Volume 5, Chapter 64 – Lecturing on the Dao (2-in-1)

As time passed, it quickly became this afternoon.

In fact, starting from yesterday, the local residents of all Zhennan had already noticed that the number of outsiders wandering the streets had surged dramatically.

They were so certain because most of them were either wealthy or noble. Their clothing, their bearing, the lavishness with which they spent money—one glance was enough to tell.

“Of course only they could come…”

“Ordinary people can’t even get permission to leave the city now. If you want to come over in a crowd, the only option is flying. Whether it’s airplanes or flying vessels, they’re all regulated. How could ordinary people possibly get on one? So naturally it has to be people from above…”

In a roadside shop, two restaurant owners in aprons chatted while working.

They sold breakfast food. Normally they would be about done by noon, and at most they would offer a serving of hot, spicy tofu pudding with pickled mustard greens around dinnertime. But these past two days, the whole family had been working like mad, determined to make enough stock to sell for two full days.

There were simply too many people.

During the Seasonal Purity Festival ancestor rites, His Majesty had quietly returned to Zhennan. Originally, only a small number of local officials and noble families knew about it. But once word spread that “His Majesty is going to publicly lecture on the Dao,” countless people across more than half the country began trying every possible way to fly to Zhennan.

“That’s because Sister is no longer just the Dao Lord of Shenming Sword Dao.”

Inside the bedchamber, Bai Zhuqing helped the seated Bai Xiang braid her hair, then personally fastened two newly remade golden cicada earrings to her ears.

“Sister is the Xia Emperor, the Empress, the lord of the Path of Qi honored by all under heaven.”

“Now that all under heaven hold only qi methods supreme, Sister may be called the Teacher of All Under Heaven.”

“Of course there are too many people who want to hear you lecture to even count.”

In the mirror, Bai Xiang wore a black dress. The style resembled the black dragon robe with gold patterns she had previously taken from Zhengyuan Palace, but this one used more fabric and had more intricate details, making it look even more noble and sumptuous.

As Bai Zhuqing spoke, she gazed at her sister’s face with infatuation. Her fingers slipped down from the Empress’s hair, brushed past her temple to stroke her ear, then finally flicked the earring lightly, watching those glittering little ornaments sway in the mirror, making that peerlessly beautiful face seem even more stunning.

“You really do seem to like watching them sway.”

Bai Xiang sharply noticed where her younger sister’s attention was focused. She shook her own head a few times and felt that these small dangling ornaments really could improve a person’s bearing to a certain extent.

“The beaded imperial crown.”

Bai Zhuqing picked up a beaded imperial crown from the nearby counter, the kind of curtain-bead crown ancient emperors used to wear.

“Not for now.” Bai Xiang declined it. “This is Zhennan, not Xia Capital.”

When lecturing on the Dao, she did not want to overemphasize her political identity.

That was also a kind of hint. She hoped the people who came to hear her would understand it.

“What a pity.” Bai Zhuqing had no choice but to set the crown down.

It really was a pity, because she always felt that only when Bai Xiang wore the beaded crown did she truly become the embodiment of that symbol.

But looking at it another way, Sister had not become trapped in that symbolic identity and lost her way.

She was still the person I know.

Perhaps that is what suits me best.

“Qing’er.”

Bai Xiang suddenly called out to her. “In the future, when you advise Grandfather, don’t use such harsh words.”

Eh?

Bai Zhuqing froze, then revealed an enlightened expression.

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Of course. Even I can use the Jade Spirit to simulate and probe certain things. Sister’s cultivation has supposedly reached the Divine Palace Realm, so the range of her divine sense must be even farther. It makes sense that she would have sensed that conversation between Grandfather and me.

That was not the point.

The point was that, without realizing she was aware, she had openly poured out her true feelings in Sister’s favor, and Bai Xiang had just happened to witness the whole thing.

That…

Bai Zhuqing felt secretly delighted, but also a little embarrassed, as though she had been caught doing something bad.

“Take care of the little one for me.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Come gather in the main hall again after it’s over.”

Bai Xiang stood up, glanced at the little white fox lying nearby, hung the Shenming Sword at her waist sash, and headed downstairs, preparing to go to the great square surrounded by inner disciples such as Xu Shu and Liu Yong.

“Sister… actually didn’t rebuke me?”

Bai Zhuqing watched her figure disappear at the stairway entrance. Then she came back to herself, picked up the little white fox, and stared into its eyes.

“Little thing.”

“Tell me, do you think Sister was pleased with what I did, or not?”

“Aoo? Aoom~”

“I don’t want her to see the violent side of me.” Bai Zhuqing lowered her eyes slightly. “But she doesn’t seem to mind.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s her usual indifference, or a special kind of tacit permission reserved only for me…”

Bai Zhuqing felt a little lost.

It had taken so much effort to lay their hearts bare and clarify each other’s feelings, yet now that it was done, she had instead begun to fret over gains and losses, no longer carrying the reckless boldness she once had.

“You’re not like that. As long as someone pets you, you’re happy.” Bai Zhuqing rubbed the little fox’s belly.

“Being human really is much harder than being a demon.”

“Aoo? Aoom, yip yip!”

Leaving Bai Zhuqing to wrestle with her thoughts, Bai Xiang and her group had already arrived at the square before the main hall.

She had not come directly out from inside the hall. Instead, following Xu Shu’s suggestion, she had made a circuit through the dojo and approached the main hall from the mountain steps.

When she stepped onto the platform and looked out, all she could see was a vast sea of people.

Every last one of them wore the traditional training clothes of Shenming Sword Dao.

Every last one of them was a Shenming disciple who had rushed here in the past two days.

“We pay our respects to the Dao Lord!”

The moment she appeared, the disciples in the square all bowed at once and raised a unified cry of greeting.

That was the only line. No catchy slogans of praise followed it. But Bai Xiang could feel the solemn atmosphere brewing throughout the crowd.

She knew that this was still far from the full number.

Many of Shenming Sword Dao’s peaks had been split up and incorporated into local universities. Even for mainline disciples, once they finished their studies they were not encouraged to stay in the dojo on guard duty, but rather to go temper themselves on the front lines.

Because of that, during the Seasonal Purity Festival, more than ninety percent of Shenming’s disciples had been unable to return.

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At this very moment, some of them might be soldiers guarding a city wall somewhere. Some might be scouts deep in the wilderness. Some might be Demon-Suppressing Agents who specialized in taking on hunting and escort missions. In the end, all of them were busy with their own duties and had no leisure to come hear the lecture.

“From this day onward, there will be one lecture each year.”

Bai Xiang spoke lightly. Her voice seemed to pass through empty space and ring in every ear at the same time.

Without paying any mind to the fervor this stirred, she followed the open path into the main hall, entered, took the seat of honor, and sat backed by the majestic relief of a Buddha, looking down upon everyone below from the highest place.

She likewise dispensed with all unnecessary ceremony. Once Xu Shu, Liu Yong, and Chen Jing had taken their seats on their prayer cushions, she began the lecture at once.

While walking here just now, she had already swept her senses over the gathered disciples’ cultivation. She found that the highest among them were only Golden Core inner disciples, while the lowest had reached merely the first layer of Refining Qi. Presumably, they had only recently been accepted into the dojo and had just begun to grasp qi methods.

She did not discriminate. Instead, she began from the lowest level of understanding.

This “lowest level” did not refer to the lowest tier of the Path of Qi. It referred to how she herself had once been, back when she was still one of the “subjects of sword cultivation,” back when she was at the stages of Enter the Dao, Nurture the Spirit, Forge the Sword, and Condensing the Aspect—what kind of thoughts and state of mind she had used to strive toward the direction she now stood in, and how she had ultimately created the Dao lineage of today.

Her voice flowed out from inside the hall, first passing through the ears of Liu Yong and the others.

When it spread into the square, it suffered no scattering, no weakening. It remained just as clear and profound, as though every single word were being recited right before one’s face.

This effect even passed beyond the square before the main hall, reaching halfway down the mountain, and even the crowds gathered at the foot of Shenming main peak.

Those people had been gathering at the foot of the mountain since yesterday, clogging the roads so tightly that not even water could flow through. They were not Shenming disciples, but qi cultivators who had submitted around the time of Zhengyuan. After hearing the news this time, they had rushed here at any cost, hoping only that perhaps from the outer edges they might catch some “words of instruction drifting out.”

But they had never imagined they would receive benefits like this.

That cold, low, perfectly clear voice sounded almost as though the Dao Lord were speaking to them face-to-face.

Not a single person thought Bai Xiang’s opening content shallow. The noisy scene at the foot of the mountain quickly fell silent. One cultivator after another sat down on the ground, shut their eyes, and listened with full concentration, greedily drawing insight from the truths she spoke.

This was because they understood all too well how precious this concrete process from the very beginning of creating the method was to all of them.

Many of them were already advanced in age. Unlike the young people born and raised after the first year of Zhengyuan, most of those who had joined the Path of Qi had done so by switching cultivation.

And if it was a switch, then habits from the old method were bound to remain. On many points of cultivation, they often felt contradictions between before and after, finding them impossible to understand.

For them, hearing Bai Xiang lay out the principles today was no different from having someone personally lead them through the road of switching from Sword Dao to the Path of Qi all over again.

And this time, it was from the first-person perspective.

The changes within the Inner Body-scape, the reconstruction of mental flow, the nature of qi-power, every last thing was explained with total clarity, plain and unmistakable.

It was like taking the food apart piece by piece and feeding it straight into their mouths.

Quite a few elders trembled all over with excitement.

“I understand now!”

Suddenly, an old man with the bearing of an immortal sprang to his feet, laughing and crying as he began to dance.

“The five dragons of qi methods, the five qi returning to origin…”

“Qi-power… so this is qi-power!”

“Hahahaha!”

“It worked!”

“I did it!!!”

As he lost himself in ecstatic madness, the aura around him began to surge wildly. In a mere instant, he broke through the False Core Realm. His inner qi circulated, forming a great core in an embracing ring within his Inner Body-scape.

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“Qi citizen Zhang Zaixiang thanks the Dao Lord for the grace of this teaching!”

After attaining the Dao, he knelt down and kowtowed three times respectfully toward Shenming main peak, then immediately rose into the air and fled away.

For him, the later parts were no longer needed.

He had already found his own opportunity. What mattered most now was finding a place for secluded cultivation and thoroughly digesting everything he had gained.

Otherwise, with his foundation still unstable, hearing too much would easily drive him into deviation.

“Haha! I did it!”

“Ahhh, so that’s how it is!”

Very quickly, more and more “Zhang Zaixiangs” emerged one after another. All of them first went mad, then paid their respects, then either flew or walked away from the mountain.

And yet their madness did not affect the people still listening.

It was as though those people had sunk into total absorption. In their ears, only Bai Xiang’s voice existed. Every other sound, wind, insects, even wild cries, was treated as though it did not exist. Not a trace of it could reach their hearts.

Naturally, this effect did not occur only below the mountain.

Among the disciples halfway up the slope, the disciples listening in the square, the menial disciples stationed on other peaks, and even the visiting guests temporarily lodged here and waiting to pay a visit after the lecture ended, there were people who became immersed and entranced, thereby gaining tremendous benefits.

This even included Xiang Xian, Xu Shu, Bai Shengju, and many others.

Only those who had personally walked the road of switching cultivation could understand how much help these “primordial insights” offered.

“She’s explained it piece by piece to me before as well, but my insight was never as deep as it is today.”

“Her realm has grown deeper again…”

In the rear courtyard, white vapor rose from the top of Bai Shengju’s head. He opened his eyes and sighed with feeling.

At the same time, midway up the mountain, among a group of guests temporarily waiting there, someone suddenly let out a sigh.

“How magnanimous…”

“Insights like these could have been kept private as a secret transmission. Yet she has openly shared them just like this.”

“She truly does not care whether someone under heaven might surpass her. Instead, with a heart full of sincerity, she hopes there will be more and more fellow Dao-seekers.”

“This really is the bearing of a sovereign, open and upright.”

“Even the praises sung of the Empress underestimate her. It should be said that there has never yet been a precedent that could compare…”

The speaker had half a head of white hair, a somewhat plump build, wore a long gown with a sleeveless jacket, and sported a pair of mechanical-style glasses. He was none other than Hu Wenping, president of Zhong’an Academy.

Seated below him were more than a dozen middle-aged men and women. Hearing his words, some nodded in agreement, while others wore dark expressions, seemingly displeased by such praise.

Worth mentioning was the metal object sitting on their table that resembled a soda bottle. It seemed to have the ability to restrain and control sound waves, likely to prevent their conversation here from being overheard.

“But no matter how magnanimous she is, that only applies to her ‘exclusive subjects.’”

On the left, a middle-aged woman with a broad, round face like a flat cake, glasses on her nose, and a pointed chin finally spoke.

“Listen to the way those people put it, ‘qi citizens’! As though anyone who doesn’t cultivate qi methods is somehow lower-class!”

“That superior, high-and-mighty air is nauseating every single time I think of it!”

“Now is not the time to vent emotions, Ms. Fu,” said the gaunt man opposite her with a mocking smile.

“Everyone present has seen it as well. Her prestige is already too high, and it will only grow higher.”

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“She is willing to bestow her favor only on those ‘base commoners,’ while treating the real elites with disdain and suppressing them again and again.”

“You can tell from the destruction of the Tao family and from her decision to throw every single person who pleaded for them into prison. She holds nothing but deep hostility toward us. Prejudice of that sort cannot be reasoned away.”

“So what I want to know is this: Mr. Hu gathered us here this time… surely it wasn’t just so we could all go and offer her our heads together?”

That last line was far too cutting.

For a moment, everyone present turned their gaze away and looked toward the seat of honor along with the gaunt man, clearly intending to see how Hu Wenping would explain himself.

They had not even properly banded together yet, and they were already turning on each other.

What a bunch of hopeless trash.

Hu Wenping felt some annoyance inside, keenly aware of how difficult coordination work really was.

But in truth, this too had been within his expectations.

He knew that those willing to answer his call and come here had basically all been driven by an overwhelming sense of crisis.

They were too selfish by nature. Normally, all they knew was how to keep themselves safe. Most of them even had old grudges against one another. Trying to bind a group like this together to accomplish something significant was far harder than binding together a group of refugees or common drudges.

He also knew that now was the time he had to reveal his plan.

Otherwise, they would never follow him.

Once they truly stood before the Xia Emperor, they would all scramble to jump out first and denounce themselves in front of everyone, hoping to escape guilt through that very act.

“Who told you I came here to persuade her?”

Hu Wenping remained utterly unhurried as he lifted his tea and took a sip.

Hm?

Then what did you come here for?

Could it be…

The others froze. But very quickly, more than half of them caught on, and strange light began to flicker in their eyes as they looked at Hu Wenping.

“Of course I came to support her.”

Hu Wenping set the tea bowl back down with a crisp thud.

“I will, and so will all of you.”

“Remember this well. We are not here to instruct her, and even less to oppose her. We are here to agree with her, more than even her most loyal subjects do.”

There is more than one way to destroy a system of thought.

“Opposition” is not the only method.

Very often, “agreement” is even more effective.

Still too young, after all.

Hu Wenping revealed a faint smile.

That little girl is indeed formidable when it comes to cultivation.

But in the ways of the world, let me teach you a lesson.