Chapter 495: The Stone Tablet
Lin Yu drifted beside him, also looking at that tree. But he saw more than Su Ming did. The layered living formation lines on that tree weren’t some new discovery to him; they were the answer to a question that had plagued him for five hundred years. He had run countless simulations back in the ring—could a formation grow like a living thing? Could it evolve on its own without human maintenance? Every simulation led to the same conclusion: theoretically possible. But he had no proof.
Now, the proof stood before him. That tree was the answer. Lin Yu’s Soul Body trembled almost imperceptibly in the faint light, a glimmer of moisture flickering at the corner of his eyes and vanishing just as quickly. It wasn’t emotion—it was relief. Finally, he wasn’t the only one talking to himself anymore.
Su Ming had no idea how long he had sat under that tree. Maybe two days. Maybe five. The light and shadows had shifted back and forth several times, and Shadow had dozed off on his lap, cycle after cycle. He stood up, patted the dew off his sleeves, scooped Shadow out of the root hollow, and set her on his shoulder before continuing forward.
This time, his way of walking had changed again. He wasn’t just watching the stone slabs or tossing leaves anymore. He began to pay attention to more things: the direction the mist flowed past his fingertips, the angle at which the light beams bent after piercing through the canopy, the faint correspondence between the vibrations transmitted through the stone path beneath his feet and the rhythm of the branches and leaves swaying overhead. This path was no longer just a path—it was becoming a picture. A vast picture painted stroke by stroke with spiritual energy, trees, mist, and time. He could only see a tiny corner of it, but that corner was enough to keep him going.
Lin Yu drifted behind him, also perceiving. He learned faster than Su Ming. Five hundred years of accumulated formation principles formed a massive underlying net, and now he was simply hanging each new sensory experience onto it, matching and verifying them against the theories in that net. Every time a piece clicked into place, a layer of certainty settled deeper in his heart. Yet the depth of what he felt had already surpassed the scope those theories described. The books said, “Spiritual energy is like silk, like threads.” Now he understood—it wasn’t a metaphor. It really was silk. It really was threads. But you had to come here, see it with your own eyes, and touch it with your own hands to truly grasp the weight of those words.
He walked a bit further. Suddenly, Su Ming’s steps slowed by half a beat.
Half-buried by the roadside was a gray-white stone tablet, only a corner exposed, thickly covered in moss. He crouched down and began to peel away the moss. His movements were very gentle. The moss came off, revealing the stone surface beneath. Words were carved into it—not in a script he recognized. The strokes were archaic and clumsy, as if the carver wasn’t skilled at this, but they had still carved each stroke with earnest, painstaking care.
“Teacher.”
Lin Yu floated over and glanced down: “Sat here for seven days.”
Su Ming was stunned. Who had sat here for seven days? He continued scraping away the moss. The tablet’s surface wasn’t large, but the moss layer was thick. After clearing it away, sure enough, there were more words below.
Lin Yu looked down again, this time falling silent for longer: “Can’t comprehend, but at peace.”
Six words. They drifted lightly into his ears, yet they fell like a pebble into a deep pool.
Su Ming sat down in front of the stone tablet. It wasn’t a deliberate imitation. It was that those eight words felt like a hand gently pressing on a taut string deep in his heart. Ever since entering the secret realm, he had been constantly “thinking”—thinking about the structure of the stone path, thinking about the patterns of spiritual energy flow, thinking about why formation lines could grow on trees. One question after another, layer upon layer of understanding. But now, sitting in front of this tablet, looking at the words carved by someone he had never met, he suddenly felt—maybe not everything needed to be “comprehended.” At least not now. At least not on this road.
He leaned against the tablet’s base and closed his eyes. This time, he wasn’t cultivating or trying to fathom some profound principle. He just wanted to sit quietly for a while, just like that person had. To think of nothing, to be in a hurry for nothing. Just sit.
In the Consciousness Sea, Lin Yu also stared at those eight words.
Can’t comprehend, but at peace. He was rarely moved by words. But these eight were different, because they weren’t written for anyone else to see. This tablet was half-buried in the mud, wrapped in moss. If Su Ming hadn’t happened to shift his gaze by an inch today, it might never have been seen by anyone. The person who carved these eight words never intended anyone else to read them. They were carved for themselves—after seven days, when they still hadn’t comprehended a single thing, they left a message for themselves. Not for enlightenment. Not to pass down a teaching. Just to tell themselves: It’s okay. I’m still walking.
Those words, having crossed who knows how many years of dust and moss, having crossed five hundred years of a solitary soul’s drifting loneliness, struck the most tender corner of Lin Yu’s heart with pinpoint accuracy. It wasn’t that he had never been anxious. He had mastered the three thousand six hundred runes. But after mastering them, what came next? The bottleneck was there, and no matter how he tried to bypass it, he couldn’t. He had hidden this anxiety deep, always wearing that calm, “Your teacher has long seen through it all” demeanor in front of Su Ming. But deep down, he knew. Beneath that shell was a lonely soul who had groped in the darkness for five hundred years, never knowing if the path he was on was the right one.
And now, a stone tablet half-buried in mud told him in eight words—no need to rush. It’s okay not to comprehend. Peace of mind is enough.
Lin Yu’s Soul Body hovered silently beside the tablet for a long time. He didn’t deliberately “contemplate” those eight words. He just let that sentence rest in his heart, like a seed just planted. No rush to sprout. Just let it rest.
The light and shadows shifted again. The mist thickened, then thinned. When Su Ming opened his eyes, an extremely thin layer of moisture had settled on him. He lowered his head to look at Shadow, curled up on his knees, and then at the stone tablet before him. Those eight words were still there.
Su Ming reached out and gently gathered the moss he had peeled away, covering it back up. His movements were very light, as if tucking a blanket over an old friend. He didn’t completely cover the words, leaving one corner exposed—just in case someone else might walk this way in the future, look down, and see them.
After doing this, he stood up. Shadow, woken by the movement, let out an annoyed chirp and hopped back onto his shoulder. Su Ming patted her head lightly. “Let’s go.”
The moment his foot touched the stone slab, that familiar, faint fluctuation of spiritual energy came again from beneath his soles. One step. Two steps. Three steps. He continued forward. The path was still there. The mist was still there. The trees were still there. Nothing had changed, yet Su Ming felt something different in his heart. It wasn’t that he had suddenly grasped some great truth, nor that he had broken through a cultivation bottleneck. It was just that the string that had been stretched taut for so long had loosened just a little. Just a little. But that little bit was enough to let him breathe deeper and walk more steadily on the road ahead.
And that was enough.