Chapter 1 The Buddhist Concept of Karma

Buddhism likes to talk about karma; all dharmas arise or perish according to the principle of cause and effect. Cause produces effect, and the cause and effect are clear. The delusion and enlightenment of the ten realms are nothing more than a causal relationship.

It's also a coincidence that,

In recent years, the three great massacres that occurred along the Wangjiang River were all intertwined with the indelible karma of Marquis Zheng.

The Yan soldiers who died in the first Battle of Wangjiang perished, body and soul, but their resentment remained. Resentment is an instinct, and over the years, the iron cavalry of Great Yan has conquered all directions, invincible in every battle, relying on this kind of instinct from top to bottom.

Zheng Fan had never worked in the capital nor accumulated qualifications in the imperial court, but his official positions were all bestowed by imperial decree, and his title was also granted by the emperor, legitimate and justified.

Imperial edicts often begin in the name of the emperor, proclaiming to heaven and earth. Heaven and earth represent the deities, ghosts, and the netherworld, and the emperor's will is augmented by the majesty of the heavens.

Most people overlook the fact that the emperor is actually the supreme religious figure of a country, the emperor of mankind, in fact, the supreme deity.

The emperor can enshrine the gods of mountains and rivers, guarding the four directions, and receiving incense. Those not officially enshrined by the imperial jade tablets are considered licentious shrines, and their legal justification is improper.

These principles, normally, have no real impact. To atheists, they seem a bit too formalistic, even a bit ridiculous. After laughing, you turn around and find that A Ming and A Cheng are also smiling at you.

The black cat and the fox currently responsible for playing with Tian Tian in the Pingxi Marquis’s residence, initially stayed by Naiman Wang’s side to absorb his noble aura. After seeing Zheng Fan, the two demon creatures were completely attracted by his aura. In short, the barbarians are declining, and the so-called Naiman Wang, in the eyes of the Xia Dynasty, is nothing more than a bandit chieftain. How can he compare with a "Count" of Great Yan?

Nowadays, Marquis Zheng is even more honored with the title of military merit marquis. This title holds a special sentiment and symbolic significance in the eight hundred years of Great Yan's reign.

Even the Great Prince, with his noble status, would be considered somewhat unworthy if he were granted the title of military merit marquis. He himself feels a little undeserving, which is enough to show what this honor means to the Yan people.

Therefore,

When Zheng Fan raised his arms and shouted,

The resentment of the Yan soldiers was immediately guided by him, rising from beneath the Wangjiang River.

The Great Yan soldiers, starting from the military merit marquis, is an obsession engraved in the hearts of generations of Great Yan soldiers and even the Yan people.

As for the barbarian warriors and Chu soldiers, they have a deep-seated blood feud with Zheng Fan. This is an instinctive hatred. Under his influence, resentment naturally erupts.

For a time,

Countless barbarian warriors roared, wanting to rush over and tear Zheng Fan to pieces, and countless Qingluan soldiers swarmed in from all directions with hateful eyes.

But around Zheng Fan,

Dense ranks of Great Yan soldiers appeared.

They stood in neat formations, clustering their Marquis in the center, roaring and shouting, not showing any weakness.

In fact, they do not know Zheng Fan, but Zheng Fan's identity is enough to command them, and allow them instinctively to protect him, to obey his orders, and to charge and kill under his military orders!

Beneath the Wangjiang River,

A terrifying battlefield relic reappeared, with countless spirits confronting each other.

This is not a true Yin soldiers borrowing a path (a supernatural phenomenon where ghostly soldiers are said to march through the world of the living);

This is a pattern, a realm. This realm is not that realm, it is similar to a flower containing a world.

Zheng Fan cannot take "them" to conquer territories and wreak havoc, because in the eyes of ordinary people, "they" simply do not exist.

You cannot use things that do not exist to influence things that truly exist.

But when Zheng Fan borrowed the power of the demonic pill and became a "Qi Refiner," they all became existent again.

This is a chessboard,

The chessboard of a Qi Refiner.

Once you enter this rule, you can act within this rule, see, and hear;

This is,

The game of insiders.

Kong Shanyang set up a chessboard, attempting to suppress the Sword Saint's realm with this rule.

The original intention of the demonic pill was to open a gap in this chessboard, but the Qi Refiners on Yingdu's side lent their power to Kong Shanyang, forcibly stabilizing this chessboard.

And what Marquis Zheng is going to do now is,

I respect your rules,

Respect this game of chess,

Therefore,

This Marquis will overturn it!

"Great Yan soldiers, listen to this Marquis's order, follow this Marquis, and kill!"

"Hoo!"

"Hoo!"

"Hoo!"

The sound of unified promise came,

At this moment,

Even Marquis Zheng himself seemed to feel that beside him, around him, were countless soldiers loyal to him, protecting him, and acting according to his will.

This is a wonderful feeling, you know it is false, but it feels incredibly real.

Throughout history, countless Qi Refiners have lost themselves in cultivation because of this reason.

But Marquis Zheng felt very much at ease;

He is not a Qi Refiner, to put it bluntly, he is just borrowing the power of his son to wield;

Naturally, there is nothing to worry about, and nothing to be afraid of, as if entering a new field, just enjoy yourself.

"Kill!"

"Kill!!!!!!!!!"

"Kill!!!!!!!!!"

The Yan army's spirits began to charge upwards, and the color of this stretch of Wangjiang River began to turn as thick as ink.

Immediately,

In the darkness,

The sounds of metal clashing and horses neighing seemed to roar from beneath the river's surface.

The woman had already emerged from the water. She was afraid. She was not afraid of her cultivation being completely destroyed, and she was not even that afraid of…death.

People who are truly afraid of death would not directly agree to help their husbands kill the Marquis of Yan.

But in this world, there are really too many things more terrifying than death.

For example, losing one's mind under the impact of this terrifying resentment, becoming a walking corpse. This ending far surpasses being sliced to death.

The woman jumped out of the water. In front of her, she saw countless soldiers roaring and charging upwards.

And when the Yan army's resentment was mobilized by Zheng Fan,

How could those barbarian warriors and Chu soldiers who held an instinctive hatred for Zheng Fan let him go? They all followed suit.

At the bottom of this stretch of Wangjiang River,

It was as if hell had opened a door here!

This momentum, this formation, was comparable to the ten directions of thunder and rain and the manifestation of the black dragon when Zang Fuzi entered the Yan capital!

The people at the nearby ferry only felt that in a distant stretch of the river, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew, ghosts wailed, and on this mid-winter day, there was a sense that a storm was about to come.

When Kong Shanyang saw this scene, his body began to tremble. His gaze looked downwards, then upwards.

He understood,

This,

Would mean what.

Not only himself, but also the fellow disciples in Yingdu who had poured their Qi into this place, would suffer extremely terrifying backlash at this moment!

Once you enter this game,

Life and death are determined!

"Seal, suppress,镇 (zhen)!"

At this moment, Kong Shanyang couldn't even bother to watch the duel between Wei You and the Sword Saint. Instead, he immediately took action, attempting to seal off this area and suppress the resentment that had been aroused from the bottom of the river.

"Kill!"

A roar exploded in Kong Shanyang's ears.

If he had only been observing this scene from afar, then when he took action, it was equivalent to placing himself directly in the center of the countless charging resentments at the bottom of the river.

In front of him,

Were hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had died in battle here. This scene was something that even the strongest martial artists in the world would not dare to face, let alone a mere Qi Refiner?

At this moment, Kong Shanyang seemed to see, among the thousands of spirits, a person wearing armor, holding a Black Dragon flag, standing on a war chariot.

That person pointed forward with a long spear,

And shouted:

"Great Yan forever victorious, Yan army forever victorious!"

The countless Yan soldiers surrounding him shouted in unison:

"Marquis forever victorious! Marquis forever victorious!"

They came rolling in, directly trampling on Kong Shanyang. Then, countless barbarians and Chu people roared and pounced on him, one after another, endlessly!

"Puff!"

Kong Shanyang spat out a mouthful of blood, and blood droplets also fell from his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth.

He let out a wail,

He cried, his whole person was like a madman, his tears and snot flowing, almost insane.

Then,

He watched as the surging resentment surged out from under the river's surface, soaring into the sky!

At this moment,

War drums sounded,

Horns blared,

Thousands of vengeful souls surged out of the river and attacked the heavens!

……

"Puff!"

"Puff!"

Yingdu, Imperial Observatory, inner courtyard.

Dao He Weng was the first to spit out a mouthful of blood, followed by the group of Qi Refiners from Jin, who also began to vomit blood. Some with lower cultivation levels died instantly, but they were the lucky ones.

Those with higher cultivation levels suffered the most tragic "charge" on the battlefield!

"Ah, don't kill me, don't kill me, I surrender, I surrender!"

"Ah ah ah ah ah! Let me go, let me go, let me go!"

"I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong..."

"Wuwuwuwu... Ah ah ah... Mother... Mother save me..."

People who have never been on the battlefield can never imagine how terrifying a real battle can be.

Not a neighborhood feud, not a jianghu (martial arts world) grievance, but a true Asura field, where lives are neatly arranged and then neatly harvested.

Despair, confusion, hatred, slaughter,

Everything, under the urging of resentment, became extremely pure, elevated to an extreme, and naturally, even more terrifying!

In the inner courtyard, the Jin Qi Refiners cried, shouted, and made noise, mutilating their bodies. They were immortals in the eyes of mortals, their walking, eating, sleeping, and every move revealing an air of immortality. At this moment, they were revealing the most primitive ugliness of human beings.

The soldiers of the City Patrol Division rushed in at this time, and these soldiers were also frightened by the scene before them.

They saw Dao He Weng sitting at the head of the table, wailing and digging out his own eyeballs, leaving only bloody, empty, dark holes between his eyes.

What was being staged before their eyes was true hellish torture.

Almost all Qi Refiner sects teach similar rules before disciples enter the sect.

Enter this door, cultivate this path, see this scene, and cherish yourself.

Entering this door allows you to see different scenery, but it also means that you must endure crises that outsiders cannot touch.

"Hehehe, hahaha..."

The eunuch of the Supervisorate laughed,

Thanks to the existence of the Grandfather Eunuch in the palace, the red-robed eunuchs basically all cultivated the art of Qi refining.

He, naturally, could understand why these people had become like this. Although he didn't know the specific reason, they must have suffered a backlash.

He was happy, and seeing the misery of these people made him feel very comfortable.

As a palace eunuch, a slave of the emperor's family, he actually held a natural distrust of the Jin people.

This was not strange. The palace eunuchs also referred to the Great Yan ministers as outer ministers and would instinctively guard against them, let alone people from other countries?

Their gathering here must be for some nefarious purpose.

It couldn't be that,

They were secretly gathering to pray for the new emperor, right?

Hehehe,

The eunuch of the Supervisorate was the first to disbelieve it himself.

The Director was standing beside the eunuch of the Supervisorate, looking at this scene as if struck by lightning.

He was ordered to build the Imperial Observatory in Yingdu, but such a thing had happened. How could this job be done well? The stage hadn't been built yet, and half of it had collapsed?

The eunuch of the Supervisorate glanced at him and shook his head helplessly.

It could only be said that this person's Qi refining cultivation was acceptable, but other aspects were really just so-so, which could be seen from his widespread recruitment of Jin Qi Refiners into the Yingdu Imperial Observatory.

It wasn't impossible to do this, Jin Qi Refiners had to be recruited, otherwise there wouldn't be enough to support them in Yan, but he shouldn't have been so high-profile and even pestered the Prefect to help him issue official letters to invite people down the mountain to join, hehe.

"Director, do you know why the late emperor incorporated our Great Yan Qi Refiners into the Secret Intelligence Division? The late emperor did not allow eunuchs to interfere in politics, and even Duke Wei was always cautious, but he allowed the palace eunuchs to learn Qi refining and cultivate it?"

The Director shook his head, somewhat at a loss.

"Hehe, it is said that the Qian Kingdom is a land of culture, a place where scholars from all over the world aspire to be, but in fact, the back mountain of the Qian Kingdom is the mountain gate most obsessed with and devoted to by Qi Refiners in the world.

The late emperor once said,

Some Qi Refiners in our Great Yan, when they have benefits, official positions, and salaries, can say that they are Yan people;

But once they lose these, they put on white gauze and make finger seals, and really think they are people from heaven.

The late emperor said that everyone in this world can be given dignity, but these heavenly people should be clearly told that they are the slaves of the royal family!"

The eunuch of the Supervisorate reached out and helped the Director tidy up his collar, and also helped him dust off the dust on his shoulders,

And continued to laugh:

"Director, you have good intentions in vigorously recruiting Jin Qi Refiners to join the Yingdu Imperial Observatory in order to build it as soon as possible, and our family will not use this to accuse you of ulterior motives;

But you treat them as fellow disciples, as dao (cultivation) friends;

They only think of themselves as heavenly beings who have descended to earth, coming to your place to pick up a pair of chopsticks to taste a few dishes, and before tasting them, they have already thought about how to say that this dish is bad here and bad there.

In the final analysis, it's because they haven't been hungry enough."

"But... but without them, how will this Imperial Observatory proceed?" The Director almost cried.

"Hey, it's as if the two of us Yan people can stand here today and say these words because these Qi Refiners fought to the death to win it, isn't it still relying on the territory that our Great Yan iron cavalry fought down?

This group of heavenly people is confused and needs to be tidied up properly.

They want to be aloof and dignified, they're used to it;

Little do they know,

They are just a group of slaves of a fallen country who were exterminated by a bunch of soldiers they looked down upon."

The eunuch of the Supervisorate sneered,

And ordered:

"Come, drag all those who haven't died and are mad to the streets, let the old and young of Yingdu see what these immortals look like!"

Saying that,

The eunuch of the Supervisorate also tidied up his sleeves,

And said:

"Also, let the remaining Jin Qi Refiners in this Imperial Observatory take a good look at themselves, what kind of thing are they!"

………

The clouds in the sky,

Initially, they were covered with layers upon layers of lids.

The demonic pill tried to poke through them, but failed;

Thunderclouds appeared, but the thunderclouds were also dispelled.

But as Marquis Zheng said to the demonic pill, when it comes to numbers, we really don't have to be afraid of anyone now.

When it comes to the living, we at least have a "hundred thousand strong army" under our command!

When it comes to the dead,

Hehe,

We are even less afraid.

The army transformed from resentment directly attacked the sky. Kong Shanyang's obstruction failed, and the barrier condensed by him and the many Jin Qi Refiners in Yingdu was directly shattered.

And these resentments that have been aroused will, from now on, dissipate along with the trend.

This,

Is actually the essence of transcending;

Not the souls of the dead, but the remaining resentment.

After a person passes away, relatives perform transcendence for them, seeking the dissipation of resentment and the resolution of attachments, giving peace of mind to the living.

This time, it can be regarded as dispelling the baleful aura of the old Wangjiang battlefield and harmonizing the feng shui of the area.

The Sword Saint has been Marquis Pingxi's neighbor for many years. When Marquis Pingxi travels, he always accompanies him;

Over time, he has naturally become influenced by his proximity.

Marquis Zheng has a habit that the gentlemen also have, and at first, the Sword Saint thought it was really pretentious;

But gradually, he suddenly felt that this habit seemed really good in life.

So far in his life,

There have been three times he opened the second rank, and the memories are still fresh in his mind, belonging to the kind of hearty and unrestrained feeling that deserves a big white cup;

Once, it was before Xuehai Pass, establishing a path for the swordsmen of the world;

Once, it was in Fengxin City, letting Liu Dahu know what kind of person his father was;

This third time,

Is today.

A sudden assassination,

His state of mind went from worry to guilt to uneasiness to entanglement to hesitation,

And now,

That Marquis Zheng,

Actually created such a formation.

Everything before seemed to be all kinds of suppression, only for the final moment of release.

It's like a jar of wine, aged with fragrance, breaking open the mud seal, and gently smelling it, refreshing the heart.

At this time,

Marquis Zheng shouted;

"Yu Huaping, this Marquis has already brought the dishes to the table, where's the wine?"

The Sword Saint laughed loudly,

Pointing his finger to the sky,

The sky above was already pure and without obstruction. The power surpassing the third rank was like a divine guidance from the sky, and the Longyuan (Sword Name) emitted a trembling sound, as if the borrowed glow was showing the brilliance of the sunset in advance.

Under this divine power,

One person and one sword,

Were like gods.

The Sword Saint pointed his fingertip downwards,

And Longyuan fell from the sky,

Immediately afterwards,

Yu Huaping borrowed Marquis Zheng's previous questioning,

And let out a long roar:

"Serve it!"