Chapter 510 — Teacher of Sages (Auspicious Year of the Dog!)

What the Jingping Imperial Teacher reformed were customs and servility; he changed the strife of schools and sects, so that the empowered of the world need no longer waste their strength in sectarian feuds. He also changed the petty self of the schools and sects, so that magic powers are used by the people and serve the people. This is the great principle, the great framework. " He came to the back garden of Wenyuan Hall, handed Shen Mu a pair of pruning shears, took up another pair himself, and trimmed the branches with care: "The most important thing in reform is to change the foul habits within men's hearts and topple the idols within their hearts. Shattering the god in the heart is not a task for the empowered alone—it is a task for every man in the world.

If every man can shatter the gods and Buddhas in his heart, then this will be an age of abundance, an age of great flourishing. " Shen Mu clipped the branches, trimming one plant until it looked like a crested fire-pheasant dragon plucked bare of feathers; at those words he stopped, pondered at length, and nodded with a smile: "Men kneel to gods and Buddhas praying for favorable winds and rains, for abundant harvests, for harmony in the home and sons and grandsons in plenty. If the empowered can grant their wishes, it would indeed help them shatter the gods in their hearts. " The Young Grandmaster stared at the flowers he had sheared into a frightful mess, and only after a while looked away: "I told the Jingping Imperial Teacher: to break the god in the heart, first reform the economy.

The word 'economy' means ordering the age and succoring the people, ordering the state and enriching the country. When the economy opens, the people's wisdom opens. In plain words: the empowered use their powers to help the laborers harvest rice; the laborers pay the empowered; the empowered take the money and use it to buy food and materials for cultivation; and that money returns again to the people's hands. All must pay taxes to the state; with taxes filling the treasury, the state grows rich. A rich state can build waterworks and repair roads, to the convenience and benefit of the people. Thus a rich state makes the people rich; rich people make resources abundant; the empowered can buy every kind of resource and cultivate far beyond what came before; and so the people grow strong, and the state grows strong. " Shen Mu listened, spellbound, when footsteps suddenly came. He turned his head and saw Cult Master Zuyang, Cult Master Yulian, Si Yuanwei, and the others storming into Wenyuan Hall with murderous intent. Yet the successive Cult Masters of the Dark Demon Sect did not strike; instead they came to a halt and pricked up their ears.

"The people have been enslaved by the sects and great houses for too long, and have grown servile; once they kneel, it is hard to rise again. What the Jingping Imperial Teacher is doing now is making the people rise.

It takes time, yet since the reform began it has gradually borne fruit.

The people of today no longer kneel to the empowered. " Lost in his thoughts of reform, the Young Grandmaster did not notice them arrive, and recalled the past: "I have seen what it was like before the reform. Then schools and sects stood in forests; peasants tilling the fields had to kneel and kowtow, address the masters as 'milord,' and offer up meat.

It took the Jingping Imperial Teacher and me a hundred or two hundred years to change that servility. Once the people have stood up, it is very hard to make them kneel again. " Shen Mu thought back to the crowds kneeling before the stone statues that had surged up out of the earth, and said, "They still kneel to the idols. " A strange expression crossed the Young Grandmaster's face: "The Jingping Imperial Teacher says the idols in the temples are easy to break, but the idols in the heart are hard.

To my mind, even the idols in the temples are not easy to break.

I once ran a small experiment to test the hearts of the people. I built a little temple outside the capital, then enlightened a filthy mangy dog and set it on the altar inside the temple. Guess what happened? " He sighed: "A few days later, the Temple of the Mangy Dog was bursting with incense and flame; old men and old women came in an endless stream to burn incense and present offerings, and the donation chest before the mangy dog was stuffed full of money.

Let alone a mangy dog—even if you set a toad upon the altar, people will still stuff in money and burn incense! " Shen Mu roared with laughter—and laughed until he could laugh no more. "Therefore, open the economy, and the people's wisdom must also be opened, and only then can the idols in the temples and the idols in the heart be broken.

" The Young Grandmaster said, "And to open the people's wisdom, you must continue the reform: make the empowered more numerous, make magic powers more common, let the empowered become gods.

The empowered who become gods continue to serve the people, and the people will cease to worship the temple idols.

When wisdom opens, the empowered grow ever more numerous. " He went on: "Open the economy and open wisdom—that is the way of reform. What you are doing now is very good: magic power in the service of the people.

But time is still needed before wisdom opens and the people stop kneeling to the temple idols. The road is hard; first it touches the interests of the schools and sects, and next it will touch the interests of the Upper Gods. " "High Heaven is only a running dog of the Upper Gods; behind it there may be an even greater calamity. " Trimming the branches, he said: "The Jingping Imperial Teacher's reform added three postures to the sword art and set in motion the transformation of the Dao arts of Heaven and Earth.

You spread the method of attaining godhood by mending the Divine Bridge, pushing the reform one step further.

Not long ago the little lass Yunxiang burned incense and prayed, and told me that you and Princess Yuxiu had opened the method of the Six Harmonies Primordial Spirit; many of Jingping's empowered, on that foundation, have added bricks and tiles to the Six Harmonies and opened up a host of arts and powers. All of these are excellent things. " He straightened up: "As Dao arts and magic powers grow daily more refined, Jingping's gods will grow more and more numerous, and then the temple idols of the common folk will be broken. Once the temple idols are broken, the breaking of the heart's idols is not far off! " Shen Mu's heart shook.

He threw down his shears and bowed all the way to the ground: "Grandmaster is truly the Sage Teacher of my Heavenly Sage Sect! " The Young Grandmaster hastily dropped his shears and hurried to support him, laughing: "You are the Cult Master and Sage Teacher—how can you call me Sage Teacher?

Rise, quickly!

" At that very moment, Cult Master Zuyang, Cult Master Yulian, and the other successive Cult Masters all bowed to him at full length and cried in one voice, "Sage Teacher! " Only then did the Young Grandmaster notice them, and could not help losing his composure.

Shen Mu said with utter sincerity: "A Sage Teacher is the teacher of sages.

Every successive Cult Master has been unworthy of the name—only the Grandmaster truly deserves it, and deserves the bow of every Cult Master!

" Panic rose in the Young Grandmaster's heart, and then, suddenly, emotion surged from its depths, and tears streamed down his face beyond his control. He had never been a Cult Master; he had always been shut out of the circle of power of the Heavenly Sage Sect, and only in the sect's hour of peril had he shouldered the heavy burden of the Heavenly Sage Sect.

He had never imagined that he, like the Woodcutter Sage, would receive the bow of all the successive Cult Masters!

The only one who had ever truly deserved a bow from the successive Cult Masters was the Woodcutter Sage who had transmitted the scripture upon the stone.