The Great Way to Truth, Starting from Jiazi Laodao

Chapter 153 A Ruler, Three Thousand Worlds
The thin pink mist was floating, and the figures inside were blurry as if behind a screen. It was difficult to see the whole picture, and one could only get a general idea.

Her figure became elongated and taller, her body was slender and well-proportioned, her long hair hung down to her waist, and her round face became an oval face.

When the smoke cleared, the woman with the thorny hairpin turned into a young lady:
She was dressed in red gauze and barefoot. She had delicate features on her palm-sized face and an absolutely beautiful appearance. Her eyebrows were dark blue, her lips were cherry red, and her nose was slightly raised. Her fox eyes, in particular, seemed to be able to seduce people. Just a casual glance at her would make people fascinated and their bones would melt.

Her bun is loosely tied up and her makeup is lightly done, she looks charming and elegant, gorgeous but not vulgar.

The eight fox tails behind the woman flashed by. This Taiping Sect protector was obviously an eight-tailed demon fox. She did not hide herself. The billowing demonic energy rose into the sky, showing her existence. The terrifying pressure enveloped the county city, causing many human cultivators to be terrified.

The Taiping believers and their allies were cheered up, their morale was high, they moved freely, and their supernatural powers were enhanced by an additional point. However, the cultivators and independent practitioners from other forces seemed to be carrying a mountain on their backs, their bodies were stiff, and they could move with difficulty. The higher the level of cultivation, the greater the pressure and the deeper the feelings.

A female voice like the sound of jade breaking at Kunshan resounded throughout the county town, and passed through the formation, echoing throughout Fengyang County:
"The blue sky is dead, the yellow sky should be established. The year is Jiazi, and the world is very auspicious. The Great Mysterious Lord is mediocre and stupid, which makes the God angry and punishes him. Natural disasters occur frequently in various places, and the people are living in misery. There are also land annexation and corrupt officials are rampant. My Taiping Sect follows the will of heaven and wants to overthrow the Great Mysterious, re-establish the order of heaven and earth, and benefit the people. Those who abandon darkness and join light can live, and those who are accomplices to the tiger should be killed."

The eight-tailed demon fox said this not only to practitioners, but also to ordinary people, using the fox clan's great magical powers, revealing five parts truth and five parts deception.

Water can carry a boat or capsize it.

The lesson of the collapse of the Great Sheng Divine Dynasty in the past is still vivid in people's minds. Taiping has learned from his mistakes and realized that in this vast universe, there are only the common people, and only when countless people gather together and their hearts are in favor can we have a country and a Divine Dynasty.

They seem insignificant, as tiny as ants, but once they erupt, they have the power to shake the world and subvert the power of the universe. The vast common people are the foundation of the country and the root of the prosperity and continuation of the human race, which is far more important than practitioners.

Inside the Guangfasi, a thousand-foot-tall black plum tree grew out of nowhere. A handsome scholar in black-and-white clothes stood on it. Feeling the pressure, he frowned slightly and said, "Finally, the fox's tail is exposed."

He waved towards the table in front of the ink plum painting, and the ink flew out from the inkstone and flowed to his fingertips. He gently rotated his fingers, and the ink flowed along with them. As he raised his hand and waved it lightly, the ink flowed forward. At the same time, a faint voice sounded:

"The Xuan River surrounds the city, and the black plums protect the country."

As a great Confucian sage, a great master of ink painting and the ancestor of painting in the Great Xuan Divine Dynasty, the handsome young man has profound cultivation and his Tao is connected to the heavens and the earth. When his words come out, the palace of literature shines and his words are followed by the law.

Inspirations from heaven and earth poured in, and the ink flowed more and more, turning into an ink river in an instant, rushing all over Fengyang County. Wherever it passed, drops of ink turned into ink plum blossoms. A surge of righteous energy washed over the county city, making people feel at ease involuntarily, and also offsetting the pressure of the eight-tailed fox. The cultivators who were fighting against the Taiping believers regained their mobility and were also in high spirits, continuing to fight.

At the same time, the voice of the ink-and-wash scholar sounded, plain and simple but full of purity, dispelling the power to bewitch people.

“There are unexpected changes in the weather, and people are subject to misfortunes and blessings at any time. This is the truth of heaven and earth. The current Great Xuan Divine Dynasty is full of talents and often takes measures to benefit the people. If war breaks out, it will cause great suffering to the people, and the people will suffer and be displaced.

Five hundred years ago, the Taiping Cult started a chaos in the south of Daxuan in order to restore its prosperity. In just a few years, tens of millions of people were left homeless and buried in the wilderness. Their crimes are too numerous to list. This matter is well documented. No matter how high-sounding your words are, they cannot change the fact that you are traitors and villains. "

His words were well-reasoned and contained the power of Confucianism to enlighten the mind and educate the people. They were far more convincing than the words of the eight-tailed demon fox. The bewitched people quickly woke up, and some directly believed the words of the Confucian scholar, some lowered their heads in thought, and a small number of them were inclined towards the eight-tailed demon fox.

This small group of people is of mixed composition. Some have ulterior motives, some are trying to take advantage of the situation, but the majority are people whose good land has been seized by the powerful or who have been bullied. ———

On the black plum tree, the ink scholar looked at the people's hearts and minds in the county city. He breathed a sigh of relief and then waved his sleeves and picked up his pen. He painted a picture of a Confucian saint slaying a demon in the air. The righteous energy was lingering in the ink and color, and it went precisely towards the house in the South City District where the eight-tailed fox was located.

Wherever they passed, the sound of reading could be heard and the spirit of righteousness soared to the sky. The Taiping believers and those who took the opportunity to cause chaos along the way were affected. The practitioners were either killed or injured, and the common people were either trapped or collapsed.

Inside the houses, the eight-tailed fox was delighted to see that a small number of people were leaning towards the Taiping Religion. She knew that the power of bewitching had been broken, and these people truly agreed with the Taiping Religion's ideas. The next moment, she raised her eyebrows slightly, feeling the approaching righteous energy and the suppression coming from the portrait of the saint, and she felt as if she was facing a great enemy.

He raised his hand and a pair of scissors appeared in his palm. The eight-tailed fox did not hesitate to cut out the cloth that he had been weaving for half a century and cut it off from the loom. The moment the rough cloth fell, its appearance suddenly changed, emitting red light and surrounded by a rich worldly aura.

Pick up the cloth and throw it to the sky. The three-foot cloth grows in the wind, absorbing the earthly energy accumulated in the county city for a thousand years. Three thousand earthly threads linger around, interpreting all kinds of living beings on the three-foot cloth:
From the curling smoke in the morning to the yellow lights in the evening, from the peddlers carrying loads through the streets to the vendors and shopkeepers, from the common people who eat simple meals to the rich and powerful who eat delicacies from land and sea, the bustling restaurants, the singing painted boats, the brothers fighting for the family property, the stepmother selling her daughter, the newborn baby, the daughter-in-law serving her parents-in-law, the sick father-in-law and son-in-law, the old man being buried with great ceremony...

Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness, birth, old age, sickness and death, wine, sex, money, anger, etc., the atmosphere of the world is mixed together, dazzling and overwhelming. There are demons who don't understand the ways of the world and are addicted to it. They don't want to return to the mountains, and their Taoism gradually disappears; there are Taoists who are intoxicated and willing to enter the world, but their Taoism sinks; there are Confucian scholars who read the books of sages, become famous overnight, indulge in pleasure, lose their ambition, and become like everyone else.

The worldly cloth and the ink paintings are intertwined and compete with each other. On the paintings, the portrait of the saint moves his lips slightly, spouts Confucian classics, and waves the ruler, which covers the sky, making the world lose its color and the sun and moon lose their light.

The red dust cloth released three thousand red dust threads, which coiled around it like water. Each and every red dust thread was filled with a sense of decadence, weakening the power of the ruler a little.

Thousands of years of worldly affairs and thousands of years of scholarly spirits are in conflict, like a needle against a wheat thorn, and it is difficult to tell which is better for the time being.

---

On Cuiping Mountain, Lord Chaoguang and the Lord of the Underworld were in a stalemate.

On Qingya Mountain, Lord Xianyue and the Toad Demon were in a stalemate.

In the county town, the great Confucian scholar and the eight-tailed fox were in a stalemate.

Battlefields of all sizes broke out in Fuyun County, Zixia Sect, Qingyang Palace and other places in Fengyang County. The Taiping Sect had been planning this for a long time, and this outbreak was like a tidal wave, sweeping across tens of thousands of miles. Especially after the voice of the eight-tailed fox was heard, Taiping sect members from all over the country became even more crazy, some people were shaken, and even some small forces turned against them.

When the voice of the nine-tailed fox sounded, Qiuzhen's face was heavy. He solved his doubts and understood what had happened in the county city. It turned out that the remnants of the Taiping evil had made a comeback and rebelled again. The real dragon and the ten thousand monsters were probably just pawns.

There were also many martial artists and cultivators who were righteous and rushed to the battlefields on all sides to provide emergency support. Fuyun Mountain was one of the main battlefields and was given special attention. Thousands of reinforcements arrived at the foot of Fuyun Mountain. They had complex identities, including martial artists, Confucian students, farming cultivators, Mohist rangers, and even Qigong cultivators. However, they did not go up the mountain. Instead, they set up formations and traps at the foot of the mountain to prepare to meet the enemy.

The audience of Qiuzhen were unaware of this scene until a brilliant light and murderous aura lit up at the foot of Fuyun Mountain. They suddenly discovered it. While they were excited, they were also confused: why did the reinforcements stay at the foot of the mountain and show no signs of rushing here?

(End of this chapter)