Chapter 331 — One Meeting Outshines All the Splendors of the World
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Li Zheng praised it, and said, "Worthy indeed of the first man beneath the gods, the sage who appears once in five hundred years. At the end of my life I have at last met a man I can converse with. I came out this time only to see you—I mean to let you see the Dao."
"Today at Qingmen Pass a million troops are gathered," the Imperial Preceptor said gravely, "and many of them are my students. But I am your student. Here too are many scholars of the Grand Academy, who have come to lend their strength because of the nation's peril. I make bold to beg you, Master, to expound the Dao here for us and resolve our doubts!"
Li Zheng laughed. "I would not dare. A mere exchange."
The two walked on together, Shen Mu following behind. Xiong Xiyu lifted her head and looked at the two men—one sinking into old age, one in the full prime of his years—her gaze strange, and murmured low, "In the True Heaven Palace of the Western Lands there are no men so splendid as these. Among us of the Western Lands the women hold the house, and the men are meek and yielding, obedient in all things. If the men of the Western Lands were all like these two, with such grand spirit and such great power, why should we women hold the house?"
They entered the city, and Shen Mu saw a great many scholars of the Grand Academy, seated cross-legged on every side, waiting quietly, their faces unable to hide their agitation.
With the nation in peril as it was, the Mandi Kingdom had invaded in force, and Jingping, having passed through a great rebellion and then a great snow disaster, was left with the people unable to live, its population sharply cut, the common folk wandering homeless. The realm had not yet settled, and grain was short. Even in the army there was not food enough; many of the Academy scholars who came here drew their belts tight and ate sparingly, not daring to eat their fill.
Shen Mu also saw Wei Yong, Shen Yu and others. Wei Yong had once been a very fat man; now hunger had thinned him greatly.
Only when the autumn harvest came, he feared, would this straitened state ease.
Li Zheng and the Imperial Preceptor sat down, and Li Zheng said, unhurried, "I have not come this time to speak of sword techniques, but only of the Dao—of the Sword Dao. How much you take from it will depend on your own comprehension. In this world there is no doctrine of the Sword Dao; yet from the moment the sword was created as a weapon, the Sword Dao has existed."
Many officers and men who had come back from the front drew near as well; some stripped off their armor and sat on the ground, some simply stood and listened.
Many who heard the old man speak of the Dao wore looks of bewilderment. Someone whispered, "Can the great Dao of heaven and earth be created? We who wield divine powers—do we not cultivate the great Dao of heaven and earth and nature?"
Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly, and he remembered a conversation he had once had with the Jade Heavenly King, in which they had spoken of reform and of the changing of the great Dao of heaven and earth.
Human creativity had added to the world many great Daos of heaven and earth that had never before existed; and that same human creativity had also brought change to the great Daos that had always lain between heaven and earth.
The Dao, the methods, the divine powers—when the great Dao changes, the methods change with it, and this is what is called the reform of methods.
The Jade Heavenly King held that such reform might touch upon the interests of gods and demons.
What Li Zheng spoke of, however, was far deeper than what the Jade Heavenly King had said.
The reason the crowd was bewildered was that they were all refiners of qi, whose ingrained understanding was to learn the Daos, methods and divine powers handed down to them, with divine powers depending upon the Daos and methods; to make them change that ingrained understanding—one can imagine what a shock it dealt their souls!