Two figures entered the venue side by side—one monk, one Daoist. Their bearing was utterly different, yet they somehow harmonized perfectly.
The monk had the visage of a Vajra Arhat: broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, with the back of a tiger and the waist of a bear. When his bare feet struck the ground, they actually made the bluestone slabs tremble faintly. His monk's robe had no sleeves, and both his massive arms were covered in the Heart Sutra. The gold-painted characters shimmered beneath the sunlight, appearing and vanishing with the swell of his muscles.
It proclaimed the meaning of the empty gate, while also concealing the Zen mystery of not clinging to outward things.
Yankong Temple's Zen Master Pojing.
The Daoist walking beside him was lean and ethereal. His azure Daoist robe fluttered lightly in the breeze, and the hidden star-chart patterns on its sleeves flickered in and out of sight.
Thanks to his status as a hiking enthusiast from the Eternal Joy Sect, the Daoist carried a green jade staff engraved with fine lightning patterns to aid his steps. Years of wind and sun had left his skin slightly darkened. Among hiking enthusiasts, this was an epic-tier skin—the symbol of seniority and standing.
Most eye-catching of all was the peachwood hairpin in his hair, where withering and flourishing intertwined. Wisps of black qi coiled around its dead end, while three tender pink peach blossoms bloomed at its newly grown end. Life and death stood opposed, yet cycled together in mutual rebirth, subtly embodying the Dao of yin and yang.
Eternal Joy Sect's Mingxiaozi.
After entering, the monk and Daoist first pressed their palms together and formally saluted everyone present, then found a table of their own and sat down.
This behavior made Xiang Yuan, who had been observing them, furrow