Chapter 1295 Manifesting Virtue, Way of the Great Learning
“Master, let’s go?”
The police proposed that they go down the mountain together, so He Gaoming called Fang Qiu and was ready to leave.
“You have to take so many people back, but your cars can’t hold all of us.”
Fang Qiu told the police, “It’s just nine o’clock in the evening. We’re here to climb the mountain, so don’t worry about us. We’ll go back after we walk around the mountains for some time.”
The policemen heard what he said.
They had planned to take He Gaoming and Fang Qiu back to the police station for their statements, but on second thought, the police cars couldn’t hold so many people. Anyway, the police station had the criminal records of these people, and they had been arrested in the act. Thus, the two people’s statements were not really necessary.
“Okay, thank you for your support. Be careful in the mountains at night. If you meet with any problems you can’t handle, call the police instantly. We will come to your aid as soon as possible.”
The captain of the police team nodded to the two of them and saluted before turning around. Then, he ordered everyone to leave. All of them got in the cars and left.
“Master, then… shall we go back?”
After the police left, He Gaoming said to Fang Qiu with an embarrassed smile.
“No hurry.”
Fang Qiu shook his head.
“Yes, but there’s no point in us staying here. There are no relics here.”
He Gaoming said with a wry smile.
“That’s not necessarily true.”
Fang Qiu shook his head.
“Um?”
Hearing this, He Gaoming was slightly stunned and quickly asked, “Is there really a relic? We were distracted by this group of people who excavated the mountain to steal the stones, so we didn’t notice it?”
As they talked…
He Gaoming couldn’t help looking around.
However, he saw nothing unusual after he scanned the area
He pursed his lips and looked at Fang Qiu, feeling quite helpless.
“I’m sure the lights and muffled thunder were all caused by the excavation of this mountain.”
Fang Qiu continued, “However, how could a small quarry be powerful enough to produce the legends that affect a whole village? Besides, legends can’t be formed in one or two days. They must have been excavating at this quarry for a long time. But how could any local legends come from outsiders? Have you ever heard of that?”
He Gaoming heard his analysis.
He was instantly stunned.
“It seems to be the case.”
He Gaoming thought for a while and said, “The legends should be mysterious enough. Besides, it takes time for them to spread widely and make many people believe in them.”
“But there is indeed nothing particular in this mountain.”
As he finished speaking…
He Gaoming found Fang Qiu had already walked away and had headed toward a ravine behind the stone quarry.
There was a stream with clear spring water flowing within it.
The gurgling sound of water was very pleasant to the ear.
He gazed at it fixedly.
The ravine had luxuriant vines, various wild plants, and ordinary herbs.
Ordinary people who came wouldn’t dare to enter it.
The vegetation here was rather lush and anyone could tell at a glance that there could be some dangerous animals here, for example, snakes.
“Master?”
He Gaoming quickly followed up. With his eyes glued to the ravine, he asked, “Please don’t tell me the relic is inside.”
Fang Qiu didn’t reply.
With his Divine Consciousness, he detected a place that contained the usual Qi of Heaven and Earth. The site was indeed in the innermost part of this ravine. Although the feeling flashing through his mind was faint, he felt it.
He carefully sensed it.
Fang Qiu noticed that the abnormal stream of Qi of Heaven and Earth disappeared again as if it had never existed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t detect it again.
“Woosh.”
Fang Qiu waved his right hand.
A burst of internal Qi spurted out of his palm, instantly sweeping away all the vines and plants covering the ravine. His magical move revealed the whole limpid stream.
Surprisingly, nothing was in those lush vines and plants, not to mention animals like snakes.
Fang Qiu took a closer look at the innermost part.
He found that…
There was nothing special there, nor was there anything suitable for setting up traps. There was not even a stone.
“No mechanisms?”
Fang Qiu was puzzled.
Next to him…
He Gaoming looked at Fang Qiu with a puzzled look, not knowing what he was doing.
Here…
“Maybe the mechanism is the same as that of the Zangjiang relic?”
Fang Qiu thought briefly and stamped his right foot on the ground. Then, a palm-sized stone at the side immediately rose before him, and he quickly slammed his hand on it.
“Clap!”
A crisp sound was heard.
The stone was instantly smashed into countless pieces by Fang Qiu. Then, driven by his internal Qi, these stone pieces, as dense as raindrops, shot into the innermost part of the ravine.
Before this…
Fang Qiu had been through two ancient relics. The first one was discovered when he stepped aside to pee. It was a real barrier made of energy. Only when he touched it would it be triggered.
As for the second Pharaoh relic in Egyptt, he found it when he triggered the mechanism.
Therefore…
First, Fang Qiu confirmed that nothing in the innermost part of the ravine could be used as a mechanism. Then, Fang Qiu decided to hit the surroundings with stones to see if he could trigger anything.
If he succeeded, there must be a relic.
If not, there should be something like a small Earth Treasure nearby.
“Pop, pop, pop…”
Suddenly, smashing sounds could be heard continuously even before these flying stones could reach the mountain in the innermost depths of the ravine.
Fang Qiu took a closer look.
To his surprise, a light curtain popped up in the place where the sounds were coming from.
“Sure enough!”
Fang Qiu cracked a smile.
This result was the same as he had imagined.
There was indeed an ancient ruin here, but this light curtain was much smaller than the one in the Zangjiang ruin.
The light curtain here was only the size of a standard door. It didn’t look like an energy seal. Instead, it was more like a space-time crack.
“As I said, there is an ancient relic here!”
Seeing the light curtain, He Gaoming was struck dumb. Afterward, he proudly pointed to the light curtain and said, feeling elated and shocked by the unexpected success.
“But this door of the ruins didn’t seem to have been triggered by these stones.”
Fang Qiu moved closer to examine it more carefully. At the side of the light curtain, he found a boulder under a cluster of vines that hadn’t been destroyed. More than half of the boulder was buried under the dirt, and Fang Qiu spotted a thumb-size crack on its surface.
A stone had landed in the crack.
Fang Qiu reached out.
He took the stone out of the crack.
The moment he removed it, the light curtain instantly vanished.
Then, he put the stone back into it.
The light curtain showed up again!
He Gaoming came over and reached out to try with the stone.
The light screen flickered as the stone repeatedly went in and out.
“Apparently, the stones caused the strange change of the Qi of Heaven and Earth. Very likely, when the stone crusher was working, stones were knocked away and fell into the crack, and caused the abnormal phenomena.”
Fang Qiu secretly nodded.
Since vines were entwined around the boulder, stones usually wouldn’t get into the crack. At most, it could only cause a little stir. However, unlike them, these stones thrown by Fang Qiu with internal Qi moved at a more rapid speed. They could easily penetrate the vines and get into the crack.
It appeared that those thieves who blasted mountains and stole the stones had helped him a lot. Otherwise, he might have missed this relic.
“That’s enough. Stop playing with it.”
Fang Qiu darted a glance sideways at He Gaoming and said, “Look at the light curtain!”
He Gaoming hurriedly inserted the stone firmly into the crack. After taking a few steps back, he began to observe the light curtain with Fang Qiu.
“There are characters on it?”
He Gaoming asked in confusion after he took a closer look.
“Mmm.”
Fang Qiu nodded knowingly and said, “Yes. It’s the seal character from ancient times.”
As he spoke…
Fang Qiu began to watch it closely.
In his eyes, these characters looked very similar to the terrain he had observed and set up.
“Could it be a kind of terrain?”
The longer he looked at it, the more surprised and confused Fang Qiu became.
“Could it be the same as the Zangjiang relic?”
Fang Qiu clearly remembered it.
He managed to intervene and benefit from the fight for the Zangjiang relic because he had learned the formation, Combined Attack, from the Divine Sword. The formation and the terrain were quite similar in nature. To put it plainly, the terrain was a natural formation of nature!
“If the thing on this light curtain is the terrain, the trick to open this relic must be connected to formations.”
With this sudden inspiration…
Fang Qiu instantly began to compare the formations he knew with the thing on the light curtain.
“Not right!”
When he did the comparison, Fang Qiu found something was wrong.
“Not the terrain. It’s different from the Zangjiang ruin!”
As he pondered…
Fang Qiu’s eyebrows shot up.
Since it was not the terrain, it should be pure characters. right?
At the thought of this…
Fang Qiu immediately started to analyze them word by word. He meticulously memorized every word in his mind and studied them one by one.
As soon as he finished committing the words to memory…
Fang Qiu recalled the words and read them.
“Gee?”
These characters flowed well together and could be connected without any difficulty.
After a moment of shock…
A book written in ancient times emerged in Fang Qiu’s mind: “The Great Learning.”
These words turned out to be the entire content of “The Great Learning”!
“Don’t bother.”
He Gaoming had already taken out his phone to do an online search as he read the words. When he saw this, Fang Qiu immediately stopped him and said, “These words are the whole text of ‘The Great Learning.’”
“‘The Great Learning’?”
He Gaoming was stunned and scratched his head in confusion. Then he looked at Fang Qiu and asked, “What do you mean? Is this relic the same as the final exam? Does it require us to recite the whole text?”
Fang Qiu shook his head.
It couldn’t be that simple.
How could the answer be put on the light curtain beforehand if they were asked to recite it? In that case, anyone could just look at the answer and read it aloud.
However…
Fang Qiu didn’t know why the light curtain recorded the contents of “The Great Learning.” But when he discovered that these words made up “The Great Learning,” he immediately thought of its first sentence.
“The way of the Great Learning involves manifesting virtue, loving the people, and abiding by the highest good.”
When his eyes landed on the three characters, “the highest good,” on the light curtain…
Fang Qiu beamed with pleasure.
He finally figured it out.
“Let’s go.”
Without hesitation, Fang Qiu pulled He Gaoming toward the light curtain. When the three characters, “the highest good,” rose on the light curtain, he stretched out his foot and stepped forward.
The next second…
The scenery before Fang Qiu and He Gaoming changed drastically: they were in a completely different place.
He Gaoming was delighted and surprised by this sudden change.
They were in, for real!