Heaven-Defying Rebel Sage-Chapter 49 - The Supreme Forgets Emotions Not
Chapter 49: Chapter 49: The Supreme Forgets Emotions, Not Heartless
Chapter 49 -49: The Supreme Forgets Emotions, Not Heartless
The sixth reincarnation cycle, this time the target was the golden body of Maitreya Buddha.
Six Paths of Reincarnation, where Tathagata, Burning Lamp, and Maitreya, three Buddha Ancestors, each occupied two paths, creating golden bodies within them to accumulate merit. Alas, they were schemed against by the Three Pure Ones. Tong Tian Sect Master threw in two swords, and later, he also threw in another two swords, which could be called the greatest stroke between heaven and earth!
Having slain five golden bodies, the four Slaying Swords had resolved much of the karma stained with slaughter.
The golden body of the sixth reincarnation was finally cut down by the four Slaying Swords, and the Reincarnation Disk turned once again. The setup by the Three Pure Ones had ended. It was now to be seen if Wukong and Xuan Ming could enlighten their true hearts, thoroughly understand themselves, and escape from this cycle of reincarnation. Of course, this also concerned the bet between Tong Tian Sect Master and Lord of Primordial Beginning. If they could not emerge, Tong Tian Sect Master would suffer a great loss.
“Mr. Sun, my mistress has long admired your fame and would like you to paint a portrait for her,” said a young girl dressed as a maid, approaching Sun Yuan respectfully.
Sun Yuan was a renowned painter, whose brush brought to life everything he painted, whether people, landscapes, or objects, especially when painting dragons, which felt as if adding one more casual stroke would bring the dragon to life, flying off into the sky. However, Sun Yuan had a peculiar habit; he only painted absolute beauty. There were countless beautiful women in the Eastern Lands who sought his paintings, but none had succeeded. To date, he had only ever painted two women.
“Oh! Who is your mistress?” Sun Yuan discarded the brush in his hand. The painting on his canvas was of a mountain and river landscape, which he did not know how he had managed to produce, only feeling the vast expanse of mountains and rivers, and the heaviness of the nation within his heart, an extremely wonderful sensation. After staring for a long while, he added another stroke, depicting a Golden Crow revolving around the sun, making it even more lifelike.
The maid haughtily said, “My mistress is the number one beauty of the Eastern Lands, a rare sight for outsiders!”
Sun Yuan smiled and said, “Oh, then let’s have a look. But let me say this first, if I am not satisfied with her appearance, I will not be willing to paint.”
The maid covered her mouth and laughed, “Mr. Sun Yuan is joking. My mistress is Ye Mancao, you must have heard of her, right?”
Sun Yuan packed up his scrolls and laughed, “I have heard a little. If what you say is true, then I’ll gift you this painting!”
The maid was thrilled, for the words of painter Sun Yuan were something even the Emperor could hardly request. This painter had such a unique personality, and hearing his willingness to gift her a painting made her extremely happy. Given her mistress Ye’s beauty, she believed the painting would surely be theirs! Thus, with a childlike excitement, she chatted incessantly with Sun Yuan along the way, and the great painter responded politely and graciously.
Upon arriving at the Ye family mansion, the maid had Sun Yuan wait in the living room while she went to call her mistress.
After a short wait, a woman walked gracefully from behind the screen, her beauty stunning, with a complexion like ice and bones like jade, creating a perception of being observable from afar but not approachable. If one looked for too long, one might get dazzled by her incomparable beauty. Upon seeing her, Sun Yuan was overjoyed, having finally encountered a true beauty. A beauty, they say, should have the grace of the moon, the posture of willows, the eyes like autumn waters, the heart like poetry … At first glance, he felt this woman truly deserved the title of the number one beauty of the Eastern Lands.
“Haha, excellent! Such beauty makes my trip worthwhile. Little girl, this painting is for you,” he said, throwing the painting he held to the astonished maid.
Ye Mancao was slightly stunned upon seeing Sun Yuan, then smiled and said, “Mr. Sun is joking.”
Sun Yuan asked, “Is it good if I start painting immediately?”
Ye Mancao nodded and said, “That would be somewhat discourteous to Mr. Sun.”
Sun Yuan picked up his brush and laughed, “Overjoyed as I am, I disregard these formalities. If you don’t let me start right now, I might feel even more uncomfortable!”
Hearing this, Ye Mancao said, “Then I would be troubling Mr. Sun.”
She then led Sun Yuan into the garden, sitting by a pond while someone fetched a table and chairs. Sun Yuan sat at a nearby table and began to grind ink, preparing to paint a portrait of a beautiful woman.
“Oh…”
A strange feeling arose in Sun Yuan’s heart, and he muttered to himself, “Why do such images appear in my mind? Well, no matter, it’s interesting to paint this way!”
With that, he picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and started painting a Buddhist temple, followed by a monk chanting and meditating, and then a woman with bright eyes and white teeth … As one paper ran out, he continued on another, painting the monk’s death, and the woman shaking a scripture drum at night, quietly liberating souls … Later, she embarked on a journey of 108,000 miles to Spiritual Mount, seeking enlightenment …
The first life was thus captured by Sun Yuan.
This painting depicted two swordsmen in a duel, a man and a woman. Later, the male swordsman died under the female swordsman’s sword. She carried the man’s body across 108,000 miles and buried him at the base of Spiritual Mount, then took up her sword to confront the Buddha Ancestor on Spiritual Mount …
Once Sun Yuan began, he could not stop. His pen moved as swiftly as a dragon or snake, his bold and powerful strokes also containing a tender, clever delicacy, truly a mix of rough and gentle.
The Six Paths of Reincarnation were completed within an hour under Sun Yuan’s brush, and as he continued, he painted faster and faster until only the shadow of his wrist could be seen moving.
“What are these paintings?” Ye Mancao, upon seeing these images, exclaimed in surprise.
“I do not know,” Sun Yuan replied with a slight smile. “These thoughts came to my mind, so I painted them.”
Ye Mancao suddenly laughed and said, “Could these be from our past lives?”
Sun Yuan pondered for a long moment, a flash of insight striking him, and exclaimed, “It seems so indeed!”
Ye Mancao curiously said, “Looking at your paintings, I vaguely remember that it was either you who killed me, or I who killed you… I killed you three times, you killed me twice, and once, it was because of me that you died?”
Awoken by Ye Mancao’s words, Sun Yuan responded, “I also remember now.”
Ye Mancao smiled and said, “You and I have met in six cycles of reincarnation, why is that? In this life, who is to die?”
Sun Wukong was silent, feeling that fate was playing tricks on them.
Ye Mancao, too, was at a loss for words, simply gazing at him as Sun Wukong also looked back at her.
“I…”
Sun Wukong opened his mouth, suddenly recalling a face that had become blurry. He desperately tried to grasp it, and suddenly exclaimed, “Zixia!”
Hearing these two words, Ye Mancao compared her six cycles of reincarnation and realized that in none of her lives was she named Zixia. A smile tugged at her lips as she said, “So you had already favored another woman long ago!”
Sun Wukong’s eyes became clearer as he murmured, “I came into this cycle of reincarnation for her. The cycle is unpredictable and easily causes one to lose their true heart… Zixia, Zixia.”
He suddenly walked back to the desk and then began to draw.
Water Curtain Cave, Water Curtain Cave.
On a cliff in front of the Water Curtain Cave stood a lone boulder, leaning against which was a purple redbud flower.
He flipped the painting scroll, took up his brush again, and the stone transformed into a monkey heading East. The purple redbud transformed into a beautiful young woman ascending on a cloud; the monkey wielded an iron staff and caused havoc in the Celestial Palace, fighting against the gods, while the woman hid nearby, her eyes filled with concern; the monkey was suppressed under Five Fingers Mountain, and the woman looked distant, helpless, and indecisive; later, the monkey and three others set out on the Journey to the West, and this woman silently watched his lonely silhouette… In the end, the gods of the Water Curtain Cave descended, unleashing fire, wind, and storm to destroy this utopia, yet she fearlessly drew her sword to meet the battle, and all was reduced to ashes.
The painting ended there.
“It turns out… Zixia didn’t enter this cycle of reincarnation, she died, she truly died.” he murmured, “I am not who…I am Wukong!”
He collapsed on the ground, letting out a soft sigh, murmuring, “Reincarnation… why?”
Ye Mancao observed the vividly drawn characters and scenes on the scroll, blood intermingled with fire, but the woman in the painting was not her. A slight pain touched her heart, and her eyes suddenly cleared.
“I… am Xuan Ming!”
Then, Xuan Ming and Wukong exchanged glances and laughed a bit inexplicably. Were they laughing over their six cycles of reincarnation, or because this time they hadn’t slaughtered one another? After all, laughter does not need a reason; sometimes such understanding smiles come unreasonably.
Xuan Ming sighed softly and said, “Reincarnation is truly heartless. My true heart has been thoroughly understood!”
But Wukong yielded a bitter smile and said, “I came to this cycle of reincarnation, but all I brought back was disappointment.”
Xuan Ming remained silent.
Wukong said, “Six cycles of reincarnation, thank you for burying me at the foot of Spiritual Mount.”
Xuan Ming said, “It’s mutual; we have only been manipulated.”
Their ties across six cycles of reincarnation, each one profoundly linked to life and death, true hearts, and affections. These six cycles, no, it had already been seven… Their accrued fate was not shallow.
Neither Wukong nor Xuan Ming could see through this karma, especially once entwined with emotions, even a saint could hardly see clearly.
Even the Supreme had forgotten passions.
Many misunderstand the meaning of “the Supreme forgetting passions.” Forgetting passions is not about being entirely heartless or devoid of love, but rather about setting emotions aside, not thinking about them, not dwelling on them, almost forgetting them. That saints struggle to entirely sever emotional ties shows how formidable the causal effects related to emotions are!
Wukong sighed and said, “Reincarnation, reincarnation… this world of reincarnation truly renders one helpless!”
Xuan Ming, thinking similarly to Wukong, no longer spoke.
Wukong suddenly said, “Let’s go out!”
Xuan Ming suddenly felt reluctant to leave, thinking it would be better to just continue cycling through incarnations, one life after the next, without stop, until he forgot the girl named Zixia. But she scoffed at her own absurd thought. Who was she? She was the Ancestral Witch Xuan Ming, who looked upon all beings as mere fish and meat!
“Limitless eons!”
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That ancient, profound voice came, and a six-colored great wheel appeared in the void. Both had thoroughly understood their true hearts, and in that moment, everyone within the world of reincarnation transformed into a blue light, drilling into it, entering the true realm of reincarnation.
Wukong and Xuan Ming exchanged glances, then soared into the air, and just as they were about to enter the Reincarnation Disk, Xuan Ming’s heart suddenly ached.
“Reincarnation… is truly heartless!”
