Quickly conquer the martial arts world, and let your fists dominate the heavens!

At 3:45 AM, the gate of Guoqing Temple opened.

Pilgrims, carrying lanterns, surged in. The incense burner in front of Sui Mei was filled with incense sticks, and the smoke swirled in the morning mist.

Chen Zhan and Ye Ningzhen followed the crowd inside, worshipped Buddha, and added incense oil. Ye Ningzhen kowtowed three times in front of the Guanyin Bodhisattva who grants children, and she did so very respectfully. A woman next to her even came over to share her experience, saying that the incense for fulfilling vows should be offered for three years, and the Bodhisattva would record the vow made in the first year.

She agreed to each request, and her eyes and brows were full of piety as she stood up.

They put on quite a show.

Upon leaving the hall, the guest monk yawned as he collected donations. Chen Zhan slipped in two silver dollars and asked for two peace charms. Two names were added to the pilgrimage group's register: Zhou, from Ningbo.

In the afternoon, the two broke away from the crowd and headed towards Tongbai Mountain.

The first place we arrived at halfway up the mountain was the altar.

The three-courtyard house had glazed tiles that gleamed in the sun, and a plaque with gold lettering hung at the entrance.

The text describes a Buddhist temple on a mountaintop. The courtyard is crowded with people, and a monk in a long robe stands under the eaves preaching about the three periods of the final calamity. When he talks about the approaching end of the Dharma, there is a chorus of sighs from the audience.

A long queue formed in the side hall, with people coming and going to collect their wish lists and donate to the temple. The end of the queue stretched all the way to the gate of the courtyard.

The donation box has to be carried out and emptied three times a day.

Walk another hundred steps or so, and you'll reach Tongbai Palace.

The paint on the mountain gate had peeled off to reveal the wood, and the three characters on the plaque were so faded that they were almost unrecognizable. A section of the courtyard wall had collapsed and was being repaired with bamboo and a fence.

Half of the roof tiles of the main hall had collapsed, exposing the rafters. Three sticks of incense were stuck in the incense burner in front of the hall, and the flames were about to go out.

Separated by a wall, it was so quiet you could hear the grass growing.

An old Taoist priest was sweeping the courtyard.

His gray Taoist robe was faded from washing, patched upon patched. He was thin, with a slightly hunched back. The broom swept across the blue bricks, making a soft, unhurried rustling sound. The two entered the room, and he glanced up at them before lowering his head again to sweep his floor.

"There is no incense burning in the temple. You two should offer incense and then go down the mountain to Guoqing Temple."

"I'd like to ask for a bowl of water," Chen Zhan said.

The old Taoist priest put down his broom, went inside, and brought out two bowls of water—coarse porcelain bowls, the spring water was very refreshing.

The two drank water, and the old Taoist priest sat on the stone steps in front of the hall to rest, gazing at the mountains outside the courtyard wall, neither of them speaking.

Chen Zhan sized him up.

He was over seventy years old, with completely white eyebrows and beard, deep wrinkles on his face, and age spots on the back of his hands. He took very long breaths, taking a deep breath in through his nose, letting it sink to the bottom, and then slowly exhaling, in a continuous, drawn-out manner.

An ordinary person's three breaths are equivalent to his one breath.

After drinking the water, I thanked them and went down the mountain.

After walking about half a mile, Ye Ningzhen whispered, "That old Taoist priest, does he have kung fu?"

"Probably not high."

"That tone..."

“Cultivating inner energy is a completely different thing from martial arts.” Chen Zhan glanced back at the mountain valley. “The source of the ‘Tongbai Palace Health Preservation Manual’ in Lu Shouyi’s notes is in this dilapidated temple. He’s definitely not the only one who practices it.”

The two descended the mountain and returned to the inn, where Chen Zhan continued to treat Ye Ningzhen's injuries.

Several hours later, night fell.

The two avoided the mountain path and went up into the forest. Moonlight filtered through the bamboo tips and shattered on the ground.

The lights in the front courtyard of the altar were off, and the sound of snoring rose and fell in the side rooms. The monks slept soundly. In the small courtyard to the side, a lamp was lit, a golden ball hanging in the shadow of the mountain.

Under the lamp, a stone table, a chessboard.

The old Taoist priest, who sweeps the floor all day, sat on a stone bench, holding a black stone in his hand, seemingly unable to place it. Hearing footsteps, he didn't even raise his head.

"The spring water of daytime returns now," Chen Zhan said with a smile.

The old Taoist priest wasn't surprised and nodded, "Sit down."

Chen Zhan sat down on the stone bench opposite, while Ye Ningzhen stood outside the lamplight.

The game is an endgame. In the middle game, a large white group is surrounded by black in the center. The white group's eyes are about to be cut off, but the black group has a very strong position. It is clear that the black group is unwilling to suffer any loss in any move.

"What is the Taoist priest's Dharma name?"

"Shouzhuo." The old Taoist put the black piece back into the chess box. "Junior brother Shouyi, and I, the old Taoist, Shouzhuo, were given these names by the same master."

Chen Zhan looked at the chessboard but didn't reply.

“He should be back to make his move during the Qingming Festival,” the old Taoist Shouzhuo continued. “Now that you’re here, finish this move for him.”

Chen Zhan held the white pen.

He looked at it for a moment, picked up a white piece, placed it on the outside of the large group, sacrificed three pieces in the center, and moved outwards to gain influence.

Snapped.

Shouzhuo stared at the stone for a long time.

"He never sacrifices pieces when playing chess," the old Taoist said slowly. "This large group of stones is always surrounded, yet he never gives up. He'd rather be completely controlled than let it die. You're so decisive in sacrificing it this time."

"Because my ambitions lie elsewhere."

The courtyard was quiet; the lamp wick flickered softly. The old Taoist priest sighed.
"he died?"

"died."

Shouzhuo's hand paused on the edge of the chess box. After a while, he picked up a black piece and made a move, and the game continued.

The two played chess back and forth, both very quickly.

Chen Zhan's white pieces formed a large dragon, a cycle of life and death, a recurring pattern.

But there was always a glimmer of hope.

After making a few more moves, the old Taoist priest stopped.

The light illuminated the wrinkles on his face, each one so deep it cast a shadow. After a long while, he steadily placed the black piece.
"I don't understand his kung fu skills; I only understand him as a person."

“He was afraid of death since he was a child. When he went up the mountain at the age of eight, he would crawl into the old Taoist’s bed when there was thunder at night. His master taught him the secret of nourishing life, and he practiced it the most hard among all the Taoist children in the temple. While others got up at the hour of Mao (5-7 AM), he was already sitting in the alchemy room at the hour of Yin (3-5 AM).

“Master said to him, Shouyi, the Nourishing Life Technique teaches people to cherish life, but not to fight against fate.”

Chen Zhan made his move, and Shou Zhuo responded, continuing the game one move at a time.

"And then what happened?"

"Later he said that the temple was too poor. No matter how good the health preservation method was, without the great medicine and the secret transmission, he could not make it. He went down the mountain in 1919 and disappeared in his thirties. When he heard the news again, he joined Yiguandao. More than ten years later, he became the leader of the sect."

Shouzhuo glanced at the glazed tiles on the other side of the altar as he spoke, "He was the one who named this courtyard."

"Did he move the scriptures too?"

“Some of them are Taoist scriptures passed down from his ancestors, and some are ‘invited’ by him with his people.” Shouzhuo picked up a chess piece. “I couldn’t stop him, and I didn’t want to.” “Every year when he comes back for Qingming Festival, he plays chess with the old Taoist for half a day. He makes a few moves, then closes the board, and continues the game the following year. After finishing the game, he goes to the Ancestral Master’s Hall and sits there for half the night.”

"I didn't get to see it this year."

The game has reached its endgame.

Shouzhuo suddenly asked, "Did he ask anything before he died?"

Chen Zhan paused his hand as he picked up the bamboo slip.

He asked if there was any road ahead, and if there was any way to achieve immortality.

"What did you answer?"

Chen Zhan shook his head. Shou Zhuo understood and stopped asking. With a snap, he placed the last black piece on the board and slowly counted the pieces, one by one.

"Your white pieces have lost by half a point."

The old Taoist priest withdrew his hand and sat against the night sky for a while.

"He won his whole life, always winning at gambling and seizing every opportunity. He even snatched decades of his life back from the clutches of the King of Hell. But he lost half a piece in this game of chess."

"It's common for people who ask for directions to die on the road. The old Taoist priest lived to seventy-eight, making a profit every day."

Chen Zhan looked at the slaughtered dragon, then tapped two fingers on the stone slab, making a "crackling" sound.

The stone slab did not shatter, but it cracked open with a dozen irregular fissures, each about a finger's width.

These gaps allowed all the black pieces to slip through, leaving only white pieces on the board, creating a large, lifelike white dragon.

"That way, we won't lose, right?"

The old Taoist priest Shouzhuo was stunned for a long time, not knowing what to say. He and his junior brother had been playing chess for many years, and no matter who won or lost, neither of them had ever thought of destroying the chessboard.

It's not that it's impossible, but that such behavior is childish.

But Chen Zhan acted differently. His demeanor and tone were perfectly natural, as if the chessboard was meant to be this way and he was the one who was destined to win this game.

Chen Zhan stood up, clasped his hands in greeting, and said, "Daoist Master, I have come here for the books hidden on the mountain."

"Know,"

Shouzhuo also got up, picked up a lamp that was about to burst out of its socket from the wall, and said, "Come with me, old Taoist."

The stone house is located in the backyard of Tankou, backed by mountain rocks, with a door covered in iron sheets and locked with three locks.

Shouzhuo led the way with a lantern. Chen Zhan knocked on the door and called for help, waking the head instructor, surnamed Cui, from his bed. Cui, the head instructor, came out wearing a robe. When the lantern shone on him and he saw the unfamiliar face, his expression darkened. When he saw Shouzhuo, he looked puzzled.

"Master Shouzhuo, in the dead of night..."

Chen Zhan took out a wooden seal from his pocket and held it in his palm.

The seal is small, made of boxwood, with two characters in red ink on the bottom: Wuji (无极).

Master Cui's drowsiness vanished instantly.

This seal had been with the Daoist Master for over a decade; it was the one stamped on the vow list. Hundreds of altars on and off the mountain recognized the seal, not the person. He stared at the seal, then looked up at Chen Zhan, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"The Dao Master, that old man..."

"The Daoist Master is traveling and has ordered me to retrieve something." Chen Zhan put away his seal. "Open the door."

Master Cui's eyes darted around twice. Late at night, strangers, the Dao Master's seal—everything seemed amiss. He was about to speak, but glancing into Chen Zhan's eyes, he swallowed his words and turned to fumble for his keys.
It took them fifteen minutes to unlock the three locks.

The stone house was dry, and half of it was filled with camphor wood chests. The chests were labeled with names of provinces and schools, showing the owner's hard work.

Chen Zhan opened and inspected each box.

Boxing manuals, sword manuals, internal energy cultivation manuals, and copies of alchemy manuals—items from various schools were all there. Their provenance was written on the tags; some were bought, some were exchanged. Most of the tags had the character "巧" (skill/cleverness) on them. They were all collected and packed into three large camphor wood boxes.

There's a small box in the corner with a sign that reads "Bagua" (八卦).

Chen Zhan opened the box, took out an old booklet with a worn blue cloth cover, and handed it to Ye Ningzhen.

Ye Ningzhen took it, untied the envelope, and opened the first page under the light.

The paper had turned yellow, and lines of annotations in vermilion ink crawled between the characters. On the title page was a seal in seal script, and she ran her fingertips over it.

The things that were dispersed during the Guangxu era belong to the Dong family lineage, the true lineage.

She closed the envelope, hugged it tightly, and didn't say anything.

The three large shelves of Daoist scriptures were stacked separately at the very back. When the lamp of Shouzhuo shone over them, the labels on the spines were all old: Tongbai Palace Collection, a certain year and month.

"Take these three back," Chen Zhan said.

With a single push of his hand, the three large boxes stood upright on his palm, completely still. He then returned to the mouth of the jar to do one last thing.

The merit ledger, the list of believers, the stubs of vows, and the register of names of Yiguandao's dozens of altars in eastern Zhejiang were moved out of the warehouse and piled up in the courtyard, reaching half a person's height.

Turn on the tinderbox.

Master Cui saw the signs and rushed over, kneeling down.

"No! No! This is the list of hundreds of thousands of believers, the root of the altar. If we burn it, we won't be able to collect the donations from below, and the Taoist Master will blame us when he returns..."

Chen Zhan pressed down, and the tinderbox immediately burned brightly.

"The Dao Master has gone on a journey and will not be returning."

The flame licked the pile of paper, leaped up, and lit up half the yard.

Master Cui slumped to the ground, staring at the fire, his mouth agape as flames danced across his face. Among the other masters crowded in the corridor, some beat their chests in despair, while others stared intently in the direction of the storeroom, their eyes darting around in the firelight.

Everyone started calculating their own plans around the campfire.

Chen Zhan picked up three camphor wood boxes, tied them together into a load, carried them on his shoulder, and went out of the jar with Ye Ningzhen.

Downhill.

At dawn, the mountain path was covered in heavy dew, and the eastern sky was just beginning to lighten with a sliver of gray.

Reaching the foot of the mountain, Ye Ningzhen turned back.

Halfway up the mountain, the lights were still on.

"The lights are still on."

A small courtyard on the mountain.

Shouzhuo sat alone under the lamp, rearranged the sealed chessboard, played the game against himself, one move for black and one move for white, and played the game from beginning to end again.

There is no winner or loser.

The old Taoist priest carefully placed the chess pieces one by one into the wooden box, black pieces back into black, white pieces back into white, and then closed the lid.
Blowing out the lamp and removing the candle, my lifespan is nearing its end. (End of Chapter)