Conversion

In the northern reaches of Western Jin lay Yuanxi County. Spanning merely a hundred li, the small county was ringed on all sides by mountains that shielded it from the southward astral winds. As a result, its terrestrial qi was warm and its soil fertile; tiny though it was, it sustained a population of one million. Yet following its conversion by the Pure Land, more than six hundred temples of various sizes had been erected across the small county. The populace attended recitations morning and evening, leaving much of the farmland desolate and neglected. As Wei Yuan flew overhead, his divine sense swept across the land below, taking in everything at a glance. Untouched by the flames of war for centuries, this county had drawn migrants from surrounding regions until the population reached the absolute limit the land could support, leaving most of the common folk trapped in a perpetual state of semi-starvation. Such was the normal state of affairs across the Nine Kingdoms: regions were either ravaged by war or natural disasters, where years of calamity left nine out of ten homes abandoned, or they were lands of peace that became overrun with people and choked by exorbitant taxes and levies that mounted year after year, leaving most with few memories of ever eating their fill. Now, these people cared only for worshiping Buddha and neglected productive labor entirely; nearly half of them would starve to death this year, for there was hardly a grain of surplus left in the entire county. Since the conversion, only a few hundred people here had starved, solely because Qingming had been continuously transferring grain into the area. It had reached the point where the commandery governor dispatched by Qingming could bear it no longer and repeatedly petitioned Wei Yuan, demanding that action be taken. Meanwhile, the county magistrate was frantic with worry, submitting petitions every few days to plead for grain allocations. This had become the norm across the northern frontier: immense shipments of grain flowed endlessly from Qingming, only to be poured into the bottomless pit of the converts. Once filled by the distributed rations, the believers resumed worshiping Buddha and preached to those who had not yet converted. If anyone refused to embrace the Buddhist path, they were branded as external demons and evil fiends, facing persecution on every front; cases of converts beating refusers to death had occurred all across the region. The officials Qingming dispatched to the northern frontier were all capable and experienced administrators, each wracking their brains for a way to turn the situation around. With every day the Domain Lord remained silent, the pressure weighing on the officials grew heavier. As time slipped by, it became clear that the officials had no good remedies either. One magistrate had taken drastic measures, cutting off grain supplies to believers in a certain locality, only for the entire township to rebel and fight to the very last person. Following that disaster, the magistrate was promptly dismissed and brought back to Qingming for punishment. As for the deserted township, it remained empty, with no displaced migrants willing to settle there and till the soil. From then on, drastic measures were strictly forbidden along the northern frontier, with policy shifting entirely toward moral suasion and maintaining stability. Two years later, Wei Yuan finally made a move. He first dispatched a thousand soldiers from Qingming to erect an altar and notified the local populace to come hear him preach. Hearing that an eminent monk of great virtue was coming to expound the Dharma, the converts were overjoyed and swarmed toward the altar, leaving their fields and household affairs behind—after all, whether they farmed nowadays depended entirely on their mood. That afternoon, under a blazing sun, nine tolls of a bell signaled that the appointed hour had arrived. Wei Yuan mounted the altar and settled into its center. Several cultivators carried up three immense censer urns, arrayed them in a line before the altar, and inserted a stick of sandalwood incense into each. Wei Yuan wore his ordinary attire as he sat upright on the altar's lotus throne. Yet in the eyes of the nearly one million believers below, the figure seated upon the altar was truly an eminent monk, so ancient he could barely move, his entire body billowing with Buddhist smoke. This wondrous manifestation immediately moved many of the faithful beyond words. Many even broke into wailing and tears on the spot, though even they could not tell what they were crying for. Sitting atop the altar and looking down at the sea of weeping converts, Wei Yuan felt a deep sense of wonder. He hadn't uttered a single word yet, and they were already moved to such extremes? In the otherworldly realm, these people would surely be hailed as the chosen people of a certain nation. Seeing their cries shake the air as they began prostrating of their own accord, their inner qi linked together, naturally ushering them into a state of spiritual insight. In such a state, comprehending the Dharma was extraordinarily swift. Yet the problem remained: Wei Yuan had not said a word. Watching a million believers initiate their own revelations and comprehend the Dharma on their own, Wei Yuan felt that whatever he said hardly mattered anymore. Then again, when coming to preach this time, he had only intended to speak a few words in the first place. And so, clearing his throat, Wei Yuan expounded the profound essentials of his Dharma: "Eat well, work hard, and strive in Body Casting." This was the entirety of Wei Yuan's revelation. Those few words echoed like thunder in the mind of every believer. Countless people felt something within their bodies and minds shift, yet they could not say what had changed. They tried desperately to recall the content of the sermon, but could only remember the rolling rumble. Watching the murky gray smoke disperse from believer after believer, replaced by Buddha light unique to each, Wei Yuan was finally satisfied. Who didn't know how to convert people? When both sides could wield conversion, it came down to whose status was higher and whose magic power was greater. Back then, the old monk Jingru had used his Scenery Command cultivation to undergo direct nirvana, massively elevating his own status; only then did he convert tens of millions of people in one stroke, leaving all of Qingming helpless for several years. Now, when Wei Yuan took up the methods of conversion, he hardly needed to exert himself. Setting aside the Central Wutu which was unsuited for the task, any of the second through seventh grotto-heavens boasted a status higher than the old monk's nirvana. What was more, he was targeting merely a million people. As a result, like snapping rotten wood, he converted everyone present in a single sweep, turning them into... Wei Yuan's expression suddenly turned peculiar. Had these people all become his believers? On the day Jingru passed into nirvana, those he converted had not placed their faith in Jingru, but in the Lord of Spirit Mountain, worshiping the Great Sun Tathagata. Today, with Wei Yuan doing the converting, why were they all worshiping him? Wei Yuan suddenly thought of those strange sects that had cropped up across Qingming. Those sects worshiping him in their sanctuaries could be written off as some hidden scheme plotted in the shadows. But now, even the people he had converted personally were worshiping him—this could hardly be blamed on a conspiracy. Wei Yuan pondered carefully. The conversion art he used had originated from the King Buddha, specifically from the Indestructible Dharma of Emptiness and Form contained in the Lotus Lamp. As the King Buddha's return drew nearer, many wondrous techniques had emerged within the Indestructible Dharma of Emptiness and Form, and converting believers was one of them. Wei Yuan had adopted this method, but instead of using the King Buddha's doctrines, he substituted his own work, the Classic of the Three Realms. Converted through the Classic of the Three Realms, the minds of the faithful were imprinted solely with Wei Yuan's sentence, free from any other scripture. Yet by rights, the one they ought to worship was the Great Joy King Buddha. While Wei Yuan pondered, in the eyes of the myriad faithful, the eminent monk above was still preaching ceaselessly. Resonant voices, Buddhist fruits, wisdom lotuses, and bodhi blossoms drifted down in profusion. Great joy and profound emotion welled in every heart; yet, alas, no matter how hard they tried, they could not hear clearly or remember any of those profound scriptures. All they knew was to eat well, work hard, and achieve Body Casting early. Looking upon these fanatic believers, Wei Yuan sighed inwardly. They were mere mortals; even the strongest among them had only attained the Jade Bone realm of Body Casting. Having endured two successive conversions, their sense of self was battered and fractured, flickering like candles in the wind. If they failed to cultivate a Dao Foundation, they might only regain a glimmer of clarity in their dying moments, realizing that their entire lives had been spent in a haze. Yet strictly speaking, Wei Yuan had only instilled a single sentence, whereas the Pure Land had previously crammed voluminous scriptures into them. By the time Wei Yuan conducted his conversion, he was effectively dealing with a cloth riddled with holes. At the end of the day, a second conversion was harm compounded upon harm, even if it was just one sentence. Wei Yuan only hoped that among these people, some might succeed in casting their foundations and thus awaken to their true selves. As he was deep in thought, Wei Yuan suddenly raised his head, his expression turning cold. On the distant horizon, an old monk was flying toward him at high speed. The old monk glared furiously, wearing a wrathful visage, and pointed directly at the tip of Wei Yuan's nose from afar, barking, "Evil wretch! How dare you secretly convert my Buddha's believers! An enemy of the Buddha like you will surely plunge into the Boiling Cauldron Hell upon death, never to be reborn!"