Drums beat and bells rang as the court officials gathered. With so many people and so many loose tongues, word of Zi Shou's debate with Yun Zhongzi at court inevitably spread.
And with certain people pulling strings, it spread remarkably fast.
Shang Rong no longer knew what to do. King Zhou had made shocking declarations that showed no reverence for Heaven, while villains seized on the slightest hints and stirred things up behind the scenes. There was no way to stop them.
The rumors spread faster and farther, until some people even brought up Wu Yi.
Wu Yi was King Zhou's great-grandfather, and his most famous deed was Shooting Heaven with Blood.
He had made a puppet from wood and clay, called it a heavenly god, and fought it. He had also devised a trick: filling a leather bag with blood and hanging it high above him, then shooting arrows into it from below until blood splattered everywhere. He ordered others to judge the contest. The so-called "heavenly god" lost-and was wounded, too.
A saying also circulated among the common people: "Wu Yi had no virtue; his calamity came from shooting Heaven." According to legend, while Wu Yi was hunting, a thunderbolt had suddenly struck out of a clear blue sky, hitting him squarely and killing him on the spot.
They were comparing King Zhou to Wu Yi!
And what he had done was worse than insulting Heaven or shooting it. King Zhou had said that he himself was Heaven's mandate, and even intended to bend that mandate to his own use!
Unlike the world outside, Zi Shou was blissfully enjoying Daji's attentions in the palace.
One sentence-"If we ask only about someone's origins, and not their abilities or intentions, we risk wounding their heart"-had won Daji over completely.
How boundless did a person's generosity have to be to say something like that?
His subsequent Mandate of Heaven Theory had made Daji fall for him even more deeply.
Cultivating the Dao as the Monster Tribe was itself an act of defiance against Heaven. Besides, hadn't their ancestor Nü Jiao helped Yu the Great tame the floods, defying Heaven and changing fate?
Daji had already made up her mind. If defying Heaven brought retribution, she would sacrifice her thousand years of cultivation-even her life-to keep the man she loved safe.
Zi Shou occasionally sent eunuchs to bring him news. The curses in the streets were growing by the day, and more unexpectedly still, Yun Zhongzi had not left. He continued telling fortunes in the bustling marketplace as though nothing had happened.
That only earned him more admiration, and King Zhou more scorn. How could anyone insult such a virtuous, accomplished cultivator?
Zi Shou fought down his excitement, merely keeping his face expressionless as he dismissed the frightened eunuch.
Let the infamy come raging even harder!
In truth, things were not going quite as smoothly as Zi Shou imagined.
This was hell difficulty, after all.
Some young people thought King Zhou had done exactly the right thing.
The Palace-Guarding Generals Fang Xiang and Fang Bi, for instance. The two brothers felt the Mandate of Heaven Theory set every drop of blood in their bodies surging with passion, as though it would burst out of them.
Even after court ended, they could not calm down.
They were orphans. Had King Zhou not happened upon them during an outing in the year he ascended the throne, noticed their tall, powerful builds, and brought them into the palace as personal guards before later promoting them to Palace-Guarding Generals, they would have starved to death in the wilderness long ago.
Heaven's mandate?
Starving in the wilderness had originally been their Heaven-given fate!
But King Zhou had changed that fate!
After court, Wan Nian returned to the Astronomical Bureau, but today he could not see the stars clearly.
His eyes were full of tears.
He had not cried when he entered official service. He had not cried when his calculations failed. Now, he cried.
Back then, he had been brimming with ambition, with ideals and goals of his own. He had been determined to calculate the seasons accurately, rather than muddle aimlessly through his days.
Yet at some point, accepting whatever came had become part of his life. He had adopted the same way of surviving as the previous Seasonal Official, as though blaming everything on Heaven's mandate were the proper thing to do.
Was this Heaven's mandate?
Yes! Wind and rain, clear skies and sunshine-all were Heaven's mandate! They were never things humans could predict!
But...
King Zhou had changed him, and he had worked out a calendar.
Wasn't the Wan Nian Calendar itself a means of making use of Heaven's mandate?
Observe the seasons to guide human affairs. If Heaven ordained rain, I would store water and preserve moisture in the soil. If Heaven ordained sunshine, I would sow seeds and dry clothes. If Heaven ordained the changing seasons, I would engage in Spring Plowing and autumn harvesting!
Today's Mandate of Heaven Theory had shown him something more: people like this truly existed. They believed neither in Heaven nor in fate, and with the bearing of a sovereign conqueror, they fought the Mandate of Heaven along a thorn-strewn road, their bodies covered in wounds!
Wan Nian understood better than anyone!
He now understood why King Zhou had sent him to the Astronomical Bureau to study the stars. It was no idle posting; there was a deeper reason behind it!
The sun, moon, and stars remained the same. Crops sprouted and grew in spring and summer, then stored their strength and were gathered in autumn and winter-this, too, remained the same. Crops grew when they had soil and died when they lost it. That was common knowledge as well.
Seen this way, the harvest had nothing to do with celestial phenomena, the seasons, or the soil. It all came down to human effort!
Wan Nian now knew what King Zhou wanted him to do. He was to change the harvest through human effort, rather than leave it to Heaven and fate!
Meishan.
Yuan Hong plucked a peach and took two bites. Finding it rather tasteless, he tossed it to the ground.
He scratched his shaggy neck, jumped down from the tree, and approached a boar demon with tusks jutting from his mouth. Patting the demon's round belly, he said, "Old Zhu, it's boring up here. How about we head down the mountain for some fun?"
"Huh?" Zhu Zizhen stared at the peach on the ground, rather wanting to eat it.
"Idiot." Yuan Hong shook his head and beckoned over Seventh Brother, the Goat Demon. Yang Xian's cultivation was unremarkable, but he was quite clever. "Seventh Brother, how about the seven of us take a trip into the mortal world?"
Yang Xian stroked his beard. "Brother, have you heard about King Zhou and Yun Zhongzi's Human-Demon Theory?"
Yuan Hong chuckled. "Indeed, indeed! Drawing a royal stipend and enjoying all the splendor and riches of the mortal world-wouldn't that be far more interesting than staying in these remote mountains and forests?"
"Mortal splendor?" Zhu Zizhen was tempted. The mortal world had fine wine and beautiful women. This mountain...
Had monkeys.
With the seven brothers' cultivation, they could certainly become generals. What pleasures would be beyond their reach then?
Yuan Hong urged them on, sending word to the other brothers. "Come, come! Let's all put our heads together, then take a trip to Chaoge."
No one saw the gleam that flashed through his eyes.
Was he doing this merely for mortal wealth and splendor, or because King Zhou had disregarded origins and refuted Yun Zhongzi's argument about creatures clad in fur and crowned with horns, born of dampness or hatched from eggs?
Not entirely.
Yuan Hong was a great demon, his cultivation many times stronger than that of the other brothers. He could also glimpse a thread of Heaven's secrets.
Heaven's mandate?
I, Old Yuan, don't believe in Heaven either!
The East Sea.
The current ruler of the Heavenly Court was the Supreme, Most Exalted, Naturally Wondrous, All-Encompassing, Utterly True Jade Emperor of Haotian's Golden Palace-a name so long that even using it to pad a word count would feel shameful.
Thus, some shortened it to Haotian Shangdi, some to the Jade Emperor, and some to the Heavenly Emperor.
Whatever they called him, he had always suppressed the Dragon Tribe. The dragons had once been central players in the Dragon-Phoenix Calamity, and their deep reserves of power made him profoundly wary.
Dragon King Ao Guang of the East Sea watched Ao Bing, the hope of his entire people, cultivate strenuously. Slowly, he said, "The current Human King claims descent from the Dark Phoenix and honors Phoenix as his ancestor, daring to defy Heaven and change fate..."
"I am the lord of the East Sea, the king of the Dragon Tribe. Am I truly meant to bow to Heaven's mandate?"
Deep within Phoenix Mountain, along secluded paths almost impossible to find, stood a building with green tiles, carved eaves, golden studs, and vermilion doors. A plaque hung above it: "Azure Luan Palace."
The vermilion doors opened, and amid the cries of luan birds and cranes, a woman of peerless beauty stepped out.
A swallow landed on her shoulder. She suddenly lifted her head, her bright, dark eyes surveying the tranquil surroundings. She no longer knew how long she had stayed here.
The beauty clenched her pearly teeth, seeming to harbor hatred. "What is Heaven's mandate? Is this Heaven's mandate?"
The Heavenly Emperor had offended rather a lot of people.
At Guanjiangkou, a handsome youth with a fair, beardless face sat dazed on the ground.
Before him lay his home, reduced to ruins by heavenly lightning; his little sister, who kept crying, utterly at a loss; and his father, lying lifeless in a pool of blood.
The youth had never understood why asking about his mother always earned him a scolding. Only just before his father died had he learned that his mother was the Heavenly Emperor's younger sister. By secretly descending to the mortal world and marrying a mortal, she had violated the Heavenly Laws. The Heavenly Emperor had seized her and imprisoned her beneath Peach Mountain.
His father had fled with the two siblings to Guanjiangkou. Yet even after ten years, he had ultimately failed to escape his allotted fate and met a cruel death.
The youth gazed up at the sky in bewilderment. Was this fate?
Was this the Heaven's mandate that could not be defied?
Suddenly, he heard several passersby discussing something.
"King Zhou asked that Daoist, 'What is Heaven's mandate?'"
"'Only then did I know my fate was not Heaven's to command...'"
"'Rather than obey Heaven and praise it, why not control Heaven and...'"
The confusion vanished from the youth's eyes. He tugged at his little sister beside him, who had long since cried herself to sleep.
If this is Heaven's mandate, then I, Yang Jian, will overturn this Heaven!
Skull Mountain, White Bone Cave!
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