The master comes down the mountain: I don’t want to be a son-in-law

Lin Yun was a little discouraged.

He and Yan Jin have discussed for a long time, from the structure of the world to the mysteries of the Tao, from the real world to the virtual world, from history to the future, from space to time, using all their knowledge, all their cognition, and all their imagination.

But they still haven't discovered the key to the world in this painting.

The eldest brother has vomited blood twice.

If this continues, the eldest brother will have exhausted his energy and died before they find the cardinal.

Of course Lin Yun would not allow this to happen.

If they were destined to die, he would never let his senior brother die first.

Neither morality nor emotion allowed him to do so.

He jumped up and left the protection of his senior brother.

Perhaps it was because the brothers had a spiritual connection, for at the same time Lin Yun jumped up, Yan Jin also jumped up.

Even the two people's movements are almost identical.

Liu Chongjun asked anxiously: "What are you doing?"

"Big Brother!" Lin Yun shouted, "Don't worry about us. I will never let you waste your energy like this. It's not worth dying like this!"

"Not worth it?" The eldest senior brother looked very weak and sighed softly, "Lin Yun, you are wrong. There is nothing worth dying for. Everyone will die, including immortals. Even the heaven and earth will decay with the passage of time. So don't worry about when or how you die. I just want to do the best thing while I am still alive."

"What is the right thing to do? How long have we been here? We can't do anything except talking nonsense, reminiscing about the past, bragging, and talking nonsense. We can't find the cardinal, and our only role is to watch you die slowly. I can't do it!"

"I can't do it either!" Yan Jin added.

Liu Chongjun shook his head and said, "No, you shouldn't be discouraged. Keep going like you did just now. I think we are very close. That is not nonsense, it is not bragging, or in other words, bragging can also be a way of discussing the Tao. What is the Tao? The Tao can be spoken, but it is not the real Tao. The Tao can be anything, in any form. And you never know when you will realize the Tao. Maybe in the next casual chat, your Tao will come out, and you will discover the key point here!"

"Nonsense!" Lin Yun said disdainfully, "Big Brother, you are the Big Brother, you have great magical powers and a high realm, I admire you. But I don't think what you said is right, it sounds to me like you are lying to the kids!"

"No, I'm not lying to the kid. I'm..." The eldest brother's face looked very ugly, as if he was in great pain, "I'm lying to myself."

Lin Yun and Yan Jin were stunned.

"Elder brother..."

"You don't need to comfort me. I am indeed lying to myself. I have said that in this painting, the most terrifying thing is not death, but nothingness, a nothingness without even years. I can indeed live for a long time here by keeping my true energy, but in a painting without years, this 'long time' is meaningless. So I must find something meaningful to do to show my true existence. Even if I die, real death is better than living in nothingness."

"So I pass on my true energy to you, because at least there is hope in you. Even if this hope is very slim, as slim as looking for a grain of sand in the galaxy. But at least I am trying, striving, and truly doing what I should do. This kind of reality can make me feel alive and feel the meaning of my life. Do you understand?"

Lin Yun lowered his head and thought.

Yan Jin was silent for a moment, then said, "Brother, I understand. The most important thing in life is to feel the value of your existence. Once you lose that value, even if you are alive, you are as good as dead. Living numbly is even scarier than actually dying. As you said, emptiness is scarier than death."

Lin Yun also said with a hint of enlightenment: "No wonder some people are as dead as they are alive. They are as numb as electric wires or donkeys on a millstone."

Liu Chongjun nodded and said, "It's great that you can realize this. It's not in vain. Do you know why practitioners always want to kill demons and monsters?"

"Is it also to demonstrate one's own value?"

"Exactly. If they don't slay demons and monsters, what's the point of their training? They will feel that training is meaningless, and the fear of nothingness is insurmountable."

"But my brother-in-law's practice is different. He never advocates slaying demons and eliminating monsters. He said that magic power is just a side effect of practice. It doesn't matter if you don't have it at all. It may even be better to have it. Ah..."

Lin Yun cried out, as if he suddenly realized something.

"I didn't understand what my brother-in-law said before. Why is it better to have no magic power? Now I understand. It is because of the side effect of having magic power that you will want to kill demons and monsters. Otherwise, you will feel that you have learned magic in vain and practiced Taoism in vain!"

Yan Jin said, "That's right, my brother-in-law said that cultivation is not for power, not for strength. No matter how strong the power is, it has its limits. Even something as strong as the Heavenly Dao still has flaws. The truly invincible thing is nothing, it is nothingness. The Dao does not exist. We gave it such a name in order to force ourselves to have our own wishes, and insisted that there is a 'Dao' waiting for us to get it at the end. But where can we get the 'Dao'?"

"That's right! Tao does not exist, it only exists in nothingness!" Lin Yun added, "Brother-in-law said that when we practice cultivation, we ultimately cultivate nothingness."

"The Tao is in nothingness... What we ultimately cultivate is also nothingness..."

Senior brother Liu Chongjun muttered to himself.

Suddenly he let out a long breath, and then burst into laughter for some reason.

"Hahaha, I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it. I used to say that Old Eighteen had gone astray, but it turns out that he had already walked ahead of us. Master was right, Old Eighteen's talent is much higher than mine. I didn't accept it at the time, but now I think it's really ridiculous!"

"Elder brother..."

Seeing that their senior brother acted like a madman, Lin Yun and Yan Jin didn't know how to proceed.

“Nothingness…” The eldest senior brother looked at the misty scene in the painting. “The Tao is in nothingness, but I am still afraid of nothingness. Being afraid of nothingness means being afraid of the Tao! If I am afraid of the Tao, how can I attain the Tao? Ridiculous! Ridiculous! Hahahaha…”

"Lin Yun, Yan Jin, remember this: to cultivate the Tao, you must first overcome the fear of nothingness. We are now in the nothingness, as long as we are not afraid, as long as we overcome the fear of nothingness, we are very close to the Tao. Regardless of life or death, to be eternal in the nothingness is to attain the Tao!"

Lin Yun and Yan Jin looked at each other, their faces seemed to be suddenly enlightened.

The three of them laughed at the same time.

The empty scenery around me, the impenetrable grayness, also seemed to light up, as if someone had uncovered the canvas and was adding color to the picture with a brush.

At this moment, a voice came from the void:

"Hey, you three little ones, do you want to come out?"

Another voice said, "Be careful, your painting skills are not as good as the Empress's. Don't erase those three dots."