"Excellent."
Huai Kong pressed his palms together.
"How untrammeled."
Feng Ying and Qu Zhaoxue were reluctant to move on, their eyes gleaming as both sighed with feeling.
A four-panel charcoal sketch, with such simple subjects and words, had somehow given people a heart unbound.
Livestock were like this.
What difference was there between people and livestock? Why should there be any difference? What difference did they need?
Liang Qu wiped the black ash from his hands. He had lived seven years in Yi Xing Town of Pingyang Prefecture, eaten countless Treasure Fish, and turned a little mud hut into a three courtyard residence. During the Six Demons Trial, when Wu Zhiqi had asked what he had done with this power, he could think of no second sentence more fitting.
"The three words 'Earl Xingyi' are enough to rival a gatha. The true meaning of life lies entirely within them—truly worthy of the Ninth Buddha!" Ji Zuibo of the Heavenly Saber Tomb praised. "Yet each person's path through life and temperament differs.
"This line is too peaceful, too gentle for me. Though it stirs countless feelings, it does not bring sudden enlightenment. It is incomparably suited to Daoist cultivators like Brother Yuan, who are untrammeled by nature."
Liang Qu laughed.
A gatha was a chant from the Buddhist scriptures, abbreviated from gatha verse.
It was a summative line written from reflections after reading Buddhist scriptures, or insights gained through the practice of cultivation.
The Buddhist scriptures were the trunk and green branches; gathas were the fruit and blossoms. Behind every gatha was a story, one that became a fine tale of a monk's sudden enlightenment.
As for him...
"You flatter me."
"No!" Ji Zuibo said earnestly. "Earl Xingyi rose too swiftly and has not realized the influence he now possesses. In