Unsheathed

Outside Tassel Mountain…

The mountain master of a Confucian school had secretly arrived and was now patiently waiting for a response.

Even the deity in golden armor was starting to feel slightly sympathetic.

A scholar who had the potential to become the deputy sect master of the Confucian temple was being ignored by that old scholar, someone whose statues had already been removed from the Confucian temples and smashed to pieces. The mountain master had already waited outside for more than two weeks, and if news of this were to spread, just the spittle from the scholars of the Majestic World would perhaps be enough to drown Tassel Mountain.

On the peak of Tassel Mountain…

The Confucian temple was mobilizing many scholars right now, but the old scholar remained completely unfazed and unperturbed. He stayed on the mountain peak day after day, analyzing the situation, grumbling in complaint, appreciating the engraved characters on stone tablets, offering his opinions on the significant changes sweeping through the world, and wandering around all over the mountain peak.

In the words of the deity in golden armor, the mountain god of Tassel Mountain, the old scholar was like an old fly that couldn’t find any shit to eat. The old scholar wasn’t angered by this description, and he patted the mountain god’s golden armor and happily remarked, “This description is quite lively and interesting. When I see that old geezer in the future, I’ll tell him that this is your opinion of the accompanying sages in the Confucian temples.”

“If you dare to say that, then don’t even think about coming to Tassel Mountain in the future,” the mountain god said with a cold expression.

The old scholar hurriedly spat on his palm and helped the mountain god polish his golden armor, saying, “I was just joking — couldn’t you tell? How dull.”

The deity in golden armor was widely acknowledged as having the worst temper in the Middle Earth Divine Continent, yet he remained unmoving at this moment with his hands on the hilt of his sword as he gazed toward the distant lands beyond the jurisdiction of Tassel Mountain. He was surprisingly accustomed to this kind of behavior from the old scholar, and this was a reflection of how much he had suffered at the hands of the old scholar over the many years. It could be said that he had enjoyed more than his fair share of abuse. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so numb toward the old scholar’s current behavior.

The old scholar scratched the back of his head with one hand, standing beside the mountain god as he mused, “As a teacher, one will never know which words one uttered, which principles one expounded, and which matters one dealt with will be truly remembered by one’s disciples and students. If a scholar genuinely views themself as someone who’s teaching the world and solving its questions and doubts, then it’s inevitable that they’ll feel a great sense of fear and unease in their minds.

“I’ve been gripped by this huge sense of fear for all these years, unable to extract myself from it no matter what. In the end, I was left disheartened because I always discovered some flaw or another in my disciples, flaws that were very likely created by me.”

The mountain god chuckled coldly and scoffed, “As it turns out, it’s not only mediocre people who worry about troubles of their own imagining.”

The old scholar stomped his foot with anger and scolded, “I’m warning you, don’t take advantage of our good relationship to act like those fake scholars and make taunting remarks. Are you not aware that I detest this the most? I’ve put up with your behavior for hundreds of years already, so if you don’t change your crappy temper, I’ll genuinely stay here forever and refuse to leave. I’ll make you feel disgusted and repulsed every single day.”

“Oh no, I’m scared to death,” the mountain god chuckled.

“Tsk, like a scholar running into a soldier, I’m unable to reason with an unreasonable person,” the old scholar muttered under his breath.

“According to your analysis and divination, does Cui Chan have bigger plans than just pulling Cui Dongshan to his side?” the mountain god asked. “He’s been plotting against this force and attacking that force, and in the end, he even formed a meticulous plan to plot against that child.”

The old scholar smiled with squinted eyes and replied, “Someone as smart as me who knows the heaven and knows the earth naturally knows what Cui Chan is truly pursuing. However, I refuse to say.”

“Then I beg you, please never say,” the mountain god said with a nod.

The old scholar sighed and lightly pulled out a strand of hair, handing it to the mountain god who was standing beside him.

“What are you doing?” the mountain god asked with a frown.

“You’re so stubborn and unwilling to learn, so here, you might as well take this strand of hair to hang yourself,” the old scholar replied with a stern expression.

The mountain god smiled and said, “You want to find yourself a path of retreat, so you’re trying to anger me such that I sent you flying out of the jurisdiction of Tassel Mountain with a single sword strike. That way, you’ll be able to grant an audience to that mountain master from the Confucian school. But I’m sorry, you can keep dreaming.”

The old scholar clicked his tongue in wonder and remarked, “You’re quite sharp, huh?”

Hidden behind his face armor, the expression of the mountain god suddenly became solemn as he asked, “Are your divination results pertaining to those major issues still coming up murky and incomprehensible?”

The smile disappeared from the old scholar’s face as he confirmed, “Things are very troublesome. Even if I personally attend to that ancient checkpoint, the effects will only be minor. Things will be extremely slow and nowhere near enough to make a positive impact. It’s because of this that I’m too embarrassed to meet the mountain master of the Confucian school.

“The most troublesome issue is that the Savage World is serious this time. Several profound prodigies have seemingly appeared over there, born from the will of the world. The one-on-one battles at the Sword Qi Great Wall back then were merely small training sessions for them, yet they already managed to perform exceptionally well. That was the reason I traveled to the Southern Whirl Continent to look for that stubborn person, reminding him to be careful or else he might suddenly die by accident one day. Not only that, but he would also be cursed and insulted for hundreds upon thousands of years afterward.”

The mountain god was just about to speak.

However, the old scholar shook his head and warned, “These secrets can’t be revealed. I’m completely unable to trust the branch of Lu Clan Naturalists in the Middle Earth Divine Continent now, and I’m this close to believing the opposite of their divination results.”

“Over at Bai Ze’s side, the mountain master of the Etiquette School was met with a strong rebuff,” the mountain god said. “At the islands in the sea, the mountain master belonging to the Second Sage’s lineage suffered an even more miserable outcome, and I heard that he wasn’t even granted an audience. As for the last one over here, he’s also failed to gain an audience, hasn’t he? None of the three mountain masters of the Confucian schools have had any luck. What’s going on here? Has the Confucian Sect already fallen to such a pitiful state? Have all of your past friends and allies decided to become spectators, doing nothing as the world crumbles before them?”

The old scholar sighed and tugged at his beard, replying, “Heaven knows what the old geezer and the Etiquette Sage are thinking.”

“Don’t you regard yourself as a smart person?” the mountain god asked with a smile of ridicule.

The old scholar shook his head and replied with a serious expression, “When it comes to truly significant matters, what one relies on is never smarts. Rather, it’s… being stupid.”

The mountain god huffed and said, “What a load of nonsense. By saying this, you’re trying to capture all of the principles and right and wrongs in the world.”

The old scholar shook his head again, explaining, “And that’s where you’re wrong. What I said wasn’t a load of ambiguous nonsense, and your inability to comprehend it isn’t because you’re an idiot. Instead, it’s because you’re removed from the mortal world and standing atop a mountain peak. As such, is there any link between you and the myriad of emotions in the mortal world? Perhaps a little, but so insignificant that it can be ignored.

“As a result, it’s very difficult for you to think about minor matters from the perspectives of ordinary people. However, you have to realize that with so many people in the world, the culmination of their minor matters reaches higher than ten Tassel Mountains stacked together. Let’s consider this for a moment. For generation after generation, the sages of the Confucian Sect have poured their heart and soul into constructing dwellings inside which the common people can hide from the wind and rain. These dwellings look big and sturdy, but what if in the end, the sudden arrival of lashing wind and rain exposes them to be flimsy structures that collapse in no time? What will the common people living inside these dwellings do at that time?

“Taking a step back, the tenacity of the Confucian lineages genuinely allows us to break old rules to establish new rules. We can construct new thatched cottages that are bigger and sturdier than before. However, what about the huge number of common people who were crushed to death by the collapse of the previous dwellings? What about those who were displaced? What about the suffering and hardship? Perhaps we need to console ourselves using the philosophy of Buddhism? At the very least, I can’t bring myself to do this.”

“Don’t ask me,” the mountain god said with a shake of his head.

The old scholar stomped his foot, gazing into the distance as he mused, “After rising to a high position, each scholar should have a good long think about the notion of having a conscience.”

He then murmured, “When the granaries are filled, people observe etiquette.[1] This is such a brilliant saying, so why don’t people listen to it? Year after year, perhaps we’re going to allow the Dao Ancestor to laugh at the Confucian Sect for another ten thousand years?”

The old scholar’s words actually pertained to an earth-shattering debate. The mountain god had spectated the two debates between the Three Teachings, and even though he could be regarded as the old scholar’s friend, he had been convinced that the old scholar couldn’t win the debate against the two other teachings no matter what. In the end, however, the old scholar had managed to persuade the monks and Daoists from the two other teachings.

During the debate that encompassed everything, there had been an argument regarding the saying, “It is the decay of the Great Dao that has led to the emergence of kindness and morality.[2] A Daoist from the White Jade Capital had debated this matter with the old scholar, and the back and forth between them had truly been gripping and precarious. In the end, the old scholar not only won the debate against the profoundly talented Daoist, but he even managed to win over a Buddhist monk who had been watching the debate.

After the old scholar won, all of the Daoist forces in the Majestic World had to use red ink to personally erase a sentence in the Daoist scriptures, a sentence spoken by the Dao Ancestor! Not only that, but all of the Daoist scriptures printed in the Majestic World in the future would need to remove this sentence as well as other related content.

The sentence in question was, “Virtue comes after the loss of Dao; benevolence comes after the loss of virtue; justice comes after the loss of benevolence; etiquette comes after the loss of justice; thus, etiquette results from the lack of loyalty and good faith.”[3]

The debate between the Three Teachings wasn’t just three prodigies sitting on a tall platform and running their mouths. In reality, the debate had profound and interlinked impacts on everyone in the three worlds.

The mountain god detected an extremely rare sense of defeat coming from the old scholar beside him, causing him to feel some slight sympathy. He changed the topic to something more relaxed, asking, “Did Qi Jingchun genuinely not leave any other trump card? After all, Chen Ping’an is the closing disciple that he chose for you.”

The old scholar shook his head, replying, “Interfering and helping Little Ping’an break free from this dilemma would be stooping to a very low level. Qi Jingchun would never do something like this, as it would essentially equate to admitting defeat to Cui Chan right at the very beginning.”

The mountain god also shook his head, saying in exasperation, “It’s due to the hesitant and indecisive nature of the human heart that people have to cultivate. Why did Qi Jingchun look for this unnecessary trouble?”

The old scholar suddenly smiled, flicking his sleeves and clasping his hands behind his back as he replied, “And that’s why gods and deities like you don’t understand why the human world is somehow so stunning and majestic even though our hearts are clearly so murky and indecisive. These are magnificent scenes that everyone can witness if they just raise their heads and look up. Perhaps the large majority of people will only take a single glance before lowering their heads and going back to what they were doing before, but there will ultimately be a small group of people who feel a strong sense of yearning, not only sitting down to discuss Dao, but eventually standing up to act upon Dao!”

The old scholar suddenly raised an arm, pointing up at the vast sky and exclaiming, “I overlook the world, and I treat the world with kindness!”

There was a brief moment of silence.

“The so-called… old geezer that you speak of… He most likely can’t hear your bold proclamations,” the mountain god said.

The old scholar stomped his foot in frustration and huffed in anger, “What a waste of my overflowing passion and emotion!”

1. This is a saying from Guanzi. The full saying reads, people observe etiquette and know honor and shame only after they are well-fed and clothed. ☜

2. This is a saying from Dao De Jing. The notion of emergence is better viewed as the decay of the Great Dao further highlighting the existence of kindness and morality. ☜

3. This is from Chapter 38 of Dao De Jing. ☜