten days without food or sleep, he was only at the Qi Refining stage, not yet able to survive solely on spiritual energy. With his stomach rumbling, he decided to seek out something to eat.

After filling his belly and enjoying a deep sleep, he did not awaken until the next evening.

He washed up, then hurried straight to the Spirit Spring Cave, where he absorbed spiritual energy while laying out the “Twin Fish Life Array” within his own body.

Soon, his meridians divided into two currents: the pure rising to the heavens, the turbid sinking as earth. In his dantian, a black-and-white bead spun forth—none other than the Celestial Mechanism Pearl.

As soon as it appeared, the pearl ascended the heavenly meridian to a point corresponding to the dantian, where it halted.

Spiritual power coursed from his earthly meridian, surged through the dantian, transformed into a torrent, and rushed up to the heavenly meridian, finally merging into the Celestial Mechanism Pearl. The pearl rotated slowly, causing a turbid current to descend back into the earthly meridian.

Liang Yan’s dantian was now the array’s core; the Celestial Mechanism Pearl, its array tool.

The two resonated in harmony—pure and turbid energies cycling endlessly, yin and yang of heaven and earth intertwining, circulating without cease, inexhaustible and eternal.

With the array complete, Liang Yan silently recited the formula of the “Art of the Unsettled Mind.” A thread of blue spiritual power arose in his dantian, completed a great circuit, and then merged into the “Twin Fish Life Array.”

Blue and golden energies coexisted in harmony, flowing together; at times blue was pure as heaven and gold was turbid as earth, at others gold was pure as heaven and blue was turbid as earth.

It was like two swimming fish, head to tail, indistinguishable from one another, turning endlessly.

“Succeeded!” Liang Yan’s eyes snapped open, brimming with boundless joy. The “Twin Fish Life Array” was inexhaustible, endlessly regenerative. If this could not help him break through the bottleneck of the third stage of Qi Refining, then what power in the world could defy fate for him?

Suppressing his joy, Liang Yan recalled the first time he had followed Lin Fei to the Starry Chess Pavilion and the words inscribed on the two stone pillars at the sect’s entrance:

“Heaven as the chessboard, stars as the pieces—who dares to play?”

“Earth as the lute, rain as the strings—who dares to pluck?”

Though bold, these lines seemed, in their depths, to hint at the meaning of the “Twin Fish Life Array.” He could not be certain, but Liang Yan privately suspected he had discovered the creator of the array. Yet he could not fathom why its author had not studied or practiced it further.

And indeed, he was correct. The “Twin Fish Life Array” was the very creation of the renowned founder, the Immortal Master Yixing. Having entered the Way through formations, his mastery was peerless. In his later years, inspired by a sudden insight, he devised this array, believing it could integrate another of the four great traditions.

But his own cultivation was already so advanced that to practice the array, he would have had to discard his Golden Core and begin anew from the Qi Refining stage. Moreover, it required a treasure forged by the very workings of heaven and earth as its array tool.

Though he pioneered this path, he could never attempt it himself—a theory left untested.

He knew well how difficult it would be to find someone who combined supreme mastery of formations, possessed a peerless treasure, and remained only at the Qi Refining stage. Even he considered it impossible, and so the idea was abandoned.

Yet, unwilling to let such a daring innovation fade into oblivion, he left behind a book and inscribed two couplets on the sect’s stone pillars as a cryptic challenge: “Heaven and earth as twin fish—who dares use them?”

Thus, across thousands of years, a master of formations and the founder of the sect, and a mere beginner with extraordinary luck and a heaven-sent treasure, completed a transmission of legacy. In the bustling halls of Starry Chess Pavilion, not a single soul was aware.