Chapter 730: Chen Ji’s performance

Inside Dakini Heaven, Li Qi and his wife conversed directly with Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King.

However, this Bodhisattva seemed to have no intention of exchanging pleasantries, instead immediately asking Li Qi and the others to leave, but then posed a puzzling question.

She asked Li Qi if the past and the future exist?

Li Qi didn't know what the other party intended, but it was clear that Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King was implying that he was wrong.

You dare to say that my fundamental understanding of spacetime structure is wrong!?

This is a Dao dispute!

When you try to correct my Dao, a Dao dispute becomes inevitable.

But Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King said, "Why do you say that? Isn't this consistent with your view? We should have a consensus on this."

At her words, Li Qi was speechless.

Indeed, their views could actually be harmonized.

What Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King had just said was that everything was already decided.

In other words, the world is a book that has already been written, and the characters in the book don't know that their fates have been predetermined. For the characters in the book, the past, present, and future are clearly differentiated, but although differentiated, they are inseparable, forming a continuous whole.

This structure can simultaneously satisfy the Fusion of two seemingly contradictory conclusions: "the future and the present are one" and "the future truly exists."

Everything is predestined. Li Qi is bound to encounter these things, and Li Qi is bound to gain the power of the ‘future’. Everything is inevitable.

From this perspective, all of this is inevitable.

So, Li Qi immediately said, "If the Bodhisattva has this idea, then it's truly a bit… pitiful."

Li Qi directly used the word ‘pitiful’ without any politeness.

He continued, "If the future is predestined, wouldn't that mean everything about a person is meaningless? Including the Bodhisattva herself, she would also be meaningless."

"I'm just saying this, it doesn't mean I actually believe it, it's just… Li Qi, please observe." Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King said, her form transforming again.

This time, she manifested her Dharma form.

White in form, white, bright, and pure, with a peacock on her crown, a jewel necklace around her neck, a Samadhi form in the Void Realm, and six arms.

Then, Li Qi saw her begin to perform the Buddha-Dharma.

The Buddha-Dharma she performed was related to ‘spacetime’.

In Buddhism, there are the Buddhas of the Three Ages.

Namely, the Past Buddha, the Present Buddha, and the Buddhist Pagodare Buddha.

In this concept, spacetime is chaotic. Buddhas can transcend Reincarnation, specifically manifesting as being Reincarnated into the past.

Yes, a historical figure is the Reincarnation of someone in the present.

He lived through the present time, then died, and was Reincarnated into the past.

Through this point, it is also proven that everything in the past is fixed and destined to happen, because past events have already occurred, and I was Reincarnated into the past, so I am bound to experience everything that has already happened in the past.

And because of Li Qi's previous argument, ‘past’ equals ‘present’. When I arrive in the past, the past becomes the present for me. Therefore, due to this inverse-spacetime Reincarnation, for the ‘present of the past’, the future that was once the present is also predestined, because for him, the future is his previous life. Thus, the future is also the past, and the future is already predestined at this moment.

This entire Reincarnation cycle is like a movie playing over and over again, only the people in the movie don't know it.

A destined Reincarnation loop.

Li Qi suddenly looked up. What exactly did Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King want to say!?

The Buddhist view of spacetime is so strange. Is it a determined fatalism? It doesn't seem like it. Why would she suddenly tell him all this?

But… is this view of spacetime wrong?

It doesn't seem so, does it?

Upon closer thought, if one can be Reincarnated into the past after death, it proves that spacetime itself is a unified whole, which perfectly aligns with Li Qi's current understanding.

It's not contradictory at all; this precisely proves that all futures and all pasts are ‘present’.

However, the same result leads to different concepts.

Li Qi believes that the future is unknowable, that the future does not exist, and that the future is merely a vague ‘probability’.

But obviously, from this perspective, it's impossible to arrive at something like the Buddhas of the Three Ages.

Li Qi and Shen Shuibi were captivated by this performance of the Buddha-Dharma.

After all, even if one wants to refute the other party, one must first understand what the other party wants to say.

However, Li Qi still couldn't understand what Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King intended. Why did she suddenly perform the Buddha-Dharma? Was she trying to tell him the function of that jade bead?

Li Qi was puzzled, but Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King continued her performance of the Buddha-Dharma.

It was still Buddha-Dharma, but this time it was not just the bizarre Reincarnation loop of the ‘Buddhas of the Three Ages’, but another strange phenomenon.

The speed of light.

That's right, it was the speed of light, or rather, the ‘limit of speed’.

The so-called speed of light is actually the speed limit of this Universe.

As is well known, if there's an upper limit, there must be a lower limit.

The upper limit is the speed of light, so the lower limit is also very simple: it's the ‘stillness’ that everyone knows.

It's natural, isn't it? Stillness, naturally, is the lower limit of speed.

So, here comes the problem.

Does absolute stillness exist?

Anyone who has studied knows that absolute stillness does not exist; you are always in motion because motion is relative.

So, relative to a beam of light, taking light itself as the reference frame, light is still, but you are moving at the speed of light.

The problem lies here.

All things are essentially moving at the speed of light.

The upper and lower limits of ‘speed’ are both the speed of light. When you are still, you are actually also moving at the speed of light.

Alternatively, you move a little, and the speed doesn't matter, because eventually you will find that as long as the reference frame is appropriate, you are always at the speed of light.

The Universe only has the speed of light; besides the speed of light, there is nothing else.

The “speed” of all things—

There is, and only is, the speed of light.

There is simply no such thing as speed. The entire Universe is both still and extremely fast.

At this moment, on Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King, such contradictory characteristics were presented.

At this moment, Li Qi's eyes widened sharply!

He understood, he knew what the other party wanted to express!!!

Speed itself is also relative.

Speed can be divided into spatial speed and temporal speed, and these two speeds share the same upper limit.

Therefore, the faster your spatial speed, the slower your temporal speed becomes. The moment you reach the speed of light, in the eyes of others, your temporal speed becomes zero, which means you are ‘still’.

Similarly, when your spatial speed is zero, meaning you appear still to yourself, your temporal speed remains at full speed.

Since you yourself are the coordinate system, your spatial speed must be zero, so from your own perspective, time is always normal.

But for others, it is not so; everyone has their own relative time, and everyone's temporal speed is different.

All of this manifests another great existence—

Because all people, all individual isolated perspectives, have their own subjective perspectives, and this subjective perspective can affect the flow rate of time itself, leading to the birth of relative time.

So, what is the largest, largest, so large that it cannot be further expanded, perspective?

An absolute, besides itself, there is no ‘relative’ thing that exists.

Yes, there is no relative thing anymore. This thing can achieve ‘absolute stillness’. This is true stillness! It will never move!

Is there such a thing?

Of course there is, that is the Universe itself!

The Universe has no relative objects!

The Universe only has absolute reference objects, no relative reference objects, and its absolute reference object is itself.

In other words, for the Universe, everything is still. If the Universe were relative, it would be relative to itself, and in this case, the Universe would have no spatial speed.

Then, the Universe would only have temporal speed left.

But what is temporal speed? If there must be a temporal speed, then it means that time must have a past and a future, otherwise, there would be no such thing as ‘speed’.

It's connected!

All of this connected is what Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King wants to express!

Time has a before and after, but before and after are all one. Reincarnation is like this, this is the Buddhist ‘Reincarnation’ and ‘fate’.

This answer was nothing special to Li Qi. He was already at the Fourth Rank, and he had his own view of spacetime, which could refute this answer, for example, by refuting this fatalism from the perspective of randomness.

However, Li Qi suddenly looked at Shen Shuibi.

The rabbit's expression had clearly changed.

Absolute time, absolute stillness—

Isn't that… Celestial Pole!?

This is also a ‘method’ for anchoring the future.

Because motion is relative, and as long as it's relative to oneself, the situation Li Qi believes in will arise, namely: “one's own self is always still,” so one's own self always only has ‘present,’ and the past and future are both part of the present.

However, if there is an ‘absolute still object,’ then it's different.

Taking the absolutely still object as a reference, one can naturally distinguish between ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’, because motion itself is relative to the reference object. With an absolute reference object, even time itself, the trajectory of motion is clearly traceable.

Li Qi immediately realized what the other party's plan was!

Bai Chen Fox King, Bai Chen Fox King!

Her title, it had the character ‘chen’ in it!

That jade bead was not originally intended for Li Qi; it was prepared for Shen Shuibi. It was a potential Fourth Rank Opportunity for the rabbit!

The essence of that jade bead was a miniature ‘Celestial Pole’!

That's why Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King said it was a waste.

Originally, Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's plan was to give the jade bead to Shen Shuibi, allowing Shen Shuibi to directly advance to the Fourth Rank, and then directly defeat Liu Junyi.

Clearly, for some unknown reason, likely due to interference from others, this plan failed, and this miniature Celestial Pole was forced to wander.

Later, Li Qi almost turned the tide, so it was sent to Li Qi's hands, helping Li Qi make a Breakthrough to the Fifth Rank, which was not a waste after all.

"Bodhisattva, with such a performance of the Buddha-Dharma, are you offering an Opportunity, or do you have other intentions?" Li Qi stood in front of Shen Shuibi, looking at Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King with a gloomy expression.

But at this moment, Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King retracted her six arms, and nine tails fanned out behind her.

It's well known that a large part of their cultivation is hidden in the tails of foxes, and this is true for Dakini Heaven as well.

And Dakini Heaven's tails can transform into white whisks, named “Snow Dust Whisk,” also known as: Dakini Heaven Snow Dust Whisk Mantra.

When these nine tails sweep together, they can ward off the three disasters, four difficulties, five poisons, six failures, and various worldly illnesses, hardships, bad luck, and obstacles. It is a Divine Ability for auspicious achievements.

Li Qi, of course, couldn't block a sweep from a Third Rank using nine tails, but he immediately reacted, displaying his Fourth Rank cultivation at this moment.

He couldn't block it, but he had a way to ensure that the sweep only hit him and didn't touch Shen Shuibi.

His Inner World opened, and the surrounding Dao principles were subtly modified.

The direction of space was blocked, becoming two-dimensional.

Two dimensions only have two directions, just as in front of Li Qi now, there are only two directions, which are up, down, left, and right.

Depth, or ‘behind’, does not exist.

And Shen Shuibi was ‘behind’.

This was absolute defense, because there was simply no third direction for passage, fundamentally eliminating the possibility of being touched.

However, at this moment—

Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's Snow Dust Whisk suddenly turned from one into two, two into four, four into eight—

It was just like… a snowflake.

The tiny parts of a snowflake are consistent with the larger whole; they can be infinitely divided.

At this moment, this Divine Ability widened the gap between Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's cultivation and Li Qi's cultivation.

For Li Qi at this moment, Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's power was “infinitely great”.

No joke, it really was “infinitely great”.

Those tails, they were like a koch curve, or a Sierpinski triangle.

Fractalizing a pattern and repeating it infinitely to draw a curve is called a koch curve.

The koch curve can produce an incredible result: a boundary with “infinite length” that can only enclose a finite area.

This is also the coastline paradox.

The length of a coastline is actually ‘infinite’.

When you measure a coastline, you must use precision, and the greater the precision, the longer the irregular, jagged shape of the coastline will measure, because coastlines are composed of constantly repeating small curves that can be continuously delved into.

At this moment, Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King was like this, constantly evolving, and her cultivation also approached infinity.

But Li Qi was not worried.

Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's infinite power could only strike him. The disparity in cultivation was not that great after all. Li Qi, who had already mastered high-grade power, also had his own ways to deal with it.

Of course, being able to deal with it doesn't mean he can win; he would most likely still be instantly killed.

After all, it was a Third Rank.

As long as Shen Shuibi wasn't harmed, that was fine. Anyway, this b*tch fox wouldn't dare to kill him.

If she had that courage, she would already be dead now.

Li Qi no longer felt any reverence, only hostility.

This ‘guidance’ seemed well-intentioned, but in reality, it might not bring good results.

As expected, the next instant, Bodhisattva Bai Chen Fox King's performance of the Buddha-Dharma ended.

"This is Celestial Pole, Moon Essence, do you see it?" (End of Chapter)