Chapter 60 External Elixir: Black and Red Are Still Red
Xu Qiubai instinctively denied it after hearing Shen Cangyu's words.
He was a righteous cultivator from Kunlun, and those dark thoughts were buried deep within his heart, not daring to reveal them to outsiders. As soon as Shen Cangyu pointed it out, Xu Qiubai subconsciously denied it.
"I'm just saying that something like this might happen in the future, so you can be careful," Shen Cangyu said.
She is not someone who likes to avoid prophecies; she always lists out all the bad outcomes and then lists the corresponding countermeasures. If there is a problem, she will solve it and avoid it.
In Shen Cangyu's view, many bad things will not happen if they are avoided or ignored.
She reminded Xu Qiubai to avoid falling into the emotions of anger, delusion, doubt, pride, and greed. She also reminded herself to try her best to control her thoughts.
“The Five Evils are everywhere, not only outside Kunlun, but also within Kunlun,” Shen Cangyu said.
She was telling the truth.
There is Jiang Qian in the outer sect of Kunlun, and she in the inner sect of Kunlun. There are two people in the copper coin eye in Kunlun. It is not impossible that other believers of the Five Evils would appear here.
After all, they had been lurking here for so long, and neither the elders nor the disciples of Kunlun, nor even the deities behind the Daoist arts, had managed to capture them. Kunlun's defenses were far more lax than Shen Cangyu had imagined.
“You spend every day in Xingxiang Hall, so you know Xingxiang Hall best. You need to keep an eye on what’s happening there. If anything seems amiss, come find me, and we’ll figure something out together,” Shen Cangyu said.
Xu Qiubai rubbed his sleeve and said, "We are observing the secrets of heaven. If any major events are to occur in the future, Master will discover the problems before we do."
"If Lady Tianxiang hadn't spoken, would Elder Xu Mei have been able to know and see the prophecy?" Shen Cangyu's eyes seemed to have a penetrating power. "Is it your ability to glimpse the secrets of heaven, or Lady Tianxiang's ability?"
Xu Qiubai's heart skipped a beat.
yes.
If Lady Tianxiang deliberately concealed the truth, they would be unable to see what was to come. But why would Lady Tianxiang conceal the truth? He had never considered this possibility. In his eyes, Lady Tianxiang was a deity, and deities couldn't lie. Deities weren't human; only humans could lie.
"Was the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess transformed from a human into a deity?" Shen Cangyu asked.
"no."
Xu Qiubai replied that as a disciple of the Observer of Heavenly Secrets, he had naturally read many scriptures and classics on the subject, and he knew the origin of the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess.
In the early days, people wondered where humans came from. Humans are born from humans, and humans give birth to humans, but everything can be traced back to its most fundamental source. They began to think about where the first human came from.
They define the origin of the universe as the Tao, and the Tao gives birth to all things and humans, which must be a process.
In this process, they found the mother of all things who could connect with the Dao, with heaven and earth, and who gave birth to humankind. They defined her as a deity, and this deity was the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess.
In their scriptures, they learned that the goddess Tianxiang Niangniang existed in the world, and that among them, someone with exceptional perception sensed her existence. He then recorded Tianxiang Niangniang's messages, thus constructing the Daoist method of discerning the secrets of heaven.
No one has ever questioned the existence of the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess.
However, Shen Cangyu was not a disciple who could glimpse the secrets of heaven. According to their doctrine of the return of all things to the heart, the gods in heaven were all transformed from humans. Just like the Immortal Lord of Kunlun, before becoming a god, he was first a living human being.
Was Lady Tianxiang ever a person?
Xu Qiubai didn't know, because it wasn't mentioned in the book.
The belief system he had built up over the years cracked during his conversation with Shen Cangyu. He wondered, was the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess a real deity? If not, why could she bestow magical powers upon people? If not, then why could he hear her voice?
"If she wasn't a human turned into a deity, why does she look exactly like a human? How do you know she looks like this?" Shen Cangyu pointed at the statue in front of him.
"Why is she described in your records as having a human name, a title, an appearance, and a personality, just like a human?" Shen Cangyu asked, looking at the statue of Tianxiang Niangniang. "You consider her a deity, so you gave her what you consider the most powerful abilities and the best virtues... Are you recording her divine nature, or are you giving a person to a deity?"
At this moment, the Daoist method of "all things returning to the heart" and the Daoist method of "seeing the secrets of heaven" clashed violently.
Xu Qiubai took a few steps back, his heel hitting the corner of the table where the incense burner was placed. The table shook, and the incense burner on the table swayed and clanged.
Shen Cangyu was now frighteningly calm. She wanted to unravel the key to the destruction of Xingxiang Hall and the collapse of the Daoist arts of divination in her memories.
The Secrets of Heaven is the most influential Taoist practice in Kunlun today. It has a long history, deep roots, and a wide following. Even disciples of other Taoist practices will devote their trust to the Secrets of Heaven.
Destroying such a method is no easy task.
But in her memory, something that seemed almost impossible actually happened.
If Shen Cangyu wants to save Xingxiang Hall, he must find the loophole in the Heavenly Secrets Daoist method in order to stop the damage in time.
“You have given all the good things to Goddess Tianxiang, shaping her into the most beautiful image in your imagination. You worship her and give her faith, and she will also return your magic power to you and give back your faith.”
The Heavenly Fragrance Goddess was a deity formed from faith, which reminded Shen Cangyu of the locust tree spirit he had encountered in Nanke Mountain years ago.
The locust tree spirit also has a divine image, and is revered by people as a lucky star immortal. People offer incense to it, and it grants people's wishes. It feeds on human incense offerings, faith, and greed.
Is this similar to the situation of the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess?
Tianxiang Niangniang is a deity created by humankind, and she needs human trust as the source of her divine power.
If one day, humanity's trust in her crumbles, will her divine power decline and eventually disappear and disintegrate?
Trust is a very fragile thing. It is difficult to build trust, but it is easy to destroy it.
Xu Qiubai raised his head to look at the towering statue before him, meeting the compassionate eyes of the Goddess Tianxiang, and asked, "Is what she said the truth?"
But Lady Tianxiang did not answer him.
Tianxiang Niangniang hasn't contacted him for too long. They can no longer communicate through their spiritual senses as they used to. He only occasionally lights incense, and Tianxiang Niangniang will tell him the answer through the burning incense.
Xu Qiubai used to think that the Heavenly Fragrance Lady had abandoned him.
Xu Qiubai suddenly realized that perhaps it wasn't that Tianxiang Niangniang had abandoned him, but rather that she was too busy taking care of herself.
As the five evils gradually spread, emotions such as anger, ignorance, doubt, arrogance, and greed gradually emerged in people's hearts, and their faith was no longer as pure as before.
Some are eager to see results, some are compelled to know the outcome, and some can no longer endure all the hardships, wanting only to reap the benefits as quickly as possible and achieve their goals sooner...
They cannot accept waiting; they use prayer as a tool; they only want to see what they want to see; and everything that does not go their way is condemned as falsehood.
Xu Qiubai had seen countless fortune tellers standing in front of the Third Hall, burning incense again and again, trying to see the outcome change. He had also seen countless people grabbing the disciples of the Incense Hall and saying, "The Heavenly Incense Goddess said I could change my fate, but a month has passed and my fate hasn't changed yet. Is the Heavenly Incense Goddess's word accurate or not? You tell me!"
At that time, Xu Qiubai was thinking that it was fortunate that all the people who asked for divination and prayed for blessings were in the third hall, so at least they did not have the opportunity to reach the first hall and their voices did not have the chance to reach the ears of the Goddess Tianxiang.
She would be very sad if she heard these words.
But Xu Qiubai suddenly remembered that she was omniscient and knew everything, whether it was the way of heaven, the way of earth, or what people said.
She should know what those people were saying.
Life is inherently difficult, and as people grow older, they encounter more and more hardships. They are no longer as pure as they were as children, and the decline of faith and the growth of evil seem inevitable.
Xu Qiubai finally understood why Tianxiang Niangniang's immortal power had declined and she no longer had any contact with them.
No wonder he was born with the ability to connect with the Goddess of Fragrance, and no wonder Elder Xu Mei always said that he was spiritual and the person the Goddess of Fragrance favored the most.
It turns out they were all the same, living by the opinions and beliefs of others. Since he came to Kunlun, he had been the focus of everyone's attention, just like the Heavenly Fragrance Goddess, who was worshipped by thousands.
They were pushed to a high position early on, where all they could see were cliffs. They had no way to rise further; if they couldn't stay in place, they would fall and be smashed to pieces.
Xu Qiubai once vowed that he would definitely leave the celestial secrets and leave Kunlun to find his true faith.
But now he suddenly wants to stay.
"The weather is the energy of the sky, the earth's energy is the energy of the earth, and human energy is the energy of people. You rely on the faith of others as the foundation of your Daoist practices. If you want to maintain your Daoist practices well, you must consolidate human energy." Shen Cangyu said to Xu Qiubai, recalling Ming Zhao's words.
No wonder Xu Qiubai could never master the art of mind, yet his Taoist magic was incredibly powerful and he could do anything. It turned out that his inner core was unstable, so he was practicing external alchemy.
"Popularity? External alchemy?" Xu Qiubai frowned. He had never heard of these words from Shen Cangyu before, and he had never even heard of the term "external alchemy" before.
In the past, he truly believed that his ability to use Taoist magic was entirely due to his own talent. It turns out that the more attention people paid to him, the stronger his external alchemy became?
"No, I killed so many disciples during the classroom assessment. Logically, they should all hate me and be disappointed in me. Why did my Daoist abilities increase instead of decrease after that assessment, or even increase by leaps and bounds?" Xu Qiubai didn't understand. If his external alchemy needed the nourishment of human popularity, then his popularity should have plummeted after doing so many bad things.
"Black and red are still red." Shen Cangyu suddenly remembered a sentence he had seen in the comments section.
Under Xu Qiubai's shocked gaze, she said, "Sometimes, people who hate you pay more attention to you than those who love you. Hate can also bring popularity, it just depends on whether you can bear it all."
The protagonist gains energy through honor points and grows through popularity points.
Could she then compete with him using her honor points?
Since he wants to please everyone and gain everyone's love.
Then she will go and earn everyone's hatred.
After all, hate is deeper, more intense, and more enduring than love.
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