Chapter 692: Contemplate The Flower To Comprehend The Dao

With just a trace of spiritual resemblance, one can gain the favor of heaven and earth and the wonders of creation…

Li Fan suddenly recalled an anecdote from the dynasty preceding Great Xuan.

The final emperor of that era, Emperor Zhengxu, had once been a rare emperor of restoration. Since inheriting the throne at sixteen, he had executed corrupt ministers, pacified roving bandits, promoted water conservancy, and abolished oppressive taxes. He swept away the dynasty's decline like the sages of old.

In just over twenty years, the realm grew peaceful and prosperous, flourishing to its zenith. The people, well-clothed and well-fed, sang the praises of their enlightened ruler. The ministers bowed in submission and wrote books extolling his virtue.

Had he continued in this manner, the founding emperor of Great Xuan might never have overturned the world.

But everything took a sharp turn in the thirty-seventh year of Emperor Zhengxu's reign. His lifelong love, Empress Duanmu, died of illness.

Upon hearing the news, the emperor nearly fainted on the spot. Grief overwhelmed him, and he neglected court affairs for months. That alone might have been bearable. The Great Zheng Dynasty had a multitude of court officials; even if the emperor vanished entirely, the realm wouldn't have fallen into chaos.

But perhaps the dynasty's providence was already waning. When Emperor Zhengxu revisited the place where he first met Empress Duanmu, he encountered a woman whose appearance was strikingly similar to hers.

Her face matched the empress's by nearly nine parts in ten. Even her demeanor and voice matched the woman in his dreams.

And she was younger.

Shaken to his core, Emperor Zhengxu took it as fate ordained by the unseen. He brought her back to the palace at once, named her Imperial Consort, and spent his days and nights entwined with her.

To please her, he committed one absurdity after another. He built grand palaces, constructed gardens within the imperial city, and even dug a river connecting to the capital's outskirts so they could frolic in the water whenever the mood struck. He sent men to seize rare and exotic treasures from the common people for her amusement.

Court and country fell into chaos, and resentment simmered among the people. Any minister who dared object was dismissed, or in severe cases, beheaded.

Even so, the strength the dynasty had built during his early reign kept it from collapsing outright.

But when the Imperial Consort bore him a son, the emperor, as though drugged by some strange poison, ignored the unanimous opposition of his ministers and moved to depose the Crown Prince.

Seeing the emperor's resolve, the Crown Prince refused to wait for his own doom. He raised an army and rebelled, declaring that he meant to "execute the demon consort and purify the corrupt advisors." Many powerful families in the capital backed him, including the Duanmu family itself.

After days of fierce fighting, the rebellion failed. His army broken, the Crown Prince took his own life. But the Great Zheng Dynasty emerged crippled, its vitality spent.

From then on, the emperor stopped meeting his ministers and gave himself over entirely to pleasure.

The situation worsened by the day. Finally, in the fifty-sixth year of his reign, rebel forces breached the Forbidden Palace. The emperor and his Imperial Consort burned themselves to death in each other's arms.

Later scholars who studied this period found themselves baffled that infatuation with one woman could bring down an emperor.

They could only conclude that his love for Empress Duanmu had reached some incomprehensible depth. After her death, when he found a woman who resembled her, he lost all reason. He grew half-mad, and with his own hands, he ruined a magnificent empire.

There was nothing new under the sun. By the same logic: if his avatar, Xu Bai, could win the favor of heaven and earth merely by resembling Mister Bai in spirit, then one of two things had to be true. Either Mister Bai was himself an incarnation of the Heavenly Dao, or he held paramount importance to the Xuanhuang World.

So paramount that heaven and earth waited, at every moment, for the next "Mister Bai" to appear. So paramount that even a slight resemblance was enough to earn a special affinity with the laws of heaven and earth, a blessing all its own.

Mister Bai... The myriad events of the Fallen Immortal Realm connected to that name flashed through Xu Bai's mind.

After a long while, his turbulent thoughts settled. He retrieved the seventeen-petaled Tianling Flower, sealed by a special secret art.

He squinted, examining the many scenes within the petals once more. A feeling entirely foreign to his true self rose slowly within him. It felt like he were seeing through the eyes of heaven and earth, flying rapidly across the whole of Tianling Province.

In a daze, he glimpsed mountains and rivers, the lives of countless beings, the shifting winds and clouds, prosperity and ruin, rise and fall.

Within the Tianling Flower, he seemed to witness every affair unfolding across Tianling Province.

A sliver of insight brushed silently against Xu Bai's mind. But like a snowflake landing in water, it dissolved in an instant, leaving no trace behind, only a profound sense of loss.

This feeling... it's just like when I used the Deepsea Pearl to watch the seas turn to mulberry fields from the vantage of heaven and earth, and from that comprehended Formless Killing Mechanism.

A cultivator's divine abilities and arcane arts mostly originate from heaven and earth itself. Comprehending them from that same vantage naturally comes easier.

But this flower only records the scenes of heaven and earth. It isn't true union with the Heavenly Dao. Gaining anything from it demands extraordinary comprehension. My true self made this flower with his own hands and studied it many times over, yet even he saw nothing more than an ornament.

The problem was never the flower. It was the person.

Hmph.

Xu Bai made a small adjustment to his plan, then sank once more into contemplating the flower, comprehending the Dao within it while he waited for Liu San's return.

***

Tianyu Province.

After some time, Li Fan and Dongfang Yao finally arrived at Tianyu City. But they did not head toward the Cosmos Branch Academy, where Li Fan had received array training in his past life.

Instead, they went to a private room in the city's Dao Discourse Tower.

"Let's wait. I've already notified Brother Huangfu. He'll be here any moment." Dongfang Yao plopped onto the floor, tapping his fingers against the planks. Soon, a cup of spirit tea rose up from the floor itself.

"How stingy," Dongfang Yao muttered, downing the tea in one gulp.

Li Fan was practically a regular at the Dao Discourse Tower. He knew Dongfang Yao's purse ran thin, which was why the man made do with the complimentary tea.

Li Fan smiled faintly and extended his divine sense to the room's jade order token.

A dark green teapot appeared before long.

"Brother Dongfang, please help yourself!" Li Fan said with a smile.

"Ha! Now that's what I call generosity!" Dongfang Yao's face lit up. He poured himself a cup and drained it at once.

"A Thousand Cultivators Discuss The Dao, and the finest grade at that! Truly magnanimous of you, Brother Li! The last time I had spirit tea this good was when I got back from the Thousand Pages Book Forest and couldn't help but celebrate!" Dongfang Yao praised it without pause.

His head swayed, eyes half-closed, as though he were savoring some profound insight.

"Ah, you sly fox, Dongfang Yao! Hoarding something as fine as Thousand Cultivators Discuss The Dao and enjoying it behind my back!" A voice Li Fan knew well rang out just then.

A plump, kind-faced cultivator stepped into the room, brows knotted in mock anger, though the corners of his mouth twitched with poorly hidden amusement.

His gaze swept almost imperceptibly over Li Fan. Then, without a change in expression, Huangfu Song turned his attention to Dongfang Yao.

"Brother Huangfu, perfect timing!" Dongfang Yao's eyes snapped open. He poured a cup of spirit tea and tossed it over.