Chapter 678: A Jar

In the first year of the Xiangfu era. Early winter.

Approaching Liangzhou City, a slender girl dressed in thin clothes and a young monk in tattered robes walked side by side.

“Stupid Nanyang, we’re almost at Liangzhou now, so why am I getting more and more nervous? It’s like the time I first sneaked a peek at the love letter that fox spirit wrote to my father—it’s that nerve-wracking!”

“You’re just anxious about returning home. After all, Xu Fengnian’s house is practically half your home too.”

“A monk talking about emotions? Aren’t you afraid the Buddha in the Western Paradise will sneeze and drown you?”

“My master and mistress never feared wind or rain, not even thunderstorms.”

“Stupid Nanyang, we didn’t even bring half a copper coin to buy pretty face powder and rouge. Do you think he’ll think I’ve grown uglier as I got older?”

“How could that be!”

“You just said that. If it turns out otherwise, I’m definitely going to beat you up.”

“Amitabha…”

“Stupid Nanyang, let me test you with a question—your Buddhist sect…”

“Stop right there! Lizi, your home is my home too. Why do you say ‘your Buddhist sect’? I was picked up by my master and brought up the mountain. It was my mistress who shaved my head. She said I was crying my eyes out back then. See? Even then, I already knew I didn’t want to be a monk.”

“Alright, alright. Then just answer me this: why do Buddhists say that true wisdom lies in having no abiding thoughts, yet all these Bodhisattvas make grand vows—doesn’t that count as attachment? If so, how can they still hope to attain Buddhahood?”

“Well… Lizi, maybe I can answer you after I become a Buddha and leave behind some relics?”

“So that’s how you used to preach to all those monks? No wonder the old abbot always liked to delay paying his copper coins. My mother would send me to collect, and every time the old abbot would look so miserable, like he had a stomachache. He must’ve disliked your sermons.”

“…”

“Hey? Stupid Nanyang, why are you crying? Can’t you act a little braver? The old abbot has attained Buddhahood, not died!”

“Cry when you cry, laugh when you laugh, eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep, chant when you chant. When the wooden fish sounds, I am Buddha—that’s what my master taught me.”

“Please. You’re so dumb you can’t even grasp the true meaning of Buddhism. If even you became a Buddha, who would still believe in Buddhism?”

“Hehe…”

“Oh, by the way, speaking of wooden fish, why have I never seen my father let you hit one?”

“We don’t have one at our house either.”

“That’s true, but our stingy neighbor, Master Huineng, actually hides a very valuable wooden fish. My mother said it’s carved from a West Shu parasol tree. If you hit it hard, the sound can be heard dozens of miles away. Do you think that’s true?”

“Of course it’s not. Once, my mistress wanted to go down the mountain to buy a dress she’d had her eye on for a while, but my master was short on cash. So he dragged me out to hide from her and secretly met with Abbot Huineng for a drink. Huineng got so happy he held the wooden fish and drummed on it for half the night. I was standing outside keeping watch the whole time, and I didn’t think the sound was that loud—it was nothing special. Actually, my mistress was just thinking about how valuable that wooden fish was. Once she even let it slip while I was washing clothes, saying she’d someday take that wooden fish home and use it as my dowry. How impressive!”

“Goodness… That explains why my mother always asks Master Huineng how old his bald head is whenever she sees him. Sigh, lucky for us my mother only wanders around the town at the foot of the mountain and never goes into the martial world. Otherwise, which chivalrous hero or noble cultivator would want to deal with her?”

“Besides, my master is always keeping an eye on my mistress. She doesn’t even want to go into the martial world. Moreover, she always says that women outside the mountain are either tigers who eat people without spitting bones or fox spirits who only have looks but no brains. Especially in Tai’an City, where every girl on the streets is shameless and indecent—that’s always been my master’s forbidden zone. How could she trust my master otherwise? That’s why she followed him to the capital this time, right?”

“Wu Nanyang! Just you wait until I tell my mother!”

“Amitabha… Master, no wonder you never argue back when scolded by my mistress. The more you speak, the more mistakes you make, adding to your karmic troubles. I think I understand now.”

“Stupid Nanyang, what were you muttering about?”

On the road, the girl puffed up her cheeks, walking while clenching her fists and pretending to hit a wooden fish.

“Dong dong dong~ When the wooden fish sounds, I am Buddha, yi ya yi ya yo~ Dong dong dong~”

The young monk sneaked a glance and smiled secretly.

That day, the sun was warm.

※※※

In the Western Capital, the central hub of the Southern Court of the Northern Desert, originally known as Jiaxi City, it had once been an ordinary town. But with the influx of scholars fleeing northward, it gradually gained deep and elegant Jiangnan-style courtyards, the traditional black-tiled white-walled homes of ancestral worship, private libraries of scholarly families, unfamiliar sounds of scholarly recitations, elegant high-collared and wide-robed gentlemen, beautiful women trailing embroidered gowns, and a dazzling variety of exotic foods. Day by day, Jiaxi City flourished until it became the Northern Desert’s secondary capital. With continuous expansion, it even gained a court where native Longguan nobles and newly arrived scholar-officials each held half the power, adopting the Three Departments and Six Ministries system, teeming with talent and flourishing in culture.

Over the past two decades, this city had transformed like a thin little girl growing into a full-figured beauty.

Yet on this day, the usually bustling Imperial Avenue was unusually quiet, where a procession slowly advanced. At the head walked an old crone—her age far surpassing the city’s itself.

Beside her, wrapped in an old fox fur cloak, walked an aged Confucian scholar. Further behind followed a middle-aged swordsman with a blade at his waist and a burly man in his fifties, walking side by side.

The old woman suddenly chuckled softly, “I heard our Martial God encountered that family of three at Huishan Mountain, but they didn’t end up fighting.”

The elder in green nodded.

The old woman sighed, “Is it the case of flowers blooming outside the wall? Why must the two people I admire most leave for Liyang? One dared to ride alone to the city walls of the imperial capital and face me eye to eye. And the other, a single person who is an entire sect by himself. If I recall correctly, that one-man sect ranks even higher than the Princess Tomb and your own Qijian Leyuan, right? If only they had stayed in the Northern Desert…”

At its peak, Qijian Leyuan had four great experts. Although Huang Baozhu, also known as the demon lord Luoyang, had defected from the Northern Desert, Hong Jingyan had become the ruler of the Rouran cavalry, while Jianqi Jin and Tongren Zushi were also among the Northern Desert’s top martial experts.

Who in the world would dare underestimate Qijian Leyuan?

The old scholar, dressed in shabby Confucian robes, smiled, “If not for that, wouldn’t the martial world lose much of its charm?”

The old woman turned to the swordsman beside her, “Huang Qing, do you have any chance of defeating that person in battle?”

Not asking how great the chance was, but simply, “Any chance at all?”

The one questioned nodded.

Though not a joyous answer, it was at least not disappointing.

Huang Qing, originally named Sun Shaopu, bore the title “Jianqi Jin” in the Qijian Leyuan. He was also the master of Hong Jingyan. Angered by the Liyang Empire’s mockery of the Northern Desert’s lack of sword experts, even claiming that no one in the entire Northern Desert martial world was worthy of discussing the sword way,

He changed his name to Huang Qing.

As for the old woman who could command Jianqi Jin as her retainer, her identity was obvious.

This aging female eagle had soared above all the male eagles on the great grasslands for far too long.

The four of them entered the Western Capital’s palace city, and under the careful guidance of the chief eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, only Murong the Female Emperor and the Taiping Decree entered a quiet pavilion.

Inside the pavilion stood a mysterious grayish-black carved coiled dragon vat of unknown material. Though only half a person tall, it was massive, taking up most of the hall.

Murong the Female Emperor placed her hands on the cool, smooth rim of the vat, narrowing her eyes as she peered into the clear water.

This vat was named “Zheshui.” Only after she usurped the throne and sat upon the dragon throne did someone secretly enter the palace to inform her that a dragon lay dormant at the bottom of the vat.

At first glance, no dragon could be seen, but the image before her was already eerie enough.

Though the water was still, it was never truly calm.

If one looked closely, one could faintly see many small, colorful carp suspended motionless in the water.

Murong the Female Emperor slowly raised her head, scanning the room. Besides the Taiping Decree, there were only nine others present. Among them was Nanming Zhenren, second only to the national master Yuan Qingshan of the Daode Sect. There was also the most secretive and skilled Fengjiao diviner of the Northern Desert, and the renowned astrologer Yelü Guangzhu, whose ancestors had served the Northern Desert imperial family for generations, interpreting omens. These nine recluses, hidden here for decades, were even unknown to the previous Southern Court’s Grand Minister of the South, Huang Songpu. As for other Southern Court nobles, they could only dream of knowing such a strange pavilion existed in the Western Capital, or of the mysterious vat filled with so many eccentric experts.

Murong the Female Emperor softly asked, “Where is the Liyang Emperor Zhao Dun, who claimed illness and has not attended court recently?”

Nanming Zhenren, his head full of white hair but his face as smooth as a child’s, held a slender purple bamboo rod. He stepped beside Murong the Female Emperor and gently drew a small circle two feet above the water’s surface with his rod. The voice of this century-old Daoist master, like a child’s, was crisp and clear, “Judging by the position, Emperor Zhao Dun is indeed secretly inspecting the border of the two Liao regions, as the spy reports indicated.”

Murong the Female Emperor lightly tapped the rim of the vat with her fingers, sneering, “To die before me, a mere old woman, at the age of knowing one’s destiny—how pitiful.”

Silence reigned around her; no one dared to speak.

She asked again, “Besides that small creature symbolizing Chen Zhibao suddenly sprouting dragon claws, is there anything else worth mentioning?”

Nanming Zhenren tapped the rod slightly southward from the previous spot, “The carp representing Zhang Julu has dropped four feet in the vat and is about to hit the bottom.”

The old woman laughed heartily, “What a Liyang Emperor who kills his own deer.”

At this moment, the spot indicated by the old immortal’s bamboo rod was, unsurprisingly, Tai’an City.

The new leader of the Daode Sect, succeeding the ascended Qilin Zhenren, remained expressionless as he moved the rod and lightly tapped a spot in the northwest, “Xu Fengnian is still lingering near Huaiyang Pass.”

Suddenly, a small black carp less than two inches long leapt out of the water, then instead of falling back to its original position, shifted slightly westward.

Murong the Female Emperor frowned, “What is this?”

Nanming Zhenren, still speaking in his childlike tone, calmly explained, “That’s Xu Longxiang. Some martial artists who haven’t entered the Heaven’s Phenomenon realm but possess great fortune usually have blurred positions in the vat unless their energy leaks too severely. Those skilled in concealing their energy are even more so. But once they reveal heavenly secrets, they can no longer escape the net of fate. As for those nearing the realm of Immortal on Land, their very presence can disturb the water within the vat.”

“For example?”

“The Wudang Sect leader Li Yufu once caused a tremor in heavenly secrets, causing the vat’s water to overflow.”

“Any others?”

“Yes. Huang Longshi, Tan Tai Pingjing, Xie Feiyu. Originally the most elusive three, they have recently begun showing signs.”

“What about Cao Changqing?”

“Since he has become a Confucian Sage, naturally he has already transcended the vat.”

After this exchange, Murong the Female Emperor pondered for a moment and murmured to herself, “Could it be that Liu Kui’s main army has already encountered Longxiang’s forces?”

Nanming Zhenren hesitated slightly before shaking his head, “No. It should be that Xu Longxiang has gone west of Qingcang City and met that Qiang cavalry.”

The old woman’s expression darkened momentarily but soon cleared, “Well, you have two sons anyway.”

Taiping Decree guessed the Female Emperor’s thoughts and calmly said, “Since he’s revealed a flaw, we can send Huang Qing and Tongren to assassinate Xu Longxiang. Such an opportunity may not come again.”

The old woman pressed her thumb firmly against the rim of the vat and asked, “Can they make it in time?”

The old Confucian scholar, serving as the Northern Desert’s imperial tutor, smiled, “We’ll send them in that direction as quickly as possible. After that, it will depend on the luck of both sides.”

The old woman smiled, “Then let’s give it a try.”

Without hesitation, the Taiping Decree turned and walked out, heading to personally issue orders to Jianqi Jin Huang Qing.

The old woman mused aloud, “If it succeeds, will there still be battles in Liuzhou after all these rounds of scheming between us?”

“No more.”