In front of the attic somewhere on the mountain peak where the Xuanming Sect was located, a white light flashed, revealing the figures of Lingmu and Li Mu.

Lingmu carried Li Mu's body in his hand, walked into the attic, and instructed the person on duty: "Heal this person and stop the bleeding, and when he wakes up, report it to me." After saying that, he left a sound transmission jade cylinder for this disciple, and then turned into a white light and disappeared.

This building is an important medical place in the mountain on the second floor of the Xuanming School, and is called "Rejuvenation Building". The person on duty at the "Rejuvenation Building" tonight was an ordinary disciple, and he didn't panic when he saw that there were two more people in the flash of white light. Moreover, although his status was low and his cultivation days were short, he also knew that most of the people who could fly with qi were middle and high-level cultivators in the sect, so he stood up respectfully and saluted Lingmu.

After listening to Lingmu's instructions, he took Li Mu, said yes, and walked indoors.

......

When Li Mu woke up the next day, he found that the injuries on his body had scabbed, and there was no pain in the wounds.

Li Mu walked out of the door, but the porter was still on duty last night. He was also a little surprised to see that Li Mu had woken up and regained his mobility, so he said to Li Mu: "This junior disciple is already fine?"

Li Mu saw that although he was very faced, his attitude was very polite, so he replied with a smile: "Thank you, senior brother, for saving me." Dare to ask Senior Brother, it was Senior Lingmu who sent me here last night, can you explain anything to me when you leave?"

The disciple on duty said, "Last night, my junior brother passed out and was covered in blood, and it was indeed a senior who sent you here and told me to treat you well, and report to him when you wake up. Brother, wait a minute, and I'll deliver the news for you. After speaking, he took out the jade cylinder left by the spirit wood and passed the news of Li Muxing's transfer.

Li Mu took advantage of this gap to inquire about the news of the Xuanming Sect from this disciple.

It turned out that this person's surname was Liu Haibo, and he was one of the lowest and largest ordinary disciples of the Xuanming Sect. In the face of Li Mu's inquiry, he did not hide anything, and explained the non-confidential things he knew.

Xuanming faction, one of the five major immortal cultivation sects of the Xuanying Realm, one sect, one palace, one valley and one faction of the human race. There is a Yuanying True Monarch, dozens of Jindan Zhenren, hundreds of Zhuji True Disciples, thousands of Huafan formal disciples, and tens of thousands of innate introductory disciples.

After thousands of years of development, the Xuanming sect has derived four major departments: refining, alchemy, transmission of gong, and demon slaying: the refining department specializes in the refining of judicial instruments and magic weapons; the alchemy department refines elixirs for the disciples in the sect; the transmission department collects the exercises and provides them to the disciples of the sect to practice, and there are elders to solve their doubts; the demon slaying department is composed of elite disciples of the Xuanming Sect, which specializes in dealing with matters related to the demon clan, including the war against the demon clan, and so on.

In addition, the name of the mountain where the Xuanming faction is located is called "Xuanxiao Peak", which is said to be a spiritual treasure that the patriarch of the sect "Xuanming Zhenjun" collected the essence of ten thousand mountains and refined it. The difference between the five colors of this peak represents the difference between the cultivators of the five types of cultivation, and only when they have reached a certain level of cultivation can they live at the corresponding level. The concentration of aura at each level of this mountain varies greatly, and the higher you go, the richer the aura content becomes, and the more conducive it is to cultivation.

Here, Liu Haibo explained to Li Mu about the Xuanming faction, and after a cup of tea, Lingmu had already arrived here.

Xu was because Li Mu's performance yesterday was too amazing, and Lingmu's attitude towards him was much kinder. After seeing Li Mu, Lingmu nodded to Liu Haibo, then took out the flying boat that the two of them were riding on the road when they came, and smiled faintly at Li Mu: "Come up, come with me to accept the second assessment." ”

While controlling the flying boat to fly the two of them up the mountain, Lingmu said to Li Mu: "Your performance in the 'Ten Thousand Steps Cold Stone' yesterday was very good, greatly exceeding my expectations for you. Today's second assessment is a test of your 'true heart', if your original heart is turbid and your heart is not firm in the Tao, then you don't need to participate in the assessment. But if you pass this level, it means that you basically have the potential to cultivate immortals, and you can enter our faction. There are many dangers in this assessment, and it is several times more difficult than the 'Ten Thousand Rank Cold Stone', do you dare to accept it?"

Li Mu didn't want to, so he said respectfully: "The juniors know, and the juniors accept." ”

Lingmu smiled with satisfaction, continued to control the flying boat to fly up the mountain, and said nothing.

After the tea, Lingmu parked the flying boat next to a cliff. Li Mu raised his eyes and saw that the cliff was extremely steep, and the clouds and mist below were shrouded, and he didn't know how deep the bottom of the cliff was. In the middle of this cliff, there is a chain suspension bridge. The iron cables that make up the suspension bridge are dark black, each one the size of two people's thumbs. The two cliffs connected by the iron cable suspension bridge are hundreds of zhang apart, but this bridge is actually not moving under the strong mountain wind, which is obviously extremely heavy.

Lingmu said to Li Mu: "This 'Asking Heart Bridge' is where you will be assessed. As long as you can walk across this bridge and reach the other end, you will be considered successful in this assessment. ”

Li Mu saw that although the suspension bridge was between the two cliffs, hundreds of zhang long, it was quite wide, enough to accommodate several people to pass through at the same time, and the guardrails on both sides were more than half a person high, just an ordinary person, it should not be difficult to pass this bridge. But since this bridge is the second level of the entrance assessment, the difficulty is still above the 'Ten Thousand Steps Cold Stone', so it doesn't seem so simple.

Li Mu nodded to Lingmu and slowly walked onto the suspension bridge.

The moment he stepped on this bridge, Li Mu only felt a flower in front of him, and the surrounding scenery was already very different.

It was obviously an iron cable bridge suspended in the cliff, but it suddenly became a common small bridge on the river in the lake in the south of the Yangtze River, and the black iron chain he stepped on under his feet also became a square bluestone slab. Moreover, in the midst of the rolling clouds all around, pedestrians, houses, trees, flowers, and plants all appeared one by one -- as if they had been depicted by a painter at a very fast speed, and they were all indistinguishable from ordinary town scenes! If he had not seen the process of these scenes slowly taking shape with his own eyes, he would have thought that he was at a loss at this moment, and that he was just one of the many beings.

Li Mu stood on the bridge blankly, surrounded by the clear sound of hawkers, women laughing and scolding, and young students talking and laughing...... All kinds of ordinary voices in the mundane world came to his ears one by one. He could look down on the anxious, joyful, angry, or confused expressions on the faces of these passers-by, and he could see that the sky was blue, willow green, and red. He could see more clearly the unaware sight of these people walking past him, and some of them even passed through his body as if he were transparent air.

He thus becomes a complete spectator, who is in the painting, but cannot interfere with every move of the people in the painting, every sorrow and joy. Not to mention, how to complete your own assessment.

Li Mu walked forward slowly, and immediately came to the last stone staircase of this stone bridge, and he was only one step away from walking down this bridge. But he suddenly paused and stopped his steps to get off the bridge.

In front of him, at the corner of the avenue by the bridge, a carriage that looked ordinary slowly drove up, this carriage was not large, and the decoration was very ordinary, even ordinary rich and noble people could use it, but it was not enough to attract his attention. But at the moment when he was about to step off the bridge, the curtain of the carriage was lifted by a pair of thin hands, and a very ordinary, ordinary middle-aged couple slowly walked out of it. After seeing the faces of the team of couples clearly, Li Mu's tears burst out of his eyes, and he knelt down as soon as his knees became weak, and shouted in a hoarse voice: "Dad, mother!"

After the couple stood still on the ground, they looked at Li Mu with gentle and loving eyes and did not say a word. But in their smiles, they seemed to be silently saying to Li Mu: "Mu'er, don't blame your father and mother for failing the scientific expedition, go home with your father." ”

Li Mu could barely control his body, and the tears in his eyes were surging down, blurring his vision. The last time I went to Beijing to take the exam, I said goodbye to my parents, it was a few years, but I didn't expect a catastrophe to separate them forever, and they didn't even have the opportunity to see each other for the last time. This time, he saw his parents again in this illusion, and he was happy or sad in his heart, but he couldn't even tell himself.

The things in the world, only the parting thing, is the most hurtful, not to mention the death of relatives? And the difference between life and death is only endless despair and sorrow. Seeing his parents again today, Li Mu's heart is full of mixed tastes and cannot be fully described.

Driven by strong emotions, he almost wanted to leave everything behind and return to his parents immediately. But reason kept reminding him that all this was an illusion, a false creation. His feet stretched and stretched, but he didn't take that step.

Li Mu raised his head and looked straight at his parents in front of him, who were like real people, as if he wanted to keep a firm record of their faces and never forget them. He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and said word by word: "Dad, mother, I know that you are all deceased. What is presented to me at this moment is nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy in my heart. I can't go with you, I can't step off this bridge. From the moment I chose to take this path, there was no turning back. I didn't fulfill my filial piety during your two elders' lifetime, and now that you have gone, I will go to heaven and earth in this life, and I will find out the real culprit and avenge your two elders!"

After saying that, he kowtowed heavily to his parents a few times, and after taking a deep look at the faces of the two parents, he turned around and walked towards the bridge. In the process of walking on the bridge, he did not return for the first time.

Standing at the head of the bridge, Li Mu slowly closed his eyes, slowly sinking his consciousness and emptying his mind.

The moment he saw his parents' posture transformed, he vaguely understood the purpose of this assessment that Lingmu had previously told him: the meaning of "original heart". I am afraid that everyone who goes on this bridge to be assessed will fall into their own different illusions simulated according to themselves, and what is presented in this illusion is the deepest desire in the heart of the person being assessed.

As for the danger that Lingmu said, he still couldn't figure it out. Therefore, he could only take care of his spirit according to his own judgment and wait quietly.