He led the way, stepping onto the plaque. It continued bobbing and swaying without sinking at all.
Seeing this, Zhang Yuanshan climbed on first, pressing his back against Meng Qi's. Ji Hao followed, then Qi Zhengyan and Luo Shengyi. Jiang Zhiwei and Fu Zhenzhen landed on Zhang Yuanshan's and Meng Qi's shoulders, with Ruan Yushu climbing aboard last.
"Ha, a human pyramid!" Meng Qi settled into a horse stance and bellowed.
"Eight Shaolin Arhats!"
With the danger gone, Meng Qi's "innocent and carefree" nature surfaced again.
"Stop fooling around!" Ji Hao slapped Xiao Meng. "What, you want to go back to Shaolin and become an arhat again?!"
Despite the combined weight of eight people, the plaque did not sink at all, remaining afloat on the water.
Zhang Yuanshan released his true qi, propelling the plaque forward.
Just as the plaque left the bank, Ji Hao suddenly felt refreshed, and his final aperture opened with effortless ease.
All nine apertures opened, flickering one after another. Gradually, his breathing grew even, its rhythm matching heaven and earth. The ancestral aperture between his brows reached perfection, and in an instant, he passed through communion with heaven and man into unity.
The cracks in space, the Dao principles within the Buddhist light, the sand and stones of Spirit Mountain, the demonic qi lingering in the air-everything appeared within Ji Hao's mind.
At that moment, he felt that there was no longer any division between himself and heaven and earth, no distinction between inner and outer, self and other. An ocean of origin qi surged around him, and he was immersed within it, his pores opening to draw it in and release it, utterly at ease.
Heaven and earth became his eyes, and every detail of his surroundings stood out upon the lake of Ji