Misinterpreting the Trigram, Hidden Cultivation Mysteries

The warmth at his fingertips hadn't yet faded when Chen Wuya slowly opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the eight stones arranged in a Bagua formation on the table. Sunlight slanted down, making the stones gleam faintly, like iron plates seared by fire and then cooled. He subtly drew his right hand back into his sleeve, letting the misaligned energy circulate through his knuckles, as if an invisible force was quietly extending along his meridians.

Yesterday's nonsensical ramblings had actually caused the broken meridians within him to faintly reconnect. He finally understood—this "Misaligned Practice Connects to Spirit" didn't care about right or wrong, only about "sounding convincing." The more absurd and bizarre, the better it could deceive the laws of heaven and earth, completing the fragmented cultivation technique.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. The fragmented sentence from the tattered pages of the Canglang Art appeared in his mind: "To surge upward is to live, to flow with is to die." What was incomprehensible before now felt like it was beginning to connect, thanks to last night's twisted interpretation. If he hid the martial principles within the Bagua readings, using others' ears to hear, their hearts to remember, and their actions to practice, wouldn't that be equivalent to secretly cultivating?

His mind made up, he raised his hand and gently nudged the stones, moving the "Kan" position to the Qian palace, and whispered, "When yin reaches its extreme, yang is born; when yang reaches its extreme, yin returns. Heaven and Earth inverted, life is found in reversal."

As the words fell, a warm current rose from the soles of his feet, surging straight up his spine. He knew the system had just repaired another path.

At that moment, footsteps approached from a distance.

Xiao Rou stood before the stall, her brow furrowed, clutching half a coarse flatbread. "Sir, my father practiced as you said, but this morning his chest felt tight, and the qi seemed blocked in his throat. He's afraid to continue."

Chen Wuya's eyelids didn't lift; his fingers continued to trace lightly among the stones. "It's normal. When something has been stagnant for too long, once it's cleared, it will naturally churn like the tide. Your father's body has been filled with cold qi for a long time. Now, the yang qi is surging upwards, like a frozen river thawing—the cracking sounds are a good sign."

"But... he's afraid of qi deviation."

"Then let him deviate," Chen Wuya finally opened his eyes, his tone calm. "Ordinary people fear deviation because they always try to 'control' it. But your father is different; he's someone trapped by illness. The more he tries to control it, the worse it will get. He must let it surge wildly to break through that rigid shell."

Xiao Rou was stunned. "Surge wildly?"

"Yes," he nodded. "Tonight, at midnight, have him sit cross-legged, hands on his knees, and silently recite eight words—'Kan Water Backflows to Kunlun.' Don't guide the qi's direction, don't control the breathing rhythm. Just imagine a black water surging up from the soles of his feet, breaking through the lumbar spine, crashing through the back of his neck, and rushing straight to the top of his head. Don't stop, even if you feel dizzy and disoriented."

These eight words were purely fabricated. In reality, they corresponded to the most dangerous reverse-surge path in the misaligned energy: starting from the Bubbling Spring, bypassing the break in the Ren Meridian, and forcefully connecting to the Governing Vessel Meridian to ascend. If an ordinary martial artist truly followed this, they would at best spit blood, and at worst be paralyzed. But Chen Wuya knew that as long as someone genuinely believed and attempted to run the technique, the system would automatically correct deviations and complete the missing true energy pathways.

With every sentence he spoke, his body vibrated. When he said the words "Backflows to Kunlun," his spine suddenly felt a searing heat, as if a rusty iron chain that had been corroded for years was being forcibly torn apart.

He had opened another section.

Xiao Rou bit her lip, hesitating. "But the old physician in the village said that qi and blood must never flow in reverse..."

"That's for living people," Chen Wuya interrupted. "Your father is already on the brink of death; conventional methods won't save him. Only by using misalignment as correctness, and reversal to break stagnation, is there a glimmer of hope."

He paused, his voice lowering. "Do you trust me?"

Xiao Rou stared at him for a long time, then suddenly took a copper coin from her pocket and placed it on the table. "I'll trust you this once."

The moment the coin landed on the table, the misaligned energy within Chen Wuya surged violently, exploding from his dantian into two streams. One flowed upwards, the other downwards, rushing along two broken hidden meridians within the extraordinary meridians. He could almost feel those incomplete meridians being rewoven by some invisible force.

Before turning to leave, Xiao Rou asked in a low voice, "Will I come back tomorrow to ask?"

"Yes," he said lightly. "I'll be here at this time every day."

A crowd gradually gathered. A vegetable vendor peered in and asked, "Sir, my son has been having nightmares lately. Is his fate afflicted by evil spirits?"

Chen Wuya picked up two stones, rubbed them in his palm, and looked up. "It's neither evil spirits nor ghosts, but Liver Qi Stagnation. The liver governs the soul; stagnation leads to restless nights. Go back and tell him to stand barefoot on the ground for fifteen minutes before sleeping, imagining the earth drawing out the turbid qi from his body, and silently recite the four words 'Trembling Thunder Splits Wood'."

Someone nearby muttered, "The same words again. Why does he always say to recite incantations?"

"These are not incantations," Chen Wuya said loudly. "They are methods for regulating qi. The operation of heaven and earth is all within a single breath. The matters you ask about, though seemingly unrelated, are all connected to 'qi'—unsuccessful relationships are due to insufficient heart qi; poor harvests are due to obstructed earth qi; children's nightmares are due to unsettled soul qi."

As he spoke, he rearranged the Bagua with the stones, his fingers moving slightly, the misaligned energy following his words, circulating counter-currently along the Shaoyang meridian. With every absurd statement he made, his internal channels became clearer.

"Look at this Xun Trigram," he said, pointing to a raised stone in the formation. "Wind moving across the land should be unimpeded. But what if there's a stone stuck in the middle? It's like the meridians in the body; once blocked, the wind becomes an evil wind. So, what you need to do is not pray to gods and buddhas, but to pat your armpits seventy-two times every morning to loosen that 'stone'."

The onlookers listened, half-understanding, but no one questioned him further. Some began to take out copper coins, asking about their children's studies, the auspiciousness of marriages, and taboos for travel. He responded to each one, his words always revolving around "qi," "meridians," "reverse flow," and "breaking stagnation," while in reality, every sentence was reconstructing the fragmented chapters of the Canglang Art.

When he spoke of "Li Fire Descends to the North Sea," the end of his Ren Meridian suddenly jolted, and a passage that had been blocked for years slightly loosened.

When he discussed "Taiyin Reverses to Taiqing," the meridians in his arms felt as if they were being washed with hot water, the broken points faintly connecting.

As he smiled and told an old farmer, "Your knee pain is because your kidney qi isn't ascending. Tonight, before sleeping, imagine hot water flowing from your waist into your legs," the misaligned energy had quietly connected his three Yin meridians of the hand.

More and more people stopped to listen. Some called him a divine calculator, others a madman, and some quietly jotted down his words, intending to try them at home.

Chen Wuya remained seated, his speech becoming increasingly bold, his reasoning more and more distorted. Yet, the more this happened, the smoother the misaligned energy flowed within him, as if the entire Qingyang Town had become his training partners, using their trust and doubts to help him complete a cultivation that was otherwise impossible.

At noon, the sun hung high in the sky, and the blue banner flapped noisily in the wind. The scorched yellow edge of the paper at the corner of the table still peeked out, unnoticed.

Xiao Rou's figure reappeared at the street entrance.

She walked over quickly, her face somewhat pale. "Sir, I just returned... My father listened to you and has already started practicing. But he asked me to ask you—if water can truly 'flow uphill,' then what in this world cannot be inverted?"

Chen Wuya raised his eyes, a slight smile playing on his lips.

He didn't answer. Instead, he slowly reached out and swept all the stones on the table into a mess, then said, word by word, "Since water can flow backward, why can't fire sink? Why can't qi flow in reverse? Why can't one's fate be changed by oneself?"

The moment his words fell, a long-dormant meridian within him violently connected. An unprecedented warm current surged from his Weilu straight to his Baihui, his scalp tingling as if countless fine needles were gently tapping it.

He knew another fragmented chapter had been completely restored.