Where Immortals Once Walked-Chapter 254: Impressions of Immortals
She chewed her Poria cake with unhurried grace. “What, are you planning to turn thief? Let me be clear in advance: I don’t know you. Whatever you say or do, I know nothing about it.”
“So heartless?” he said, noting that her mouth was full of cake that he had paid for.
“In Panlong City, breaking the law takes real courage.”
“For a few books? Would I go that far?” He Lingchuan sighed and answered honestly. “I’ve been haunting the Literature Pavilion these days and found the collection isn’t as rich as I’d imagined. Even when it comes to travelogues and local surveys, there really aren’t that many available.”
Sun Fuling nudged a pebble off the paving with the toe of her boot. “The Chipa Plateau may be bountiful and fit for humans, but Panlong City used to be only one of the many cities scattered across the Panlong Wasteland. Many caravans passed through, but not many people stayed. Add to that the masses’ preference for martial arts, with everyone valuing the blade over the brush, how many do you think take up reading on their own?” Fewer readers meant fewer books, so how could the collection be vast?
He thought it over. That did make sense.
Were my expectations simply too high?
“Commander Zhong has ruled Panlong City for only fifteen years. Even if he set people to compiling books and promoted public schooling, the Literature Pavilion’s stock won’t balloon overnight. As for travelogues and local surveys, I have heard that in the past, merchants and travelers would bring such books to sell here. They moved quickly. Put them on the shelves, and they’re snapped right up.” Her voice then slowed as she added, “Later on, Panlong City forbade their circulation.”
He Lingchuan blinked. “Why?”
“If you read such books and realize the world outside is so big and so interesting, wouldn’t you want to see it?”
He hesitated, then nodded. He understood what she was hinting at.
“But you can’t go,” Sun Fuling said, with a hint of a bitter smile. “When people long too hard for what lies beyond their reach, it turns into obsession.”
“When enough people feel that way, it’s the last thing Panlong City wants.” She sighed softly, almost to herself. “Sometimes ignorance really is a kind of happiness.”
The Panlong Wasteland was West Luo’s exclave, hanging alone beyond its borders, surrounded by unfriendly states.
That geography doomed Panlong’s people to a kind of imprisonment. The more they were drawn to the world’s color and variety, the more easily they would drown in the mud of wanting what they could never have.
He had heard the old saying that went, the more you know, the more you hurt. He was silent for a while before asking, “You’ve read those travelogues. What did you think?”
“I want to see the sea. They say it’s a thousand, ten thousand times greater than any lake, with tides that never rest,” Sun Fuling said, her voice full of yearning. “I want to taste it and see if it really is as salty and bitter as they say.”
The words “It is” danced at the tip of his tongue but would not come out. What right did he have to pronounce it so easily? In this world, he, too, was a resident of the Panlong Wasteland, and he was supposedly no more likely than any other to set eyes on the sea.
“You’ll have your chance,” he said, but the promise was weak. Everyone else might be in the dark, but he knew Panlong City’s end.
No one here would live beyond twenty years.
Even this bright-eyed girl beside him.
Not just in life, but even in death, they would be trapped by the Generous Pot on this wasteland, forever without end.
Her almond eyes curved like the moon. “I’ll take your good word for it.”
“And...” He seized the moment. “Have you ever seen any literature on divination in the Literature Pavilion?”
She thought for a moment before asking, “Which kind of divination?”
“For fortune and misfortune, deducing the future.”
“There won’t be any.”
That “won’t” was deftly chosen, and it startled him. “Why not?”
Sun Fuling said mildly, “Knowing too much only adds to your troubles; going with the flow suits most people best.”
He had nothing to say to that.
There was another saying: the more you understand, the more you suffer.
She glanced at him. “Why the curiosity?”
He Lingchuan scratched his head. “Someone told me that a great calamity hangs right above my head and I’ll die soon, unnaturally.”
“You believed that?”
“Their divinations have seen a high rate of success,” He Lingchuan admitted with a wry smile. “He got parts of my past right, too.”
“It sounds like the patter of a street quack.” She clearly did not buy it.
But then she added, “The Literature Pavilion may not have those books, but Commander Zhong keeps a strategist named Wen Daolun by his side who seems to have studied such matters deeply. He’s lectured at Shumin State Academy twice. In passing, he mentioned a point or two about divination. I’ve heard Lord Zhong values him highly.”
He perked up. “Will there be a third time?”
“That I don’t know.” Sun Fuling smiled and said, “A man that busy is far above the likes of me. If you really want to learn, you’re better off going to the government office than waiting for him to show up at the academy.”
His Lingchuan’s eyes lit up as a different thought crossed his mind. “Where does he live?” Could I just go directly to where he lives?
“That I don’t know either. You’ll have to ask around yourself.” Sun Fuling then changed the subject, “By the way, the Literature Pavilion has quite a few hand-copied manuscripts in the immortal script. Have you looked at those?”
She had already shown him how to use the Literature Pavilion. In the pavilion, there were, in fact, many books written in the immortal language.
“Uh, not yet,” He Lingchuan confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m a beginner. It’s hard.”
He had been at it only a few days. He could puzzle out single characters, but a dense page of them made his breath tighten and his vision swim.
“Forget it,” Sun Fuling said, shaking her head. “I’ve read more. Ask me first.”
“Where did all those copies come from?” He Lingchuan asked, taking her at her word. “Were they truly written by immortals?”
“By immortals and their sect disciples,” Sun Fuling said. “They’re copies taken from ancient books. And those books were either preserved and handed down by the Daoist sects or unearthed from immortals’ cave abodes and ruins. Haven’t you yourself taken rubbings from an immortal’s cave abode yourself?”
“Handed down by the Daoist sects?” He Lingchuan remembered something. “I’ve heard that the immortal sects were the forerunners of today’s Daoist schools or sects.”
“They were,” Sun Fuling said with a nod. “That much is widely accepted. When the immortals vanished from the world, that character or word—仙 (immortal)—could not be maintained. The sects had to lower themselves a grade and take up Daoist as their name.”
He Lingchuan said, “I’ve read books that praise the immortals’ noble conduct in the Literature Pavilion these past few days. After the Great Catastrophe of Heaven and Earth, they taught those who remained of humanity with all their hearts, helped them resist monsters, and kept the spark of the written tradition alive so their descendants would not fall back into ignorance. However, there are just as many books that speak against them. They denounce the immortals for enslaving mortals, treating commoners like ants, dealing out life and death at a whim.” Both kinds of books, he had to admit, came armed with piles of examples: immortals taking poison in their own bodies to test remedies for the people, or slaying demons for the common good; on the other hand, disciples of immortal sects butchering tens of thousands to harvest souls for their banners.
“If you read the ancient scrolls left by immortals and their students, you’ll find both statements are true, and both are one-sided.” They had left the long streets behind and were angling toward the wood houses. Here, foot traffic had thinned. “When that great catastrophe struck, the spirit qi of heaven and earth faded fast, but the immortals’ abilities did not vanish overnight. You know why, don’t you?”
He Lingchuan thought for a moment before replying, “They still had cultivation reserves in their bodies, and there were still profound crystals in the world?”
“Exactly. They were akin to a traveler crossing a desert, but their waterskin was still mostly full, and they could go on longer.” Sun Fuling then added slowly, “From the notes I’ve read, for at least two or three centuries after the great catastrophe, immortals could still soar to heaven and plunge into the earth.”
“But that’s water without a source,” he said, remembering Zhu Erniang’s original body in the spider den. “It can’t last. The broodmother at Guizhen Stone Forest was an ancient monster. She survived only by shedding heavy old shells and exchanging them for smaller, weaker ones.”
To maintain an immortal body, or even that of a monster immortal, simply consumed too much spirit qi. After the catastrophe, it was like a whale stranded on a beach. Without the tide to lift it, it could only die.
“Immortals and most other monster immortals couldn’t cut themselves down the way a spider could. Once their reserves ran out, there was only one path—extinction,” said Sun Fuling. “And remember, immortals were once human. Humans place weight on inheritance. Knowing their time was short, they taught the people and passed down the flame. Should that surprise us? Look at Shumin State Academy, look at me, are we not doing exactly that?”
She then paused for a moment before continuing, “As for what you read about immortal sects enslaving mortals and committing every evil, those cases exist, and they’ve been recorded, too. But think about this, when the world’s spirit qi had ebbed so low that immortals could hardly live, how would the sects act to seize the last scraps of a limited resource?”
He Lingchuan answered, “If it were me, I’d do whatever it took.”
“Exactly.” She smiled faintly. “The immortals’ airy detachment was only possible when they desired nothing. When they had to fight with all they had just to keep breathing, how different were they from us?”
He Lingchuan breathed out a long sigh.
When beings fall from the clouds, the shadows in their hearts can no longer be hidden.
In the end, all beings suffer.
“I’ve another question.”
“Ask.” Sun Fuling showed no impatience.
“Where does origin energy come from?” He Lingchuan had read a great deal and still found no clear answer. “Some books say immortals taught it to humans as a defense against monsters; others claim the gods taught it to men as a way to resist the oppression of the immortals, as well as to fight monsters.”
“The earliest records of origin energy date to a little over two thousand years ago. Lacking earlier evidence, it likely was a power discovered only after the great catastrophe.” Sun Fuling shrugged her shoulders. “As for its true source, there’s no consensus on it. The elders of Shumin State Academy, Panlong City, and the Hall of Inquiry argue about it daily, and there is still no conclusion to this day.”
“Never mind them, what does Ms. Sun think?”
“Me?” She tilted her head, thinking. “I lean toward this: it’s a method the gods taught mankind.”
He Lingchuan’s heart skipped a beat. Her inclination matched his. “Why?”
“Because origin energy is something only the combined hearts of countless mortals can gather. If the immortals had taught it to humans, they would have been handing mortals the very weapon that could be turned against themselves.”
