Chapter 746 — Rivaling the Gods
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The crowd laughed among themselves, shook their heads, and scattered with a great uproar. What Ling Tianzun spoke of was far too profound, far too abstruse; they could make nothing of it at all.
They had gathered around Ling Tianzun in the first place in order to hear this gifted young woman speak of what she had comprehended over the years, to learn her divine arts and methods. But now the things she said were so rarefied and mysterious that no one could grasp them — plainly, she had lost her mind.
To stand listening to a madwoman's ravings, would that not rob this Yaochi Gathering of all meaning? Soon the space around Ling Tianzun was empty and bare, leaving only Shen Mu, Kaihuang, and Old Ox. Kaihuang lowered his voice: "The Yong River.
" Shen Mu's heart went cold; he nodded, and at the same time doubts rose in him without end.
The Yong River — its waters ran on forever, from west to east, flowing day and night without a moment's pause.
This great river was perhaps the Heavenly River of the present day, and judging by the flow of its waters, the Yong River did not accord with the divine art Ling Tianzun had described, the art that froze matter into eternal stillness.
Unless — though the waters of the Yong River flowed, every particle that composed it remained in a state of fixity; the flowing was mere appearance, and in truth the river ran from the past into the future. The water never moved; what moved was the matter about it. And yet such a divine art was far too inconceivable; the principles it involved were already beyond Shen Mu's understanding and beyond his imagining.
"Or perhaps what does not move is not the Yong River, but the mist. . .
" A thought lurked at the back of his mind, though he did not know how such a divine art might be created.
The Yong River did seem to be a point joining past, present, and future. Twice now he had inexplicably crossed back into the past, and both times it was because he had stepped into the source of the Yong River and met with the affair of the mist — and so, for reasons he could not fathom, he had crossed through time.
Such crossings must have been caused either by the Yong River or by the mist! Ling Tianzun was still somewhat indignant.
She laughed coldly: "Fools, all of them, every one a mediocrity! When I have created the divine art that leaves matter unaltered, unchanging, neither increasing nor decreasing, then you will all know that there is no such thing as time! Senior brother, you understand me, don't you?
" Her eyes shone with hope.
"Sister Ling, I understand you very well. " Shen Mu said abruptly: "I understand your thinking. Matter changes, and by tracing it backward, one can make a man grow from old age back into the semblance of his youth, and even bring the dead back to life. But that is not tracing time backward — it is tracing matter backward.
" Kaihuang nodded: "I understand as well.
We use the art of Creation to make plants grow, to make animals grow, to bring them swiftly to maturity — but that is not a time art; that is the art of Creation.
The art of Creation works by altering the internal arrangement of matter in plants and animals so as to make them grow. It does not send them ahead into the future. " Old Ox could not follow any of it; he had no choice but to flick his ox ears this way and that, staring wide-eyed, utterly at a loss.
Ling Tianzun was sorely troubled. She kicked at her worn, ragged shoes, her toes poking out, and said in distress: "But none of them understand me, none of them believe me — even Yu Tianzun and the others think I have gone mad. Must I freeze the matter of the entire universe, must I make matter flow backward, before they will discover that they were wrong and I was right? " Shen Mu gave a shudder. Make the matter of the entire universe flow backward?
This woman's ideas were truly perilous!