Chapter 1848 — The Chaos Cauldron of the Ancestral Court
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
At last, one ray after another vanished, and the final ray too slowly sank down and fell into the city. The Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, as though washed clean by a pure rain, stood bright and new, wholly manifest within the Ancestral Court.
In this ancient divine city, Dao-light hung thick and hazy, Dao trees stood in groves, and from the Dao fruits of the Dao-attainers rolled the great and ordered sound of the Dao, reverberating without cease; how many kinds of Dao-sounds gathered together, like a hymn of the Great Dao, filling the whole Ancestral Court!
The Dao patterns and Dao chains that spilled from the Dao trees in the city interwove across the sky; though their number was immense, not one thread was disordered. The Dao patterns and Dao chains spread in every direction, as though to brand themselves upon the sky, upon the mountains and rivers; even around the Golden Ship of Salvation drifted arcane and profound Dao patterns and Dao chains, like dragons, like long rivers, like wandering phoenixes, floating past the ship on every side. Clang.
The gates of the Jade Capital City swung open, revealing the thousand palaces and ten thousand halls within, and the forest of Dao trees!
Before every palace stood a Dao tree, and beneath every Dao tree stood a Dao-attainer; they set their Dao weapons upon the altars in the halls, or hung them upon the Dao trees, nourishing them with Dao fruits and Dao flowers. They had no Great Luo Heaven, they had not attained the Dao in the seventeenth epoch; perhaps that was their only weakness.
Yet their cultivation was still incomparably deep and vigorous, and their numbers were greater, far greater than Jingping's three thousand Dao-attainers!
Shujun craned his neck out long, still counting the Dao trees in the city.
Beside him, Sishen, a Creator after all, stood tall and broad-shouldered, and said, "Old Divine King, there's no need to count. There are eighteen thousand Dao trees in the city.
" Shujun drew his neck back and muttered, "Don't call me Old Divine King.
I'm only a few tens of thousands of years older than you.
" Sishen asked curiously, "Does the Divine King wish to address me as a brother? " Shujun's face darkened, and he shook his head hurriedly; many of those present were Sishen's uncles and elders, and if he were to call Sishen brother, he would be the one to lose badly.
After all, by seniority he was the most ancient of all those present, and besides, Sishen's origins were murky and unclear; if he really was Shen Mu's child, he would lose even more.
He still remembered the look on Shen Mu's face not long ago, when Sishen came to the Ancestral Court and handed him that painting of the Divine King Langwo; there was surely some trick in it.
Jiang Baigui glanced at Sishen, and he too recalled Shen Mu's expression that day when he put the painting away; a thoughtful look came over his face.
Emperor Yanfeng leaned close to him and said in a low voice, "Imperial Teacher of Jingping, have you figured out who Sishen's birth father is? " Emperor Yanfeng was no longer the Heavenly Emperor, and Jiang Baigui no longer served as Jingping's Imperial Teacher, yet Emperor Yanfeng still often called him the Imperial Teacher of Jingping.
Jiang Baigui's eyes flickered; lowering his voice, he said, "I asked the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage to examine that painting.
" Emperor Yanfeng's spirits rose, and he was about to ask when Wei Suifeng came up and whispered, "What did the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage say?
" The Heavenly Chart Painting Sage was Shen Mu's teacher in the Dao of painting, the Deaf Elder of Yincan Village; compared with him, Shen Mu's painting Dao was still somewhat immature.
Yet Shen Mu wrote his feelings into the Dao of painting, with a breadth of spirit that the Painting Sage could not match.
The three old men crowded together, heads close, whispering.
Jiang Baigui pondered a moment, then repeated what the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage had said.