"Go!"
The Flying Ant, once black, had gradually begun to turn crimson. At Tang Changsheng's command, it spread its wings and flew out the Chariot window.
"Hero, hero... uh, what's that for?"
"Scouting ahead," Tang Changsheng said simply.
"Right, scouting. But what was that Flame just now? It looked like real fire, and you breathed it out of your mouth..."
Tang Changsheng merely smiled. "That's a flame refined within the body. You could, more or less, call it Samadhi True Fire."
"Samadhi True Fire? I think I read Journey to the West. Is that the Flame they used to burn the monkey?"
"That's right. The heart ape and the willful Horse..."
Tang Changsheng spoke offhandedly. In fact, there had long been a view within the Daoist Tradition that although Journey to the West appeared to exalt Buddhism and disparage Daoism, it actually described the Daoist principles of Golden Elixir cultivation.
The title of its very first chapter spoke of the Spiritual Root nurturing life and revealing its origins, and of cultivating one's nature to give rise to the Great Dao...
The heart ape and the willful Horse, the pig's greed and laziness, the sand monk's dull-witted folly...
Only under the command of the Primordial Spirit and Heavenly Heart could they press onward through the Eighty-One Tribulations. At last, with the ape matured and the Horse tamed, they could shed their shells, complete their work, and behold true reality...
Tang Changsheng had said all this offhandedly. He doubted someone like Black Whirlwind could grasp such profound principles.
Of course, Tang Changsheng had no intention of making him understand. The thought had simply struck him!
A trace of Tang Changsheng's spiritual power clung to the Flying Ant. Sensing the auras of Ling Xiaoyu and Arabella, it flew through the boundless fog.
*I