Chapter 192: The Three of the Past (Part 1)
(I reviewed the chapters I wrote while traveling today. The earlier parts are fine, but the recent few chapters have indeed been somewhat lacking in quality. Let me report to everyone—around the time of the Guangzhou Comic Convention, my body really couldn’t hold up. Those readers who saw me then probably understand the situation. But now I’m home, feeling much better, so from now on, I’ll definitely have to be in top form. There will be two chapters tomorrow.)
What is fate? This term has countless interpretations: wealth and poverty, encounters, the course of life—those ethereal and unpredictable trajectories, elusive ups and downs, or the mysterious and unknowable will of heaven?
If fate were truly an unknowable and unchangeable existence, then such an existence would hold no meaning whatsoever. When the Heavenly Book descended and life on the continent began to cultivate, drawing power from the stars to transform nature, cultivators naturally refused to accept such a conclusion. They would contemplate what their fate truly was, face it with fearless spirit, and have the courage to make changes.
The first connection between every cultivator and the world occurred on that night when their destiny star was determined. Thus, humanity’s understanding of fate ultimately fell upon the vast sea of stars in the night sky.
Since ancient times, the stars in the night sky, whether in position or brightness, have remained constant, solemn and eternal, shining upon the mortal world. The lines connecting countless stars were naturally infinitely complex, impossible to fully depict, and the patterns formed by those lines were even more so.
Gazing up at the starry sky, people would see those patterns—beautiful enough to stir the heart, complex enough to stir the soul—and would naturally believe that those patterns concealed profound meanings.
Countless years ago, the sages and great cultivators of the State Religion vaguely observed a certain resonance between heaven and humanity, speculating that a power within the starry sky, in an unseen way, influenced the fate of the entire continent.
For each individual life, his destiny star, the star field surrounding it, and its interconnections with the entire starry sky might well be the fate of that individual life.
—This explanation precisely matched the most philosophical and hardest-to-understand interpretation of fate in the Dao Canon: Fate is the summation of the trajectories of interactions between people.
The infinite starry sky could accommodate countless lives, countless hopes and aspirations. No matter how mysterious an individual’s fate might seem, a corresponding description could surely be found within it.
It could be said that after a person was born, the trajectory of his fate would find a corresponding description in the starry sky. It could also be said that before a person was born, his fate had already existed within that starry sky—perhaps as a short line, or as a grand and magnificent star chart.
If cultivators wished to change their fate, they had to change the lines or patterns that described their fate. First, they had to change the position or brightness of their destiny star. And if they truly could alter the position and brightness of their destiny star according to their will, then the connections with other surrounding stars would naturally change as well. In other words, the fates of many people would change along with it.
Fate had never existed independently. Everyone’s fate was closely intertwined with the fates of others. This was still the explanation from the Dao Canon: Fate is the summation of the trajectories of interactions between people.
Yet, for billions of years, records left by countless stargazers on the continent showed that the stars in the night sky never moved—neither in position nor brightness. The idea of modifying one’s fate by moving one’s destiny star sounded utterly impossible. Who had the power to stand on the ground and affect the celestial mausoleum? Who could dwell in the mortal world and reach out to pluck a star? The final volume of the Dao Canon’s general treatise contained about six hundred characters related to fate, and only in the second paragraph did it briefly propose a possibility: when a cultivator entered the realm of true freedom, he might be able to achieve this. However, that realm of true freedom was even more mysterious than the legendary realm of divine concealment. It had always existed only in imagination, like a myth—how could it be taken seriously?
So, had anyone ever succeeded in defying heaven and changing their fate? According to the records in the Dao Canon or official accounts, since the Heavenly Book descended, such a thing had never happened on the continent. Even if it had occurred, because there was no evidence and the impact was too great, no one dared to discuss it openly.
In fact, a certain saying, or rather speculation, had always circulated among the people: over the past thousand years, defying heaven and changing fate should have happened three times.
Only the three individuals suspected of defying heaven and changing fate had the power to completely erase all records from the Imperial Observatory and numerous stargazing pavilions, and the authority to make the entire human world dare not discuss the matter. Because those three individuals were emperors of the continent.
Those three were the Grand Ancestor Emperor of the Great Zhou, the Grand Successor Emperor, and… Her Holiness the Saintess.
A thousand years ago, the former dynasty’s governance was corrupt, the people lived in misery, the northern demon race eyed them covetously, the southern noble families were disloyal and divided, countless rebel armies rose up, battles raged endlessly, and the empire was on the verge of collapse.
Amidst this continuous warfire, countless powerful figures emerged on the continent, and even several great cultivators at the Saintly Realm appeared in succession. This was also the first explosive period of the cultivation world.
For a time, the banners over Luoyang City changed constantly. One day, a certain general led the deposed emperor to attack the Eastern Hill; the next day, the second son of the Southern Xiao family transformed himself, proclaimed himself Marshal, and, wielding the edict of the Saintess Peak and leading the strong from various sects, set out to purge the court. No one knew who would ultimately piece together this shattered land.
The Grand Ancestor was originally the prefect of Tianshui Commandery. Because he was related to a favored consort of the deposed emperor, he was quite trusted and ordered to defend the city. One could say he was low-key, or one could say he was mediocre. In any case, occupying a place like Tianshui Commandery, he dared not take a single step beyond Mount Qi for several years. In the eyes of the world, he was utterly mediocre and inactive. Compared to the dazzling heroes of the time, how dim and insignificant he was! No one thought he had any chance of seizing the empire. When discussing the fate of the realm, his name was often not even mentioned. People only thought that Tianshui Commandery had a good geographical location and that the Grand Ancestor had several intelligent sons, which might allow him to survive this turbulent era through patience and ultimately choose a wise master to serve based on the overall situation.
Who would have thought that after a few years, the situation on the continent would suddenly change? The heroes fought endlessly, and all factions suffered heavy losses. The Grand Ancestor, resting and building strength in Tianshui Commandery, gradually grew powerful. One day, leading thirty thousand troops east out of Mount Qi, he captured seventeen cities in a row. Allying with the southern noble families and receiving full support from Daoist followers, he won a great victory outside Luoyang City against the fierce Tiger Hill rebel army, successfully entered Luoyang, and the following year took the capital directly. He formally ascended the throne at the Heavenly Book Mausoleum and truly unified the empire!
Looking back at the history of the Great Zhou’s founding, there were many inexplicable points, many things that, in principle, should not have happened. For example, if those heroes of the time had cast even a glance toward Tianshui Commandery, they would likely have crushed the still-weak Grand Ancestor first. In the first three bloody battles after the Grand Ancestor left Mount Qi, whenever the situation seemed desperate, he always managed to turn misfortune into good fortune. Outside Luoyang City, after dozens of fierce battles, the Grand Ancestor should have died long ago, but he didn’t—as if some unseen force had been protecting him all along.
If it was luck, such great luck, lasting for such a long time, was nothing less than fate.
After the Grand Ancestor ascended the throne in the capital, his sons led countless famous generals on campaigns everywhere. The southern noble families and sects nominally submitted, and the various heroes who refused to yield were purged one by one. For a time, the heroes of the world were either dead or captured and sent to the capital. Those strong figures, unwilling to accept defeat, cursed heaven and earth endlessly on the execution grounds.
A certain saying began to circulate from that time. The Grand Ancestor Emperor was able to shed his mediocrity and break out from amidst the encircling strong figures of the world because, more than ten years earlier, he had formed an alliance with the master of the Daoist sect—the Pope of that generation—and used some secret method to defy heaven and change his fate, transforming his destiny star into an emperor star.