Li Xiaoyu spoke slowly, his voice carrying the wisdom of one who saw through everything.
"Heaven and earth are neither benevolent nor unbenevolent. They simply follow their own laws."
"Spring brings life, summer nourishes growth, autumn brings harvest, and winter stores things away. These are the laws of heaven and earth."
"Birth, aging, sickness, and death; love, hate, and passion—these are the laws of all things."
"We cultivate the Dao not to change the laws, nor to submit to them."
"Instead, we seek to understand them and transcend them."
"When we can stand at a higher plane and look upon everything in the world, then benevolence and its opposite, righteousness and evil, life and death—all of these cease to matter."
Li Xiaoyu's words crashed through Lu Xueqi and Ghost Li's minds like thunder.
Both fell into deep thought.
Looking at the young man before them, for the first time they felt the vast gulf between their understanding of the Dao and his.
The resentment Ghost Li had carried for ten years loosened, just a little.
And Lu Xueqi's reverence for the laws of heaven and earth gained a measure of detachment.
The discussion of the Dao came to an end beneath the starry sky.
The Treasury of the Heavenly Emperor grew quiet once more.
In the air lingered the Dao-rhyme left by the collision of their thoughts, as well as a tacit understanding between the three of them.
Li Xiaoyu watched Lu Xueqi and Ghost Li lost in thought, but said nothing more.
Some things had to be understood for themselves.
All Li Xiaoyu could do was light a lamp for them, illuminating the way ahead.
Lu Xueqi soon came out of her reverie.
She raised her head and looked at Li Xiaoyu, her cool eyes brighter than ever