Volume 4, Chapter 109 – Establishing One’s Fate

Walking along the stone path back to Listening-to-Rain Tower, Bai Xiang kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, every step spaced exactly the same.

She truly had considered whether or not she should become emperor.

Bai Xiang was not someone who cared for fame or rank. Before and after transmigrating, she had never really had any concrete ambition. Her greatest pursuit was no more than to follow the Dao toward longevity, and in the process, fully savor the supernatural side of this world, so that this second life would not be wasted.

But a wish as “simple” as that was, in truth, the least “simple” thing of all.

There was an old online joke that people loved to repeat. In many works of fiction, characters always liked to make “living a peaceful life” their goal. It sounded like a very plain aspiration, but in reality, it was extraordinarily difficult to achieve.

Because humans are social creatures. We grow up in society, and naturally we are subject to society’s interference.

So how does one achieve the goal of “living a peaceful life”?

You need overwhelming deterrence, so that the people around you never dare overstep their bounds and disturb you.

You also need enough martial strength that whenever life decides to play a trick on you, whenever disaster appears, you can save yourself at the first moment, and perhaps even save others as well, depending on your temperament and preferences.

That deterrence and martial strength must be exceptional, because only then will the news media not dare report your deeds, and not dare shatter the peaceful life you want.

Once the whole chain of logic is laid out, many people are startled to discover that “living a peaceful life” is actually such a difficult thing. By the end of the calculation, they somehow need enough personal strength to stand against a nation.

And if that is the case, does it still count as pursuing a peaceful life?

In order to live peacefully, I shut myself away at home and cultivate until I become a god?

Of course it is a joke, a meme. But from a certain angle, it is also extremely meaningful.

Because the examples inside the joke are real.

The logic behind those examples and assumptions is real.

You really do need that kind of deterrence and that kind of martial force to pull it off. At the very least, that part is no lie.

And by comparison, Bai Xiang’s plan to follow the Dao toward longevity involved more than merely being disturbed by society. It was not just that “someone might randomly dislike her,” but that “someone would inevitably dislike her.”

Reaԁ oո КаtRеαdіnɡСаfe

Because this was the calamity struggle.

And also the Dao struggle.

From the perspective of the calamity struggle, there had to be a new “dynasty,” or at least some kind of carrier analogous to a dynasty, to gather together the order of the main world, that is, the primary order.

There had to be recognition from the primary order. Only then would the sapient beings sheltered by that “dynasty” be qualified to remain here together with the largest portion of the primary order.

If they failed, they would be scraped away by the Void Calamity.

If they were lucky, some of the land itself would be scraped away along with them, and they would fall into a newly formed small world where they could play petty tyrant.

If they were unlucky, they would be gone on the spot. Their bodies would be torn apart directly by the Void Calamity, and their souls would drift into the endless void, becoming the remnant souls and baleful spawn filling the chaotic winds. Perhaps, under the influence of Loss of Order, they might mutate into demon pools or Void Demons. Only a tiny few would ever awaken intelligence again.

So this was not a matter of whether she was willing or not. There was only this one road.

Either she became emperor.

Or she raised an emperor-puppet while standing behind the throne the way Suzhen Dao does, as ***.

Different roads, same destination. Both were the same path.

And from the perspective of the Dao struggle, she had already read the dossiers. Though The Shenming Qi-Refining Formula had indeed spread to other provinces, the state of cultivation there was extremely poor.

Her guess was that the Court had used some sort of method, most likely that they had finally activated the Yu Emperor Sacred Dynasty, activated the concept-level demon pool of Great Yu Sword Dao, or rather, a divine pool. They were using that power to interfere with order itself and forbid all sapient beings beneath the order it covered from cultivating the Path of Qi.

That was the Dao struggle.

Go back far enough, and it was the struggle between Dao-Void Methods and Sword Dao.

The conflict between those two factions could also be summarized as the struggle between the demon path and the human path, between a demon-ruled age and a human-ruled age, and even between Loss of Order and the preservation of order.

Only, Sword Dao had very obviously gone astray. Perhaps its original intention had been good. In that era, Sword Dao truly had been the only life-saving straw humanity could grasp, worthy of being protected at all costs.

Rеαԁ оո КαtReαԁiոɡСafe

But now, I am here.

Every example pointed to only one thing: only the Path of Qi was the way forward for humanity, and for all sapient beings who followed the principles of preserving order and guarding what is right.

A year ago, Bai Xiang might not have cared about any of this.

But since coming to this world, she had seen many things.

Great Yu’s controls. An emperor without Dao.

The chaos of the grey zones, with children in schools carrying guns.

And beyond that, the cruelty of the upper Void Realms, where transactions ran rampant, where sapient beings were weighed out on scales like livestock.

What moved her was Wu Emperor’s persistence. But what truly made Bai Xiang make up her mind was Zhuye the monk’s fanatic devotion to the Xuan Dynasty.

Yes.

Bai Xiang did not recognize the demonic bloodline in her own body. She insisted that even without it, she could still have achieved what she had, and emphasizing that was itself a way of downplaying the role of that bloodline in her own choices.

Because of the Feathering Sect, she even harbored a considerable aversion toward the so-called remnants of the Xuan Dynasty, thinking that such people ought to die and be laid to rest like rotten things inside a coffin.

Because the Xuan Dynasty was already dead.

A nation of ideals.

A utopia.

Under the Sacred Emperor’s leadership, it had plunged into the river of history with a razor edge, stirring up enormous waves within it and drawing the gaze of the whole world for a time, only to invite assault from all sides and end in a bleak conclusion of death, collapse, and ruin.

It looked like a trivial thing, because those so-called great waves were so small compared to the entire river.

But that did not mean they were meaningless.

Rеad оո KatRеαԁіոɡCαfe

After hearing some of Zhuye’s stories and witnessing his fervor, Bai Xiang had suddenly realized something. The Xuan Dynasty had most likely died, yes, but at the same time it had become a banner, a wedge, hammered into that stretch of the river’s past.

Everyone could see that banner.

Standing in the present and looking back across past and present, no one could ignore it.

It was the first dynasty in history to govern through inclusion.

Even now, if one traces morality and ritual law to their source, they all begin from “Xuan.”

How could she not make the connection?

A dynasty had perished, and yet its spirit had not died. It had fused into morality and ritual law, fused into order, and together they had been passed down into the marrow of every person who came after, becoming an invisible set of “rules.”

So alike.

Far too alike.

And now, today, calamity had returned.

What is it that I truly seek?

Standing beneath the dim yellow light of evening, Bai Xiang rested a hand on the railing and gazed out over the scenery below the mountain in front of Listening-to-Rain Tower.

The sky was already darkening. Lights had come on in many parts of the city. In the remoter areas, perhaps because gas lines had not yet reached them, cooking smoke rose steadily and on time.

These ten thousand household lights… are they because of me?

Slowly extending a hand, she made a grasping motion toward the scene before her and began recalling things, things she normally never spent effort thinking about.

Groups that had suffered demonic disaster, whom she happened to encounter and rescue on the road, all of them dropping to their knees to thank her.

Urban districts invaded by the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty, where she descended and slaughtered the demon raiders, and countless people stretched out their hands toward her as she was about to rise back into the air, staring at her with the fervent gaze they would use for immortals and Buddhas.

Reαⅾ οո КαtReαdіոɡСаfе

In the past, she had not cared about such things.

They were going to die anyway.

Meaningless.

But now… she could not say whether she had been moved by that chain of experiences, or whether it was because her relationship with her younger sister had deepened further, as though it had brought her down from some high immortal lotus throne into the mortal world and made her begin to understand these feelings.

But in the end, she did have some new thoughts now.

Some that did not violate her original pursuit, and some things that, while on the way, she also ought to do.

She had far more thoughts like that than before.

When Bai Zhuqing emerged from the tower with clothing draped over herself, what she saw was exactly such a beautiful scene.

Her Sister Xiang’er stood there wrapped in a haori, her white hair streaming backward in the evening breeze, fully revealing her delicate face.

The wind was blowing, tightening her clothes against her body. Yet she magnanimously allowed that offense and instead reached out as though she wanted to seize hold of something.

It was… too unbelievable.

Golden evening light coated her whole body. In that moment, Bai Zhuqing instinctively felt that what she was seeing was not the familiar elder sister she knew, but an immortal, a Buddha.

Especially with that look of compassion, paired with her sister’s always imposing golden eyes, what was this exactly—

“Zhuye, you were wrong.”

Still looking down at the cooking smoke, Bai Xiang suddenly murmured to herself.

“Great Xuan is not dead.”

“It has always lived in people’s hearts.”