Chapter 69: The Unification Principles of the Sages |
“At this point in time, they had not yet appeared within Imperial Mausoleum Commandery. Therefore, when the world reset, it should not have recreated them.”
“But there is no doubt they had already entered Imperial Mausoleum Commandery from Great Qian.”
“Could they have simply vanished outright?”
The thought sent a chill through Li Shun’s heart.
Only after a long while did he gradually calm himself.
“There’s no point speculating endlessly. I only need to wait patiently and observe what happens next.”
Li Shun swept his gaze across the other regions within the Fangcun space and quickly discovered a crucial difference between the Imperial Mausoleum world reset and the regression brought about by Threefold Self-Reflection.
“When Threefold Self-Reflection rewinds time, the Fangcun space itself also returns to the beginning of the day.”
“But the reset caused by the Heavenly Being Codex does not affect the Fangcun space at all.”
“Although the Imperial Mausoleum world has now reset to the fifteenth day of the sixth month, this sixth plot remains intact instead of disappearing.”
“For me, that can only be considered a good thing.”
Threefold Self-Reflection affected the entirety of Great Qian’s world, whereas the Heavenly Being Codex only influenced the single world of Imperial Mausoleum Commandery.
The difference in power between the two was like heaven and earth. Li Shun did not fear the Imperial Mausoleum reset interfering with Threefold Self-Reflection.
What truly concerned him was something else entirely.
“Since Imperial Mausoleum Commandery has returned to the fifteenth day of the sixth month, I must now act according to the original timeline. If my actions diverge from what previously occurred, the Imperial Mausoleum Heaven may notice.”
The image of that colossal golden hand tearing apart the heavens and turning the pages of the world once again surfaced in Li Shun’s mind.
“Of course, since I currently exist within the Second Reflection, I could deliberately deviate from the original course and use it to probe the limits of this reset. But…”
After pondering for a long time, Li Shun ultimately shook his head slightly.
“It’s better to first observe exactly what changes unfold in Imperial Mausoleum Commandery over the coming days.”
At first, everything proceeded exactly as before.
Fang Xun received the reply from the Censorate, and afterward publicly accepted Li Shun as his disciple in front of everyone once again.
The people of Dongshan Town looked upon Li Shun with the same envy as before, seeing him rise to become the disciple of one of the Three Excellencies.
None of them realized this was already the second time they had experienced these events.
Li Shun hurried back to his small courtyard once more and shut himself away to cultivate.
With the experience from the previous cycle, the process was even more familiar and effortless.
He could have broken through to the middle stage of the Mortal Physique Realm far sooner, yet Li Shun forcefully suppressed the advancement.
His Life Qi surged as it propelled his cultivation forward.
Not long afterward, he arrived before the Gate of Earth once again.
Closing his eyes, he carefully sensed the faint opportunity to break through the barrier. Yet his heart suddenly sank.
“It changed!”
“This time, the opportunity to break through is no longer near Dongshan Town. It seems to lie somewhere extremely far away, beyond Imperial Mausoleum Commandery itself!”
“Could Jiang Chongguang really have died?”
“If that’s the case, then Shentu Xin must have…”
Just as Li Shun had predicted.
The next day, the sixteenth day of the sixth month, arrived.
Yet Jiang Chongguang never descended from the heavens after breaking the seal of the Imperial Mausoleum.
Naturally, Shentu Xin never set the mausoleum ablaze either.
Imperial Mausoleum Commandery remained as though frozen for ten thousand years, silent, peaceful, deathly still.
A calamity capable of shaking the heavens vanished soundlessly into nothingness. Shentu Xin, who had mocked the Qian Emperor, ridiculed the Hundred Schools, and burned the Mausoleum with his own life, failed to leave behind even the slightest trace of his existence.
“The Historians inscribe the immortality.”
“The Heavenly Being Codex truly is an unimaginable divine ability.”
Though its influence only covered the single world of Imperial Mausoleum Commandery, Li Shun had already begun to glimpse its terrifying nature.
“Shentu Xin’s cultivation could hardly be considered weak. Especially after borrowing the Life Qi accumulated within countless clay effigies throughout the Mausoleum Commandery, he possessed enough destructive force to burn heaven and shatter earth.”
“And yet before the Heavenly Being Codex, he had absolutely no power to resist. The goal for which he sacrificed his very life vanished in an instant like a bubble. In the end, it only became a joke.”
“Thinking about it, that makes sense. This is a colossal undertaking created through the combined efforts of the Hundred Schools, an endeavour that has remained unfinished even after thousands of years. If a single individual could destroy it so easily on his own, that would be the true joke.”
“No wonder the officials of the Imperial Court allowed Jiang Chongguang and Han Sushu to trespass into the Mausoleum. They knew the two of them alone could never stir up any real trouble. Yet despite all their calculations, they never expected someone from the Jun Clan to slip in as well!”
“Although the Heavenly Being Codex reversed everything, for the officials of Great Qian, the burning of the Imperial Mausoleum truly did happen.”
“I just wonder whether they reported the matter truthfully or not.”
Without Shentu Xin sowing chaos, time within Imperial Mausoleum Commandery quietly turned toward an entirely new chapter.
With no longer any need to worry about exposing inconsistencies in his actions before and after the reset, Li Shun came alone to Lao Wei’s residence.
As though he had long anticipated Li Shun’s arrival, the doors swung open the moment he reached the entrance.
Li Shun stepped inside and saw that Lao Wei was still polishing that long, slender branch-sword.
“Do you have doubts?” Lao Wei asked without even lifting his head.
Li Shun did not bother with pleasantries. He went straight to the point.
“The Imperial Mausoleum reset… is that the Historian Sage’s Heavenly Being Codex divine ability?”
“How is it different from Threefold Self-Reflection?”
“And Shentu Xin, who died on the previous page of the book… is he still alive now?”
“I noticed that you, Lao Wei, seem able to retain your memories through the Imperial Mausoleum reset, but… that doesn’t seem possible with Threefold Self-Reflection?”
After carefully choosing his words, Li Shun fired off several questions in succession.
Lao Wei’s fingers paused slightly upon the sword branch. He finally looked up at Li Shun and shook his head with a faint smile.
“Very well. I’ll answer them one by one.”
“The Imperial Mausoleum of the Qian Emperor can indeed be regarded as a Heavenly Being Codex.”
“However, it is not the divine ability of the Historian Sage.”
“After all, the Historian Sage would never stand guard over his tomb.” A trace of ridicule surfaced in Lao Wei’s tone.
“This world only barely reached the level of ‘Heavenly Being Codex’ after gathering the strength of the Hundred Schools and accumulating it over a thousand years. It is indeed capable of flipping back the pages of the Heavenly Being Codex and resetting the world to a point in the past.”
“But such a feat is not without cost.”
“The more pages one flips backward, the greater the expenditure. That is why this time it only returned to two days ago.”
“As for Shentu Xin…”
“He was an intruder of the Mausoleum. The pages of the past left behind no trace of him. When the Heavenly Being Codex turned its pages, he was crushed beneath that vast power and naturally perished in both body and soul.”
Lao Wei shook his head slightly.
“The Jun Clan, hm? None of those people are particularly bright. Dead is dead. No one will care.”
“The Imperial Mausoleum’s Heavenly Being Codex is, at the end of the day, still not the realm of a Sage. For me to preserve my memories is no difficult matter. Besides, I’ve lived here for several thousand years and have already experienced multiple reversals of the Heavenly Being Codex’s pages. If I still couldn’t keep my mind clear after all this time, then I would truly have lived those years in vain.”
Then Lao Wei added calmly,
“As for Threefold Self-Reflection…”
The moment he spoke those words, the lazy look in his eyes suddenly sharpened.
“That is a Sage’s divine ability. And I do not acknowledge the teachings of the Confucian School. Naturally, I cannot retain my memories within its reversal.”
Li Shun’s heart stirred as he caught the implication hidden within those words.
He hurriedly asked, “Could it be that if one acknowledged the principles of the Confucian School, they would be able to preserve their memories during the reversal of Threefold Self-Reflection?”
This time, however, Lao Wei did not answer directly. Instead, he gave Li Shun a deeply meaningful look.
“Because of their Dao, their principles come into being.”
“The philosophies of the Hundred Schools are all different. Though they have contended for thousands of years and branched into countless factions, there is one objective that has never changed.”
“Great Unification!”
The moment Lao Wei uttered those three words, Li Shun’s heart trembled violently.
“However, after the Hundred Schools evolved for countless years, each of their divine abilities reached unimaginable heights. To truly achieve Great Unification… how difficult would that be? Even the Qian Emperor himself could not accomplish it.”
“And so, in that era, all the Sages of the various schools coincidentally did the same thing.”
“While deducing all manner of profound and miraculous divine abilities, they also intentionally left behind a flaw. If another shared their ideals, then to a certain extent, they could gain exemption from the ability’s restrictions.”
“Take Threefold Self-Reflection as an example. If a Sage from another school were somehow to genuinely come to believe in the doctrines of Confucianism, then they too would be able to retain their memories within Threefold Self-Reflection.”
“But if that happened…”
“Then which school’s Sage would they truly be?” Lao Wei said with a shake of his head and a faint smile.
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