Seeking Truth with a Sword-Chapter 561 - 504
Li Ang accepted the letter, puzzled. "This is..."
"Recently, the elders from Yizhou mailed these letters of gratitude to Chang’an for you, and I’ve kept them with me for the time being," Song Shaoyuan explained. "Most of them are from our State School. The money you sent was used to construct teaching buildings, hire teachers, improve teacher salaries, and support children who couldn’t afford to attend.
"Apart from that, there are also letters from the Yizhou Clinic you funded, and the Yizhou Chamber of Commerce. Because of you, Prince Guang (Li Shan) prioritized building a railway in Yizhou. Roads were then constructed into the mountains alongside the railway. Even the poorest mountain villages now have a way out."
Li Ang flipped through the letters one by one. His expression gradually changed, especially after seeing one signed by Gan Xiao’er. It read, "Chang’an City is good, but after all, it’s not home."
Song Shaoyuan said, "A hundred, a thousand years from now, you and I will both have turned to dust, and this city will host a new group of spirited young people. Yet, the people of Yizhou will remember you forever, no matter the highs and lows of your future Cultivation, no matter how your status changes."
"..." Li Ang put down all the letters with a complex expression and nodded at Song Shaoyuan. "I understand."
"It’s good that you understand. Take these letters back with you and read them." Song Shaoyuan clapped his hands, dusting off sunflower seed shells, and chuckled. "Let’s forget it this time, but remember to bring your medicine kit next time. I heard the current Mind Silk Surgery Technique can also do that... prenatal... what is it? Prenatal assessment? Help your sister-in-law with one too."
"It’s a prenatal checkup," Li Ang corrected with a smile. Seizing the moment, he returned to his Golden City Mansion to retrieve his medicine kit. He then performed a prenatal checkup for You Xiao using Mind Silk. Amidst the couple’s strong insistence, he refrained from revealing the baby’s gender, keeping it a surprise for them.
After the checkup, Li Ang left Jude Square. After a moment of reflection, he headed to Pu Liuxuan’s house.
「———」
Pu Liuxuan’s family had just finished lunch. Cheng Juxiu was also there. The three of them—master and disciples—chatted leisurely in the courtyard, just like in the old days in Yizhou.
"Have you encountered a bottleneck in your Cultivation?" Pu Liuxuan asked, exchanging a smile with Cheng Juxiu.
Li Ang asked, puzzled, "Why are you laughing, Teacher?"
"It’s rare," Pu Liuxuan said with a smile. "Back in Yizhou, when Xi Yangyu told us you had the Skull-interrupted Sword trigram and that your Cultivation was hopeless in this life, I felt quite guilty for a while. I thought it was my mistake that led you on a fruitless trip to Chang’an, dashing your hopes. Later, when you entered the Academic Palace as the top scorer, I finally breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that you indeed have Heaven’s favor."
"The teacher and I both thought you were like the protagonist in those serial novels from the Lanling Newspaper—always surviving dangers by a hair’s breadth," Cheng Juxiu added with a smile. "Little did we expect you to encounter a bottleneck too."
"If I were really the protagonist, I would have exuded a king’s aura right after the re-examination results were out. Then Xi Yangyu wouldn’t have deemed me unable to cultivate," Li Ang retorted, rolling his eyes.
Pu Liuxuan chuckled, then his expression turned serious. "Nature is what we call inherent character."
"Following one’s nature is called the Dao; cultivating the Dao is called teaching," Li Ang replied automatically.
This was a line from the opening of the Doctrine of the Mean, meaning that a person’s natural endowment is called ’nature,’ acting according to this nature is ’Dao,’ and cultivating according to the principles of the Dao is ’teaching.’
"Sages of the Academic Palace once said that cultivating the Dao is like cultivating the heart; to cultivate the Dao is to cultivate the heart," Pu Liuxuan continued. "Whether it’s Talismanic Sword Thought Body, Haotian Divine Technique, or even the scriptures of evil cultivators, the first step of any Dao Path is to truly understand oneself. It’s just that the methods of realization differ.
"Evil cultivators prioritize humanity’s most basic and primal instincts: destructive desires, possessive desires, appetites... They magnify these desires, audaciously claiming it as pursuing one’s true nature. What do you think, is this correct?"
Li Ang replied without hesitation, "Naturally, it’s wrong."
"Wrong? Why?" Pu Liuxuan questioned. "Nature is bestowed by Heaven; following nature is the Dao. Evil cultivators could argue they are acting according to the nature bestowed by the Heavenly Dao. What fault is there in that?"
Li Ang furrowed his brow. He initially wanted to call it sophistry, but merely labeling it as such didn’t feel like a strong enough argument.
"It lacks self-cultivation," Cheng Juxiu explained. "Cultivation is a process of achieving Enlightenment and self-awareness. Human emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, love, and hatred are all bestowed by Heaven and are neutral. Broadly speaking, wicked people and Demon Cultivators can also recognize themselves. They can accept the fact that they are selfish and profit-driven, and they can go further down this path.
"Therefore, if you imagine the human heart as a field, wicked people only water and fertilize it. Naturally, countless lush and chaotic plants will grow. The Cultivation speed of evil cultivators is very fast, but they encounter more obstacles later on."
"Indeed. Compared to that, following the righteous path of Cultivation is somewhat more challenging," Pu Liuxuan stated. "It requires pruning the weeds of distracting thoughts from the field of your mind, clarifying what you truly want and what you pursue. To rectify one’s heart and purify one’s intentions. This is what is meant by ’following one’s nature is the Dao; cultivating the Dao is teaching.’"
Li Ang smacked his lips. "That sounds a bit like Zen’s Enlightenment."
Cheng Juxiu and Pu Liuxuan both laughed. The former explained, "Zen’s Enlightenment, the Daoist principle of following nature, and Confucian virtue—they are actually all one and the same. They all teach people to understand themselves. Thus, it’s not incorrect to say that Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism are integrated."
"Actually, you’ve already achieved it; you just don’t realize it yet," Pu Liuxuan said with a smile. "Walk around the city. Look at the sights around you. You’ll gain something from it."
Walking again? Li Ang’s eye twitched. He Fanshuang had told him to go out, and now Pu Liuxuan was also suggesting he stroll through the city. I’m not an elderly person needing rehabilitation, nor do I need to rack up WeChat Pedometer points. Why does everyone keep telling me to walk?
Unable to refuse Pu Liuxuan, Li Ang had no choice but to push open the door and step out onto Chang’an Street.
He didn’t know what Pu Liuxuan wanted him to see, so he wandered aimlessly.
He went to the Duke Yan Mansion and saw the Yan Family men, forced by Yan Yundang to practice winter swimming to temper their willpower.
He visited the Yining Square Jing Temple. There, he saw the Persian Jing Monk distributing eggs, candies, and vegetables. Back when he, Yang Yu, and Li Wei had visited this Jing Temple, they thought the cryptically speaking Persian Jing Monk was a transcendent sage. Now, looking at him, Li Ang realized he was just an ordinary person without any Spiritual Energy fluctuations.
He even went to the secluded bamboo forest and found the Huai Spirit.
"You should know that we’re even now, right? Informing you about the Dark Filth Worm settled our accounts," the Huai Spirit said, its tree-bark face gazing at Li Ang with vacant eyes. It was, after all, a demon of unknowable age, not some sympathetic confidante eager to soothe others’ worries.
"Just making conversation," Li Ang said cheerfully. "Where’s Yuhuan?"
"Shopping in the East Market," the Huai Spirit replied coldly. "What do you want to ask?"
Nie Yuhuan had always regarded Li Ang as a hero. If she were here, she would undoubtedly gaze at the Huai Spirit with her big, watery eyes, silently urging it to help Li Ang. Better to deal with this directly and save the trouble, the Huai Spirit thought.
"It’s like this: I’ve encountered a bottleneck in my Cultivation. My teacher advised me to walk around the city, saying I had already achieved Enlightenment..." Li Ang repeated Pu Liuxuan’s words. Other than the Ten Thousand Spirit Book, the Huai Spirit was the most likely entity in Chang’an City that could help him.
The Huai Spirit listened to Li Ang’s account with closed eyes, its tree-bark face devoid of expression.
Just when Li Ang thought it had fallen asleep, the Huai Spirit finally opened its eyes and said evenly, "Compared to the third year of Zaiqian, Chang’an City is a much better environment now."
"Hmm?" Li Ang raised an eyebrow, not understanding what the Huai Spirit meant.
The Huai Spirit stated succinctly, "The vegetation is lush, the water clear."
"Your impact on this city, and indeed on Yu Country, is far greater than you imagine."
Mulling over the Huai Spirit’s final words, Li Ang walked slowly through the streets.
He still maintained the disguise he had worn when visiting the Huai Spirit, so no one on the street recognized him.
He just walked and observed.
Due to the anti-malaria measures, the city’s stagnant pools had been cleared. The streets no longer overflowed with wastewater, and covered underground drainage channels flanked both sides of the roads. Consequently, the water quality had also significantly improved.
The streets bustled with people, many of them families out with their children. Now, with antibiotics, families no longer had to confine their infants at home for fear of illness.
Young men and women in the uniforms of the Imperial Medical Bureau walked past, carrying satchels. In the far distance, the faint whistle of a Spiritual Energy Locomotive could be heard.
Even the Hu women, who had traveled from afar to Yu Country to sell wine in the taverns, now had a new light of hope in their eyes. Li Ang had promoted the establishment of more guilds, providing a degree of social security for the lower classes, covering pensions, medical care, and work-related injuries.
Although it was far from realizing a utopian society, it offered at least a glimmer of hope, didn’t it?
Years of groundwork and accumulated efforts were slowly taking effect, like time-release capsules.
Li Ang walked and observed, lost in thought. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺
He understood what Pu Liuxuan and the others meant.
Compared to four years ago, the changes in Chang’an City could be described as earth-shattering.
For Pu Liuxuan, He Fanshuang, and others native to Yu Country, the impact of these changes was perhaps even more profound than for Li Ang himself, who possessed memories from an Otherworld.
Li Ang walked through the streets and alleys, weaving through the crowd, eventually stopping before the Medicine King Temple in Dao De Square.
He stood before the bustling temple, worshippers constantly coming and going, enveloped in drifting incense smoke. His clear eyes gazed quietly at the Divine Statue of himself enshrined above.
People from all corners of Yu Country knelt before the Divine Statue. They were not worshipping the image itself, but the hope for the future it represented.
The grand vows a certain youth had drunkenly declared in an Yizhou apothecary years ago seemed to echo in Li Ang’s ears.
"I want people to have enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, to afford medical care and have access to education..."
"I want a world free from exorbitant taxes and corrupt officials..."
"I want to protect ordinary people who wish to live well and punish those who profit by harming and exploiting the innocent..."
"I want people to live with dignity, to live like true human beings..."
A cool breeze swept past, carrying a yellow ginkgo leaf from a tree in the courtyard.
Li Ang reached out and caught the leaf. He stepped forward, inserted the yellow leaf into the incense urn, then turned and walked out of the temple, his gaze clear and free of confusion.
