"He's a monk. Instead of eating vegetarian meals and chanting sutras..."
Yang Ge knitted his brows. "Why is he hell-bent on rebellion? What, was his surname Zhou before he took the vows?"
"You've certainly come to the right old man with that question."
Zhang Xuansu settled cross-legged, beaming as he launched enthusiastically into the tale. "That old monk's secular surname wasn't Zhou, but he certainly had deep ties with the Zhou Family... You should know why I overthrew Zhou Tang back then, shouldn't you?"
"They exalted Buddhism and suppressed Daoism?" Yang Ge replied.
Zhang Xuansu nodded, his face full of glee at another's misfortune. "That old monk was the state preceptor personally appointed by Emperor Tiande of Zhou Tang. He attained the rank of grandmaster by drawing on Zhou Tang's dynastic fortune. You could even say that Zhou Tang fell after only four generations precisely because he siphoned off its dynastic fortune. He owed the Zhou Family a great karmic debt. By the Buddhists' own rules, unless he repaid that debt, he would have no road into heaven and no gate into earth. Several lifetimes of cultivation would all come to nothing..."
Question marks practically covered Yang Ge's face. "Are... are you serious?"
Zhang Xuansu knew he did not believe him, but had no intention of explaining in detail. He merely replied, "You aren't a member of the Daoist mysteries, so there's no need to dwell on it. Just know that with matters of Buddhism and Daoism, belief makes them real, and disbelief makes them nothing..."
Yang Ge considered this seriously for a moment, then nodded in agreement... His own cultivation followed a path rooted in the mind. How could he not know the weight of the word "conviction"?
Never mind anything else. When he firmly believed that his **No