Can light float?
Lin Luoran discovered that light could float when she was a little girl. Back then, her family lived in a tile-roofed house. Sometimes, the tiles would break and the roof leaked whenever it rained.
Her dad would pick a sunny afternoon and use a bamboo ladder to get on the roof. He would replace the broken tiles with new ones. This was every man living in the countryside had to do. It was called “house-gathering”.
Lin Luoran didn’t care much about “house-gathering”. However, every time her dad moved away the broken tiles, light would pour down on the ground… The floating light was so breathtakingly beautiful.
Seven-year-old Lin Luoran believed that light could float. She kept this to herself as a little secret — actually, the Lin family was the outsider of the Li’s village. Kids at her age all looked down on her. Lin Luoran didn’t really have someone to talk to.
Then, Lin Luoran started elementary school. She realized that the floating light poured down from the roof was a delusion caused by the floating dust in the air.
The floating light was actually dust — the younger cousin of Eighth Sister Li pointed out Lin Luoran’s mistake. Lin Luoran’s family was poor so she never got to wear new clothes. Lin was malnourished and her hair was thin and her skin was sallow. Nobody in the elementary school liked her. The entire class laughed at Lin Luoran when Tenth Sister Li pointed out Lin’s childish idea.
Lin Luoran didn’t forget her classmate’s mockery for years.
Lin was born lively, however, life made her silent.
She became taller when she was in junior high school. She was slim and comely, but she never had enough confidence in herself. Lin Luoran and Li Anping were admitted to the same university, and Li started to pursue her. He sometimes sent her roses he bought from the vegetable market and poems he wrote in English. Li Anping even made soup for Lin when she got sick… Li Anping won Lin Luoran over with his complaisance.
Lin Luoran, who was self-contemptuous, believed that this was love. She was so happy being with Li Anping that she ignored all the other boys who created opportunities to “run into” her — Lin Luoran was always an elegant and fragrant orchid. She was the only one who saw herself as a worthless weed.
The incident of “floating light” has influenced Lin Luoran’s entire life… If the mysterious bead didn’t bring Lin onto the path of cultivation, she would be a forbearing, self-contemptuous and quiet girl all her life.
Time has passed. Lin Luoran is no longer an innocent child. In a daze, she sees the “floating light” again — this time, it is really flashing and dynamic light in front of her eyes.
Lin Luoran is kicked into the blood pool and she immediately disappears.
Thousands of lost souls rush at her. Lin Luoran can feel that her body is torn apart and her flesh is eaten… The pain makes her want to end her own life.
Does she want to kill herself?
She doesn’t even have the strength to chew off her own tongue.
Light pours down on Lin’s eyes. The floating light protects her eyes from being gnawed by the lost souls.
Are her cleared eyes doing this?
She is in so much pain. Lin Luoran thinks about death. Every time she thinks about death, the lost souls become fiercer.
These things bully the weak and fear the strong?
I can’t just die… If I die now, my parents, Luodong, and all my close friends will be in danger! She must hold on.
The world of cultivation is not so harmonious as it seems to be.
Lying on the bottom of the blood pool, Lin Luoran is sometimes in a coma and sometimes wide awake. Her flesh is gnawed by the lost souls, yet she is reborn with her faith and Reiki.
The bead seems to be out of touch, yet it infuses a stream of Reiki to help Lin’s rebirth every time when she is at the line of death.
Death and rebirth. Death becomes the beginning of her new life. This is a vicious circle. The space seems to be limited by certain rules so Lin Luoran can’t transport herself inside. Meanwhile, the space is able to export Reiki. Also, over the inhibition above the log cabin, a fire phoenix and a cold silver fish appear — if Lin Luoran were in the space right now, she would be able to figure something out. For example, why does this silver fish look exactly like the guardian fish of the ice grass?
These two emotionless creatures look through the mist and see Lin Luoran in the blood pool. They are moved by her toughness of struggling between life and death.
They look at Lin Luoran with pity, but more respect.
Lin’s toughness finally gives some emotions to the fire phoenix and the silver fish who used to be reluctant to show themselves.
How many people can survive such pain?
The woman in black did. She demonized because there was hate in her heart.
What will happen to Lin Luoran?
Seeing the “floating light” again finally makes Lin Luoran break away from her humble self deep inside. She no longer hears the mockery from the crowded classroom in her elementary school.
She is Lin Luoran, a woman who cultivates in a metropolis.
Though the pain in her body is overwhelming, Lin feels that her mind is open. Her level of cultivation is enough and her state of mind is healthy. During the circle of death and rebirth, the Reiki inside her are gradually compressed. With the bead providing an endless amount of Reiki, Lin Luoran now doesn’t need the help of the Foundation-laying Bolus.
There seems to be a little crack at her pubic region. Reiki flows inside like crazy. In a daze, Lin Luoran faintly feels that the Reiki inside her is reacting. She instinctively directs the Reiki to go forward when they are stuck at her pubic region. Finally, Reiki break through the barrier.
Bang — after the Reiki break through the pubic region, the Sea of Reiki is formed. Reiki inside Lin finally find the place they belong to.
Like a cloud of nebula, white mixed Reiki takes up the largest part and there are also blue water Reiki and red fire Reiki. The three kinds of Reiki circle in her pubic region at the same speed.
Every circle they flow, some weak Reiki will be transformed into Wakan—
All of this happens at the end of the second year Lin Luoran lies on the bottom of the blood pool.
What else happens that year?
By the end of the second year after Lin’s disappearance, Luodong finishes the second grade.
The daughter of Wang Miao’e is able to speak clearly. Though she is a toddler, she brings some lightness to the depressing atmosphere of the Lin family.
By the end of the second year after Lin’s disappearance, Mr. Lin becomes able to refine and absorb Reiki. Though Baojia starts to cultivate late, she is more powerful than Mr. Lin because of her good quality.
That year, Mu Tiannan takes the opportunity of doing business abroad and pays for another international mercenary team to search for Lin Luoran around Mount Zhong.
That year, Liu Zheng arrives at the hill in northwest Huaxia and starts to carry things for the old crazy Taoist.
That year, many people in the world of cultivation believe that the outstanding woman from the Lin family is dead. They start to question the authenticity of Lin’s mysterious master and they begin to plan for the capture of Lin’s golden hawk. They even think about the profit they may make once the capture fails.
That year, in the bloody dungeon under the Zhongshan Mausoleum, Lin Luoran suffers from overwhelming pain. Then she finally — enters the level of Laying Foundation!
