Chapter 47: The Floating Clouds Above Are Like White Robes

After dawn the next day, Shen Lian was no different from before, and Ruoxi assumed that everything from the previous night had merely been a dream.

Today, her brother began teaching her to contemplate objects. The object before her was her bracelet.

He placed it on the table and had her imagine that a certain force existed between heaven and earth, flowing at the command of her thoughts and infusing the bracelet’s nine beads.

It was dreadfully tedious. After playing at it for a while, she no longer wished to continue, but her brother became unusually stern and made her persist until she could scarcely hold on before finally allowing her to stop.

When she practiced the character “eternity” afterward, she found it astonishingly easy. With every stroke, her body seemed to grow lighter and more graceful.

In truth, this was also how cultivation had begun. In the distant beginning, when no one had yet passed down the Dao, there were still those who acquired transcendent powers and even broke through the limits of life and death.

It began because, one day, someone—or perhaps several someones—suddenly conceived the notion that another force existed between heaven and earth, one that could obey the commands of the mind and accomplish things beyond ordinary reason.

All things are born from being, and being is born from nothingness.

Azure Mystery emphasized, “If one wishes to cultivate the body, one must first cultivate the heart.” This was part of the reason.

The spirit relies upon matter, yet when the spirit grows strong enough, it can in turn influence matter. The Buddha spoke of attaining enlightenment in dreams; Zhuang Zhou spoke of dreaming he was a butterfly. It was much the same.

Ruoxi was far from understanding such principles, but the calligraphy she had once found tedious suddenly became a source of joy. There was only one new thing that proved even more painful than practicing calligraphy.

The plan for the day lies in the morning. If one rises early to work, the hours seem extraordinarily long.

The sensation of time passing quickly or slowly is sometimes determined by how much one experiences.

Ruoxi felt that she had already done a great deal that day, though the morning was not yet half over. She lay listlessly across the little table when she suddenly heard a strange wooden-fish rhythm. It seemed distant, yet also as though it sounded directly beside her ear. After hearing it, Ruoxi felt utterly relaxed. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and at last she fell into a deep sleep without dreaming.

Shen Lian faced a danger concerning life and death, but it was not yet upon him. His life was like the sun in the sky, which had not yet reached the height of its blazing heat.

When the sound of the wooden fish began, he left the house. Like a ghost, he flickered in and out along the streets, and soon arrived at the riverside.

Vessels came and went across the broad Anping Canal. Yet the most striking sight was not the small boats upon the water, but the Imperial Scenery Bridge spanning the great river.

A single bridge commanded the view of the entire river. Built at precisely the right location, it linked together the Divine Capital, which the water had divided, in a magnificent and imposing sweep.

The bridge was a stone arch. An old monk stood beside its railing, while pedestrians streamed back and forth behind him. There was an ineffable sense of the saying: “People walk across the bridge, while the bridge and water remain.”

As Shen Lian approached slowly from the riverbank, the scenery behind him seemed gradually to turn illusory. This was not a sight visible in the physical world, but an impression upon the spirit.

In the same instant, the old monk shifted his gaze from the flowing river to Shen Lian.

The monk was naturally Ku Hui. In his hand he held a silver-gray wooden fish. Shen Lian had seen it many years before, when he himself had still been weak. The wooden fish was called “Grand Tenuity,” the same Grand Tenuity associated with the Grand Tenuity Pavilion of Azure Mystery.

The sound it produced was known as the Soul-Calming Tone, which those without spiritual insight found difficult to hear. At that time, Grand Tenuity had been in Ling Chongxiao’s hands. Many years ago, it had belonged to Azure Mystery.

Without light, the world would be darkness. Yet within the realm of the spirit, the light of the material world could not penetrate.

If Shen Lian closed his eyes, he would discover that the old monk was a lamp of flame.

A Buddhist scripture says that cultivation is the lighting of a lamp: so long as the flame does not go out, the spiritual terrace remains clear.

As a person grows older, the physical body continually decays. Practices for nurturing vitality, such as circulating energy through the cosmic circuit, indeed become increasingly difficult to advance. Yet cultivation at the level of the soul need not ever stop.

Cultivating the soul, however, was far more difficult than refining energy. Buddhism did not place importance on liberation through the body, but devoted itself to liberating the mind. In this respect, Buddhist cultivation was, on the whole, superior to Taoist cultivation.

Shen Lian, however, differed from ordinary Taoist cultivators. His greatest advantage lay precisely in his spirit and soul.

When Ku Hui saw Shen Lian again after so many years, the shock he experienced was beyond anything an outsider could understand. As their eyes met, Ku Hui seemed to behold an endless ocean. Though its surface was calm and unruffled, once storms were raised, it would be sufficient to shatter him utterly.

The surrounding pedestrians noticed nothing unusual between them. During the instant Ku Hui lost himself, Shen Lian arrived beside him on a gentle breeze.

“It has been sixteen years since we last met.” Shen Lian’s voice was as young as his appearance.

His tone was calm and easy, like white clouds reflected in the river.

Ku Hui said, “I did not expect you to remember so clearly.”

“My innate gifts make it possible for me to remember.”

“Then do you still remember Ye Liuyun?” Ku Hui asked with a smile.

“He is an interesting man, and in certain respects even more remarkable than I am. But I was not born into this world to compete with anyone for superiority.” Shen Lian’s Taoist robes drifted about him, ethereal and empty.

Ku Hui had thought that, even after seeking the Dao for more than a decade, Shen Lian would still find it difficult to contend with the Empress. At that moment, however, his conviction began to waver.

It was not because Shen Lian had revealed some peerless sharpness, but because the Shen Lian before him now possessed a trace of the profound meaning expressed in the Taoist saying: “Because he does not contend, none beneath heaven can contend with him.”

At last, he said, “The day after tomorrow, at the Temple of Fragrant Accumulation, Her Majesty wishes to meet you.”

Shen Lian said, “This Empress seems truly formidable. She does not even need to summon me to the Imperial City.”

If the Emperor summoned him within the Imperial City, the vital energy of the land would converge there, together with the power of the people’s prayers. Someone with Shen Lian’s profound spiritual cultivation would be subjected to tremendous suppression.

If Shen Lian feared to go, it could also cast a shadow over his heart.

The Empress had abandoned the advantage of her own domain and chosen to meet Shen Lian elsewhere. This alone showed how confident she was.

Ku Hui said, “Since you escaped the mundane world long ago, why involve yourself in the mire again? Her Majesty’s methods are already beyond what ordinary cultivators can rival. This old monk still hopes you will proceed with caution.”

His meaning was that Shen Lian should not go, though he did not say so directly.

If there had been a clear difference in strength between Shen Lian and the Empress, he would not have offered such advice. It was precisely because, in his estimation, he could no longer determine which of them held an overwhelming advantage.

If conflict arose, neither of them would benefit, and the Great Zhou Dynasty would benefit even less.

Should trouble befall the Great Zhou Dynasty, the ones to suffer most would be its common people.

Shen Lian said, “There is no need to speak of this further. I am somewhat curious about Her Majesty. Meeting her once will do no harm. Master, might you give me the wooden fish?”

Ku Hui said, “Grand Tenuity was meant to be returned to you from the beginning. Why else would I have brought it here?”

The silver-gray wooden fish passed from Ku Hui’s hands into Shen Lian’s. What had come from one place had now returned to that place. Yet this wooden fish was by no means an ordinary magical artifact. Why Azure Mystery had not reclaimed it after it had been lost all those years ago remained a question in Shen Lian’s heart.