Sexagenary Na Yin

Lu Yu and Ku Zhu were known together as the Two Elders of Great Wilderness, and both ranked among the Six Oddities of the Cosmos. They were top-tier experts in the Zu Mountain World. Securing the protection of either one and cultivating in peace would not be a bad option.

But both old fossils had peculiar tempers, especially Lu Yu. Apart from the Emei Sect disciples who could help her survive her tribulation, she thought little of anyone. Even immortals whose abilities were on par with hers received a few sharp, scathing remarks; she spared no one's dignity.

Although she provided those nonhuman beings with a safe refuge, she offered them neither a kind word nor a friendly face. She laid down numerous commandments, and any violation brought immediate execution. Even minor offenses earned a spell-inflicted bout of torment. She was ruthless in the extreme.

Shi Feiyang kept going there as a fallback option. Clinging to the great sea turtle's back, he hitched a ride for several days. After asking the direction to Great Wilderness Mountain and the date of Lu Yu's birthday, he took his leave. Before they parted, he infused the turtle with a stream of core qi as his fare.

Over the next month, he traveled and amused himself along the way, studying the Dongling Zither whenever he had leisure during his journey.

He had never learned an instrument and knew nothing of music theory, so he should have had no way to make sense of such an unusual zither. Yet his past studies of Numerology had touched on the six-cycle sexagenary na yin, and from na yin he had gone on to investigate musical tuning.

Ancient Chinese music also derived from the Yellow River Map and Luo Writing: the central ten occupied the gong position, the western nine the shang position, the eastern eight the jue position, the southern seven the zhi position, and the northern six the yu position. These corresponded to the five elements of Jin, wood, water, fire, and earth.

To understand what this meant, Shi Feiyang had even conducted an experiment. Plucking a fifty-centimeter string produced gong, while a one-meter string produced gong an octave lower. A ninety-centimeter string gave shang, eighty centimeters gave jue, seventy centimeters gave zhi, and sixty centimeters gave yu. Together they spanned exactly one octave: these were the five fundamental tones.

The twelve pitch pipes—Yellow bell, great lü, great cluster, jiazhong, guxian, zhonglü, ruibin, forest bell, yize, South lü, wuyi, and response bell—corresponded to the twelve earthly branches. The odd-numbered ones were the Six Yang pitch pipes, and the even-numbered ones the six yin pitch pipes. Yin and yang were paired, then combined with the ten heavenly stems to form the sexagenary cycle, with further generation at intervals of eight... The so-called sword edge metal, furnace fire, and the rest were known as "na yin," and all arose from this.

Now he saw that the Dongling Zither followed precisely that ancient design. Its twelve strings, six yin and Six Yang, could model heaven and earth and accord with Numerology, returning to nature through sound and building a bridge between humanity and the Great Dao!

The twelve-tone equal temperament invented by Zhu Zaiyu, which later music used, had become the worldwide standard. Every note in the scale was fixed; a piano could not play a pitch between two keys. The framework was locked in place, and every musician composed within it.

In truth, ancient Chinese musicians established their own tuning systems: one school, one system, or even one person, one system. Based on the number of the celestial circuit, they had also devised three hundred and sixty tuning systems, each of which could serve as the foundation for countless magnificent compositions.

He had not been particularly interested in music back then and had not studied it deeply, merely grasping the underlying principles. Now that he held the Dongling Zither, everything he had learned in the past flashed through his mind like a gushing spring.

He casually plucked a string, and the corresponding Sun, Moon, and Stars at the head of the zither began to shine. Examining the symbols, Shi Feiyang found much in common with the Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman beneath Dinghu Peak. Nor were they fixed: as he plucked the strings, the sun rose and the moon sank, the Dipper wheeled and the stars shifted, their light flickering.

He carefully recalled what he had learned, rearranging the Yellow River Map and Luo Writing, yin and yang, the five elements, and other principles to align them with sound, then plucking and sensing one note at a time. When Xie Ying had played this zither, its sound had nearly scattered his soul. Now, playing it himself, he discovered many wondrous subtleties in its rising and falling pitches. Some affected his heart meridian, making his blood and qi boil; some affected his lungs, leaving him unbearably suffocated; some affected his three ethereal souls, and others his seven corporeal souls...

He did not know that the Dongling Zither had been made by an Ancient Immortal. Even Qiao Gong had mastered only the Six Yang pitch pipes and had never fully grasped its mysteries. Once it reached Cui Wu's hands, he had comprehended only two sequences of notes: one to attack the souls of demonic beasts, and another to split mountains and shatter stone. Even those were merely a few brief notes, not complete melodies.

Shi Feiyang was proficient in Numerology and had studied the origins of Chinese musical tuning, so he had aimed straight for the twelve pitch pipes from the outset. He had also obtained the Golden Seal Heavenly Talisman left by the Yellow Emperor and understood the underlying logic of the twelve celestial-circuit pitch pipes. Though he had never formally studied music and seemed unable even to cross the threshold, given time, he would sooner or later comprehend this treasure completely and wield it at will!

He had no fixed destination and simply kept traveling east, amusing himself while cultivating. Sometimes he veered North, sometimes South, but he paid it no mind.

One day, he caught a thousand-year-old clam whose shell alone was over twenty feet long. Thinking it was about to be eaten, the old clam fled desperately.

When it came to aptitude for cultivation, humans were the best, followed by other mammals, then birds, then reptiles... Shell-bearing creatures had very meager aptitude. Although this old clam had lived for a thousand years, it possessed few supernatural abilities. It could only keep spurting water, using the recoil to propel itself swiftly forward, and sometimes burrow into the mud and sand on the seabed to conceal itself.

Since Purple Cloud Palace had been discovered when an old clam named Huizhu stumbled into it while being pursued, Shi Feiyang wondered whether he might likewise discover an immortal residence beneath the sea. He kept chasing the clam for fun. Whenever it burrowed into the sand, he dug it out and made it keep running.

Unable to escape along the seabed, the old clam eventually followed the underwater slopes upward, fleeing from the deep sea into the shallows, then from the shallows to the beach. At last, it reached a coral-ringed bay on the southeastern side of an island.

The clams, conches, shellfish, and other shelled creatures here generally had several hundred years of cultivation, and more than a dozen were over a thousand years old. The largest Seven-Colored Pearl Clam had the deepest cultivation and could already communicate with people in simple terms. As his shell opened and closed, a primordial spirit that had attained human form was visible within. Trembling, he said to Shi Feiyang, "Cultivation has not been easy for us, and our old flesh is terribly unpalatable. All we have are the many pearls we have accumulated over hundreds and thousands of years. If you like them, fellow Daoist, we can offer them to you."

Shi Feiyang told him to open his Clam Shell. Inside shone a dazzling array of precious pearls. Most were silvery-white pearls, the largest as wide as the mouth of a teacup, and even the smallest bigger than a longan. There were also black pearls, their bodies pitch-black as ink, encircled by halos of colored light. Besides these were night-shining pearls that cast brilliant light, Water-Repelling Pearls that could part water, and Dust-Repelling Pearls to which not a speck of dust could cling...

Shi Feiyang had chased the old clam on a whim and had not expected this windfall. But the other party was quite polite, so he could hardly scoop up the whole lot and rob him outright. Instead, he reached a dragon claw inside and rummaged around, asking what this pearl did and what that pearl was used for. He also made small talk, asking how many years the clam had lived and whether he had a name.

"I cannot remember exactly, but it should be over two thousand years. Long ago, I saved an injured sword immortal. With her help, I received the name Wu Qingyang (note)."

"Ah, I'm almost three thousand already, so you're younger than me." Shi Feiyang chatted with him a while longer, then finally selected five pearls: a Dust-Repelling Pearl, a Fire-Repelling Pearl, a Water-Repelling Pearl, a Wind-Calming Pearl, and a Barrier-Breaking Pearl.

Throughout his long life of cultivation, this clam immortal had been refining pearls, relying entirely on them to avoid disasters and tribulations. But his magical power was limited, so the pearls he produced were not very potent. For example, this Fire-Repelling Pearl could ward off only ordinary flames, not the Gods' fire emitted by Shi Feiyang's inner core.

Note: Wu Qingyang appeared courtesy of reader "Star-Plucking Young Master."