Chapter 166

: Lotus Blade
 
Banyue Lake transverse both inside and outside of Yue Tuo, it is because of its half-moon shape that it got its name.
A flash of white light flew past and landed on Banyue Lake, where a good looking lady in white appeared. She was just as Zhuangzi’s ‘A Happy Excursion’ put it, ‘That on the Miao-ku-yi Mountain there lives a divine one, whose skin is white like ice or snow, whose grace and elegance are like those of a virgin’.
Chao Xiaoyu, who like the Miao-ku-yi Mountain’s divine, had a white lotus beneath her feet. Now, there were thick layers of ice covering the entire surface of the Banyue Lake, but just as soon as the white lotus landed on the surface of the ice, a white light emerged. In the blink of an eye, a karst cave appeared on the thick layers of ice, it was so deep that the bottom could not be seen. The radius of the karst cave was three feet wide, it was much bigger than the white lotus. Then, a green carp suddenly leaped out from the waters but it did not expect that it would be on thick ice
Landing on the frozen surface of the lake, the green carp did not stop thrashing around but it still could not return to the melted hole, into the cold but essential to its survival lake water.
Chao Xiaoyu looked at this green carp with indifference, there was not a hint of pity on her facial expression. There were countless creatures being annihilated and newly born in every moment in this world. It is as though there is a line between life and death.
Just like her now, she was also between life and death and on a line. But she was not this carp, she has the makings to fight for her right to continue living.
She did not continue with her escape because there it was not necessary. Shen Lian was no longer the Shen Lian from Shendu. Even when there is not much changes to his temperament, his supernatural powers had already hiked up a lot.
When Shen Lian wants to have a fight with her, there is no use to go to the ends of the Earth. Once this person had set his mind on doing something, he would definitely want to do it.
However, Chao Xiaoyu did not regret her attempt to subdue Shen Lian at Shendu at all. As long as this person could cooperate with her, the result would be better than all of the others from the Nine Lotus Secret Order combined. Towards this group of people, she could simply let go of the believers and the backbones of the congregation anytime and even establish and train them again anytime.
Like the lush grass on the plains, for years, they wither, thrive and get reborn.
In the farthest region, a hurricane came sweeping down and landed a hundred feet away from Chao Xiaoyu. It was Shen Lian who had come.
He did not even bother to cover up his overbearing mana, the Taixu Divin Qi was contained within, but the coagulated Qi of Vitality came sweeping, strength dissipating out from it. The layers of ice splintered and disintegrated inch by inch.
A steady stream of Qi of heaven and earth collected outside of Shen Lian’s body. Chao Xiaoyu’s clothes started to poppled towards Shen Lian. With Shen Lian as the center, it was as though the entire Qi of heaven and earth could feel his calling.
Afterwards, once it has reached a limit, Shen Lian suddenly made a move and a wave of ripples dispersed and the lake water rippled. The light of the daytime fell on the ice, the lake water. It sparkled brightly like uncountable shattered pieces of stars, turning this lake into a brilliant Milky Way.
The white lotus under Chao Xiaoyu’s feet rose and fell, giving her an ethereal mystique.
Shen Lian was different. With the chaos dispersed, his slanted straight eyebrows were fierce, the delicate and fine aura on his forehead already disappeared completely, as though the sword aura had broken out from him and towered towards the sky. It caused the stars to lose its shine and the mountains and valleys shook.
The strong and absolute power and influence of it were like a peerless swordsman, showing his talents.
He was different from Chen Jianmei. Chen Jianmei is all about one sword one person.
Shen Lian is all about driving the sword through the person, to drive the sword with a shape, to drive the sword of the mind and spirit and to drive the sword of the Qi of heaven and earth.
He simply stood with his hands clasped behind his back a hundred feet away. The abundant sword aura in the sky and the land never got cut off. His light blue Dao robes were like the deep and wide blue sky, with unfathomable meaning, it was as though the undefeated celestial monster had descended to the mortal world.
He came to the mortal and he needs to do the things he wanted to do and no one could stop him at all.
Chao Xiaoyu felt the uncouth disposition from Shen Lian, which caused a disturbance within her. She was even puzzled on what did Shen Lian do to have this immense change. As though a fighting saint had appeared.
She did not understand and even did not have extra state of mind to give it a guess.
Shen Lian’s eyes were deep and quiet, as though countless births and deaths took place within, the massacre of life and death followed as a matter of course of the natural law. If he wanted to kill Chao Xiaoyu, it was him doing the heavens a justice, like how the Gods would send massive floods as warnings to the people. Even if you died, you could not blame him.
Even when Shen Lian had this earth-shaking power and influence, Chao Xiaoyu still dared to stare straight at Shen Lian. For these two, the hundred feet distance was as though they were standing in front of each other.
There was light in Chao Xiaoyu’s eyes. It was not daylight but an indescribable gaze. It was as though her psyche had reached its peak and her eyes could brighten everything in the dark, there was no need for starlight and moonbeam, there was even no need for fire or campfire.
This was the spirit condensed by her through the Book of Nine Lotus, it was a physical example of her spirit reaching a peak.
In the beginning, there was Dao, and the Dao was with the gods. [3]
Even though the path of Shen was outside the normal family, but Shen itself was at the same level as Dao.
The indifference from ruling over the beings of the world came from her gaze, it was merciless and absolutely ruthless.
The white lotus beneath Chao Xiaoyu disappeared. To be more precious, it did not disappear per say but a nine petal lotus appeared on her smooth back like a pair of wings. It caused her to float in midair and while she moved simultaneously, her speed was so fast that it was beyond comprehension.
The instrument had mingled with her mind and spirit, as though it was a part of her own flesh and blood. It was hard to separate the two and it could take the form of the shape she wanted at a thought.
One of the ten-petal loti flew out and landed on Chao Xiaoyu’s jade-like exquisite hand.
There was a blade in her hand that was made out of lotus petals, with the galaxy like glow pulsating through it. The Qi dynamic of the two clashed continuously. The sky darkened shortly as uncountable black clouds began to gather. It soon returned to darkness at the break of daylight.
The dark clouds did not come so randomly. With the two powerful cultivators brazenly waiting for each other’s momentum to climb to new heights while at the same time, the Qi dynamic continuously tangled, it was natural to cause such an air flow of the wind and clouds in this universe.
This was known as ‘Sympathic of the Gods and Humans’ in Daoism, it was a sign of the cultivators reaching a degree of being with one with the universe.
If it was the spiritual pressure given out by an extremely tyrannical demon king, it would be very scary when traveling because it was the demon fog that blocked the sun and sky, covering everything, unlike how Shen Lian and Chao Xiaoyu was causing the black clouds to gather together slowly.
There was a distinct hum when the blade appeared, as though there were endless soundings of strings vibrating through the Qi of Vitality and the lake waters. Almost at the same moment, Chao Xiaoyu and Shen Lian both disappeared.
Because it was too fast, the human eyes already could not see clearly, which gave the effect that these two had disappeared.
On the rippling lake waters, there was a rising water pillar in the middle of the shattered ice pieces, which devoured the ice. It then dispersed into endless amounts of little water droplets as it sprayed in a direction. Before it even landed into the lake, it was melted by another strength into more finely and closely water droplets, which later became a thick fog and it coagulated on top of the lake water.
The white fog spread continuously, covering tens of acres of the lake water, even including the shore of the lake, covering the willow trees entirely.
There were rays of sunlight that penetrated through the black clouds, as though wanting this Banyue Lake to not be this gloomy.
But this bit of light was nowhere near the starlights or moonbeams, it could not get rid of the thick fog.

[1] For those interested, the full translated version of this can be found on http://www.24en.com/p/42750.html.
[2] 正如离离原上草,岁岁枯荣,岁岁新生 is modified from Bai Juyi(白居易)’s poem ‘Farewells from Grassland’(賦得古原草送別)
Reference borrowed from John 1:1 of the Bible but I used dao instead of the words to fit this context.