Chapter 1234 — The Holder of the Heavenly Emperor's Throne

Xu Shenghua returned to the Shangcang Divine Sect with hesitation and doubt written plainly on his face. Jing Yan saw it, and knew at once what it meant.

"Husband, do you mean to leave the Western Lands? " Xu Shenghua nodded.

"This visit, Sect Master Shen showed me the fruits of his cultivation over these years, and spoke to me of the Ancestral Court, and of Taixu, and stirred my interest. " Jing Yan laughed.

"Husband, you have always walked where your heart led.

In the past your mind was calm and unmoved, and that is why you could remain in the Western Lands all these years.

Now that your heart is stirred, why not follow it?

" Xu Shenghua said hesitantly, "I have a wife and daughter now, and so it is hard to follow my heart. " Jing Yan smiled faintly. "Does my husband think it is your wife and daughter who made you, or who confined you? " Xu Shenghua was struck dumb.

Jing Yan said with a smile, "Some men think that with a wife and children they are shackled, that their every ambition can never be fulfilled, and so they curse heaven and curse earth, and the household knows no peace.

Others think that with a wife and children they have all the more drive to strive, to press forward, to seek advancement. Husband, are you the common man of the first kind, or the strong man of the second? " Light broke upon Xu Shenghua. He bowed and thanked her: "I am grateful to my lady for pointing out the way. " Jing Yan hastily raised him up and laughed.

"Husband, you do me too much honor. The turmoil in the world will only grow greater and more ferocious; the scale of the chaos may well be no less than the Jingping Calamity.

If you cannot raise yourself up, then in days to come it will be hard enough to protect a single district's people, hard even to protect your wife and child, hard even to protect yourself.

Since you have the will to advance and the way to advance, then go. There is no need to fret over us, mother and daughter.

" Xu Shenghua made up his mind. At once he packed his bags, kissed Jing Yan and his daughter Xu Mengqing, and set out from the Western Lands for Jingping. Shen Mu, meanwhile, returned to the cubic prison where the Ark of the Other Shore lay.

It was still sealed, but the seal could no longer hinder Shen Mu. He stepped inside, and there he saw a great many monks laboring bitterly to repair that magnificent leviathan of a ship.

The Ark of the Other Shore could be called the grandest vessel ever forged by man or god since ancient times; it was like a flying continent, possessed of inconceivable powers, able to pierce the void and sail beneath the Void Bridge!

And how terrible the power of the Void Bridge was, Shen Mu had long known: the Void Bridge of Taixu was such that even a Celestial Venerable could not cross it in safety. Yet the Ark of the Other Shore could.

These monks of the Kaihuang Era must have slipped into this cubic prison from Fengdu, soundless and unseen, without rousing the gods and demons of the Heavenly Court. Repairing the Ark of the Other Shore was exceedingly difficult.

In the Kaihuang Era, it was because there existed such heaven-defying figures as Emperor Shitian Li Youran, who took forging as the foundation of his Dao, that the Ark of the Other Shore could be built at all, and the Land of No Sorrow with it.

The Heavenly Court possessed no such heaven-defying being as Emperor Shitian, and so it could only leave the Ark of the Other Shore blocking that place, unable to repair it.

Moreover, without the Ark's astrolabe, one could not reach the Land of No Sorrow either; and so the Celestial Venerables of the Heavenly Court did not concern themselves greatly with this ship. Shen Mu came aboard the Ark of the Other Shore.

The vessel had by now been repaired in large part.

Emperor Shitian Li Youran, holding a great armful of blueprints, was inspecting with the assembled monks the joining of every component and the imprinting of every rune. He took the field himself as well, forging and imprinting, exceedingly busy.

Shen Mu came up to him and was somewhat startled: every monk wore the face of Emperor Shitian Li Youran, differing only in dress and in the work they were charged with.

"Li Youran, too, studied the Old Buddha's Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas. These monks are the incarnations of his dreams!

" Enlightenment dawned upon Shen Mu. In that year, in the Great Brahma Heaven of the Buddhist Realm, those who entered the Old Buddha's little temple, apart from the Demon Ape Zhankong and Monk Chenghuai, were the King Buddha Emperor Shitian. The Old Buddha had passed down his own arts to them, but what each received was not the same.

After the Demon Ape Zhankong received the transmission, he straightaway fell asleep, snoring like thunder; Monk Chenghuai sat in quiet contemplation, seeking to fathom the profound and unfathomable Buddha Dharma within, and so save all living beings.

The King Buddha Emperor Shitian, by contrast, set his cleverness and talent to work, striving to interpret the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas from every angle.

At the time, Shen Mu had not been granted the transmission; only his elder brother Shen Fengqing had seized the Old Buddha in one hand and eaten him.

The four of them held four different attitudes toward the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas, and so the fruits of their cultivation of it were each different. Shen Mu had grasped no Buddha Dharma from the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas at all, for he had never set himself to grasp it; his harvest was the smallest of all, and so the Old Buddha simply poured the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas into him; he took it and used it, never pondering what principles lay hidden within it. Monk Chenghuai, single-minded in his wish to save all beings and rid the world of suffering, gained much from the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas and learned much; his Buddha Dharma was perfected, his attainment exceedingly high.

Yet because his heart was engaged, he drew ever further from the true meaning of the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas; though he grasped all manner of supreme and wondrous methods from the sutra, he could never learn the true Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas. Only the Demon Ape Zhankong received the Old Buddha's true transmission.

His Buddha-nature was too high; having gotten the sutra, he paid it no heed at all, lay down his head and slept, bearing much of the Old Buddha's own spirit. The King Buddha Emperor Shitian, by contrast, put in the most effort of all, wishing with all his heart to become another Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha and then, one step further, to avenge his grievances.

His scheming was manifold: he used Shen Mu to purge the power of the Heavenly Court from the Buddhist Realm and root out the Heavenly Court's eyes and ears; and he could not forget his old love for the Red Emperor Qi Xiayu, could not forget his friendship with Kaihuang, could not forget the years that were gone, could not forget that he was the leader of the Heavenly Artisan Godclan, could not forget his hatred, could not forget his station as the War-Heaven King.

Therefore, though his gifts were exceedingly high, what he gained from the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas was the shallowest of all.

He too was a man of Buddha-nature, or he could never have become the King Buddha Emperor Shitian of the nineteenth heaven of the Buddhist Realm; but there were too many distracting thoughts in his heart, and even so, in his grasp of the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas he had come to insights of his own.