Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Chapter 268: The Fragment of the Map Enters My Arms

Stepping out of the bamboo grove, the mountain breeze brushed his face, and Su Ming realized his back was slightly damp with sweat.

"Brother Su, impressive!"

Luo Feng patted Su Ming's shoulder, his face first showing admiration, then revealing a trace of a bitter smile.

He hesitated for a moment, lowered his voice, and said, "To be honest with you, Brother Su, I also spent over half a year studying this 'Eight Gates Lost Trace Incomplete Formation'."

Hearing this, Su Ming's footsteps paused slightly, and he turned his ear to listen attentively.

"The difficulty of this formation lies in its self-binding causality," Luo Feng said with a serious expression. "It's not like ordinary formations where the flow of spiritual energy has a clear beginning and end. Within this incomplete formation, there are at least three key nodes that are mutually causal yet contradictory. I tried seventeen different deduction paths. Each time I felt I was about to sort it out, I would always discover, in some unexpected place, that a premise from my earlier deduction had already been overturned by myself... It was like spinning in circles in a maze with no exit."

He glanced at the jade slip in Su Ming's hand, a flicker of lingering fear in his eyes. "The solution I ultimately submitted was to forcibly construct a larger energy field externally using the 'Seven Stars Suppressing the Mountain' pattern, to 'wrap' and 'suppress' this entire tangled mess, thereby forcing a relatively stable spiritual energy channel to emerge from the chaos. Elder Qingquan looked at it and said my solution was 'using brute force to break finesse, losing the ever-changing, unpredictable essence of a lost trace formation, but it is still a path.'"

Luo Feng patted Su Ming's shoulder again, his tone sincere yet carrying a hint of helplessness. "So, Brother Su, I can't help you this time. Since Elder Qingquan has taken out this formation again as a test and explicitly stated there's no time limit, he wants to see your unique method of breaking it. My path has already been walked. If I tell you about it now, it would only limit your thinking. This hurdle, you must cross it yourself."

Su Ming understood in his heart and was quite grateful for Luo Feng's frankness and goodwill.

"Senior Brother Luo's willingness to be so candid is already a great favor. The path of formations, while all methods return to the same origin, varies from person to person. Since it's a test question, there must be a solution," Su Ming said with a smile. Although he had no real confidence in his heart, his expression remained calm and unruffled. "No matter how difficult, it just means spending a bit more time.""Your mindset, I truly admire it," Luo Feng shook his head. "I still need to go into seclusion to finalize the Nine Palaces Formation Plate, so I won't see you off. When you solve it, we'll have a proper drink. Also, take this token. It's Elder Qingquan's token. In case you solve it ahead of time, you can come directly to the Listening to Waves Pavilion to pay your respects to Elder Qingquan."

After bidding farewell to Luo Feng, Su Ming walked alone down the mountain path.

He reached out and touched the jade slip and token in his robe, his steps becoming a little lighter.

......

cross-legged before the stone table, which was covered with densely packed draft papers. Discarded paper balls

on its surface seemed like the breathing of

Waves Pavilion, Su Ming had been sitting rigidly before the table for a full three

"Wrong, still wrong."

drop of ink finally gathered at its tip, unable to bear the weight any longer, and fell with a soft *plop* onto the paper, spreading

was already the one

formation, no matter how complex, is ultimately a logical closed loop constructed from basic

the load-bearing walls and beams, you can

Trace Incomplete

"Master, look here. According to the rules of spiritual energy flow, the 'Qian position' governs life. Spiritual energy should flow smoothly to the 'Kan position'

even more absurd was that this reverse flow wasn't

deduction it was a reverse flow, in the next it might become a split flow, and in yet another it might even vanish into thin air, as if that node

murmured to himself. "Head and tail entangled, mutually causal. If I untangle the head, the tail gets knotted; if I straighten the tail, the head

the Consciousness Sea, Lin Yu didn't

jade slip, arms crossed, brows furrowed tightly, as if examining an extremely

a bit... 'disgusting'?" Lin Yu suddenly spoke, his tone carrying a

Even if they had

disgusting,

at those key incomplete nodes on the jade slip. "You've

profound.

Ming's back. He instinctively looked at the seemingly dead, silent jade slip. "Master, are you saying

it's a living

at his fingertip, sketching a distorted formation model within Su Ming's Consciousness Sea. "The original framework of this formation is indeed the 'Eight Gates Lost Trace Formation,' that's correct. But it suffered extremely violent destruction. This destruction wasn't a simple break. It was some external force that forcibly twisted its core logic, causing a

those places Su Ming couldn't make sense of no matter how he calculated. "When spiritual energy flows through here, there's a very unnatural 'sense of stagnation.' It's like... a tumor growing in a blood vessel. Blood flowing past

that model, a spark of inspiration flashed in Su