Chapter 1587 — Long Parted, At Last Reunited
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
In those years Taidi killed me, yet he could not destroy my primordial spirit, and so he cast me into the Ultimate Void.
He meant to torment me, to refine me, to imprison me here. " Again roots of the Dao Tree whirled and coiled toward him, and some even tried to force their way into his mouth to stop him speaking; plainly Taidi had sensed this place and sought to silence Yun Tianzun. Yet the moment those roots touched Yun Tianzun they lost their mark, and passed straight through his primordial spirit. Yun Tianzun walked on, dragging the long roots of the Dao Tree behind him: "After I was imprisoned here, the roots of the Dao Tree pierced me through, and I could not move. But Taidi attained the Dao through divine consciousness, and the instant I touched the Dao Tree, I understood the mystery hidden within Taidi's divine consciousness.
" Shen Mu understood. Taidi had attained the Dao through divine consciousness; his divine consciousness had built this Great Luotian of Divine Consciousness, and his Dao Tree was likewise a Dao of divine consciousness.
Therefore, when Yun Tianzun touched the Dao Tree, he learned Taidi's Dao through divine consciousness.
Yet understanding was one thing; Yun Tianzun might not be able to cultivate Taidi's supreme Great Luotian divine consciousness. The next moment, Yun Tianzun slipped past the blockade of the Dao Tree's roots one by one, came before the Golden Ship, and said with a smile: "After I understood Taidi's supreme Great Luotian divine consciousness, I drew nourishment from it, letting the Dao Tree believe that it and I were one body. The Dao of divine consciousness cannot wound itself, and so I chose to merge with Taidi's Dao Tree, and thus escaped death.
" Shen Mu's expression turned complicated as he looked upon this fellow Daoist imprisoned here for several hundred thousand years.
They had met only once, at the grand gathering of the Jade Pool, without a word exchanged between them; afterward, parted by the Heavenly River, by time and by space, they had drunk to each other from afar.
They were two very similar men: one bearing the years that had passed, the other shouldering the hope of what was to come.
And now at last they stood face to face. The sight set his heart surging and pitching, and for a long while he could not calm it. He pressed down the swelling feelings in his breast and gave voice to his doubt, saying gravely: "Yun, you speak of it lightly, yet it is still hard for me to believe. Taidi attained the Dao; you are not Taidi's Dao of divine consciousness, so how could you merge with Taidi's Dao Tree?
Unless you are Taidi! " Yun Tianzun did not know whether to laugh or cry.
Though he and Shen Mu were each other's fellow Daoists, he knew Shen Mu to be a fellow of frightful stubbornness.
Sometimes, when some strange notion sprouted in his skull, it would not be laid to rest unless it was satisfied.
"Because Taidi's Dao of divine consciousness is not complete.
" Yun Tianzun explained patiently: "I sensed that his Dao of divine consciousness was incomplete, that the Dao Tree was imperfect, and that the Dao Flower and the Dao Fruit each had their shortcomings. Thus I had the chance to inspect the gaps and make good the lacks, taking myself as the deficiency of the Dao of divine consciousness and patching it into the Dao Tree, the Dao Flower and the Dao Fruit; only so could I preserve myself. " Shen Mu thought it over.
The path Yun Tianzun described was, in principle, feasible; yet doubt lingered in his heart.
First, Taidi's deficiency had come of the incomplete method of attaining the Dao through faith that the Primordial Sage of Miluo Palace had taught him, and even Taidi did not know how to resolve it. How had Yun Tianzun come to know?