Chapter 69: Purifying Heart Mantra

  Xiao Ziyang was unwilling to talk about his own martial arts background, and changed the subject: "You sisters are famous for your skills, I've taken in a few orphans, two of whom have excellent potential. However, what I've learned is rough and unrefined, and I'm afraid it would hold back these two children. Would you be willing to take them under your wing and teach them? These kids are all very sensible and hardworking, and they can also help you with managing the mountain stronghold."

  "Alright, alright! You want them to acknowledge me as their master!"

  An Yuwan and An Yuhai smiled at each other, nodding in unison towards Xiao Ziyang.

  In the following days, Xiao Ziyang sold off the ordinary horses in the stronghold in batches through intermediaries and unexpectedly got more than 40,000 taels of silver.

  The location of Cangshan Village is extremely secretive. In front of the village is a plain, and on the plain there is a small river running through it. Behind the double peaks where the village is located is the southern corner of Fengyu Lake. Standing on the eastern peak, Fengyu Lake can be seen in its entirety, with the lake's light and the mountain's color, the scenery is extremely beautiful. Xiao Ziyang built a wooden house on the eastern summit, and in front of the house, he opened up a practice field.

  He took several children of Erzhong to the mountain stronghold and let them worship An Yurong as their teacher.

  The two pillars were very obedient, and they never shirked from Xiao Ziyang's arrangements. Hei Zi was not very willing to bow down to a beautiful girl who was only slightly older than him as his master, but after being glared at by Xiao Ziyang, he finally bowed down obediently. The other children were still young and just thought that their master was very pretty, so they liked her in their hearts and happily bowed down.

  On this day, Xiao Ziyang arranged all the things in the mountain stronghold and told An Jia sisters that he had encountered some setbacks in his practice and needed to meditate for a while without disturbing him. Afterwards, he moved into the wooden house on the top of the mountain.

  The wooden house on the mountain top faces east, with a small area and simple furnishings inside, only one table, one chair, and one bed. In front of the wooden house is a courtyard of over ten zhang in length and width, with a tightly compacted ground surface. On the east side, there is a huge stone, with its top end carved flat, which is Xiao Ziyang's meditation spot.

  Xiao Ziyang sat cross-legged on the top of a giant stone, holding "Zi Yu Sheng Yan", gazing at the distant lake surface with sparkling waves.

  Fear was evident in his eyes.

  What made Xiao Ziyang fearful was precisely the evil thoughts that had almost lost control of himself many times.

  "In Purple Jade Smoke", this uncontrollable evil thought has a chilling name: "Heart Demon!"

  Before the opening of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan", there is a meditation method called "Qing Xin Lian Shen Zhou". This mantra requires long-term persistence to be effective, can condense and refine the mind and spirit, cleanse the soul, prevent external evil from invading, and internal evil from arising.

  At first, Xiao Ziyang meditated on this mantra for a few days without noticing any effect, so he stopped. He indulged in the thrill of rapidly increasing his power and had long abandoned this meditation method. Now, he finally realized the severity of the problem.

  Xiao Ziyang picked up the "Zi Yu Sheng Yan" secret book and read it word by word, afraid of missing anything again...

  For a period of time, Xiao Ziyang didn't dare to continue cultivating. He meditated once every day according to the "Clear Heart and Refine Spirit Mantra". Although the secret book said that one hour of meditation per day was enough, exceeding that would greatly reduce the effect, but he meditated for three hours every day.

  Time flies, and three months later, Xiao Ziyang's body reached a wonderful place. If the first nine chapters of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan" are the supreme method for refining the physical body, then "Qing Xin Lian Shen Zhou" is the divine mantra for condensing the heart and spirit.

  After three months of meditation, Xiao Ziyang felt that his mind had been thoroughly cleansed. In the past, when he thought about problems, everything in his brain seemed to be shrouded in a layer of gauze, with a vague feeling. But now this thin gauze seems to have been washed away, and everything is so clear. He feels that his analytical understanding ability, memory, and even physical reaction ability have all increased exponentially. The doubts he had when studying the martial classics before are now resolved as if by divine intervention.

  Those women who were robbed by the mountain bandits, after three months of recuperation, mostly recovered their health. An Jia sisters, while training Er Zhu and Shan Zi, also began to teach them some simple martial arts.

  These women who can survive in the mountains are all people with a strong desire to live. The experience in the mountains makes them unable to go down the mountain to face their relatives, although they don't want to die, but also very confused about living on.

  Now, the An Jia sisters teach them martial arts, which is a lifesaver for them. After learning martial arts, they have the capital to go far away and start anew, so these women learn very seriously, some even to the point of self-torture.

  The women in the mountain village all married very early and aged quickly under the heavy labor, so when the mountain bandits kidnapped them, they naturally chose young and beautiful girls. These women were not very old, mostly only sixteen or seventeen years old, with the youngest being only twelve years old. Although many of them had passed their prime age for martial arts training, it was not too late either.

  An Jia sister divided these girls into three groups, one group resting, one group patrolling the mountain stronghold, and one group practicing martial arts.

  These girls all lack a sense of security, so they are also very serious when patrolling.

  Xiao Ziyang felt that the "Clear Mind and Refine Spirit Mantra" had finally achieved some small success, so he decided to start practicing the sixth chapter of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan" again.

  He visited the hunters in the mountains and agreed to buy their game meat at a high price on the 1st, 10th and 20th of each month at Laojun Temple, asking them to cure all the game meat they hunted first.

  After making all the preparations, Xiao Ziyang began his cultivation.

  Chapter 6: The bitterness of cultivation is naturally not worth mentioning, and the process of cultivation has also undergone a huge change compared to before. At this time, the compression of the body's potential has reached an extreme limit. Although there are various medicinal diets, medicinal soups, medicinal baths, and various massage techniques to aid in recovery, the body still suffers from internal injuries every now and then due to the extremely cruel cultivation. Every time this happens, Xiao Ziyang would feel unbearable pain in his muscles and bones, so he had no choice but to stop cultivating for three days every ten days to recover through medicinal soups and massage.

  Xiao Ziyang spent his leisure time either teaching a few children martial arts or studying martial classics.

  He also bribed the shopkeeper of Huishengtang and privately intercepted many precious medicinal materials.

  More than half a year had passed and Xiao Ziyang finally cultivated the sixth chapter of "Zi Yu Sheng Yan" to near perfection.

  Xiao Ziyang used his spare time to study the martial arts manual, and the more he read it, the more he admired its author Li Mubai. Every time he read through it, he would gain new insights, and as his martial skills improved, the inspiration he drew from this book did not decrease but instead increased.