The Legends of Ren Zu, Chapter Five, Section Thirty-Nine
After struggling for a long time, Ren Zu had finally found Self Gu once again.
Even if Self Gu was extraordinarily small, Ren Zu and his children were delighted upon having found it. Their journey, which had gone on for so much time, had finally come to fruition. So what if Self Gu was tiny and insignificant in the eyes of Heaven and Earth?
For humans, there is nothing more important than being able to recognize oneself.
However, they had very little time to rejoice.
As after they had managed to obtain Self Gu, they found themselves sinking into the block of floating truthful ice that they had been standing upon. "What? What's happening?" Ren Zu yelled out as he, Carefree Wisdom Heart, and Great Strength True Martial all fell along with him inside the block of floating ice.
"What is this? What's going on?" Ren Zu wondered, staring at Self Gu.
"Oh, human," Self Gu said, "You recognized yourself, and still have me. So long as you have me, how can you possibly look at the truth objectively? You have sunken into the situation instead of being able to observe it. In order to observe the truth, one needs an objective outside perspective. One who has no sense of self."
Now that Ren Zu had found Self Gu, he had sunk into the block of truthful floating ice. Thankfully, the inside of the block was not fully filled up. It only partially filled up inside spherical ice, which was surrounded by a crystal wall. That gave them some room to move about, but only slightly.
Great Strength True Martial immediately roared in anger before he started striking out at the crystal wall, attempting to break them with his fists. However, he found that even if he damaged them, they slowly began repairing themselves. Whatever cracks he made in them healed over. "No matter how fast I make these," he said to himself, "I cannot break through them in time, even with my ability gu."
Rules and Regulation Gu called out to them. Both of these gu worms were still outside the sphere of truthful floating ice, but had been able to avoid being trapped within the floating ice. So long as one understood Rules and Regulations, they could not be easily bound.
"Oh, Great Strength True Martial, you are very strong and can break through almost any situation, and that is why, as per the rules and regulations of Heaven, the situations you have to encounter will also be even more difficult to get out of." While the weak envied the strong thinking that they could break out of any situation, it was not so! The stronger one was, oftentimes, the greater the problems they would face in life.
"The crystal walls are too strong, brother," Carefree Wisdom Heart said, examining the wall, looking for an egress out of there. "While using Practice Gu, you made the walls of this ball of truthful floating ice too strong. Now, you can't get out of them because you made them too tough!"
Oftentimes, the worst situations that one had to face were caused entirely by oneself.
Ren Zu gnashed his teeth in frustration. 'How can we get out of this?' He looked for Cognition Gu. However, Cognition Gu had already gone to help Myriad Wondrous Gold Essence with her predicament regarding Blazing Lightning Glory Brilliance.
The ball of floating ice continued to flow along the River of Time.
"Father, if we abandoned Self Gu, will we be able to emerge from here?" Great Strength True Martial asked.
"Nonsense!" Ren Zu yelled, "We went through all of this trouble just to find Self Gu, did we not? How could we possibly abandon it at this crucial juncture? We would all end up going back to square one."
It was easy enough to say that one should be detached from one's sense of self in order to see the truth. However, in practice, it was extraordinarily difficult. What kind of human could truly be detached completely from their sense of self?
A voice came ringing from outside the ball of truthful floating ice. "Hahaha! Did I not tell you, human, that you were bound by Heaven and Earth? I have decreed that you will never be reunited with your other children, and so will be the case!"
Ren Zu recognized this voice immediately. It was Fate Gu. Fate Gu had planned all of this all along! The crystal walls of this block of truthful floating ice were meant to restrain them, to keep them trapped here forever.
As the three people inside thought of what to do, coming up with no solution in sight as the walls of crystal could repair themselves faster than even all three of them could damage it even with their efforts combined together, a voice emerged. "Let me out! Let me out!" a voice cried out from somewhere beneath them.
"Who is it?" Ren Zu asked.
"Who am I?" the voice answered. "I am someone who wants to see the entire world. I want to explore every single nook and cranny of it. I want to accumulate every single coin of wealth this world has. I want to read every single book and absorb every single page of knowledge that there is in this world. I want to soar higher than the heavens. I want to burrow deeper into the Earth than anyone has ever done before. I want to swim in the seas and explore every single drop of water that there is within its depths. I wish to be with my family, to have countless wives and concubines, and to completely cover the Earth with my descendants. I wish to live forever. I want to be able to soar beyond the boundaries of this world and see if there is anything beyond it. In short: all I want is everything!"
After some searching, the three of them found the source of this voice. "This Gu is huge and magnificent!" Great Strength True Martial said. He saw a massive flame somehow still surviving inside the ball of ice.
"No," Renzu said, "It is only medium-sized."
Carefree Wisdom Heart disagreed with both of them. "It is extremely tiny, but still warm."
"Oh, Gu, what kind of Gu are you?" the humans asked.
"I am Ambition Gu," the gu replied. "I was born from Great Strength True Martial's Heart of Ambition!"
Depending on one's skills and aptitude, depending on one's wishes and desires, their ambition could be either large or small.
For Great Strength True Martial, an expert, his ambition could consume the whole world.
For Ren Zu, his ambition was simple - to reunite with his children.
For Carefree Wisdom Heart, her ambition was the smallest of all - only wanting to help her family.
Ambition Gu rose up from the floor and seemed to radiate anger as it glared at the crystal walls. "How can such things restrain me? How can the will of Heaven possibly restrain me? Oh, human, use me! And let us break through this prison of crystal together!"
Ren Zu took Ambition Gu, and it launched itself at the crystal wall of the sphere of truthful floating ice. It started to develop cracks within it, which started being larger, getting bigger and bigger.
This time, the crystal walls did not repair themselves, and soon enough they were able to shatter it and climb outside the sphere to the outside world.