Chapter 1233 — The Bond Between True Men

"Where has Lan Yutian gone?

" Shen Mu asked. The last time he had gone to Jingping to escort Silent Craftsman, Blind Elder, and the others to the Ancestral Court, he had not seen Lan Yutian; the time before that, when he went to reforge the broken sword, he had not crossed paths with him either, and so a doubt had taken root in his heart.

"These days Lan Yutian is like a divine dragon of which one sees the head but never the tail—though far more likely he has simply lost his way and misplaced himself somewhere, who knows where. " Xu Shenghua said, "When I ran into him last, he was in the thick of being lost and happened to pass by my Shangcang Academy, which is the only reason I had the chance to sit and discourse on the Dao with him; I profited no little from it.

He said then that Grandpa Cripple and Celestial Venerable You could teach him nothing more, and that he meant to try walking a road of his own to break through the Pixiang Hall. " Shen Mu walked shoulder to shoulder with him as Xu Shenghua went on, "He wanders helter-skelter through all the great heavens, and he is a little simple into the bargain. Getting lost is the lesser matter—there are people hunting him as well.

But when I saw him last, I noticed Celestial Venerable You was guarding him from the shadows, so he should come to no great harm. " Shen Mu breathed a sigh of relief. The one who cared most for Lan Yutian, after all, was Celestial Venerable You; with him there, no great calamity would surely befall.

Of course, that was provided Lan Yutian did not cook up some great calamity of his own.

He felt a headache coming on.

Lan Yutian's soul was incomplete these days, and he always did things in a headstrong, scatterbrained way, here one moment and gone the next—no comfort to anyone. "Even if he blundered his way into the Celestial Heavens, I would not feel the least astonishment.

" Xu Shenghua said, "His road and yours reach the same summit by different slopes.

But you are not alike: you strive and struggle in the red dust of the mortal world, while his heart knows no distraction; he is more like one who walks the world after his own Dao heart, seeking to fathom the mysteries of the great Dao. Your realm I can still read; his realm I can no longer read at all. " A quiet loss stirred in him, for even could he read Shen Mu's realm, he could not imitate it. Shen Mu had already walked out a road unlike any other, a road no one could walk at his side.

The road Lan Yutian walked, meanwhile, stood for the road cultivators of the next tens of thousands of years—of hundreds of thousands, even millions—would one day have to tread; that road, too, was pitched too high for the many to join, but at least it had fellow travelers.

Xu Shenghua's own road, by contrast, was like a summing-up and a carrying-forward of the whole million years of cultivation from Dragon Han to this day.

He joined what came before to what came after, and his future achievements would be extraordinary. Shen Mu stayed at the Shangcang Divine Sect, and the two exchanged all that each had gained.

To trade thoughts with Xu Shenghua was a delight beyond most delights: both were geniuses rarely seen in the world today, deep in their foundations and extraordinary in their insight.

One was quicksilver by nature, his mind scattering in every direction; the other settled and steady, his designs close-woven—and they complemented each other to a marvel.

In all the time Shen Mu spent at his side, Xu Shenghua had no leisure even for wife and child; when Jing Yan and Xu Mengqing came looking for him, he sent them both home again.

Jing Yan even suspected that if mother and daughter were set on one side and Shen Mu on the other, and Xu Shenghua made to choose between the two, he would take Shen Mu without a heartbeat's hesitation and cast the two of them off. "With a friend of the Dao, what need has a man of a wife?

" she thought, sorely aggrieved.

In a matter of days, Shen Mu and Xu Shenghua had devised many new divine abilities and worked out many new Dao arts. Together, each man's genius found its full play, and they advanced many times faster than either could have studying and pondering alone.

In this while Xu Shenghua also entered the Dao once more, carrying his divine abilities a step further into it, and Shen Mu envied him without end. From Xu Shenghua he learned his great divine ability, the Dao Domain, and his grasp of divine abilities deepened, until even the divine arts of the Five Innate Tai seemed on the verge of opening to him, each illuminating the rest.

Yet what Xu Shenghua learned from him was greater still.

For all his brilliance was the wonder of the age, his elegance without peer, Xu Shenghua, unlike Shen Mu, had no taste for peril.

Shen Mu held that danger and opportunity were one and the same; his opportunities looked plentiful, but every one of them had been won by staking his life against mortal risk.

He fought with his very life, while Xu Shenghua stayed in the Western Lands cherishing his wife and teaching his daughter—naturally he could not match him.

This time, with Shen Mu come to the Western Lands to trade insights, Xu Shenghua's harvest had been the richest, and so it was only fitting that he should enter a state of enlightenment. Shen Mu told him how he had evolved the five great mineral veins and meant to make Taiji, Taisu, Taishi, Taichu, and Taiyi the five realms to come.

"It seems to me," he said, "that the realm of the Celestial Heavens is not the summit.

There are realms above it—the Five Innate Tai, the five great Tai realms.

" "The present system of cultivation does indeed want mending. " The notion had fired Xu Shenghua's inspiration; faintly exultant, he paced to and fro, saying thoughtfully, "The present system of cultivation takes none of this into account.

It seems the Reforms of Jingping have a great deal of life in them yet!

" Shen Mu coaxed him gently on: "The Ancestral Court stands right there, and I hold a territory of my own now.

If you ever tire of the Western Lands, you might go and see it. " Xu Shenghua was sorely tempted, but wife and child were in the Western Lands, and so was the Shangcang Divine Sect; to leave home so lightly—he truly could not bring himself to it. Family had tethered him.

Shen Mu went on baiting the hook: "There is the Taichu vein, the Taiji vein, the Taisu vein, the Taishi vein, and the Chaos vein besides.

Of course, I destroyed the Chaos vein through my own carelessness, but the qi of Chaos there has gathered into a sea of Chaos, a thing of rare enchantment. I am a dull-witted fellow, nowhere near as clever as you; whatever I could comprehend, you could comprehend as well, and more besides.

" Xu Shenghua's heart was tempted yet further. Shen Mu pressed him no more.

"If you wish to go, go to Jingping. The Emperor and I left a spirit-energy teleportation bridge there that runs straight to the outskirts of the Ancestral Court.

I set my own seal upon the fissure of the Ancestral Court—it should not stump you.

" He rose to take his leave, and Xu Shenghua saw him off with warm solicitude. Shen Mu journeyed far with a lantern in his hand; glancing back on a sudden, he saw Xu Shenghua still standing before the mountain gate of the Shangcang Divine Sect, gazing after him across the distance. Shen Mu stood transfixed. The days of pondering Dao arts and divine abilities at Xu Shenghua's side came back to him; he thought of Xu Shenghua's great divine ability, the Dao Domain, and insight upon insight came flooding in, until it seemed a door had swung open in his mind—and before he knew it he had sunk into a state of enlightenment.

It was early morning, the mist heavy and damp.

Shen Mu stood within the fog, and seen from afar, mist and man were alike a blur. Seeing Xu Shenghua still rooted before the mountain gate, Jing Yan came up to him and said gently, "Husband, Sect Master Shen has gone. Will you not see him off?