Chapter 173: Heartless
A gaze similar to the one which terrified the resource collector reappeared in Yaan's eyes. Instantly, all of the villagers gathered around Granny Ging's home felt their hearts turn cold. They stared at Yaan with deep fear in their hearts, but they were unable to look away.
Yaan's eyes were similarly indifferent like before, only now, the tiredness was nowhere to be seen. A faint flame of understanding burned within his pupils, a flame which rapidly transformed, forming an illusory golden vortex within…
"In the end, mortal life is too weak, too brief, too fragile." Yaan spoke plainly, but his voice sent chills down the spines of all who heard him.
"No…" Yaan spoke again, still staring at Granny Ging's corpse as he narrowed his eyes.
"Not just mortals…all life ends in death. Everything is temporary, nothing is fixed in this world. Even cultivators, even immortals…who can truly escape from all things that result in death? Perhaps gods can achieve this…or maybe even they can not…"
Yaan laughed to himself, shaking his head.
"All the suffering I force myself to endure, all the terrible things I have done, all the emotions I have experienced, the feelings I have been tormented by, those I have cut off from my own heart…what is it all for, if this is the final ending? There is no absolute in this world, even strength is a temporary possession…the perception of anything lasting forever, can only be considered a delusion…an illusion…and yet, this is what cultivators all seek…"
Suddenly, the entirety of Tian Village seemed to fall silent. The people did not speak, the birds did not chip, even the insects became still.
The winds did not blow, the air seemed to freeze, as if waiting for Yaan's following words.
"Tell me again…what is dao?"
Yaan's words echoed out across Tian Village, resounding repeatedly through the ears of all the mortals. His question contained traces of the insight that he was currently experiencing, and before long, every living being within the confines of the village lost consciousness.
At the same moment, a white-haired man appeared before Yaan, standing between him and Granny Ging's corpse.
The Immortal Ancestor did not look at Granny Ging, nor did he pay any mind to the villagers nor to his surroundings. His focus was entirely on Yaan as he spoke.
"Dao is cultivation."
After a moment of silence, Yaan nodded.
"I understand. To pursue dao is cultivation. To cultivate is to pursue dao. In the end, all of this, this mortal life I lived, this illusion of a mortal self I created, all the feelings I experienced and the relationships I built…it was all merely cultivation."
The immortal remained silent, staring at Yaan deeply.
For some reason, Yaan did not feel pressured in the least under this gaze.
"So even an immortal cannot see through my dao comprehension unless I explain it? I see…" Yaan smiled lightly, staring back at this immortal who had suppressed him for so long.
He felt as if he could finally see the distance between them…perhaps this gap was not so ridiculous as he had once believed.
The Immortal Ancestor still did not speak.
Yaan glanced at Granny Ging, then turned around and walked out from the thatched home. He took a single step, before reappearing in the air above the village, looking down at the sleeping mortals below.
After Yaan departed from the village, the villagers began to wake up. They looked confused, afraid, lost…but when they realised that Yaan, the obvious cause of all this, had left, they felt extreme relief sweep over them.
Seeing that Yaan was still remaining silent, the immortal finally spoke.
"Have you finished seeking dao?"
"No." Yaan immediately shook his head. "Because I am still weak. I am no different to these mortals, I understand nothing other than a broken fragment of the truth. Perhaps, I will never finish seeking dao…"
The immortal frowned. As Yaan glanced at him, he laughed.
"So you can show facial expressions too? That's good to know."
"You're becoming conceited." The white-haired immortal suddenly released his aura, shrouding Yaan in a terrifying pressure with the intention of beating him down into submission. This aura did not aim to pressure Yaan physically, so he didn't fall from the sky, but even so…
Yaan turned towards him calmly, showing a cold gaze.
"I won't back down before you."
The white-haired immortal paused for a moment. He did not retract his aura, but instead increased the intensity of its power, directing all of its might towards Yaan.
In Yaan's eyes, the Immortal Ancestor was shrouded in a terrific white light, a light so shocking that it almost blinded him. He felt a tremendous weight assaulting him, threatening him, trying to subdue him…
But Yaan remained unmoved.
Not only did he not back down, but he did not even appear to be strained.
"It's useless." Yaan said simply.
After hearing Yaan's words, the immortal stopped. He retracted his aura and stared at Yaan intently.
"You kneel to an ordinary cultivator, but you won't back down when pressured by an immortal?"
Yaan laughed at this.
"So what if I kneeled to someone countless times weaker than myself? To stand or to kneel, to be proud or to be humbled, what difference does it make in the scheme of things?" Yaan said this with a carefree shake of his head, but his attitude quickly changed and he looked towards the immortal with a cold gaze.
"However…I will not kneel to you. Do you know why? Because it is all too clear to me now…you are a part of me. You said it before; I am the Fragment of Dao, you are the Fragment of Qi. Regardless of what this truly means, it is obvious that we are two parts of one whole. That is why I will not kneel to you…I will not kneel to any part of my own self."
"Even if I kill you, here and now?"
"You won't kill me." Yaan replied without hesitation. The confidence in this smile took the Immortal Ancestor aback slightly.
It was true that at this point, it seemed very unlikely that he would harm Yaan over something so pointless, but even so…
In the end, the immortal dropped this matter. However, he still wanted to know something.
"What did you find in the mortal village?"
The white-haired man stared at Yaan as he tried to comprehend how it was that, despite his cultivation still being sealed, Yaan was able to fly in the air like this.
Obviously, this was thanks to his dao comprehension, it couldn't be anything else. But could it be a facet of his incomplete pseudo-domain? Right now, Yaan was not releasing any sort of aura, his comprehension was entirely concealed within himself, making it difficult to discern the specifics.
Even to an immortal, seeing through the unique dao comprehension of another living being was extremely difficult. Yaan quickly realised this - he understood that the Immortal Ancestor could not see his dao comprehension directly, he could only deduce details based on what Yaan showed him.
The immortal could see the improvement in Yaan's illusion dao comprehension, even if he could not fully understand it. He saw earlier that Yaan seemed to have furthered his understanding over life and death, even if he did not realise this yet…
But what of his dao heart? This was the crucial matter that the immortal wanted to understand more so than anything else.
Because, he had suspicions regarding Yaan's dao heart…
"Tell me, what is the nature of the dao you pursue? Why do you go on? Dao is cultivation…but why do you cultivate?"
Hearing this, Yaan smiled oddly. He had asked himself these questions many times in the past, but he had never found an answer.
Until now.
"I cultivate to progress further along this path that I have chosen. I pursue dao for the same reason. All I want, is to continue walking forwards, in the hope that one day I might understand why I am walking, and what exactly I am walking towards. And as for my dao heart…"
Yaan's smile became slightly strange.
"Dao heart? I reject the notion of a dao heart! My heart? When have I ever followed my heart?! When have I ever cared about staying true to my heart, to myself?! When has following my heart ever been relevant to my cultivation…to my life?!"
Yaan laughed darkly and shook his head.
"What good does having a heart do you, other than shackling yourself into even more suffering? Dao heart…I have no need for such a useless thing!"
As he said this, fragmented ripples, filled with a ceaseless agony, spread out from Yaan's self. After affirming his understanding of dao and of himself, Yaan endured a terrific pain, a pain that seemed to stem from a place even deeper than his very soul…
This pain afflicted his dao soul, the very manifestation of Yaan's dao heart.
This pain was not temporary. It afflicted Yaan's dao soul, it plagued his dao heart, and yet, he convinced himself that it did not exist.
As Yaan thrust himself into this illusion of understanding, the cracks across his dao soul - cracks which had existed in his dao heart ever since his birth into this world - began to grow larger.
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