After taking his leave of Madam Tushan, Xiao Mo returned to the Wood Shed and opened the copy of Great Dream of Yellow Millet she had given him.
At first, Xiao Mo had wondered why Madam Tushan had given him this book when he was only five. She didn't even know whether he could read.
How was an illiterate servant supposed to teach himself Great Dream of Yellow Millet?
But when Xiao Mo opened it, he discovered that the book was extraordinarily strange.
It was true that Xiao Mo could read.
But even if he couldn't, it wouldn't have mattered when reading this book.
At a glance, the characters seemed like flowers and grasses, mountains and streams in nature. Somehow, he simply understood them.
Yet the moment he looked away, he couldn't remember a thing.
[When chaos first parted, being and nonbeing arose together. The Dao is wordless, and dreams serve to reveal it. This method is called Great Dream of Yellow Millet: rest your head on the empty and lie amid the mystery; borrow the false to cultivate the true.]
[Within the palace of empty clarity, build a house in nowhere.]
[When night is deep and all is still, lower the curtains and close the gates. Imagine a white beam of light between the brows, gradually transforming into a green lotus that bears a jade pillow.]
[In an instant, the body is like deadwood, the heart like cold ashes. The six gates shut tight, and a single breath flows in secret. Only when the tide-like sound rises beside the ears does one know that this body is in Yaojing.]
Xiao Mo read every word in the book carefully.
Although Xiao Mo had never practiced Dao methods,
as he read this cultivation method, he felt—deep down—that it was as orthodox