Chapter 226
Chapter 226
I followed Seventh Master back home.
The moment he got in, he took out the bottle containing Ding Ruoning.
In one of the rooms on the first floor hung a portrait of the Three Pure Ones. Beneath the portrait stood an offering table.
Under the offering table was a cardboard box. Only after Seventh Master opened it did I see that it was filled with bottles just like this one-at least twenty of them.
Seventh Master placed the bottle containing Ding Ruoning inside as well.
All at once, Ding Ruoning’s furious curses echoed through the room.
She cursed so viciously she dragged every one of Seventh Master’s ancestors through the mud.
If she had been cursing me, I probably would have lost my temper after just a few lines.
But Seventh Master remained perfectly calm, as if he hadn’t heard a thing.
“I’ve told you before. The first ironclad rule in matters of life and death is this: after a person dies, all love, hatred, grudges, and entanglements have nothing more to do with what happened while they were alive.”
Seventh Master took a meditation cushion and sat down cross-legged. “If you don’t abide by that ironclad rule, Ding Ruoning is what happens. Luckily, we caught her today. Otherwise, the consequences would have been endless.”
I nodded and did not argue anymore.
“Seventh Master, I’ve been reading Mysteries of the Six Yao for so long, but all I can do is tell fortunes…”
The reason I had come back with Seventh Master tonight was to ask him for guidance.
Why was it that I could only perform divination? As for the rest of the content, even if I read it and understood it, I still couldn’t put it into practice.
If all I could do was tell fortunes, then I couldn’t even protect my own life.
Never mind a ghost with a grudge as deep as Ding Ruoning’s-even someone like Liu Jing would be beyond me.
We couldn’t ask Seventh Master to help us every single time.
“To study the arts, you need Register Conferral. Only when the Ancestral Master lets you borrow power can you use those things.”
Seventh Master shook his head. “If he doesn’t let you borrow power, then even if you read that book back to front until you’re old, all you’ll ever know are a few divination arts.”
I said, “But the Ancestral Masters of my lineage have all passed on, and I don’t have a Master either. How is he supposed to confer the register on me?”
Seventh Master said, “He thinks your heart isn’t sincere. More than that, you don’t hold life and death in reverence, and your conviction toward the Dao you’ve studied is even weaker. You’ve only learned a few divination arts, yet you’ve already developed a sense of superiority. But magic isn’t meant to make you feel superior. However much ability you possess, that is how much responsibility you must bear.”
“Take Wang Guofu, for example. His purpose in learning these things was impure from the start. He may have been highly talented, and he learned both power and technique, but those are only minor applications. On the path of cultivation, the truly great application lies in the Dao. If a person does not have a steady Dao heart, then magic will make him feel superior to others. And as he keeps walking, he will stray from the path.”
“Do you dare say there isn’t any sense of superiority in your heart?”
Seventh Master’s question made my face burn.
I couldn’t lie to him.
Divination could predict the future. That was, in itself, an ability beyond that of ordinary people.
If I said I didn’t feel even the slightest sense of superiority, that would be a lie…
I was a worldly person. Of course I had that tiny bit of vanity.
Seventh Master said I wasn’t firm enough, that I held no reverence for life and death, and that I didn’t truly revere the Dao I studied. He wasn’t wrong about any of it. I really didn’t have enough reverence.
If I had been reverent and firm enough, I would never have allowed Ding Ruoning to take revenge unchecked, let alone stopped Seventh Master from intervening.
Life and death were part of the natural order, and the natural order was also one link in the Dao.
I should have followed it.
“In truth, there’s nothing to feel superior about.”
Seventh Master shook his head. “People often say that those who enter the Mystic Sect are destined to carry some flaw or deficiency in their lives, and that they must fall into one of the four fates: widowed, bereft, orphaned, or alone. But what people don’t realize is that those who already bear such flaws are the ones with affinity for the Mystic Sect, and that is why they enter it.”
“Your Fate Pattern is flawed. You actually fall into two of them: widowed and alone.”
“In this life, you are destined to have no wife. Even if you marry, your wife will certainly die in the end.”
“You have no fate with your parents. It was rare enough that one of them survived, but even the one who lives cannot meet you. If you meet, they will die.”
“Tell me, how are you supposed to live this life of yours?”
A wave of sorrow surged through me at his words.
I had no parents above me, and I would have no wife in this life either. I was headed straight for lifelong bachelorhood. I definitely wouldn’t have any children in the future, either.
“Seventh Master, then is there any meaning in me being alive at all…?”
“If a person isn’t dead, then they have to live.”
Seventh Master said, “As for how you live, that depends on you. Since you’ve entered the Mystic Sect, it means you have fate with the Mystic Sect. And the Mystic Sect draws close to the Heavenly Dao. Since you have no fate with the human path, why not pursue a Dao on a higher level? Perhaps it can bring release to your heart.”
“Even if, on the day your lamp oil runs dry, you still haven’t found that Dao, at least in your next life, things won’t be as hard as they are in this one.”
I felt as if I had understood, and yet as if I hadn’t.
But all of a sudden, my heart felt much clearer.
Since human love, hatred, resentment, and longing had little to do with me, why shouldn’t I devote myself wholeheartedly to pursuing a higher Dao?
I had to be single-minded if I wanted the Ancestral Master to acknowledge me.
Seventh Master sat upright on the prayer mat, forming Daoism ritual hand seals as he began chanting the Scripture of Resolving Grievances and Removing Sins for Ding Ruoning.
He wasn’t chanting it for Ding Ruoning alone. He was chanting it for all the dead souls inside those bottles.
Inside those ordinary-looking bottles were clearly dead souls, but they also contained the obsessions they had carried as human beings.
I took a prayer mat and sat behind Seventh Master, chanting along with him.
…
Early the next morning, I woke up on the prayer mat.
I woke up completely confused.
I had been chanting along with Seventh Master last night, and I had no idea when I had fallen asleep.
After I woke up, I could no longer hear Ding Ruoning cursing and shouting. She had probably realized Seventh Master wasn’t going to let her out, so she had given up struggling.
I walked out of the room and found that Seventh Master had already made breakfast.
But it was very simple: a bowl of plain congee, a plate of greens, and two eggs.
“Seventh Master, I had a dream last night…”
“Mm?”
He looked up at me. “What did you dream about?”
I found it strange and said, “I dreamed of a young man sitting on the ground, telling fortunes. But he wouldn’t turn around, and I couldn’t walk over to him, so I never saw what he looked like.”
Seventh Master nodded thoughtfully. “It might have just been a random dream. Don’t worry too much about it.”
Just then, my phone rang. It was Meng Yifan calling.
Only when I glanced at my phone did I realize it was already eight in the morning. It was time for work.
“Boss Meng, I’m at Seventh Master’s place. I’ll be right-”
“Chen Mo, hurry! Hurry and bring Seventh Master over here! Sun Yang is dead!”
Meng Yifan’s voice was trembling over the phone.
I was so startled that I shot up from my chair and quickly asked him, “What happened? How did he die?”
Meng Yifan said, “I just got a call from that Gu An’an. She said Sun Yang went back to the villa and killed himself. I don’t know what’s going on yet. I’m on my way there now. You two hurry over too.”
With that, he hung up.
Seventh Master stared blankly at me. “Who died?”
I said Sun Yang was dead. He had killed himself.
“What!”
Even Seventh Master was shocked. “He… killed himself? When?”
I said I didn’t know either. Meng Yifan was the one who told me, and he was still on his way there too.
Seventh Master froze for a long moment, then put down his chopsticks. “I can’t eat anymore. Then hurry… hurry, let’s go take a look.”
We didn’t waste any time on breakfast. We didn’t even have time to clear the dishes from the table. We locked the door and drove straight to that villa.