ATEG Chapter 114.1

Where are the immortals?

When mortals face hardship, they bow and pray to the immortals. But when immortals face hardship, to whom should they pray?

At Marquis Wu’s Temple, the massive bronze incense burner before the gate stood tall and solid, cast with rough patterns, its fires burning vigorously within, releasing wisps of pale blue smoke heavy with the scent of sandalwood that drifted all the way up to the heavens. Inside the temple, wooden racks had been added to the left and right, holding many carved wooden figures of small children bearing lanterns. The rear hall, however, had its doors and windows tightly shut against all visitors — from outside it appeared dark and still, and the occasional passerby assumed the temple keeper had simply locked up.

Inside the rear hall, it was not dark at all. Light of uncertain origin illuminated the space with bright clarity. At the center of the great hall sat a low table upon the floor, arranged with various fruits and pastries, and a small bamboo basket with a rustic charm, filled with a handful of still-warm roasted chestnuts. On one side of the table sat a cushion, upon which rested an elderly Daoist in coarse grey-black robes, his manner inwardly composed and unadorned. On the other side lay a pile of soft cushions embroidered with intricate patterns of flowers, birds, fish and insects, along with several embroidered portraits of beauties — one gazing through a window, another leaning on a railing with a smile, another dozing on a couch in languid spring repose. Among these cushions reclined the Marquis Wu, one elbow propped against the ground, the other hand lifting a wine jug, tilting it to let clear liquid fall into his upturned throat. There was something almost rakishly indulgent about it, like a man lounging among courtesans.

Chi Zhenzi sat cross-legged on his cushion, watching him quietly, apparently not feeling the least bit slighted. He waited patiently, and went on waiting until the Marquis Wu’s wine jug — one that could hold a lake’s worth of water — was finally empty.

“Shouyi,” Chi Zhenzi called.

This was Marquis Wu’s name from his previous life. He was the reincarnation of someone from Diancang Mountain, and before his reincarnation he and Chi Zhenzi had been disciples of the same master.

The Marquis Wu cut him off. “Wu Keji.”

Chi Zhenzi changed his address quite calmly. “Wu Keji.”

Marquis Wu looked at him with a throbbing headache. Chi Zhenzi was a very patient man with an excellent command of his composure, and if he had made up his mind to accomplish something, it was very difficult to make him give up, and very difficult to make him angry. So once he had decided to stay and wear him down here, the Marquis Wu had little means of escape — if he wanted to force the issue, he did have ways to drive Chi Zhenzi away, for he was an unconventional man by nature. But Chi Zhenzi was his fellow disciple and senior martial brother. He had entered the sect late and understood nothing; their master had commanded Chi Zhenzi to guide him, and Chi Zhenzi had laid the foundations of his cultivation with his own hands. Though called a senior brother, Chi Zhenzi had in practice been half a teacher to him. He could not use his outrageous methods on Chi Zhenzi, and so he had no choice but to let himself be cornered in the rear hall.

Chi Zhenzi had already continued speaking. “You have reincarnated now. I can still protect you.”

The Marquis Wu laughed with dissolute ease. “It’s nothing more than casting off the cultivation of spirit and soul again. What do I have to fear?”

When he had shed his former life and re-entered the cycle of reincarnation, it was Chi Zhenzi who had watched over him. One such casting-off of life meant losing the cultivation of the physical body, but the cultivation of the spirit-soul was preserved — otherwise he could not possibly have, so soon after the death of his life as Wu Keji, been able to force his way against Xingfeng Temple, seize this place’s faith, and establish Marquis Wu’s Temple. Ordinary ghost entities without cultivation derive their power from resentful malice — the deeper the resentment, the greater the strength, and the less clear the mind. Of course, when Wu Keji had just died, there had been no time for cultivation, yet he possessed unusual abilities and a perfectly clear mind. Xingfeng Temple could see from this that he was a reincarnated being, but did not know his origins before reincarnation. They had attempted to investigate the Marquis Wu’s background and ultimately learned nothing. Finding nothing was normal — even Diancang Mountain had been unable to locate the reincarnated form, and it was only after the name of the Marquis Wu had grown famous in this place that Chi Zhenzi happened to discover that he was the very Shouyi he had been searching for.

It was not uncommon for cultivators to reincarnate and resume cultivation. The less prepared had no arrangements made in advance; their circumstances in reincarnation depended entirely on their own accumulated foundation, and there were cases of those who failed to re-enter cultivation at all. The better prepared had made arrangements beforehand — not only did they have some choice in selecting a body to reincarnate into, but they could also be awakened from confusion by old friends and re-guided back into their sect. Under normal circumstances, after Chi Zhenzi had watched over his reincarnation, he would have found the reincarnated form and brought him back into the sect. But the Shouyi of those years had secretly used certain methods and did not reincarnate in the place he and Chi Zhenzi had agreed upon. He had reincarnated as Wu Keji, hidden himself within Liang Kingdom, and by drawing on the special power of his precept-keeping cultivation, concealed his own traces.

Chi Zhenzi had spent no small effort searching for him, but by the time he arrived, Wu Keji had already become the Marquis Wu. The once obedient little junior brother had grown up and formed his own calculations. Chi Zhenzi had spoken with him several times; the Marquis Wu was unwilling to return, and Chi Zhenzi did not force him. Cultivation was one’s own road — no one else could carry you along it. But this time Chi Zhenzi had come with the intention of accomplishing one thing in particular.

Reincarnation was essentially receiving a new physical body. The cultivation of the physical body could not be carried over, the spirit-soul remained unchanged, and barring accidents, the cultivation of the spirit-soul could be brought into the next life. But now the Underworld and the Yellow Springs were growing ever more unsettled. The cycle of reincarnation was originally the self-running mechanism of heaven and earth, yet someone was attempting to interfere with the Underworld and the Yellow Springs, making reincarnation unsafe. This was especially true since the Marquis Wu had gathered a hall full of resentful ghosts — they were steeped in resentful malice, every one of them nursing extreme hatred for him. He could still suppress them for now, but if things continued at this rate, he would one day suffer a backlash.

Chi Zhenzi gazed steadily at the Marquis Wu. “It is not only the spirit-soul cultivation.”

There was no emotion in Chi Zhenzi’s gaze, yet the Marquis Wu felt his smile was about to collapse. He moved his eyes to the wine jug he was toying with, smiling carelessly, soaked in the smell of wine as if still drunk. “What else could there be, then?”

“Not far beyond the borders of your domain, there was once a dog king,” Chi Zhenzi said, watching him steadily.

The Marquis Wu raised an eyebrow. His eyes were hazy and moist with drink, as though he were only just now hearing what Chi Zhenzi was describing — yet when he lifted his gaze from the wine jug and met Chi Zhenzi’s eyes again, the expression on his face could be maintained no longer.

That dog king had transformed into an Aberration just at the edge of his domain. Of course he had known. Chi Zhenzi had also seen through his pretense of ignorance, but remained neither angry nor ruffled, his gaze plainly showing he had seen through everything, while his words came one by one with perfect clarity, pressing in on him.

“When a living being transforms into an Aberration in a tribulation, not only is all physical and spirit-soul cultivation scattered upon death, but the true spirit is also extinguished,” Chi Zhenzi laid bare what both of them already knew. “When the true spirit is extinguished, that being ceases to exist entirely.”

The physical body was like clothing for the soul. What mortals regarded as the great matter of life and death was, for a cultivator who had reached a certain level, no more than shedding an old set of clothes and putting on a new one. Severe damage to the spirit-soul could be catastrophic — if the spirit-soul were completely worn away until only a scrap of true spirit remained, that was tantamount to having nothing at all. But as long as the true spirit endured, there was a chance to begin again. The physical body and spirit-soul could both be worn to nothing, but the true spirit was eternally indestructible. A living being’s karmic threads and fate were tied to the true spirit, which is why the saying “death dissolves all debts” held no truth — even if body and soul were wholly extinguished and memory and cultivation alike were lost, if there were karmic ties yet unfulfilled, they would continue to be borne. It was like a person who had lost all memory of what they had done: if they had once been a murderous bandit who killed for profit, could their crimes be considered void simply because they could not remember? And if they had once been a generous person who helped others in need, could their creditors refuse to repay them simply because they no longer remembered?

Thus the eternal existence of the true spirit and the workings of karma and destiny were mutually sustaining. Previously there had never been a case of a true spirit being extinguished — but in this Aberrant Great Calamity, when those living beings who transformed into Aberrations perished, their true spirits were also completely extinguished, and the karmic threads and fate that had been attached to them were severed by force, leaving terrifying black voids of emptiness behind.

The Marquis Wu half-opened, half-closed his eyes. He knew of this matter — in fact, he understood what had happened even more clearly than Chi Zhenzi.

Before any true spirit had been extinguished, severed karmic threads and fate could still be mended and corrected through various means, but after a true spirit was extinguished, the karmic threads and fate of this world could never be made whole again. The true spirits that had perished were gone. The karmic threads and fate that should have been connected to them still existed, but could only drift in isolation, pulling at the living beings on their other ends, trailing broken through the void.

The very first true spirit’s extinction had not occurred after the Aberrant Great Calamity arose — it had happened in a far more distant time, when the Marquis Wu was still Shouyi. The reason he had been forced to reincarnate was also connected to this.

The Marquis Wu understood what Chi Zhenzi wanted him to do. Chi Zhenzi wanted him to cast off the cultivation of this ghost body now. He had accumulated far too much resentful malice in this form and was destined to be unable to attain the Dao through it — sooner or later he would suffer a backlash. The Great Calamity was showing signs of growing ever more severe, and if he held on until the day he was forced to give it up, the situation would surely be perilously dangerous, and he might not even be able to protect his true spirit. If he shed this body’s cultivation now, dissolved the resentful malice of the ghosts in his hall, and reincarnated again, with Chi Zhenzi’s guardianship and the shelter of Diancang Mountain, at least his true spirit could be kept safe.

Chi Zhenzi wanted him to shed his tail to survive.

The devout sounds of prayer from the worshippers before the temple drifted in faintly, distant as if from another world. The Marquis Wu knew perfectly well that the path Chi Zhenzi had chosen for him was the best available choice at present — but he was unwilling.

After Chi Zhenzi had found him again, he had discussed this matter with him countless times before — previously over the uncompromising methods of his conduct, and now with the added weight of the Great Calamity. He had managed to bluff his way through before, but this time, if he could not offer a genuine explanation, Chi Zhenzi would likely not leave.

“Haven’t you always wanted to know why I concealed my reincarnation back then?” the Marquis Wu uncapped the wine jug and brought it close to smell.

Chi Zhenzi nodded.

After reincarnation one was at one’s most vulnerable. To be guided by someone and sheltered under a sect — that was the prudent choice. Marquis Wu had been forced to reincarnate through no fault of his own, so why had he run away? He had never brought it up before, and Chi Zhenzi had never pressed him.

“When I was forced to reincarnate back then, it was not because of an accident — it was because my precept-keeping was nearly destroyed,” the Marquis Wu said. He spoke of it lightly, his clothes and cushions suffused with the smell of wine, his eyes hazy as though still submerged in drunkenness — yet still, hearing this, Chi Zhenzi could not help but startle.

Chi Zhenzi had not known this. He had only known that at the time Shouyi had suffered an accident, his cultivation was on the verge of ruin, and he had no choice but to shed this life and reincarnate to cultivate anew.

Marquis Wu cultivated the precept-keeping method, but he was not rigidly strict about every individual precept — had he been, he would never have been able to cultivate at all. The path was walked one step at a time; no one was born a saint, and if he truly could already do it, that would mean he had already reached the end point of cultivation and had no further need to cultivate. For most precepts, the Marquis Wu was the same as other cultivators — he held them only through the convenient methods of cultivation, allowing temporary breaks in observance. But there was one precept that was the very foundation of his precept-keeping cultivation.

This was a secret precept, not to be spoken of to others. Aside from himself and the master who had originally conferred it upon him, no third person knew what precept he actually held.

The Marquis Wu continued. “My precept was not made unstable by any fault of my own — it was made unstable by the movements of heaven and earth.”

A cultivator’s precepts were not chosen arbitrarily — they were connected to heaven, earth, and the heart of the Dao. Otherwise, if a person merely swore to eat nothing unclean and managed to keep to it, could that really be considered a cultivation achievement?

The fundamental nature of the precept-keeping cultivation method lay in cultivation itself. Precepts naturally communicated with heaven and earth, and if heaven and earth were unstable, the precepts would naturally be unstable as well. This was precisely where Shouyi had been trapped — he had not broken his precept, yet the movements of heaven and earth had caused a problem with his cultivation, forcing him to shed his body and reincarnate.

When the conversation reached this point, Chi Zhenzi understood. He would ask no further — to press further would be to encroach upon the contents of the Marquis Wu’s secret precept.

“You reincarnated in secret here in order to adjust your precept?” Chi Zhenzi asked.

“More or less,” said the Marquis Wu.

The precept-keeping cultivation method was the foundation of his cultivation — indeed, his name had been taken from it. So when his precept was shaken, his very foundation had been wounded. There were turbulent movements in the Dao of heaven and earth, yet he had no power to reverse the situation and correct them. If he did not wish to abandon his precept, he could only adjust it. But how could a precept be adjusted so simply? For this reason, he had been compelled to shed an entire body’s cultivation, reincarnate, and be reborn — and throughout the whole life of Wu Keji there had been no cultivation, only constant testing and adjustment, and even now he had not succeeded. That he had not succeeded was entirely normal: the foundation of a precept lay in the Dao, and if the root was already shaken, how could the branches and trunk be expected to stand firm?

To adjust a precept, one must either carefully pare away the rotted and wounded parts, or cut the branches entirely and let new growth emerge. Neither path was easy. He had offered two lifetimes of his body and life as sacrifice, and through sheer force of unwavering resolve had forcibly stabilized the precept-keeping cultivation method.

He had offered a reason, but the reason was not yet sufficient. These things could have been done in Diancang Mountain as well — why had he gone to such lengths to avoid it?

Chi Zhenzi had already thought of it. Once he had not been able to understand why the Marquis Wu acted through such extreme methods; now he understood, and he looked at the Marquis Wu with grieving affection.