The Word of Heaven

Chapter 318 The Past That Does Not Need to Be Retained
Gu Zhuo did not answer, and said: "What do you think?"

Yu Sheng thought for a long time, and the emotion in his eyes turned from doubt to calmness. He then asked, "Did the founder of Tiandao Sect die or ascend to heaven in the end?"

"If I knew."

The answer given by Gu Zhuo sounded a bit confusing.

Yu Sheng understood and said seriously: "Then your reasons for refusing are just as good as mine."

The unprecedented idea of ​​a heavenly palace proposed by the founder of the Tiandao Sect could certainly be interpreted as allowing the sect to survive for a long time and allowing the younger generations who enter the state of enlightenment in later generations to ascend to heaven...but it can also be understood that he was not absolutely sure of ascending to heaven at the time and decided to leave a way out for himself.

Gu Zhuo shook his head and said, "This is just your and my opinion."

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand to pluck a ray of sunlight from the mist, placed it in front of his eyes and looked at it quietly, as if he was watching the scene of the past.

Before the end of that conversation, the elders of Tiandao Sect had never thought that he would shake his head and refuse to accept this idea which was necessary and reasonable no matter how you looked at it.

The result was so unpleasant, and the scene at that time was certainly even more unpleasant.

The atmosphere in the Ancestral Hall was extremely depressing. The gazes from the portraits were no longer blazing, but began to reveal indifference and rage in the coldness.

The smiles of the elders disappeared one after another, and their puzzled expressions turned into cold stares and long, endless silence.

Silence, silence.

At that time, Gu Zhuo stood in the silence that came like a wave. He looked up at the portrait hanging in the middle that had not changed from beginning to end for a long time, and finally turned and left.

"Why didn't anyone persuade you?" Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows and asked in confusion.

"Of course it's not because of my temperament."

Gu Zhuo loosened his hand, letting the ray of light dissipate in the mist and wind, and said, "The reason is very simple. At that time, I could take the step of metamorphosis at any time if I wanted to, but this was beyond their expectations."

How could Yu Sheng not hear the hidden meaning?
At that time, the elders of Tiandao Sect no longer had the confidence to defeat Gu Zhuo head-on.

She was not surprised at all, she just thought it was natural, shook her head and said, "How boring."

Gu Zhuo looked at her and said, "I thought you would say indifferent."

"Of course it's also indifferent."

Yu Sheng paused, then asked, "Why is the Dawn and Dusk Bell still in your hands?"

In fact, what she wanted to say was not this, but to express her admiration for him for having such a normal personality in such a cold place, but words like this...she seemed to have said too much recently and felt that it was inappropriate, so she changed the subject so abruptly.

"This matter..."

Gu Zhuo thought for a moment and said, "There is no other special reason."

Yu Sheng hummed twice in a nasal tone, indicating that he didn't understand.

Gu Zhuo said honestly: "It's just that I have a really good talent in cultivation, and my personality is not bad either, which makes Chenhun Zhong look down on others a little bit."

Yu Sheng was speechless.

She turned her head away, avoiding the seemingly sincere gaze, and walked forward.

The slightly cold and damp air in the mist was blown by the wind and penetrated into the seams of collars, bringing a cool feeling to the skin. It could easily cause a cold that would keep ordinary people bedridden, but for practitioners it was just the right amount of comfort and enjoyment.

With his hands behind his back and letting the wind blow, Yu Sheng's mind became increasingly clear.

Suddenly, she remembered something that happened not too long ago, and asked, "What did the master say?"

Gu Zhuo knew what the words meant.

On the winter solstice last year, the temple master used the reason of heaven's will to explain why he launched a surprise attack on the leader of the Tiandao Sect, causing the Taoist sect to be defeated so thoroughly in the decisive battle in Xuandu.

No one refuted this statement at the time, but in fact no one believed it either.

But looking back now, perhaps that was God's will.

If that is God's will, does it mean that the establishment of heaven is not pleasing to God?
Based on this inference, how should we explain Tianzhu?

There are too many issues involved in this. The facts that have been concluded in the past seem to have secrets hidden under the coffin lids that have never been exposed to the light of day outside Xuandu.

"Observe the world with a pure heart. A pure view is the closest to God's will from beginning to end."

Gu Zhuo said: "The master's realm is really bad, and he always has too many ideas. He can't see the true side of things. But the process is wrong and the view is wrong, which does not mean that his final decision is wrong."

The master's betrayal happened after his death, when his senior brother Xuan Shu was still alive.

At this moment, a thought appeared uncontrollably in Gu Zhuo's sea of ​​consciousness and lingered there.

What kind of thoughts did his senior brother have after his death that led to such a fate? I think he was still obsessed with establishing the so-called heavenly court like today, and fulfilling this great ambition to carry out the history of Tiandao Sect.

If his ambition is realized, will there be a place for him in heaven?

Or was his death actually a necessary step in the plan?

Gu Zhuo put aside his thoughts and said, "It's quite a mess."

Yu Sheng sighed and said, "It's really a mess."

“Many times, things that happen in this world are like a ball of string that a cat has played with, so tangled that you can’t even tell what it is.”

Gu Zhuo said: "Moreover, this ball of thread will often not be untied. As time goes by, it becomes more and more tangled, until everyone sees a different pattern, each with its own reason."

Yu Sheng doesn't like this kind of topic.

Whether then or now, she finds such views too troublesome and stops talking.

Walking through the mist and heading towards the morning breeze, at some point the view suddenly opens up.

Mountains bathed in the golden light of the morning sun suddenly appeared in the world of vision, and the boundary between white snow and black soil became blurred at this moment.

A long silence.

Yu Sheng looked at the undulating mountains and said, "I still feel that this so-called long-cherished wish from a hundred years ago, no, thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, is just a pile of stinking shit."

This sentence is extremely vulgar and doesn't sound like something she would say, so it must be the truth.

Gu Zhuo said: "I agree with you."

Yu Sheng said sarcastically: "What's even more terrifying is that those who come after us will still regard this as a treasure and can't let it go."

Gu Zhuo thought about the word "shit" earlier, and then thought about the last word in this sentence. It was hard not to have a vivid picture emerge in his sea of ​​consciousness.

——Senior brother is the person in the painting.

He had a rare and long-lost feeling of nausea and didn't know what to say, so he just kept silent.

"Feel sorry."

Yu Sheng said to him, "I don't mean to humiliate your senior brother."

Gu Zhuo sighed, feeling helpless.

Yu Sheng understood his embarrassment, and felt that embarrassment was better than being upset, so she said, "The scenery here is indeed beautiful."

"is very good."

Gu Zhuo took over the conversation, his eyes falling on the trees between the mountains that were gradually dyed with autumn colors, and said: "Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so shameless as to leave such a place for myself after the falling out."

Yu Sheng sat down on the edge of the cliff.

The wind blew from the far sky, making her eyebrows thin and her eyes beautiful, and her fluffy pigtail fluttered like a flag.

Just as Gu Zhuo was about to sit down beside her, he heard a sentence. The words just a moment ago seemed to be for this moment.

"I am not you. I know very well that I will probably never have the chance to ascend to heaven in this life. Immortality is the destination I can reach. On the day I die, whether I die of old age in your arms or in some other way, I hope that will be the end of my life. You don't and cannot become the person I hate the most. I also don't want to live in a way that I reject."

"……I see."

"Do you think this is selfish?"

"I can't be sure until the moment the fact actually comes."

"This is selfish, because I am sure that if you died in my arms, I would not go to great lengths to bring you back to life. I was like this a hundred years ago, and I am still like this a hundred years later."

"Rather than being selfish or not, I hope this fact will never come to pass."

Gu Zhuo's voice was calm and firm.

After a long silence, Yu Sheng smiled and said, "I hope so too... No, I hope like you that this fact will never come to pass."

……

……

The moment the morning light arrived, Xuan Shu walked out of the ancient Taoist temple.

He left the mountain that belonged to his junior brother and returned to the old temple that Chu Jun had visited.

The moment he stepped into the hall, the gazes of all the predecessors and ancestors of the Tiandao Sect fell on him, as if they had crossed the long river of time.

The wind arose from nowhere, and the portrait moved with it.

Xuan Shu turned a blind eye to this and walked silently to the end of the hall, where there was a cushion and a plaque of the ancestor's name.

The cold and gloomy aura that Chu Jun had felt was still lingering here and had not dissipated, making people feel as if they were in the underworld.

Xuan Shu stared at the words on the plaque of the ancestor and sat down on the cushion.

At this moment, all his emotions disappeared without a trace, and the light in his eyes dissipated, turning into a deep ancient well with no bottom.

Countless dead souls struggled to climb up from this ancient well, bringing intense and distorted extreme pain to that young face. However, what was strange and frightening was that at this time, he still gave people an expressionless and numb feeling.

Countless different sounds exploded in the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness. Those sounds were like strong winds, thunder, and earthquakes. In the most direct way, they stirred up huge waves that were invisible to the naked eye and brought pain.

After an unknown amount of time, Xuan Shu's straight waist suddenly bent like a broken tree trunk.

He covered his abdomen with his hands and began to vomit, as if he wanted to vomit those souls and blood out of his body.

Until one moment, Xuan Shu closed his eyes, and all this left him.

"Junior brother, how could I not know that living like this is a million times more painful than dying?"

"Of course it would be great to die, but I have endured this pain and lived to this day, to see your return. How can I give up?"

"Yes...there is no reason for me to give up."

Xuan Shu said to himself, repeating the same words over and over again, his tone becoming more and more firm.

After muttering to himself like this, when he straightened his back and raised his head again, his eyes were no longer the bottomless ancient well as before, but had turned into the young Taoist that Chu Jun and Lin Qianshui were familiar with.

……

……

No matter how beautiful the scenery is, there will be a time when you get tired of it, sooner or later.

In the evening, Yu Sheng decided to stay in the Taoist temple.

Gu Zhuo followed the path his senior brother had taken, walked down the stairs, and entered the Tiandao Sect.

In a library, he found the former noble lady of the Lin family and chatted with her in the dim light.

After a brief moment of shock, Lin Qianshui was extremely happy and talked to him a lot.

Her words were full of questions, asking about what the world is like today, the final fate of her parents, and how Lin Wanyi is doing... all the things she longed to know but could not.

Gu Zhuo answered very seriously, without any trace of perfunctoriness in his attitude.

After chatting for about half an hour, Lin Qianshui suddenly fell silent for a long time and said something with a sad tone.

"Remember? In the winter after the last summer festival, I thought about becoming your disciple this summer."

"remember."

Gu Zhuo was silent for a moment and said, "Times have changed."

Lin Qianshui laughed and said softly: "I am telling you this now not because I have any messy and unrealistic thoughts, but just want to praise myself a little."

Gu Zhuo smiled and said, "You do have a good eye."

"of course."

Lin Qianshui smiled even more happily.

However, the next moment, she suddenly stopped smiling and said seriously, "But it's still not as good as Wan Yi."

Gu Zhuo didn't know what this sentence meant.

Lin Qianshui said: "I am a very vulgar person. I know very well where I am at the moment, so I don't have those unrealistic ideas. What I want to say is...what do you think of Wan Yi?"

When she said this, her expression was particularly frank, and she could be described as graceful and generous.

Gu Zhuo did not answer.

If it were someone else, they would probably think he was angry.

However, Lin Qianshui is different after all.

She had been hanging out with a group of young playboys in the capital for many years and had had countless admirers and suitors, so she thought she could understand the true meaning hidden in this silence.

"Although I still find it extremely absurd and still cannot understand why you can have such feelings towards Wanyi, because there is a real difference between you and her, but..."

Lin Qianshui looked into Gu Zhuo's eyes and said, "Since this is a fact, I want to make it a more tangible fact so that you and her can break through your current relationship."

Gu Zhuo was unmoved and asked, "You are telling me all this in order to find a place to live, right?"

"Ah."

Lin Qianshui said frankly without any shame, "I am homeless now, and I believe it will be difficult for me to have a home in the future. I will probably have to be a Taoist nun here for the rest of my life. I can't help but think about my future."

Gu Zhuo said calmly: "I already have a wife."

Lin Qianshui didn't even think twice and said directly: "Just marry again."

Gu Zhuo asked: "Aren't you afraid that I will hate you?"

"afraid."

Lin Qianshui looked into his eyes and said seriously, "But no matter what, you will ignore me for Wanyi's sake and not bother with me. Then there must be something else that I am more afraid of."

Gu Zhuo suddenly understood.

It’s not that I understand what Lin Qianshui said, but what exactly is Senior Brother thinking and why he doesn’t want to die.

The reason why he didn't care about the scheming and tactics of this noble lady that year was probably because of this same familiarity?

(End of this chapter)