Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 40

Our Dao is Heaven Devouring

Connie sat down and placed the many Essence Crystals before her. She left the largest one she got from the Treant-Golem for last as she began absorbing the smaller ones.

After half an hour she had finished with absorbing the small ones, leaving small pristine Essence Crystals devoid of malice to the side. She drew a long breath and prepared to absorb the Treant-Golem’s Essence Crystal. Its baleful energy was powerful enough to make her hesitate. Even so, the temptation of absorbing such power was too great for her.

She placed it across her lap and put both hands on top in a Samadhi position. The blonde-haired girl closed her eyes and recited a few of her favorite parts from Dao De Jing to calm herself.

With preparations completed, she began taking in the baleful energy. The process was slower than usual as the energy was not simply strong, but also dense. It was like trying to squeeze a block of tofu through a strainer.

Slow but steady.

With that word in her mind, the process became easier. Then she realized something.

Again. It’s happening again. The energy I am absorbing is not fully absorbed by my Poison Core. Something is siphoning them away.

She quickly formulated a plan. She began absorbing it faster at a steady pace while she sank her consciousness to her Poison Core. The Poison Core was gorging on the banquet she had prepared, strengthening her cultivation. For some reason, she also felt that aside from the energy, she was also absorbing the Treant-Golem’s Essence, not just the baleful energy strengthening her physique.

While wondering about this happy news, she saw something was off. A portion of what she absorbed went into a thin thread of silver light. If it was not because of the density of energy, she would never have noticed.

“What is this?”

She made a motion to touch the thread when suddenly a powerful suction dragged her screaming into the other end of it.

The moment felt like years, but at the same time felt like it barely passed a second.

She was thrown into a world of vast emptiness. Of endless darkness dotted by lights strewn around like pearls at the bottom of the night sea.

Much as she was flabbergasted by what she saw, she felt uncomfortable from the helplessness she experienced. Her existence, compared to the vastness of nothingness, was nothing. A mere dot in the middle of an endless universe.

“Come,” she heard a voice in her head.

She was once more forcefully sucked away and the view in front of her eyes changed.

Now she stood at the foot of a small hill with a dirt road cutting through the middle, covered in leaves and the occasional branches.

She blinked her eyes a few times and willed a snake to appear in her hand to make sure that this was not an illusion or a dream. No snake appeared. This place was neither.

She lightly jumped up and down.

“Ground’s firm. The trees looked real…” she began walking up the road. There were birds flying overhead and the crunch of leaves and dry branches beneath her feet felt and sounded real. And yet…

“Something’s…not right.”

A few meters up the road, she saw a small vegetable garden. Almost ready to be harvested, judging by the colors of the leaves. There were also some old farming tools leaning against the wooden fences made to keep beasts from stealing the vegetables.

She walked along the fences; up a row of very low stone steps, ending prematurely onto stamped earth. In the distance she could see a building.

The building turned out to be an old house, standing near the edge of a cliff. The design was crude and clearly made by inexperienced hands. The wooden walls had been lacquered, but from up close one could see that it was a layer thicker than it needed to be.

The door too, was slanted. With a latch that was a bit too far to the right, thus not able to close tight, which defeats its purpose. That strange feeling became more and more real.

“We weren’t the best carpenter,” she heard an authoritative voice say. “Then again, we had no trouble keeping the beasts away. And that’s what’s important.”

She turned around and saw herself. Or to be correct, her past self.

He said. “Hello, me.”

The old man had a long beard trimmed to perfection. He was wearing a set of plain white clothes similar to what scholars wore in her time. The long white hair showing his age was tied to a bun and set with a writing brush. He looked to be the very eyes of age and wisdom.

“Is this a trick?” the girl began. Her fingers formed claws, aiming to gouge the man’s eyes.

Yet the man caught her arm by the wrist. In retaliation, she launched a kick towards his leg. He raised it to avoid the attack and then kicked back. Connie reacted by jumping using the other leg and kicking back, but she was immediately pushed back to the floor.

“GUH!” She tried to break free, but his hand was clamping to her wrist like an eagle’s talon.

He was overpowering her, but she felt no killing intent from him.

“At the very least, your vigilance and sense of alert are still there. Even with a female body,” he commented. “Huh, it’s so strange looking at such a beautiful visage while knowing that it's me. I cannot help but feel rather aroused.”

Hearing the man’s words, Connie became apprehensive and creeped out.

The bearded old man helped her up and slowly released his grip.

“Wǒ shì nǐ. I am you.”

Connie rubbed her painful wrist warily.“This must be a joke. You are either a parasite or some dream demon who is tricking me.”

“Yeah, that’s me alright. Let’s see, how about I tell you some things that only Wang Tian Gu knows? We once ate a bun off a muddy road when we were a poor scholar. The number of the moles on Cloud Watcher’s back were 67, worst things I had ever seen. And…”

“Stop, stop! Okay, I see that you know some things. But that can easily be found if you can read my mind.”

“How about this then,” the old man opened his palm and revealed a golden 9 faceted cauldron with cloud motifs and the word Tian at the front. A Dao Symbol.

Wordlessly, Connie opened her palm and also called out her Dao Symbol. It was a broken sword circled by a centipede biting into a serpent’s tail biting into the centipede’s tail. There was a gap in the middle as if something was supposed to be there. She had never revealed it, even in the direst of time, as a Dao Symbol was the very core of a Cultivator’s soul.

Connie’s heart trembled. A Dao is unique. And she knew that cauldron. It was supposed to be part of her Dao Symbol. There was no possible way to fake it.

“This is...unprecedented,” Connie finally accepted the truth. “What should I call you then...me?”

“Just as you now call yourself Connie, you can call me Tian Gu. To differentiate me from our old self. Can’t be a king without something to king over, right? Come, let us talk.”

They walked to a set of stone tables and chairs under a gazebo by the cliff. There, a pot of tea was boiling, hanging from an iron hook set above the table. An alchemic fire was burning beneath it.

“Some tea?”

“Of course.”

Connie had drunk some teas in her new world, but she missed the taste of fragrant tea of her old world.

“Here, the taste of tea and the heat are not real. Instead, it came from our memories. This was a memory from that afternoon after our first harvest.”

“Silver Needle Tea?”

Tian Gu scoffed. “Is this a trap? That thing is Fei’s favorite. Ours are Tianyin Tea! Boiled so long that it turned so bitter it made the tongue recoil!”

Connie nodded affirmatively. “Remnants of our old days as a poor scholar trying to pass the government exam. You are indeed me.”

“You still don’t believe me.”

“Just a test.”

The two looked into each other’s eyes and gave approving nods of the head.

Tian Gu poured the tea into two porcelain cups which design had already faded.

Connie accepted the tea and gave it a cursory sniff. She enjoyed the strong fragrance of the tea, took a sip and let the bitter taste fill her mouth. The old man did the same, then pinched a small amount of fragrant tobacco from the red pouch on his waist and put it into a bronze pipe before he lit it with the heat from the alchemic fire.

“Our favorite. Tobacco from Liang Yin mountain mixed with hemp,” he offered the pipe. She took it and puffed on it a few times. A bout of coughs followed the second puffs and she gave it back.

“That body of yours is not used to the hemp, I see. You should break it in.”

“Pfah, I’ll do that when I find a proper pipe,” she cleaned her throat by drinking two sips of her tea. "Why aren't you using our usual pipe?"

"...to use it is to besmirch the wight of our loss. Would you use it if you could?"

“I suppose not. But first thing first,” Connie began after swallowing the strong bitter liquid. “Where are we?”

“A good question. And no. This is not a Soul Domain and not a dream. This is a higher realm. A realm where gods and goddesses sung by Sid reside.”

“Sid. You are referring to the minstrel,” Connie interrupted. “You can see what I see?”

“I can observe what you observe. Sadly, it does not work in reverse. The reason is because we are not in the same plane of existence. That is one of the reasons I called you here. I want us to share our knowledge. I want to know more about this new world you are in, and in return I will tell you my experience in the higher plane. Especially that Soul Binding Cocoon technique. Tell me more about it.”

“You said you can observe what I do, so you should have already known how I do it.”

“I can see but I do not understand. The same way a potter cannot imagine the feel of a new clay without touching it.”

Connie nodded in understanding and began explaining the process and the peculiarities with that she experienced during that act of defiance against the natural order. To break free of Bhavacakra was after all, a heresy and therefore took long explanations.

After listening to her explanation, the man posited a question. “Can you replicate the same thing with another subject?”

“If they have the same qualities, I think I can. The problem is that the person must have a very strong consciousness.”

“We are not talking about Atman, of course,” Tian Gu made an assured comment.

“I don’t know if I totally agree with you. But in my experience, if one does not change, one cannot adapt. And if one does not adapt, one will perish.”

“Hmm…” Tian Gu upended his pipe and refilled it with a serious expression. “I see. It has similarities to what I experienced. In a sense, Illumca had unknowingly experienced Oneness. Though she does not understand it.”

Connie raised an eyebrow, “What you experienced?”

“…it is a long story, perhaps it might have connection with what I think you will ask. You want to know how I came to be?”

“Yes.”

The old man tapped his pipe to get rid of the ashes before beginning. “Have you ever asked yourself what happened to us when we blew up?” He asked, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air.

“Being turned into nothing, I guess? Nothing should be able to survive that kind of explosion of pure Mystic Energy. Even if it was a body tempered to Yang Gu body, Late Stage. Unless, they have a Life-Saving Charm made by an Ascending Heaven Cultivator. And I pasted the only one Cloud Watcher gave me to Baoli.”

“Yes, and no. Don’t you remember what we learned? The Dao is eternal. It stands to reason that it could survive something like that, even if it ended up splitting.”

Connie creased her forehead. “Nonono. What are you saying? A Dao is something that is unique to each cultivator’s soul. If my soul is damaged, I would have felt the loss. I would have lost my memory or be crippled.”

Tian Gu sighed. “Forget the common sense of a cultivator for a moment and listen through the understanding of a practitioner of both Buddhism and Dao. I am not part of your soul. I am part of your Dao I only happened to develop a soul after siphoning a part of the energy you absorbed.”

Connie stayed silent and impatiently gestured for him to continue.

“If the body is a vessel for the soul and the soul cultivates the Dao, then why can’t the Dao cultivate a soul and creates its own vessel? As long as one achieved that moment of perfection, one would become the universe, and in essence become everything. The Soul Reversing Sutra we owned allowed us to do just that. After all, as you said, you managed to achieve transferring Illumca’s soul into another body. That is what I mean by something similar.”

“That’s…chicken and egg. You can’t possibly do that!” she argued. “The Dao is a result of one’s purpose, one’s very being. It is not a soul. And if we are talking about the concept of souls, if my consciousness was not within the Dao, then there will be no sense of individuality. If there is no individuality and self-awareness, how can one achieve self-realization?! And without that, how can one achieve Oneness?”

“There is no need to,” the bearded old man said to calm the agitated girl. “The moment we were destroyed, we achieved that elusive moment. We arrived at a state beyond wakefulness, beyond death. A state where we were truly free of Dukkha, Samudhaya, Nirodha, and Marga. From that, the Dao that was me awoke to a new consciousness.”

Only then did Connie began to understand what Tian Gu was talking about. “Wait, what you mean by that…you have achieved Oneness?”

“Oneness -- or Moksha -- depending on who you ask. But that was only a single moment in time. Even then, that experience was enough to let me glimpse at true immortality. A way to claim Divinity! I am the Universe,” the old man began. He opened his palm and miniatures of stars and planets appeared above it. They looked so real that she became scared of touching it.

“The universe…is me.”

Connie slumped to her seat. “Unbelievable. This is just…unbelievable.”

She was silent for a long time, digesting everything that she had learned. Tian Gu also did not disturb her, choosing to pour some tea for himself and enjoying the scenery.

“Alright. I think I understand most of it,” the girl finally said. “Which leads me to a question. Do you know why I was transmigrated to the body of a girl?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know. By rights, we are supposed to be reincarnated. This is a whole new territory no other had ever recorded. Nevertheless, I have a hypothesis.”

“Go on.”

“The Hero Summoning Rituals. I’d hazard a guess that whatever they did, it managed to tap into the cycle of other worlds and your soul happened to slip into the cracks. In simple terms, your soul managed to escape the Samsara of our world and slipped into the Samsara of another world while the sliver of Dao that became me achieved Moksha. Without the rule or a guide to lead your soul, it simply chose the closest body it detected.”

“Haha. Hahaha! What a riot!” the girl laughed derisively at her bad luck, but then smirked evilly. “Now that I think about it – Moksha -- we, or rather you, have inadvertently achieved the one thing every monk in our world have strived for through meditation and the accumulation of karma and the perfection of their Dharma.”

“Aah, you are right. Imagine their faces if they learned that the most heinous killer in Jianghu had achieved it, heheh.”

“Alright, alright. Moving on. Being able to slip through the crack means that they would have once summoned some people from our world. Which also means that there should be traces of our civilization in the new world! But as far as I can tell, there is no sign of cultivation anywhere here. No, wait…” Connie paused in the middle of her sentence and drank the now cold tea. She looked to her lower right and slowly began to conjecture. “The Old Continent. Sid said that the Old Continent used our language. What if there are actually people from our world there but there isn’t any cultivation because the moment that they are summoned, the rules of the new world is imposed upon them?”

“…a possibility,” he said curtly. “You do not enter the new world’s Samsara perfectly after all.”

“That would make my status being garbled and me being unable to see status screen explainable.”

Tian Gu warned her from jumping into conclusions. “Careful. This is still a hypothesis. Conclusions should only be formed after enough facts and research are done.”

“Since when have we ever did what others do?”

“Hahah! you have a point.”

“But still, I will keep it in mind.”

She steepled her fingers together and looked at the unfathomable self that was Tian Gu and asked. “One thing I need to make sure, though. Once you have achieved Moksha, you can continue to perfect yourself into becoming a Buddha. Is that what you are planning?”

At this question, the man slammed the table, breaking it apart. “Becoming Buddha?! Never!! We are not practicing the two schools because we want to be enlightened!”

“Indeed. That was never our concern,” the girl said with a smile. Now this is more like me.

“In understanding, we are heretics. In practice, we are deviants,” the girl continued.

“We are neither Buddhist nor Daoist,” the old man added.

“OUR DAO IS HEAVEN DEVOURING!” The two of them said out loud at the same time. That single proclamation seemed to shake the heavens as thunder and lightning suddenly appeared in the middle of the sunny afternoon.