Chapter 99: The Way of the Sage
Qin Mu walked over, his bearing heroic and spirited. As the saying goes, fine clothes make the man, just as gilt makes the statue. This set of garments fit him perfectly, far more striking than his old beast-hide clothes by an immeasurable margin.
Branch Master Qu smiled and said, "Young master, your craftsmanship is superb. Even I am tempted to keep you here in the cloth shop as a tailor."
Qin Mu chuckled. "This is Grandmother's skill. I'm just learning and selling it on the spot."
Branch Master Qu laughed. "Young master, although this fabric is impervious to blades and spears, it cannot defend against needle-and-thread type spirit weapons. Please be mindful."
Qin Mu nodded, thanking him for his kindness.
Branch Master Qu clapped his hands, summoned a young attendant, and whispered a few instructions. The attendant fetched a money pouch and handed it to Qin Mu. Branch Master Qu smiled. "Young master, this pouch doesn't hold much, but it is a small token of my sincerity."
Qin Mu only grabbed a handful from the pouch, about a hundred coins, and smiled. "I have already obtained your shop's treasured heirloom, and that is more than enough. Take the rest back."
Branch Master Qu acknowledged this, saying, "As the saying goes, rouge and powder go to beauties, while treasured swords go to heroes. This Dragon Fang Shears has been enshrined with me all this while, rarely used. Young master, your tailoring is excellent—why not keep it?"
Qin Mu quickly declined, and Branch Master Qu had to let the matter rest.
Feng Xiuyun escorted Qin Mu back to the inn and also took her leave. "Young master, tomorrow the dock gates will open, and the merchant caravan will leave Mishui Pass. Remember to follow the caravan. These days have indeed been very unsettled."
Qin Mu expressed his thanks.
When night fell, Fox Ling'er lit an oil lamp. By the candlelight, Qin Mu raised his palm. A thread on the glove poked its head out like a spirit serpent, then gradually thickened. Before long, he could make out the text of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture and began to study it carefully.
The Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture was a classic capable of leading one to become a god or a demon. When Qin Mu left home, Grandmother Si had given him this scripture but had not taught him how to cultivate it. Instead, she told him to comprehend it on his own.
"Grandmother said that the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture was originally brought down to the mortal world by a sage from heaven, intending to use this technique to enlighten all beings. Unfortunately, this technique is far too easy to cultivate incorrectly, so it was called the Heavenly Demon Scripture."
Qin Mu carefully examined the general outline of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture. The opening words of this demonic canon were thunderous and eye-opening.
"The Way of the sage is no different from the daily needs of the common people. Anything that differs from this is heresy! To act according to one's nature, purely following what is natural—this is called the Way."①
Qin Mu was startled. The meaning of these words was that any principle that cannot be used by the common people—whether it be the way of gods, the way of demons, or the way of Buddhas—is heresy!
As long as it can serve the daily needs of the common people, it is the righteous path.
What is the righteous path? To act according to one's nature, letting things take their natural course.
For the opening to be so fierce, no wonder it was called a demonic canon!
However, these words also laid the foundation for the Heavenly Demon Sect. The sect had three hundred and sixty halls, each hall master coming from one of the three hundred and sixty trades of the secular world—all daily necessities of the common people, things seen every day. The divine abilities used by these three hundred and sixty halls were also everyday tools. For example, the Rain Hall master would perform rituals to bring rain, solving droughts for the people.
This was the art of the common folk, while the way of gods and Buddhas was the highbrow art of the elite.
Qin Mu felt that what the general outline of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture said was not without reason, but it was indeed easy to misunderstand.
The Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture contained a vast array of techniques—various extraordinary skills and divine abilities, thoughts that no one had ever imagined, bizarre and countless. Qin Mu was dazzled and dumbfounded.
However, as Qin Mu pulled the glove into a single thread and read from beginning to end, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper. This Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture actually had no single technique that could run through the entire work!
Techniques and methods are divided into "skill" and "method." For example, Qin Mu's Overlord Body Three Dantian Skill was a skill—an internal driving force. The methods were things like the Butcher Knife Technique, the Heaven-Stealing Leg Technique, the Thunderclap Eight Forms, and so on. Methods were the ways to bring out the power of the skill.
For a method to unleash its full power, it needed a corresponding skill.
For instance, the Thunderclap Eight Forms required the Tathagata Great Vehicle Sutra to fully realize its might.
Although the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture had many skills and methods, there was no single skill that could govern all the methods. This was utterly unworthy of the title of a demonic canon capable of making one a god or demon!
"The Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture is incomplete!"
Qin Mu immediately realized the key issue. Although the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture encompassed everything, it lacked a unified skill. There were too many techniques and divine abilities, each one quite good and powerful in its own right, but cultivating each one would consume a tremendous amount of energy, making it impossible to fully master the entire scripture.
In the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture, there were as many as a thousand types of skills and methods, and almost every method corresponded to a specific skill. No single skill could govern and control all the methods!
There was only one possible reason for this: the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture was incomplete.
"But the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture cannot be incomplete. This technique is treasured by the Heavenly Demon Sect as their foundational teaching. There must be a single skill that can unify all these techniques and divine abilities. Otherwise, the Heavenly Demon Sect wouldn't have painstakingly pursued Grandmother for forty years..."
Qin Mu's heart stirred. He read the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture from beginning to end again, but still found no clue. Then he checked it from back to front, but still discovered nothing.
"Where is the secret of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture? Perhaps Grandmother Si hasn't found the overarching skill of the scripture either."
Qin Mu sank into thought. Among the nine elders of the Crippled Village, Grandmother Si had the lowest cultivation level. It was likely that she, too, had failed to unify the all-encompassing techniques of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture.
She had probably only chosen to cultivate a few of the techniques, to avoid wasting her time and energy on too many.
For a person to learn all thousand-plus skills and methods in the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture within their lifetime and master them all was nearly impossible.
"Could it be in the jade box sealed by the successive patriarchs?"
Qin Mu rummaged through his bundle and found the jade box. This box had also been stuffed in by Grandmother Si. Qin Mu tried to open it, but it was covered with many talisman seals. When Grandmother Si caused havoc in Xianglong City, she had said that these talismans were the seals of successive sect masters of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
Qin Mu pinched one talisman and gently peeled it off. To his surprise, it came off easily.
Qin Mu was stunned. He turned the talisman over and saw a few words written on the back: "Fake, hehe."
"Grandmother really knows how to have fun..."
Qin Mu shook his head, peeled off the other talismans, and opened the box. Inside, there was nothing.
"Without a unified skill, who could ever cultivate the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture?"
His head ached. He pondered for a moment and thought to himself, "My skill is the Overlord Body Three Dantian Skill. Since I already have a skill, why do I need to search for the unifying method of the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture? Can't I just use the Overlord Body Three Dantian Skill to govern everything?"
He decided to act on this idea. He spread out the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Scripture and found a spell called the Rain Summoning Art. Before long, he had learned it.
He pushed open the window and looked out at the darkness. He hesitated for a moment, then suddenly realized: "This is no longer the territory of the Great Ruins. The darkness outside is ordinary darkness. There are still pedestrians on the street. There's no need to be afraid anymore."
Qin Mu relaxed. He leaped out of the window, reached up to grab the eaves, exerted a little force, and flipped onto the inn's roof.
A breeze blew through the window lattice. The white fox flew out on her cushion, carried by the demon wind. The cushion drifted up to the roof and landed beside Qin Mu.
"What is that in the sky?" The fox suddenly cried out, pointing at the moon in the sky, both startled and afraid.
"That's the moon."
Qin Mu looked up, his gaze distant. "It should be the moon, right? I saw the moon during the day. It looked somewhat like this..."
He wasn't entirely sure. When he was little, Grandmother Si had pointed to a pale silver sphere in the daytime sky and told him it was the moon, which would be very bright at night. But from childhood to adulthood, Qin Mu had never seen the moon at night.
The nights in the Great Ruins were utterly dark. You couldn't see anything in the sky. Likewise, there were no stars in the Great Ruins at night.
The bright moon was pure and clear. It was the sixteenth day of the fifth lunar month, and the moon was perfectly round.
Under the moonlight, Qin Mu activated the Rain Summoning Art. Above the inn, clouds gathered and steamed, and then a light drizzle began to fall.
Qin Mu waved his hand, and all the rain stopped instantly. Each raindrop hung suspended in the air, as if time had frozen.
Fox Ling'er marveled, jumped up, and touched these raindrops, getting her fur all wet. She quickly returned to the inn and used a spell to blow-dry her fur.
On the roof, Qin Mu changed his hand gestures, channeling his primal energy to drive the Rain Summoning Art. He plucked at the raindrops, and each one emitted a pleasant musical note like a string instrument. As the melody sounded, the raindrops transformed into razor-sharp water blades that shot into the sky!
These water blades flew several dozen zhang before their momentum waned and they turned back into flowing water!
This was a gathering place for merchants. Since it was mostly businessmen here, no one bothered him as he practiced his spells.
"Still not good enough. Not smooth enough."
Qin Mu moved his feet, continuously plucking at the raindrops. In the rain, hundreds of blades clashed and collided, filled with killing intent. Fox Ling'er floated out of the inn's window again, clapping her furry paws and cheering!
The Rain Summoning Art had its own corresponding skill. When Qin Mu used the Overlord Body Three Dantian Skill to drive it, he always felt it was difficult to fully unleash the power of the Rain Summoning Art.
His spell's power was already quite impressive, but this was due to his exceptionally strong cultivation base. If he used a more suitable method, the power of this spell would surely be even greater!
Note①: This passage originates from the Confucian School of Mind, proposed by Wang Gen and Yan Jun, developed from Wang Yangming's philosophy. These two were great Confucian scholars of the Ming Dynasty.