Chapter 878 - 246: Human and Celestial Talisman, Old World and New World

Chapter 878: Chapter 246: Human and Celestial Talisman, Old World and New World

Painting is a corner of Heaven and Earth, a corner of Life.

To take a man as painting is to fuse man with Heaven.

If Heaven and man truly merge as one, then the Human Talisman will slowly turn into a Celestial Talisman."

Empress Dowager Xie kept these words firmly in mind, then smiled and said, "The Immortal Realm has its own methods, thus it has ferried quite a number of criminals from the Social World of my Great Zhou to the west.

Their paintings, we naturally cannot obtain.

What I wish to know is... are there still Celestial Talismans of antiquity now?

If there are, my Great Zhou could grow strong once more, and need no longer worry over the Western Barbarians and the East Sea Immortal Realm.

Even if a Fourth Grade is lacking Spiritual Qi and paintings and finds it hard to enter the Third Grade, there would still be these Celestial Talismans."

The Elder Celestial Master was silent for a long time, then heaved a long sigh, and afterwards shook his head.

Empress Dowager Xie asked, "Why?"

The Elder Celestial Master said, "Because this Heaven... is no longer natural.

The trajectories of the past are already in utter disarray.

The Celestial Talismans of old have also become waste script.

Thus, even if there remain some Celestial Talismans preserved in the Daoist Court Ancestral Scripture, they are of no use whatsoever."

Empress Dowager Xie smiled and said, "I wish to borrow this Ancestral Scripture."

The Elder Celestial Master smiled and said, "This old Daoist will fetch it at once."

So saying, he turned around, shakily produced a small coffer, opened it, and within the coffer a book was wrapped in purple silk.

"This was transcribed by this old Daoist’s own hand."

Empress Dowager Xie took it, and asked again, "Why is this Heaven no longer natural?"

The Elder Celestial Master sighed with feeling: "This old Daoist has heard that five thousand years ago, there was no Ghost Realm and no Meat Field.

When a man fell ill, when yin and yang were unbalanced, there were aberrations within his own body.

When Heaven falls ill, there will also be Ghost Realm and Meat Field."

Five thousand years ago was the Xia Dynasty.

Empress Dowager Xie breathed a soft sigh, but asked no more, and then chatted with the Elder Celestial Master about the Daoist Court and the under-heaven affairs; their conversation was exceedingly congenial.

In her younger years of tempering herself she had served as a Dark Guard, later as Dark Guard Leader, and later still as Empress Dowager, as Lady Bai Mei.

Thus she could converse with kings, marquises, ministers and generals, and she could converse with peddlers and porters, and likewise with those beyond the Social World.

Once Empress Dowager Xie departed, the Elder Celestial Master continued to sit cross-legged.

After a long while, a purple-robed Daoist with red lips and white teeth, bearing a transcendent demeanor, paced out.

This was precisely the Little Celestial Master.

"The questions the Empress Dowager asked today were strange; they seemed casually mentioned, yet it was as if she already had a target in mind." the Little Celestial Master said.

The Elder Celestial Master waved his hand and said, "Do not fault her."

The Little Celestial Master said, "She even asked about Celestial Talismans.

If she had not asked, Master would likely never have mentioned those two words again, would you?"

The Elder Celestial Master said, "Celestial Talismans have long since lost their use, long since become a means for common Daoists to put on airs and play at ghosts; why bother mentioning them again?"

"Do Celestial Talismans truly exist?" the Little Celestial Master asked.

The Elder Celestial Master looked deeply at the Little Celestial Master, then said, "I have seen them."

Then he added another sentence: "Thirty thousand years ago."

The Little Celestial Master jolted in shock.

The Elder Celestial Master said, "You often ask me where I came from, and why I know so much.

Then today this old Daoist shall tell you: this old Daoist came from thirty thousand years ago. After one sleep he did not wish to sleep again, so he walked out of the coffin within that Eternal Night, and came to the Human World.

Now, my allotted span of Life must at last come.

Even a Third Grade Fifth Realm has but four thousand eight hundred years of lifespan.

Human Life is limited; only Heaven and Earth and the stars... can endure long."

The Little Celestial Master fell silent. He had been personally raised by the Elder Celestial Master; their feelings for each other were incomparably deep. Hearing that his all-capable Master’s great limit was approaching, how could he not feel wretched?

After a long time, he asked, "Since the Celestial Talismans are no more, why did the Empress Dowager come to ask about them today?"

The Elder Celestial Master said, "Because a new Celestial Talisman is likely to be born into this world."

The Little Celestial Master was dumbstruck.

The Elder Celestial Master rose, turned around, and manipulated the wall, revealing a Dark Pavilion.

One side of the Dark Pavilion faced the evening glow; soft, resplendent red light from the sky fell in through the window, making this place seem incomparably tranquil, while at the entrance to the Dark Pavilion a shadowed stone stair leading downward was revealed.

The Elder Celestial Master stepped into the darkness of the stair, then turned and beckoned with his hand, saying, "Come... it is time for Master to pass the true line of the Dao to you."

The Little Celestial Master’s face showed grief as he followed him in.

Several days later.

Everyone in the Daoist Court wore mourning.

The Elder Celestial Master... was gone.

Several days more...

The Little Celestial Master sat once more upon the rush cushion in that small studio, the cushion upon which the Elder Celestial Master had sat year after year, yet in his eyes there now appeared a weathered look.

In this world there are always some who refuse to await death, and instead think to gamble once more when Heaven and Earth fall into great chaos.

Those sleeping within the Western Pole Divine Tomb, in the end, are all merely people.

The Little Celestial Master propped his cheek on his hand and pondered; after a long time he sighed within his heart a sentence: "If Heaven is to change, it must be in these present days. Possession, this matter, can be done but once in a lifetime, incomparably sinister.

Yet the Path to Heaven of the Second Grade may not lie in the East; with the Great Dao before me, I cannot but act... I am sorry."

...

...

Empress Dowager Xie did not enter the Palace, but took advantage of the spring scenery to go to a Royal Family Palace by a lakeside.

At nightfall, within spring gauze drapes, the dignified and solemn Empress Dowager leaned in a man’s arms, her long legs stretching, resting wearily along his side, her exquisite eyes fixed upon the man’s profile.

The man was of course Li Yuan.

After a brief spring night’s delight, peach blossoms were blooming in profusion outside the window.

And Li Yuan began to leaf through the Daoist Court Ancestral Scripture he had obtained from the Elder Celestial Master.

The discourse on "Celestial and Human Talisman" had, naturally, entered his ears through Empress Dowager Xie.

Before crossing over, he had also seen some Talismans.

Those Talismans in fact all borrowed the power of Divine Spirits in Heaven.

Thus what was drawn within the Talismans were mostly "sketches" representing certain Divine Spirit images, then augmented with the Celestial Master Seal sufficient to prove identity, thereby issuing an edict and borrowing their Divine Power.

In other words, the source of power for the Talismans from before he crossed over lay in the gods above.

Yet the Talismans in this Otherworld Daoist Court Ancestral Scripture were utterly different: there were no "edicts," no "Divine Spirit sketches," no "seals," but instead they resembled... oracle bone script.

For example a "Drought Talisman," beneath it lay "the feeling of crooked, drooping trees," and above it "a circle with a dot at the center."

The former indicated vegetation that had lost water and been dried out by the sun; the latter clearly indicated Taiyang.