Chapter 131 — The Mystic Gate's True Heir
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Strike at the heart of the people's allegiance!
Wei Yong felt somewhat chilled. The Jingping Imperial Preceptor had reformed the sects, taking the peerless arts of every school, every sect, and every great house under heaven into the hands of the state, establishing primary schools and academies throughout the land, founding the Scholars' Lodge in the capital, and, in the martial world, striking hard against every sect and school. If, with so vast a hoard of resources gathered, still no good disciple could be taught - if the disciples brought up were no match for the disciples of the various sects - then of what use were the Imperial Preceptor's reforms at all?
This Daoist Heir's power had to be tremendous - absolutely a genius among geniuses - or the Daoist Sect would never have sent him here to slap the Lodge in the face! The face of the Scholars' Lodge was the face of the Jingping Imperial Preceptor, and the face of the Emperor. To block the gate was to slap the face, and whether the Preceptor and the Emperor could keep their faces was still very much in doubt.
Wei Yong's heart gave a great jolt, and he suddenly laughed aloud: "The Scholars' Lodge gathers all the talent under heaven - can it really be inferior to a lone Daoist Heir of a paltry sect? " Shen Mu shook his head.
Recalling that most of these scholars cultivated one and the same method, he could not feel hopeful. Although the scholars of the Scholars' Lodge practiced many different arts, they could hardly attain mastery in any of them; they required instruction from an Academy master who had made a special study of that art before a scholar could grasp its essence. In his view, the Daoist Sect had come fully prepared, and he feared the Lodge's scholars would simply be penned up on the mountain.
If the scholars of the Lodge could not defeat this Daoist Heir, then every sect under heaven would rise against the Imperial Preceptor with a just name. At that time, even if the Emperor did not execute his Preceptor, the Emperor would still lose virtue and lose the people's hearts, and every sect under heaven would revolt entirely!
The struggle between the Daoist Heir and the scholars of the Lodge was to be a contest upon which the great order of the world turned, and it could not be taken lightly. "Come, let's go see what this Heir is made of!
" Wei Yong said eagerly. Shen Mu went down the mountain with him. Beneath the Jade Cliff, before and behind the mountain gate, scholars of the Lodge were everywhere.
The scholars were by no means few - the Scholars' Residence took in only ten men a year, but the Spirit Adepts were many, and so were the princes and princesses of the Princes' Court.
Shen Mu stood on the Jade Cliff and peered ahead. Sure enough, two Daoists sat before the mountain gate. One was an old man with features so ancient and lofty that he did not seem a man of this age at all, but rather one who had walked out from antiquity.
He wore gray Daoist robes; his bearing was antique and plain, and he had an air of being utterly beyond the world, sitting there as though the affairs of men had nothing whatever to do with him. A man of such bearing was no common mortal.
This old man should be a personage of the very highest rank in the Daoist Sect, the sect that bore the name of the foremost orthodox great school.
Beside the old man sat a youth of clear eyebrows and bright eyes. Over the crook of his elbow lay a horsetail whisk, snow-white, with a handle of vermilion; his robes were blue, and he sat in such stillness that the scholars crowding around him seemed to have no effect on him at all. Shen Mu silently approved. Old and young alike looked like Daoists who had cultivated their natures, with an air that soared free of the common stream.