Chapter 331 — One Meeting Outshines All the Splendors of the World

"Today at Qingmen Pass a million troops are gathered," the Imperial Preceptor said gravely, "and many of them are my students. But I am your student. Here too are many scholars of the Grand Academy, who have come to lend their strength because of the nation's peril. I make bold to beg you, Master, to expound the Dao here for us and resolve our doubts!"

Li Zheng laughed. "I would not dare. A mere exchange."

The two walked on together, Shen Mu following behind. Xiong Xiyu lifted her head and looked at the two men—one sinking into old age, one in the full prime of his years—her gaze strange, and murmured low, "In the True Heaven Palace of the Western Lands there are no men so splendid as these. Among us of the Western Lands the women hold the house, and the men are meek and yielding, obedient in all things. If the men of the Western Lands were all like these two, with such grand spirit and such great power, why should we women hold the house?"

They entered the city, and Shen Mu saw a great many scholars of the Grand Academy, seated cross-legged on every side, waiting quietly, their faces unable to hide their agitation.

With the nation in peril as it was, the Mandi Kingdom had invaded in force, and Jingping, having passed through a great rebellion and then a great snow disaster, was left with the people unable to live, its population sharply cut, the common folk wandering homeless. The realm had not yet settled, and grain was short. Even in the army there was not food enough; many of the Academy scholars who came here drew their belts tight and ate sparingly, not daring to eat their fill.

Shen Mu also saw Wei Yong, Shen Yu and others. Wei Yong had once been a very fat man; now hunger had thinned him greatly.

Only when the autumn harvest came, he feared, would this straitened state ease.

Li Zheng and the Imperial Preceptor sat down, and Li Zheng said, unhurried, "I have not come this time to speak of sword techniques, but only of the Dao—of the Sword Dao. How much you take from it will depend on your own comprehension. In this world there is no doctrine of the Sword Dao; yet from the moment the sword was created as a weapon, the Sword Dao has existed."

Many officers and men who had come back from the front drew near as well; some stripped off their armor and sat on the ground, some simply stood and listened.

Many who heard the old man speak of the Dao wore looks of bewilderment. Someone whispered, "Can the great Dao of heaven and earth be created? We who wield divine powers—do we not cultivate the great Dao of heaven and earth and nature?"

Shen Mu's heart stirred slightly, and he remembered a conversation he had once had with the Jade Heavenly King, in which they had spoken of reform and of the changing of the great Dao of heaven and earth.

Human creativity had added to the world many great Daos of heaven and earth that had never before existed; and that same human creativity had also brought change to the great Daos that had always lain between heaven and earth.

The Dao, the methods, the divine powers—when the great Dao changes, the methods change with it, and this is what is called the reform of methods.

The Jade Heavenly King held that such reform might touch upon the interests of gods and demons.

What Li Zheng spoke of, however, was far deeper than what the Jade Heavenly King had said.

The reason the crowd was bewildered was that they were all refiners of qi, whose ingrained understanding was to learn the Daos, methods and divine powers handed down to them, with divine powers depending upon the Daos and methods; to make them change that ingrained understanding—one can imagine what a shock it dealt their souls!

"How is a great Dao created?" the Imperial Preceptor asked.

"Go to the utmost, and it can be created," said Li Zheng. "Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, has your sword art reached the utmost?"

The Imperial Preceptor was slightly taken aback. "Only a little short."

Li Zheng's face broke into a smile. "I will help you."

He thrust a single sword stroke toward the Imperial Preceptor, and at once the scenery all around them changed; a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers came rushing at their faces. In an instant it seemed that what surrounded them was no longer Qingmen Pass, no longer a battlefield running with rivers of blood, but another world, another heaven and earth: verdant peaks, plants green and overflowing with life, rivers racing, foam in blossom upon blossom of waves, and every blossom of foam so clear, so true, every vein in every leaf so intricate, so unlike the next.

Everyone rose to their feet. Some climbed the high mountains, some leapt into the river, some plucked a flower woven of sword-light; and Shen Mu reached out his hand and caught a drop of dew falling from a leaf.

Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains.

This was the "Sword Treads Rivers and Mountains" that Li Zheng had unleashed—plainly a move of the utmost power, yet in Li Zheng's hands it held no lethality at all; instead it bore them into a strange world.

It seemed a true and certain world, a world composed of the Sword Dao.

Great as the shock of this scene was to them all, it was greatest for the Imperial Preceptor. His body shuddered, his soul quivered; he crouched down and stroked the earth, he lifted his head and gazed at the starry sky. Li Zheng had let him see the face of the Dao, had let him touch the Sword Dao.

Suddenly he felt a door boom open, and he stood there dumbstruck, utterly still.

Seeing this, Li Zheng sighed inwardly: "A sage who appears once in five hundred years—his gifts are indeed far above little Shen's. To awaken to the Dao so quickly."