flstandardbreds Chapter 411 Two Extraordinary Occupations
Chapter 411 Two Extraordinary Occupations
The Secret Records of the Earthly Branches.
Just looking at the title of the book was enough to arouse Chen Changfan's curiosity.
As the name suggests, the Earthly Branches refer to the twelve Earthly Branches. The symbolic meanings of the twelve Earthly Branches are the twelve zodiac animals well known to people in later generations.
This ancient book, which has been around for who knows how many years, is actually named after the two words "Earthly Branches", which is enough to explain something.
"Perhaps in ancient times, people had the concept of the twelve Earthly Branches and were even very familiar with the twelve Chinese zodiac animals. However, for unknown reasons, the concept of the twelve Earthly Branches and the twelve Chinese zodiac animals gradually disappeared, and was almost completely erased."
It was hard for Chen Changfan not to wonder whether this world had undergone some drastic changes, resulting in a huge deviation in people's cognition, or a civilizational gap, or even more terrifyingly, there was some kind of mysterious power that did not want people to know the Twelve Earthly Branches, so it erased this information through some means similar to concealing the secrets of heaven.
The twelve Earthly Branches are closely related to the twelve zodiac animals.
The twelve zodiac animals correspond to the twelve great demons, or the twelve pictographic incarnations of evil gods. Just thinking about it makes me feel very dark.
He flipped open the book and luckily the first page was still intact, but the handwriting was too blurry and he could only barely make out a few words.
This page summarizes the contents of the book.
The general idea is to use the twelve Earthly Branches as the framework, corresponding to the original divine duties of the zodiac beasts, and record the practice methods of the ancient tribal priests to integrate with the innate essence and spirit.
"It seems to be a book on cultivation." Chen Changfan became more interested.
The current cultivation system is too chaotic, and what the extraordinary people learn is quite mixed, although it can be roughly divided into four major systems: warriors, sorcerers, poison masters, and Confucian scholars.
However, the four major systems are seriously unevenly distributed. This asymmetric sense always gives him the illusion that these inheritances are half-baked.
Why are there so many extraordinary people practicing the martial arts system, but the martial arts profession is so single?
Why is the sorcerer's system so complicated and confusing that even most of the extraordinary sorcerers cannot fully explain the sorcerer's cultivation system?
There is also the mysterious Gu Master and the unreasonable Confucian scholar. One looks too weak, and the other looks too strong, which really creates a sense of imbalance.
After all, according to Chen Changfan's stereotype, extraordinary people of the same level should have their own strengths, so there won't be a situation where one profession is too strong while another is too powerful.
Moreover, there may be a relationship of mutual promotion and mutual restraint between different systems.
After all, any profession has its strengths and weaknesses, as well as inevitable shortcomings.
Unless this world is inherently chaotic and disordered, the division of the occupational system itself is not reasonable enough.
On the first page, this incomplete book clearly stated one thing, that is, there are a total of twelve extraordinary professions corresponding to the twelve Earthly Branches.
“It matches!”
Chen Changfan's eyes suddenly lit up, as if he had just guessed the answer to a riddle in a guessing game.
He had speculated before that the images of the twelve evil gods seemed to correspond to the twelve zodiac animals, and they might be some kind of extraordinary creatures of extremely high status. Then, extraordinary people like him might also become "gods" after reaching a certain level of status.
He actually had no interest in becoming a "god". He was just worried that his continuous growth would attract the hostility or attention of some evil gods. If he could not figure this out in advance, the higher his rank, the more dangerous the situation would be.
Therefore, he urgently needed to understand the relationship between the supernatural system and the Twelve Evil Gods, which ones might be friends, which ones might be enemies, and which ones were old silver coins that needed to be guarded against.
In his previous life, he had read many online novels. On the protagonist's road to advancement, there was often an old silver coin who had been watching for a long time. When the protagonist thought he had reached the top, the old silver coin would suddenly launch a sneak attack, such as taking over the protagonist's body or stealing other powers.
At this time, the protagonist will usually use the information gap or some other trump cards to counterattack the opponent, and thus have the last laugh.
But Chen Changfan thought this was too much.
The other party was an old silver coin who had lived for who knows how many years and had been plotting for who knows how long. How could he be easily killed by the protagonist?
He felt that he could not fight an unprepared battle, so he had a strong desire to learn about the extraordinary secrets of a higher level.
With such curiosity, Chen Changfan turned to the second page. It was still a damaged page with mottled handwriting.
Chen Changfan carefully identified it for a long time and roughly understood part of its meaning.
This passage roughly means that the twelve Earthly Branches are opposite to each other in pairs, implying the six realms of reincarnation.
These two are opposite to each other, which means that the two zodiac signs are related to each other and are opposite to each other.
The book also mentions "mutual generation and mutual restraint" and "six combinations and six clashes", which he simply summarizes in one sentence: "three combinations and six combinations are auspicious, six clashes and three punishments are inauspicious."
This ancient saying originated from the traditional Yixue culture of later generations, and can be said to systematically summarize the relationship between the zodiac signs.
"Sanhe" refers to three auspicious combinations of zodiac signs, such as monkey, rat, dragon, tiger, horse, and dog.
"Liuhe" refers to the most perfect pairing between zodiac signs, such as rat and ox, tiger and pig, etc.
"Six clashes" refers to six groups of opposing zodiac signs, such as rat, horse, ox, sheep, etc., which are opposite to each other.
There is also the "Three Punishments", which refers to three groups of mutually restraining zodiac signs, such as tiger, snake, monkey, rat, rabbit, chicken, etc.
In other words, the zodiac signs... or the twelve evil gods, or the twelve supernatural professions, have a mutually restraining or even opposing relationship with each other. Of course, there is also a relationship of mutual matching between any two of them, and a relationship of mutual combination between the three.
complex!
Too complicated!
It’s worthy of being a thing developed by our ancestors. It makes me feel overwhelmed just by looking at it.
Chen Changfan knew a little about the theory of the Earthly Branches, but not much.
However, he was still somewhat familiar with the theory of the zodiac.
As far as he knew, there was another way of saying the zodiac signs, which was to combine the signs in order, which contained many metaphors.
For example, rats and cows.
The rat represents wisdom and the ox represents diligence.
If you only have wisdom but don't know how to be diligent, that is cleverness. If you only have diligence but don't use your brain, that is stupidity.
For example, tiger and rabbit.
The tiger represents bravery and the rabbit represents caution. If one is only brave but not cautious, he is reckless. If one is only cautious but not brave, he is timid.
He probably understood all these principles. Later generations have done very thorough research on the twelve zodiac animals. Many principles can be deduced from just one zodiac animal, not to mention the mutual generation and restraint between the zodiac animals.
"So what kind of extraordinary professions do the Twelve Evil Gods correspond to?"
Chen Changfan noticed that the pages at the back of the book were becoming increasingly damaged and difficult to read, and he couldn't help but feel a little impatient.