Chapter 730 – The Darkest Shadow (1/2)

Chapter 730 – The Darkest Shadow

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

(TN: Way of Choices will be on break from December 25th, 2017 – January 7, 2018)

On the day in which Eunuch Lin entered the Orthodox Academy to proclaim the decree, Chen Changsheng had said something similar.

Shang Xingzhou had been in the Li Palace at the time and was speaking to the Pope. His response then was very similar to his response now.

”Truly childish.”

There was still a hint of childishness on Chen Changsheng's face, but anyone could see the firmness of his demeanor.

He knew that his view was correct.

The Tianhai Divine Empress was already dead, the Pope had returned to the sea of stars, the Demon Lord had fallen into the abyss, and Wang Zhice had secluded himself from the world. There were now very few people in the world that could serve as Shang Xingzhou's rival.

His Dao heart was brightly lit, his Dao completely unhindered, his cultivation unfathomably profound.

He reigned over the Great Zhou Dynasty and possessed the friendship of White Emperor City.

He seemed invulnerable, in a state of near-perfection.

But he still had a hole, a flaw.

His flaw was not some other person, but the fact that he had never liked his young disciple Chen Changsheng.

By Xining Village's old temple ran a small stream. Flowers floated upon this stream and flowed downstream.

The temple held three thousand Daoist scriptures, but the three people within, the master and his two disciples, cultivated only one: following their heart.

Following one's heart was an incredibly formidable Dao.

To stand under the starry sky and hold one's head up with a clear conscience, to turn one's head with no regrets. Only this way could one revere nothing, fear nothing, possess a brightly lit Dao heart and an unhindered Dao.

In the ten-some years spent in Xining Village's old temple, Shang Xingzhou had never once taught Yu Ren and Chen Changsheng any sort of Dao, only had them read Daoist scriptures, but once they began to interact with actual cultivation methods, they advanced with flabbergasting speed. Chen Changsheng had taken three years to break into Star Condensation while Yu Ren had been able to freely walk about the Heavenly Tome Monoliths. All this was entirely because of their Dao.

Correspondingly, this Dao had extremely high demands on one's heart, requiring it to be like a snow lotus at the peak of a lofty mountain. Not a single speck of dirt could be allowed to stain it.

How could one prevent oneself from being confused by external things? How could one possess an unshakable will and self-confidence?

Only one word needed to be remembered: heart.

All one needed was to convince themselves.

If one could convince oneself that this way was correct, that it was in accordance with one's heart, then…one would naturally be following one's heart.

This sounded very simple, but it was not actually simple at all.

If one searched in the deepest depths of one's soul, if one ensconced oneself in a dark room cut off from the world, how many people could truly say that they were without regrets? Who could so firmly believe that everything they had done was correct?

Several hundred years ago, Shang Xingzhou had still been a member of the legitimate line of the Orthodoxy. He could have walked along the path set for him until he became Pope, but he chose another path. He used the identity of Daoist Ji to live in this world, and when Daoist Wu was painting the portraits of the Lingyan Pavilion, he was responsible for sending the subjects of these portraits back to the sea of stars. The subjects of these paintings were all heroes of humanity, all meritorious ministers of the Great Zhou, and they had all died under this scheme. Some of them had been willing to face their deaths, such as Divine Generals Qin Zhong and Yu Gong, but what of the other dukes?

The heroic spirits of the Lingyan Pavilion had always been watching Shang Xingzhou. Perhaps those resentful souls that had died even before that in the Hundred Herb Garden had also been watching Shang Xingzhou this entire time. The innocents who had died in this recent chaos were presumably also watching him. Yet none of this could affect Shang Xingzhou's Dao heart, because he had many reasons with which to convince himself.

He viewed with contempt those so-called ruthless characters who severed their emotions, loathed most of all schemers like Black Robe who did not dare see the light of day. He regarded himself as Emperor Taizong's successor, and since his heart embraced the world, he could naturally disregard the small details. This was the necessary price to be paid so that the Great Zhou Dynasty could last ten thousand years, so that humanity could have a radiant future.

But there was still one matter that even now Shang Xingzhou had not been able to find a suitable reason to convince himself of, and that matter was Chen Changsheng.