Explaining the Scripture of Withering and Flourishing in a Temple Dream (Six)

"Fellow Daoist Zhang, why have you come to my Yunlan instead of contemplating the Dao of Withering and Flourishing at the Great Peace Temple?"

At Yunlan's summit, a voice came from within the Azure Gate, neither pleased nor grieved. Every word held the might of a Divine Ability, reinforced by the force of the Nine Heavens Azure Nether winds.

The winds overturned the sky and scattered and churned the clouds. Across the land, turbid Qi and dust lay hidden, grasses and trees bowed low, and Jianmu swayed. A clear, bracing Dao charm manifested between heaven and earth. The soughing Azure Nether winds gathered without dispersing, returning to simplicity and revealing the profound in the minute.

Atop Jianmu stood a man in azure Daoist robes, his face that of someone around thirty. He held a scroll in his hands, his face like warm jade, handsome and clear.

He wore a smile year-round, often making others feel as though bathed in a spring breeze. The fresh scent of living grass and trees lingered around him, but his eyes were withered and desolate, like the fading, birth, and death on the other shore.

"In my leisure, I often think of the mortal world. As it happens, my Great Peace Temple has two paths: entering the world and withdrawing from it. Since I entered the world, stillness has stirred a desire for movement in me. A few days ago, I had already taken eight shares. Nine is the utmost, and fate and fortune have brought me here."

"This Qingyu Ruins Realm has an affinity for wood and is nurtured by its origin. I once placed a piece here in the Qingyu Ruins Realm and left it idle. Thinking of the long years and changing times, I judged that the moment had come. I never expected it really to amount to something, with five arts on the verge of completion... How could I not be delighted?"

"Besides, according to the old agreement among the heavens of the Cangxuan Ancient Realm, this is intended to expand a Dao lineage and test its propagation."

"Forgive my intrusion upon the Ye Clan's Yunlan today, Fellow Daoist Azure Nether, and please help me bring this karmic matter to completion..."

The Daoist spoke unhurriedly, but with certainty in his words, and smiled.

The force of the Azure Nether winds gradually subsided. Clear autumn spread across the limpid heavens and earth, all things desolate beneath its bleak, killing chill. The world was open and vast, stretching into the distance. Only a sword scar imbued with the intent of clear autumn lay across the sky, while a figure in blue robes appeared in the light of heaven, cold and aloof.

"Fellow Daoist Zhang, what fine calculations... I wonder how many more peerless talents heaven and earth have lost." There was mockery in Ye Zhanqiu's words, but he could not bring himself to say "hypocrite." There was little difference among Cangxuan's Golden Cores, the people seated in the heavenly positions; for the sake of appearances, they merely had to be a little more cordial.

Hearing the mockery, the Daoist in azure naturally understood what had been left unsaid, but he paid it no mind.

I am a hypocrite. So what?

The Daoist spoke bluntly.

"In Cangxuan today, what immortals are there who relieve suffering and rescue the afflicted? If you scheme too little, you'll be eaten clean long before you know it. When a good person dies, I reckon even their grave will be dug up, and probably not all their bones will be found. They'll give it the pretty name of helping a senior pass down their Cultivation Method. The ones left are all people who pretend to be kind but have black hearts..."

"Except those who cultivate the fire element... Their thoughts are simpler, and they're more rash, but they also have Divine Abilities that throw the heart's fire into turmoil. Can you call them honest people?"

"You two, why say more? Let us watch Qingyu... The Ruin Realm's origin has already appeared. I'll leave once I have what I came for, and I'll also leave some compensation. How about it? Besides, today I can be said to be giving Fellow Daoist Qiuran's son a lesson, so he can learn some of Cangxuan's rules..."

With that, the Daoist took a pure seed containing origin from the Jianmu that had torn through the sky and cast it down toward the Qingyu Ruins Realm.

The falling seed was like a spark dropped into boiling oil.

Inside the Ruin Realm, Spiritual Qi surged, compressing and condensing without end.

The power of wood filled it to overflowing, like a tempting fruit on the verge of ripening.

The Qingyu Ruins Realm.

"At least five Divine Abilities are about to be perfected? Could he actually break through the Ruin Realm's shackles?!"

Ye Guyi clenched his fists and secretly set his Divine Ability circulating within him.

He looked at the young master inside the carriage, then at his son Ye Anlan behind him, who was already entranced.

He considered how best to change their route for the time being.

Surprise flashed in Xu Feng's eyes. Sensing the presence surging in the distance, he felt a trace of panic.

Purple Mansion Peak? How is that possible!

I'm a Yin Spirit... Though we're both at Purple Mansion Peak, he has the support of this world... This...

He hurried back to the young master's side and sent a voice transmission to Ye Jinyu.

"Young master, this True Person Qingyu has come back to life!! This presence... has already surpassed the Purple Mansion Early Stage... the middle stage... It's about to reach the peak."

"As the guardian cultivator, Ye Guyi has a duty to defend this land. If he stakes his life and self-destructs, he should be able to hold him off for you for a moment."

"One worth a thousand pieces of gold does not sit beneath a crumbling roof. Why don't I escort you out of this realm first? Then we can ask a True Lord to step in and capture him..."

As he spoke, he was already about to use a Divine Ability to protect Ye Jinyu, tear open space, and flee.

Ye Jinyu shook their head, raised a hand above their head, and pointed at the sky.

Xu Feng looked in the direction Ye Jinyu pointed.

He found that space had been fixed in place, and the heavens and earth of this Ruin Realm were faintly displaying rejection and aversion.

The Great Void had already been sealed off.

Yet an almost imperceptible autumn intent lingered around Ye Jinyu.

Xu Feng also felt as though a gaze from the heavens was watching him.

"Young master, do not worry. Even if I, Xu Feng, have to self-destruct, I will slay this rebel of the Ruin Realm."

He immediately put on a look of fearlessness and utter loyalty, as though he cared nothing for life or death.

So the True Lord is watching...

The thirty-thousand-li Withered Spirit Pine Forest seemed to be one. The [wood] element origin hidden deep within the Ruin Realm flowed into the forest. How dearly this realm cherished him.

Fortune, merit, and affection gathered in the cocoon of light. Yu Qinglin's body emerged from grave and lingering illness; in the faint light of dawn, Yin was born and Yang faded, while the grasses, trees, and pine forest cycled ceaselessly between withering and flourishing.

Rotten wood was reborn and passed into spring; the soul hidden in the pine forest was able to return.

The path of cultivation was, by its nature, the seizing of heaven and earth's fortune and the drawing in of the charm of their Dao.

Dying to protect the Ruin Realm was a meritorious deed.

Turning into a pine forest after death, providing material and a foundation, and nurturing heaven and earth in return for more than four hundred years was also a meritorious deed.

Merit upon one's person, the favor of heaven and earth, and the pity and affection of the origin made for fortune and destiny.

Within the cocoon of light, his appearance also began to change with the transformation.

He was not so delicate-featured, and his looks were unremarkable. It was only said that his azure eyes were extraordinary.

They held the weight of life's vicissitudes after passing through life and death and confusion, yet also the vigor of new life.

It was then that an azure seed fell from the sky into the cocoon of light and merged with it.

The seed greedily absorbed the Ruin Realm's origin power, continuously sprouting, taking root, and growing strong as it slowly wriggled toward the heart of the body in the cocoon.

In mere moments.

The thirty-thousand-li Withered Spirit Pine Forest gathered together and grew into a towering Jianmu.

At the top of Jianmu, Qingyu opened his eyes.

His azure eyes were indeed extraordinary, but his expression was somewhat complicated.

Jianmu...

The scripture in his robes radiated golden light. The clear Qi of grasses and trees and vigorous life stirred, and all things burst forth.

Qingyu suddenly remembered his humble beginnings, when he had fled famine and taken shelter in a ruined temple. His mother had been gravely ill, beyond the help of medicine.

He had knelt before many people and begged many more, but most had watched with cold eyes.

Only one person surnamed Zhao had told him it was an evil entity, and that only immortals, only those lofty cultivators, could help him...

But how would an immortal help someone like him?

He had despaired, able only to watch his mother's life fade little by little. That pain, that helplessness, that frailty had been more than he could bear.

He had run alone to a pine forest in the wilderness. It was late autumn, and most of the grasses and trees had withered. Decay blew through the pines, and the soughing wind passed over a scene of fading desolation.

Gone was the vigorous life of spring, when all things burst forth.

As though in mockery, just like him, quietly waiting to wither amid the grey decay.

The night was nearly spent, dawn's light faint, at that hour when darkness was about to give way to day.

The grasses and trees cycled through withering and flourishing, and the winds of decay gradually died down.

As though a spring breeze had arrived overnight, spring filled the pine forest.

There was a pavilion among the distant mountains, and a person in the pavilion.

Unlike one of the mortal world, that person was like an immortal banished to earth.

Brewing wine from pine blossoms and making tea with spring water, every movement was elegant and leisurely, containing an inexpressible principle and charm that accorded with heaven and earth.

An immortal?! Or an evil spirit?!

In those days, cultivators fought and evil spirits ran rampant. The world was foul, and though it teemed with life, the wind of decay blew through it.

For an ordinary commoner like him, there was not even a moment's peace, much less anything but death.

He had thought of going to beg, but when the thought came to him,

That being was gone...

When he returned to the ruined temple, his mother had miraculously recovered. As though in a dream, he saw her smile at him and ask whether he had gone hungry...

Warmth was reflected in Qingyu's azure eyes.

With the salvation that had followed despair and helplessness, he slowly fell asleep.

It was then that he once again saw that figure, like an immortal banished to the mortal world, seated high atop Jianmu, determining birth and death. With a word, All Things Live; with a thought, all things withered. The figure held sway over heaven and earth's flourishing and decay, renewal, rise, and fall.

That being gave me a scripture and expounded the Dao to me for three years in my dream.

He woke from the dream.

In the morning light, spring returned and all things lived. I still had my mother, and I had survived.

In my hand was that scripture.

"Explaining the Scripture of Withering and Flourishing in a Dream."

From then on, I, Qingyu, rose from a lowly blade of grass on the verge of death. In only thirty years, I mastered a Divine Ability and slew the ruler of this realm.

I gave this realm my own name, Qingyu.

But never again did I see the immortal in my dreams. I only had a faint feeling that I could see that being again only after mastering everything written in the scripture, one by one...

That being said that the flourishing and withering of grasses and trees were the principle of heaven and earth, but when a diseased tree was dying yet not dead, it could pass through spring and all things would be born anew.

At this thought,

Qingyu's azure eyes reflected Jianmu. He reached out and gently stroked it for a moment.

His presence began to rise in an instant, as though it would break through the shackles of this realm.

Yin and Yang were born in his heart, and the merit of heaven and earth arrived.

Qingyu spoke in a deep voice: [Withering and Flourishing Cycle] [Azure Bathed in Yang] [Wind of a Thousand Decays] [Passage upon Meeting Spring]

The four Divine Abilities appeared one after another, and his presence reached its peak step by step.

With the support of heaven and earth's origin, he seemed to gain an insight. Inspiration struck, and after murmuring for a long while, he finally blurted it out.

The last one...

The last Divine Ability was [All Things Live].

Qingyu's azure eyes grew ever brighter, and he all but roared, "All things shall live! I shall hold sway over withering and flourishing, birth and death..."

Rumble.

Heaven and earth changed color, Yin and Yang divided, and tribulation Qi arose unseen.

As though a spring breeze had arrived overnight, all things came back to life and flourished once more.