Monday, ten o'clock in the morning.
Classroom 404, Teaching Building One, Jiangcheng University.
The air held a mingled scent of chalk dust and youthful vitality.
The new semester had just begun, and most of the ancient Chinese majors had arrived early.
The classroom was nearly full. Murmurs mingled with the scraping of chairs, giving the room an air of novelty and restlessness.
Footsteps approached from the corridor, steady and even, neither hurried nor slow.
The classroom door opened, and a figure stepped inside.
The noise in the room dropped a notch without anyone realizing it, and curious gazes turned toward the newcomer.
He was very young, dressed in a simple, elegant, light-colored Chinese-style cotton and linen shirt.
He was tall and straight-backed, with handsome, refined features and a warm complexion.
Most striking were his eyes. His gaze was clear and calm, yet as he looked around, it was as deep as an ancient well.
They seemed capable of drawing in the surrounding light, calming people's minds without their realizing it.
He walked unhurriedly to the lectern and gently set down the thread-bound books and lesson plan in his hands.
"Good morning, everyone."
His voice was warm and clear, neither loud nor soft,
yet it reached every ear distinctly, strangely smoothing away the last traces of noise.
"This semester, we'll explore and study Introduction to Paleography together.
My surname is Li. I'm Li Qingshan."
He turned, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote his name on the blackboard.
His handwriting was graceful without lacking backbone, concealing its sharpness beneath a modest simplicity. It possessed an indescribable charm all its own.
"Li Qingshan."
Among the students, Pang Bo, who sat toward the back, nudged Ye Fan beside him with his elbow and lowered his booming voice.
"Yezi, this teacher looks really young. He's even more handsome than in the photo."
Ye Fan nodded, his gaze still fixed on Li Qingshan at the lectern.
He felt the same way. Teacher Li had a calm, gentle presence about him.
Standing there, he looked less like an ordinary scholar and more like a recluse who had stepped out of an illustration in an ancient book,
both subtly in harmony with his surroundings and detached from them.
In the front row, Li Xiaoman, a fashionably dressed, attractive young woman, also glanced over.
A trace of scrutiny and curiosity flashed in her eyes.
Beside her, the gentle-mannered Lin Jia spoke softly to Zhou Yi, a bespectacled young man with a distinctly bookish air on her other side.
"This teacher is so young."
Zhou Yi pushed up his glasses.
"I heard Teacher Li was a talent the university specifically brought in. He may be young, but he's accomplished a lot in the field of ancient writing."
As though he hadn't heard the whispers below, Li Qingshan began the class.
"Before we officially begin, let's take attendance and get to know one another."
He picked up the class roster and began reading down the list.
The names passed one by one, and each student called answered, "Here." His tone remained steady and gentle throughout.
"Ye Fan."
"Here."
Ye Fan answered, his voice clear and steady.
Li Qingshan looked up, his gaze naturally sweeping toward the source of the voice.
It rested on Ye Fan for an imperceptibly brief moment, and he gave a slight nod.
In his sea of consciousness, the chaos-colored Divine Seed trembled almost imperceptibly, and an exceedingly faint sensation spread outward.
In his perception, the delicate-featured young man's Qi and blood were like a slumbering volcano,
containing an unimaginably vast potential for life, yet tightly bound by an invisible and unyielding shackle of heaven and earth.
Beneath the stillness, subterranean fire surged.
The Desolate Ancient Sacred Body remained extraordinary even in this Dharma-ending age.
"Pang Bo."
"Here!"
Pang Bo's voice rang out, brimming with youthful vigor.
Li Qingshan nodded in acknowledgment to him as well.
Pang Bo's Qi and blood were also far more vigorous than an ordinary person's. His flame of life burned fiercely, radiating a wild, primeval vitality.
"Li Xiaoman."
"Here."
A voice rang out, clear and pleasant, yet carrying a trace of unapproachable distance. It came from the fashionable young woman in the front row.
"Lin Jia."
"Here."
Another voice answered, much softer.
"Zhou Yi."
"Here."
The bespectacled young man answered.
"Wang Ziwen."
"Here."
"Zhang Ziling."
"Here."
Attendance continued, and Li Qingshan's expression remained as calm as ever.
"All right, let's begin today's lesson."
Li Qingshan set down the roster and swept his gaze over the room.
"When many of you hear 'Introduction to Paleography,' you may think it's a dry subject,
nothing more than identifying oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions, deciphering Qin seal script and Han clerical script, and memorizing radicals and components."
He paused, then raised his voice slightly, giving it a captivating cadence.
"But writing, especially the writing created by our ancestors in high antiquity, is far more than a simple set of symbols for recording things.
It is also our ancestors' most primal understanding and depiction of all things in the universe, formed by observing heaven and earth, drawing on their own bodies close at hand and on the world around them farther afield.
It is the crystallization of their spirits' communion with heaven and earth in their time and place.
It contains ancient wisdom,
and even some of the subtle principles by which heaven and earth operate."
At these words, quite a few students showed interest.
Even Pang Bo, who had originally thought the course might be all rote memorization, sat up a little straighter.
Zhou Yi adjusted his glasses, his gaze focused.
Even Li Xiaoman, who seemed aloof, raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Take the character 'Dao,' for example."
Li Qingshan turned and wrote an archaic seal-script "Dao" on the blackboard. Its strokes flowed smoothly into one another, as though following a course of their own.
"Where the head points, the feet travel.
It was not invented out of thin air, but arose from our ancestors'
'ability to discern a direction while walking among branching paths'-
their keen observation and distillation of that act.
By extension, it gradually evolved to denote the invisible yet existent course, the law, that governs the movement of all things."
He wrote another character in seal script: "divine," meaning divine.
"The components 'Shi' and 'Shen' are joined.
'Shi' is an altar;
'Shen' is the shape of a lightning bolt stretching out.
At the altar, our ancestors perceived, prayed to, and stood in awe of the mighty forces of nature, as unpredictable, swift, and majestic as lightning.
That was the original concept of 'divine.'
It was not entirely insubstantial and illusory, but closely connected to the most direct and awe-inspiring phenomena of heaven and earth."
His explanation was not obscure, yet as he broke down the characters' forms and traced their origins,
he always managed to draw out a meaning that transcended the writing itself, touching upon the spiritual world of their ancestors.
He made no direct mention of any cultivation terms, but between the lines, his emphasis on
"heaven and earth," "nature," "mind and spirit," "will," and "courses" flowed faintly through his words.
A student asked a question.
"Teacher Li, according to what you're saying, do these ancient characters themselves contain some kind of energy or information?"
The student who asked was a young man named Liu Yunzhi, and his tone carried a hint of challenge.
Li Qingshan smiled faintly, neither affirming nor denying it.
"Energy and information are modern terms.
We can understand it this way: the collective consciousness and ancient wisdom concentrated in a particular character when it was created
can guide our 'mind and spirit' more effectively, bringing us closer to that original 'intent' and allowing us to comprehend it.
This may be one reason why so many ancient classics emphasize reading the original texts aloud, and even attach importance to writing itself.
Concentrating and refining the spirit, calming the mind and spirit and turning them inward,
can sometimes help us break through the barriers of time and space and better perceive the ancient meaning hidden between the strokes."
As he said this, his gaze seemingly swept over Ye Fan, Zhou Yi, and several other students who were listening with particular absorption, once more and without intention.
Ye Fan was listening intently.
Ever since childhood, he had possessed a little more natural curiosity than others about such profound and mysterious things.
Li Qingshan's words were like a key, stirring something in him.
The feeling drew him in more than any purely academic class he had taken in high school.
"It does sound pretty mystical,"
Pang Bo leaned closer and whispered,
"but it's a lot more interesting than just talking about stroke structures.
Don't you think so, Yezi?"
Ye Fan murmured assent, his gaze still fixed on the ancient characters on the blackboard, which seemed to have come alive. He seemed to have grasped something.
"Maybe the ancients really did see the world differently from us."
Zhou Yi, in the front row, also turned around and joined the discussion.
"Teacher Li's perspective is very thought-provoking. It's a bit like 'etymological metaphor' in Western linguistics,
but it goes deeper, leaning more toward philosophy and experience."
Although Li Xiaoman did not turn around, she was clearly listening to the discussion behind her. Her lips pressed together slightly, and no one knew what she was thinking.
During the break, a small group of students gathered around the lectern to ask questions,
mostly about course requirements, assessment methods, and recommended reading.
Li Qingshan patiently answered them one by one, his tone gentle throughout.
Ye Fan and Pang Bo also walked over. Only when the crowd thinned a little did Ye Fan speak, asking about the lesson.
"Teacher Li, you were just talking about the 'intent' contained in ancient characters and how they guide the 'mind and spirit.'
That way of understanding them seems quite different from the principle of the arbitrariness of the sign in modern linguistics."
Li Qingshan looked at him.
"A very close observation."
Li Qingshan smiled and nodded.
"Modern linguistics places greater emphasis on the systematic and structural nature of language as a tool for communication established by social convention.
But when characters were first created in antiquity,
'drawing on the body close at hand and on things farther afield,'
every stroke may have held the character creators' intense, direct perceptions,
experiences, and collective 'intentions.' They were closer to the true state of heaven, earth, and nature,
and possessed a stronger element of resemblance and experience.
As you study, try occasionally to cast aside the excessive interference of modern ways of thinking.
Calm yourself, and use your mind and spirit to 'sense' and 'draw close' to that original state.
You may gain something unexpected.
Turning the spirit inward can sometimes clarify your understanding of yourself, and even reflect the world outside more clearly."
These words were already a rather subtle hint,
planting a trace of the most basic idea of "focusing the spirit, calming the mind, and turning the light inward"
in the hearts of Ye Fan and the several students around him who were listening attentively, under the pretext of discussing their studies.
Hearing this, Ye Fan fell into thought.
Zhou Yi also wore a thoughtful expression.
Pang Bo scratched his head. "It sounds impressive, but it's a little hard to follow. I'll have to think about it some more."
At some point, Li Xiaoman had also come to stand at the edge of the group. Her cool, clear voice rang out.
"Teacher Li, does this mean that our study of ancient writing,"
"Shouldn't it be an interpretation based more on experience and intuition, rather than objective academic research?"
Li Qingshan looked at her and answered calmly:
"Academic research requires objective, rigorous methodology. Experience and intuition,
on the other hand, can serve as supplementary paths to understanding, helping us achieve 'understanding through empathy' as far as possible,
rather than replacing scholarship itself. The two are not opposed; they may complement each other."
Li Xiaoman nodded slightly and said nothing more, but her eyes flickered. She seemed to withhold judgment on the answer.
For the rest of the class, Li Qingshan continued to explain profound ideas in accessible terms.
He was immensely learned and could draw on the classics with effortless ease, yet he never came across as showing off.
Instead, he always managed to make dry material vivid, profound, and engrossing.
The atmosphere in the classroom remained lively, and the students grew more engaged.
Over the following weeks, Li Qingshan maintained the same teaching style,
subtly influencing the young people before him whose fates were soon to change.
He also had more conversations between classes with Ye Fan, Zhou Yi, Lin Jia, and a few other students who were clearly more interested in deeper meanings,
though he kept them all within the bounds of academic discussion.
A month later, after one class, most of the students had left.
Ye Fan was organizing his notes when Li Qingshan walked over and asked, seemingly casually:
"Ye Fan, have you tried the methods we discussed before? For instance, quieting your mind to sense the 'meaning' within the characters?"
Ye Fan looked up and answered earnestly:
"I've tried a few times, Professor Li.
When I concentrate on certain ancient characters, I do find it easier to quiet my mind, and my thoughts become a little clearer.
I don't know if it's just psychological."
"As long as it helps."
Li Qingshan smiled faintly.
"Reading and scholarship have always required a calm mind and focused attention.
I have a more specific little method here, one the ancients used to help clear distracting thoughts and focus the mind.
It's rather like a meditation technique. If you're interested, you can try it in your spare time. It might help you understand the classics."
Ye Fan's interest was stirred. He was quite fond of methods like this that made him feel better:
"Please teach me, Professor."
"It's very simple,"
Li Qingshan said calmly.
"When you sit quietly in your spare time, relax your body and close your eyes. Imagine that, an inch in front of the space between your brows,
there is a point of cool, clear, tranquil light, like a flawless crystal, utterly still yet capable of reflecting all things.
Simply visualize this light in silence, without letting distracting thoughts arise, neither pursuing nor resisting them.
In time, you may find your mind growing clearer and your thinking sharper.
You could call it a rather unusual method of psychological suggestion and concentration training."
He took the barest basics of the Crystal Visualization Method, stripped away every trace of cultivation, leaving only its superficial ability to calm and focus the mind,
and taught it to Ye Fan as a "reading method" and a "meditation method."
This method was entirely harmless and had no effect beyond calming the mind.
In this Age of Dharma Decline, there was absolutely no possibility of using it to cultivate any divine abilities,
but persistent practice over a long period could subtly nourish the spiritual origin and strengthen one's foundations.
Ye Fan committed it carefully to memory. Though he found this method more specific and unusual than the ones Li Qingshan had mentioned before,
his trust in Li Qingshan and his own good experience led him to offer sincere thanks:
"Thank you, Professor. I've got it down, and I'll give it a try."
"Good. If you have any questions about your studies, you can come to my office anytime."
Li Qingshan patted him on the shoulder, picked up his lesson plan, and turned to leave.
Ye Fan watched Li Qingshan's retreating figure disappear at the end of the corridor.
He had a vague feeling that this young professor always seemed to be shrouded in a thin veil of mystery.
His learning and insights, his extraordinary appearance and bearing, always made him seem like more than met the eye.
Ye Fan returned to his dormitory and that very night made a more earnest attempt at the "visualization" method Li Qingshan had taught him.
At first, nothing magical happened. He simply found it easier to feel peaceful while sitting quietly, with fewer distracting thoughts.
But after keeping at it for a while, he did notice that whenever he finished "visualizing,"
his mind felt exceptionally clear and refreshed, recalling what he had learned during the day came unusually easily, and even his stamina seemed more abundant and lasting.
"It's probably the effect of deep relaxation."
That was what Ye Fan told himself, but he did not stop practicing, simply because it really did make him feel good, and his studies seemed to have become more efficient.
From the lectern, Li Qingshan swept his gaze over the students listening attentively or lost in thought, lingering briefly on Ye Fan, Zhou Yi, Lin Jia, and a few others in particular.
He knew the seeds had been sown; watering them would take time.
In this Age of Dharma Decline, this was the most groundwork he could possibly lay.
In the end, they would have to walk the road ahead themselves.
As for him, there in this classroom amid the mortal world,
he quietly awaited the Stone Gate's next opening,
or the moment the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin descended.