Chapter 104: Viewing the Inner Landscape, Seeing the Mind Monkey

Looking at Chen Luoyan, who sat close at hand with her neck craned as if awaiting the executioner's blade, Wang Ping felt a sudden surge of mixed emotions. He was overjoyed, yet also a little speechless.

He was overjoyed because Book Mountain had actually bought it.

'To proactively offer me the Inner Landscape Scripture and even have Chen Luoyan become my dao companion... it means Book Mountain has somehow verified that I am Ye Chao.'

His plan to replace the destiny-ordained protagonist was a massive success.

What left him speechless was that Book Mountain would actually test him with such a foolish condition. What destiny-ordained protagonist couldn't withstand a test like this?

'Do they really think I'm that lecherous? Absurd!'

At this thought, Wang Ping looked at Chen Luoyan with a half-smile. "Are you saying I can only obtain this secret technique if I become your dao companion?"

Chen Luoyan gave a stiff, difficult nod.

She was, of course, a hundred times unwilling, but the Book Mountain Sect Master had pressured her directly with the righteous cause of the sect, claiming this matter concerned Book Mountain's grand plan for the next century.

Beyond coercion, the Book Mountain Sect Master hadn't forgotten to offer incentives. He stated that as long as this matter was settled, the sect would immediately deliver the Six Desires beast eggs her cousin needed to practice the Six Desire Heavens Sovereign Attainment Method. Therefore, she wasn't seducing her brother-in-law; she was making a sacrifice for her cousin's cultivation...

As she thought about this, a chaotic mess of thoughts swirled in Chen Luoyan's mind.

For a moment, bitterness, humiliation, embarrassment, and distress all converged into two lines of clear tears, dampening the proud female cultivator's face...

Until Wang Ping's voice rang out:

"Lady Chen, you're being foolish..."

The booming, thunderous voice instantly jolted her out of her self-pity. When she opened her eyes, she saw Wang Ping's hand reaching directly for the jade slip in her grasp.

She had to become his dao companion to get the secret technique?

What nonsense. The secret technique was right there in her hands. Why bother following all that boring red tape? The truth was right in front of them.

"...If I snatch it, it's still mine!"

Wang Ping's gaze burned like a torch. He didn't linger on Chen Luoyan for even half a second; his attention was entirely focused on the jade slip recording the Inner Landscape Scripture.

Almost at the same time, as if sensing Wang Ping's intent to snatch it, a faint light suddenly bloomed from the jade slip. It rapidly condensed into a human figure—an old man with the bearing of a transcendent immortal, sporting long hair and white eyebrows. The moment he appeared, he stroked his beard at Wang Ping and chuckled. "Young friend, do not be so hasty..."

Before the old man could finish speaking, his figure was swallowed by an erupting burst of intense light.

Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag—blocking all avenues of retreat!

Martial God Pictorial Record—reinforcing the physique!

Heavenly Demon Disintegration Great Art—pushing past the limits!

A hundred times the speed of sound!

The old man: "???"

"Boom!"

The newly materialized old man had absolutely no time to react. In a thousandth of a split second, he was evaporated by the intense light, reduced to nothingness before he could even finish his sentence.

As for Chen Luoyan, her vision blurred, and her entire body was sent flying into the air by the sheer impact. She even lost consciousness for a brief moment mid-flight.

Only then did Wang Ping's voice belatedly echo out.

"Mine!"

Wang Ping gripped the jade slip tightly in his right hand. His spiritual sense surged into it impatiently, and immediately, a scripture of a full ten thousand words crashed into his sea of consciousness.

The Inner Landscape Scripture!

Seeing that he had succeeded, Wang Ping finally manipulated the spatial dimension of the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag, opening a rift to release the heavily injured Chen Luoyan.

Following that, Chen Luoyan's body crashed heavily onto the bed in the boudoir like a broken sandbag. Her Dharma robes had been shattered by the shockwave of Wang Ping's hypersonic movement, leaving only tattered strips hanging off her frame. Her entire body throbbed with excruciating pain, leaving her completely paralyzed on the bed.

And this was only because Wang Ping had slammed on the brakes and shown mercy.

"Ugh..."

Chen Luoyan couldn't help but groan. After all, it really hurt too much. Yet beneath the agony, she also felt an unprecedented sense of lightness and relief.

Because she no longer had to sacrifice herself.

Wang Ping had snatched the secret technique, so no matter what, the blame couldn't be pinned on her. Nor did she have to wrong her cousin. Thinking of this, she even felt a slight pang of gratitude.

With this in mind, she hurriedly looked toward Wang Ping.

"You... doing this will likely offend my master. You need to be careful," Chen Luoyan groaned, enduring the pain to offer a word of warning.

However, Wang Ping didn't care in the slightest. As the destiny-ordained protagonist, Book Mountain would absolutely never turn on him until they had thoroughly squeezed every drop of value out of him. What was a little offense? Even if he squatted on their heads to take a shit, they would probably still obediently wipe his ass for him.

"Let me heal your injuries first, Lady Chen."

Wang Ping reached out and placed a hand on Chen Luoyan's shoulder, preparing to use Qi Restriction. Since he was the one who had hurt her, patching her up was just a small effort.

"Thank you..."

Seeing this, Chen Luoyan's pretty face flushed red, and she couldn't help but murmur softly, "I know you're trying to spare my feelings... Brother-in-law, Cousin didn't choose the wrong man."

She was very well aware of her own allure. In that situation just now, ninety-nine percent of men would have probably gone with the flow and taken advantage of her.

But Wang Ping hadn't.

Thinking of this, Chen Luoyan felt even more at ease with Wang Ping. Coupled with the fact that Wang Ping's Qi Restriction was mending the broken bones within her body, she only felt a tickling sensation spreading through her.

Finally, she couldn't hold back a long, drawn-out sigh.

"Ah..."

Almost at the exact same moment.

A soft clatter echoed from outside the boudoir doors.

Chen Luoyan's sigh came to an abrupt halt. Her half-lidded, beautiful eyes instantly widened as round as saucers. Snapping back to reality, she stared blankly at the entrance to the bedroom.

Madam Su was standing right there, completely dumbfounded.

"Wait, Cousin, it's not what you think! Listen to me explain!"

Chen Luoyan instantly flared her spiritual sense, pushing Wang Ping away as she scrambled to stand up. But the moment she caught sight of her shredded Dharma robes, she panicked even more.

"We were just talking! The sect said they were passing a cultivation method to Brother-in-law, and he took it, and beat me up along the way... Just now he was only healing me..."

Chen Luoyan babbled incoherently.

"So noisy!"

Seeing this, Wang Ping impatiently pulled his hand back. "Since Lady Chen doesn't want it, you can recover from the rest on your own. I'm going back to cultivate properly."

He then turned around and looked at Madam Su.

He carried himself with absolute righteousness, boldly confident and without a single shred of a guilty conscience—he, Wang Ping, walked a straight path and was definitely not a man ruled by lust!

Seeing his expression, Madam Su immediately broke into a smile.

"My husband wants to cultivate? Do you need my help?"

Hearing this, Wang Ping felt a stir in his heart. He then gave a solemn nod. "Yes, I do. If you are there, my wife, you can help me spark more inspiration."

"What inspiration?"

Seeing that Madam Su's emotions were stable, Chen Luoyan breathed a sigh of relief, assuming everything was fine now. She hurriedly chimed in, "What are you going to do, Cousin? Do you need my help?"

"There's no need."

Madam Su pinned up her hair, her hands tracing lightly over her dress to carve out a crescent curve as she gracefully knelt down. "You can't help with this."

...

Chen Luoyan's face burned crimson as she fled out of the courtyard in a complete panic.

Inside the room, Madam Su curled her lips proudly, like a puppy guarding its food. Then, she leaned forward forcefully, letting out a muffled sound from the back of her throat.

Thus concluding this session of Knocking on the Immortal Gate.

After she finished, she cupped her chin, swallowed hard, and cast another glance at Wang Ping, who had already entered a state of deep meditation. Then she stood up, preparing to leave...

Suddenly, her vision went dark.

A large Cloak had suddenly flown over from behind, draping completely over her head. The inner lining of the Cloak still carried the lingering body heat of the wearer, feeling delightfully warm.

"The weather is turning cold. Dress warmly."

"..."

Madam Su smiled even more radiantly. Wrapping the Cloak tight around herself, she walked briskly out of the room to continue studying the Six Desire Heavens Sovereign Attainment Method.

On the other side, Wang Ping seized the precious window of his burst of inspiration, quickly circulating the Inner Landscape Scripture. This secret method was different from many of the immortal arts he had encountered before. It didn't require comprehension; he merely had to silently recite the scripture within his sea of consciousness using his spiritual sense, and the profound mechanics would naturally begin to operate.

Very soon, Wang Ping felt something unusual.

As he chanted the Inner Landscape Scripture, his perception of the outside world seemed to be drawn away. Heaven and earth fell completely silent, leaving only the sound of his chanting echoing gently in the void.

With every word he chanted, his sea of consciousness trembled.

And when the words linked together, the silent chanting transformed into a continuous, dull rumbling. It sounded like the beating of heavenly drums, though its rhythm sped up and slowed down uncontrollably.

This sensation made Wang Ping feel incredibly uncomfortable, but when he stopped, everything returned to normal. Nothing had happened, let alone Drawing Kan to Fill Li.

"What's going on?"

Frowning deeply, Wang Ping once again entered the ethereal state of cultivating the Inner Landscape Scripture. Forcing himself to endure the discomfort, he tried hard to sense every tremor in his sea of consciousness.

"Thump!"

"Thump!"

"Thump!"

Wang Ping silently counted the frequency and number of the tremors, then exited the ethereal state, only to enter it again. After repeating this cycle several times, a gleam of realization finally surfaced in his eyes.

"It's my heart!"

"Every time I chant the scripture, the tremors triggered in my sea of consciousness perfectly match the beating of my heart. Is the Inner Landscape Scripture pointing toward my heart?"

What was inside his heart?

With this realization, everything naturally fell into place. Wang Ping once again used his spiritual sense to chant the Inner Landscape Scripture, but this time, he no longer fixated on keeping it in his sea of consciousness.

Instead, he actively withdrew it, turning his spiritual sense inward to observe his physical body. He focused it on the location of his heart, and then simply began to chant the Inner Landscape Scripture directly within it. As the booming sound of the scripture synchronized with his heartbeat, the once utterly ordinary organ genuinely began to transform at this very moment!

The chambers of his heart turned into a mountain stone cavern.

The fresh blood within his heart turned into crashing ocean waves.

Before long, the heart in Wang Ping's eyes actually turned into an island on the sea. The fragrance of flowers and fruits drifted across the island, and sitting right in its center was a Water Curtain Cave.

His spiritual sense probed all the way forward.

Very quickly, he saw a spiritual monkey sitting cross-legged inside the Water Curtain Cave. Its aura pierced the heavens, its body was covered in golden light, and an untamed, defiant expression filled its features.

In a flash, Wang Ping understood.

This was the Mind Monkey.

Shifting his spiritual sense to look at the rest of his internal organs, he awakened and observed them with the Inner Landscape Scripture. Immediately, they all changed their appearances just like his heart.

His spleen became mountain stone and earth.

His liver became a great forest.

His lungs became hundred-forged gold.

His kidneys were the most special of all. Their chambers actually turned into a vast, boundless ocean. Within this sea sat a crystal dragon palace, and suppressed within the palace was an As-You-Will Divine Treasure Iron.

"I see. So this is the Inner Landscape Scripture! This is Drawing Kan to Fill Li!"

Li was fire! Kan was water!

Fire lay in the heart, and water lay in the kidneys. Therefore, Drawing Kan to Fill Li meant he had to fetch that Divine Treasure Iron from the Kidney Water Dragon Palace to complete the Mind Monkey's Divine Powers.

Only in this way could it possess the power to be Equal to Heaven!