201: Chapter 53: The Sun Rises and the World Is Bright_1 201: Chapter 53: The Sun Rises and the World Is Bright_1 This ti, when he saw Zhang Song, the other party could be said to have undergone a complete change in temperant.
It was normal to experience such a change after a sudden disaster.
But still…
sothing felt off.
Just like when he first saw him outside the Heavenly Abode Secret Land, although he acted reserved and timid, which suited the identity of a descendant of a declining noble family.
Yet there was always an inexplicable discomfort.
This “discomfort” wasn’t to say that Jiang Wang had any particular issues with him or held a negative impression.
On the contrary, his impression of Zhang Song at that ti was quite favorable.
It was just that he subconsciously felt sothing was amiss, and not quite natural.
It was as if, at that ti, that person’s state was sowhat discordant.
And at this mont, the emaciated Zhang Song, though sorrowful, deathly still, guarded, and in pain, oddly felt to Jiang Wang like the real him.
There was no logical reason for this, just the most direct feeling.
Nevertheless, since he judged there was no possibility of recruiting Zhang Song for the ti being, Jiang Wang decided not to linger and waste any more ti here.
Yang Country was located to the northwest of Qi Country, the carriage was driven by a skilled hand, and the horses were strong and fast.
With the reputation of the Zhong Xuan Family, the carriage traveled smoothly and steadily without obstruction.
anwhile, Jiang Wang sat inside the carriage, eyes closed, cultivating.
…
Maple Forest City Region.
Almost all signs of life had been extinguished, with only a faint flicker of life burning within an emaciated person.
It’s hard to tell how much ti had passed.
In the Maple Forest City Region, it seed as if ti had lost its aning, the only proof of its passage perhaps being the endless stretch of graves behind this person.
He alone had buried everyone.
He rembered this place should be the Wang family’s land.
Ha, was there any part of Fenglin City he didn’t know?
How many years had he lived here?
mory truly was a torturous thing.
Ling He trekked through the ruins,
The erosion of the Underworld’s atmosphere should have claid his life long ago, but sohow, he kept clinging to a thread.
That thread was not the breath of life, but a strand of air, floating within Tongtian Palace, distinctly colored with yellow and mystic hues.
Ling He did not realize that this was the rit accumulated by performing the Great Supremacy Scripture to save the souls of the deceased.
With the mystic color above and the yellow below, these were the colors of heaven and earth.
He only knew that he was still alive.
Since he was still alive, there must be sothing he needed to do, sothing to complete.
He was a determined and persistent person.
It was precisely because of this tenacity and perseverance that his cultivation had never fallen too far behind.
Ling He could not count how many bodies he had buried or how many graves he had mound up.
He simply moved forward, whenever he saw a body, he would let it rest in peace, reciting scriptures for the salvation of their souls.
This cycle repeated, again and again.
He arrived at the most remote corner of the Wang family, which was probably the most neglected dwelling of the clan mbers.
But Ling He did not care about such things.
He never cared about poverty, wealth, nobility, lowliness, beauty, or ugliness; he was the “hopelessly kind person” in Zhao Rucheng’s mouth.
Oddly, it seed that this place had the most deaths.
They did not die from natural disasters, but from so powerful force that killed them almost instantly and without resistance.
Ling He pressed his dry lips together.
He began to dig holes.
Burying bodies all along his way, he erected graves.
In front of him there was a small courtyard; contrary to expectations, most of the buildings had collapsed in such a massive natural disaster.
Only this small courtyard remained intact.
But after all, it was deserted.
Ling He pushed the door open and the first thing he saw was the rotting, putrid corpse of an orange cat.
This stench of decay was hardly anything new to him; he had grown accustod to it over the past days.
What made him uncomfortable, however, was how the orange cat had died—it appeared to have been dismbered by soone.
This brutality caused him to frown.
After so thought, he casually dug a small hole, buried it, and also recited a sacred text for it.
Ling He continued ahead, entered the bedroom, and found the body of Wang Changxiang lying on his back.
Because of his achievents in cultivation, the corpse had not yet began to decay.
The expression he saw on Wang Changxiang’s face was one he hadn’t seen on anyone else’s face throughout his journey.
That expression surprisingly wasn’t one of much pain, but rather seed to be…
at peace?
Without dwelling on it, Ling He went forward, carried Wang Changxiang’s body out of the room, then dug a hole in the courtyard and buried him next to the orange cat.
Once he had finished with all this, he looked around and, under the lounge chair in the courtyard, he found a scripture that had fallen to the ground.
It seed to have been left halfway through reading, then accidentally dropped in haste.
The book’s owner probably hadn’t had ti to pick it up.
Ling He glanced at Wang Changxiang’s grave, thinking that the owner of the courtyard probably wasn’t Wang Changxiang, but must have been closely related to him.
Ling He stepped forward, picked up the scripture, and looked at the cover.
The cover seed to have been made by the owner of the scripture, ticulously and neatly.
On the cover, with a poised and serene font, it read—”The Scripture of Liberation.”
Ling He couldn’t help but sit down on the lounge chair and began to flip through the scripture.
He was utterly exhausted, but the weariness of his body was not the hardest to bear.
What was truly unbearable was the pain in his heart.
Every corpse he personally interred seed to tell him that these experiences were not nightmares.
They were real occurrences that had happened and could never be undone.
Perhaps within the scripture there were ways to address the desolation of the soul.
While the Scripture of Liberation itself contains no divine skills, as a sacred text, it is a core scripture of the Penglai Island lineage.
Its full na should be “The Great Supremacy Scripture of Boundless Spiritual Treasures for the Liberation of Sentient Beings.”
This scripture is acclaid as the foremost among scriptures, the source of myriad paths, the origin of all Dharma realms.
It is said that reciting this scripture can alleviate heavenly calamities, protect emperors, purge poisons and toxins to liberate multitudes of people; both n and won receive its guardianship and gain immortal life.
It is a scripture for transmitting the Taoist doctrine, not a foundation text for cultivation; thus, it’s not held in absolute secrecy.
While the original scripture is said to possess boundless divine skills, copies do not possess such supernatural powers.
The real value lies in the profound mysteries of the universe explained in the scripture.
Those with wisdom may glean insights from it.
Throughout history, there have been Taoists, great Confucian scholars, and Zen masters who have not practiced divine skills but instead have delved deeply into scriptures.
Such profound scholars uncover the secrets of the classics and sotis gain sudden enlightennt, using great wisdom to achieve great divine skills, attaining transcendent heights in one leap, and their stories are told and retold with admiration.
It is said that one who fully comprehends “The Scripture of Liberation” is proclaid to be “noble in the Taoist way, of boundless service to others, who opens eight gates and rides the flying Dharma Wheel; who controls sin and virtue, binds precepts, dictates karma and causation; who broadly initiates liberation, guiding dead souls to rebirth.
Upon gaining rebirth, one ascends to hear the teachings of all heavens.”
Of course, these are just legends and no one has ever truly witnessed such feats.
On the other hand, the fundantal scripture of the Penglai Island lineage’s cultivation, “The High Saint Great Supremacy Jade Purity Scripture,” has indeed been definitively shown to bestow boundless divine skills.
It is considered alongside the “Purple Mystery Great Wondrous Great Supremacy Scripture” of Jade Capital Mountain, the “Primordial Birth Scripture” of Mount Da Luo, and the “Kai Huang Apocalypse Scripture” as one of the world’s most powerful cultivation techniques.
The distinctiveness of this copy of the scripture that Ling He held, lay in the original owner’s annotations.
In his view, the annotator must have been an elderly Taoist dedicated to studying the scriptures, settled in the Wang family’s territory for so unknown reason.
This person had a profoundly deep understanding of the Taoist texts, with a writing style that was unpretentious, tranquil, and resonant with the essence of the Taoist tradition.
While Ling He did not agree with so of the ideas, he could not deny that there was rit in them.
Yet, the further he read, the more he could sense an underlying oppressiveness.
“Perhaps, after reaching a certain depth in reading the scriptures, he had foreseen today’s tragedy?”
The thought faintly crossed Ling He’s mind,
He picked up a withered leaf to use as a bookmark, took the Taoist scripture with him, and left the small courtyard.
It was ti to continue the ritual of liberating the dead.
He decided to read two pages of the scripture daily, articulate his understanding, and verify it against the annotations.
This would be one of the few pleasures in a ti of hardships.
If he could indeed survive it.
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