Chapter 1034 — The Young Heavenly Sovereign Relies on His Elders

Shen Mu and the Blind Elder each painted their own picture. One had set aside his emotions and consigned them into the painting; the other had set aside his mortal heart, seeking only to describe another deity with the true mind of a god.

What Shen Mu painted was Lang Wan the Divine King, and yet it was not Lang Wan the Divine King, but the lover in his heart.

The Blind Elder, for his part, meant to complete the metamorphosis of his own dao of painting, to use the painting as a vessel for his dao, his godhood.

His aura grew ever more ethereal, the divinity about him ever more dense; the brush in his hand seemed no longer a brush, but a divine instrument of life-creation, and beneath his strokes a new deity was coming into being. After a long while, Shen Mu was the first to set down his brush, his painting finished. The Blind Elder was still using delicate strokes to create a life.

His brush gave off the soft radiance of the dao of creation, and the woman in the painting—her flesh and blood, her icy skin and jade bones—surfaced beneath his strokes.

The godhood of the woman in the painting fairly leaped forth. Not the faintest flaw could be found in her beauty, and her bearing was equally refined and unworldly, her features Heaven-made, the garments on her body the loveliest of celestial robes.

That skin seemed to have gathered all the spiritual elegance between Heaven and Earth; her jade fingers were slender and fair, their whorls as changeable as the dao itself.

She was a spirit born of every manner of beauty gathered into one, and yet she had been created by the Blind Elder. When the Blind Elder laid down his final stroke, everyone present felt a vague, elusive breath slowly spilling from the painting—a postnatal Great Dao gently propagating, not from the painting, but from beneath the Blind Elder's brush.

He had endowed the young woman in the painting with godhood, with form, with a soul, with life. Watching this, Shen Mu was stirred. He opened the vertical eye at the center of his brow and looked all around, and saw the Blind Elder's dao spread forth on every side like a wisp of elusive smoke, at a pace that seemed slow and yet was swift, branding itself upon Heaven and Earth, branding itself upon the void.

This was not a transformation of method, nor a transformation of dao, but the addition of a new method, a new dao, to the world. The Blind Elder appeared incomparably serene. With the setting of that one stroke, the Lang Wan in the painting had life, had a soul, and he too had his own dao.

At last he laid down his brush, his painting finished.

In the instant he set the brush down, two clear tears slid from the corners of his eyes, yet a smile appeared on his face, and within his heart a feeling both profoundly still and filled with great joy surged and churned. He sensed his own dao. As one of the two weakest in cultivation among the Hidden Remnant Village's nine elders, he had never paid cultivation methods or divine abilities any mind, nor cared for them.

Had Shen Mu not urged him on, had the people of Hidden Remnant Village not kept watch over him, the Blind Elder would never have tried to destroy his own divine bridge to open the Heavenly River Divine Treasury, nor would he have deliberately sought to raise his cultivation.

And now, he could feel his vital essence, his spirit, flowing along a mysterious course—a cultivation method that had come to him naturally. So-called cultivation methods and divine abilities were in truth all expressions of the dao.

In the past he had cultivated others' methods while seeking his own dao, and so he had been indifferent to cultivation.

But now he had found his own dao—one might even say he had pioneered his own dao. With the dao, cultivation methods and divine abilities all fell into place, circulating of themselves, naturally.

Writing is wrought by Heaven itself; a deft hand seizes it by chance. The same was true of the dao of painting.

Just so mysterious beyond mystery, wondrous beyond wonder, just so inconceivable. Grandma Zhu and the Alchemist drew near to look at the two paintings, each praising them without end. Grandma Zhu's face was wreathed in smiles; she nudged the Alchemist and said in a low voice, "Can you make sense of it?

" The Alchemist, beaming, whispered, "Not a bit. " "Neither can I," said Grandma Zhu, her smile not fading in the least as she lowered her voice.

Lang Wan the Divine King also stepped forward, studying the two paintings in fine detail. In the Blind Elder's painting, the figure resembled another her—delicate and elegant, the painting laying bare her inner self, untouched by dust.

The woman in that painting was serene and far-reaching, possessed of a beauty like her own; the her in the painting could also move. That other her dwelt in another world, with thoughts of her own, a mind of her own, even cultivation and divine abilities of her own.

The two of them gazed at each other across the boundary between worlds.

Lang Wan the Divine King praised it endlessly.

"Though this dao of painting is not creation, it is more than a match for creation.

I can no longer tell whether it is I who am in the painting, or she.

" The Blind Elder said, "Shen'er's painting is not bad either.

" Lang Wan the Divine King turned to look at Shen Mu's painting.

Shen Mu could not grasp her godhood; the her in his painting differed somewhat from the true her, and compared to the Blind Elder's craft, Shen Mu's fell far short.

Lang Wan the Divine King gazed at the figure in the painting. The Lang Wan in the painting was like a quiet young girl, standing atop the head of a great serpent, both hands cradling a fresh flower, bringing it to her lips to sniff, carrying with it a touch of shyness and a smile.

"The figure the Sacred Infant painted resembles me, and yet is not me. Most likely the Sacred Infant entrusted his own feelings into it. " Lang Wan the Divine King's gaze shifted, and she smiled.

"Might I have these two paintings as a gift?

" The Blind Elder nodded. "Young Lady, take them by all means.

" Shen Mu nodded as well.

The Blind Elder pulled him aside, and elder and youth set to painting again; as the Blind Elder painted, he passed on to Shen Mu the insights from the dao of painting he had pioneered. Lang Wan the Divine King put away the two paintings and rolled them up.

She pondered for a moment, then took out one of the scrolls. The scroll caught fire and swiftly turned to ash. Lang Wan the Divine King gazed into the dying flames, then waved her hand, and the ashes dispersed.

Grandma Zhu said quietly, "Alchemist, which painting do you think she burned?

" The Alchemist mused, "I think she burned the one Shen'er painted.

Shen'er made her ugly.

If it were me—if the Blind Elder had painted me ugly—I would burn it too.

" Grandma Zhu spat. "I think she burned the one the Blind Elder painted.

" The Alchemist was baffled. "The Blind Elder painted her too truly.

As a woman of peerless, unmatched beauty, she has no need of another her, nor any need to keep the Blind Elder's painting.

Keeping the Blind Elder's painting would instead give her a place to lodge her feelings; if she met with setbacks, she would feel that the her in the painted world lived a better life.

She is deathless and ageless, her heart firm and enduring; she has no need of another self. " Grandma Zhu said, "If she wished to admire her own looks, she need only take out a mirror.

It is Shen'er's painting instead that could let her see the emotions she lacks.

Though imperfect, taken out to admire, it could give her a quite different sentiment.

" The Alchemist laughed. "Grandma, that is only your conjecture. Which painting she burned, if she does not say, none of us can possibly know. " Grandma Zhu was rather confident. "I think the cultivation method this Lang Wan the Divine King practices must be some rare and peculiar method.