Chapter 503 - The Journey Ahead
Lei Jing stopped carving and the wooden knife was left in her hand. Shen Lian said softly, "Jing Er, you can stop now."
Upon hearing that, her entire body felt relaxed. Fortunately, she did not fall and she spoke with exhaustion, "looks like you'll still have to complete the process of dotting in the eyes in the end."
Shen Lian smiled and said, "I've never said that I'll have to complete this process. You should sleep now. Tomorrow is the Palace's feast, he'll like it when you gift him this sculpture."
Lei Jing startled and said, "tomorrow is finally Palace's feast, why does time pass so quickly?"
She thought that only one or two days had passed because previously the period of time when she woke, there had been only the extremes of time that was in her mind. She thought that only one day had passed.
Shen Lian said, "there was no counting of days for cultivators. It's also normal if a year feels like a day. You should get some rest so that you're able to attend the Palace's feast tomorrow."
His words seemed to have unlimited magical powers. Even if Lei Jing woke the inheritance, there was an irresistible sleepiness in her after hearing Shen Lian's words. Her body started to weaken and fall and Shen Lian helped her up to the bed.
There was already no more breathing from her mouth or nose and her body instinctively applied the inner breathing. The moonlight from outside circulated and came in that in the end, it entered into her body through all the tiny pores in her body and transformed into a mysterious power. The mysterious power then transformed into a special form which could communicate with the unconventional power which was so strong and ancient that it was impossible to obliterate.
Shen Lian could deeply feel the unconventional power which had natural attraction to his spirits. To be precise, it was deeply attracted to strength of the spirit cultivated through The Mastery of Senses .
Lei Jing had already learnt from Shen Lian and unknowingly she cultivated the true meaning of The Mastery of Senses and thus she coincidentally had the chance to wake the inheritance.
Once reached Shen Lian's stage, even if a Dao restriction was imposed, it would not be able to stop him from resolving parts of the true meaning of The Art of Spiritual Enhancement. Nonetheless, the mysterious relationship between The Art of Spiritual Enhancement and Xia Clan was something that Shen Lian did not expect.
Perhaps this originated from the conflicts between Lingbao Tianzun and Xia Clan, and maybe it involved an ancient secrets from long ago. Shen Lian was filled with curiosity about this.
However, now he was more interested about the Emperor Xia. Because the most that Lei Jing had done was only to wake the inheritance, but the Emperor Xia had already come to the end of this inheritance and he had even open up a new path.
The sculpture made from Kun Wu stone beside him was in silence but it felt as though the Emperor Xia was just right beside him. Shen Lian stared at him deeply, hoping that this Emperor Xia could give him more surprises.
At his stage, any illusion of Dao was not real and not as comparable to the collision between cultivators in reality. Besides, it could also stimulate the sparks of wisdom.
The journey during when Buddha attained Dao, there was resistance from Parinirmita-vaśavartin. This was also another type of challenge.
As for Buddha, the power of Parinirmita-vaśavartin was not crucial. What was really important was that the Demon realm that Parinirmita-vaśavartin had exhibited actually complemented Buddhism, just like Yin and Yang.
Shen Lian's past cultivation experience was actually just more on sharpening his spirit whereas Xia Clan's cultivation was totally opposite. The Emperor Xia had even reached the stage where he was at the same level as Shen Lian, and that was the reason why Shen Lian wanted to stay in Diqiu.
The mercury-like moonlight shone on the Zhiwei Home. Shen Lian stared at Lei Jing who was sleeping soundly and he said softly, "one day you'll finally realise that your life journey is so long and so difficult, but you'd not want to stop halfway, just like the present me."
Of course Lei Jing would not be able to hear this but Shen Lian hoped that she would understand in the future.
After all, he had been a teacher for one day and thus, this lifetime relationship was already formed and it was irrelevant to race issues.
Shen Lian also felt sentimental. He was aware that once he reached Tian Xianjing, the biggest challenge he had to face was the long days which was not just one or two years, or even ten or hundred years, but thousands of years.
During these long years, as long as he did not enter Taiyi, he would feel more and more lonely as time passed by and this would be the biggest enemy for him from now on.
No matter how interesting this game in his life was, it was difficult to change the fact that there was no one who would accompany him until the end. Even his acquaintance like Zhao Xiaoyu had already forgotten about him in Jianghu in the end.
He finally understood more about Yanxu. Perhaps this person already realised the loneliness after being on this track, and thus he acted so rebelliously. Maybe it could be just a way for him to vent.
When the night was all dark and silent, it was difficult to avoid overthinking. Shen Lian had a lot of thoughts in mind. He thought of the missing Chen Jianmei. That arrogant man who had also clearly understood the loneliness of this path, where would he be at? Was he still alive? Would they still be the two men from the same sect that understood each other, or would they become opponents who battled for Dao?
Destiny was so unpredictable but this was also what made destiny interesting.
This time around, Emperor Xia had gathered a lot of people in this Palace's feast, including Wu Ding and Guan Longzi who were also invited. This time, due to the issue about Bai Dizi founding a country, how Tianyi was going to be punished had become the most popular topic in Diqiu recently.
Some people said he would be set free while the others said he would be killed. There was no third option about this. This was no doubt the affirmation of Xin Lie on that day. Unfortunately, this old man's pair of ears had been chopped off by Ming Luo.
Ming Luo's sword was made through blood-red Asura sea. Since he had chopped Xin Lie's ears off, it would naturally leave the unconventional power of the demonic blade on his wound. This had destroyed all the orifices points ad meridians near his ears. Even if Xin Lie could reincarnate for seven times in the future, he might not be able to reproduce his pair of ears anymore.
However, there was nobody who dared to talk about Xin Lie, including Xin's tribe who could only pretend to be dumb.
Or else, it would mean disrespecting Emperor Xia and there would be more people who would die, including Xin Lie.
Wu Ding followed Guan Longzi and they came to the Xia Palace. During that time, they had passed by Wu Men which was situated very closely to Xia Tai. Wu Ding almost could not resist himself to go to Xia Tai. He was eager to find out how his uncle, Tianyi was doing now.
Fortunately, he had been staying and learning with Guan Longzi for a period of time. There was a significant improvement in his cultivation of mind. Regardless of how much he had been missing his uncle, he could control his feelings.
Solely looking from this point, Wu Ding was definitely a sentimental person, which made him different from majority of the Qi cultivators.
Guan Longzi clearly felt Wu Ding's emotions but he did not comfort him. But he suddenly recalled Shen Lian saying that Wu Ding would have a big achievement in the future. Hopefully nothing would go wrong. If a sentimental person like this were to become Yin Shang's monarch, unless he had profound cultivation experience as a protection, it would be difficult for him to last long as a monarch.
A lot of people were aware that the recent debate should be solved in this Palace's feast. Nonetheless, the final decision right belonged to Emperor Xia. As for how Emperor Xia would make his choice, it was difficult for the outsiders to guess and they did not dare to make a guess as well.
However, everyone was hoping that the Emperor Xia could make his choice out of the two options.
Little did anyone know that there was an uninvited guest who came for the Palace's feast, and that was Shen Lian. Emperor Xia not only invited his courtiers, but he had also invited each country's diplomat in an attempt to use this opportunity to show Da Xia's wealth.
Shen Lian was Xi Liang Kingdom's diplomat and hence, he could make it into Xia Palace.
However, when he was alone mixing among the bunch of diplomats, he seemed a little too glaring. At least there was a person who was not only dissatisfied with him, he even walked to the front of Shen Lian.