Volume 3, Chapter 95 – Imperial Daughter (Double-Length)

Bang, bang.

Just as a warning rose in Bai Xiang’s heart, the two side doors of the great hall slammed shut, sealing her inside alone.

She did not panic. She only looked toward the darkness beyond the flickering candlelight and watched as an old monk in a kasaya walked out, six burn scars gleaming on the crown of his shaven head.

“Immeasurable Mahabuddha.” The old monk held a string of black sandalwood prayer beads. His white brows drooped low, his white beard trailed down to his chest, and he very much had the air of the eminent monks from old legends. “With the imperial daughter here in person, this old one, Xuanyi, greets you.”

Bai Xiang’s eyebrows twitched. “I don’t know any ‘imperial daughter.’”

She had killed Guangping and taken his remnant soul and memories. Fragmented as those memories were, they were still enough for her to know that Luofu Temple was not just an ordinary temple.

Sending Nuocha away had only been to create space for a meeting with the key figure. She was not surprised that someone like Xuanyi would come to find her, but she was surprised he actually addressed her as “imperial daughter.”

What kind of melodramatic twist was this supposed to be… did it have something to do with her origins too?

Bai Xiang did not want the story going in that direction, but she immediately thought of her own background and of the strange things that had happened to her.

Her background, of course, meant that she was not a blood daughter of the Bai family, but had been abandoned at the gates of Hidden-Spirit Temple as a child and only then had the chance to be taken in by the Bais.

As for the uncanny, the top of the list was the pair of golden eyes that came with a “phantom-spirit” effect. She had never specially trained that side of things and did not fully understand why it worked, yet it still flared up from time to time. It was very much like some innate talent of the demon race.

From that angle, calling her a descendant of demonfolk would not be unreasonable. But when she used soul-vision of the body-scape, she had carefully examined and combed through her inner body-scape and had never found anything different from a pure-blood human.

Was this just some line to fool people?

Thinking this, Bai Xiang immediately thought of that inexplicable goodwill once shown to her by the Feathering Sect.

She and that side had never had much contact, yet they had called her out of the blue to warn her ahead of time. The meaning behind it had practically been “let’s work together more in the future” written across the screen… so she suspected this Xuanyi might be one of theirs, here to help them build a bridge.

“Imperial daughter, there is no need to be nervous.” Xuanyi smiled. “I know the twists and turns behind this matter make it hard for you to accept, but truth is truth and appearances are appearances. Falsehood cannot be made true, and truth cannot be made false.”

“Please look, imperial daughter.” Xuanyi turned his head and pointed at the newly revealed mural. “This was supposed to be the scene I led you to view… I did not expect you to be so perceptive that you uncovered the clue on your own.”

“The ‘great dragon-headed demon’ in the center is the Golden-Light Treasure-King Buddha of legend. You should know it is the supreme teacher of our Luofu Temple, but you may not know that it is also the founding basis of Golden Cicada Temple.”

“Golden Cicada Temple?” Bai Xiang frowned. So this old man was from Golden Cicada Temple?

“Yes.” Xuanyi pressed his palms together and chanted a Buddha-name. “It is not as outsiders guess, that Golden Cicada Temple influenced southern Buddhism.”

“In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite. It was southern Buddhism that influenced and gave rise to Golden Cicada Temple, which is only a derivative Dao lineage.”

So that was it.

Bai Xiang did not say anything, only because this explanation really did make sense.

First there had been the Golden-Light Treasure-King Buddha in the southern lands, and only later Golden Cicada Temple in Great Yu. That way the time gap between the two branches of Buddhism matched up, and she no longer had to guess where the similarities came from.

“The Golden-Light Treasure-King Buddha is a demon?” Seeing that he clearly wanted to tell her some secrets, Bai Xiang did not attack immediately. “So Golden Cicada Temple was a Dao lineage that worshiped a demon Buddha from the beginning?”

“What is demon, and what is human?” Xuanyi asked in return.

“You have cultivated all the way to where you are, imperial daughter. Have you ever felt even the slightest difference between yourself and other humans?”

Bai Xiang thought it over and slowly shook her head.

Just in terms of cultivation, there was no such difference.

“Have you ever wondered why the human race can control the power of Demon Pools?” Xuanyi asked again.

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Bai Xiang nodded. “Because the Sacred Emperor of the Yu clan was a peerless genius and invented the Sword Dao Human Principle to bind demonic power.”

“Wrong.” Xuanyi shook his head. “Gu was indeed a peerless genius. Otherwise he would not have been chosen. But the Sword Dao Human Principle was not his invention, at least it cannot be called uniquely his. There was another mighty one helping from the shadows, and that contract has continued to this day.”

What was that supposed to mean.

Bai Xiang’s heart stirred. She suddenly thought of the myth she had just heard, where Jade-Reed Wisdom Buddha, after being captured by Golden-Light Treasure-King Buddha, had complained that its original dwelling had been the Upper River Plain, but a traitor had appeared in its clan, so it had had no choice but to wander.

She had not taken that line seriously at the time, but now, with Xuanyi’s pointed hints, could it be that the reason the Yu dynasty had been successfully founded, and the Sword Dao Human Principle had been opened up, was that the demon race had produced a traitor and that traitor had chosen Gu?

“To explain this clearly, we have to start from the Illusory Tribulation,” Xuanyi said, shaking his head as he walked to the other wall. “Please look, imperial daughter.”

Bai Xiang followed his gaze and saw torches along that side flaring to life on their own. The light fell just right on the mural on that wall.

With a soft crackling, the pigment on the surface did not need her careful scraping this time. It simply peeled away on its own, revealing the mythic scene originally painted beneath.

It was clearly a series of fragmented regions.

She could see very clearly that on the mural there were many crack lines spreading outward, like the fractures radiating from shattered glass. They were deep black, and in that darkness nebulous star-clouds were scattered, as if hinting that it represented the void of outer space.

The fragments that had been cut apart were all different. Some were scorched earth and desolate wasteland. Some had spired pagodas and temples, golden light blazing. Others were glaciers, oceans, lava, atmosphere… the landscapes displayed were all over the map.

Bai Xiang narrowed her eyes. “This is the Illusory Realm?”

Xuanyi nodded. “It is.”

“In the ancient era, there was no division between human and demon. There was not even the term ‘demon.’ There were only scattered clans and beings worshiped as immortals and gods.”

“They multiplied and developed on this land for a very long time. They thought they could live that way forever, but a terrible calamity suddenly broke out.”

“Among all the beings in the world, none could foresee its coming. The fissures appeared without warning. The world was cut apart in an instant, and every fragment began brewing natural cataclysms.”

“Low temperatures, tsunamis… even the air being sucked away, letting horrific radiation shine in…”

At this point Xuanyi’s tone was full of regret and sorrow. “The calamity descended. Living beings were wiped out everywhere.”

“This happened five hundred and forty million years ago?” Bai Xiang asked him.

She felt that a span of five hundred and forty million years was already distant enough.

“No.” Xuanyi gave her a mysterious smile. “The Illusory Tribulation strikes without pattern. No living being can calculate it. How many times it has happened, this one in a mortal body does not know. If the imperial daughter wishes to learn, you can ask the mighty ones in the future. I am sure you can get an answer.”

“Then the break in the fossil record of ancient demons…” Bai Xiang frowned. “Is that also because of this so-called Illusory Tribulation?”

“I do not know,” Xuanyi said again, shaking his head. “Perhaps that entire layer of the crust was scraped away by the Illusory Tribulation.”

He said it simply, but anyone with even a shred of common sense, imagining that scene, would be covered in goosebumps.

Scraped away the crust?

What would it take to scrape away the surface of an entire planet?

Where would it be scraped to, and what would it then form?

“The tearing caused by the Illusory Tribulation…” Bai Xiang said quietly. “The Illusory Realm is condensed from those scraped-away layers of the crust.”

“Imperial daughter is perceptive.” Xuanyi bowed his head toward her.

“As for the Prehistoric Calamity, that is about all this old one knows. Next I can speak to you about the Illusory Realm, the main world, and your origins.”

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“You already understand what the Illusory Tribulation and the Illusory Realm are. Good. Just as you suspect, ‘main world’ refers to this world you and I are standing in now.”

“The Illusory Realm is formed from fragments cut from the main world by the Illusory Tribulation. Because the laws of Heaven and Earth are twisted by the Illusory Tribulation, the landscapes of many Illusory Realms changed drastically and were no longer fit for life.”

“But some Illusory Realms retained a faint connection to the main world. That took the concrete form of a path that still allowed travel back and forth.”

“And as later Illusory Tribulations continued to fall, cutting more and more fragments from the main world, the remnant living beings discovered a pattern. The Illusory Tribulation usually did not interfere with fragments that had already been cut away.”

“So they chose to hide in those Illusory Realm fragments,” Bai Xiang finished for him. “Blood Sea and Blood Abyss must be among them.”

The information clicked into place, and she finally understood why the ancient human race, the giants who had created the Sun-Chasing Scripture, had vanished.

Either they had been wiped out by an Illusory Tribulation, or they had migrated as a whole and hid in an Illusory Realm.

The various Illusory Realms now discovered by Great Yu, whether the ones occupied by demon kingdoms or those some people had taken for themselves and declared their ancestral grounds, should all be the small fragments left behind after the Illusory Tribulations cut them away.

No, calling them “small fragments” was flattering them. They were more like fragments of fragments, like the shards and dust that flew off when glass was shattered.

When an Illusory Tribulation descends, the main world itself might not feel anything, but the beings living on it are doomed to face annihilation.

They are either cut away by the Illusory Tribulation and inexplicably turned into “races that live on in the Illusory Realms,” or they are wiped out entirely, not even leaving fossils behind.

Many Illusory Realms, once cut away, completely lose their connection to the main world. That could be exactly what creates the preconditions for the “split-acting theory” Aurora had mentioned.

Races that were cut away or chose to hide in the Illusory Realms might, over tens of millions of years, evolve entirely different outer forms and inner structures depending on what kind of Illusory Realm they ended up in.

That was the demon kingdoms.

Flame-Saliva Demon Kingdom, Black-Rock Demon Kingdom, Lilu Demon Kingdom.

The demons living in those demon kingdoms might simply occupy environments that required them to evolve those shapes in order to survive.

That was why they all looked so strange, each more bizarre than the last.

This old monk had also said that some Illusory Realms still maintained partial connections to the main world. What he was explaining was why, after every Illusory Realm incident, the main world could still be refilled with living beings.

Human or demon, leaving aside for the moment how that division came about, look only at the savage history from sixteen hundred years ago. Back then, was Golden-Light Treasure-King Buddha someone from an Illusory Realm? Were the people and Dao lineages of Ancient Shinu brought out from an Illusory Realm by that side?

So the traitor he spoke of was…

Once she had made the key deduction in her heart, Bai Xiang lowered her voice and asked Xuanyi, “The demon that cooperated with the imperial house of Great Yu… cut off all connections between the Illusory Realms and the main world?”

Was that the act of severing Heaven-and-Earth pathways?

No wonder, from the standpoint of the demon race, such a one would be called a traitor.

It did not even take much thought. Why would beings who had hidden in the Illusory Realms leave those safe domains and keep returning to the main world whenever they survived an Illusory Tribulation?

It had to be because something existed in the main world.

You could call it some special “property.” That “property” was something they craved, either necessary for survival or necessary for cultivation.

With that need in play, some demon chose to cooperate with humans, wiped out and drove away the demon race then ruling the main world, and cut off all major pathways linking the main world and the Illusory Realms.

Whether it had been to save the human race or to monopolize that “property” of the main world for itself,

This act was indeed worthy of being called severing Heaven-and-Earth pathways and would naturally be hated to the bone by the races living in the Illusory Realms.

“Immeasurable Mahabuddha…” Xuanyi did not answer directly, but that Buddha-name was already tacit agreement.

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No wonder.

Bai Xiang nodded, many long-standing doubts in her heart finally falling into place.

For example, Great Yu’s northern border suppressing a demon kingdom might be precisely to suppress one such main pathway.

Blood Sea and Blood Abyss were both pathways. The fact that these things kept reviving in the main world might mean that the Great Yu court, and the demon traitor hiding behind it, were gradually losing their grip on the mortal world. More and more things could no longer be held down.

Did Sutrue Dao know about this?

They probably did.

If not, they would not have paid so high a price and ruled so brutally in order to uphold the “Yu Emperor.”

It was just that Lu Qingning’s rank had clearly not been high enough. She had not climbed far enough, and she was not qualified to know any of this, so even after Bai Xiang absorbed her remnant soul, she had not discovered any clues.

As for why, after so many dynastic changes, the throne still had to return to the surname Yu in the end, that might also have something to do with the demon traitor in hiding.

It needed to maintain the Dao lineage of the “Yu Emperor.”

Perhaps that was tied to the methods and effectiveness of suppressing Illusory Realms.

Then there were other tangled questions. For example, why the vein-born demons only rampaged on a small scale, and why, even though Great Yu clearly should know they existed, the court seemed indifferent. The obvious answer was that both sides knew where the other came from and part of what was behind them.

The vein-born demons knew that their own kin were hidden inside Qianyu Palace and that the methods used there against vein-born demons were very familiar with them. There was no way to infiltrate, so they did not waste effort.

The Great Yu court was the same. It knew that the vein-born demons, and the demon forces that had slipped over from ancient Illusory Realm demons, did not yet dare cause trouble in Yujing, so it did not strictly curb their movements.

As long as they stayed within bounds the court could still control, that side would not turn face or use its last trump cards.

Thinking of it that way, I really did underestimate the court.

Bai Xiang felt things were getting complicated.

She had thought that once she toppled the avatar of Qingping Sword Lord Chu Weiping, she would have only his true body left as a target. She had not expected the mortal world to be hiding so many secrets, with even the imperial house she had always looked down on filled with crouching dragons and hidden tigers.

But soon she felt a surge of happiness, because it was foreseeable that Chu Weiping would not be able to keep her down.

If she defeated Qingping Sword Lord and had no more opponents in the world, would that not be unbearably lonely.

It would be like walking alone in the clouds; as she surpassed one outstanding human of history after another, in the end there would be no figures left ahead, only an endless sea of pale white cloud and herself trudging forward alone.

Such a path might be clear and exhilarating, but it would also be far too lonely.

So this was not bad news at all. It ought to be a good thing.

Why is the imperial daughter smiling?

Xuanyi noticed the smile on her face and could not help feeling all sorts of confusion inside.

Such enormous secrets, these were all kinds of alien races hidden in the Illusory Realms.

If they descended one day and came back for revenge, their targets would not be limited to the demons who had helped the Yu Emperor back then. They would definitely include all of humanity too.

That would be a catastrophe almost on par with the Illusory Tribulation. Hearing this, she not only was not alarmed, she was actually grinning.

He drew a breath and decided not to think too much about it.

In any case, he was acting on orders from that side to help the imperial daughter “recognize her ancestors and return to the lineage.” Passing the message on was already enough to earn a favor from “that venerable one” in the future.

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Venerables, mighty beings…

Thinking of those towering shadows, Xuanyi felt a flicker of excitement. He wondered if he should go all the way, helping them to the end, sending the Buddha all the way to the west.

And if the imperial daughter refused, should he also help by doing something more.

“You should be the imperial daughter of the Xuan Dynasty,” Xuanyi said, looking at Bai Xiang. “The Xuan Dynasty was an imperial dynasty founded under demon rule. The Xuan Emperor was born of both demon and human blood. After the severing of Heaven-and-Earth pathways, the Xuan bloodline was relentlessly hunted by the Yu clan, driven to hide by drifting through many Illusory Realm fragments, branching into countless offshoots and side lines. But only you, imperial daughter…”

His eyes shone as he looked at Bai Xiang. “Only you have awakened the Xuan Emperor’s divine ability. This is a fact confirmed by many. There is no mistake.”

So that was it.

Bai Xiang felt a quiet breath of relief.

Bad news: there really was something off about her eyes.

Good news: the impact was not that great.

After so many generations, the demon blood in her should be very thin, probably even thinner than in those Sword Dao clans that had passed down the practice of infusing demonic power into their bodies for many generations.

Even in the worst case, whatever influence it had would not be able to stir up much trouble in the face of her subjective will, of her soul-abilities that held absolute priority.

“So it is the Feathering Sect,” Bai Xiang said in a low voice. “They are the ones who sent you to find me.”

“Exactly.” Xuanyi nodded slowly. “The remaining main branch of the Xuan royal line has become the Feathering Sect, awaiting the arrival of the exalted ones. You must understand, imperial daughter, this is a rare opportunity. It will not only keep you safe in the coming great calamity. Once the heavenly path is cleared and mighty ones descend, you might even be chosen as a disciple by one of the exalted and personally experience the wonders of the Xuan Dharma.”

He laid on the praise, describing the scene after the Illusory Realms were opened as if immortals and Buddhas were descending, flowers falling from the sky. But Bai Xiang was hardly tempted. If anything, she grew even more wary of those so-called mighty ones.

After all, there was the Dark-Heaven Dharma.

No, not just the Dark-Heaven Dharma.

There was also the power behind Yao Qingyuan, and the ancient monk Daokong.

Daokong had clearly been a good man in his time, even worthy of being called a “saint.”

Why had he chosen to fall, and where had those methods of his come from… Bai Xiang was sure there had been other forces at work behind the scenes.

“I want to know something.”

Bai Xiang lifted her head.

“If the heavenly path is opened, what will be done with my friends and family?”

“Worldly ties of love and hate are an obstacle on the great Dao.” Xuanyi pressed his palms together and bowed to her. “Naturally they are to be cast aside.”

“Dust returns to dust.”

“Earth returns to earth.”

“And if I think that is not a very good arrangement?” Bai Xiang’s voice had already gone cold.

“Then this old one must…” Xuanyi froze for a moment, then also lifted his head, a layer of black energy shading his brows and eyes.

“Then I must, on behalf of the exalted ones, teach the imperial daughter a lesson, so that you can comprehend the Xuan Dharma and turn from crooked paths to sincere devotion…”