Chapter 22: A Simple Task
To bestow kindness without expecting repayment, to be unwilling to let the world know, to willingly bear all guilt, even if it means eternal damnation—that is a saint.
Chen Changsheng was the Pope, and the Pope was naturally a saint. The problem was, he didn’t want to be a saint; he only wanted to be a good person.
But a good person must have good rewards.
Chen Changsheng was fixated on this because he had seen too many counterexamples.
Heavenly Sea Saint Empress and Shang Xingzhou could be called ambitious schemers or conspirators; in short, they could not be described as good people.
The Pope’s junior uncle was a good person, so he lived the most bitterly, and no matter the outcome of that war, he was destined to die.
Bie Yanghong also died, and Wang Po nearly died several times. Good people indeed found it hard to live long.
No wonder Su Li was unwilling to be a good person.
Chen Changsheng said, “I watched Bie Yanghong die with my own eyes.”
Mao Qiuyu felt a pang of emotion.
Chen Changsheng continued, “I want to be a good person and still have good rewards. It’s very difficult for me to achieve this alone; I need help.”
Many people were helping him, such as Tang Thirty-Six, Su Moyu, Luoluo, and Xu Yourong.
Just now, at the same window, Xu Yourong had spoken with Mao Qiuyu for a long time, persuading him not to do anything.
But in Chen Changsheng’s view, this was not enough.
He looked at Mao Qiuyu seriously and said, “I need your help.”
Unlike Xu Yourong, his request was very simple, and his reasoning was also very simple.
He asked Mao Qiuyu to help ensure that good people in the world all received good rewards.
In the ups and downs of the world, whether someone was guilty was hard to judge, and was the standard for good and evil really this simple?
Mao Qiuyu looked into his eyes and asked in a deep tone, “If I disagree with your view, what would you do?”
“I don’t know.”
Chen Changsheng thought seriously and said with some embarrassment, “I really don’t know.”
This was not a simple repetition or an emphasis; it was that he truly couldn’t figure out what he should do in that case.
Mao Qiuyu gazed quietly into his eyes and suddenly said, “Alright.”
This was a very simple answer.
Chen Changsheng was stunned for a moment, then smiled happily.
Mao Qiuyu also smiled.
After not seeing him for several years, the Pope was still that simple youth from before.
…
…
Back then, at the Mausoleum of Books, after Chen Changsheng and Xu Yourong encountered the stele attendant named Ji Jin, they had a conversation.
She said he was a good person, and he said she was a good person.
This was not them trying to keep their distance, but a sincere evaluation of each other.
But that was not the spiritual goal Xu Yourong pursued.
Good and evil, right and wrong, had nothing to do with the Great Path.
If she hadn’t met Chen Changsheng, she might have been more indifferent to this world, looking down on it from above.
Just like Heavenly Sea Saint Empress.
Of course, even after meeting Chen Changsheng, she did not consider herself a good person in the ordinary sense. For instance, in this matter, Chen Changsheng was merely moved by Xun Mei’s story and acted purely out of goodwill, while she still wanted to gain some benefit from it.
The woods in the Mausoleum of Books were covered with a thin layer of frost and snow, looking like a forest of jade.
The black Zhaoging Stele also had some snowflakes clinging to it, making it look more like a rubbing, with a charm different from usual.
Xu Yourong’s gaze left the Zhaoging Stele and fell on the other person. She said calmly, “Back then, Chen Changsheng and I promised you that we would let you leave the Mausoleum of Books. Now is the time for us to fulfill that promise. What do you think?”
The stele attendant named Ji Jin had snow on his shoulders, clearly having waited here for a long time.
Hearing Xu Yourong’s words, Ji Jin was very excited, but fear appeared in his eyes. “Is it really possible?”
The Mausoleum of Books was the most sacred place on the continent, and its rules were naturally the strictest.
Cultivators had to swear a blood oath to never leave the Mausoleum of Books for life in order to become stele attendants and enjoy the privilege of constantly viewing the steles.
For thousands of years, only Su Li had forcibly taken two stele attendants out of the Mausoleum of Books; there had never been a case of a stele attendant leaving alive.
Xu Yourong said calmly, “I am the Holy Maiden, and Chen Changsheng is the Pope. What we say is the rule.”
Ji Jin said uneasily, “But what about the Great Zhou court?”
Xu Yourong said, “Last night, the Great Zhou Emperor issued a sacred decree.”
Only then did Ji Jin believe that he could really leave.
His body trembled, and he knelt in the snow, kowtowing to Xu Yourong.
The self-imposed isolation of many years ago, the subsequent imprisonment, and the regret that gnawed at his Dao heart day and night all turned into ecstasy at this moment.
But then came melancholy and unease.
He had lived in the Mausoleum of Books for so many years; could he really leave? Was he just going to leave like this?
Xu Yourong didn’t give him much time to be sentimental. She said, “Other stele attendants who want to leave can also go.”
Ji Jin came to his senses and said, “Thank you for the Holy Maiden and the Pope’s grace. I’ll go inform them right away.”
Xu Yourong took a letter from her sleeve and handed it to him, saying, “Help me deliver this letter.”
Ji Jin was from the southern Huaiyuan Academy. After leaving the Mausoleum of Books, he would naturally return there.
This letter was for a certain important figure in the Huaiyuan Academy.
Xu Yourong left the Zhaoging Stele Pavilion and arrived at the wide, straight avenue at the foot of the mausoleum.
The Grand Examination had been suspended for two years, and there were even fewer cultivators at the Mausoleum of Books than in previous years, making it very desolate.
She went to Xun Mei’s former residence and found that no one had lived there in recent years, but it was kept very clean.
The youth who had made cured meat rice here back then and the youths who had eaten it had long since not returned.
Then, with her hands behind her back, she walked southward, looking around.
Just like earlier in the detached palace, she really resembled an old minister returning to his hometown and casually browsing the market.
The Mausoleum of Books, a sacred place for cultivators of the world, was just scenery worth seeing to her.
Soon, she passed through the bluestone ground covered with canals and arrived at the southernmost part of the Mausoleum of Books.
The wind and snow stirred slightly, and a black-clad young girl appeared beside her.
“You made me run all over the place. I thought you had everything arranged, but I didn’t expect you to forget the most important one.”
Little Black Dragon looked at her mockingly and said, “Having that guy deliver a letter—when will it ever arrive? Let me go instead.”
Xu Yourong said, “The handwritten letter and Ji Jin are both expressions of the sincerity I want to convey.”
Little Black Dragon asked with some confusion, “What do you plan to have Wang Po do?”
Xu Yourong did not answer this question. She just quietly looked at the sacred path before her.
The sacred path made of white stone was still there, looking even more pure and sacred in the wind and snow.
That pavilion was no longer there, and the old divine general who had sat there for six hundred years had died at Xue Lao City.
At the top of the sacred path stood a Mausoleum of Books stele.
Chen Changsheng had told her that there was not a single word on that stele.
Niangniang had died there.
She was the Southern Holy Maiden and had the right to walk to the top of the sacred path.
But she didn’t.
She only wanted to walk up there with her own ability.
Just like Xun Mei, whom Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi and others never forgot.
Back then, Xun Mei hadn’t ascended because Han Qing was guarding that place.
If she wanted to walk up there, who would block her way?