The river surged, its spray lashing.
A long pale-blue stone wall carved with mystic patterns stood along the bank, washed and battered by the river's current. On the ornate tower high above, a man in crimson robes gazed into the distance, somewhat silent.
Beside him stood a man in black who looked much the more mature of the two, and whose cultivation was clearly the deeper. He wore a polite smile as he said:
"Brother-in-law, you have worked hard. The Changrang Army has already encamped along the bank. You can leave this place to me."
At the address, the man in crimson turned around, revealing a pair of level, well-formed brows and eyes—it was Li Jiangzong, who now presided over the clan's affairs. He had, astonishingly, already achieved Foundation Establishment and come out of seclusion.
The man in black was Sima Xunhui, Li Queyi's husband. Li Queyi and Li Jiangzong both came from the Bo lineage, born of the same father, and so their bond was very close—and naturally he stood a little closer to Sima Xunhui for it.
Li Jiangzong sighed and answered:
"Then I will trouble you, brother-in-law."
Sima Xunhui was a man skilled at leveraging others' standing. Whatever he thought in his heart, he could always keep relations among the several families quite harmonious, and he said at once with a smile:
"I came to the lake once, years ago, and I have never stopped thinking of how the lake and river views rank among the finest in Jiangnan. I even went fishing out on the river back then. Now that I am stationed here, I have feasted my eyes to the full."
Sima Xunhui represented the Song court, and at the same time the Sima family; he garrisoned the riverbank to guard against the north coming south. Though his forces were not large, they were at least a share of the burden lifted for the Li family, and Li Jiangzong was very courteous in his reply:
"It is the rainy season now, so the river runs wider. I went out onto it yesterday. These past few years there have always been clashes, and the casualties have been heavy—enough to feed the river fish plump and fine. Only their bellies are full of fingernails now, and they have long since become inedible."
Sima Xunhui sighed without a word. Li Jiangzong pointed ahead and said:
"Yesterday Guest Official Ding's ambush succeeded, and he brought back another batch of captives. This time he finally caught one of Zhao's generals, and he is being held in the pavilion. You should certainly go and take a look."
The two therefore went down the steps together, and Sima Xunhui said with a grave face:
"That is exactly what I came for! Our True Person watched them for a long while, intercepted the Mohe as he came rushing over in the Great Void, and finally caught him. I must thank your clan for its cooperation!"
Li Jiangzong waved his hand and shook his head.
More than three years had passed since the great war that founded the Great Song. On the northern bank the grand formation had been rebuilt, high walls raised and joined to the formation, troops quartered there, the defenses strict and secure.
Perhaps the great war of three years ago had wounded the north as badly. In three years the friction between north and south had been far from slight, and now and then a Lianmin or a Mohe crossed the river to test the waters, but in the end nothing worthy of the name had come of it, and things had plainly grown much quieter.
The Li family had benefited a great deal. Li Minggong, Li Zhouda, and the others had recovered from their wounds, their cultivation methods and Dao attainment had all advanced, and Li Jiangzong had likewise weathered this deadly calamity. Yet the worries in his heart were never few:
'The Prince of Wei is wounded... From what True Person Qinghu says, the wound is not light. For the next few years he certainly cannot turn his hand to anything. True Person Zhaojing has stayed in seclusion all this while, with no trace of him to be seen, and every matter on the lake has to trouble True Person Qinghu. If this goes on long, it truly is no solution...'
Li Jiangzong led the others all the way up to the highest tower. The hour was still early, yet the sixteen lamp platforms across the plaza were lit bright and clear. The doors of the great hall were shut fast, and two guards knelt before them, heads lowered, saying nothing.
Clearly someone was already inside. Li Jiangzong reckoned the hour, and understanding came to him; he turned and said with a smile:
"It seems my father has come to the bank and is in the hall now... That is well. I will take the chance to present you to him."
"So it is my esteemed father-in-law!"
Li Zhoufang's talent was not good, his cultivation was poor, and he had no reputation to speak of—but whatever else he was, he was Sima Xunhui's father-in-law. This scion of an immortal Violet Palace lineage straightened his cap and robes and followed close behind his brother-in-law. Li Jiangzong had taken only one step forward when the great hall doors creaked open of their own accord.
His father, Li Zhoufang, was indeed there—standing at the very back of the hall. A woman in red robes and golden ornaments, true-fire qi churning about her, and a burly man in gleaming armor with a jutting jaw and tigerish whiskers stood to either side of the principal seats, both turned aside and silent.
In the middle of the hall knelt a man whose features were rather fierce and sharp, his face exceedingly pale, his armor rich and noble in make. Kneeling there in the center of the hall with closed eyes, saying nothing, he seemed stubborn to the last.
Yet though the man was plainly at Foundation Establishment, his face was white and beardless; his helmet had long since been taken from him, and the crown of his head was utterly smooth, without the least hair—nine times out of ten, one of the Buddhist cultivators.
Li Jiangzong strode inside, and Ding Weizeng at once cupped his hands and said in a low voice:
"True Person Qinghu has ordered that he not be harmed... And he will not open his mouth."
The others exchanged looks, and at last every gaze turned to Sima Xunhui. But this cultivator of the Sima family was at a loss as well, and said with a bitter smile:
"I am afraid we must wait for the True Person's order!"
Just then a hazy white radiance filled the whole great hall, drifting softly like the thin mist of early morning. And the burly man with the jutting jaw and tiger whiskers had already gone down on his knees as though a mountain of gold had toppled and a pillar of jade crashed down:
"This subordinate pays his respects to the True Person!"
In the very center of the principal seat, astonishingly, a middle-aged man in a white-gold Daoist robe was already seated!
His long brows were smooth and easy, the shape of his eyes commanding, golden light burning bright between them; the lines of his whole face fell naturally, and though his expression was casual, it carried an awe that brooked no offense.
'The True Person!'
It was True Person Zhaojing, Li Ximing!
Perhaps his divine ability had grown ever more masterful, for the Li Ximing of today was somewhat different from what memory held. His features had shifted in subtle ways; Li Jiangzong did not dare look closely, and only felt that his brows were a little longer, the bridge of his nose a little more prominent. It was plainly still the same face, yet it now carried an exceedingly vivid air of authority.
Delight and dread surged up together, and he froze blankly for an instant. Li Jiangzong drew back the foot he had lifted halfway onto the step and dropped to his knees where he stood with a thump, saying respectfully:
"This junior pays his respects to the True Person, and congratulates the True Person on the great completion of his divine ability!"
Li Jiangzong had relaxed somewhat within his own clan's hall, while Sima Xunhui had been a little stiff to begin with; his reaction this time was the faster of the two, and he bowed right behind his brother-in-law. Only then did a faint voice come from above:
"Jiangzong has reached Foundation Establishment. Good."
Li Jiangzong hurriedly spoke some auspicious words about the True Person's divine ability sheltering them all, and Li Ximing smiled, brows easing, and nodded for him to rise.
"All of you, rise."
Sima Xunhui quickly got up, went forward a few steps, and took his place beside the man there. Li Jiangzong lifted his brows for a very quick glance: in the guest seat to one side, at some unmarked moment, a man in blue robes had seated himself. He did not dare look at the face, but judging by Sima Xunhui's behavior, it must be True Person Qinghu.
Neither True Person displayed any divine ability, yet the atmosphere in the hall turned solemn all at once. Only the Zhao general's face reddened slightly; he raised his brows, hatred showing on them, and opened his mouth as if to curse.
But Li Ximing happened just then to take a cup from Li Minggong's hand, and looked at him quietly.
His face was like warm, polished jade, the divine light in his eyes faintly drawn in. He was like some dark numen seated in a shrine, and the white radiance floating through the hall was the hanging curtain before the shrine—making him mysterious, and not to be looked upon directly.
That one look left the Zhao general's expression blank and lost. In an instant something seemed to pass over his face: the hatred, like a turbid vapor, was blown utterly clean by something intangible rushing at him, and dispersed from his features like smoke. He shuffled forward twice on his knees, deep and irrepressible awe welling in his eyes, and said weeping:
"This subordinate greets my lord!"
The spirit-binding locks that bound him tight fell to the floor with a clang. The man stood up, then very naturally knelt below the principal seat, before Ding Weizeng, melting into the company of the Li family folk, respectful and deferential.
For a moment a chill ran through the whole great hall; even Ding Weizeng's eyelid twitched, and a touch of dread rose in his heart.
Li Ximing did not give him so much as a glance. He nodded slightly toward Sima Xunhui, and this direct scion of the Sima family hurriedly bowed. Li Ximing sipped his tea and said quietly:
"Speak."
The words were plainly meant for the Zhao general, who said respectfully:
"This subordinate is Li Ju, a man of Lingbei. I cultivated under the Damu Dharma Realm, followed the Mohe Guangchan south, and took orders in the army..."
Li Ximing looked thoughtful and turned to Sima Yuanli. This True Person Qinghu nodded slightly, his expression grave, and answered:
"This year I watched the far bank and found large bodies of troops shifting about, all of them men of the Damu Dharma Realm. I could not shake the feeling that the north has something arranged, and so I laid a plan and captured one of them to bring back... I happened to run into you, fellow Daoist, just as you came out of seclusion, so we may as well discuss countermeasures."
Li Ximing frowned slightly.
He naturally knew the name Guangchan; indeed, through that Lianmin Nvxiao of that time... he even knew that this Mohe carried the bloodline of the Wei-Li house in him as well!
'No good thing...'
Even as he weighed it carefully, Sima Yuanli read his expression, laughed once, and said with a trace of envy surfacing in his words:
"Congratulations, Fellow Daoist Zhaojing... Rare... Rare indeed!"
Coming out of seclusion today, his life divine ability 『All-Heavens Illumination』 had been accomplished!
A life divine ability carried an utterly different meaning for the cultivators of all the world. It was not only a shadow hanging over the heart of every lesser cultivator, but also an important means of filling out the standing of a Violet Palace. Now that it had been accomplished in a single morning, he had entirely risen above the common dust; he looked a different man altogether!
'Truly no small thing!'
Li Ximing was moved by no small feeling.
The cultivation of a life divine ability set great store by Dao attainment and karmic mandate; it was not easy to begin with, and for Li Ximing as he now was it was higher still. This time he had shut himself away in one stretch for five or six years, and had even come close to failing!
'I was a little hasty this time... Though I refine pills year after year and grow ever more versed in the way of Mingyang, if I truly reckon it up, my Dao attainment still falls short by a notch... Were it not for that 『Listening to the Purple Will Qi』 of mine, which happens to make up for precisely this... I would have failed again this time!'
Li Zhouwei's Dao attainment had now reached just beneath Great True Person, yet when Li Ximing entered seclusion he had been no more than an ordinary early-stage Violet Palace. Many True Persons of far higher attainment had never managed to cultivate a life divine ability—how much less could he?
Only, with success achieved in a single morning, his Dao attainment had actually advanced a great deal instead, and he felt thoroughly at ease in his heart. He could be said to have held his head high and breathed easy at last. He raised his brows and said with a smile:
"Only luck..."
Sima Yuanli shook his head and said with feeling:
"That is hard to say. First, your family's karmic mandate runs high; second... it is also that you are so exceptional, fellow Daoist... My own elders advised the same: if one cannot attain the Dao through a life divine ability, then so far as talent allows, one should try to complete the life divine ability as the second divine ability, for divine abilities only grow harder to cultivate the further one goes, and the third is harder still. By the time you run into Joining Purple and only then start cultivating a life divine ability... that is simply madness!"
Sima Yuanli did indeed feel a measure of envy. His lineage and its transmission were clearly defined, yet now that a life divine ability had become his Dao foundation, he had not the least confidence in it... and the situation was pressing, leaving him no room to let his strength stand still for long. He had been torn one way and then the other all this time; having seen Li Ximing break through this great barrier, how could he not envy him?
Li Ximing listened and smiled faintly.
With the divine ability accomplished, the world before his eyes was utterly different!
Strand after strand of mystic light hung like beads of radiance above the heads of the crowd, each a different hue, their glow pure and clear, some full, some shriveled, each answering to the spiritual energy and cultivation of its bearer—this was what 『All-Heavens Illumination』 sensed!
Put another way, everyone in this great hall lay beneath the shroud of his life divine ability; and beyond this hall, everywhere his spiritual sense reached was likewise shrouded by 『All-Heavens Illumination』.
The marvels of this life divine ability divide mainly into a chief part and a lesser. The chief was that which worked upon Li Ximing himself—vaunted as: 'That which the sacred gives birth to, that which the work of kingship completes; it governs the Six Directions, balances Heaven and Earth, is matched with the spirits, and questions the cosmos.'
This portion of the marvel was tied to his own Dao attainment, his power, and his standing. Once he stirred it, 『All-Heavens Illumination』 granted its blessing, and out of nothing was bred a Radiance of the Six Directions, issuing commands and closing all things off, dissolving evil and calamity.
This Radiance of the Six Directions followed close upon 『All-Heavens Illumination』, and was most closely bound to his attainment in the way of Mingyang. Besides its use in combat, it had the so-called uses of balancing Heaven and Earth and questioning the cosmos—it could be turned to calculation and to asking after the Dao.
Apart from the Radiance of the Six Directions, the remaining marvels threw the peculiar nature of the life divine ability into still sharper relief.
If a Mingyang Violet Palace cultivator were likened to an ordinary man, then 『Audience at the Heavenly Gate』 was like a keen weapon in his hand, and 『Jun Daowei』 like the armor on his body, while this portion of the marvel in 『All-Heavens Illumination』 was rather like something no eye could see—looks and strength, bearing and cultivation, temper and fortune.
This divine ability was not like 『Audience at the Heavenly Gate』, which had a notion of being brought forth and gathered back; 『All-Heavens Illumination』 was more like a rising of one's own intrinsic qualities, naturally formed by Heaven...
Rather than saying the marvel of 『All-Heavens Illumination』 shrouded a certain range, it was truer to say it shrouded the web of power and authority within one faction.
This divine ability held sway over advancement and demotion. The divine ability favored those near and dear to him; those who received the grace of 『All-Heavens Illumination's』 elevation and promotion had heavenly light born in their qi sea, so that upright thought drove off evil and light shone upon their origins.
The marvel in it, turned to governing subordinates, made it so that when removed from their posts they could not harbor disloyalty, and when giving their lives in service they could not harbor resentment. For men like Ding Weizeng and Qu Bushi, if they harbored disloyalty or resentment, he would sense it at once!
Once he sensed it, anger arose in his heart and his rebuke came down—he could even strip these people of their cultivation. Qi Refinement and Embryonic Breathing need no mention; even a man like Ding Weizeng at the very peak of Foundation Establishment could, with a single word from him, see decades of work cast away and fall in one breath to mid Foundation Establishment.
And the marvels that paired with this in 『All-Heavens Illumination』 did not end there. That Radiance of the Six Directions, given the lightest sweep, could at once turn a man's soul and spirit upside down, make him utterly forget himself, and take his every command and word as an inviolable standard.
'Not that it makes a man as if a lord and father had been reborn in him, a different person entirely... but unless some other Violet Palace's special life divine ability breaks the hold, that man will keep on serving loyally by my instructions until his body dies and the Dao is dissolved! And in time he will lose his heart utterly... Even if another Violet Palace were to meddle, he could not be saved.'
At the same time, 『All-Heavens Illumination』, as the gathering of all that is greatest in the way of Mingyang, could answer to 『Audience at the Heavenly Gate』!
Once 『Audience at the Heavenly Gate』 was brought forth, there would come golden armor and golden robes filling the whole sky. These summoned armored soldiers had only the strength of Qi Refinement or Foundation Establishment; apart from a bit of fighting instinct they had little sense, and without some Wei method they could never make a showing before a Violet Palace—it was a matter of a single breath.
But the marvel of the Radiance of the Six Directions, the so-called 'matched with the spirits,' lay precisely here. The golden armor and golden robes filling the sky, once lightly brushed by the Radiance of the Six Directions, would at once gain greatly in wit and sense; and if his Dao attainment rose high enough, he could even gather the divine abilities through the Radiance of the Six Directions, turning them into immortal generals in golden armor to join the fighting between Violet Palaces.
'This... should be a manifestation of the methods of the Wei-Li Heavenly Dynasty!'
Main characters of this chapter
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Li Ximing [early Violet Palace]
Sima Yuanli [early Violet Palace]
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Chapter 1041