Only after Wei Yuan's true spirit returned from the World of Returning Silence did he see the urgent report dispatched from Eastern Jin: at the end of the floating road's construction route, a flesh-body Buddha had suddenly appeared. Seated squarely across the only path forward, it turned everything within a hundred-li radius into Buddhist land; any cultivator who stepped inside was converted.
At first, the garrison defending the road launched several assaults. However, the thousands of soldiers and over a hundred templates who entered the Buddhist land one after another were all converted without exception. From then on, the garrison dared not attack again, cowering behind their defensive line. Fortunately, as long as Qingming did not attack, the flesh-body Buddha did not pursue, merely blocking the path in silence.
Upon receiving word, Xiaoyu personally went to probe the situation, yet he dared not set foot into the Buddhist land himself.
The flesh-body Buddha passed a message to Wei Yuan: the floating road ended here, and the line drawn at this spot would demarcate their respective territories.
No Qingming cultivator, army, or facility was permitted to approach within thirty thousand li of Northern Qi.
Seeing this message, Wei Yuan understood: the Pure Land wanted to halt the floating road thirty thousand li away.
Wei Yuan did not rush to sneer. Instead, he first pulled up all available records on flesh-body Buddhas. It was better to know both himself and his enemy; that way, when he made his move, he would be completely assured of victory without tarnishing his image. A Buddhist land so formidable that Xiaoyu dared not even step inside deserved the utmost caution.
Circulating records about flesh-body Buddhas were scarce in the world, yet sufficient for Wei Yuan to grasp the essentials. A so-called flesh-body Buddha was actually the golden body remnant husk left behind after a Buddha attained the Great Dao. Strictly speaking, it referred specifically to the one left behind upon attaining Buddhahood.
However, when a Buddha reincarnated through samsara and attained the Dao anew, the remnant husk left behind was now also counted as a flesh-body Buddha.
Wei Yuan deduced that the one blocking the floating road was likely a flesh-body Buddha in the contemporary sense. If it were truly the original one left when a Buddha first attained enlightenment, there would be no fighting it.
As his cultivation deepened day by day, Wei Yuan discovered that according to Pure Land doctrine, the spiritual status attained by several Buddhas upon their enlightenment was not confined to this realm alone; one simply did not know how many beyond-heaven worlds they spanned. If the Dao fruit of attainment was restricted only to this realm, it would at most amount to the status of a Great Bodhisattva.
The same applied to golden body remnant husks. Those left by Buddhas during reincarnations within this realm pertained solely to this realm, their might far inferior to the initial golden body.
How precious was a Buddha ancestor's golden body? In the Pure Land's lineage tracing back hundreds of thousands of years, the Five Directional Buddhas, plus the Past and Future, and then the King Buddha, totaled at most eight. Furthermore, such remnant husks depleted with each use; in the past, when the Pure Land weathered several existential crises, Wei Yuan refused to believe they had not expended some.
A minor matter like the floating road would hardly warrant such a priceless treasure.
Having gained a clear picture, Wei Yuan disguised himself as an ordinary-looking yet extraordinarily poised young cultivator. Moments later, he arrived at the end of the floating road in Eastern Jin.
Looking down from above, he saw the ten-thousand-li floating road lying across the land like a gigantic dragon. Ahead of the dragon lay a small patch of lush, verdant ground brimming with vibrant life. Within it, flowers, birds, fish, and beasts lived in bizarre harmony: fierce tigers drank blood alongside spotted deer, while cats and mice slept curled in each other's embrace.
Wei Yuan descended onto the edge of the Buddhist land. A handsome young monk appeared before him and bowed in greeting. "Benefactor's distinguished presence brings brilliance to our Buddhist land."
Wei Yuan studied the young monk closely, his expression gradually growing cold.
Somewhat surprised, the young monk asked, "Does Benefactor have something on his mind?"
The coldness vanished from Wei Yuan's face, replaced by flat neutrality as he asked, "Have you ever met a woman and a disobedient child? That woman was a princess consort."
The young monk froze, then replied, "What does Benefactor mean? Forgive this humble monk's dullness, but I do not understand."
Wei Yuan said coldly, "You don't need to understand. But whatever has been done, no matter how cleanly the karma is severed, will always leave traces behind. Stand above karma, and you will see it. 'The Great Dao always leaves a glimmer of life'—so that was what it meant."
The young monk appeared utterly bewildered, unable to fathom what Wei Yuan was talking about.
Wei Yuan could not be bothered to say more to him, merely stating, "Since it's you who came, there's nothing to discuss. Let's fight! I'd like to see just how long this flesh-body Buddha of yours can hold out!"
With that, Wei Yuan turned and walked away, unwilling to utter another word. The young monk stood stunned, at a loss as to why things had unfolded this way.
In truth, Wei Yuan himself was not entirely clear on the reasons. Yet ever since he began rebooting beyond-heaven worlds, his status had grown correspondingly higher, already breaking through the constraints of this realm. Consequently, he had developed a faint awareness of many things he could never have perceived in the past. Had he remained strictly confined within this realm, he would never have sensed them at all.
This perception manifested as vague intuition without apparent cause. It was as if Wei Yuan had opened another eye, glimpsing things that lay above karma.
The moment he saw this young monk, Wei Yuan immediately thought of Imperial Consort Yuan and the Little King of Chu. The entire process involved no karmic links and no reason; the thought simply surfaced.
Perhaps this young monk was not that young monk, but since Wei Yuan had this intuition, there was bound to be some connection between them—a connection that could not be erased even by severing karma.
It was like Wei Yuan creating an avatar, dividing his divine sense to enlighten its spirituality, and then wiping away all karma. From the perspective of this realm, that avatar would have no connection to Wei Yuan whatsoever. Yet viewed from a higher dimension, the avatar and Wei Yuan remained linked.
Since Wei Yuan had felt this intuition, there was nothing left to say; war was the only answer, whether for public interest or private vengeance. As for this floating road, Wei Yuan had no intention of stopping until it was built straight into the heart of Northern Qi.
The Buddha kingdom formed by the flesh-body Buddha held great wonders of its own. In Wei Yuan's eyes, the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth passed directly through the Buddha kingdom. This Buddhist land was actually embedded within the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, as though this tract of ground had originally been meant for converting all living beings.
Standing upon this Buddhist land, converting a dharma idol was like converting a Dao Foundation, and converting a Dao Foundation was like converting a mortal. Not only was the difficulty vastly reduced, but the expenditure was largely borne by Heaven and Earth.
Relying precisely on this advantage, it dared to brazenly block the floating road's advance, which was also retaliation for Wei Yuan having blocked the Pure Land's mountain gate back then.
Wei Yuan had spent this recent period streamlining Qingming's internal distribution mechanisms, raising the number of cultivators, and beginning to absorb portions of foreign races to harvest karmic luck, essentially pausing outward expansion.
Yet in Wei Yuan's plans, the karmic luck of foreign races was merely a product of the current phase. In the long run, foreign races had to integrate into Qingming and identify with Qingming's culture, ideals, and heritage. Even if they were to retain a portion of their own traditions, it had to be on the basis of identifying with Qingming's overarching philosophy and heritage, turning their own heritage into a part of Qingming's.
If they refused to integrate, there were vassal or tributary systems awaiting them; if they refused those as well, they could only become stepping stones for Wei Yuan's campaigns beyond the borders to expand territory.
Everything Wei Yuan did was accumulating foundational depth, sorting through and resolving problems that had arisen from the previous phase, while contemplating issues that had to be addressed in the long term—the core of which was the question of who to sell goods to.
Once Wei Yuan solved the internal issues, Qingming's overall strength would climb to another new plateau.
To say nothing else, merely carrying out the policy of 'every resident having their own home' would take several decades. And throughout these decades, almost every person in Qingming would contribute karmic luck once more. Sometimes, what people wanted was very simple: they did not even need to actually live in a grand house; as long as they saw the hope of living in one, they would offer up karmic luck.
A grand house was merely people's single largest expense; besides that, there were countless minor improvements. Added together, they could prompt people to contribute karmic luck yet again. Calculating based on Qingming's current population of over a billion, distributing two billion points of karmic luck across more than thirty years was equivalent to raising the total karmic luck generated annually by half. This was a tremendous increase, which was why Wei Yuan had focused on improving livelihoods within Qingming.
However, the Pure Land also had figures of great insight. They had likely realized they could not allow Wei Yuan to proceed so smoothly, which was why they intervened to obstruct him. Otherwise, Wei Yuan had planned to wage war against the Pure Land only ten years down the line.
At the end of the floating road, Xiaoyu had already planted the Sword and Blade Boundary Stone refined by Wei Yuan, replacing the four small boundary stones Eastern Jin had originally placed here. As a boundary stone crafted by Wei Yuan himself, it shared a natural bond with him. At present, it bordered the Buddhist land, and both sides were clashing repeatedly along the boundary. Yet every effort to expand the domain ended in defeat—and an utterly decisive defeat at that.
Yet Wei Yuan had not painstakingly constructed hundreds of thousands of li of floating road just to compete against the Pure Land's domain on equal footing. A single flesh-body Buddha was quite enough for Wei Yuan to show the world the floating road's true might.
Chapter 1360