Chapter 223: The Gate of All Wonders
After successfully deciphering the stele, Zhong Hui vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the words "I'll go ahead" and Chen Changsheng standing alone on the mountain path. In the eyes of others, Chen Changsheng's figure at this moment seemed somewhat desolate, though he himself did not feel this way. People looked at him with a hint of mockery, thinking that the steles of the Mausoleum of Books were indeed fair—no one could be forever lucky.
Some felt this was not enough and wanted to rub salt into Chen Changsheng's wounds. The scholar from the Locust Academy in front of the stele hut turned to him and sneered, "When Senior Brother left, his words seemed calm, but in my view, they were overly modest. Though it was only a step ahead, once that step was taken, the gap is more than a thousand miles!"
These words were meant to mock Chen Changsheng, but they also implicated Gou Hanshi. Guan Feibai's sword-like brows twitched, and he was about to lash out, but Tang Thirty-Six beat him to it. He looked at the Locust Academy scholar and said with derision, "So he can't just say 'I'll go ahead'? Where is he going? To be reborn? In such a hurry?"
The Locust Academy scholar was furious, and Ji Jin's face instantly darkened. His fingers stiffened, nearly pulling out a beard.
Master Nianguang and several other stele attendants walked over from the crowd and shouted sternly at Tang Thirty-Six, "Show some respect! If you continue like this, no one will be able to protect you."
Tang Thirty-Six sneered at him, "As I said last night, since we can't fight, what can you do to me?"
Master Nianguang said solemnly, "We stele attendants have the duty to maintain order during stele viewing. If you keep causing trouble, I will send a letter to the Academy and petition the State Church to expel you from the Mausoleum of Books!"
Tang Thirty-Six looked at him as if he were an idiot, then pointed to Chen Changsheng beside him and said, "You really are a bunch of old fools who've gone muddled from staring at steles. Do you know who he is? Above the Imperial Palace, before the multitudes, the Pope himself held his hand! Earlier, countless people in the capital suspected he was the Pope's illegitimate son! Petition the State Church? If the Divine Palace listens to you, I'll cut off my head and give it to you!"
Master Nianguang was enraged and bellowed, "If the Divine Palace is truly so partial, I will make the Academy demand an explanation!"
Tang Thirty-Six was also furious and shouted, "Your Academy? You should go ask those bishops who gives a third of the income to the Ancestral Temple every year! You've been able to freeload in the Mausoleum of Books for all these years only because my family supports you! You don't follow the State Church's orders to protect Chen Changsheng, nor do you follow the Ancestral Temple's interests to protect me, but you stand up for the Southerners and try to scare me—where's the logic in that?"
Master Nianguang trembled with rage, pointing at him as if to scold him, but in the end, he angrily flicked his sleeves and walked away.
The area around the stele hut fell silent. Both the newcomers entering the mausoleum this year and the veterans from previous years stared blankly at Tang Thirty-Six, wondering what kind of person he was.
Because Zhong Hui had been the first to decipher the stele, Tang Thirty-Six was in a foul mood. He shouted at the crowd, "What are you looking at! Haven't you ever seen someone this rich before?"
...
...
"Is the Tang family of Wenshui... really that rich?"
Guan Feibai and the other two exchanged glances, speechless. They came from humble backgrounds, and their years of cultivation at Mount Li Sword Sect had been extremely austere. Even Qi Jian, the beloved youngest disciple raised by the sect leader from childhood, had never lived a life of luxury. It was hard for them to imagine such a person existed. In matters of wealth, the youths of Mount Li were truly inexperienced.
"Come to think of it, Tang Tang is so rich and always so arrogant, but why isn't he particularly annoying?" Qi Jian asked, puzzled.
Guan Feibai recalled how the girls from Azure Radiance Thirteen Divisions and Holy Maiden Peak had been so fervent toward Tang Thirty-Six back at the Divine Palace. That might be the reason, but it wasn't appropriate to say in front of his junior brother.
Just then, a young man walked over to them. Guan Feibai and the others bowed in greeting, their faces breaking into smiles, clearly familiar with him. Liang Banhu, usually taciturn and dull, even stepped forward and patted the young man on the shoulder, showing great warmth.
Gou Hanshi introduced him to Chen Changsheng, "This is my third junior brother, Liang Xiaoxiao."
Only then did Chen Changsheng realize this young man was Liang Xiaoxiao, the third of the Seven Laws of the Divine Kingdom. Liang Xiaoxiao had always ranked third on the Azure Cloud List until this year's temporary reshuffle pushed him to fourth by Luoluo. Chen Changsheng knew his name because he had been the top scorer in last year's Grand Examination. Thinking back to how this man had stood in the crowd unnoticed, he increasingly felt that Ji Jin and Zhong Hui had been right the night before—in a place like the Mausoleum of Books, where talents gathered, even the top scorer of the Grand Examination was hardly special.
Liang Xiaoxiao exchanged greetings with Chen Changsheng, his expression indifferent, as if he didn't like to talk much.
Then he turned to Gou Hanshi and said, "Senior Brother, I entered a meditative state in front of the Eastern Pavilion Stele two days ago, so I didn't have time to find you."
Gou Hanshi replied, "Stele viewing and cultivation are naturally the priority. Since we're all here at the Mausoleum of Books, we'll have time to meet."
Chen Changsheng remembered that Gou Hanshi had mentioned yesterday that he would introduce someone to him. Now it seemed it was this young man.
Qi Jian overheard the mention of the Eastern Pavilion Stele and exclaimed in surprise, "The Eastern Pavilion Stele—that's the sixth stele! Third Senior Brother, you're truly amazing."
Liang Xiaoxiao nodded slightly. Though his name contained the character for "smile," there wasn't a trace of a smile on his face. He seemed even colder and prouder than Guan Feibai.
Gou Hanshi looked at him with a smile and said, "Since you've already reached the Eastern Pavilion Stele, breaking through to the next realm must not be far off."
Liang Xiaoxiao said respectfully to Gou Hanshi, "I broke through to the Penetrating Obscurity realm half a year ago, but I haven't made any progress since. I'm quite ashamed, so I didn't send word back."
Liang Banhu smiled warmly beside him and said, "That's good enough, that's good enough."
Gou Hanshi said to Chen Changsheng, "Third Junior Brother and Fifth Junior Brother are blood brothers."
Tang Thirty-Six's gaze flickered between Liang Xiaoxiao and Liang Banhu's faces a few times, then he asked in confusion, "How is it that the fifth brother looks older than the third?"
Liang Xiaoxiao turned his head and gave him a cold stare.
Tang Thirty-Six stared right back.
Qi Jian said, "Third Senior Brother, that's just how he is. Ignore him."
Liang Xiaoxiao indeed ignored Tang Thirty-Six and turned away.
Zhe Xiu glanced at Qi Jian, his expression strange.
Qi Jian sensed his gaze and, as if stung by a scorpion, quickly hid behind Liang Banhu.
Gou Hanshi explained a bit, and Chen Changsheng learned that the fifth of the Seven Laws, Liang Banhu, was the elder brother, while the higher-ranked Liang Xiaoxiao was actually the younger brother at home. Then he recalled that Liang Xiaoxiao had mentioned breaking through half a year ago, and realized this man had already reached the Penetrating Obscurity realm. So, after leaving the Mausoleum of Books, he would leave the Azure Cloud List and enter the Gilding List.
"Please pass this on to Princess Luoluo: I won't take the fourth spot on the Azure Cloud List."
Liang Xiaoxiao looked at Chen Changsheng with a cold expression. Then, without waiting for Chen Changsheng to react or Tang Thirty-Six to speak, he turned to Gou Hanshi and said seriously, "Senior Brother, though we and the Locust Academy both come from the south, Mount Li is still Mount Li. How can we fall behind?"
Gou Hanshi said, "I have my own judgment. Focus on your stele viewing. There's only a month left before we leave the mausoleum. Cherish the time."
Liang Xiaoxiao said no more.
As he had said, though the ranking stele in front of the Mausoleum of Books had been destroyed by Zhou Tong on the orders of the Holy Empress, the desire for competition—or rather, glory—could never be forcibly erased from people's hearts. The speed of stele comprehension and the final number of Heavenly Book Steles deciphered still formed an invisible ranking in people's minds.
This year, no peerless genius had deciphered the Zhaojing Stele on the first day, nor had anyone succeeded on the second. But Zhong Hui's success on the morning of the third day was already quite impressive. By now, the stele viewers who had entered the mausoleum in previous years knew the identities of Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi—the top two scorers in this year's Grand Examination. The rumors from outside the mausoleum had already spread here, and their reputation for having thoroughly read the Daoist Canon was well-known, naturally drawing attention. The fact that neither had yet deciphered the first Heavenly Book Stele inevitably sparked some discussion.
"After Wang Zhice, these two are the ones who dare claim to have read the entire Daoist Canon. Who would have thought they'd be outdone by a scholar from the Locust Academy today?"
"Rumors are often untrue. This talk of reading the Daoist Canon and breaking through to Penetrating Obscurity at a young age—it seems exaggerated."
The stele viewers went to their respective steles to meditate. Liang Xiaoxiao had also left. The crowd in front of the Zhaojing Stele hut gradually dispersed, and the mountain forest grew quiet. Chen Changsheng walked to the stele hut and stood before the black stele, silent for a long time. Suddenly, he asked, "How did he just disappear? Is there a small world behind the Heavenly Book Stele?"
Tang Thirty-Six and the others, seeing him staring at the stele in silence, thought he was pondering something important. They never expected him to be thinking about this and were left speechless.
Gou Hanshi said, "It's said that the Heavenly Book Steles are fragments of some small world, now scattered across the real world. The spaces have collapsed, but these fragments can still connect to each other. You can think of each stele as a door, but this door can't lead anywhere else—only to other doors, meaning other Heavenly Book Steles. Moreover, the order between steles is eternal and unchanging."
Chen Changsheng said, "So that's it. No wonder they say there's only one path in the Mausoleum of Books. But how does the Heavenly Book Stele determine that the key in the viewer's hand is correct?"
The Daoist Canon didn't record how to move from one Heavenly Book Stele to the next. The sages who had once viewed and comprehended the steles in the Mausoleum of Books also didn't mention these details in their records, because to cultivators, these were common sense, not worth explaining.
Chen Changsheng knew countless obscure facts from the three thousand volumes of the Daoist Canon, but he lacked common knowledge about the world and cultivation, as he was self-taught.
Gou Hanshi said, "The Heavenly Book cannot be deciphered. The Heavenly Book Steles themselves have many miraculous or incomprehensible aspects. How to determine whether the interpretation of the stele inscription is correct—this can never be judged by the cultivator themselves. Neither the viewer nor any observer can do it; only the Heavenly Book Stele itself can judge."
"Judge itself?" Chen Changsheng repeated, puzzled.
Gou Hanshi said, "When the viewer comes into contact with the Heavenly Book Stele, if the stele feels you understand, then you truly understand."
Chen Changsheng recalled a famous description of the Heavenly Dao in the Daoist Canon: "Profound and deeper still, the gate of all wonders."
If the Heavenly Book Steles were gates, what kind of wondrous world lay behind them?
Seeing him lost in thought before the stele, Tang Thirty-Six and the others remained speechless.
Zhong Hui had already deciphered the first Heavenly Book Stele, yet Chen Changsheng was still interested in these trivial details. Wasn't he anxious?
"Ah!" Chen Changsheng suddenly remembered something and said, "I need to go back quickly."
Tang Thirty-Six asked in surprise, "What's the matter?"
Chen Changsheng said urgently, "You dragged me out in such a hurry, and I forgot there's water boiling on the stove. What if it boils dry?"