Chapter 918 — Being and Non-Being Beget Each Other, Yet All Ends in Void

As though he had suddenly gone mad, he laughed and wept at once, and many of the prison guards flung down their work and ran over to hold Yan Shaoqing up.

Yan Shaoqing cried out, tore himself free of them all, and said in a shrill, desolate voice: "False! You are all false!"

He injured several guards and killed a number of them outright, and then all at once his body went stiff as a puppet's, and he stood there dully, staring blankly at his own hands, which were covered in blood.

After a long while he turned his head with difficulty and said to Shen Mu: "Heaven Venerable Mu, is this real now, or false?"

Shen Mu sighed and said: "Zuo Shaobi, I mean to take my leave. Will you not see me off?"

The muscles of Yan Shaoqing's face twitched wildly; his features contorted.

He followed behind Shen Mu, walking outward.

Before long he had escorted Shen Mu and the others out of the Great Prison, and Shen Mu turned and said with a smile: "Stay your steps, Zuo Shaobi. There is no need to see me further."

Yan Shaoqing bowed and said woodenly: "I humbly see the Heaven Venerable off."

Shen Mu, smiling, slowly seated himself; fire clouds rose seething beneath the Dragon Qilin's feet, and with him aboard it was about to depart.

"Heaven Venerable Mu, is this real now, or false?" Yan Shaoqing's voice came from behind him.

Shen Mu patted the Dragon Qilin on the head, and the Dragon Qilin hastily halted.

Shen Mu laughed. "When the true is made false, the false too is true; where non-being is made being, being returns to non-being. Zuo Shaobi, you are the first man in the Heavenly Court in the divine power of consciousness. Is it truly so important whether a thing be true or false, whether it be or not be? Please go back."

Yan Shaoqing's body trembled slightly, and he raised his head to look at him.

The Dragon Qilin bore Shen Mu away into the distance.

The corners of Yan Shaoqing's eyes twitched; he saw Shen Mu's shadow upon the Dragon Qilin's head squirming, dividing from one shadow into three!

Thunder roared in his skull, and in the next instant he raced back, plunged into the Great Prison, and flew to the cages where the Jingping Imperial Preceptor and Emperor Yanfeng were held.

He stood there woodenly. The two cages were utterly empty; neither Emperor Yanfeng nor the Jingping Imperial Preceptor was inside them!

"So that is it. So that is it..."

Yan Shaoqing laughed low in his throat: "So it was I who taught you how to undo the seals upon the cages. So this is no dream, nor any illusion of divine consciousness... When the true is made false, the false too is true; where non-being is made being, being returns to non-being. A fine trick — oh, a fine trick..."

Suddenly a prison guard passed by, saw that the cages were empty, and let out a shriek: "The prisoners have broken jail!"

Yan Shaoqing turned to look at him and smiled. "The prisoners are plainly still in their cages. How have they broken jail?"

The guard was stunned for a moment; he looked again at the cages, and there indeed were Emperor Yanfeng and the Jingping Imperial Preceptor within them.

Bewilderment came over the guard's face, and Yan Shaoqing said: "Making a fuss over nothing. Go about your business... Wait. Heaven Venerable Mu came to visit the prisoners — how much time did he spend?"

"Less than a quarter of an hour," said the guard.

"Less than a quarter of an hour?"

Yan Shaoqing's heart sank; it had felt to him as though several months had passed. He waved his hand and sent the guard away.

Yan Shaoqing walked slowly outward, his hands and feet cold, saying silently in his heart: "You have carried off Emperor Yanfeng and Jiang Baigui, and I have no choice but to cover it up for you. With my divine power of consciousness, even if the Heavenly Court sends men to inspect, so long as none of them stands at the Emperor Throne realm, they will not see that the Jiang Baigui and the Emperor Yanfeng in those cages are merely illusions of my spirit. You know I will not chase you down to demand Emperor Yanfeng and Jiang Baigui back, because you know I cannot break your divine power; even if I caught up with you, I would only fall once more into your illusions and your dreams."

"You also know I will cover for you, because I have already been dragged onto the God-Slaying Platform once; to keep my life, I must cover for you. You even deliberately let a flaw show, letting your shadow split into three. Those other two shadows are Emperor Yanfeng and Jiang Baigui, are they not?"

"Heaven Venerable Mu, oh Heaven Venerable Mu, you have grown so terrible..."

He came to the Hall of the Judge, opened the official records, took up his brush and wrote the words "Heaven Venerable Mu's prison visit: all as usual," then laid down the brush and sat silent, lost in thought.

Suddenly he clenched his fist hard; his nails pierced his palm, and blood welled there — yet he let it fall open again, powerless, gave a bitter laugh, and went on with his official business.

"I have lost, but your divine power of consciousness is not invincible. Your cultivation is shallow; to break your divine power is all too easy — it needs only that an outsider intervene, and your divine power unravels of itself. Your divine power can last no more than a quarter of an hour."

"Are you not going to the Heavenly Court? If you use this divine power there, you will surely die! And yet..."

He stopped writing; terror flickered across his face, and he shivered again and again. "And yet, if you were to cultivate to the Emperor Throne realm, and join the divine power of consciousness, the Immeasurable Kalpa Scripture and the Dao of Youdu together — that would be too dreadful!"

He did not dare imagine what a dreadful spectacle that would be!

He went on writing his official documents; then suddenly his brush tip halted, and the corners of his eyes were twitching.

"How do I know that I, as I am now, have truly escaped his dreams and his illusions?"

Yan Shaoqing's pupils shrank sharply: "What if this too is an illusion? Am I now in a dream, or in reality?"

Despair showed in his eyes: "Can it be, as he said, that only by abolishing my Spirit Bridge and my divine treasures and accepting the Jingping Reforms can I be utterly free of his dreams? But if I do that, what difference is there between me and those Jingping rebels..."

The terror on his face deepened.

Shen Mu had departed, and the divine power had ceased — yet the influence wrought by the divine power of consciousness was like a seed of demonic nature, taking root and sprouting in the depths of his heart.

Yan Shaoqing knew he must walk out of it; he must abolish his Spirit Bridge and his divine treasures, accept the Jingping Reforms, and cultivate the Heavenly River divine treasure. Otherwise he would be haunted forever, unable to tell dream from reality from illusion — and the flaw in his Dao heart made it impossible that he should ever attain the Emperor Throne!

Yet the Heavenly Court had strictly forbidden the Reforms; if he accepted the Heavenly River divine treasure, then he would be one of the rebel traitors of the Reforms.

"To abolish the Spirit Bridge and the divine treasures — my heavenly palace would come crashing down, and I would die... Jiang Baigui told me he had created a technique that can seal the Southern Heavenly Gate, so that one may abolish the Spirit Bridge and the divine treasures without dying... Why did he tell me such a thing?"

Suddenly Yan Shaoqing understood: "Those fellow disciples of the same master have joined hands and set a great snare for me! A snare of interlocking rings... I need to learn something of the Jingping Reforms — secretly, just a little. I will not take part in the Jingping Reforms; I will only secretly learn..."