Chapter 1111: Slanting Sun Sets Over the Mountains, Myriad Purples and Greens

Chapter 1111: Slanting Sun Sets Over the Mountains, Myriad Purples and Greens

At high noon, the sun hung at the center of the sky.

Chen Ping'an placed his bamboo pole on the ground, stood up, and with a flick of his toe, lifted his wine flask. He took a sip of the liquor. "Let's walk and talk."

Lu Chen temporarily lodged in the old man's inn for wayfarers, strolling alongside Chen Ping'an by this creek.
To onlookers, there was nothing strange about it. Bai Bo, the mining officer of Caijade Mountain, had always been on good terms with the outer sect receptionist Chen Jiu.

Chen Ping'an said, "It's merely an illusory image conjured from thin air. Why would Headmaster Lu go to such trouble, even violating the Confucian Temple's rites to sneak into Haoran Heaven? Unless..."

Lu Chen smiled and picked up the thread, "Unless this poor priest originally had one of his heart-minds roaming freely, never having taken it back, long drifting through Haoran. Since this poor priest did not rush over from White Jade Capital, it doesn't count as violating the temple's rules."

Chen Ping'an shook his head. "Unless Headmaster Lu intends to immediately ascend to the fifteenth realm, filling the vacancy left after Master's dissolution of the Dao and before Senior Brother Scroll returned to White Jade Capital, so as to deter the fourteen provinces of Qingming. Since both Haoran and the Wildlands can be regarded as crossing vessels on the void, Qingming should be no different. As an old saying goes, 'If you do not cultivate virtue, all aboard become enemies.' As for whether invincibility is truly invincible, I imagine Headmaster Lu, as an observer, has his own answer. But after deducing, Headmaster Lu found that the chance of successfully breaking through had inexplicably diminished. Sensing something amiss, you thought of me, and didn't hesitate to suppress your realm and use secret techniques to hoodwink the heavens. How long can Headmaster Lu stay here? A quarter of an hour? Or the time it takes to burn a stick of incense?"

"Chen Ping'an, you are not that hard to figure out. You split your mind, risked action, trying to make a mental world infinitely approach the truth, approaching the Dao through technique, only to have an outsider see through your avatar. Ordinary cultivators would hesitate, seek a compromise. But not you. You have only two choices: one is to wait and see, betting it's a false alarm; the other is to decisively shatter a grain of heart-mind, not hesitating to damage your foundational Dao, thus forging a blood feud with the other party. Then, while notifying the Confucian Temple sages guarding the heavenly curtain to watch the barrier, you summon Young Master Mo and Miss Xie to block the road. Chen Ping'an, after all these years, it seems you still haven't completely changed this either-or way of thinking and reasoning."

The two "Dao friends," with quite complicated relations, met again in a foreign land, but here they spoke past each other, like a chicken talking to a duck.

"What's the difference between thinking and reasoning?"

"Thinking can be boundless and measureless, but reasoning has its threads, veins, and paths."

Chen Ping'an nodded. "Does this count as a distinction in mind-heart? For example, on the same road, sensibility and rationality gradually branched off?"

Lu Chen chuckled. "Heavenly learning cultivates the heart; human learning cultivates the body. When the body is at ease and the heart is joyful, that is the heavenly human. Perhaps this is too general. Let this poor priest give a simple example. Later generations' spirit tablets—found in ancestral halls on mountains, in clan temples below, and in a nation's supreme temple—are generally used to enshrine ancestors and forebears. They erect spirit tablets to serve the dead. On the tablet is written the name of the deceased, with small characters beside it inscribing the name of the sacrificer. Revere Heaven and emulate ancestors; cautiously observe the end and pursue the distant. Speaking thus, if you believe the mind-heart is truly distinct, which is the host and which is the guest?"

Chen Ping'an looked puzzled. "Can you compare it like that?"

"Of course."

Lu Chen said, "No!"

Chen Ping'an turned his head. If not for using Bai Bo's body, he really wanted to give Lu Chen a good beating.

Lu Chen said, "This poor priest just wanted to prove that you guessed wrong. There is no limit of a quarter-hour or an incense stick. This poor priest can stay in Haoran Heaven as long as he pleases. The Confucian Temple can't control me."

Chen Ping'an suddenly said, "Actually, I was wrong from the start. Human sensibility and rationality are not two diverging roads but one continuous lineage. Sensibility comes first, then rationality—no, rationality comes first, then sensibility. The distinction between heavenly principle and human desires? It's like your 'spirit tablet' of the enshrined and the sacrificer... Tracing back to the source, one can go to the ancestor of a surname, and further up... Is the body subject to the person, and the heart subject to Heaven?"

Lu Chen nodded vigorously like a chick pecking rice. "Ah, to think it could be explained this way. Isn't this just a blind cat catching a dead rat? Wonderful, wonderful."

Lu Chen first looked up at the sun, then looked around, flicking his sleeves. "Truly great words blaze like fire; the sound of teaching reaches the four seas. Heh, all-encompassing, nowhere to hide."

Chen Ping'an sighed, "Headmaster Lu is formidable indeed. You found my second avatar so quickly."

Lu Chen smiled slightly. "Since I have nothing better to do, I might as well guess riddles and solve puzzles."

With a "Heh," Lu Chen turned sideways, walking horizontally, looking at Chen Ping'an's profile. "The local receptionist Chen Jiu, the Yuxuan Kingdom Daoist Wu Di, plus the Bamboo Tower avatar in Fallen Mountain—that's already three grains of heart-mind. Add that 'spirit tablet' in the village school at the foot of Yunzhou Mountain, teaching children, rarely moving, unmoving like a mountain—that's like the North Pole in the sky, pulling in a straight line from afar. Could the remaining avatars follow a pattern of dividing into seven? Hmm, this poor priest finally understands. It's a Dharma-image Great Dipper Seven-Star Array! Did Chen Peak Master get his inspiration from the Golden Summit Temple in Tongye Continent? But in the end, it's all imitating this poor priest. Honored, honored, extremely honored. Since the human world determines east and west by the sun's rising and setting, and south and north by the Pole Star, it means your seven heart-mind avatars attached to talismans, besides the Dipper's mouth always pointing to the school's main body, must have limited movement ranges within Bottle Gourd Continent. As for the hiding places of the remaining three avatars, let this poor priest guess: Dayu Yuzhou, the area around Qingxing Kingdom south of the Great River, and the last one is a bit harder... Regardless, to protect the seven grains of heart-mind from being intercepted by cultivators and defeated one by one, Peak Master Chen has indeed put in considerable thought."

By forming such an array, Chen Ping'an's originally very risky act of splitting his mind became much safer. Through the array's guidance, it was like setting a life-extension lamp in the "ancestral hall" for each of the seven scattered grains of heart-mind.

Unless deliberately targeted by a prescient great cultivator, it would be difficult for even the earthly immortals of Bottle Gourd Continent to peel away or imprison an avatar's heart-mind. If it came to actual combat, the enemy cultivator, even if victorious, would only be surprised why this living qi refiner didn't even have a soul. By the time Chen Ping'an's grain of heart-mind retreated and dissipated, returning to the "ancestral hall," revealing the true nature of a talisman puppet, those cultivators would realize they had provoked someone they shouldn't have.

Chen Ping'an said, "Actually, there are two more hidden assistant stars, responsible for supporting from the side, to prevent an earthly immortal from easily smashing a certain talisman. One move affects the whole, and if it fails, I would have to immediately recall all talisman avatars."

Lu Chen sighed emotionally. "No wonder back then in Mud Vase Alley, you told this poor priest that you had a good memory and could remember things you saw."

Back then, the straw-sandaled youth of Mud Vase Alley would still respectfully call him "Daoist Lu." How nostalgic.

From Daoist Lu, to Lu Chen, to bastard, and now Headmaster Lu—how sorrowful.

Lu Chen now was glad he hadn't wasted this trip; it was absolutely not in vain. The current Chen Ping'an, having entered the mountain to cultivate, had reached the mountainside. Lu Chen's "mountainside" was different from that of ordinary qi refiners. It meant being able to see the scenery at the summit. This had no absolute connection to realm level. For example, many great cultivators at the ascension realm never found their opportunity for Dao harmony. In Lu Chen's eyes, they were still outsiders who hadn't reached the mountainside.

Now, with the superposition of his two flying swords' innate divine abilities, Chen Ping'an had found an extremely broad "sword path." Through methods including seeing with his own eyes, hearing with his own ears, hearsay, and imagination, he gathered together countless small thousand worlds. If before returning from the Sword Qi Great Wall to Haoran Heaven it was just a slightly immature concept, then by the time Chen Ping'an began using gold essence copper coins to refine a river of time, especially after returning from outside the heavens and upgrading the quality of the flying sword "Moon in the Well," Chen Ping'an's avatars—the seven "Chen Ping'ans"—everything they saw, heard, and thought in different parts of Bottle Gourd Continent was like a constant "sword refinement," using the real world as a dragon-slaying platform to sharpen the blade.

Such a method of practicing the sword even made Lu Chen feel his horizons were broadened.

For example, today at the receptionist Chen Jiu's wine party, the figures, appearances, eyebrows, eyes, voices, tones, temperaments, and expressions of Bai Ni, Xia Houzan, and Liang Yuping had all been "recorded" by receptionist Chen Jiu, silently integrated into the main body Chen Ping'an's sword technique world.

In short, all people and landscapes, on the path Chen Ping'an walked, were a single "word" or "phrase." Then this wine banquet at Scattered Flower Beach in Caijade Mountain formed a "sentence."

The more words that composed this sentence, the denser and more detailed its content, the closer it approached the "truth" opposed to the "illusion."

As Lu Chen had asked earlier: does time in the world truly exist? Is it composed of countless frozen moments forming a single "one"? Lu Chen's theory treated the entire world as a completely motionless book. When "that one," as Lu Chen identified, began to turn the pages, the people and scenes in the book would "consciously" and "passively" begin to flow. This theory of Lu Chen's, and Li Xisheng's idea, clearly came from the same source but diverged into different streams.

Suddenly forgetting a certain character, suddenly remembering a certain event, as if it had been experienced before...

How sorrowful it is to live in this world. The sorrow of the man of Qi who feared the sky would fall, the weeping at the end of the road—both moved Lu Chen's heart.

Another example: when Chen Ping'an was outside the heavens, returning to Haoran with Xiao Mo and Bai Jing, Bai Jing tossed him a stack of paper painted with ancient scenes. At that time, Chen Ping'an felt it was like a picture book, more like Pei Qian drawing some little figures in the corner of a page during class. Different poses, flipping quickly, it was a complete set of actions.

Hence, when Chen Ping'an, as the "author," later extracted this "sentence" alone and placed it into the river of time within the "Caged Sparrow," when others saw it in the future, they would feel it was more real.

If today's wine banquet was a short sentence, then Daoist Wu Di's residence in Yongning County, the capital of Yuxuan Kingdom, with the female ghost Xue Ruyi, the youth Zhang Hou, the flowers and plants in the courtyard, plus going out daily to drink with government clerks, chatting on the streets, setting up stalls for fortune-telling and face-reading... that was a "long sentence" stretching the river of time over several months.

And Lu Chen's "illusion" was the ancestor of all methods, like the first... spirit tablet.

But when Chen Ping'an chatted with Li Xisheng, and they talked about Zou Zi, Chen Ping'an had a thought: as an anchor for the river's course, it couldn't be Lu Chen.

This was a kind of self-deception based on an inertial "reasoning."

And this technique of first deceiving oneself, then deceiving others, and then deceiving Heaven was, of course, something Chen Ping'an learned from Cui Chan. Unfortunately, he didn't learn it all. Since Chen Ping'an was self-taught, groping on his own, it was like a mathematical problem: knowing the answer, then working backwards to deduce an extremely cumbersome solution process. At the same time, this superfluous self-deception, when Chen Ping'an had this thought, meant his heart-voice uttered Lu Chen's name. This allowed Lu Chen, who was also far away outside the heavens watching from the sidelines, to immediately sense something was wrong and also start working backwards... Another heart-stopping realization, not at all inferior to the earlier near-fatal ambush at the Sword Qi Great Wall. If Lu Chen hadn't left Qingming Heaven and hadn't come to join the fun, sealed off from the heavenly secrets by a great world, he might have missed this clue.

This time, Lu Chen's return to Haoran was not an illegal "stowaway." He had reported to Ritual Sage in advance.

He truly had a proper matter to attend to. Seeing Chen Ping'an was just a side trip.

"Let this poor priest calculate again. This year's Qingming Festival, the Dipper mouth of Peak Master Chen's Seven-Star Array points... to Yongjia Street in the capital of Yuxuan Kingdom?!"

Lu Chen kept walking sideways like a crab, following Chen Ping'an's pace, and asked, "Is a mere Ma Kuxuan worth your splitting your mind like this to 'seal his divine?'"

Lu Chen's "seal divine" was not a conferment of divinity, but a sealing and closure.

Chen Ping'an and Ma Kuxuan both knew in their hearts that there was an old debt. Someone was collecting, someone was repaying.

Maybe two, maybe three. If Ma Kuxuan insisted on obstructing, it could be three or four.

All would die.

Lu Chen turned around and kicked a stone on the path into the creek. "By rights, even if Ma Kuxuan's parents could become landscape deities, gaining the divine protection of a Western March Mountain Lord's manor on the continent, so what? Could that stop you from taking revenge?"

"Yes, yes, I see. That is indeed a bit tricky."

"That couple is actually aiming to join the ranks of City God, obtaining the talisman of an official document from the underworld. That diverges onto a different path from landscape deities. Heh, it's more than just a talisman; it's truly the most truly deserving of its name life-saving charm in the world."

"How strange. How did they manage it? With Ma Kuxuan's parents' mean-spirited character, even if they tried to accumulate Yin virtue through various good deeds, how could they enter that rank? The underworld has always had the iron rule that 'intentional good deeds, though good, are not rewarded.' Even if people in the yang world are well-versed in the Yin laws of the underworld and try to exploit loopholes to accumulate merit, this single threshold would be insurmountable for them. Aspiring to become a high-ranking City God is pure delusion."

Chen Ping'an finally spoke. "Ma Kuxuan is very clever. He had long planned to bypass them, secretly arranging people in Yuxuan Kingdom's capital, forcing his parents to do certain things without explaining the reasons, even forbidding them from asking why. He used extremely harsh words to warn and even intimidate his parents."

"Give a man a fish vs teach him to fish. Ma Kuxuan did the opposite. It may be slower, but it's effective."

Lu Chen smiled. "When did Ma Kuxuan probably start this scheme?"

Chen Ping'an said, "Not too late, but definitely not too early. Back then, the Ma clan of Apricot Flower Alley, along with that bunch of relatives, moved out of the small town, directly out of the Great Li dynasty at that time, to Yuxuan Kingdom in the western march region. At that time, Ma Kuxuan was arrogant and proud; he didn't even think I was qualified to be his enemy. The reason he made his parents leave their hometown was probably at most to worry that their fate would resemble Cai Jinjian's and Fu Nanhua's. After all, he had to cultivate at True Martial Mountain; he couldn't keep a constant eye on Pearl Ripple Cave Heaven."

"When I first left the Sword Qi Great Wall and returned to Bottle Gourd Continent, especially after leaving Book and Bamboo Lake, Ma Kuxuan probably became a bit alert. But it's more likely he did it deliberately to disgust me, to make me want revenge yet be unable to take it for a long time, even making me feel I could never take revenge in my lifetime, forcing me to live in hatred and guilt forever. It wasn't until I became the Hidden Officer of the Sword Qi Great Wall and news spread back to Haoran Heaven that Ma Kuxuan truly began to see me as a threat. I carefully studied the actions of the Ma clan in Yuxuan Kingdom, both openly and behind the scenes. It was in those few years that various branches of the clan began to act frequently, even trying to gain imperial honors through the imperial examinations, to glorify the family. Later, they tried to get someone or several people posthumous titles from the court and pursue posthumous honors for the family—all done step by step. The only unexpected thing was that Ma Kuxuan didn't think I would catch up to his realm so quickly."

Last time at Fallen Mountain's observation of Zhengyang Mountain, Ma Kuxuan had listened to the advice of Yu Shiwu from True Martial Mountain, who bluntly said that if he didn't act, he would have no chance.

Unfortunately, Chen Ping'an dismantled almost the entire Zhengyang Mountain, yet still didn't give Ma Kuxuan that opportunity.

Chen Ping'an smiled slightly. "When Ma Kuxuan's parents become City Gods of a region in Yuxuan Kingdom, I believe the first thing they'll do is clean up the evil-doing members of the Ma clan themselves, thus solidifying their golden body. In the capital city god temple, the Civil Judge Gao Sheng was transferred away from Yuxuan Kingdom's capital. The original chief of the Yin-Yang Department, Ji Xiaopin, was smoothly promoted to Civil Judge. The Yin-Yang Department and another department's posts became vacant. Those two then entered the capital for duty as regional city gods and were promoted to fill the vacancies based on merit."

Lu Chen laughed heartily. "Truly Ma Kuxuan. He really put a lot of thought into it."

City gods at various levels in a kingdom, unlike landscape deities, though the Five March Lords have the authority to govern both, the former's true superior is still the underworld. In short, the Five March Lords can directly decide the promotion, demotion, or even life and death of landscape deities within their territory, but they have no right to punish city gods of any level. They must transfer the case to the underworld for judgment according to the law. That is, the Great March Lord's manor has partial authority to determine guilt for city gods, but no executive power.

In the landscape bureaucracy, the city god temple is like the censorate of a national court—its status transcendent, its identity noble. It can monitor all officials, but the Ministry of Personnel cannot directly decide a censor's promotion or demotion.

Of course, Ma Kuxuan was able to accomplish this because Pearl Ripple Cave Heaven had its own heavenly cycle. In the old days, the life, death, sin, and fortune of the small town's people were not controlled by the underworld or other Yin courts.

Lu Chen asked, "Is there a way to break it?"

Chen Ping'an nodded. "Yes."

"The kind of rule-breaking method you sword cultivators sometimes use?"

"Just the opposite. Strictly follow the rules. Not even the Yuxuan Kingdom capital city god temple or the underworld can find any flaws. If they can't find flaws, they cannot use underworld laws to protect Ma Kuxuan's parents. In the end, they'll have to act impartially, favoring neither side. If not, it will just drag on endlessly—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth never ends. The grudges of the previous generation, let our generation settle thoroughly. Repay kindness with kindness, revenge with revenge. Don't leave it for the next generation."

Lu Chen laughed. "Ma Kuxuan schemed so painstakingly, only to lose everything. Won't he be furious?"

Chen Ping'an said, "His Dao heart is resilient. It won't kill him."

Lu Chen was speechless.

I was just joking with you. No need to be so serious.

Lu Chen switched to a more pleasant topic. "Chen Ping'an, you really became a receptionist after all."

Earlier, Lu Chen had once suggested to Chen Ping'an that he should try being a receptionist, welcoming and sending off guests. It would be very interesting.

Chen Ping'an smiled. "I follow good advice as readily as a stream flows."

Lu Chen sighed for no reason. "What the eyes see is the world. A person's memory is both precious and fragile."

The setting sun was about to disappear behind the mountains, with myriad purples and blues, changing endlessly in an instant, dreamlike and illusory.

Wait, wasn't it just high noon? How was the sun already setting?

Overplayed my hand, overplayed my hand. Lu Chen knew something was wrong and immediately closed his eyes, then opened them again.

He who often walks by the river is bound to get his shoes wet. How miserable.

You Chen Ping'an, you have no regard for old friendship! I was the matchmaker who tied the knot between you and Miss Ning!

By the river, Bai Bo was sitting beside an apricot tree, asking, "Caught any fish?"

Chen Ping'an, crouching and holding a fishing rod, smiled. "Not yet. But a big fish has taken the bait. Even if it's hooked, I might not be able to reel it ashore."

Bai Bo laughed. "You're at least a qi refiner. Can't you even pull up one fish?"

Chen Ping'an put on a straight face and nodded. "The fish has become a spirit."

Bai Bo chuckled. The brat sure knows how to tell jokes.

In a bizarre and extraordinary realm of wonders, Lu Chen stared at another Lu Chen, like looking into a mirror. Thus, in each other's eyes, there were countless Lu Chens.