The land where the Zhixu nation is located in the eastern continent was anciently known as Kunlun, and it is still called the Kunlun Continent among the cultivators today. The so-called cultivators refer to a group of very special people who have inherited their sects from ancient times, learning various cultivation techniques, and also possessing supernatural abilities that ordinary people cannot imagine. These people may be far away from the world, hiding in seclusion to cultivate, or they may be mixed among ordinary people in the city, studying Taoism, Buddhism, or various techniques of their sects, comprehending the great way of heaven to seek enlightenment and transcendence.

  Kunlun practitioners aim to transcend the heavenly way, emphasizing self-cultivation and purification of body and mind. Their practices begin with stillness and movement, and involve various methods and paths. The ancients said: "Cultivate it in your person, and its virtue will be true." Therefore, cultivation is also called cultivating truth. Although from the perspective of the ultimate realm, it does not aim at superhuman divine abilities, but the methods of practitioners more or less correspond to certain divine techniques. Due to differences in talent and aptitude, most practitioners cannot truly transcend the ordinary and become saints in one lifetime, but many can be considered superior to ordinary people in terms of Daoist principles.

  These transcendent beings are bound by the precepts of their respective sects, as well as a universal code of conduct. Even when walking among mortals, they must not use their divine powers to interfere with ordinary people's lives or exploit their abilities for personal gain in worldly affairs. Establishing such rules is beneficial for stability both within and outside the mundane world, and is also necessary for cultivators' own cultivation. If they were to recklessly use their divine powers to interfere with the world, it would bring great disaster to ordinary people and undermine the foundation of the world that the cultivation community relies on. These are all heavy historical lessons that have been learned before.

  Since modern times, many high-ranking cultivators have emerged in the cultivation world. In the past century, three individuals are widely recognized as having the highest status and greatest divine powers, known as the Three Great Masters. They are: Zhengyi Men's Gatekeeper, Zhenzong True Person; Wucheng Guangjiao Temple's Geju Jizan Living Buddha; and Wangqing Palace's Master, Wangqing Gongzi.

  The Forgetful Young Master had once left the Forgetful Palace to secretly take in a disciple named Mei Ye Shi as a wandering Jianghu person. The True Person of Guarding Righteousness also helped guide Mei Ye Shi's cultivation under the guise of an ordinary rural village husband. It can be said that he was a successor carefully taught by the combined efforts of two great masters. And this Mei Ye Shi is precisely the Mr. Mei known to Qing Chen. Mr. Mei had many strange encounters in his youth, and apart from the Forgetful Young Master and the True Person of Guarding Righteousness, he also received guidance from many high-ranking individuals within and outside the Red Dust. After achieving great success in his cultivation, he established his own sect and became known as the San Meng Sect. Mei Ye Shi was also jointly promoted by various sects' cultivators as the Kunlun Alliance Master.

  The greatest achievement of Mei Ye Shi is that he led the various factions to calm down the internal strife in the cultivation world, making it clear how traditional cultivators should coexist peacefully in modern civilized society, without harming each other inside and outside the mundane world. He not only gathered everyone to revise the cultivation precepts that had been passed down for thousands of years but also established the authority of the cultivation precepts - not as a self-imposed constraint within each sect, but as a code of conduct shared by all Kunlun cultivators. Cultivators can walk in the mundane world; if they wish, they can do anything with any identity in the secular world, but they cannot appear publicly as "supermen" or disrupt the operating rules of secular society with "superhuman" means.

  In short, there is one sentence: Within and outside the red dust, between heaven and man, there is a boundary that cannot be crossed.

  San Shao said up to here, Qing Chen interrupted and asked: "Master, I have something unclear. You said these people have such great divine powers, why don't they take on greater responsibilities? With their abilities, do more things for this world. Isn't there a saying - the greater the power, the greater the responsibility?"

  The monk smiled: "Don't say you don't understand, probably many people in the world also don't understand. As a Buddhist, I'll explain our own principles. The Buddha said 'all living beings are equal', but how can all living beings be equal? You and I are not more noble than others, nor are we freer than others. So-called liberation is not about being above others in the world. There are many ways for a person to bear responsibility, and having great personal strength does not mean that others have given you more responsibility, nor does it mean that you can impose what you consider your responsibility on the world." The monk's words were very fluent, but slightly verbose.

  Qing Chen: "I still don't quite understand."

  San Shao Monk: "In that case, let's put it in a way you can understand. Your martial arts skills are unparalleled and can rival those of ten thousand people, so you've killed many people, but the patrol officers have been unable to catch you."

  "I killed those who deserved to be killed."

  San Shao Monk: "This I know, everyone knows. But what if you killed someone you shouldn't have? Wouldn't the result be the same? Ordinary people, including law enforcement officers, who can do anything to you? This is just about you, but what if it were someone like Mr. Mei, a high-ranking official? Even the National Security Bureau's Special Task Force would be powerless... The essence of the Buddhist precepts for cultivating supernatural powers lies not in not doing something, but in doing it!"

  Qing Chen: "Is it about doing? Isn't it about not letting do?"

  Three Sha monks stretched out his hand and touched his bald head: "The precepts are just a word, what if someone violates them? Then the Kunlun practitioners have the responsibility to stop them as soon as they discover it! This is the greatest contribution of Mei Meng's new covenant. ... The magical powers that practitioners can display in front of ordinary people are like divine beings, so they can also be revered as incarnations of gods. However, they are human and not gods after all, and in this situation, it is inevitable that some people will have inflated desires, the freedom of the gods is unrestricted by human constraints, while the desires of mortals may send everyone to hell. ... So, it's necessary to draw a clear boundary to prevent such things from happening."

  "Got it! I recall a phrase - Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's!"

  San Shao Monk: "I've heard of God, but who is this Caesar Bodhisattva?"

  Qing Chen: "Caesar wasn't a Bodhisattva, but an ancient Western ruler who later became a synonym for human monarchs... Sorry, I interrupted the Master's words. What about those three great masters now? And what does it have to do with you coming to save me?"

  San Shao Monk: "Relationships are complicated, that's another story." Qing Chen stopped talking, and the monk continued to tell stories about Kunlun cultivators...

  Shortly after Mei Ye's birth, someone in his family secretly used the Mei clan's divine artifact - the Qingming Mirror, which was said to be able to manipulate the Kunlun vein, attempting to use its divine power to wreak havoc on the world and then escape. The Guangjiao Temple's Master Gao Jizan had once borrowed the Mei clan's divine artifact but was refused, and Mei Ye's father had sworn with his life that the artifact would not be used recklessly, leaving behind a grudge. After this incident, Master Gao led his fellow cultivators to the Mei residence to demand an explanation, but the Mei couple did not want to explain themselves and instead chose to end their own lives before everyone arrived, apologizing to the world for their crime.

  Mei's orphan, Mei Ye Shi, was taken by Shou Zheng Zhen Ren to a mountain village where he lived in seclusion on ordinary days and handed over to a childless couple of ordinary villagers for adoption, named Shi Ye. After growing up, Shi Ye went to the city to study, met the young man Wang Qing Gong Zi who was playing games in the mortal world, coincidentally became his apprentice to cultivate the Golden Elixir Tao, and later had many strange encounters and eventually became a new generation of masters.

  After Mei Ye Shi Xiu's great achievement, he used his wisdom eye to see through the fixed boundary and saw the past events of his life. He then went to press Ge Ju Ji Zan Living Buddha for an explanation of the situation at that time. A scene from many years ago seemed to reappear, and the Living Buddha knew he had wronged this son. Before Mei Ye Shi arrived at the mountain gate of Guang Jiao Temple, he had already ascended to heaven in a rainbow-colored light, reborn in the Pure Land. Before his ascension, the Living Buddha left behind a will, stating that he would no longer return after seven cycles of reincarnation, and not only would there be no more spiritual children reborn, but also no designated successor to inherit the robe and bowl of Guang Jiao Temple.

  The Living Buddha had a disciple named Shang Yunfei who was not yet out of the house and was also the most outstanding inheritor under the Living Buddha's seat. The year the Living Buddha ascended, Shang Yunfei was only eighteen years old. Afterwards, Shang Yunfei traveled far abroad, leaving behind the disputes of the Kunlun cultivation world, while Mei Ye Shi, who had been carefully cultivated by the two great masters, Wang Qing and Zheng Zheng, became the leader of the Kunlun cultivation world. By the time Shang Yunfei returned to Zhixu Country, he had already become a financial investment giant in Shanmo Country.

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  Sunday first issue of this chapter, typing in progress, updated around midnight 022 (below).

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