The Word of Heaven

Chapter 315: The Road Back South

It would be disrespectful to remain silent.

“It’s fine now.”

Pei Jinge's lips curled up slightly, and he smiled and said, "I'm just a little worried when I think that the queen is still silent."

The White Emperor said nothing more and walked into the Weiyang Palace.

The throne still exists.

He sat in this long-missed position, looking at the scenery that was no longer familiar, and suddenly felt a little bored and regretful.

He has toiled for this for more than a hundred years in the past. Will he continue to do so in the years to come?
How boring is this?
As his thoughts turned, the specific evidence that Qing Xiaoyue had personally collected about the collusion between the Queen and the Tianming Sect and Yingxu and Si Zhu was presented to him in person by the old prime minister.

The White Emperor took the file and began to read it.

The Weiyang Palace was silent.

There was no sound in the entire temple, except for the occasional sound of pages turning.

After an unknown amount of time, the White Emperor closed the file and said casually, "I understand."

After waiting for a while, the court officials found that there was still no further news, but they did not dare to make a fuss. Instead, they held their breath and remained silent.

After Gu Zhuo pointed out on the day of the summer festival that the White Emperor was unwilling to appear for the Queen, people inevitably had many doubts and made many speculations about the Emperor's intentions.

All these inferences ultimately lead to the same conclusion - that is, His Majesty does not care about it at all, or in other words, as long as it does not affect his reputation as an emperor who will go down in history.

However, the attitude shown by His Majesty now has caused many people to begin to doubt their own judgment and worry about it.

"Go away."

The White Emperor stood up casually, and before anyone could react, he walked to the back of the hall.

The people in the hall were so stunned that they only reacted when the Emperor was about to disappear from their sight, and they became even more terrified.

If Your Majesty was not extremely displeased, how could he be so... powerless with his broad-mindedness?
The ministers standing on the city gate tower at that time began to feel uneasy and frightened, but at this moment they could only lower their heads to show their respect.

Only the Prime Minister and Pei Jinge's expressions remained unchanged.

……

……

"I am a little surprised."

The White Emperor looked out the window at the lonely ginkgo tree, thinking of the golden scenery after autumn, and said, "You should know that I actually like you very much."

The queen knelt behind him, her eyes slightly lowered, her hair stripped of all luxurious ornaments and clinging to her clothes like water, unmoved by the autumn wind.

She was as quiet as a widow whose husband had died many years ago.

It seems a bit biased to describe her at this moment as cold and aloof, but there is a lack of more accurate words.

"Really?" Her expression didn't change.

The White Emperor said: "You are not worthy of being deceived by me."

After hearing this, the queen was silent for a moment, then chuckled and said, "That's right."

"Then why don't you say you are disappointed?"

Her voice was very calm: "I am disappointed that I have not been able to erase all the traces of myself I have left behind over the years, and that they have been dug up and put before you."

“Disappointment comes from expectation.”

The White Emperor said: "Since you are facing him, there is no reason for me to be disappointed."

The queen was silent.

Her expression was no longer so cold, and the color in her eyes became brighter, just like a window with some dust wiped off, allowing the sunlight to shine in.

The White Emperor continued, "Evidence is never as important as your stance. It's such a simple truth, I never thought there would be a day when you wouldn't understand it."

The Queen suddenly laughed, narrowed her eyes, and said, "You seem to want me to take action against the Demon Lord?"

The White Emperor still didn't look at her. He picked up a cup of hot tea and said calmly: "This is what you should do as the Queen, instead of letting things go to the point of proving your innocence. Innocence is never obtained by self-proving."

The queen smiled even more.

Compared with her previous dull smile, she now looked more lively, with a hint of self-mockery at the corners of her lips.

She said, "It's better to say that this is what you want me to do."

The White Emperor said, “Really?”

The queen smiled slightly, lifted her skirt with both hands, walked barefoot to her nominal husband, raised the corners of her lips beautifully, and said mockingly: "You hope Gu Zhuo dies because you love your biological sister deeply. You hope Gu Zhuo will not die in your hands because you don't want to be hated by your biological sister even a little bit."

The voice lingered inside and outside the cold palace. The early autumn wind quietly calmed down. The lingering fragrance of last night on the lanterns dissipated silently. The pool water did not dare to reflect the real scene by the window.

Even though the sun is shining brightly at this moment.

A long silence.

The White Emperor was neither angry nor upset, he just drank his tea quietly.

The Queen's smile became a little stiff, and she said in a slightly mocking voice: "However, unfortunately, what you want to see most is not what I want to do, because I have never hated him."

The White Emperor asked, "Anything else to say?"

The queen couldn't understand where his indifference came from. After a long silence, she asked, "Are you still human?"

The White Emperor put down the teacup, stood up, looked at the pond behind the ginkgo tree, and said, "Why not?"

"You want me to be angry, and hope to draw pleasure from my emotions so that you can temporarily forget the suffering of your current situation. But I don't agree with you. This is the truest human nature."

His voice was very gentle, very similar to that of an old teacher in a private school, like the breeze in the late spring afternoon: "Do you know why I like you? I want to make you the queen despite all the officials' objections?"

The queen said nothing.

Silence was her true reaction - she suddenly realized that she had never seen the true face of the White Emperor, and everything she knew in the past was actually a fallacy. The idea that seemed dark and gloomy and could not see the light of day was just an insignificant and trivial matter.

The White Emperor smiled and said, "I like the fact that you have no good will towards this world. I like the fact that you always look down on everyone with malice. Of course, what I like most is what you really want."

The queen looked at him and said expressionlessly, "What do I want?"

"Isn't it just destroying the world?"

"You hate everything you've ever had that was ruined by your own stupidity. You can no longer like anyone. You wish the whole world would die with you, but you're unwilling to die in boredom. So you start to listen to Yingxu and Xilixuan's words to make yourself stand higher, numb yourself with power and status, and tell yourself that all this is to destroy the world."

The White Emperor said nonchalantly, "However, as you climb higher and higher, you realize that what you want to do most is simply impossible to do. After realizing this fact, you begin to despair and become reckless, with the sole purpose of self-destruction."

The wind started to blow again, blowing through the hall and bringing with it the chill of autumn.

The queen's dress and hair moved with the ginkgo leaves.

However, she was so stiff, like a stone sculpture.

She looked at a leaf that was blown by the wind and drifted towards the pond and asked, "What's there to like about this?"

The White Emperor smiled and said, "It's like drinking fine wine, it has a thousand flavors."

The queen looked at him and asked self-deprecatingly, "Am I qualified to be a cup of poisoned wine?"

"Everyone below metamorphosis is an ant."

The White Emperor returned a sympathetic look and finally said, "Since you have become the deposed queen, the agreement we made that winter day no longer counts, but I will still not stop you from practicing, and I sincerely hope that you can take that step forward."

……

……

The desolation of the cold palace could not be contained by the tightly closed doors, and the imperial study was dead silent.

The White Emperor had grown tired of government affairs many years ago. He stood outside the palace under the shady chestnut tree, wondering what he was thinking.

Pei Jinge came in response to the order.

The White Emperor asked, "What do you feel after entering the Immortal Realm?"

Pei Jinge thought for a long time and said, "I just realized how vast the world is." "That's a very good sentence."

The White Emperor made no secret of his admiration.

Then, he said directly: "Countless geniuses throughout history have been trapped in this state and unable to make any progress. They have tried everything in their lives but still cannot take that one step forward. From this point of view, the transformation to immortality is more like the beginning of a great practice."

Pei Jinge said calmly: "But this is also the end point of countless practitioners. Only great people like you and the Taoist master are qualified to use this as a starting point."

The White Emperor said: "You are the one who may take that step forward."

Pei Jinge was very surprised. He didn't expect that he would receive such high evaluation.

She knew very well that with the White Emperor's pride, it was impossible for him to be hypocritical about such a matter, and he could only tell the truth.

“There are also differences in metamorphosis.”

The White Emperor said: "Only pure practitioners like you and Wang Ji who have reached the state of immortality entirely by themselves can have a glimpse of the future path."

Pei Jinge recalled the sword light that penetrated the sky and the earth, and it was hard not to yearn for it.

Perhaps because he was in a very good mood, the White Emperor was unexpectedly in a talkative mood today.

"Although they are both realms, the biggest difference between Yuhua and the realms of Dongzhen Wuguiyi is that there have been too many strong people trapped in the same place and unable to move forward. Therefore, later generations divided Yuhua into three small steps."

Pei Jinge frowned and asked, "Is there any difference between Dongzhen and Guiyi in a life-and-death fight?"

The White Emperor shook his head and said, "What you are talking about is no longer about metamorphosis and metamorphosis."

Pei Jinge said: "That's just self-consolation that deceives yourself."

The White Emperor liked this statement very much and said, "But it doesn't matter if you listen to it."

Pei Jinge became more and more confused.

From the first words after returning, to this subsequent meeting, and the kindness shown in this conversation... She even thought that she had always been a loyal minister of the Qin Dynasty, and had never walked side by side with Gu Zhuo for even half a step.

The divine grace was indeed like the sea, but the more so, the more she understood that the divine power was also like a prison.

After a moment's silence, she asked, "What do you want from me, Your Majesty?"

The White Emperor looked at her quietly.

Pei Jinge said nothing.

The White Emperor sighed, feeling a little regretful that he didn't believe the purity in his words. After thinking for a while, he said, "There is one thing you can do."

Pei Jinge said: "Your Majesty, please speak frankly."

The White Emperor looked at her and said, "Go to Cihang Temple for me."

Pei Jinge was a little surprised and asked, "Cihang Temple?"

"The Mirror of Destruction."

The White Emperor turned around, walked towards the Imperial Study, and said, "Get me the fragment of the mirror from the monk."

Pei Jinge looked at the emperor's back and suddenly remembered the unfinished formation on Baidi Mountain. He said, "The Prime Minister had something important to tell me earlier and asked me to tell your Majesty as soon as possible."

The White Emperor didn't turn around, but just hummed, asking questions.

Pei Jinge said: "General Wang said that there was some unusual movement in the wilderness, but it is deep in the mountains. He has sent people to inquire, but it is difficult to get specific information in a short period of time. I hope the gods can respond to this as soon as possible."

……

……

The autumn wind sweeps across the world, and the summer heat disappears.

The 41st year of the Zhengsheng era has entered its second half, and the world is at peace.

When people recall the solemnity of last year, they often feel fortunate.

The Southern Qi Dynasty was still enjoying peace and prosperity, the Northern Yan Dynasty was still a tamed house dog, and the Qin Dynasty remained invincible.

Taoism and Zen Buddhism are both silent, and all other sects are even more so.

The only difference is that the various precious Taoist materials sent to the Divine Capital are obviously several times or even ten times more than in previous years, but this is often considered the price of defeat, and no one thinks it is inappropriate.

As for the fact that His Majesty the Emperor lacked interest in government affairs, even those who knew the inside story did not care. After all, this was the case in previous years.

There is only one piece of news that really surprised the world - starting from next year, the era name Zhengsheng will become history, but no one knows what will replace it.

After hearing the news, Gu Zhuo and Yu Sheng remained silent, but felt that the years were indeed long.

After the beginning of autumn, the two men turned back from the East China Sea and headed west to Yizhou.

It was very quiet along the way.

That's the way things are.

When remarkable people like Gu Zhuo and Yu Sheng get into trouble, it is often because they want to get into trouble.

Whether in terms of food or scenery, Yizhou is an excellent place. There is not much to complain about, and there are many places to be happy and enjoyable.

Yu Sheng sat in front of the hot pot, looking at the red peppers that were floating up and down uncontrollably, and suddenly recalled the burning and oppressive feeling he had experienced in the past few days.

“Is it too spicy?”

Gu Zhuo looked at her slightly red face and asked in confusion: "Can I get a bowl of ice jelly for you?"

Yu Sheng was slightly startled, raised his hand to wipe away the non-existent sweat on his forehead, and said, "That's good, I like it very much."

"Me too."

Gu Zhuo looked at the hot pot in front of him with some regret, thinking about the rabbit meat and fish he had eaten in recent days, and said: "After this meal, we will go to see the snow in Tiannan."

The best snow in the south of the world is in Xuandu.

The most beautiful scene is the mountains covered with snow and welcoming the rising sun.

Yu Sheng was of course familiar with this, even though she had never been to Xuandu in her past or present life.

It’s the same reason why Gu Zhuo has never been unfamiliar with God.

"On that day, I met your brother."

Gu Zhuo suddenly said: "He asked me why I didn't want to return to Xuandu when I was wandering in the world."

Yu Sheng didn't expect him to suddenly bring up such a thing. After thinking for a while, he asked, "Why?"

Gu Zhuo said: "It's a very simple reason."

Yu Sheng wondered what the difference was between saying this and not saying it?
"that is……"

Gu Zhuo looked into her eyes and said seriously: "I can no longer go back to my original home. Xuandu is my second home. I think it is necessary to take you back with me."

Yu Sheng subconsciously said: "Then when will I take you back to my home?"

Gu Zhuo was slightly startled and said, "Isn't this inconvenient?"

Yu Sheng thought it was inconvenient, but he also felt that it would make him look stupid, so he said calmly, "It's not as convenient as going back to Lin Wanyi's house."

Gu Zhuo was speechless.

Yu Sheng looked at his silence and suddenly felt unhappy. She said lightly, "Of course it's not as convenient as going back to Pei Jinge's home. Don't look at her having lived in the capital for most of her life. She is actually from Yizhou and can eat much spicier food than I can. Maybe her home is nearby."

Gu Zhuo thought that she was really angry, so he quickly changed the subject and said, "I have something to tell you."

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow and asked, "What's the matter?"

Gu Zhuo said: "I see the second question."

Yu Sheng's expression froze slightly, and he stopped thinking about it and asked, "What is it?"

"All living beings."

Gu Zhuo said seriously: "Behind the heaven and earth, there are all living beings."

(End of this chapter)