Chapter 189: Cultivating the Heart
Chapter 189: Cultivating the Heart
“Young Master Mu!” Jianning called out.
Mu Feng raised his leg and stepped into the carriage, giving an order calmly.
After the shock, he quickly calmed down. The more dangerous and unexpected the situation, the more he forced himself to stay composed.
A blind man!
A blind man who could see nothing, had been hiding around him perfectly for more than half a month, and had driven the carriage over mountains and across more than a thousand miles!
Who was this carriage driver really?
A hidden expert, a blind master with incredible skills, or a true assassin?
What was the reason he stayed hidden beside him all this time?
Mu Feng tried his best to stay calm, but his right hand holding the sword hilt tightened unconsciously. Watching the old woman close the heavy gate, leaving the Ancient Town of Puyang far behind and arriving at a desolate, uninhabited mountain wilderness, he could no longer hold back. He burst out with a crash through the roof and leaped in front of the speeding carriage.
Clang…
Mu Feng drew the long sword hanging at his waist and pointed its tip directly at the carriage driver’s forehead, coldly silent. The speeding carriage rumbled closer, but he acted as if he didn’t see it. In his eyes, there was only the driver with the large bamboo hat, who had been quiet the whole journey.
Neigh, neigh, neigh…
The carriage, racing with a loud rumble, suddenly stopped just before hitting Mu Feng. The horse pulling it reared up with a sharp, miserable whinny.
Hu…
The cold wind howled, and all around was silent. The sound of a withered leaf falling to the ground was clearly audible.
Mu Feng said nothing, holding the sharp sword motionless, but the energy in his body seethed hotly as he locked onto the driver’s spiritual fluctuations. If the driver made the slightest move, he would immediately thrust the sword hard into his forehead.
Mu Feng did not move, and the carriage driver sitting on the carriage also remained still. His large bamboo hat was pulled very low, so low that his face could not be seen. He was quiet, unperturbed by the shock, and did not move at all, like a cold stone statue.
Only at this moment, looking at the statue-like carriage driver, did Mu Feng suddenly realize that he had never seen the driver’s true face. From traveling over mountains and rivers from Jianning City to Plum Blossom Manor in Jianshui, then climbing over mountains from Cangjian Peak to return, enduring a long and dusty journey of a thousand miles, after all this time together, he still did not know what the carriage driver really looked like.
Hidden, enduring!
In this mysterious carriage driver, Mu Feng finally saw what it meant to be hidden and enduring!
If nothing else, just this state of mind, this skill of concealment and patience, made the mysterious carriage driver far beyond reach. If he really was a cold-blooded assassin, probably few in the world could escape his ambush!
“Young Master Mu, the night wind is strong outside, and there is still a long way to go. Please get back in the carriage.”
After a long time, the motionless carriage driver broke the silence first.
His voice was old, raspy, and quiet. After speaking simply, he closed his mouth, his tone no different from before. There was no shock, no fear, no anger, as if nothing had happened, as if he had expected all this.
“Hahaha, get back in the carriage?”
Mu Feng laughed coldly, his voice growing colder. “Fine, very well. An expert is truly an expert, unshaken by surprise. To have been hidden until now is something I have to admire. But I just don’t understand: if your eyes can’t see anything, how did you drive the carriage all this way so perfectly?”
Though his killing intent surged and menace filled the air, Mu Feng stood motionless. He did not act rashly, letting the cold night wind blow over him.
He could sense no energy fluctuations from the mysterious carriage driver, but the more it was like that, the more unfathomable he seemed. Sitting motionless on the carriage, he exuded a heavy pressure!
“With the heart!”
The mysterious carriage driver paused, then slowly continued, “Not being able to see, becoming blind, is a bad thing, but also a good thing. What the eyes see is often false or just a surface appearance. What the spiritual soul detects could also be an enemy’s deception. Only what the heart and mind feel is real, with no falsehood at all. In cultivation, as you progress, it ultimately becomes about cultivating the heart. Decades ago, I had already traveled every inch of the Southern Borderlands and became familiar with every plant and tree here. The old horse pulling the carriage is very old, its teeth are starting to loosen, but like me, it knows every road here.”
Cultivating the heart, feeling with the heart and mind?
Mu Feng felt a stir in his heart and silently remembered these words. After thinking for a moment, he looked at the unfathomable carriage driver and said, “Alright, I understand. Now, is it time to reveal your true identity?”
Hu…
Another cold wind blew. After a moment of silence, the mysterious carriage driver lifted his head and slowly took off the wide bamboo hat, revealing his true face.
There was no expected sinister look, no extreme fierceness. His face was full of wrinkles, his eyes empty and dull, with no pupils visible. At first glance, he seemed no different from an ordinary old man. But upon closer look, though aged and frail, his posture was straight, his forehead full, giving an impression of authority without anger.
“Who are you really?”
Looking at the old man on the carriage, Mu Feng tightened his grip on the long sword, his overwhelming killing intent held back.
With just one look, he knew this man was not the great devil leader Blind Master. Disguises could be changed, faces could be altered, but that indescribable innate aura was hard to fake.
With the heart!
Almost without thinking, Mu Feng instinctively tried to sense with his heart and mind. He sought to remove the deceptions of sight, hearing, and touch and directly feel the old man’s true nature with his heart. But to his puzzlement, he sensed no hostility at all from the mysterious old man. Beneath his silent, cold, indifferent exterior, what he felt was remorse, the weight of time, and even endless sorrow, along with an unshakable determination that even heaven’s collapse could not move.
His heart was extremely firm, firm as a rock!
An old man like this, having weathered so much, once he set his mind on something or a principle, no one could sway him!
“When you were less than three days old, I brought you and your mother back from the Imperial Capital. When you were seven, I expended ten years of my cultivation to suppress the effects of your Seven Extremes Sun-Severing Fist injury. On the day you fell seriously ill at fourteen, unconscious and unable to rise, I used up another hundred years of cultivation. Mu Feng, my grandson Mu Yuan’s son, whom I had placed my greatest hopes in, until now, do you still not know who I am?”
The old man did not directly answer Mu Feng’s question. Looking at the youthful and spirited Mu Feng, he vaguely saw a shadow of his own younger self, and his voice turned lonely.
Hundreds of years had passed in a flash.
Of the brothers from back then, some had vanished without a trace, others had turned to dust, leaving only him alone to support the declining family. There was a time when he, too, was as young and spirited as Mu Feng, laughing proudly in the Great Thousand World. Sadly, all that was past, and those days were not worth looking back on.
“You… you are the Family Patriarch?”
Mu Feng’s heart shook violently, and he finally understood the old man’s identity.