Where Did My Great Big Peng Go?

Yu Tunzhou had a dream.

In the dream, he became a fish. He swam through the vast oceans of the four seas, eating and eating, sleeping and sleeping all the while. In a haze, he grew into a giant that could carry mountains as he swam through the sea. When he breathed out, he stirred the tides of the four seas; when he breathed in, he drew oceans into his belly.

Countless overlords ruled the oceans, but he stood alone at the very top. Even the dragon sons and grandsons of the dragon palaces of the four seas dared not provoke him. They gave him a wide berth whenever they saw him, lest he swallow them by mistake.

He had seen the grandeur of the four seas, yet he was also trapped within their waters, the road ahead a vast blank with nowhere to go.

In the end, he gradually settled into dormancy in the deep sea, watching generations of ocean overlords live and die over the long ages.

Only then did he understand that the four seas were the domain of all the demons, but even more so their cage. Apart from the dragons of the Dragon Court of the Four Seas, few could break free of the water's bonds.

Until this day.

He burst through the ice of the northern sea and raised his head to behold the boundless azure heavens. With a gentle flick of his tail fin, he shattered towering, ten-thousand-zhang waves. The surging water thundered like collapsing mountains, forming a whirlpool three thousand zhang across.

It was also on this day.

He made up his mind: he would turn from fish to bird and break free of the limits of his form.

At the end of the dream.

He succeeded. His wings spread like clouds hanging from the heavens as he rode the wind ninety thousand li high; his scaled body spanned the sea as he struck the water, stirring waves three thousand li wide. From a colossal beast confined to the four seas, he became a supreme divine bird roaming heaven and earth, with heaven and earth as his shelter, the starry river as his road, and carefree freedom as his Dao!

He became an overlord of heaven and earth, roaming wherever he pleased, but his ambition did not settle. Instead, it burned ever hotter.

He still wanted... more, more!

His interpretation and understanding of freedom changed almost every moment.

Until that burning ambition finally consumed him.

At that very moment.

Yu Tunzhou woke from the dream as though he had slept for a thousand, ten thousand years. Opening his eyes, he saw his Primordial Spirit Heaven and Earth transformed.

His heart was clear as a mirror. The visualization diagram was complete.

His Primordial Spirit Inner Form had been successfully forged!

Compared to before, this Primordial Spirit Heaven and Earth had undergone a complete transformation!

Yu Tunzhou stood on the surface of the sea and raised his eyes. Sea and sky met at the horizon, blue waves stretched for ten thousand li, and not a speck of land was in sight.

He walked aimlessly across the water, his heart filled with indescribable awe and satisfaction. Was this vast ocean all part of his, Yu Tunzhou's, Primordial Spirit Inner Form?

It was simply too magnificent.

It felt like moving from a thatched hut into the Dragon Court of the Four Seas.

He began to ponder. Was the entire sea the "form" of his Primordial Spirit Inner Form?

Then what about its "spirit"?

Visualizing an Inner Form involved both spirit and shape.

The so-called shape was the form.

For example, when he visualized the Heavenly Peng Bearing the Azure Diagram, the azure sky should by rights have been the secondary form and the Heavenly Peng the primary form.

But form alone was not enough. Without spirit, it was merely an empty shape. One also had to incorporate the True Intention within the visualization diagram itself, refining it to put the finishing touch on the form, like dotting the eyes of a painted dragon.

Yet Yu Tunzhou had merely slept, and his Primordial Spirit Heaven and Earth had been reshaped.

He still did not know whether this ocean counted as part of his Inner Form.

If it did...

Were other people's Inner Forms this enormous too?

Just then, Yu Tunzhou felt a sense of childlike affection. Something beneath the surface of the sea seemed to be rapidly approaching.

Could it be...

Yu Tunzhou waited with solemn attention, a guess forming in his mind.

The next moment, a small black fish leaped out of the water toward Yu Tunzhou.

He caught it instinctively. Gazing at the lively little fish in his hands, Yu Tunzhou fell into thought.

Where was the Peng?

Where did my great big Peng go?

Where was my Kunpeng, who raised his eyes and begrudged the azure sky for hanging too low?

If there was no Peng, a Kun that could swallow and expel the oceans of the four seas would do!

The black fish leaped from his hands and returned to the embrace of the sea. It swam happily around his feet, circling again and again and blowing a long string of bubbles.

Yu Tunzhou scratched his head, somewhat helpless, and sat down on the surface of the sea.

Though this was an ocean, it was still, in essence, a manifestation of his Primordial Spirit, though he did not know why it was so vast...

He reached out, and the black fish came over and affectionately rubbed against his fingers, lively and familiar.

Yu Tunzhou closed his eyes and thought back. His earlier memories were still vivid.

He had tried to subdue the will contained within the Heavenly Peng on his own, and had engaged in a searching question of the heart with the Heavenly Peng True Intention.

In the process, the Heavenly Peng True Intention had seemed to open a lock in his heart, making him feel as though a wildfire were burning within him.

Just as in that dream, he had escaped the bonds of the four seas and seen a wider sky, the ambition in his heart blazing fiercely.

The one who had questioned him about his ambition should have been a senior of the Heavenly Peng Daoist Temple.

After all, the True Intention of a visualization diagram was an imprint of divine intent left by a predecessor to help those who came after attain the method.

As he recalled it, Yu Tunzhou suddenly noticed that, in mastering the visualization diagram this time, he seemed not to have relied entirely on the power of the golden characters.

His Primordial Spirit had already begun to transform before the golden characters merged into it.

Yu Tunzhou looked at the little fish frolicking happily by his feet and felt somewhat troubled. If the ocean was the secondary form and the little fish was the primary form, then the two were now rather clearly reversed in importance.

What would he have to feed the little fellow to make it grow into the giant from his dream, the one that could swallow and expel the oceans of the four seas?

After lingering in this Primordial Spirit space for a long time, Yu Tunzhou finally rose, ready to leave.

He had just given it some thought and recalled Xie Linchuan mentioning that the Heavenly Peng Daoist of old had attained his method by observing the Kunpeng of the Northern Dark Sea, comprehending the full extent of the True Intention of yang and hardness and creating the Heavenly Peng Dharma Form.

While tidying the Heavenly Peng residence, he had also noticed that its interior layout featured much water and a closeness to it, which ran counter to the supremely yang and hard intent of the Heavenly Peng Bearing the Azure Diagram.

Perhaps the Heavenly Peng Daoist Temple had long harbored the ambition of transforming the Heavenly Peng into a Kunpeng, and had even produced "results" already.

So he decided to visit the Heavenly Peng Daoist Temple the next morning and ask for guidance.

In the Heavenly Peng Daoist Temple's history, had anyone else undergone the same strange change as him?

If the Heavenly Peng was supremely yang and hard, then the little fish beside him was plainly the nascent form of supreme yin.

At the very least, he had to ask whether there was a way to nourish his Primordial Spirit, how to strengthen his Inner Form, and how to feed the little fellow until it became the giant from his dream.

Yu Tunzhou awoke, his consciousness slowly withdrawing from his Primordial Spirit Heaven and Earth like a weary bird returning to its nest.

He returned from above the blue waves to the thatched hut.

He suddenly froze.

He had yet to open his eyes, but he could "see" everything in the thatched hut. The weave of the straw mat, the bumps and hollows of the yellow mud walls, even the gentle flicker of the flame were all perfectly clear.

It was not the light and shadow seen with the naked eye, but the clarity of perception through his mind and spirit, without the slightest blur or a single detail missed.

This was...

Primordial Spirit perception?

He was delighted. After he had created his Primordial Spirit Inner Form, the limits of his naked eyes had been broken. Wherever his mind and spirit reached, so too did his sight.

Every blade of grass and every tree, every speck of dust and every grain of earth, were within his thoughts, before his eyes.

The hut was still plain and dimly lit, yet in his perception, this tiny thatched hut held a vitality and intricacy he had never glimpsed before. Every minute detail was clear as an engraving, and he was aware of every slightest movement.

Even the wind flowing through the hut had a clear shape. It slipped in through a crack in the window, swirled lightly around the oil lamp, and brushed the flame into a flicker before sweeping up dust from the floor and drifting toward the corner.

The world as he saw it was utterly different from before.

So this was what it meant to observe the world with the Primordial Spirit!

Unfortunately, its range was still small, barely encompassing the earthen hut.

Just as Yu Tunzhou was immersed in quiet joy, he suddenly "saw" a patch of multicolored... pitch-black darkness crouching outside the window?!

It was even human-shaped!

It was as though someone were lying against the window, spying on what was happening inside.

The old Daoist's warning abruptly surfaced in his mind, and Yu Tunzhou's body instantly stiffened.

The next moment.

A vortex of Qi formed around Yu Tunzhou and began sweeping up the clear Qi in the surroundings.

After a brief shock, the youth did not even regulate his breathing. In the blink of an eye, he entered a state of deep Meditative Concentration and began cultivating the Qi Ingestion Method.

He had not opened his eyes anyway.

If he had not opened his eyes, then he had not seen anything.

The man outside the hut nodded, showing a rare sign of approval.

He could even fool himself like that. Nice work.

A thousand years ago, he would have had to reward him with something, one way or another.