Xu Yuanzhi stopped, looked at Lu Changfeng, and said softly, "Sir, this is the place."
Lu Changfeng nodded and pushed the door open.
The room was simply furnished: a couch, a small table, and a burner of sandalwood incense.
Someone sat on the couch.
The man was about thirty, his face as handsome as in the portrait, but now his hair hung loose and his clothes were disheveled. He sat cross-legged, his eyes vacant, his lips moving constantly as he muttered to himself.
Lu Changfeng stepped forward and listened intently.
The voice was extremely low and soft, broken and halting, yet every word reached his ears clearly:
"To abandon form... is not to discard the body... but to forget the body..."
"To forget the body... is not to forget the self... but to forget selfishness..."
"When selfishness is exhausted, form is forgotten... when form is forgotten, the spirit is whole..."
"When the spirit is whole... it roams with heaven and earth..."
Lu Changfeng frowned slightly.
These words sounded like mad ramblings, yet on closer consideration, they seemed to harbor some subtle mystery.
Abandon form, forget the body; forget selfishness, make the spirit whole...
These were no ordinary ravings. They sounded more like the mnemonic verses of some cultivation method, clues pointing toward something.
He turned to Xu Yuanzhi. "Have you heard these words before?"
Xu Yuanzhi shook his head. "Ever since he went mad, this is what he mutters every day. We've pondered them over and over, but we can't fathom their mystery."
Lu Changfeng asked no more questions. He walked to the couch and pressed his fingers against Shen Guannan's wrist.
A wisp of Shennong Qi flowed into him.
Shen Guannan shuddered. A glimmer suddenly flashed through his vacant eyes, but vanished in an instant, leaving him in that