Chapter 1726 — The Sage King of Jiangguo

" the Eastern Emperor asked, forcing down the pain. The pill master smiled slightly, and the Eastern Emperor felt at once ashamed of his own unworthiness. "A pill master of Yincan Village, known as the Jade-Faced Poison King. Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, this dragon's wounds are no longer serious; my disciples can manage them.

Other battlefields have need of me. " The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, Jiang Baigui, dared not be remiss, and bowed: "Take care, martial uncle.

" The pill master drifted away. "This man is one of Heavenly Venerable Mu's nine masters.

" Jiang Baigui turned his gaze toward the Eastern Heaven's camps and said to the Eastern Emperor: "Therefore I call him martial uncle.

Eastern Emperor, do you know why, for all my schemes, I do not let you die? " The Eastern Emperor endured the agony and said: "The ancestral land of the Eastern Pole Heaven, the Myriad Dragon Nest. And, in the camps of the Eastern Heaven, the divine dragons of my Eastern Pole Heaven!

" Jiang Baigui laughed: "The ancient gods who live to this day are none of them too foolish.

Duke of Weiguo, make the Cyan Emperor's wounds a little graver!

" In the Eastern Heaven's camps the sixty army marquises gathered together.

The leaders of the several armies, Tianjiang, Dongxian, Xixian, Tianfu, Qiguan, Cheqi, Zhenche, and the rest, were mostly ancient gods and demigods, named for the stars and constellations of the Eastern Heaven and holding enfeoffed marquisates, each of them mighty beyond measure. The marquises were in a great flurry, deliberating how to rescue the Cyan Emperor, when of a sudden four ancient gods among the Dongxian stars rose and cried sternly: "The Cyan Emperor is our commanding general, who loves his soldiers as his own children.

He is ringed about by enemies; how can we not rescue him? If you will not go, we will!

" With that the four ancient gods mustered their armies, made ready every kind of divine weapon and heavy treasure, and charged out of the city. The other marquises, who had long harbored some grievance over the Cyan Emperor's unwillingness to give battle, did not stop them.

Jiang Baigui saw the gates of the Eastern Heaven's camps thrown wide and four armies charging, and said unhurriedly: "The Cyan Emperor loves his soldiers as his children and treats the men beneath his banner exceedingly well; general and soldiers are deep in feeling. With him trapped, his soldiers will surely defy his orders and come to save him at the risk of their lives. " The Eastern Emperor endured his pain and said: "Jingping's armies are too few; it will be hard to cut down all the Eastern Heaven's host of gods and demons.

" Jiang Baigui's face was calm. Watching the four Dongxian hosts of gods and demons charge toward them, he said: "Jingping's forces are indeed too few. Though I am Jingping's supreme wisdom, to destroy the Eastern Heaven would cost, I fear, grievous losses; therefore I must exert my full strength. Send out the troops, meet them in battle.

Encircle but do not annihilate!

" At his command a Jingping army burst out from the sky at once, tower ships and great vessels meeting the four Dongxian hosts of gods and demons. At the same moment, beneath the sea where the four Dongxian hosts stood, the waves surged, and one after another undersea warships broke the surface. Two armies, one above and one below, raised their formation diagrams and set their formations turning, trapping the four marquises, and in a moment there were flashes of blade and sword, and blood and flesh flying.

Jiang Baigui's eyes brimmed with divine light; in an instant he judged the shifts in the four Dongxian marquises' formations and ceaselessly adjusted the dispositions of Jingping's two armies.

His Three Primes Spirit Convergence Formula marshaled the whole battlefield, reaching into its every minute corner; such was his wisdom that the Eastern Emperor forgot even his pain, and the gaze he turned on him was full of dread. "God and demon! " The Eastern Emperor could not suppress the dread in his heart; he felt that in Jiang Baigui's eyes there was only the purest li, and this li was not reason in the sense of rationality, but the li of principle, of the ordered way.

It made his flesh crawl, and he cried out: "Jiang Baigui, you are the purest god and demon!

You possess the most overbearing heart of a god and demon!

" "You call my Dao-heart the heart of a god and demon. I call such a Dao-heart inner sagehood.

" Jiang Baigui's face was calm: "The sage has that which gives him birth; the king has that which brings him completion; both spring from the One. The way of inner sagehood and outer kingship discerns the blindness of the multitude that cannot see, and gives light to the pent-up darkness of my own self.

It observes the men of the world, each following what he desires, each taking his own course as the rule. Preserve the Heavenly Principle, govern human desire: this is my way of the sage.

And now I have come near to my Dao.

" The Eastern Emperor's body trembled, and the dread in his heart grew ever greater. Jiang Baigui said his Dao was the way of inner sagehood and outer kingship, but to the Eastern Emperor's eyes this was the very heart of a god and demon. In that Dao-heart gods and demons dwelt together, a god-demon heart that holds in its hand Dao and Heaven, li and man, desire and art, law and formation, all alike.

On the battlefield, foe and friend alike, the Heavenly Principle and the human desire of every man were wholly within his grasp; such a man, was his the heart of a sage or the heart of a god and demon?

He doubted greatly. Even that jujube-red old nag had been within Jiang Baigui's calculations; it was the thread of dragon qi within the old horse that had held the Eastern Emperor to his last breath and kept him from death. The Heavenly Principle and human desire of all, wholly in his grip: how terrible a figure was such a man? "What the Woodcutter of Wentian Pavilion could not achieve, he has achieved in himself; he is more terrible than Wentian Pavilion.

Such a man is worthy of the name supreme wisdom! " The Eastern Emperor shuddered: "He is a Sage King.

Jiang, the Sage King of Jingping! " The four Dongxian hosts of gods and demons were trapped; soldiers died without cease.

Jiang Baigui controlled his two armies, nibbling away at them, devouring the living strength of the four hosts at the least cost, yet encircling without annihilating. Seeing this, the Cyan Emperor cried in a voice of anguish: "Do not rescue me!

Hold the camps to the death! " His voice could not carry out at all; yet at this moment a rank of Jingping's god-men stepped out from the throng, and the sound they gave forth was exactly his: "Do not rescue me!

Rescue Dongxian!

" These few gods and demons were no more than petty tricksters, cocks that crow and burglars that crawl, skilled at imitating the voices of others; yet they turned the Cyan Emperor's heart to ice. If this voice reached the Eastern Heaven's camps, it would surely draw out more of the Eastern Heaven's soldiers.

And those soldiers, marching out of the pass, would surely fall into Jiang Baigui's ambush.

The Cyan Emperor fought with all his might and cried in a furious voice: "That is not my order! Do not leave the city!

" Those petty tricksters raised their voices as one: "Hear my command!

Xixian and Tianfu, march out! " The Cyan Emperor's heart sank.

He saw the four divisions of Xixian and the two divisions of Tianfu charge out from the Eastern Heaven's great camp to rescue the four Dongxian hosts of gods and demons.

Of a sudden Jiang Baigui shifted his formations; before, he had only destroyed the four Dongxian hosts' living strength at the least cost, but now it turned straightway into the deadliest formation of slaughter.