Deep in the mountain hollow, ancient trees towered into the sky.
A clear stream wound past, its murmuring waters lending the place an even deeper tranquility.
Ye Fashan sat cross-legged on a flat slab of bluestone and gestured for Lu Changfeng to sit opposite him.
"Since you have agreed to inherit my teachings, you are no longer an outsider."
Ye Fashan came straight to the point, his gaze clear and penetrating. "Do you know what the word 'manual' in the Frost-Sky Cold Jade Manual means?"
Lu Changfeng considered briefly, drawing on what he already knew, then answered cautiously, "In my humble opinion, perhaps it means that the cultivation method moves like a musical composition, with its own rhythm and cadence? Or perhaps... it refers to the form in which the cultivation method is recorded?"
Ye Fashan smiled and nodded, then shook his head. "You are half right. Here, it means neither a book nor a musical score, but a systematic lineage-a framework of principles. Yet the foundations of its cultivation and execution are indeed inseparable from the art of sound."
Ye Fashan was well versed in Daoist music.
Lu Changfeng knew this. The rivalry between Daoism and Buddhism had persisted throughout the Tang Dynasty, with frequent exchanges of "pointers." It was said that Ye Fashan had once competed with a foreign monk in the Tang imperial palace. By the end of a single piece, seven inches of snow had fallen before the hall, and the monk had frozen into an ice sculpture. The feat had made his name known throughout the realm, and what he had used was the Frost-Sky Cold Jade Manual.
Ye Fashan explained at an unhurried pace. "Heaven and earth have their rhythms, and all things breathe. Sound, especially sound imbued with a particular divine intent, is