Now Mu Chenze was truly curious. "Then what are you thinking?"
Gu Ningyun briefly explained her idea of using «Zongjiao» to attack evil cultivators.
The members of Xi Caixuan's team overheard their conversation. Seeing that the two weren't trying to keep it a secret, they leaned in curiously to listen.
Gu Ningyun always enjoyed brainstorming and didn't mind the audience; Mu Chenze had no objections either.
"I once saw a theory in my family's library," Mu Chenze recalled. "It said that spirit energy and demonic qi are naturally generated by heaven and earth, representing a kind of balance."
"But evil qi only appeared after the emergence of sentient life. The records say that where there is thought, there is malice."
"The more sentient lives there are, the more malice exists, which gradually generates evil qi. The more intelligent a life form is, the more complex its thoughts become. For instance, humans or highly cultivated, intelligent demon beasts experience greed, anger, obsession, hatred, love, aversion, and desire. As long as life continues and thoughts persist, evil thoughts will never end, and evil qi will be continuously generated in the world."
Why does this sound more and more like the seven emotions from Buddhism in my past life?
Gu Ningyun looked at Mu Chenze as he explained the origin of evil qi with a serious expression in his almond eyes. She felt as if his head were glowing, as if he might convert to Buddhism at any moment.
The fingers she used to play the guqin paused for a split second, but she recovered before it could affect the melody, continuing Zhu Zijin's treatment seamlessly.
Mu Chenze was always sharp. He stopped playing with his folding fan and asked, "What is it?"
Gu Ningyun thought for a moment and finally couldn't help but ask, "What was the name of that book you read?"
"«One Hundred Recorded Debates Between Buddhist and Daoist Cultivators»."
Gu Ningyun: "..."
No wonder it sounded so Buddhist!
"Is that book... reliable?" she asked.
"Of course it is."
Mu Chenze snapped his folding fan open and gave her a helpless look. "Many books describing evil qi follow similar theories. It's just that this one explains it in the most detail and gets closest to the essence."
At this point, he looked at Gu Ningyun suspiciously. "Do you have some kind of prejudice against Buddhist cultivators?"
Gu Ningyun felt like she was being unfairly accused while just trying to heal someone in the middle of a forest. "I just didn't know much about it, so I asked a few questions."
Although Mu Chenze was only eight years old, he was a child of a prominent cultivation family. He had received orthodox immortal cultivation training since he was two or three. Gu Ningyun knew he was knowledgeable, so she naturally believed his explanation.
Since Mu Chenze said the book was reliable and it sounded logical, she didn't dwell on it further. She simply asked, "I understand evil qi now, but where do evil cultivators come from?"
"Evil cultivators originally possess spirit roots or demon roots. When evil qi enters their bodies and completely erodes those roots, two outcomes occur. Either their bodies collapse and they die, or they endure it and transform into evil cultivators."
Mu Chenze glanced at the boy lying on the ground. "We Xiaoyao disciples have practiced body refining, so we can withstand evil qi for a longer time while waiting for treatment. If someone isn't treated in time, there's a high chance their powerful physique will keep them from dying when the evil qi infects their spirit root, causing them to turn into an evil cultivator instead."
At those words, a thought flashed through Gu Ningyun's mind. "Do you think that in the eleven-thousand-year history of Xiaoyao, there were senior disciples who turned into evil cultivators because their evil qi wasn't purified in time? Perhaps, because Xiaoyao disciples are so talented, they became great arch-demons that plagued the cultivation world after turning?"
"You suspect that Xiaoyao specifically arranged this test with evil-corrupted beasts before our first departure from the sect to prevent such a situation?" Mu Chenze immediately grasped the key point of her words.
The alchemy cultivator from Xi Caixuan's team tapped her jade slip. "It's to let us encounter and understand evil qi early on, to make us vigilant, and even to help us develop the habit of preparing spirit-purifying pills in advance!"
...
In front of the recording stones on Fighting Peak, the two Foundation Establishment disciples from the Disciple Training Department who were listening to the conversation looked at each other and marveled in unison. "How are the disciples of this batch so smart? Is this something seven or eight-year-olds should be thinking about?"
The other Foundation Establishment disciples were also full of emotion. "Especially that little girl, Gu Ningyun. During the individual matches, I was the referee for her ranking match. I'm a sword cultivator myself and have practiced for over a decade. The first time I saw her, I felt she had something in common with sword cultivators. Later, in the arena matches, when she fought those young sword cultivators, I realized she understood swords exceptionally well. One might even say..."
"One might even say she was a sword cultivator to begin with," the referee from Arena Two added.
"Exactly. I was curious why she kept her identity as a sword cultivator hidden until the final match of the individual competition. It wasn't until the team matches, when I saw Ling Hanbai from Ruiyu Pavilion being misled from the start—only being wary of Fu Mingzhi's group and underestimating her—that I truly understood her plan. I saw all those teams being fooled and losing half their points to her."
"Now she's even deduced that these evil-corrupted beasts were arranged by our Disciple Training Department."
The referee from Arena Two stroked his chin. "With a brain that smart, do you think she'll struggle to grow tall in the future?"
The other Foundation Establishment disciples: "..." Is there even a correlation between being smart and height?
Perfected Person Ye had been using Shao Yuqi's wooden token to monitor the northern part of the forest for any anomalies. However, her attention shifted to Gu Ningyun's screen when she heard the girl's idea for using the healing melody «Zongjiao».
Hearing the discussion of her martial nephews nearby, she looked at Gu Ningyun's youthful face with a hint of admiration in her eyes. "Before entering the sect, this girl might have come from a military lineage in the mortal realm. She likely grew up immersed in the art of war."
"It's possible. Otherwise, how could a seven-year-old have such foresight and play such a grand game? She even deduced that the evil qi in the secret realm was our intentional arrangement by combining the origins of evil cultivators, the body refining of Xiaoyao disciples, and the capabilities of the number one sect."
Naturally, the discussions within the Disciple Training Department couldn't be heard in the spectator stands.
Yang Churan sat in the twelfth row of the stands, watching the recording stone. She couldn't help but mutter to Lu Heyun, "I've suddenly realized that the elder in charge of organizing ancient scripts at the library has great foresight. Ningyun's mind is so sharp; she really is a perfect fit for our Book Peak."
Lu Heyun nodded in agreement to be polite, but in his heart, he thought Ningyun would be more suitable for their Punishment Peak. If they caught any villains harboring ill will toward Xiaoyao or disciples who had made mistakes, Ningyun would likely be able to see through their lies at a glance and nail every interrogation.
Gu Ningyun didn't know which inner floating peak she was best suited for. She only knew that the discussion about «Zongjiao» and evil qi needed to be put on hold for a moment.
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