Ye Su was on the stage.
Since he was on the stage, he could not be an audience. He had to be dragged into this sad and happy drama and play his role well, even if he was the hero who was destined to have a tragic ending.
The disciples of the Sword Garret stood in front of the stage. They were all injured. But as long as they could stand, they would not let go of the swords in their hands and defend the area in front of them.
For example, the Sage of Sword Liu Bai and Liu Yiqing, the area in front of them was their territory. The South Jin Kingdom had been completely occupied by the Divine Halls of West-Hill, so the area in front of them was their last homeland.
Long Qing knew that they would not give way. He slowly raised his right hand with a black peach blossom between his fingers. He glanced at them with his dark eyes.
These men from the South Jin Kingdom had perfectly fulfilled the promise made by their sect. They fought to the last moment and did not let anyone get close to Ye Su before they all stopped breathing.
They knew that death was coming, but they were fearless. Liu Bai once stabbed Haotian with his sword on the Peach Mountain. They were Liu Bai's disciples and grand-disciples. They inherited the sword style and never forgot the surging Yellow River. Therefore, there was nothing to be afraid of, no matter Haotian's Divine Kingdom or Yama's abyss.
Death did not come immediately. Chen Pipi walked out from behind Ye Su and walked to the disciples of the Sword Garret. He looked at Long Qing and said, "Do you want to destroy Taoism?"
Long Qing looked at the gradually brightening sky and kept silent for a long time. Then he said, "You should know that this is the master's will. I am just carrying it out."
Chen Pipi's question was a bit random, and Long Qing's answer was also a bit strange. It seemed that he agreed with what Chen Pipi said. The war to destroy the New Stream was the beginning of the destruction of Taoism.
In fact, to understand the conversation, one only needed to think about why Taoism could tolerate Ye Su preaching in the human world for so many years and why they did not decide to kill him until now.
Ye Su used to be a World Wayfarer of Taoism, but now he was the most important and indispensable figure of the New Stream. But he also had another identity — he was Ye Hongyu's most respected elder brother.
If Ye Su was killed, Ye Hongyu would definitely betray Taoism. Even if Taoism killed her, the Divine Halls of West-Hill would fall into chaos and even split. Under such circumstances, how could they say that they could defeat the Academy and the Tang Empire? If this war leads to the final victory of the Tang Empire because of this reason, how can the Dao Sect continue to exist in the world?
Long Qing looked past Chen Pipi and the disciples of the Sword Garret and fell on Ye Su. Ye Su was staring at the scroll on the desk, as if he was thinking about something difficult.
"The day he wrote the doctrine of the New Stream, the foundation of Taoism was destroyed by him … Taoism, which no longer needed to believe in Haotian, was too attractive to those stupid humans. No one could reverse this trend, so he had to die. Taoism split? The levee has collapsed, and the flood is overflowing. Are you still stingy with digging soil to fill the levee? "
Long Qing paused for a moment and looked at the dissipating white smoke from the Taoism Temple in the distance. He said expressionlessly, "Not to mention that she is already dead. Who can turn around?"
Yes, the white smoke had already risen, so Ye Su's fate was sealed. Conversely, since Haotian Taoism wanted to kill Ye Su, then Ye Hongyu's fate was also sealed.
For more than a decade, the brother and sister had only seen each other a few times. They did not seem to be close to each other, even indifferent. But in fact, everyone knew that their fates had always been linked. If Ye Su was to be killed, he had to kill them all.
Ye Su picked up the brush and wrote a sentence on the paper. Then he looked up at Long Qing and said, "It's not difficult for me to die. Why do you have to do so many things and kill so many people?"
Long Qing bowed deeply and straightened up. He said, "Senior Brother, you are too modest. Killing you is the most difficult decision to make. Even the Headmaster could not sleep at night because of this. How could Haotian Taoism not be careful?"
Ye Su said thoughtfully, "Thousands of people have to die to kill one person. It seems that I deserve to die ten thousand times."
…
…
More than two thousand Papal Cavalrymen of the Divine Halls of West-Hill rushed in from all the city gates. The armored horses only revealed their eyes and noses, which looked extremely terrifying. The cavalrymen on the backs of the horses were also fully armored. Their black armors were engraved with golden talisman lines, which were extremely dazzling.
According to the tradition of Haotian Taoism, or in other words, the tacit agreement between Haotian Taoism and the Tang Empire, the total number of Papal Cavalrymen of the Divine Halls of West-Hill should not exceed a fixed number. However, after the last war against the Tang Empire, the tradition was no longer applicable. The Divine Halls of West-Hill had greatly expanded their army with the gold and silver resources offered by the kingdoms in the human world. Now the total number of Papal Cavalrymen had exceeded twenty thousand, which was enough to compete with the armored cavalrymen of the Tang Empire.
Two thousand Papal Cavalrymen followed Hengmu Liren to the north to Qinghe Prefecture and were suppressing the rebels who were loyal to the Tang Empire in the City of Yangzhou. Meanwhile, the other two thousand Papal Cavalrymen went straight to the Song Empire from Peach Mountain and secretly followed Long Qing to suppress the followers of the New Stream.
Using such a powerful military force to deal with thousands of defenseless followers of the New Stream and a small number of disciples of the Sword Garret was like killing a chicken with a butcher's knife. It could be said that Haotian Taoism had made a thorough plan. They would never allow Ye Su to live and the New Stream to continue to develop.
The armored cavalrymen were extremely heavy. The hooves of the horses clattered on the streets. When the two thousand cavalrymen moved forward at the same time, the clattering of the hooves became a thunderstorm.
The Papal Cavalrymen galloped at a high speed with a cold expression. They did not care about what they hit. People in the streets tried to avoid them. There were panicked screams and screams of those who were knocked down.
The streets were filled with dust. A few hawkers who luckily escaped from the hooves of the horses huddled outside a tea shop with pale faces. They looked at the cavalrymen galloping away, trembling and speechless.
A middle-aged man who looked like a scholar did not hide in the street corner like the others. Instead, he carried his luggage and hurried on his way. He was covered with dust and sweat. He was heading in the same direction as the cavalrymen.
…
…
Long Qing pointed at the small courtyard beside the square and the pile of firewood in the broken wall. He looked at Ye Su and said, "I spent the whole night piling up the firewood. Please go up there."
Go up for what? Of course not to enjoy the scenery. Though the pile of firewood was higher than the ground and they could see farther, the scenery in their eyes must be red. Maybe it was blood or flame.
Ye Su glanced at him and did not say anything. He lowered his head and continued writing. He said, "Let me finish this paragraph."
Long Qing did not show any impatience because he did not need to. He walked forward. If he waited a little longer, it might become a legendary story in the history of religions. But he did not care about ruining the beauty.
The swords of the disciples of the Sword Garret came forward.
He waved his hand. The spades bloomed and the sword array was suddenly disrupted.
At this moment, Ye Su stopped writing. He looked up and said, "I'm done."
He was not writing notes or the doctrines of the New Stream. He was writing about his travels.
It was not the travel notes he had written while he was escaping from various countries. Instead, it was the travel notes he had written many years ago when he saw the black line in the Wilderness and went to various countries to comprehend the life-or-death situation. The last one was written in Chang 'an several years ago.
In the city of Chang 'an, there was a small Taoist temple. He lived in the Taoist temple for a long time. He repaired houses for the neighbors and saved money for the Taoist priests. He once debated with the Eldest Brother of the Academy and negotiated with the vendors.
What he had learned when he traveled around many countries many years ago had finally blossomed in Chang 'an. The so-called "seeing through life and death" had its true meaning. He had gained a lot, and those gains were officially revealed in front of the Verdant Canyon with Jun Mo's sword. They also gradually took shape as the smell of dirty water in the shabby alley in Linkang City faded.
This was the formation of the doctrines of the New Stream. It sounded simple but was actually complicated. The doctrines of the New Stream were built on the basis of the West-Hill Scriptures and integrated with the ideas of the Academy. Finally, they were determined by Ye Su's writing. There were no books to explain them. Even Ye Su himself only had time to write a few volumes of doctrines. He did not have time to finish this work. So he spent the last time writing this travel.
This travel had a total of 5,041 words. It was only a description without any comments. It only wrote about what he saw and heard. There was only compassion and self-improvement. There was no begging or yearning for the afterlife. It was simple yet not simple.
This travelogue only talked about one thing: being alive.
What was faith? What was the meaning of the believers' faith? Those were the things that needed to be explained by the doctrines. That was the job of the followers. What Ye Su wanted to talk about was just being alive.
How to live, why to live, and how to live happily? This travel did not give any answers. It only pointed out a way through the description of the life in the streets and the nostalgia for the suffering and happiness.
To live happily, one must have faith — faith in oneself.
What belonged to oneself, the Divine Hall to the Divine Hall, the human world to the human world, and Haotian to Haotian.
This was the truth, or the way, that Ye Su wanted to tell his believers.
At this time, he finally finished writing this travel note. He placed the brush on the table and blew a few mouthfuls of air at the ink that had yet to dry on the paper. He spread it out to dry, and it happened to be facing the morning sky. He wanted to show it to the heavens.
He wanted Heaven to see this travel. He wanted Heaven to see the real human world recorded in the travel. He wanted Heaven to understand what the human world wanted and what it did not want.
Long Qing stopped and looked at the paper on the table, feeling a little uneasy.
Ye Su stood up and said to the people, "We ourselves are the way, the truth, and the life. Follow yourself, and you will walk out of the dark valley and get the greatest joy. "
He said this yesterday. At that time, the snow was falling and the clouds were dispersing. The sunlight fell on him and gilded him. Snowflakes decorated him, making him look like a god and a saint.
Today, he said this again after writing the travel. There was no snow, and the clouds in the sky had dispersed. The sky was blue, but the morning light suddenly became brighter, shining on his figure.
He was no longer just gilded. From the eyes of the believers in the square, he was in the morning light, with his back facing the bright red sun. He was the morning light that represented hope.
The tree beside the broken wall of the small courtyard was shattered by the collision of Tang Xiaotang and Long Qing, leaving only a half-foot high stump on the ground. At this time, new branches and leaves grew under the morning light. The tender green branches and leaves trembled in the morning wind, looking delicate but full of vitality.
From the last stroke, or from the time when the travelogue was unfolded for the blue sky to see, or from the sound of reading in the alley, or even from the time when they were in the small Taoist temple in Chang 'an, Ye Su and the New Stream that he founded later represented a certain part of human beings and began to compete with Heaven for the rights, or to say, to ask Haotian to take back the rights that originally belonged to human beings. From that moment on, history was rewritten.
The morning light was bright, the blue sky was white, and the cold wind and snow were nowhere to be seen. The morning sun embraced his body and shone on the entire human world. It looked like a miracle, but it was not. Because this magical scene had nothing to do with Haotian. It was just the integration of nature and an ordinary person. It was his own glory.
The fleeing believers saw this scene and gathered together again. They ignored the intimidation of the divine priests, deacons and cavalrymen and rushed to the front of the platform, trying to get closer to Ye Su.
The morning sun shone on the human world. Ye Su's body was like a transparent glaze, carrying the sunlight and then spreading it to the human world. The light spread to a very far distance and even illuminated the streets in the distance.
Those ordinary people who had just woken up or had not slept all night, those pedestrians who were hiding under the eaves from the Papal Cavalry's iron hooves, all saw the light in the square, saw that person in the morning sun. They were very shocked and somewhat perplexed. They subconsciously moved their feet and walked in that direction. The flow of people gradually converged into a sea.
The thousands of people on the square were believers of the New Stream, so they were more touched and shocked by the scene. Looking at Ye Su in the morning sun, the believers knelt in silence and expressed their respect and love for him.
Ye Su stood in front of the morning sun with his back to the light. He looked at Long Qing, the divine priests and deacons, and the thousands of believers in the square and said this.
His voice was calm, not deliberately fanatical, and his emotions were also calm. He was different from the famous orators or saints in the history of religion. But his words seemed to have some magic power. Every word and sentence floated with the morning wind and shone in the morning light, like an unshakable prophecy.
Long Qing did not stop him because he also wanted to know what Ye Su would say at this moment and what he would prophesy. The believers listened very carefully and attentively.
"When the Everlasting Night comes, the light of the sun will be completely covered, and the sky and the earth will fall into darkness. People will rejoice because that is the real life."
Ye Su's voice floated in the quiet square like the cicadas in the forest, the frogs in the pond, the wind in the cliff, and the waterfall in the autumn, making the world quieter.
In the quiet world, people listened carefully as if they were listening to the teachings of a saint. Then they began to think. Even Long Qing lowered his head and no one knew what he was thinking about.
If this was a prophecy, then … what did it prophesy?
…
…
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