At this point, they had already memorized the final volume, but could not continue any further, because they could not understand it. The characters in this volume of the Daoist Canon were very unfamiliar—in fact, they were quite strange. They recognized all the radicals and strokes, but when combined, they became something completely bizarre. How should they be read? What did they mean?

The two of them returned to the temple and sought out the middle-aged Daoist.

The middle-aged Daoist said, “There are three thousand ways of the Dao. What you are reading is the final volume. This volume contains one thousand six hundred and one characters. It is said that within it lies the ultimate truth of the Dao of Heaven, and no one has ever been able to fully comprehend its meaning—let alone you two.”

Ethan Brooks asked, “Master, you don’t understand it either?”

The middle-aged Daoist shook his head and said, “No one dares to claim they truly understand it, nor can I.”

The two brothers exchanged a glance, feeling a bit disappointed. Although they were still children, having memorized the three thousand Daoist scriptures up to today, with only one volume left unfinished, they naturally did not feel joyful. But after all, they were not ordinary children. Since their earliest days, they had been accompanied by the Daoist scriptures, and their temperaments were somewhat calm and detached. The two of them prepared to turn and leave.

Just then, the middle-aged Daoist continued, “...But I can read it.”

From that day on, the middle-aged Daoist began to teach them how to read the final volume of the Daoist Canon, passing on the pronunciation of each character one by one. The pronunciations were especially strange—very simple monosyllables, yet they required the use of a certain muscle in the throat, and placed special demands on the vocal cords. In short, they were not sounds that normal humans could produce.

Ethan Brooks did not understand at all, but like a little duckling, he obediently imitated the pronunciations as his master taught. Logan Clark, however, would occasionally recall that many years ago by the stream, the word his master had spoken to that terrifying creature.

Logan Clark and Ethan Brooks spent a long time finally mastering the pronunciation of those one thousand six hundred and one characters, but still could not grasp their meaning. Asking the middle-aged Daoist yielded no answers. By then, they had already spent a whole year on this final volume, and then they began, as before, to hold the last volume and recite it until they could memorize it.

When they thought they had finally escaped the life of memorizing the Daoist Canon, the middle-aged Daoist required them to start reading it a second time. The helpless children were forced to repeat the process, and perhaps it was precisely because of this repetition that this round of reciting the Daoist Canon felt much more arduous to them, even to the point of being almost unbearable.

It was only at this point that they began to feel puzzled: why did their master want the two of them to read these Daoist scriptures? Why not teach them cultivation? Clearly, the Daoist scriptures themselves said that Daoists should cultivate the Dao and pursue immortality.

At that time, Logan Clark was ten years old, and Ethan Brooks was six and a half. It was also in that autumn that a white crane broke through the clouds, bringing greetings from an old friend far away and a silk letter. The silk letter contained birth dates, a marriage contract, and a token—a certain high-ranking official who had once been saved by the middle-aged Daoist wished to fulfill a promise made years ago.

The middle-aged Daoist looked at the marriage contract and smiled without speaking, then looked at his two disciples. Logan Clark waved his hand, pointed to his blind eye, and smiled in refusal. Ethan Brooks looked confused, not understanding what it meant, and muddle-headedly accepted the marriage contract, thus acquiring a fiancée.

In the years that followed, every festival season, the white crane would break through the clouds and arrive on schedule, bringing greetings from that noble in the capital, and sometimes delivering some interesting little gifts for Ethan Brooks.

Ethan Brooks gradually came to understand what the engagement meant. At night, by starlight, he would look at the marriage contract lying quietly in the drawer, feeling something he could not quite describe. Thinking of the fiancée who was said to be about his age, he felt a quiet joy, a bit of shyness, and even more confusion.

The peaceful life of study was interrupted by an accident when Ethan Brooks turned ten. One night, after reciting the one thousand six hundred and one characters of the final volume of the Daoist Canon for the seventy-second time, he suddenly felt his consciousness drifting away from his body, floating through the woods of the green mountain. He then fell into a deep sleep and could not wake, and his body began to emit a strange fragrance.

It was not the scent of flowers, nor of leaves, nor of cosmetics. It was faint, yet lingered in the night breeze for a long time; strong, yet when it reached the nose, it was so ethereal that it did not seem like a scent that could exist in the human world—impossible to grasp, extremely alluring.

The first to discover Ethan Brooks's condition was Logan Clark. Smelling that strange fragrance, his expression became extremely grave.

In the slightly dim green mountain, shaded by leaves, there were the roars of lions and tigers, the dances of cranes and the sudden leaps of flood dragons, and the thunderous croaking of frogs that should only appear on summer nights. In the depths of the mist in the eastern part of the green mountain, where no one dared to enter, a huge shadow faintly appeared. No one knew what kind of creature it was. Under the greedy and awestruck gazes of countless living beings, Ethan Brooks emitted the strange fragrance, eyes closed in deep sleep, with no telling when he would awaken.

Logan Clark sat by the bed, fanning desperately, trying to fan away the scent from Ethan Brooks's body, because the fragrance made his mouth water and gave rise to a very strange, very terrifying thought. He had to fan, to drive away that thought as well.

No one knew when the middle-aged Daoist had entered the room. He stood by the bed, looking at the tightly closed eyes of Ethan Brooks, and said something only he himself could understand: “Where is the cause this time?”

A whole night passed.