Chapter 114: Sanqing Mountain

Xu Jia did not like hearing these words from Yeyou; was it not urgent just because only one Daoist had been sacrificed?? At least in Xu Jia's view, human life was of paramount importance.

Xu Jia's wisdom had grown significantly, and he realized the true reason he had failed the Demon Examination in his past life: he had not "let go of his attachments."

In the Dharma, "attachment" is "form"; many things need not be forced. Of course, the early stages of cultivating to become an Immortal are arduous and one must not be slack, but when one truly reaches a "bottleneck," one must "gently let go."

The more one forces it, the less one grasps the essence.

In truth, whether or not the scriptures were torn during that Demon Examination did not matter; it was just that Xu Jia had not let go, and had remained preoccupied with that matter.

It was just like Xia Laohan, whose heart was clearly not blind, yet he was obsessed with his blind eyes, and thus was toyed with by fate for a lifetime.

Sometimes one must "defy heaven to change fate," and sometimes one must "go with the flow of nature."

Xu Jia's aura became ethereal, transcendent and cloud-like.

"There are still dozens of blood corpses in Dizang An; we need to hold a proper ritual." Xu Jia said to Yeyou: "Since the City God's troops have been mobilized, don't go back yet. I will set up an altar at Dizang An and station ourselves there!"

Yeyou nodded: "I shall obey the True Person's command!"

Xu Jia turned his head to Miaoren and said: "Little nun, although your parents have forgiven you, I am not a person who forgives lightly. Since you can bind a Ghost King, you must certainly be able to bind a Mountain God. You are not allowed to leave!"

Miaoren's expression was calm, without fluctuation, as she said: "This poor nun will not leave. If the benefactor has need of me, just say so. Whenever sentient beings have requests of me, I shall grant them all."

"You are quite clever. Just now, your parents had requests of you; if you had only spoken up, it wouldn't have ended like this." Hu Jinhua found her very displeasing, because the money for the noodles that Sha Huofo and Xia Laohan ate had all been paid by her.

The "Karmic Connection" of two bowls of noodles made her feel both pity and respect for that couple.

Huang Pipo, however, had no such feelings; she only thought: "They are miserable, what does that have to do with me! She is not filial to her parents, what does that have to do with me! The life and death of one hundred thousand living beings, what does that have to do with me!"

If someone said: "You are going to die too!" she would think: I was never going to pass my two-hundred-year great tribulation anyway, so dying is dying; dying like this is worth it.

This state of mind was quite beautiful.

A person of great compassion will inevitably be poor, distressed, and unsuccessful, facing a thousand trials and ten thousand tribulations; if one fails to pass even a single tribulation, all previous efforts are wasted.

Conversely, a person like this, who is cold and indifferent, thinking only of themselves, will be praised by others if they manage to do one good deed in the future.

Xu Jia understood why Hu Jinhua disliked her, but now was not the time to be impulsive: "Jinhua, go and call Xiaopangdun over. We are going to set up an altar; I fear the Nine-Layer Table Altar won't be enough this time, I want to set up thirteen layers."

Hu Jinhua accepted the order and went to find Niu Congcong. Huang Pipo, left behind, was not idle: "You go up the mountain. I will write a post and deliver it to Shanju Guan. Among the Daoists there, there is one called Zhang Zhenji who once had a brief encounter with me."

Huang Pipo asked curiously: "Has that Shanju Guan also been controlled by the evil Daoists?"

"Control is unlikely, but they probably cannot leave. The Mountain God they worship has gone out of control; they should be performing a ritual to stabilize the deity."

"Good!" Huang Pipo had not dared to go there before, but now it was different. She was using a chicken feather as a token of authority.

The sky gradually darkened, dusk arrived, and the commoners returned home. Niu Congcong also rushed over. Seeing Xu Jia covered in blood, he couldn't help but say: "Brother Xu! You killed someone!"

Xu Jia saw him riding an ox cart, bringing quite a few things: "Why? Are you going up the mountain with me?"

"Brother isn't going up the mountain to be a bandit; I assume it's to become an Immortal."

Xu Jia laughed: "No wonder you are clever. I am indeed going to earn a Daochang. Look at the beautiful scenery of Yushan, surrounded by mountains and water, especially those three peaks; they look like three sticks of incense standing together in an incense burner. Is it not a good place?"

Niu Congcong looked in the direction Xu Jia pointed. It was pitch black and cavernous; only by borrowing his innate Divine Ability could he barely see at night. Seeing the forest of stone peaks, a work of divine craftsmanship, he couldn't help but exclaim: "It is good, but it is too dangerous and steep. Dizang An is at the foot of the mountain, making it easy for commoners to visit, which is why the Incense Fire is prosperous. Shanju Guan is at the waist of the mountain, which is already a place for quiet cultivation. If you build a Daoist temple on the summit, how much money and labor would it cost?"

"That is easy to handle. It is hard for mortal strength to transport things, but can't the strength of gods and ghosts do it? As for money, the Bodhisattva and Buddha just sponsored me a sum."

Xu Jia pointed and said: "If those three mountains have no names, I shall name them. How about 'Yujing', 'Yuxu', and 'Yuhua'?" Xiaopangdun heard this and said: "They sound like the dwellings of Immortals."

"Indeed," Xu Jia said: "You possess great roots of wisdom. These three mountains correspond to the Sanqing Shengjing. Yujing is the Great Luo Jade Capital Mountain, the dwelling of the Heavenly Emperor. Yuxu is the dwelling of the Primordial King, one of the Three Pure Ones. I plan to worship the Heavenly Emperor and the Ancestor of the Three Pure Ones on these two mountains, while my specific cultivation will be on Yuhua Mountain."

"Yuhua, the splendor of jade; it is rumored to be the place where the Heavenly Emperor left his jade. It must be this mountain. This mountain is more spiritually refined than the other peaks."

Xiaopangdun did not understand this: "Isn't the middle one the most honorable? Why not cultivate in the middle?"

"Because I cannot suppress it yet," Xu Jia said: "Once I cultivate to become an Earth Immortal, I will be able to sense the three mountains, and it won't matter where I live." As Xu Jia spoke with Niu Congcong, Huang Pipo had already come down from Shanju Guan. Coming down with her was the worried "Zhang Zhenji."

At Shanju Guan, Zhang Zhenji had always been groomed as a "True Transmission Disciple." The former temple master once said that Zhang Zhenji was "unpolished jade," and if carefully polished, he would be a "seed of a True Immortal." The True Immortal here refers to an "Earthly True Immortal," also called a "True Person of Omniscience" or an "Earth Immortal."

Upon reaching Earth Immortal, one stays in the world for at least three hundred years, but in reality, one does not need to live that long; many who achieve Didao ascend.

Or, having lived so long, they are not people the secular world can come into contact with. They often reside in a Cave Heaven Blessed Land.

Compared to a "Human Immortal," an Earth Immortal can already be considered a "middle-grade achievement."

Do not look down on Earth Immortals; many who study Immortality and the Dao desire the Heavenly Immortal rank, yet cannot even attain the lowest "Ghost Immortal" rank. To put it nicely, they are wandering masters or Yin Masters; to put it bluntly, they are just doing odd jobs or manual labor for the underworld.

If they fare a bit better, they can grant teachings through dreams, form a Yin Master Altar, and have people worship them; they have food to eat and can even have spirit money burned for them to spend.

If they fare poorly, their form and soul dissipate, and they are no different from lonely ghosts. If they can maintain their heart and not harm others, that is fine; if they cannot, they might just become brothers inside an Evil Master's "Soul Banner."

In this life, Xu Jia must at least obtain the achievement of an Earth Immortal. In his past life, he exorcised and beheaded evil in San Francisco, America; in this life, he will start from Yushan.

As mentioned before, Xu Jia intends to step on the Longevity Sect to rise.

Zhang Zhenji saw Xu Jia and was very surprised: "It's you!"

Xu Jia asked with a smile: "Are you surprised?"

Zhang Zhenji sighed: "Last time I saw you, your essence and energy were depleted, yet your spirit was full. Your methods were heterodox, not knowing the meaning of storing and saving, so I thought you were a loose cultivator of the Miscellaneous School. Now, looking at you again, your essence, energy, and spirit are full, your Merit shines more than three feet, and you are faintly protected by the Dharma thoughts of a deity. Clearly, I misjudged you; you are a high cultivator with the Dao."

When Xu Jia heard him call himself a "high cultivator with the Dao," he was very happy, because Xu Jia's own positioning for himself was "heterodox," a late starter, a novelist who pieced things together from here and there. Although he lived to be a hundred in his past life, he never truly met a proper, enlightened master.

The three treasures of Daoism are the Dao, the Master, and the Scriptures.

Xu Jia had stumbled into the Dao by himself, spent three thousand to pay respects to a Lushan Master who had no disciples, and met a high person at Qingcheng Mountain who taught him a scroll of internal refining techniques.

Only then were the three treasures complete.

In this life, his cultivation takes his "past life" as his master, avoiding all the pitfalls he stepped on before. He only has that one scroll of true scriptures and no others to reference.

Now that Zhang Zhenji said he was a "high cultivator with the Dao," it meant he was cultivating correctly.

In fact, Xu Jia was still thinking wrong. A high cultivator with the Dao is not judged by "methods," but by the "Dao." The external manifestation of the Dao is "wisdom."

What Zhang Zhenji saw was the "halo" projected into the Dharma Realm by Xu Jia's Merit and wisdom. Zhang Zhenji had cultivated for many years and had only seen this in the Dharma light of one person: the Abbot of the temple.

"How can I be considered a high cultivator with the Dao?" Xu Jia was happy, but did not claim it, only saying: "I invited you here, Daoist friend; do you know why?"

Zhang Zhenji looked at the bloodstains on Xu Jia, the cold-faced Miaoren, and the messy scene at Dizang An after the fire had been extinguished, and sighed: "I presume something happened at Dizang An."

"Correct. The Evil Sect not only wanted to pollute the Yushan Mountain God but also planned to release the Ghost King suppressed under Dizang An. But now this matter has been resolved. If it had erupted earlier, there would first have been an earthquake in the Yushan territory, and then it would have turned into a ghost realm."

"Now we only need to consider the first matter."

"So that is how it is. No wonder you have such Merit, Daoist friend!" Zhang Zhenji suddenly realized and asked: "Then, this brother, do you have a way to stop all of this?"

"Exactly!" Xu Jia said, "However, I also have conditions. I hope to see the Daoist lineage inheritance of Shanju Guan. Of course, even if you don't show it to me, I will still perform the ritual. These are two separate matters, one public and one private; you need not link them together and think I am coercing you."

Zhang Zhenji said, "The Daoist lineage inheritance is not passed to those without the Dao or virtue. Since Senior Brother is a person of the Dao and virtue, if you have the ability to save the people of Yushan, what would it matter even if I gave Shanju Guan to Senior Brother as a Daochang?"

"I don't want your Shanju Guan; I have my own place to go." Seeing him so straightforward, and adding in a bout of flattery regarding his own Dao and virtue, Xu Jia was also incredibly happy. No wonder emperors always keep someone around who knows how to flatter.

This Zhang Zhenji is quite sensible! He could be taken on as a little brother.

Zhang Zhenji immediately began to orally recite his cultivation method. After all, he did not have the manual with him, and it would not be good to go back to get it. However, he had a photographic memory and had received the True Transmission Disciple status, so he naturally would not use fake scriptures to fool Xu Jia.

Xu Jia was momentarily stunned as he listened to him describe the cultivation method of Shanju Guan.

Because it was not even as good as his own!

(End of this chapter)