A Shaken Spirit

Overnight, Hong Yi's damaged spirit had fully recovered. "Scholars value composure and calm. They face every situation without haste, their hearts steady and brows unknit even with blades and axes at their throats. I clearly haven't yet reached that level of self-cultivation and spiritual discipline." Hong Yi pulled the Amitabha Sutra from where he had tucked it close against his body, spread it open on the bed, and admired it by the starlight outside. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't focus his thoughts or calm himself, much less return to a state of mind as still as a pond's surface. "The Amitabha Sutra is a supreme scripture not because its methods are especially profound. There are no shortcuts on the path of cultivation. No matter how ingenious the method, no one can become a Yang God simply by practicing it once. The scripture's true treasure lies in the spirit of its calligraphy and paintings... The words and images contain the purest essence of Buddhism. Though I'm no Buddhist, I can't help but feel reverence for such artistry and spirit..." His head throbbed. He couldn't settle his mind, and even his writing turned crooked and ragged, far below his usual standard. These were the elite guards of the Marquis Mansion, the Mo Dao Guard! Torchlight flickered across the jade-like face of Marquis Wuwen Hong Xuanji. "I slept well. It feels as if I lay down, and then morning came in an instant." Behind Hong Xuanji stood a row of men in low stances, their long blades drawn. They wore heavy iron armor yet breathed with the ease of men in feathered robes, their fierce, murderous aura radiating from them. Thirty blades slid back into their sheaths with a single, terrifyingly precise sound. When Hong Yi raced into the small courtyard where he lived in the Marquis Mansion's northwest corner, his spirit returned to his body. He was still shaken, his heart pounding as his head grew heavy and dull, as if blood had rushed to it. "Mm, I should look at the Amitabha Sutra again." Great joy could wound the spirit, as could great sorrow. Great terror, dread, shock, and alarm could all do the same. Everyone knew this—not only cultivators, but even scholars. He fell straight into bed and slept without dreaming. When he awoke, the sky was already bright. Some scholars, after catching sight of a beautiful woman, would return home unable to eat or drink, spending their days lost in thoughts of her. In ten days or half a month, they would waste away and eventually fall gravely ill and die. Their spirit had been wounded, too. As he contemplated the Past Buddha, whose face resembled his own from his previous life, Hong Yi's thoughts suddenly grew utterly tranquil. He felt the boundless Void, the vastness of heaven and earth, and the freedom to roam wherever he pleased. "I can't sleep, and I can't quiet my mind. If this keeps damaging my spirit, I'll lose my wits. I'm afraid I'll be drained dry and dead within ten days." Hong Yi gave a bitter smile. He lit a stick of sandalwood incense to calm his spirit, washed his hands, then ground ink and steadied himself before writing the character "Stillness." Even Hong Xuanji hadn't anticipated things would turn out this way. "Even Wang Kaizhi, the great calligrapher of our time, probably couldn't write a character like this. If I had such calligraphy, I wouldn't even need to write an essay for the imperial examinations. I could just submit this and pass. And the spirit of this Amitabha Buddha is peerless, too. Even the Painting Saint Qian Daozi, who excels at painting religious figures, could never paint it..." It was like practicing martial arts: sooner or later, one was bound to suffer a pulled muscle or broken bone. "A hundred days to heal a pulled muscle or broken bone"—that was how long it took to recover. But if there were a miraculous medicine, and you injured a muscle on the first day, applied the medicine, and healed by the second, how much faster would your progress be? How powerful would you become? "The assassin has been killed by this marquis. Stand down. Don't make a racket and disturb my family. Collect the bodies and bury them deep. Crossbow Guard, Mo Dao Guard, stand down." He didn't kneel, since his heavy armor prevented him from performing the full salute. The Great Gan Dynasty's Cold Steel Heavy Armor was forged from cold iron. A full suit weighed one hundred and twenty jin. Only a highly skilled general could still move freely after putting it on. The Amitabha Sutra's cultivation didn't depend on how profound its methods were. Its greatest power lay in the images on its pages: once you grasped their spirit and contemplated the Buddha in your thoughts, he could suppress all terror, dispel elation, and swiftly restore a damaged spirit. "If I can't quiet my mind, I naturally can't write the character 'Stillness' well. This handwriting shows how agitated I am... I wonder if Father noticed me, if he spotted any clues?" Hong Yi looked at the ragged characters on the table and crumpled the paper. Thunderous clamor! After a spiritual wound, a person grew terribly weary, yet still couldn't settle down or rest properly. They suffered from sleeplessness and forgetfulness day and night, their thoughts in turmoil. Painting Saint Qian Daozi was the Great Gan Dynasty's most accomplished painter, renowned for painting religious figures. Countless Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries had invited him to paint images of immortals and gods. Every painting was worth ten thousand gold pieces. Hong Yi got up in the morning and stretched lazily. He breathed in, feeling refreshed, then exhaled—and found there wasn't even the slightest trace of bad breath. After a long while, Hong Yi still couldn't steady his mind. He felt exhausted, but he couldn't sleep or rest. The Mo Dao Guard in the Marquis Mansion numbered only thirty, but every one of them had been an elite Mo Dao Infantry soldier and a personal bodyguard of Hong Xuanji. Hong Yi's wandering spirit shot away in a wild, startled flight. Hong Yi's mind was utterly calm now, and he no longer felt that his spirit had been wounded. Instead, his spirit felt warm and comfortable, as if he were bathing in a hot spring. Even more frightening were the thirty or forty guards scattered around them, each holding a powerful crossbow with an arrow already nocked, warily watching their surroundings and ready to aim and fire at any moment. Two Daoist priests lay on the ground, each with a long sword thrust through his chest. These Martial Masters and warriors had fought their way through mountains of corpses and seas of blood. They could repel a thousand troops, and even ghosts and gods dared not approach! "Put out the torches! Don't disturb the household! Carry away the corpses and bury them in a deep pit!" After hearing Hong Xuanji's order, the Mo Dao Guard's commander raised a hand. Watching his men withdraw, Hong Xuanji recalled the wandering spirit he had just sensed. "That wandering spirit was wounded by me. Even if it got away, it's nothing to worry about. With its spirit so badly shaken, it won't recover. It'll be drained dry within a dozen days." "I only spoke to the assassin for a couple of sentences, and you were already out here in armor, weapons in hand. You moved three breaths faster than you did back when you were in the army. Why would I punish you?" "In this world, the only ones who can kill me are immortals who have cultivated into Yang Gods, or Human Immortals who have reached the pinnacle of martial arts. Unfortunately, neither exists in the world yet..." The crossbows in their hands were all dark red, with aiming marks engraved along the stock. The taut strings brimmed with power; one glance was enough to make you feel that an arrow had already pierced right through you! Thirty or forty crossbowmen firing with precision could make even the most formidable martial artist die with hatred in his heart. Any one of the Mo Dao Guard could face dozens of soldiers barehanded. And that was before you counted their full suits of iron armor and their Mo Dao! The Buddha in the Amitabha Sutra was the pinnacle of the art of painting. Contemplating him and keeping his image in one's spirit was like taking a miraculous medicine! It had the supreme power to calm the spirit. Hong Yi knew that his spirit had completely recovered. This time, he wasn't reading the scripture's contents. He was simply admiring the calligraphy and the image at its center as works of art. Hong Yi's soul suddenly seemed to gain a Buddha deep within it, suspended in the Void. The Great Gan Dynasty's specially made Divine Arm Crossbow had a force of three shi—three hundred jin. Even a warrior needed to brace it with his foot to draw the string and nock an arrow, yet these crossbowmen could easily draw theirs by hand! The Divine Arm Crossbow could pierce iron armor from within fifty paces! Marquis Wuwen Hong Xuanji spoke and pressed his hand downward. "Take off your armor and go back to sleep." The torches went out all at once, leaving only the starlight. These were the Marquis Mansion's Crossbow Guard! The Buddha's image in the Amitabha Sutra had suddenly become clear to Hong Yi. A feeling of understanding bloomed in his heart. The instant that insight appeared, the Great Amitabha Buddha was etched deep into his mind. "Marquis, this subordinate arrived late. Please punish me!" The Mo Dao Guard commander stepped forward and performed an incomplete salute, dropping to one knee before Hong Xuanji. Fortunately, Hong Yi was a wandering spirit, intangible and insubstantial, able to pass through walls and objects without hindrance. Otherwise, he would have been battered until his head split open. Those were specially made Mo Dao. When Hong Xuanji was young, he had once led Mo Dao Infantry soldiers with eight hundred footmen against a thousand black-armored heavy cavalry from the Cloud Dream Empire, creating the legend of foot soldiers defeating cavalry head-on. The long blades in their hands were all forged from tempered steel, each four fingers wide and nearly as long as a man. They stood there, fierce enough to cleave horse and rider in two with a single blow. The sensation of fear, uncertainty, and utter exhaustion that had plagued him after last night's spiritual wound—when he couldn't fall asleep no matter how badly he needed to—had completely vanished. In its place was boundless confidence and satisfaction. That was a specially made Divine Arm Crossbow from the Great Gan Dynasty. It had the force of three shi—three hundred jin. Even a warrior needed to use his foot to draw the string and nock an arrow, yet these crossbowmen could draw theirs easily with their hands! Hong Xuanji looked up at the sky. "Bai Ziyue, since you intend to come challenge me, don't disappoint me." Hong Yi knew that he had wandered to the main residence earlier, and that the shock, combined with his mad flight as a wandering spirit, had already wounded his spirit. This was a spiritual wound... When cultivators left their bodies, they inevitably suffered various kinds of damage. But contemplating the images in the Amitabha Sutra could restore the spirit at the fastest possible speed. As he spoke, Hong Xuanji lowered his hand. "Take off your armor and go back to sleep." The torches went out, leaving only starlight. The Mo Dao Guard formed a defensive ring around him, blades raised, while the Crossbow Guard spread out with iron arrows nocked. Hong Xuanji stood in their midst, dressed in fine clothes and wearing a purple-gold crown. Bathed in the torchlight, he seemed like a martial colossus who could never be brought down.