Chapter 93: 80
Once the ancestral land of the Daoist sect at Taibai Mountain, within the Scripture Platform, atop a high stage.
Two “Scholars” were performing a kneeling salute.
The place was utterly silent, thousands in respectful stillness.
The Daoist gentlen lost, Confucian Scholar Zhao Ziyu, “the unity of essence and function”, the Lin of Lanxi unexpectedly won, Chongxu Temple…
Everyone was still savoring and digesting the events.
Instead of the applause that should have co after the third clear discussion, silence then was the highest homage.
But before long, outside the Scripture Platform, or rather outside Luojing City around Taibai Mountain, there ca a sound that, despite traveling hundreds of miles through the air and taking several monts to dissipate, still made people furrow their brows in annoyance at the disturbance.
It only made the silence inside the Scripture Platform more apparent.
Still, nobody spoke.
So swallowed hard, so looked at each other in dismay, so held their breath in concentration, so shed silent tears, so trembled…
Underneath this quietude was a storm brewing.
So rejoiced, so grieved, but people’s joys and sorrows are not the sa. Most are indifferent, only chasing after victors and discarding fallen weaklings.
The first to break the silence was still a sparse clapping sound in the vast space, coming from a little Fox Demon whose hands had turned red from clapping, her face even redder.
Su Xiaoxiao, dressed in pink, hopped and clapped vigorously, looking up with undivided attention at the figure on stage that captivated her heart.
The young girl’s brows danced with joy, her spirit soaring, “Won, won, Zhao Rong won!”
Her soft, tender voice echoed within the Scripture Platform.
“Clap, clap clap, clap clap clap clap –!”
The next mont, thunderous applause hit them head-on, overwhelming like a tidal wave, as if to overturn the entire venue and shatter the clouds of the Nine Heavens.
“We won, we really won, we truly won!” Lin Qingxuan first muttered to himself, then his voice grew louder, tears stread down to his chin, he scread till his voice hoarse, but his voice was still drowned out in the deafening applause.
Lin Qingxuan abruptly turned his head to look at his elder brother beside him, only to see his eyes bloodshot, his chest heaving erratically, his expression dazed and lifeless. He moved his lips, as if to say sothing, but at this mont it was lost in the sea of applause, and no one knew.
Lin Wenruo suddenly took a sharp breath, forcefully expelling turbid air from his chest, watching his friend on stage who had just completed the salutation and was standing up. He licked his dry lips, lowered his head, lifted his right hand, extended a finger, held it horizontally, and rubbed his eyes.
The next mont, the family head of the Lin of Lanxi, one of the future leaders of Zhongnan Country, both on and off the mountains, slowly raised his head, revealing a pair of unfathomable eyes, and glanced sideways at the several hundred Daoist priests from Chongxu Temple nearby.
His gaze was as still as an ancient well, like that of a hunter in the deep mountains of Zhongnan Country attacked by a fierce tiger, who, covered in wounds, finally picked up the cold blade that had fallen to the ground and slowly walked towards the equally injured beast.
If the inside of Scripture Platform was an ocean in the midst of a storm, then where the people of Chongxu Temple stood was like a deep abyss a thousand fathoms below the surface, dark, oppressive, and trembling.
A thing called fear surged in the abyss like an undercurrent.
Several hundred blue-clothed Daoist priests looked around in panic, at a loss for what to do.
Qing Yuanzi had a stunned expression, swaying his head side to side, his eyes fixed on a figure on stage, his thin lips trembling, hardly audible.
“No, no, we haven’t lost, how could we possibly lose, it’s fake, all fake, that damn ‘unity of essence and function’ is a lie, it’s all a lie, you’re all cheating…”
And right beside him, another figure was even more unsteady.
Qing Jingzi’s face was pale as paper, covered in cold sweat, he instinctively retreated, as if he wanted to get farther away from the stage that had destroyed the millennium-old foundation of Chongxu Temple.
Suddenly, he felt a chilling coldness rising from the bottom of his heart, he looked around blankly, bumping into the calm gaze of a tall Confucian Scholar.
Qing Jingzi shuddered violently, the prayer beads in his hand dropping to the ground.
At that ti, Zhao Rong didn’t know all that had happened below the stage. After standing up from the salute, he only wanted to hurry down and give Su Xiaoxiao a beating.
Why yell so loudly to the point of death, as if wanting everyone to know this young master won? Can’t you just calmly play it cool?
Zhao Rong shook his head, lips tightly pressed, swallowing the blood in his mouth, preparing to bid farewell and step down from the stage. However, the Daoist gentleman suddenly spoke up.
“You don’t belong here.”
Zhao Rong’s expression turned serious, his eyes narrowed slightly, yet the next mont his heart relaxed because it was only half a sentence.
“You should go to Jixia Academy.”
Zhao Rong was about to respond when he saw Tao Yuanran make another baffling move.
The Daoist gentleman suddenly beca serious, bent down to kneel, and gave him a formal bow of three prostrations with nine kowtows.
Zhao Rong’s eyelids twitched, caught off guard.
At the sa ti, the applause from the audience had already ceased. The clamor that had just risen was shattered like waves against the rocks.
It seed to be drawn by the strange scene on stage.
Zhao Rong glanced around, bearing the awkward gazes upon him, and quickly stepped forward, ready to help the elder with the Southern Huajin up.
But out of the corner of his eye, he caught the shocked look of Liuyi Jushi.
That was… directed at sothing behind him.
Zhao Rong swiftly turned around.
Behind him,
stood a strange elder.
Dressed oddly.
His eyes lifeless.
Looking right at Zhao Rong.
Zhao Rong was startled.
Where did this old man co from? And without making a sound?
But the next second, his breath hitched.
Because under the sun, this bizarre elder had no shadow!
Suddenly, a chill crept up his spine to the back of his head.
Below the stage, there was a silence as deep as death.
Everyone who witnessed the strange old man’s abrupt appearance behind Zhao Rong was shocked in their gaze.
It wasn’t because they didn’t recognize the strange old man; on the contrary, they were very familiar with him, as was anyone who passed by Zhongnan Mountain.
Whether from the nursery rhys of village children, from the idle chit-chat of Luojing’s citizens after als, from the rumors spreading down the mountain, or from a hurried glance at the cliffside stone carvings on a moonlit night…
“How could this being appear here?” Lin Qingxuan exclaid in shock, “And during the day no less!”
Lin Wenruo did not speak beside him, because he too was at a loss as to why this being, who had never appeared in daylight for a thousand years and had never left the cliffs, had suddenly shown up.
His gaze was filled with concern as he looked at Zhao Rong on the stage.
“Ancestral Master.”
The Nanshan-clad elder knelt and kowtowed, his voice deep and filled with utmost respect.
The strange old man continued to gaze at Zhao Rong with lifeless eyes, his serene face unchanging, as if deaf to everything around him.
Whoosh.
But Zhao Rong slightly relaxed upon hearing this; so long as it wasn’t so inexplicable dirty thing, that was good. Wait, Ancestral Master?
The ease Zhao Rong had just found was quickly suspended once again.
“What is non-action, and what is the purpose of non-action?”
The strange old man suddenly spoke, his tone questioning, as if asking soone else, but also as if questioning himself.
“What?” Zhao Rong was montarily stunned.
The strange old man did not repeat himself but instead turned away and began to walk off.
Tao Yuanran rose and followed.
A flash of spiritual light in Zhao Rong’s mind, and he rembered the story of the moonlit-night old man on the cliffside stone carvings that Liu Sanbian had told him when he first entered Zhongnan Mountain – the “Question of Non-Action”.
The young Confucian Scholar suddenly looked up, as if possessed by demons, and said, “What is the purpose of non-action? The substance and the function share one source; non-action without inaction.”
Indeed, this was the very argunt he had just demonstrated in his clear and reasoned debate.
The strange old man halted abruptly, still facing away from Zhao Rong, his voice questioning yet again, but this ti, asking only half a question.
“What is non-action?”
After a mont of silence, Zhao Rong, thinking of the various events that had occurred in Zhongnan Country over all this ti, focused his gaze and spoke earnestly:
“Non-action does not imply beckoning without arrival, pushing without departure, coercion without response, feeling without movent, rigid stagnancy without flow, clutching without dispersal.”
“It ans one’s private desires do not intrude upon the public way, one’s cravings do not warp the proper art, one acts according to the principles, establishes rit using his resources, achieves things without self-aggrandizent, and establishes repute without claiming fa.”
Upon hearing this, the strange old man fell silent.
For a mont, no one on the scene spoke, all quietly observing this spectacle that had not occurred for a millennium.
“…achieves things without self-aggrandizent, establishes repute without claiming fa.” A tall Confucian Scholar silently recited in his heart, his eyes twinkling.
He seed to understand sothing, which was also the earnest admonition given to him by that close friend.
The true Daoist “non-action,” in the eyes of this close friend, was not to do nothing, neglecting everything, like Zhongnan Country under the control of Chongxu Temple before that day, where cultivators and hermits reveled in the landscapes, crediting it to “non-action.”
Nor was it like the harsh new laws he had been enforcing, leaving no room for leniency, and employing cruel thods.
Rather, it was to act without personal bias, have desires without deviating from righteousness, conduct affairs according to principles, establish rits through capabilities, accomplish tasks without harming oneself, and gain achievents without seeking accolades.
In short, “non-action” was simply to not act against the natural law of the Great Dao, so as to be able to “do without inaction,” aning all actions conform to the natural way of the Great Dao.
The tall Confucian Scholar heaved a long sigh.
No one knew how much ti had passed; it could have been a mont or an eternity.
The strange old man who cast no shadow in the sunlight, nodded his head ever so slightly.
“Good.”
That was the ninth word the strange old man had uttered in thousands of years, apart from the “Question of Non-Action.”
Zhao Rong pursed his lips.
In his ears ca the sounds of astonishnt from all around.
In front of him, he saw the strange old man’s hands, previously folded within his sleeves, suddenly part, extending a brittle, jade-like right hand into the air beside him and gently grasping in a particular direction.
There seed to be an earthquake shaking the distance.
The stage trembled ever so lightly.
Sounds of splitting rocks followed shortly after.
The next mont, two streaks of purple energy appeared in the sky, coming from the south.
Like teor tails, they “crashed into” the Scripture Platform.
The strange old man brought his hands back together, turned around, and started walking away, but his body suddenly lted from top to bottom into glistening points of light, and after three steps, the air was left with only a cluster of starlight.
Tao Yuanran raised his hand, catching the fragnted projection of this ancestor of the Tao Family, who was the inaugural Vice Sect Leader of the Luoguan Daoist sect, turned his head to glance at Zhao Rong, and walked away into the void, heading north.
Zhao Rong was left alone on the high stage.
Oh, right, and the two streams of purple energy beside him.
Which seed almost alive.
————
PS: The next two updates will be a bit late… better not wait.
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