Hongshan Old Ancestor was puzzled and asked, "Daoist Friend Xu, what do you mean by saying that our paths differ? We people of the Cosmic Graveyard are all half-buried in the earth. Our goal is to eliminate tribulations from the world and prevent the tragedy of the Five Decays of Heaven and Man and the destruction of the Great Dao. Isn't that your goal as well?"
Xu Ying said, "My goal is also to eliminate tribulations. But this is the Dao!"
He stamped his foot, and a long rainbow of the Great Dao flowed out from beneath it, stretching endlessly toward the end of the Great Dao.
One of those great-dao rainbows passed beneath Hongshan Old Ancestor's feet and continued into the distance.
Xu Ying walked along that great-dao rainbow and said, "The Dao isn't standing at the end and looking down upon all living beings. It isn't grasping everything from the end. It is the process of walking to the end. Take life, for example. Only when you look back at the path you walked from birth to the instant before death can you call it the Dao."
Hongshan Old Ancestor felt something stir within him and looked toward the road beneath his feet.
"The Dao has righteousness and evil, wrong turns and forked paths, emptiness and delusion, truth and falsehood. The so-called Dao means knowing and acting upon it. Knowing but not acting is emptiness; acting without knowing is delusion!"
Xu Ying stared into his eyes with utmost sincerity and said, "Daoist Brother, the road you have walked to the end has already entered an evil and mistaken path, and your hearts are filled with emptiness and delusion. For the sake of the so-called true Great Dao, you violated humanity, destroyed universe after universe, and annihilated all life,