Chapter 843 (1/2)

Published at 26th of March 2019 03:54:10 AM

Chapter 843: 843

After the Headmaster ascended to heaven by the Sishui River, rain poured for more than ten days . The night when the rain retreated, the bright moon shone upon the mortal world .

n.o.body had ever seen the moon except for the Buddha . He had once seen the obscure prophecy about the moon in the ”Ming” Handscroll from the Tomes of the Arcane, and it was later clearly pointed out in his reading notes of the ”Ming” Handscroll .

”The moon rises as the night comes” referred to something called ”moon” showed up in the mortal world, as the Everlasting Night approached . However, how could the Everlasting Night be called ”night” if the moon was too bright?

Too often, people panicked because of the unknown, and they had another tough but pathetic trait: they would get used to everything as soon as they found it hard to make the change; they accepted it in mere time, and submitted to it silently .

As soon as they found that the bright moon did not disappear, they soon accepted its existence . Imperial astronomers observed its moving trajectory, and tried to tell fortunes from it . Poets wrote poems to praise the beautiful moon, and some of the common folk began to wors.h.i.+p the moon G.o.d .

The moon stayed in the night sky just like any other thing staying in Haotian's world, solemn and stable . Why bother to worry about it?

All these feelings were based on their thought that the moon was stable, and so it was . No changes had ever taken place since it showed up that day; it was always full and bright . It appeared in a fixed spot in time, and its position had not changed .

Something different was happening tonight .

The moon turned from bright to dim, just like the sky; then it waned as if it were missing a piece . Changes were taking place on the moon, and everyone on Earth could see it .

Firecrackers resounded through the mortal world for more than ten nights . Countless towns and villages were sparkling . People looked up at the night sky with fear . They couldn't stop playing the gongs and drums because they were afraid that the moon would fall down from the sky . They couldn't tell whether they were playing the gongs and drums to regain their confidence or to cheer the moon up .

Unlike those praying to Haotian and wors.h.i.+pping the moon G.o.d, Ning Que was walking in the woods, doing nothing at all . He looked at the moon every night, silent, with worry all over his face .

He had seen the moon wax and wane for countless times, so he wasn't as panicked as others . What confused him now was not knowing the reason why this moon would wax and wane, making him worry about the Headmaster . ”Did you get hurt? Can you hang on?”

Ning Que arrived in the West-Hill Divine Kingdom . He still felt exotic even though this was his second time being there . His last journey had been on the carriage with the Headmaster and had not left any impression on him, so his mood was still a little strange .

Along his way, he didn't see anything impressive except those believers kowtowing devoutly on the mountain path . Even the food here tasted far worse than what could be had in Chang'an City .

He arrived near the West-Hill Divine Palace, and felt the typical solemnity that the country was famous for as he watched the towering moutain, the three cliff platform beyond the reach of normal people, and several lofty temples seated on the cliffs .

In Haotian's world, Haotian Taoism had unimaginable authority and resources, and since the Zhishou Abbey was eminent but reclusive, the West-Hill Palace became the political and power center of the world . That was the fact which could never be changed by neither the rise of the Tang Empire nor the presence of the Academy in the southern part of Chang'an City .

There was still a long time to go before the Light Sacrifice, and the West-Hill Palace was heavily guarded already . Inspections were much more intense on believers from the Tang Empire and the Great River Kingdom because of the war, and they had to go through three checkpoints before arriving at the foot of the hill the palaces sat on .

Ning Que didn't have the pa.s.sport of Tang, and he was using his Song ident.i.ty . He learned it from the best; Fouth Brother and Six Brother were second to none in the world for making falsified doc.u.ments . What alerted him the most was the third checkpoint, or to be specific, the old priest lying on the bamboo couch, with eyes closed .

Judging by the brown robe he was in, the old priest might not have a high position in the Divine Palace, but even the priest in red, who was in charge of the checking, showed great respect for him .

The old priest was in charge of forbidding cultivators from sneaking into the Divine Palace . Unless they had some special Taoists Skills, or had already reached the Knowing Destiny realm, he could detect all those smugglers .

Ning Que felt it hard to imagine that Haotian Taoism could so casually send a Knowing-Destiny powerhouse after the severe loss it had suffered from the war .

He looked at those eminent Divine Palaces from afar, and thought to himself that Haotian Taoism really proved itself to be the ruler of the world for thousands of years . n.o.body knew how many great figures were hiding in the mountains .

He walked over there as he was thinking . The old priest in brown didn't react to him at all; his eyes were closing, and he might have slept even deeper .

During the fight with the Abbey Dean in Chang'an City, Ning Que was immediately promoted to the peak of Knowing Destiny State by the endless Qi of Heaven and Earth poured into his body by the G.o.d-stunning Array . Later when the war ended, his state fell back to the middle of the Knowing Destiny State as the gathered Qi flowed back to the streets and alleys in the city . But his real power now was more than the middle, and he was a powerhouse edging to the peak of the Knowing Destiny State .

The key point was that a breath Chang'an Qi was still lingering in his body; the breath might be negligible for a thousand-year city, but it was an unimaginable resource for a cultivator .