Chapter 85

“Human lives are like dust. They come from nowhere, and scatter aimlessly in the wind.” (1)

Can they expect to escape human affairs just by entering the path of cultivation?

Can they expect everything to go as they wish just because they have the powers to move the world?

Hasn’t even a great cultivator who can change weather at a whim like Tong Ru ended up scattered pieces of soul?

What chances would a bunch of ignorant juniors like them have?

Yan Zhengming hasn’t had much opportunity to talk to Tong Ru, but he has been holding quite a few opinions regarding his disciple grandfather. From time to time, he can’t help but thinking that if Tong Ru hadn’t been a busy body and created that so-called Hall of Initiation, he wouldn’t have incurred suspicion and been tricked into the Three Lives mystic site.

Even if he had seen what was in the Three Lives mystic site, if he hadn’t believed the prediction in such an extreme way, if he had been just a little more accepting of the situation instead of stubbornly insisting to change it, if he had listened to his friends’ advice, if he hadn’t been so unwilling to settle for his lot in life…

Perhaps Yan Zhengming’s Master wouldn’t have died and ended up in a dying weasel.

Fuyao Sect too wouldn’t have fallen to ruins.

Yan Zhengming and the others would have been like those silly disciples of the White Tiger Estate. They would have little cultivation and experience. The outside world would have overwhelmed them, some lowly demonic cultivators would have been able to push them around.

No one would have addressed Yan Zhengming as Sect Leader or Senior. He would have been just a little useless most senior disciple brother.

However, Yan Zhengming understands Tong Ru’s heart better than anyone. When he entered the Sect Leader seal, he reviewed Tong Ru’s path time and time again, and every time he did so, anxiety seized his heart a long while afterward. As long as the Sect Leader seal is in his hand, he feels like he is walking over thin ice or by a cliff over a deep abyss. Not daring to relax for a moment, he keeps reminding himself not to repeat his disciple grandfather’s mistake.

He has to purify himself, eliminate his desires, and be patient.

However, as Yan Zhengming hears Cheng Qian’s heartbeat from behind, all of his anxiety related to Tong Ru suddenly disappears.

If one could indeed keep the desire for more than what one’s lot in life grants them under control, then why such desire appears at all?

The stronghold he built all this time around his heart, which seems to be impenetrable, is revealed to be built of mere sand. A slight push of a finger would cause it to collapse. In a lifetime, if there is no such moment in life, where one is so overwhelmed by feelings that one would risk even being turned into dust, would life even have any meaning?

“What are you waiting for?” A voice in Yan Zhengming’s heart asks. “Are you going to fall into the same mistake as that old fool Tong Ru and wait until separation by death?”

Yan Zhengming gently lifts Cheng Qian’s arms that are holding him, then turns and looks fixedly at Cheng Qian’s face. With all of his self-control, Yan Zhengming asks in a low voice, “Do you know how outrageous what you’ve been saying is? Do you know such a relationship is against the morals of this world?”

The calmness on Cheng Qian’s face doesn’t waver. “Our Master taught me to be at ease with myself?”

Yan Zhengming says, “But our Master didn’t teach you to indulge yourself! Aren’t you afraid that the indulgence will stir up your desires and passions, and you’ll be burnt to a crisp by the lightning of Heavenly Tribulation during ascension?”

Cheng Qian asks, “Then what kind of teachings have you been following that you ended up being besieged by the heart demon?”

Yan Zhengming can’t refute that.

Cheng Qian looks at him and stresses every word, “I am not afraid of Heavenly Tribulation. It’s only you that I am afraid of.”

Those words are like lightning to Yan Zhengming’s heart. He thinks to himself, “Crap, there is no way to persuade him now.”

He stands there in silence for a long while, as if roots had grown from his feet. However, no flower blooms in his heart. On the contrary, there is an indescribable sorrow.

“Xiao-Qian,” He finally says with difficulty. “You must not regret this in the future.”

With a soft sigh, Cheng Qian looks at him awkwardly. “Senior brother, please wipe your tears first.”

“Come here,” Yan Zhengming pulls Cheng Qian towards himself. He is full of tension inside, but his face is full of an unusual apathy.

Wearing that expression, he thinks to himself, “I was wrong to Xiao-Qian.”

Following that, he cradles Cheng Qian’s head and leans down to place a kiss. He only intended a light brush of lips, but can’t help himself and goes with the flow.

With an “Uhm”, Cheng Qian instinctively turns his head but is kept in place by firm hands. Soon, he is blanketed by a familiar orchid fragrance. In the beginning, he feels a bit scared as he passively accepts what the other person is doing. It’s the first time he learns that two people can have such acts with each other. He feels weirded out, even a bit annoyed. However, when he realizes who his partner is, that bit of annoyance immediately changes its flavor.

That sudden extraordinary intimacy causes heat to run rampant all over Cheng Qian’s scalp and hips like ants. His spine stiffens like a rod. He has heard of ‘mortal desire’ so many times before but has never truly experienced it, and now it is steadily engulfing him. As that unfamiliar sensation stirs in his heart and his throat goes dry, he instinctively gulps and feels like he should recite the Scripture of Serenity.

Yan Zhengming dazedly holds Cheng Qian in his arms. He thinks, “I was wrong to our Master too.”

Unknown to him, the mark of the heart demon on his forehead suddenly turns into a gentle shade of red, then it contracts to the size of a drop of blood and disappears. The sect leader seal on his chest suddenly shines blindingly with a white light.

Yan Zhengming comes to his senses. Having no idea why the sect leader seal acted out like that, he rests his forehead on Cheng Qian’s shoulder and says with his eyes closed. “Let’s leave this place first. We shouldn’t stay here too long.”

Cheng Qian looks up and down at Yan Zhengming with an indescribable expression. He still can’t manage to return to his normal state. “Did you learn all that from the fake Scripture of Serenity?”

This is the first time he fully realizes that his most senior brother, who likes to act like a model of virtues, actually knows quite a lot of such forbidden topics.

The question makes Yan Zhengming choke. He wipes the dirt and blood on Cheng Qian’s sleeves. “Shut up.”

The white light from the sect leader seal bursts into a ray and casts a feather-like shape on the ground. The feather shakes a little along with the white light, as if to show the direction.

Yan Zhengming lifts the shining seal up and follows the feather. He tells Cheng Qian, “Follow it.”

Under the white light of the seal, Cheng Qian can see that Yan Zhengming’s face has become healthier. His worry easing a little, he asks, “Oh, back then you…”

Yan Zhengming interrupts him, “No! Don’t even think about it! I burnt that evil book already!”

Cheng Qian asks, “I’d like to ask you what you meant with ‘for a sword cultivator, the heart demon haunts every step’. What are you talking about?”

Sect Leader Yan, who often projects his own heart on other people, finally learns that not everyone is a truant who avoided serious study at all costs like him. Being so embarrassed that he dares not turn back, he says weakly after a dry cough. “A sword cultivator carries too much aggression and killing intent. It doesn’t help that in the early stages, sword cultivators tend to work more on the body than the mind. With such a lack of understanding, the demon of the heart easily emerges. That’s what our Master told me during initiation. He also said, ‘When cultivation and potential match, a sword cultivator has the most advantage in battles. Therefore this path is especially difficult, and those who take it have to endure much more hardship.’”

At this part, a faint smile appears on his lips, which has been full of tension. “Back then, my first reaction when hearing that was to beg our Master to remove my qi sensitivity and let me take a different path, because no way I would want to become a sword cultivator.”

Yan Zhengming very rarely mentions the past. Cheng Qian quietly listens, feeling that those words indeed sound like something his most senior brother would say.

“Then our Master scared me off the idea by saying that it’s possible to remove qi sensitivity. However, this process would be like rolling through a bed of spikes or being fried in hot oil, which had killed countless people. Of course such people had no need to consider which path they should take anymore,” Yan Zhengming says with a touch of self-mockery. “He completely made it up, yet I still believed him. The pros and cons seemed obvious. Even if one has to endure so much pain on the path of a sword cultivator one wants to die, it’d still be much better than dying for real. So I ended up agreeing.”

Cheng Qian stares fixedly at Yan Zhengming’s back. He can’t help but recall their first meeting as he listens to this story.

The miasma in the Land of Tenderness was even heavier than the Valley of the Yao. It was in such a setting that he first met his most senior brother. Even then, his first thought was, “What a beautiful person.”

However, right after that, his impression turned into “What an asshole.”

“What about this…” Cheng Qian raises his hand and lightly rubs his own forehead, “When did it start?”

After a long stretch of silence, Yan Zhengming says, “I don’t know.”

Was it from that time in the Vermillion Bird Tower? Or during the stay at Fuyao Estate before that? Or during the hundred years of separation? Or even during their reckless adolescence on Azure Dragon Island?

Just thinking about the topic yields countless possible answers. Before he could understand his feelings, that he was in love, his heart already moved by itself.

Yan Zhengming looks at Cheng Qian with complicated emotions and brushes aside the stray locks of hair on the latter’s forehead, then says softly, “I don’t know. Don’t ask me about it.”

Cheng Qian tactfully changes the topic. “How long have we been stuck here anyway? I wonder how things are going at Tai Yin Mountain.”

Yan Zhengming says, “The Celestial Divination Bureau has used up to the last drop of their resources. Han Yuan seems to have been at the end of his strength too. Neither side can have control over the other. What I’m worried about is whether the Celestial Divination Bureau has one more trick after the Demon Execution Array.”

Cheng Qian is silent. What happened was really something one has to see with one’s own eyes to understand. If there hadn’t been traitors within the Celestial Divination Bureau who altered the array, if they hadn’t happened to be dragged in, if it hadn’t been their luck that Li Yun had the True Dragon Flag, no one could have broken that array.

That trap Wu Changtian set outside Fuyao Mountain wasn’t simply to weaken Han Yuan, but actually to finish him off.

In the present, the Demon Execution Array has been destroyed. The Celestial Divination Bureau has nothing else to stop Han Yuan. It’s likely he’ll charge into Tai Xing Mountain and massacre all cultivators who recklessly stand in his way, then he’ll go North to the Capital and settle the debt between him and the Celestial Divination Bureau as well as the mortal Imperial Court.

“Death is too light a punishment for what the Celestial Divination Bureau did,” Yan Zhengming says, “I don’t believe the one sitting on the dragon throne in the Capital is a simple mortal either. Can someone who claims to be eternal like him accept the fate of dying within mere decades while the Celestial Divination Bureau under him continue to go on? That doesn’t add up.”

Cheng Qian says, “Cultivators don’t interfere in mortal affairs. That’s how things are. Trivial issues of the mortal realm can easily distract a cultivator from their path. Without extraordinary talent, that cultivator would face a lot of obstacles. How can the Emperor achieve immortality while clinging to his throne?”

“The imperial family has all kinds of resources. They can get whatever cultivation methods and elixirs they want. If they can’t cultivate their spiritual energy, they can turn to medicine,” Yan Zhengming says, “Besides, don’t you get the implications of what Wu Changtian told us? The Celestial Divination Bureau is definitely being controlled by someone at court. Since these holier-than-thou fuckers consider what they call justice enough reason to ruin people’s lives, how can they let themselves be controlled by mere mortals? I don’t care if they want to seek death, it doesn’t matter to us anyway. The issue is, if Han Yuan leads the demonic cultivators marching North, they will undoubtedly commit the sin of taking innocent lives on the way. Should we kill him when that happens?”

At that moment, Yan Zhengming pauses his steps and looks. Ahead of him, a faint light comes from somewhere.

The guiding feather flies directly into that light. As they follow the light back to its source for a while, they enter a bright open space.

Countless steps of a stone stair appear in front of them.

Normal stone steps are usually built on something like a mountain or a building, the upper step placed on the lower one all the way to the top. However, the steps aren’t based on anything. They float in the air up to an unseen destination somewhere in the endless sky.

Cheng Qian suddenly feels an unseen force suppressing all of his spiritual energy. In a blink of an eye, he becomes a mere mortal. Under the steps, he is just like a little ant.

Cheng Qian ponders, “This is…”

Yan Zhengming frowns as he says, “This is likely the Tower of No Regret.”

The Tower of No Regret is a hundred eight thousand steps high (2). No matter how powerful a cultivator is, they’ll become just a mortal when they are here and must walk up every step. For the first time in life, Cheng Qian knows what a neck-breaking height looks like. A normal person would be scared just looking at it. Climbing up is out of question.

Yan Zhengming tentatively climbs up a step. Before he can steady himself, a strong wind crashes into his face. As he just remembers that his protective layer of spiritual energy has disappeared, the wind nearly touches his eyes. Yan Zhengming hastily jumps backward back to the ground. He is fast, but the wind still tears off one of his sleeves.

How on earth could Tong Ru climb to the top?!

Both of them are terrified. Yan Zhengming thinks to himself, “I thought our disciple grandfather was mad the normal way. I didn’t expect he was that mad!”

Cheng Qian recalls his few encounters with Lord Beiming. Back then he was still just a child, so he was completely ignorant of what someone with that title was capable of. It isn’t until now that he fully realizes the gap wide as the sky between him and his disciple grandfather.

As Cheng Qian is in his trance, Yan Zhengming suddenly claps loudly right next to his ears, making him startle back to awareness.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Yan Zhengming says, “That person was already in qi deviation when he left the Three Lives mystic site. A person who has gone mad must be different from someone who has not. You being unable to repeat what he did isn’t necessarily because he was more powerful than you.”

Glancing at his sleeve, he laughs lightly, “Well, I’m a cutsleeve for real now. The Tower of No Regret is creeping me out. We shouldn’t stay here.”

Letting one of his arms loose by his side and tapping lightly on Shuang Ren’s scabbard, Cheng Qian says as he walks, “If it were you, would you climb up the Tower of No Regret to take the Wish-granting Stone back too?”

Yan Zhengming thinks to himself, “He really knows how to choose his target.”

If the obsession in his heart hadn’t been exactly the same as Tong Ru’s, why would his spiritual awareness have latched onto Tong Ru when he got into the Sect Leader seal?

If he hadn’t tasted what it was like to be in qi deviation, why would he have forced his cultivation and charge in without regard for anything?

Naturally, he can’t tell Cheng Qian about that.

In complete contradiction of his actual sentiments, Yan Zhengming assumes a righteous air. “Of course not, whether it’s happiness or sorrow, union or separations, satisfaction or disappointment, it’s just part of life. We haven’t reached ascension so we are still mortals. As long as we are aware of that, we should understand that we are mere flesh and blood. How can we make everything in this life follow our will? There are always such moments when our powers fall short and we fail to get what we want. Whether it’s cultivation or anything else, if we take an extreme attitude and demand eternal perfection, we wouldn’t be able to last long.”

What a shameless performance.

Cheng Qian doesn’t reply. He turns away to hide his smile, yet Yan Zhengming’s sharp senses still catch it.

Yan Zhengming demands, “What are you laughing at?”

“I’m laughing because you said that as smoothly as telling a fairy tale,” Cheng Qian bluntly states the truth without any regard for Yan Zhengming’s vanity. “Seeing as a certain someone was under siege by the heart demon not that long ago.”

Yan Zhengming “...”

“If you shut up right now, I won’t be petty and hold it against you,” From about two steps away, Yan Zhengming turns back and lets the unsaid words show on his face. “Come here! Apologize now!”

Keeping his silence, Cheng Qian thinks to himself, “How will he turn out if I keep indulging his bad habits?”

However, right after that, he internally shakes his head. “Ah well, he has always had these bad habits from the start anyway.”

Thus Cheng Qian apologizes just to get it over with. “Yes, yes, you’re such a generous and magnanimous senior brother. Your words are like music to my ears. Ah, I just remember, if this place is at the back of Fuyao Mountain, can we go back from here?”

“You’re thinking too much,” Sect Leader Yan says full of confidence. “Fuyao Mountain is Fuyao Mountain. The Valley of the Heart Demon is the Valley of the Heart Demon. The two places are next to each other, but aren’t necessarily sealed in the same place… Huh?”

As soon as he says that, he finds out that there is a gate behind the Tower of No Regret. All words failing him, he thinks to himself. “What the heck is my luck that I’ve to eat my words as soon as I say them? Can it be that we can really return from this place?”

The feather that has been guiding them falls softly on the gate and disappears without a trace. There is a small keyhole on the gate, its shape the same as the Sect Leader seal.

Yan Zhengming takes off the seal and tentatively puts it in the keyhole. It is a perfect match, as if they were originally created together.

Right away, there is a low head-ringing noise, as a huge stone gate reveals itself and slowly opens.

Three wooden plates suddenly emerge from the other side of the gate. On the plates are carved “Heaven”, “Earth” and “Humanity”. Yan Zhengming moves to catch all three. However, as his hand moves closer to the plate with “Heaven” on it, the other two retreat backward. The implication is obvious. He can only pick one from the three.

“Will the plate with ‘Heaven’ help us to achieve immediate ascension?” Yan Zhengming smirks. “Will you pick it?”

Cheng Qian doesn’t reply. He just looks at Yan Zhengming with a hint of a smile, making the latter feel a bit awkward. Yan Zhengming mutters, “Stop tempting me all the time like that.”

Then he picks up the wooden plate with “Humanity” on it without hesitation. With a cracking sound, the Sect Leader seal removes itself from the stone gate and returns to his neck. Right after that, white light suddenly bursts from the wooden plate. The Tower of No Regret and the strange ancient stone gate suddenly feel far away. Surrounding them are the echoes of countless people and their bustling activities.

Ever since the name “Fu Yao” came into being and the ancient stone stele was put in its place to mark the sect’s lineage, countless years have passed. The Nine-floored Library Tower was built. Countless personalities have left countless traces on the steps. Then no matter if their footsteps were light like a feather or left a deep mark on the stonework, they all gradually disappear.

Under the eternal rains and winds, even mountains become seas. That is how the world is. The only unchanging truth is the relentless cycle of life and death, glory and decline.

This is the Path of Humanity, which takes the middle position among the three great realms.

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(1) The first lines of Miscellaneous Poem I (雜詩其一) by Tao Yuanming 陶淵明

(2) According to Buddhism, there are 108 calamities/misfortunes that haunt the mortal life.