Digging at the Roots

"Sample No. 5077 passed thirty-three test items; no abnormalities found." "Sample No. 5093 tested; no abnormalities found." Sitting in his study, Sun Yu knitted his brows as he looked through the freshly printed test reports one after another. Wei Yuan's figure manifested in the room. "Any findings?" he asked. Sun Yu sighed. "Conventional testing methods show not the slightest anomaly. The flesh and blood are just as they originally were, completely unchanged. But look..." Sun Yu pointed toward a formation array in a corner of the study. In its center lay several flecks of flesh, radiating a faint Buddhist light. Wei Yuan's attainments in the Buddhist Dao were already extraordinarily high; he could tell at a glance that while the flesh had not changed in the slightest, the radiance of the Buddhist light was far beyond anything so small an amount of flesh could cultivate on its own. The phenomenon was difficult to explain. Wei Yuan grew pensive, faintly sensing that he was on the verge of grasping something, yet unable to seize hold of it. At this point, Sun Yu handed over an article and said, "This article gave me a great deal of inspiration. You should take a look." Sweeping his divine consciousness across it, Wei Yuan discovered it was actually a treatise researching ultra-long-distance communication. The article stated that the world was filled with all manner of sounds, ranging from the mundane whisper of wind and patter of rain all the way to the grand edicts of the Great Dao. Living beings had developed corresponding organs—ears—in order to receive certain sounds. Some individuals were endowed with exceptional gifts, possessing minute structures within their bodies that allowed them to hear sounds unheard by ordinary mortals. At the apex of this Dao stood the sacred beast Diting, capable of hearing all sounds across the six realms and eight directions. However... Nothing was more dreaded than a "however." The article posited that the sounds of the Great Dao existed at all times; to hear them, one merely needed a suitable receiving structure—in other words, uniquely shaped ears. Viewed this way, even the sacred beast Diting was nothing remarkable, just a receiver. Reading up to this point, Wei Yuan's face inexplicably darkened. *Write your paper if you want to write a paper, why drag Diting into it? What did Diting ever do to you? Did he eat your rice that you feel entitled to judge him?* Naturally, Sun Yu was unaware of Wei Yuan's inner thoughts and explained, "This article is quite fascinating. Buddhist scriptures say that when the Buddha expounded the Dharma on Spirit Mountain, the Dharma voice echoed throughout forty-eight thousand realms. In every realm there were those who attained the Dharma, leading to the expansion of the Pure Land. Tell me, could the voice of the Buddha also be a form of the Great Dao's sound?" Wei Yuan once again fell into deep thought. Sun Yu was already immersed in his own world, oblivious to Wei Yuan's peculiar expression, and continued, "These scraps of flesh can radiate Buddhist light, clearly not through their own power, but because they have received the voice of the Buddha." "These pieces of flesh acquired a receiving structure? But no changes are visible." "We cannot see it, but perhaps that is because the receiving structure is simply too minute. That would also explain why we have been utterly unable to reverse the condition of those who were converted. However, over a hundred new types of research instruments are currently being developed, and results will be coming soon." Having finished explaining his latest findings, Sun Yu asked, "Are the people in the northern border still the same?" Wei Yuan nodded. "Not much change. They're just obsessed with building pagodas and temples, but otherwise they're fine." Sun Yu said, "There is a new breakthrough that hasn't undergone final verification yet, but I think you'll be interested. Follow me." The two arrived at living quarters within the facility. Here were several suites of rooms housing different people. The walls were transparent, allowing researchers to observe these individuals from behind one-way glass. The subjects included men and women of various walks of life, but all were template Dao Foundation cultivators who cultivated the lowest-threshold Pure Subtle Primal Heavenly Mirror Treasure Qi. "They were originally believers who had been practicing Body Casting techniques. While cooperating with our research, they unexpectedly found an opportunity for breakthrough and achieved template Dao Foundations. Afterward, the conversion they were under waned day by day, and now it has completely vanished." Wei Yuan's heart stirred. "Is this true for all template Dao Foundations?" Sun Yu shook his head. "No. Out of eleven newly formed Dao Foundations, only these five completely broke free of conversion. Two others saw significant alleviation, while the rest remained unchanged." "That's enough—more than enough!" With Wei Yuan's mastery of mathematics, he naturally understood what this ratio signified. Sun Yu suddenly sighed with emotion. "The voice of the Buddha is everywhere. As it is with the Buddhist voice, so it is with other sounds of the Great Dao. Take you, Wei Yuan—do you have any methods similar to conversion?" Wei Yuan instinctively wanted to deny it, but paused, struck by the memory of the small shrine in the Pure Land. For some reason, he felt that if he sat upon the lotus seat in the small shrine and burned three of the nine sticks of pure incense in the burner as an offering while chanting the *Three Realms Ruyi Sutra*, he too could convert the populations of several commanderies. Ultimately, conversion was merely a matter of technique; Wei Yuan simply had not known it before. With his strength, if he were to sacrifice himself and pass into nirvana like that old monk of the past, he could probably convert half of Western Jin. However, when Wei Yuan glanced around him now, he noticed something off about many of the beautiful disciples. A faint aura glowed around them—one that had nothing to do with Buddhist light, but bore a distinct connection to Sun Yu. Sun Yu explained, "To understand conversion, I consulted many scriptures and developed a slight technique. Then I gave it a try on these disciples, instilling a bit of dogma. The results were quite good. It's just that I can't instill an entire scripture like the Pure Land does. If I truly did that, they would no longer be themselves." Wei Yuan swept his divine sense across them and read the six-character mantra Sun Yu had instilled into his disciples: *Work more, talk less about money.* *Is this the ethos of the Hall of Xuanming?* Wei Yuan pondered. Sun Yu did not blush in the slightest as he remarked, "The divide between immortals and mortals holds profound meaning. Without achieving a Dao Foundation, even one at peak Body Casting can be converted, beckoned, or possessed at any time, stripped of their agency without even knowing it. In the eyes of sages, they are no different from ants to be manipulated at will. Only by casting a Dao Foundation and stepping onto the immortal path can one attain a measure of true freedom, immune to being converted on a whim, or possessing a chance to reclaim oneself even if converted. Thus, in this realm, only those with a Dao Foundation count as people; mortals are merely ants." Wei Yuan conceded that, in a certain sense, Sun Yu was right. Yet that six-character mantra was still rather grating, hardly seeming like a pure experiment... "You could also be considered half a bald monk now. Have you thought about building an ashram and taking in a flock of believers?" Sun Yu asked. Wei Yuan smiled and shook his head. "I have always been pondering a question: do believers gained through conversion still count as human?" Sun Yu answered, "Of course they count. Why wouldn't they? They have physical bodies and breathe air; that makes them human. All they lost is their sense of self. And among the billions of common folk in this world, that so-called self is pitifully meager to begin with. In years of famine and disaster, a few bowls of rice are enough to buy it. For something so cheap, having it or not hardly makes a difference." Wei Yuan had not expected such an answer. Frowning slightly, he pondered seriously for a moment before speaking: "Having it or not is a fundamental difference. No matter how little of a self one has, possessing even a shred of it is the foundation of being human." "They still need to be fed and clothed first." "Look at Qingming—aren't they fed and clothed?" Wei Yuan replied. "In an era where mighty powers manifest, this is not difficult at all. It is simply that none of the rulers in the past ever wished to do it." Leaving Sun Yu's quarters, Wei Yuan still had to wait for a new batch of template cultivators to rotate into the Spirit Herding Ring before setting off back to the Lu clan's ancestral mountain. The six-character mantra Sun Yu had instilled into his disciples amused Wei Yuan. He repeated it to himself a few times, shaking his head with a laugh. But as he laughed, a sudden thought surfaced: *Why don't I convert a batch of people myself?* In the past, Wei Yuan had been unwilling to do so, firstly because he believed that once converted, people ceased to be truly human. What he fought so hard for was merely to grant people ability first, and then let them choose their own fate. Another reason lay in his fundamental doctrine. Previously, the mainstream of Buddhism focused on delivering oneself, while a secondary branch focused on delivering all sentient beings in the world. Wei Yuan, on the other hand, sought to cross the sea of suffering by transforming the mortal realm into a paradise. If the mortal realm itself could become a paradise, then what need was there to deliver people away from it? That was precisely what the people of Qingming were already doing. But right now, there was another vast multitude perfectly suited for conversion: the tens of millions of converted souls in Western Jin's northern border! Wei Yuan immediately issued orders for people to head to the northern border at once to construct an ashram and Dharma altar. He was going to mount the altar and preach the Dharma!