Under one person: I, Zhang Zhiwei, the arrogant Zhang.

Zhang Zhiwei was slightly surprised by what Master Zuo said, but not too surprised. Given Master Zuo's talent, comprehension, and his pursuit of the Dao, it was not surprising that he had reached this level.

After the last Wudang Daoist discussion, the direction of Sanyi has become quite clear. As long as the direction is right, progress is inevitable.

Zhang Zhiwei laughed and said, "It seems that Master Zuo may soon reach the same level of enlightenment as Senior Sun of Wudang."

Zuo Ruotong shook her head and said, "I am still far from Master Sun's level. Speaking of which, my recent progress is entirely due to the guidance of my young friend Zhiwei."

"Master Zuo is too kind; these are just some basic principles," Zhang Zhiwei said.

"The greatest truths are the simplest," Zuo Ruotong sighed, then asked, "Young friend Zhiwei, do you have any insights into the refinement of your subjective abilities?"

"If I had to share my thoughts, I would say I do have some," Zhang Zhiwei said. "The Book of Changes says, 'Endless coming and going is called understanding.' I believe that human consciousness is like these things that come and go, easily tainted by external circumstances and easily changed by time. The person I am today is not the person I was yesterday. To find my true self, I need to break through the barrier of time."

"How can we break through the barrier of time?" Zuo Ruotong asked hurriedly.

Zhang Zhiwei said, "First of all, one needs to reach a certain level of understanding in observing the Dharma."

"What kind of realm?" Zuo Ruotong asked.

Zhang Zhiwei thought for a moment and said, "We cannot see the true face of Mount Lu because we are in the mountain ourselves. The same is true when we look at our own subjective views. Therefore, we need to break free from the limitations of the objective world and connect the past and the present. I have personally experienced the magnificent waves of past dynasties as an observer, and I have also witnessed the bloody conflicts of past dynasties."

"In this process, my perspective sometimes shifted to that of kings and generals who commanded the country, and sometimes to that of displaced peddlers and laborers. Having witnessed the vicissitudes of life and experienced the joys and sorrows of life, my heart was initially stirred."

"But gradually, I discovered that no matter how the outside world changes, no matter how my perspective changes, there is always a spark of inspiration in my heart, like a lamp in a dark room, which remains constant. That is my subjectivity."

"There is a saying in the Buddhist Diamond Sutra: 'The past mind is unattainable, the present mind is unattainable, and the future mind is unattainable. When I have experienced all of these past, present, and future, and look back, I can see through the illusion from this endless unattainability and find the only thing that can be obtained, which is the unchanging true self, which is one's own subjectivity.'"

Zhang Zhiwei spoke calmly, but Zuo Ruotong was deeply shaken. His consciousness connected the past and present, honing his subjective self in the long river of time. This kind of thing... He looked at Zhang Zhiwei as if he were looking at a real monster.

After a long silence, he could only let out a heartfelt sigh: "Well said, well said, 'Endless interaction is called understanding!' 'The three minds are unattainable!' My young friend Zhiwei, the incredible nature of your methods far exceeds my imagination. I cannot understand them, nor can I put them into practice. It seems that in the pursuit of cultivating subjectivity, I can only resort to my clumsy methods."

Zuo Ruotong still remembered what Zhang Zhiwei reminded him of during the last Wudang Daoist discussion: other sects progressed step by step from the real to the unreal, while their Sanyi Sect progressed from the unreal to the real.

In other words, other sects gradually progress from easy to difficult, while the Sanyi Sect progresses from difficult to easy. It can be said that as long as one enters the Sanyi Sect correctly, the subsequent cultivation will be a natural process.

But getting started is really too difficult.

Zuo Ruotong sometimes pondered the patriarch, wondering what kind of person the patriarch was and why he created the Reverse Life Triple Technique. If the Reverse Life Triple Technique was feasible in the hands of the patriarch, why did it fail in their hands? And why was even the very foundation of cultivation distorted?

Zuo Ruotong thought about it many times, but he was not the patriarch and could not think from the patriarch's perspective. However, after taking on the role of the patriarch, he had a vague idea.

The founder of the Sanyi School, Lin Zhao'en, was a disciple of the sage Wang Yangming. He was originally from Confucianism and Taoism, but later abandoned Confucianism to study Buddhism, and then abandoned Buddhism to study Taoism. He was such a genius that he was probably no less than the young friend Zhiwei in front of him. Perhaps the difficulties that plagued these younger generations throughout their lives did not exist for the founder at all.

Just like the Qimen Dunjia divination method, anyone who tries it will go crazy, but my little friend Zhiwei didn't feel any difficulty at all; everything was so natural.

Thinking of this, he suddenly felt relieved and stopped worrying about the ancestral methods and blindly imitating their path. He began to reflect on himself and turned his attention back on himself, which had been focused on the Reverse Rebirth Triple Stage all these years.

Gradually, we begin to liberate our consciousness from the shaping of heaven and earth, thereby rediscovering our true nature and restoring our subjective consciousness to its state before it was shaped by the objective world.

He discovered that if, under these circumstances, he combined this with the Qi transformation method of the Threefold Reversal of Life, and reversed the body's course as well, the two would be combined, and the body and spirit would be united, truly transforming the acquired structure into the innate wholeness.

In other words, he can maintain the reverse life state permanently without needing to use Qi to maintain the ritual. Of course, because his refinement is still very rudimentary, the part of him that can maintain the reverse life state permanently is very small; initially, it is only a small part of his skin and flesh.

As his subjective training progressed, the extent to which he could maintain his skin also increased. Now, he can maintain the regeneration of his entire body's skin. The benefit of this is that he has changed from his previous old and decrepit appearance to the way he looked when he maintained his regeneration for many years.

As for the higher level of permanent Qi transformation of internal organs and bones, he has not yet reached that level of subjective refinement. The reason he wanted to lead his disciples down the mountain to fight against the Japanese pirates was not only because many disciples in the sect wanted to participate, but also because he personally wanted to use this event to refine his own subjective qualities.

Subjective spiritual practice is essentially about following what you subjectively want and rejecting what you subjectively don't want. It sounds simple, but it's actually very difficult because you can't tell whether something is what you want or not.

Just like money and houses, many people want them, but is that what you subjectively want? No, it's just what the objective world gives you. What you want is something deeper behind money and houses.

Zuo Menchang was actually not keen on participating in this anti-Japanese war, but after much deliberation, he realized that the reason he didn't want to come was not because he didn't want to come in a subjective sense, but because the objective world had shaped him over the decades, making him unwilling to participate in all worldly matters.

Therefore, for him, going down the mountain to fight against the Japanese pirates was not just a matter of national righteousness, but also a test of his own subjective will. He needed to gradually get rid of all the influences of the past on his subjective will.

This is also why Zuo Ruotong likes to discuss philosophy with Zhang Zhiwei. It's not that she really wants to get any great guidance from Zhang Zhiwei, but rather she uses Zhang Zhiwei as a mirror to reflect her own shortcomings.

It wasn't just Zuo Ruotong; Zhang Jingqing did the same thing. Whenever Zhang Zhiwei gained something from his cultivation at Longhu Mountain, he would immediately discuss it with Zhang Jingqing. However, due to his own restrictions, Zhang Jingqing couldn't speak openly about many things, unlike Zuo Ruotong who could speak freely.

After a discussion, Zhang Zhiwei bid farewell to Zuo Ruotong, his figure transforming into a bolt of lightning, soaring through the air and returning to Longhu Mountain.

After returning, he first went to the Great Shangqing Palace to pay his respects to his master, and told Zhang Jingqing about the Left Sect Master's thorough arrangements for resisting the Japanese pirates, as well as his recent breakthrough in cultivation.

Upon hearing about Zuo Ruotong's recent situation, Zhang Jingqing's face showed genuine relief. He stroked his beard and exclaimed, "Good, good! My old friend has finally found his own true path."

Then, Zhang Zhiwei looked at his master and couldn't help but ask, "Master, Master Zuo has already found his path to enlightenment, what about you?"

This question caught Zhang Jingqing off guard.

He was silent for a moment, then smiled freely: "Your master has always been on the path, and now is the time for cultivation."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Zhiwei was immediately relieved. He thought about it carefully and realized that many of his current insights into cultivation were inseparable from his master's secret guidance.

Although his master had never given him any specific cultivation plan, whenever he was confused at crucial junctures, his master could always offer the most essential advice in a seemingly casual way. This didn't mean that Zhang Jingqing's current level was higher than his; it was just that, for some reason, Zhang Jingqing had more knowledge than him. Although he couldn't express this knowledge directly, he could still offer subtle guidance.

As for the exact cultivation plan, at Zhang Zhiwei's level, no matter how advanced the techniques in the world are, they no longer play a decisive role for him. Everything can only be understood and verified by himself.

After bidding farewell to his master, Zhang Zhiwei went to the main hall where the Guiyuan Formation was set up to check on the situation. He wanted to see how his fellow disciples were doing after the two days of special training.

However, when his gaze fell upon the enormous light screen, he couldn't help but show a hint of surprise.

He discovered that in just two days outside, his fellow disciples in the inner world, who had previously known nothing and died in various "creative ways" on the battlefield, had now been transformed. They were now calmly and skillfully killing enemies on the brutal battlefield, and their exaggerated abilities were no less than those in later fantasy dramas.

Zhang Zhiwei's gaze fell on the light screen of Zhang Huaiyi's group, and he discovered that they had actually cleared the Verdun instance and entered a new, even bloodier, Som battlefield.

This battle was even more desperate than the previous "Verdun meat grinder".

On the battlefield of Verdun, their teammates were mostly experienced veterans who knew how to cooperate and how to survive. But in this new battle, their comrades were mostly green recruits who knew nothing and charged in with only enthusiasm.

Here, they perfectly exemplified what it means to "not fear god-like opponents, but fear pig-like teammates."

Inside the scene, Zhang Huaiyi and the others are lying in a shallow crater repeatedly plowed by artillery fire, their bodies covered in mud.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The distant artillery fire was still deafening, but this time, they could calmly judge the landing point from the whistling of the shells, no longer as panicked as they had been at the beginning.

"Huaiyi, what do we do? We have to charge again!" Tian Jinzhong lowered his voice, his face full of anxiety and helplessness.

Zhang Huaiyi peered through the edge of the shell crater and saw a portly, impeccably dressed foreign officer brandishing his sword and shouting in a language they couldn't understand. At his command, a piercing whistle sounded across the position.

The young recruits, rifle in hand, leaped from the trenches like a flock of sheep being herded, charging numbly and densely towards the enemy's position.

They had no control over the foolish decisions of their superiors, and they didn't even have the possibility of acting alone or looking for opportunities to fight.

Because if they don't follow the charge, the rear guard will not hesitate to point their guns at them.

They could only be swept along by this desperate sea of ​​people, rushing towards that death zone that had already been constructed with machine guns and barbed wire.

When they are forced into a battle they are destined to lose and die, any superior combat skills seem so pale and powerless.

"Come on!"

His comrades-in-arms shouted something incomprehensible, and then rushed into the open space.

"Da da da da da!"

The next moment, on the opposite position, dozens of Maxim heavy machine guns simultaneously unleashed the roar of death. Blazing flames intertwined to form an impenetrable barrage of metal bullets, relentlessly reaping lives.

The soldiers at the forefront fell in rows, as if crashing into an invisible wall, their bodies torn apart by bullets, their blood staining the ground dark red. They were like wheat cut down by a sickle in an autumn field, one stalk after another, falling neatly in formation.

Zhang Huaiyi and his companions mingled in the crowd, relying on the intuition honed through countless cycles of death, frantically dodging, rolling, and crawling.

They used every small mound of earth and every still-warm corpse as their insignificant shelter.

But it was no use; in the face of such a dense hail of bullets, any individual skill was meaningless.

One of my junior brothers had just dodged a burst of bullets and hadn't even had a chance to catch his breath when he was blown into the air by a mortar shell.

With his keen senses, Tian Jinzhong anticipated the trajectory of a machine gun and shouted a warning to Zhang Huaiyi beside him. The two of them simultaneously fell to the side.

However, in the crater where they had just landed, lay a grenade that the enemy had thrown in beforehand and had already pulled the pin...

In the firelight of the explosion, Zhang Huai vaguely saw that the "foreign" officer who only knew how to order a charge was safely in the most fortified command post in the rear, coldly observing everything through binoculars.

His consciousness rose into the air again, and Zhang Huaiyi stared expressionlessly at the hellish slaughterhouse below.

He felt powerless, as if the people around him were not living beings, but merely expendable objects pushed toward death by foolish orders, without even the right to struggle.

Zhang Zhiwei watched the scene on the screen silently, his face expressionless. This was also part of his training plan.

This was one of the training sessions he specifically arranged.

On the battlefield, the most terrifying thing is often not a powerful enemy, but a foolish teammate, or a fatal blunder from above.

At present, many generals who hold military power in China are former warlords who rose from humble backgrounds. Their combat concepts and military skills are still stuck in the previous era.

Not to mention Zhang Zhiwei doesn't trust them, even their leader is extremely distrustful of them. That's why he often intervenes suddenly when they're fighting, conducting so-called micro-management training, which often backfires.

He wanted his fellow students to understand that on the real battlefield, you often can't choose your enemy, much less your comrades. The only thing you can do is stay calm in the most desperate and helpless situations and look for any possibility of survival.

Only after personally experiencing the fear of being controlled by incompetent teammates will they be less likely to entrust their lives to equally foolish commanders on the real battlefield. (End of Chapter)