Do You Know What Love Is?

The Auspicious Cloud slowly descended toward the Western Liang Women's Kingdom.

Two immortal figures stood side by side atop the cloud.

Under the duty arrangements laid down by the Bright Hall, Ma Muzhi should have accompanied the inspection of Conduct Discipline in the mortal realm. Yet just before departure, Yang Niansan had cited recruitment and the mountain of paperwork at the office, then decreed with a sweep of her brush that Ma Muzhi and Xiao Yan would stay behind on duty.

Ma Muzhi was delighted, of course.

Who would go running down to the mortal realm for no reason? Wasn't staying in the Heavenly Court and breathing spiritual energy far more Incense?

Still, after Chen Wei and Yang Niansan left, Ma Muzhi's gaze flicked back and forth between their retreating figures, a dry smile hanging on his lips. Clearly, something had occurred to him.

Chen Wei naturally had no objections to the change in personnel.

Taking Old Ma through heaven and earth meant dividing his attention to protect him whenever trouble struck. Bringing Yang Niansan was different. If they truly ran into some thorny karmic entanglement, her pedigree as immortal nobility would be right there for all to see. Wasn't that splendid?

The cloud descended.

Chen Wei mentally reviewed the assignment the Monk had explained earlier.

It was absurd, really.

The Star Lord's written order, personally delivered to their door, had actually arisen from a mortal romantic entanglement.

And this affair fell squarely within the jurisdiction of the Folk Customs and Morals Inspection Bureau.

Years ago, before the Sandalwood Merit Buddha attained Buddhahood, he had borne the monastic name Xuanzang. On the orders of His Majesty, the emperor of the Great Tang in the eastern lands, he had journeyed west to obtain the true scriptures. Passing through the Western Liang Women's Kingdom, he had incurred a romantic debt he simply could not shake off.

Yulin, queen of Western Liang, possessed only mortal eyes and flesh, yet she had fallen for Xuanzang, who rode a white horse.

The affair had caused an uproar at the time. The queen had not only offered him her entire capital, but had even been willing to abdicate in his favor, asking only to take Xuanzang as her husband while lowering her own rank to queen consort.

Xuanzang had naturally refused. Adhering to the Buddhist Sect's precepts, he had swept his sleeves and departed.

Who could have foreseen what followed?

After the westbound party traveled on, Yulin had not severed the threads of her love. Instead, she had become obsessed.

According to the Monk, after Xuanzang left, the customs of the Western Liang Women's Kingdom had changed dramatically. Yulin had ordered every household throughout the kingdom to use clay cores and lavish quantities of gold to fashion gilded sacred images of Xuanzang.

Even the inner courts of the palace had not been spared: a small statue every three paces, a great Buddha every five.

Even upon the queen's sleeping couch, two gilded statues of Xuanzang stood symmetrically to either side, facing her day and night.

As time passed, the power of those thoughts gathered, and karma became entangled.

Far away on Spirit Mountain, the Sandalwood Merit Buddha suffered the intrusion of this mortal obsession every day. His sacred chants lost their purity, dust settled upon his Buddhist heart, and he spent his days sighing before the Victorious Fighting Buddha.

Seeing this, the Victorious Fighting Buddha had volunteered to take the whole matter upon himself.

The assignment sounded thorny, but Chen Wei already had a clear ledger in his mind.

The Buddhist Sect upheld the four great emptinesses, making it awkward for them to step forward and sever an old romance. As immortals outside the affair, those of the Heavenly Court were perfectly placed to take over the mess.

Easy enough.

It was merely a mortal woman in the lower realm who had succumbed to obsessive longing. They would find Queen Yulin, display a few immortal arts, offer some persuasion, then bestow a little sweet rain and good fortune. By doing something tangible for the mortal kingdom, they could soothe her troubled mind.

Once her obsession dissolved, Spirit Mountain would regain its peace, and the Censorate would earn merit.

Face and substance both preserved-good for her, good for them, good for every immortal.

The two immortals concealed their divine radiance, assumed the appearance of ordinary practitioners, and slipped into Western Liang City.

It was noon. Merchants and porters threaded through the streets and alleys, while stalls selling rouge, face powder, silks, and satins lined the roads. The city was bustling indeed.

Yang Niansan walked beside Chen Wei, holding an ink-painted folding fan. Her gaze swept over their surroundings, and suddenly her brows knitted slightly.

"Strange."

Yang Niansan covered her chin and quietly transmitted her voice. "Sir, look around. Why isn't there a single young child anywhere in the city? Every woman here is fully grown!"

At her words, Chen Wei's gaze sharpened, and he carefully examined the sights along their route.

It was indeed abnormal.

Neighborhood streets should have been places where children played and tumbled about.

Yet they had now walked down three long streets, and every woman they saw was sixteen or older. Not only were there no children running about, they had not even heard the cry of a swaddled infant.

The shops on either side sold fabrics and food boxes, but there was not a single stall selling pellet drums or clay figurines.

Without descendants to carry it on, how could a mortal kingdom endure?

"Western Liang's national fortune depends entirely on the Mother-Child River outside the city to sustain its people." Yang Niansan's thoughts moved swiftly. Her divine sense immediately left her body and shot toward the river's source beyond the city.

A few breaths later.

Yang Niansan opened her eyes, a strange look surfacing within them. "Some unknown calamity has struck the Mother-Child River, the lifeblood of the women's kingdom. Its bed is cracked, not a drop of water remains, and even the water eye in the earth's veins has been sealed shut. There isn't a trace of spiritual energy."

Had the case suddenly changed?

What had originally been an old Buddhist Sect romantic debt had now uncovered a major case involving the severing of a mortal kingdom's lifeline.

The Mother-Child River had dried up; Western Liang would have no more descendants.

Chen Wei rapidly weighed the pros and cons, considering whether to borrow water from the Dragon Palaces of the Four Seas or report the matter to the Heavenly Court's Water Virtue Star Lord.

Just as he was contemplating a solution.

"Sir!" Yang Niansan closed her folding fan and leaned toward Chen Wei. "It's a good thing it's dried up! I have a plan!"

"Let's hear it." Chen Wei was curious too. What scheme could his deputy devise?

Yang Niansan lightly waved her folding fan, her tone assured. "The severing of Western Liang's lifeline is a disaster that will swallow the kingdom whole. We can use that as our bargaining chip, employing immortal arts to restore the Mother-Child River's water eye. In exchange, we require the mortal queen to remove the gilded statues and sever her longing."

"One river in exchange for one obsession."

"She preserves her mortal kingdom's fortune, and we settle Spirit Mountain's old karmic accounts. Two gains with one stroke-a win-win!"

Chen Wei gave a slight nod. "A sound plan. We'll proceed accordingly."

The two immortal figures turned into a clear breeze and flitted above the city streets.

They passed unhindered through layer upon layer of palace walls, silently alighting inside the main hall of the Western Liang Women's Kingdom's royal palace.

Buddhist incense curled through the hall, its blue smoke like gauze.

The altar table bore no offerings to the gods of heaven and earth, nor any reverence for the Dao and nature. Instead, a carved wooden sacred image of Xuanzang stood squarely upon it.

Yulin sat upon the throne without makeup, wearing simple, elegant everyday robes that could not conceal her peerless beauty. Yet a knot of melancholy lay between her brows, impossible to unravel. She stared dazedly at the miniature wooden carving in her hands, like a clay figure that had lost its soul.

Chen Wei revealed his true form and calmly laid out the danger posed by the Mother-Child River's drying up, along with the conditions for restoring its water eye.

He had thought that once he offered the preservation of her sovereign realm as a bargaining chip, a mere mortal would surely brim with gratitude and agree without hesitation.

What reason could mortals have to refuse blessings bestowed by immortals?

Well.

What do you think happened?

Yulin pressed the wooden carving tightly against her heart and slowly shook her head. "Immortal masters, I am unwilling to agree to this. My dear imperial brother is the love of my life. There is no room for negotiation."

Chen Wei lowered his eyelids, gathering divine sense in his eyes.

Piercing through her mortal shell, he saw a wisp of tribulation aura coiled within the queen's three souls and seven spirits!

The birth, aging, illness, and death of mortal beings all followed a fixed fate. Only when karma and a great calamity of heaven and earth became involved would tribulation aura arise.

No wonder even a Buddha of Spirit Mountain found this troublesome. Western Liang's old dream was no longer mere mortal longing and obsessive resentment. It was actually an aftershock of a great tribulation.

If he forcibly interfered with the tribulation aura, he would inevitably be tainted by it.

Truly troublesome.

Just as Chen Wei was considering how to proceed.

Yang Niansan's expression darkened slightly, and she seized the moment to brand the queen's conduct as a grave transgression. "Foolish!" she snapped. "As the sovereign of a kingdom, sustained by the offerings of all your subjects, you should place the fortunes of your realm above all else. Yet for your own selfish desire, you would watch every woman in Western Liang lose her descendants and the kingdom perish? Doesn't such conduct defy the workings of yin and yang and violate the course of the Heavenly Dao?"

Every word struck at the heart, ringing with righteous conviction.

Facing the pressure of an immortal, Yulin did not argue. She studied Yang Niansan for a moment, then softly asked in return, "Immortal master, your mouth is full of the great Dao and its rules, and you stand so high above us. May I ask you, do you know what love is?"