Chapter 506: Saintly Teacher (Year of the Dog, Great Fortune!)
In the Wenyuan Hall, Qin Mu looked around. This Wenyuan Hall of the young patriarch seemed somewhat shabbier than the grand halls of the other sect leaders. He supposed it was because the patriarch had never served as a sect leader, placing him a rank lower in status.
However, in Qin Mu’s view, it was precisely because the young patriarch had never been the Saintly Teacher of the Heavenly Demon Sect that he could set aside burdens and achieve what even those sect leaders had never accomplished.
The young patriarch was half-teacher, half-friend to the Yan’king Imperial Preceptor. When the Imperial Preceptor visited him, he voluntarily let the Preceptor view the Great Nurturing Heavenly Demon Sutra, told him the general principles of the Heavenly Saint Sect’s doctrine of the sage’s path, and then personally wrote letters recommending the Imperial Preceptor to the Dao Sect and the Great Thunderclap Monastery.
The Imperial Preceptor’s great achievements were deeply connected to him.
Later, the Imperial Preceptor’s reforms and changes were also closely tied to him, and even the founding of the Grand Academy had a deep connection with the young patriarch.
He became the first Grand Sacrificial Scholar of the Grand Academy. Whenever the Imperial Preceptor reformed and changed laws, he often sought his advice.
The Yan’king had three major reformist giants: the Imperial Preceptor and the Emperor were the visible ones, while the young patriarch was the third giant hidden behind them.
In terms of merit alone, throughout the entire history of the Saint Sect, at most two or three sect leaders could match the young patriarch’s achievements.
Yet because he had never been a sect leader, he did not receive the treatment of a sect leader in Fengdu, which Qin Mu found quite unfair.
“You still can’t change this flamboyant nature of yours.”
The young patriarch led him into the hall. Beside them, the Dragon Qilin, all big bones and hard scales, kept rubbing against him, tearing the young patriarch’s clothes and chafing his thigh red.
Pretending not to notice, he said to Qin Mu, “What’s to be done now? You’ve almost beaten every single past sect leader! Do you think they’re easy to deal with? They’re the tyrants of Fengdu! After you die of old age, how will you survive here…”
“Patriarch…”
Qin Mu suddenly hugged him tightly, his voice trembling slightly, and didn’t let go for a long time. “I missed you.”
The big skeleton wanted to wipe tears but had none to wipe. He choked up, “I didn’t know you had blocked the gods of the Upper Firmament in the Great Ruins. I only heard later from Yunxiang. The Dharma Protector Elder brought your ashes, but I couldn’t make it in time to see you one last time. Now I’ve come to see you! I’ve been hiding it from Fatty Long, not daring to tell him, but I can’t hide it anymore…”
The young patriarch was stunned for a moment, then patted his back and said with emotion, “I’ve just changed my way of living. Look, I have flesh and blood now. In my eyes, you’re the ones who are dead. Shouldn’t I be the one crying? Alright, alright. Sect Leader Qin just roared at the ancestors and beat them up—why are you acting like a child now? … Enough, Dragon Qilin, you’ve rubbed my thigh raw! Haven’t you had enough?”
The Dragon Qilin wanted to stick out his tongue to lick the wound, then remembered he had no tongue, so he reluctantly moved a little farther away. After a moment, he couldn’t help but come back and rub against him again.
The young patriarch was completely speechless. He hadn’t seen the Dragon Qilin for a long time, and they had been affectionate and even cried together at first. But this fat dragon kept clinging to him and rubbing, annoying him so much that he wished he could banish the fellow far away.
“I also planned to visit the Woodcutter Sage who transmitted the scriptures on the stone, the Founding Patriarch, and the Three Saint Kings.”
Qin Mu asked, “Patriarch, are they also in Fengdu?”
“You won’t be able to see the Three Saint Kings. Their souls have scattered.”
The young patriarch looked somber. “They died in battle. Before dying, they forcibly passed on the scripture transmission from the stone to the next sect leader, unable to preserve their own souls, so they couldn’t enter Fengdu. I originally thought I might meet the Founding Patriarch here, but I haven’t seen him, and the Woodcutter Sage isn’t here either.”
Qin Mu was stunned. Besides Fengdu, where else could the Woodcutter Sage and the Founding Patriarch go?
The Woodcutter’s physical body had turned to stone, standing in Little Jade Capital, still gazing toward the Great Ruins. His primordial spirit had left his body and gone elsewhere. The Founding Patriarch had established the sect and its teachings but had not achieved merit or become a sage. He likely hadn’t become a god either, so he must have died of old age. Where had he gone?
The young patriarch hesitated for a moment, then said, “You beat up the past sect leaders…”
“Patriarch, I’m also a sect leader. They’re sect leaders too. Why should I be beneath them? I’m also a Human Sovereign, which puts me above them in status. I can’t humble myself and grovel to please them.”
Qin Mu said, “The Saint Sect has never had a hierarchy of seniority. Those who achieve mastery are the teachers. Although they are former sect leaders, sect leaders also have their pride. If I hadn’t beaten them, they would have said my position as sect leader was illegitimate. After the beating, they have nothing to say. Besides, the Saint Sect achieved nothing under their leadership, and their conduct was corrupt. They deserved to be beaten.”
The young patriarch sighed, curious. “Without a physical body, how did you use your magical power?”
Qin Mu said, “I once came to the Realm of the Dead with the Village Chief. That time, I realized that my turning into a skeleton was just an illusion. My becoming a skeleton was a false appearance, my physical body disappearing was a false appearance, and you coming back to life was also a false appearance (see chapters 86 to 89 of the Demon God’s Chronicle for details; the previous chapter didn’t include this because it was already four thousand words long, and writing more would make it even longer). Blind Grandpa’s divine eye allowed me to see through all of this in Fengdu. From then on, I could use magical power and divine abilities here, and I could sense my own physical body. Patriarch, you don’t know, in my eyes…”
A surge of endless sorrow welled up in his heart, and he didn’t finish.
In his divine eye, the patriarch standing before him, looking so alive, was nothing but a pile of dry bones.
When he walked through Fengdu City, what he saw was no different.
The entire city of Fengdu, with its bustling crowds coming and going, were all dry bones and ghosts. Only he walked through the city of bones with his flesh and blood, alone and solitary.
Even when he chatted and laughed with the past Human Sovereigns in the Five Yang Divine Hall, he was talking to dozens of skeletons.
Only in the space between life and death did he see the past Human Sovereigns gain flesh and blood.
This was the scene Qin Mu saw with the divine eye Blind Grandpa had taught him.
What he saw was completely different from what the ghosts of Fengdu saw.
In the Realm of the Dead, life and death were reversed, but the patriarch, the past Human Sovereigns, and the past sect leaders—they were ultimately dead.
Qin Mu didn’t say this. He was silent for a moment, then laughed. “Patriarch, you, the Imperial Preceptor, and the Emperor reformed the laws. Now that you’ve come to Fengdu, how can the reform continue?”
The young patriarch walked side by side with him to avoid the Dragon Qilin coming over again, and laughed. “The path of reform has already begun and won’t end. The Imperial Preceptor’s reform changes customs and servility, changes the conflicts between sects and schools, so that cultivators no longer waste their strength on sectarian disputes. It also changes the narrow self-interest of sects and schools, making divine abilities serve the people. This is the grand concept, the grand framework.”
He came to the back garden of Wenyuan Hall, handed Qin Mu a pair of pruning shears, and took a pair for himself, carefully trimming the flower branches. “The most important part of reform is to change the bad habits in people’s hearts and tear down the idols in their minds. Breaking the gods in the heart isn’t something cultivators need to do; it’s something the common people need to do. If everyone can break the gods and Buddhas in their hearts, then this will be a prosperous age, a great age.”
Qin Mu trimmed the branches, cutting a flower bush until it looked like a plucked chicken-dragon. Hearing his words, he stopped and thought deeply, nodding with a smile. “If the common people kneel to gods and Buddhas, praying for good weather, abundant harvests, family harmony, and many descendants, and if cultivators can fulfill their wishes, it will indeed help them break the gods in their hearts.”
The young patriarch stared at the messily pruned flowers, then looked away after a moment. “I told the Imperial Preceptor that to break the gods in the heart, we must first reform the economy. The term ‘economy’ means governing the world and benefiting the people. When the economy opens, the people’s wisdom opens. Simply put, cultivators use their divine abilities to help farmers harvest rice, the farmers pay the cultivators, and the cultivators use the money to buy food and materials for cultivation. This money returns to the people. They all pay taxes to the state, so the treasury is full, and the state is wealthy. A wealthy state can build irrigation and transportation, benefiting the people. Thus, the state is wealthy, the people are wealthy, and with wealth, resources are abundant. Cultivators can buy various resources, and their cultivation far surpasses the past. So the people become strong, and the state becomes strong.”
Qin Mu listened intently. Suddenly, he heard footsteps and turned to see Zuyang Sect Leader, Yulian Sect Leader, Si Yuanwei, and others storming into Wenyuan Hall with murderous intent.
But the past sect leaders of the Heavenly Demon Sect stopped and pricked up their ears to listen.
“The common people have been enslaved by sects and aristocratic families for too long. They’ve developed servility. Once they kneel, it’s hard to get up again. The Imperial Preceptor is now making them stand up. This takes time, but since the reform began, it has gradually shown results. Now, the common people no longer kneel to cultivators.”
The young patriarch was immersed in thoughts of reform and didn’t notice their arrival. Recalling the past, he said, “I’ve seen what it was like before the reform. Sects and schools stood everywhere. Farmers working in the fields had to kneel and kowtow, address the cultivators as ‘masters,’ and offer meat. The Imperial Preceptor and I spent one or two hundred years changing this servility. Once the people stand up, it’s hard to make them kneel again.”
Qin Mu recalled the scene of the stone statues rising from the ground and the people kneeling, and said, “They still kneel to idols.”
The young patriarch’s expression turned strange. “The Imperial Preceptor said it’s easy to break the gods in the temple, but hard to break the gods in the heart. But in my view, breaking the gods in the temple isn’t easy either. I once did a small experiment to test the people’s hearts. I built a small temple outside the capital, then awakened a mangy stray dog and had it sit on the altar in the temple. Guess what happened?”
He sighed. “After a few days, the stray dog temple was thriving. Old men and women came in droves to burn incense and make offerings, stuffing the merit box in front of the dog full of money. Forget a stray dog—put a toad on the altar, and people would still stuff money and burn incense!”
Qin Mu laughed heartily, but as he laughed, his laughter faded.
“So, opening the economy also requires opening the people’s wisdom to break the gods in the temple and the gods in the heart.”
The young patriarch said, “And opening the people’s wisdom requires you to continue the reform, to make more cultivators, to make divine abilities more widespread, and to let cultivators become gods. Cultivators who become gods continue to serve the people, so the people won’t worship temple gods. When the people’s wisdom opens, there will be even more cultivators.”
He continued, “Opening the economy and opening the people’s wisdom—this is the path of reform. What you’re doing now is very good: divine abilities serve the people. But it still takes time for the people’s wisdom to open, so they stop kneeling to temple gods. This path is difficult. First, it touches the interests of sects and schools, and then it touches the interests of the upper gods.”
“The Upper Firmament is just the lackey of the upper gods. Greater dangers likely lie ahead.”
As he trimmed the branches, he said, “The Imperial Preceptor’s reform added three new sword techniques, triggering a change in the heavenly and earthly Dao laws. You spread the method of becoming a god by repairing the Divine Bridge, pushing the reform forward another step. Little Yunxiang recently burned incense and prayed to me, telling me that you and Princess Yuxiu developed the method of the Six Harmonies Primordial Spirit. Many cultivators in the Yan’king have built on this foundation, adding bricks and tiles to the Six Harmonies Primordial Spirit, creating many new techniques and divine abilities. These are all great things.”
He straightened his back. “Dao techniques and divine abilities are advancing daily. There will be more and more gods in the Yan’king. Then, the temple gods of the common people will be broken. Once the temple gods are broken, breaking the gods in the heart won’t be far off!”
Qin Mu’s heart trembled. He dropped the pruning shears and bowed deeply. “Patriarch, you are truly the Saintly Teacher of our Heavenly Saint Sect!”
The young patriarch quickly dropped his shears and helped him up, laughing. “You are the sect leader and Saintly Teacher. How can you call me Saintly Teacher? Get up quickly!”
At that moment, Zuyang, Yulian, and the other past sect leaders all bowed deeply to him, saying in unison, “Saintly Teacher!”
Only then did the young patriarch notice them, and he was at a loss.
Qin Mu said with utmost sincerity, “A Saintly Teacher is a teacher of sages. The past sect leaders are unworthy of the title of Saintly Teacher. Only you, Patriarch, deserve this title, and you are worthy of the bow from all past sect leaders!”
The young patriarch’s heart was flustered, but then a surge of emotion welled up from the depths of his soul, and tears streamed down his face.
He had never been a sect leader, always excluded from the power circle of the Heavenly Saint Sect. Only in times of crisis for the sect did he shoulder its burdens.
He had never imagined that he would be like the Woodcutter Sage, receiving a bow from all the past sect leaders!
Only the Woodcutter Sage, who transmitted the scriptures on the stone, was worthy of a bow from all the past sect leaders.
——New Year has arrived, fortune has come! Wishing everyone a great Year of the Dog! On the first day of the new year, may I ask for monthly votes?