Chapter 256 — The Demonic Nature Is Hard to Purge
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
It is for cultivating the spirit, for strengthening the primal spirit. " "To use the souls of others to strengthen one's primal spirit, is that not a demonic art? " Foxin asked. Shen Mu shook his head: "Joined with the Creation Innate Art, this art makes the mind embrace the Primal and guard the One, turn into the state of an infant, join with the earth, draw upon the earth's mother-breath, and strengthen my primal spirit. It can also be used to create all things.
Buddha-son, these days, as I cultivate the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra, my spirit embryo has grown uncommonly robust; these two arts deserve no small share of the credit.
You might try practicing them too.
" Foxin laughed: "I will not practice them.
I merely wished to criticize them a little. " Shen Mu looked at him deeply. Foxin was frank and open, and did not seem to be feigning. Shen Mu laughed: "Then, Buddha-son, pray continue.
" Foxin read on in the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra, and said: "Your Dark Demon Cult is worthy of that word 'demon'; it is heavy with demon-nature. The more I look at these arts and divine powers, the more my heart pounds. This art is called the Funeral-Bearing Art. To master it, must one not wipe out a man's whole house?
" Shen Mu shook his head: "That art is in fact one of the arts of the Funeral Hall of our Heavenly Sage Cult. What it trains is paper men and paper horses; it is for conducting funerals for others, making ghosts and gods recoil, and bringing blessing upon one's descendants.
Buddha-son, if you look at it through prejudice, then it is better not to look at all.
I fear it will ruin your Buddha-heart. " Foxin laughed aloud: "Hierarch Shen, my Great Thunderclap Temple let you read the Thunderclap Mahayana Sutra.
Will you not let me read the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra? " Shen Mu smiled faintly: "Very well, then, as you please. " The two went on down the mountain.
The more Foxin read, the more he shook his head; by the time they reached the foot of the mountain it was deep in the night, and he had read more than half of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra. Shen Mu looked all around.
This was the territory of the Kingdom of Jingping; straight ahead lay Jingping, and only by descending on the other side would one reach the Barren Ruins. But the Barren Ruins were then shrouded in darkness, and could not be trodden.
The New Year had passed; it was the second month. The moon was bright and the stars few, a crescent, yet it shed a tranquil, secluded radiance, brighter by far than on ordinary days. This was near the Great Thunderclap Temple; the dark clouds that had covered the heavens had long since been cleared away by the temple's eminent monks, and so the sky seemed especially clear.
There were villages nearby too, which believed in the Buddha's dharma and made offerings to the Buddha; but all the land here belonged to the Great Thunderclap Temple, and the people who lived in those villages were tenant farmers as well, tilling the soil and growing grain, paying no rent to the court, only tribute to the Great Thunderclap Temple. Shen Mu had meant to return to Jingping: first, to go on with his cultivation; second, to manage the Heavenly Sage Cult.
This time Fan Xuanshu had escaped from the Ten-Thousand-Phases Pagoda, and he too was bound for the Kingdom of Jingping. Foxin was still reading the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra.
The two came to the mountain gate, where the monk who kept the gate sat with a lantern on a pole beside him, and nearby slept a strange beast, the Four-Unlikes. There were several retainers there besides; seeing the two, they scrambled to their feet. Foxin the Buddha-son went up and questioned them, and they said: "We are the Crown Prince's attendants, all laymen.
We may not enter the temple, and so we wait outside.