Chapter 390 Qing Emperor
Chapter 390 Qing Emperor
The scorching sun deep in the Gobi Desert is like molten mercury, casting the endless sand dunes into flowing metal waves.
Xu Qing stood on the top of a crescent-shaped sand dune, the hem of his Taoist robe rustling in the strong wind, like a tattered but majestic battle flag.
The Tai Chi embroidery on the lining glows in the sun, and the silk threads of the Xiantian Bagua flutter with the sleeves, as if deducing the mysteries between heaven and earth.
He lightly twisted a piece of bronze ghost mask with his fingertips. The rust was as dark red as coagulated blood, and fine water droplets oozed out in the heat wave. It turned into wisps of black smoke the moment it hit the ground, outlining countless distorted ghost faces in the air, as if the resentful souls that had been sealed for thousands of years were struggling and wailing.
"The earth elements of the Kan Palace have shifted, and the true fire of the Li Palace overcomes the water..." Xu Qing whispered softly, and the hexagram on his palm was worn into fine cracks by the sand.
Since he set foot in the Western Regions, he has set up the Taiyin Refining Formation at 36 water hubs such as the Peacock River and the Tarim River. Every time he used his mental power to drive the transformed laurel branches into the earth veins, blood ripples would always appear in his sea of consciousness, as if the underground of the entire Western Regions was flowing with cursed blood. The strong smell of blood could even penetrate the spiritual consciousness, making people shudder.
At noon, the mirage condensed into an illusion of a lake in the distance.
Xu Qing's pupils shrank suddenly - what appeared in the middle of the lake was not water waves, but half of a bronze Buddhist temple, with ninety-nine human skull wind chimes hanging between the eaves and brackets. Those skulls glowed with a bluish-gray light, and dark red gems were embedded in their eye sockets, as if silently accusing the injustice of the world.
He tapped the sand with his toes, performing the art of shrinking the earth into an inch. The wind and sand pulled out a three-meter-long blue-white wave behind him, like a lightning bolt that cut through the sea of sand. However, the moment he touched the Buddha's temple, all illusions shattered like reflections in a mirror, revealing the dense Sanskrit curse on the black rock: "Anyone who sees through the truth will fall into the Avici Hell forever."
Those Sanskrit words oozed dark red juice in the sunlight, like fresh blood, which was chilling.
When passing through the ancient city of Gaochang for the seventh time, Xu Qing finally locked onto a mysterious group of merchants. The bells of the leading camel sounded seven times in a section, which corresponded to the positions of the Big Dipper. The cargo boxes were stacked in a pyramid shape, and half of a thangka was revealed in the gap of the top wooden box. In the painting, Genghis Khan, holding the Sulu Ding, sat opposite the Living Buddha, and there was a strange tacit understanding in their eyes.
Xu Qing pretended not to know and allowed the caravan to follow them to Jiaohe Posthouse. When the moonlight climbed up the window lattice, the assassination he had long expected finally came.
Three wolf poison arrows flew through the air, the blue poison quenched in the arrowheads glowing dimly under the candlelight, and a pungent fishy smell filled the air. Xu Qing flicked his fingertips, and the laurel branches rushed out of the window like living things. The moon dew condensed at the end of the branch dripped onto the arrowheads, making a sizzling corrosion sound.
Before the three assassins could react, they were tangled into cocoons by the branches and nailed to the poplar tree. The golden wolf symbols on their waists were engraved with the golden eagle emblem of the Chagatai Khanate, and the symbols were covered with tooth marks, which were obviously made from the finger bones of living people.
Looking at this cruel mark, Xu Qing felt a surge of anger in his heart.
"Ye Bu Shou's usual method." Yue Nu, who had met up with Xu Qing in the Western Region, kicked away the talisman, her pretty face flickering in the firelight. A trace of disgust flashed in her eyes, and she continued:
“Three months ago, Hulagu Khan of the Ilkhanate sacrificed thousands of prisoners of war just to see your horoscope in the astrolabe.
They are so scared of you that they are going crazy, and even spread rumors that you are the reincarnation of Tolui."
When Xu Qing took the dragon vein map, his fingertips touched the blood at the curled corner. The blood had dried, but he could still feel the struggle and despair before death.
Yue Nu whispered, "This is the blood of the Khotanese prince. He was skinned and hung on the city wall by the Chagatai people. Before he died, he wrote the location of the Mongolian army's troop station in his blood. Master, do you know why they are so afraid of you? Because what you did in Dadu has made the Golden Horde Living Buddhas of the four Khanates sleepless at night--" She paused, revealing a trace of worry in her eyes, "They privately say that you are the reincarnation of the Blue Emperor, and you want to cut off the destiny of Tibetan Buddhism."
Xu Qing was silent for a moment, looked out the window at the sea of sand, and said calmly: "Since they said so, we'd better do this."
Yue Nu was shocked, then he cupped his hands and said, "I am willing to go through fire and water for my master."
She said this willingly. In her opinion, the master was the real strong one, and he would not be afraid even if he was against the whole world.
...
...
In the Golden Tent in Samarkand, Ogedei Khan was using sheep bones for divination.
The ashes from the secret report in the brazier suddenly gathered into a sword shape. He was so shocked that he broke the bone sticks and a trace of fear flashed in his eyes.
The old man in white robe in the tent was staring at the small jade snake on the sand table. Gold powder was oozing out of the snake's body, outlining the outline of the Tianshan altar on the sand.
"When Changchun Zhenren Qiu Chuji went to the west to meet Genghis Khan, he left a fragment of "Blue Sky Song" in the Qiuci Grottoes." The old man fiddled with his prayer beads, each of which was engraved with a Han Chinese face that was cut in half, which looked particularly eerie. "One of them said: 'The Blue Emperor came to the Sun Observatory from the east, and his light shone through the blue sky.' Now the blue sky has been broken, which is a sign that the holy weapon will be born."
"But the Sulu Ding is in Genghis Khan's mausoleum, unless..." Ogedei Khan suddenly clenched the jade pendant on his waist, which was an amulet made of the finest Kunshan jade. "You mean, we need pure Yang blood to open the altar?"
The old man nodded, and the snakes in his sleeves suddenly bit their tails, forming a blood-red circle. "Xu Qing is a Taoist immortal. His blood is extremely masculine and is the key to unlocking the dragon veins of Tianshan. If the Khan can use his blood to sacrifice to the flag, he can not only awaken the Sulu Ding, but also use the power of the dragon veins to restore the glory of the Golden Family."
A trace of greed and cruelty flashed in Ogedei Khan's eyes, as if he had already seen the scene of himself holding the Sulu Ding in his hand and ruling the world.
...
...
Thousands of miles away in the sea of sand, Xu Qing had already found his target. He looked at the yellow sand and was already prepared in his heart. He knew that a fierce battle was inevitable.
The heat wave came again, but it could not shake Xu Qing's determination.
He took a deep breath, turned and looked into the distance.
There is an indescribable surge of blood in my heart.
...
...
The bazaar in Kashgar is immersed in the sticky, honey-like twilight, and the copper lanterns dye the streets into flowing amber.
The dancers of Kucha walked barefoot on the hot stone slabs, and the bronze bells on their waists collided to produce a rhythm of three long and two short beats, which matched the mysterious rhythm. The red hairpins at the corners of their eyes flickered in the firelight, and the lyrics contained the movement trajectory of the Mongolian army's food and supplies. Every tremor was like a secret message from the depths of the desert. The white square scarf worn by the Persian merchants was wrapped with a thin chain, which swayed slightly as they distributed the clay tablets. The portrait of Xu Qing on the tablet was chiseled with sharp edges, and the Tai Chi diagram on the spine of the Sword of Time glowed with a cold light. The Sogdian words "The savior has arrived, prepare for an uprising" were looming in the wind and sand, as if a prophecy was about to pierce the night.
...
...
The turbid waves of the Qiemo River rushed forward, carrying thousands of years of sand and gravel. Xu Qing stood on the cracked river bank, feeling the throbbing vibrations of the earth's veins coming from the soles of his boots.
The bronze fragment in his sleeve suddenly burned like charcoal, leaving a dark red mark along his wrist bone. Mirage surged on the other side of the river, and the ruins of the ancient city of Jingjue emerged from the heat wave. Dark red mucus oozed from the cracks in the mottled walls, winding on the sand into a constantly wriggling hexagram array.
Wherever the slime passed, the sand condensed into the shape of a skull, with its empty eye sockets staring at him intently. He tapped the river surface with his toes, and the splashes of water solidified into icicles in midair. Each icicle reflected the runes sealed deep in the ancient city, as if countless pairs of eyes were spying on him.
The moment the seal was broken, the roar of an ancient beast awakened was heard from underground. One hundred and twenty thousand pieces of oracle bones poured down like a black rainstorm, and the oracle bone characters on each piece turned into the shadow of a hideous ghost.
There were shamans from the Shang Dynasty wearing bronze masks, holding up tripods dripping with blood and dancing strange blood sacrifice dances; Xuanzang from the prosperous Tang Dynasty, his cassock soaked in Buddha's blood, staggering in the sandstorm with a damaged scripture on his back; the Mongol cavalry trampled on the mountains of corpses of Confucian scholars, and what their horses' hooves raised was not dust, but broken pages of classics.
Xu Qing walked forward on the floating oracle bones. Every time his boots touched a piece, the cries of wronged souls drilled into his eardrums, as if to tear his soul apart. The bloody words on the Buddha bones on the inner wall of the cauldron twisted into the shape of a poisonous snake, and the text of the Great Sun Sutra oozed ink, dyeing the three words "Seeing the Tathagata" into "Falling into Avici", as if mocking his futility.
The bitter sea in the cauldron is surging with obsessions as thick as asphalt, and the illusions held up by the waves are like the cruelest reality.
Wearing a robe made of human skin, Ogedei Khan chopped off the head of a Confucian scholar on the altar of Tianshan Mountains with a sword. The blood flowed along the gullies of the altar engraved with Sanskrit, forming a river of blood flowing to Suluding. The air was filled with the disgusting smell of blood. Chagatai's cavalry trampled the eaves of the Confucius Temple in Qufu, and the Confucian classics under the horses' hooves ignited with blue ghost fires. Confucius' face could be vaguely seen crying in the flames. The state teacher of the Ilkhanate nailed a Christian monk to the cross, cut out his still beating heart with a silver knife, and put it into a furnace inlaid with verses from the Koran. The smoke rising from the furnace transformed into all kinds of hideous faces.
These images eventually converge into the hideous face of the Jade Buddha. It opens its bloody mouth and spits out a rosary made of children's finger bones, each of which is engraved with tears of despair.
Xu Qing raised his arm and swung his sword. The sword light seemed to be condensed from time, and the blue and red flames were like the Milky Way rolling back. The moment the sea of suffering was torn apart, countless chains rose from the bottom of the cauldron.
The Sanskrit words engraved on the chain burned his skin, and golden-red blood oozed from every mark. The severe pain almost made him lose consciousness.
The jade Buddha let out a deafening laugh, and its twenty-four arms waved at the same time. The vajra was wrapped in thunder, the crescent-shaped scimitar rolled up sand, the cross dripped with holy water, and the abacus beads collided with the sound of hell. The murderous aura of different civilizations intertwined into a suffocating web.
Xu Qing formed seals with his palms, and the shadow of the twelve-tier lotus platform blossomed above his head. The lotus petals fell and turned into a blue phoenix, which collided with the Jade Buddha's magic soldiers. When the sword blade split the Jade Buddha's arm holding the Buddhist beads, what gushed out was not blood, but thick black resentment, which instantly condensed into thousands of magic shadows in the cauldron.
These evil shadows are all souls devoured by paranoia: the Mongolian shaman has scales all over his body for cursing the Han people, but he is still chanting spells madly; the Persian scholar has his eyes gouged out for slandering paganism, but he is still reciting scriptures persistently; the Han local scholar devours the souls of babies in order to refine the elixir of immortality, but he has a satisfied smile on his face.
"Look carefully, this is your obsession!" The roar of the jade Buddha caused the cauldron to shake violently. The chains around Xu Qing suddenly tightened, and the severe pain that cut into his flesh made his eyes go black.
In an instant, the Sword of Time burst into a thousand-foot-high light, and the green and red energies merged into a rotating Tai Chi diagram, covering all the demon shadows. Under the shining sword light, the faces of the demon shadows gradually became clear, and the madness in their eyes faded, replaced by tears of regret and relief, as if they had finally woken up from a long nightmare.
When the tip of the sword pierced into the heart of the cauldron, the entire cauldron roared like a dragon's roar. Millions of suppressed wronged souls surged out like a tide, but the moment they touched Xu Qing's Taoist robe, they turned into tiny starlights and disappeared into the void with a slight sound of liberation.
The true form of the Jade Buddha was revealed. It was a giant statue made from the bones of craftsmen from Mongolia, Han and Persia. Every bone was engraved with lines of fear and hatred. When it collapsed, the sound it made was like the sigh of history.
Xu Qing's sword stopped three inches above the relic. He suddenly reversed the sword's edge and used the hilt to break the last shackles of obsession. His action was filled with compassion for these lost souls.
In the light of the relic, Xu Qing saw that the Sulu Ding on the Tianshan altar was waking up, with the wolf-tail hairs on the spear tassel standing upright and pointing in his direction, as if issuing a challenge.
Inside the golden tent in Samarkand, the sound of Ogedei Khan's jade pendant exploding echoed with the roar of the cauldron. Blood scars burned on his face. He covered his wounds with fear and unwillingness in his eyes, as if he had already foreseen his fate.
When he walked out of the ghost cave, Xu Qing looked at the bronze fragment in his hand that was about to dissipate. Under the moonlight, the devil's face on the fragment gradually turned into lotus patterns, as if telling the truth that good and evil will eventually be rewarded.
Camel bells could be heard in the distance, mixed with the singing of the people of Kashgar. This time the tune was no longer the wailing of fear, but the hope of a new life. He put the relic into his Qiankun bag and looked towards the direction of Tianshan Mountain - in the clouds there, the shadow of the Sulu Ding loomed, waiting for someone who could truly control it and put an end to this human slaughter caused by obsession.
Xu Qing sighed softly.
He finally knew the true face of this world - "the world of man".
The entire world is composed of the six realms of reincarnation - the human realm is also the place where all living beings in the sea of suffering struggle.
Even with his current level of cultivation, he cannot see the full picture of the human world.
The world he sees now is just what he can see.
It can be said that the human world is different from any world in the universe, but is an extraordinary concept.
How much he can see depends entirely on Xu Qing's own level and experience.
The human world is also the basis of the six realms of reincarnation. Without the human world, the six realms of reincarnation would not exist.
"The Green Emperor?" Xu Qing saw from the human world this indescribable ancient emperor supporting the entire six realms of reincarnation.
Mysterious, unimaginable, and unfathomable.
Even the Buddha's lotus platform seems to have an inseparable connection with the Blue Emperor.
There are not only the Buddha's lotus platform, but also the Taoist lotus.
These are all closely related to the Green Emperor.
(End of this chapter)