Four columns of smoke shot up to Old Man Withered Bamboo's left, each as thick as a cartwheel. Flowers of every color whirled through them, and four people stood within.
None of the four was very old. The first was eighteen or nineteen, a refined young man dressed as a scholar; the second was in his early twenties, a mountain hunter with a great bow on his back; the third was fifteen or sixteen, a young gentleman in splendid robes; the fourth was nearly thirty, a muscular farmer carrying a hoe.
The sight of these four shocked Old Man Withered Bamboo more than any powerful Demon Ghosts in the world could have. With his thousand years of Dao Practice, even the mightiest gods, demons, and evil Ghosts could not withstand a poke from his finger. Yet these four were unmistakably his former incarnations!
Because he cultivated through the unorthodox path, his vital energy was impure, and his Nascent Soul could never attain perfect purity and yang, leaving him unable to achieve Ascension. Moreover, after dwelling in the mountains for so long, the more he cultivated, the fainter his feelings grew and the harder his heart became, tending ever closer to vegetation, earth, and stone.
For Li Jingxu to rank him among the Six Oddities of the Cosmos, his original temperament had naturally been obstinate and eccentric. Later, through long years of cultivation in mountain seclusion, his body became like withered wood and his heart like dead ashes. In the end, his entire body was on the verge of turning to stone. His spiritual power seemed to be increasing, but in truth, he was already approaching cultivation deviation.
Later, he happened upon a Buddhist scripture. In it, he read that when the Buddha Shakyamuni entered nirvana, there were Sala Twin Trees