Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 62, Section Sixty-One: Samatha and Insight

Throughout all the ten directions of the world, there are lions of all the three times.

With pure body, speech and mind, I pay homage to all without exception.

……

In Lu Yingting's apartment, Su Ge sat cross-legged on the bed.

The bone conduction sound system, positioned to fit within the temporal fossa, played Buddhist verses at a volume of fifty decibels, masking all ambient noise.

Before him lay an endless, chaotic void, within which sat only a human figure sitting cross-legged.

The human body is completely transparent, with countless grains of sand surging inside, like a human-shaped glass bottle filled with quicksand.

【Flying Sand and Glass Thoughts】

He recalled Shen Ke's words.

Meditation, spiritual practice, insight meditation... there are many methods for training consciousness. Feisha Liuli thinks this is the insight meditation method I used to train consciousness at the nursing home.

【Samatha. It is mind, it is oneness, it is nature. It is maintaining the mind in a stable state. If one can enter samadhi at any time, without needing to use anchoring agents to cheat, one can anchor consciousness and cultivate a true anchor of consciousness.】

[Vipasyna. It is observing objective reality outward and contemplating one's own mind in a state of stillness. If one can clearly observe the arising and ceasing of every thought and every rise and fall of consciousness, one can distinguish between external and internal nerve impulses, preventing confusion and alleviating the influence of mental images.]

As Suger pondered these concepts, the flying sand surged along with his thoughts.

[Coordinate with breathing techniques to focus your thoughts.]

It was as if a non-existent bright moon had appeared, and the flying sand in the glass slowly settled into silence under the moonlight.

Let your thoughts sink with the quicksand.

The moonlight was like alum thrown into sewage, slowing the flow of flying sand and gradually causing it to condense.

As the sand fell, Suger felt his mind gradually empty. The chaotic thoughts on the surface calmed down, and his deeper thoughts became clearer. Involuntarily, he began to think about his future plans.

He obtained clues about Jiang Ning from the Painted Skin Ghost, but when Chiba Ryoko handed over the data to the Painted Skin Ghost, she did not tell Yang Guan about the connection between the Spirit Society and Jiang Ning's disappearance.

On the one hand, he wanted to rely on the power of the National Security Bureau, but on the other hand, he was worried that Jiang Ning might have "disappeared voluntarily." If Jiang Ning had already found the organization, then handing over Jiang Ning's clues to the National Security Bureau would be asking for trouble.

Ultimately, Su Ge could trust Yang Guan, but he dared not trust the Security Bureau.

Su Ge hadn't had time to think of a solution in the past few days, but now his mind suddenly became clear. He could first try to contact the Spiritual Society, and if he determined that the Security Bureau needed to intervene, he could then use Chiba Ryoko to influence Yang Guan.

At the same time, another thought popped into my head.

Phobosynovitis.

The best way to cure levitation syndrome is to stop receiving external neural data. This means he has to abandon the Gu Diao and use exoskeletons that operate by capturing myocardial energy. It also means he has to give up his ability to connect everything.

Knowing that continuing to use his ability would worsen his symptoms, Su Ge had no intention of giving up. Without this ability, he would have died long ago at the summit of Yama, and he would never have reached this point. Now, with Shen Ke's help and having controlled the second demon, he was no longer constrained in his actions in this era. This was all thanks to his ability, or rather, the supernatural power that Shen Ke spoke of.

It is foreseeable that the fight against the floating light syndrome will be a long-term battle. However, seeking treatment from Ruan Qiuheng is only a temporary measure out of necessity. Ultimately, he needs a doctor he can truly trust.

Where can we find this doctor?

Even if they could find a doctor, their savings were starting to dwindle.

By the way, those positions sealed in the Void Realm Mandala correspond to dozens of backup devices...

Suger's thoughts became increasingly scattered, and the flying sand within the glass doll became murky and chaotic again.

But gradually, he seemed to become an observer of these thoughts.

My thoughts gradually subsided, leaving only some unrelated images surging in my mind.

At some point, Feisha sank to the bottom, his body becoming as translucent as glass, with only a few fine grains of silver sand floating in the moonlight.

Suger suddenly realized that he seemed to have reached a limit.

But it was this discovery that revitalized his thinking.

The sand was disturbed, and in an instant, the inside of the glass doll became murky again.

Socrates sighed, his patience worn thin – this was his only success out of many failures.

He regretfully withdrew from the meditation session. The time showed 2 PM; he had unknowingly been training for three and a half hours.

He looked out the window, where neon lights flickered in the distance. He gazed at them for over a minute, then surveyed the room's furnishings, his eyes sweeping over the tables and cabinets, and finally looking at the bathroom in the corner. He didn't see any unusual spots of light. Two days had passed since he sought treatment from Ruan Qiuheng, and so far, the results seemed promising.

He got up, stretched his arms and legs for a while, washed his face, put on his coat, and left home.

Yang Guan arranged to meet him at the Security Bureau at 2:30 PM.

……

"Back then, I thought you had gone missing, which is why I went to Suyang City. It turns out I almost lost contact with the world."

Yang Guan sat on the maglev chair, tapping the digital cigarette in his hand repeatedly, and took a deep drag.

"That guy impersonating Jiang Ning should have been dealt with. That avatar handed over all the data to me. Goodness, it stole the identities of more than a hundred people."

"Have all these identities been returned?" Su Ge asked, sitting opposite Yang Guan.

Yang Guan's hand holding the cigarette stiffened, and he sighed.

"Not many people can still be found, and even if they are found, it's useless. I was lucky; my identity was taken back as soon as it was taken away. If it had been a few more months, it would have been hard to say. For undocumented people to survive, there are basically only two paths: either become a water ghost or commit crimes. Once you succeed on either path, you can never go back to normal society."

"More than a hundred people whose identities were stolen, and not a single one can be saved?" Su Ge asked.

"If we're lucky, we might get a few," Yang Guan said tactfully. "The Security Bureau has also issued a notice for identity claiming. In three years, unclaimed identities will be cancelled. Currently, no one has claimed them, but maybe some will in the future."

Suger didn't know what to say.

His unwavering belief has always been to find the organization, but whether the organization still exists or what its ideology has become are all unknowns. He is pursuing an uncertain hope, but what is certain is that he subdued the Skin-Painting Demon and helped more than a hundred people regain their identities.

But he didn't help anyone.

"Then, what about Jiangning?" he asked.

“Jiangning is currently treating this as a missing person case.” Yang Guan coughed lightly. “That’s right, nothing can be found in this case at the moment. The reason I called you here today is for something else.”

He pulled a gun out of the drawer and pushed it in front of Soger.

"The gun you seized at the summit of Yama has now been returned to its rightful owner."

Suger paused for a moment, looking at the gun on the table. It had a caliber of 12.7 mm and a non-slip grip with a pattern of lotus dumdum bullets. The gray-haired man had used it to smash his accomplice's head and then blow half of his own head off.

Yang Guan continued, "Now this thing has a consciousness anchor trigger switch, so every time a shot is fired, the record will be uploaded to the security bureau."

Suger picked up the gun and examined it.

"Does this mean the Security Bureau wants to hire me?"

“Yes.” Yang Guan nodded. “You know about the recent prison break incidents involving many monsters and demons in the Security Bureau. The bureau is currently focusing its investigation on this case.”

"Ah, I know, of course I know," Su Ge said, sounding a little guilty.

"The bureau is investigating various suspicious points. My task is to investigate a suspicious digital life that has recently appeared."

As Yang Guan spoke, he exhaled an air projection, which showed the image of Fengyu Mountain God kneeling before the silver-masked, black-clad deity.

He lit a cigarette on the image of the silver-masked deity.

“A few days before the incident, this guy appeared in Fengyu. The area is quite chaotic, and there were no clues left that could directly identify its identity. However, after checking the deities that appeared in Yingchuan City that day, none of them matched it.”

"This..." Soger felt even more guilty, glancing at the gun in his hand, "What does this have to do with me?"

"Of course."

Yang Guan waved to turn off the projection.

"The rumors circulating in Fengyu say that he is the leader of the Xingling Society. This leader is called something like 'Zhiren,' and he's very mysterious. This case is difficult for me to investigate; the Xingling Society members are particularly opposed to cybernetic modifications. But coincidentally, if anyone is suitable to infiltrate the Xingling Society to investigate clues..."

He stood up and patted Suger on the shoulder.

"You're the only one for me."

(End of this chapter)