Chapter 4: The Wonders of Fate
Ye Qin wanted to sit in meditation. However, his raised tail reminded him that he had become an aberration, without even legs. What was he supposed to sit on?
He simply chose the position most comfortable for him.
Snakes naturally liked coiling themselves together. The Little Black Snake was extremely slender, and curled up, it looked like a giant mosquito coil.
Now that he had a posture for cultivation, the key was figuring out how to begin. Ye Qin still had not found the slightest clue.
On the path of cultivation, he had no cultivation manuals at all. He could only grope his way forward. He racked his brains for a long while, but nothing happened.
No one knew how much time had passed. Ye Qin felt that his mind was still empty, and he could not help growing restless. His tail swung up and down, striking the ground.
"What's wrong, exactly?"
"Perhaps I've overlooked something."
"Or maybe cultivation is completely fictitious. If even humans can't succeed, how could I, now that I've become a snake?"
The more things reached this point, the more Ye Qin told himself to remain calm.
His gaze fell on the ancient book.
"Heaven and earth are thieves of all things; all things are thieves of man; man is also a thief of all things."
"When the Three Thieves are rightly balanced, the Three Powers are at peace."
The opening lines surfaced in his mind. Ye Qin slowly recited them aloud, as though he wanted to chew them to pieces and swallow them.
These words seemed to possess some kind of magic. His originally restless heart actually began to settle down.
His distant snake eyes became utterly tranquil, like a placid lake upon which not another ripple could rise.
A snake, a skeleton, and a book.
They appeared so harmonious and natural. Among the three, something invisible linked them together, freezing them into an eternal scene.
If someone entered this mountain cave, they would discover an exceedingly strange sight.
A Little Black Snake coiled atop an ancient book, as though it had entered the legendary state of "meditative absorption."
Ye Qin's sensation at that moment was mysterious beyond words. His consciousness seemed to have arrived in another empty world.
Between heaven and earth, he was the only living creature. Chaos enveloped his surroundings, as though he had arrived at the moment when heaven and earth had first opened.
Everywhere he looked, there was nothing but gray mist. He did not know where these substances had come from, nor where they were going.
Amidst it all, Ye Qin felt no discomfort. Instead, it was as though he had returned to the womb, experiencing warmth and security unlike anything before.
It was like soaking in a hot spring, with every pore across his body opening up.
Curious, he nudged the mist. All of it scattered and fled.
When Ye Qin was not paying attention, it quietly gathered again, as though it possessed a life and thoughts of its own.
Ye Qin observed it, wondering what sort of substance the gray mist was, but after staring for a long time, he still had no clue.
One thing was certain: the gray mist should not harm him. He simply let it do as it pleased.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the long, slender black snake remained as it had been, coiled in place without moving an inch.
Yet upon closer inspection, the wound that had still been bleeding was slowly forming a scab. Although the change was not obvious and could not be distinguished by the naked eye, the bleeding had indeed stopped.
The white skeleton remained silent as it watched everything before it. Even its hollow eye sockets seemed to contain a trace of vitality.
No one knew how much time had passed before Ye Qin slowly opened his eyes. Nothing around him had changed. It was still the pitch-black mountain cave where one could not see one's own hand, and there were no specks of light.
It was as though everything just now had been an illusion.
Ye Qin's mind was still somewhat dazed, unable to return from the world he had just experienced.
That sensation was mysterious beyond compare, leaving endless aftertaste.
To his surprise, the pain in his body had lessened considerably. He instinctively raised the tip of his tail, and the wound was no longer bleeding.
"Looks like I really can open a path of cultivation."
Ye Qin could not help sinking into thought.
In his previous life, because he had read quite a few novels, he had once been very interested in Buddhist and Daoist ideas. Thus, when it came to cultivation methods, he could name a few.
Although they were all baseless nonsense, the methods whose names he knew were nothing more than the Golden Core Method, the Qi Refining Method, the Body Refining Method, and the like.
There were many invented cultivation methods, but most of them were designed for humans. He was a snake now, so many methods would not work.
With the Golden Core Method, he did not even understand the bodily structure of snakes very well, much less know where to find a dantian. Moreover, he had no idea how many years it would take to produce a golden core. Thus, he could rule out this method.
The Body Refining Method would not work either. Many novels described how it required precious plants or nourishing medicinal ingredients to temper and refine the body.
Not to mention that his body had yet to recover and still bore old injuries, acting rashly would likely leave behind enormous hidden dangers.
More importantly, he could not obtain the materials and tools required for body refinement.
In the end, Ye Qin could only set his sights on Qi refinement.
This seemed feasible, but he did not seem to sense any Spiritual Energy between heaven and earth, much less draw qi into his body.
Of course, it was also possible that his cultivation foundation was currently insufficient.
This method seemed somewhat difficult to put into practice. He could not find any direction at all, so he could only set it aside for the future.
"This doesn't work, and that doesn't work either."
In summary, with so many methods, not one of them suited him.
Although he was blazing a new trail, there still had to be some kind of starting point.
Ye Qin could not help sighing. Then inspiration suddenly flashed through his mind, as though he had thought of something, and even his tail began wagging excitedly.
"Perhaps I can try the Contemplation Method."
Contemplation could be of oneself, or of heaven and earth. All things under the sun could be contemplated.
Contemplation was a mysterious thing, somewhat similar to meditation. It changed along with a person's consciousness and thoughts. A single thought produced a corresponding scene—this was the mind moving with the will.
If a certain thought or subconscious notion arose in one's mind during cultivation, it would form a special magnetic field. From those scenes, one could comprehend the path of cultivation.
This method was not as dangerous as body refinement, nor did it have as high a threshold as Qi refinement or the Golden Core Method, which required certain conditions.
Even in the real world, Daoism had the Twelve-Story Pagoda Contemplation, the Tai Chi Diagram Contemplation, the Seven-Story Pagoda Contemplation, and so on. Of course, these Contemplation Methods were all used for meditation and sitting practice; they held no actual meaning of "cultivation."
However, these things were far too obscure. Ye Qin had never studied them carefully before, so he did not understand their techniques or principles. They were not suited to his current situation.
Thus, Ye Qin decided to begin with the simplest and most fundamental approach: contemplating himself.
But this presented another difficulty.
A snake's eyes grew on the sides of its head, and the adjustable overlap in its field of vision was extremely limited. Since there was no visual fovea behind the eyeballs, it was very difficult for Ye Qin to see his entire body.
He could only do so with the help of a mirror, a puddle, or some other reflective object. But looking around, where could he find anything like that in this dim mountain cave?
"Forget it. I might as well contemplate nature and all things. The sun and moon are the most common, so using them as reference points should work."