1 The Beginning (2/2)

Sensing his gaze, the monk slowly opened his eyes and grinned, showing a sense of mercy instead of what used to be a determined and calm expression. Crushed flesh, blood, and what remained of his chewed up tongue showed through his slightly parted lips.

The wooden sword lad frowned upon seeing this.

Slowly he removed his prayer beads from his wrist and solemnly put them back around his neck, the young monk walked away. His footsteps were heavy and steady, very slow, yet his shadow almost disappeared afar in an instant.

Left alone under the tree, the wooden sword lad erased all emotion from his face, showing absolute calm, or more like an absolute indifference. Gazing at the rock-like bouncing shadow in the distant northern dust, he scoffed, ”Evil devil.”

Then gazing off at the shadow of the young monk walking quietly towards the west, he stated, ”Heretic outcast”.

”Unworthy.”

The Tao of the evil devil and the heretic outcast is one that is unworthy.

After making his statement, the thin wooden sword he carried on his back whistled and vibrated unprompted, suddenly turning into a ray of light as it shot up in a squeal, shredding the small tree into 53333 parts, turning its leaves, branches, and trunk into a fine dust that was raining down onto the euphoric ants.

”The mute shall utter words, salt to be sprinkled to the bread.”

The young lad strolled towards the east while humming a song, and the little wooden sword followed quietly, drifting in the air just a few meters behind him.

...

...

In the first year of the Great Tang's Tianqi era, the most extraordinary phenomenon had befallen the Wilderness, gathering World Wayfarers from all of the sects, to no avail.

Starting from that day, Qinian the successor of the Xuankong Temple never uttered another word as he began to practice a Silent Meditation. Tang, the successor of the Devil's Doctrine had become a recluse off in the desert, his whereabouts still remained unknown. Ye Su, the successor of Zhishou Abbey, conquered his ultimate bottleneck and went about touring the nations. All three of them seemed to have gained something.

Unbeknownst to the three of them, on that very same day, as the dark night was about to fall, on the other side of the black ditch that no one had dared to cross, by the side of a small pond not far from the capital, sat a scholar. A scholar wearing straw shoes and a ragged coat.

The scholar seemed oblivious to the powerful and forbidding nature that the black ditch stood for. He simply sat there, with a book in one hand, and a wooden cup in the other. He read a book when he could, took a rest when he was tired, drank water when he was thirsty, looking perfectly happy and peaceful despite his thorough dusting.

As the three people from afar left and as the sand managed to gradually fill up the shallow black ditch splitting The Wilderness, the scholar finally stood up. He lightly dusted off his clothes, tied the wooden cup to his waist and carefully put his book back inside his coat. He then glanced briefly towards the direction of the capital before walking away.

...

...

There was a long lane in the Chang'an capital, to its east sat the residence of the Counsel Official, and to its west sat the residence of the Xuanwei General. Albeit they were not considered top-notch officials, even though they boasted a deep sense of power and authority. While this area normally enjoyed a lovely peace and quiet, that was not going to be the case today.

The residence of the Counsel Official was to receive good news, as the midwives were busy at work. Strangely, everyone from lords to young maids looked as if their joy was mixed with some other emotion, and no one dared to laugh. The maids holding water basins, rushing, around the corner of the wall even looked terrified as they overheard the noise coming in from outside.

The famously fearless and valiant Xuanwei General Lin Guangyuan was no longer to be fearless or valiant, as he had displeased the empire's number one fearless and valiant general Xiahou. He had been accused of treason for colluding with the enemy, and after several months of interrogation by His Highness the prince, the outcome was finally settled.

The outcome was clear and the punishment simple: confiscation of all property and decapitation of each and every person in his family.

The gates in front of the Counsel Official's residence remained firmly closed. The chamberlain nervously peeked through his gate at the similarly firmly closed gate of the general's residence. He could overhear the sounds of heavy blades hacking into flesh, and a sound that resembled watermelons rolling around the floor, he couldn't help but shiver in fear.

The two families had been neighbors for many years, and he knew them well over at the General's Residence, from the chamberlain to the gatekeeper. Listening to the terrifying sounds coming from across the lane, he could almost visualize the countless sharp blades cutting open their necks, their heads with their familiar faces rolling relentlessly on the quartzite floor, then clashing with the door, and eventually piling together in a heaping bloody mess.

Blood seeped under the gate of the General's Residence, looking rather dark and sticky, like sticky rice puree mixed with cinnabar, containing some bits and pieces of flesh that looked like purple yam mash. The chamberlain stared at the sight his face as white as a sheet. No longer able to contain his emotions, he doubled over while bracing on the door, and promptly began to vomit.

Suddenly there was the hurried sound of horses approached from outside the gate, and people being chided, followed by abrupt knocking sounds. There was a faint cursing and then yelling that seemed to say that someone had escaped from the General's Residence. From his horse, a private general of the Prince's Residence yelled his order at his men, ”No one can go missing!”

Meanwhile, there were scratches and blood stains on a wall in the inner gardens of the residence of the Official of Counsel.

”Young master, please listen and obey, you must not go out, let Xiaochu go, let him go please...”

Inside a firewood shed not far from there, a blood-soaked chamberlain of the General's Residence stared at a pair of 4-5 year-old boys, his lips trembled as he uttered deeply unpleasant and husky sounds, while his wrinkled and dirty face expressed nothing but despair and struggle, so much so that murky tears squeezed out of the corner of his eyes.

It didn't take the Yulin Royal Guards long to find this firewood shed once they had broken into the Official of Counsel Residence. Upon carefully inspecting the two dead bodies of an old man and a little boy, the lieutenant looked relieved and reported energetically: ”All dead, none are missing.”

...

...

The easiest way to depict the term of ”unworldly sublime being” is that sublime beings are normally unworldly, thus those who are unworldly tended to be sublime beings. This is quite obvious, though there is some sense in it. To the mere mortals, what the sublime beings fear is often out of their reach, and their joys are similarly unfathomable.

As a result, the mortal world remained ignorant of what happened outside of their realm, while the unworldly would pay no attention to the deaths or births taking place in the mortal world. Just like they wouldn't care about a butcher's scale being tricked, a drunkard's cellar being chewed through by rats, the death of a Xuanwei General, or some government official welcoming a newborn daughter.

There was never any connection between the joys and sorrows of the two worlds.

It would take the power of a saint if a connection was ever to take place.

In the suburbs of Chang'an capital stood a high-rising mountain that was mostly hidden up in the clouds. Along the steepness of its west side, a man was climbing up slowly. He looked very tall and strong from the back, wearing a black jacket over a thin shirt and holding a meal box.

He finally managed to work his way against the wind and arrived at a cave, he sat down, opened the meal box, took out his chopsticks and picked a slice of ginger which he put into his mouth and chewed carefully, followed by another two slices of lamb, and let out sigh showing pleasure and approval.

Chang'an at sunset was soon to be obscured by the dark night, while a heavy rain and dark clouds were gradually approaching from afar.

”It almost feels like I am seeing you like in the old times,” said the tall man rather emotionally, as he gazed at some place within the capital.

Then he raised his head to look at the sky, and pointing at it with his right hand, he said: ”And you, what is the point of flying so high after all?”

Obviously, he was talking to two different people.

After a brief silence, the tall man downed his bowl of rice wine in one gulp, and held up the empty bowl and cheered in all directions around him saying, ”wind blowing, rain falling, and the night shall befall.”

As if in unison with his words, the wind came from beyond the mountain, blowing through his collar making a howling sound, and the old trees rooted on the rocks shook fervently while the mountain rocks kept falling. The cloud that hovered on top of the capital suddenly darkened, and countless threads of rainwater joined each other to splash down amidst the last shred of twilight. By the time he uttered the last word, a dark night had prevailed covering most of the sky, making it as black as the pupils of the king of hell.

The man slammed down the wine bowl, and muttered angrily: ”So damn black...”