There is a stone bead without words in his hand. Master said, use it to solve the next nine.
Gui Deyi didn't know what these nine stone beads were. All he knew was that he wanted to live.
When he was eight years old, his parents died in the rebellion. He was sold by human traffickers, chased by bandits, chewed tree bark due to hunger, and almost died in a roadside ditch. Finally, an old man named Xuanjizi picked him up.
The old man taught him how to read, watch stars, meditate, and make pottery. The old man said that there are nine palaces in heaven and earth, and there are small heavens and earth in human body. The old man said that Tao gives birth to one, which gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives rise to all things. The old man also said that the wordless stone bead in his hand was 0, the Tao, the heart, and the beginning of everything.
After the old man died, he had to go down the mountain with the stone beads. He met Zhiwei, a female doctor, and learned how to treat illnesses and save people; he met a blacksmith, a papermaker, a pen maker, an ink maker, an inkstone maker, and a porcelain maker, and learned all kinds of skills; he met a luthier, a chess player, a calligrapher, and a painter, and learned chess, calligraphy, and painting. He walked into Luoyang City and saw with his own eyes wars, plagues, famines, and the defense of the city. He learned about numerology in front of the fortune teller's stall. In the blood and fire of defending the city, he understood what the heart is.
One spring twenty years later, he returned to Guiyuan Temple, and under the old plum tree, he finally unlocked the secret of the wordless stone bead.
The road is not far from the people, and the people are far from the road. If you know one of them, everything will be settled. If you get one of them, everything will be at peace.
