My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion-Chapter 41 - 30 I’ve become your concubine! (Please follow) _2

Chapter 41: Chapter 30 I’ve become your concubine! (Please follow) _2

As the voice faded away, the fragrance of tea, unnoticed before, began to diffuse.

Chen Yi’s heart sank abruptly. The faint mist that lingered over Heart Lake suddenly thickened, and fine rain fell like a storm.

The scenery before his eyes shifted unexpectedly—the private room vanished. Lowering his gaze, Chen Yi found himself standing before Qian Deng Temple, thriving with incense offerings in the bustling Capital City.

Inside Qian Deng Temple, Yin Weiyin, with a Peach Wood Sword hanging at her waist, turned around and smiled at Chen Yi. In that instant of fleeting bewilderment that seized his heart, he saw her leading the way ahead while he followed closely behind.

Stepping into the front hall, rows of lanterns came into view. A corridor stretched across the hall, with oil lamps burning just beyond the walkway, separated by about a yard. Behind the lamps loomed thirty-six celestial generals, their figures indistinct yet imposing. Chen Yi unconsciously began counting the lanterns but lost track after only a few dozen. The famed name of "Thousand Lamps" was no exaggeration. The hallway’s wooden columns, frequently repaired after weathering wind and rain, retained their original brown hue, and beneath them lay a thin layer of snow.

The maple trees beyond the columns were also blanketed with snow.

In the rear hall, the altar in front of them was adorned with eternal lamps, arranged in tiers—the altar had nine levels. Behind it stood the statue of Blessings Venerate.

Yin Weiyin, robes pristine as snow, reached out to take one of the eternal lamps and handed it to Chen Yi.

"Take it," she said.

Chen Yi accepted the lamp. Its flame flickered, burning steadily and endlessly, like the ever-present sun and moon.

Yin Weiyin extended her hand to take it back.

Chen Yi returned it to her.

Yet in her hand, the eternal lamp that should have remained lit extinguished sorrowfully in mere moments.

What... is happening?

As Chen Yi pondered, Yin Weiyin turned her gaze to him and suddenly said:

"You are very perplexed."

Chen Yi froze for a moment.

"Because you are but the morning mushroom and summer cicada," she said.

After a pause, Chen Yi asked:

"Please enlighten me, Immortal."

Yin Weiyin smiled serenely,

"The mortal body, bound by flesh, inevitably comes to an end. No matter how one nourishes longevity, most will scarcely live past two sexagenary cycles.

People understand cultivation only partially, seeing just the tip of the iceberg. How could they ever imagine that, in ancient times, there existed a divine tree, the great chún, for whom a single spring lasted eight thousand years and autumn another eight thousand?

To such beings, mere mortals living two cycles are as insignificant as summer cicadas."

Chen Yi half-understood, pressing further, "Your meaning is..."

Yin Weiyin gazed at him with an enigmatic smile, saying,

"The lamp burns eternally in your hand, yet in mine, it flickers and fades. Do you not understand? To me, even the eternal lamp is not truly eternal. No matter how enduring its flame may be, how could it surpass a mountain’s cycles of spring and autumn?"

Chen Yi realized she was speaking of the Taoist path to immortality. He asked,

"Then... how can I live through mountain springs and autumns?"

Between the flickers and fades of the lamp’s flame, a sudden awareness of his insignificance washed over him.

Yin Weiyin, holding her horsetail whisk, swung it gently and intoned a chant of veneration.

The surrounding scenery transformed once more.

A vast expanse of white unfolded around them; snow began to fall. Distant pavilions and towers with glazed tiles dusted white emerged, their contours familiar. Chen Yi surveyed his surroundings and noticed stone Bodhisattva statues. Shocked, he realized this was none other than Yintai Temple within the Prince Mansion.

"If you aspire to live through mountain springs and autumns, you must grasp enlightenment, akin to the sudden clarity of pure nectar or the abrupt awakening described in Buddhist teachings." Yin Weiyin said, gazing at the stone Bodhisattva.

Chen Yi asked persistently, "Why do you speak of Buddhism? And why did you bring me here?"

In a soft voice, Yin Weiyin replied,

"The Taoist canon states: ’The celestial immortals all speak in Sanskrit.’ The principles are intertwined; they merely blossom along separate branches.

I brought you here because this place harbors your greatest worldly attachments, your deepest ignorance."

My greatest worldly attachments... my deepest ignorance...

Looking at the temple, Chen Yi could not help but recall that seemingly resolute yet truly fragile young girl.

In a previous life, she had killed him, his sworn enemy. Yet in this lifetime, he forced her into becoming his concubine. She neither liked him nor loved him, but despite that, she haunted his soul.

Murmuring softly, Chen Yi said,

"You want me to... sever all ties to the lower world? To stop meddling in mortal affairs?"

Yin Weiyin laughed and said,

"You do indeed have insight.

A person who renounces the world must act accordingly. If they do not sever attachments, what kind of renunciation is it?"

Chen Yi asked again insistently, "If I do not sever attachments, can I not achieve immortality? Isn’t it said, ’The immortal brushes my crown, granting me longevity...’"

Yin Weiyin laughed and replied,

"I am the immortal brushing your crown, granting you longevity."

To sever attachments and attain supreme detachment was the method of immortality she was imparting.

Chen Yi fell silent.

The scenes Yin Weiyin unveiled were imbued with an indescribable serenity, a tranquility that emerged from his Heart Lake and flowed through his entire being.

Chen Yi glanced aside and unconsciously noticed the gray-black treasure vase.

It was here that the girl who had been his foe, Yin Tingxue, burned three thousand taels worth of silver notes and became his concubine.

Though she fled afterward, he brought her back.

If he were to sever this attachment, if he were to sever all ties with her...

"No matter the path to immortality, one must sever attachments, erase all that is tangible to comprehend the true Way. Only with supreme detachment can the Three Flowers gather at the top and the Five Qi ascend to the origin. Buddhism also teaches that to achieve enlightenment in a single thought, one must banish ignorance in a single thought."

As these words fell, Chen Yi felt his feet gradually lift off the ground. Turning, he suddenly saw the white-robed female crown ascending through the mist. She was ethereal, like an immortal flying out of Dunhuang grottoes, leading him toward transcendence.

Half of the Great Yu’s Capital City lay beneath them, blossoming in the twilight’s splendor.

Witnessing such a scene, Chen Yi thought he would experience a surge of emotion. Yet, he felt no turbulence within; his Heart Lake remained calm.

The Great Yu Capital grew smaller and smaller. The Taichua Goddess beside him led him step by step away from the worldly glitter. As Chen Yi distanced himself from the Capital, time around the Great Yu seemed to accelerate. The once-preeminent splendor faded; armies besieged the city, and the final Emperor surrendered the city to invaders. After five centuries, Great Yu’s reign came to an end, and the empire was unified once more.

Under the twilight’s veil, the Capital transitioned—ruin and rebirth intertwined. Merchants once more converged; pavilions and halls arose from the ruins. Painted pleasure boats carved intricate paths through the rivers. People arrived and departed; they left and returned. The sun set as it always had, and rose again without fail. Winds from the west returned to where they began in the east.

Chen Yi looked on at this unfolding scene, his heart enveloped by a tranquility beyond words. Amid the twilight, faintly, the sound of yellow brass bells rang within the Cave Heaven Blessed Land.

The prosperity was still prosperity, yet no longer as it once was. The famed Qian Deng Temple now lay abandoned, while Yintai Temple flourished. Spring and autumn cycled endlessly; worldly affairs shifted unpredictably.

Floating westward past the surface of summer waters, turning back, nothing remained of the old city’s walls and gates.

In solitude, enlightenment arrived.

Through the ethereal wandering with the Goddess, mortal concerns became nothing more than the mirages of distant Penglai.

As thoughts cascaded, time blurred by like centuries—everything grew unfamiliar, unworthy of nostalgia, and increasingly insignificant. All things seemed ephemeral, like a single grain amidst the vast ocean. Chen Yi gradually grasped the meaning of waxing and waning, of spring and autumn; such was the arrival of these days.

"Little knowledge pales before greater understanding, a fleeting year falls short of the eternal..." Chen Yi murmured to himself as the view of the Capital receded further and further. Beside him, only the Taichua Goddess remained, softly surrounding him, guiding him higher into transcendence. It felt as though if he could release the final vestiges of desire, he would attain the Three Flowers Gathering at the Top and the Five Qi Returning to the Origin.

Whether Min Ning, Min Ming, the Empress Dowager... even Yin Tingxue—her features gradually faded, vanishing into memories like echoes of mist-scattered waves. Could such a reflection be grasped?

As he was about to close his eyes.

"I became your concubine!"

Her distant figure faded, but her words reverberated once more.

Haunting and undulating, each syllable fraught with depths like fleeting, mournful flames.

How resolute had she been when she entrusted herself to him?

The silver notes that could have redeemed her had been tossed into the flames. After being saved from the rain-drenched alley, she cried. No matter how much she disliked him, no matter how much she hated him, she belonged to him now.

Through tears, she told him she wouldn’t run anymore, that she would serve him forever. Though she hadn’t explicitly stated it, that was her act of entrustment!

Faced with his demands, she could never refuse. She had no escape, placing her everything into his hands!

He... could not abandon her...

In a moment of sudden bewilderment, Chen Yi’s mind reeled.

Though he could erase all forms and pursue enlightenment, intoning "Blessings of Infinite Heavenly Venerable" to transcend emotionless into the boundless great Dao, he could never wipe away the trace of her that lingered—a fleeting mark left in the snow and mud upon his heart.