Roaming the Four Seas - Chapter 150: The Bitter Sea of the Mortal World

The most distinct difference between the wondrous truth realm and the jade garment realm lies in the perception of human thoughts and intentions.

Having just ascended to the wondrous truth realm, Lin Taixuan's sea of consciousness was not yet entirely stable. Even so, he should never have failed to recognize that the winged fiends were actually illusions cast by sorcery. The crimson glow fiend's control over Bull-Fighting City far exceeded Lin Taixuan's imagination.

Fear and apprehension silently welled up deep within the hearts of the daoist practitioners.

To rush toward death in a momentary surge of righteous fury, wielding all one's courage to fight to the bitter end, leaves no fertile soil for cowardice to grow. However, marching toward death step by step, being slowly eroded until one's dao heart shatters, is far more effective at wearing down a person's willpower. The crimson glow fiend did not merely wish to kill; it wanted to break their spirits.

In a daze, Su Ye felt as though he had returned to the life-and-death trial of Rippling City. It was a situation of irreconcilable antagonism where only the victor could survive.

"Senior Lin, an evil array has been laid out in this city, continuously corrupting our minds," Su Ye warned in a solemn voice.

He had intended to directly command the seven daoist practitioners, but remembering that his current identity was not "Sword Immortal" Su Ye, but rather an outer court disciple of the Yuxuan Sect, he timely cut off his words.

Lin Taixuan extended his right hand, pinched his fingers to calculate, and his two upward-slanting eyebrows involuntarily knitted together.

"The crimson glow fiend has altered the ambient momentum of this city, reversing yin and yang, turning white into black, which works greatly to our disadvantage... Junior brothers and sisters, we must on no account become separated!"

The daoist practitioners cried out in unison:
"We will strictly obey Senior Brother's command!"

Lin Taixuan turned his head to look at Su Ye:
"Fellow Daoist Su, stay close to Junior Sister Chen. If things truly reach a critical juncture..."

He had wanted to tell Su Ye to run for his life, but he suddenly remembered that they were already trapped within the city by the crimson glow fiend; leaving the seven daoist practitioners would instead plunge him into a situation of certain death.

"No matter how the situation turns out, do not run about blindly. If I have any spare strength left, I will surely protect you."

Chen Mu had intended to hurl a few sarcastic remarks, but constrained by Lin Taixuan's command, he did not dare to speak carelessly.

The female daoist practitioner volunteered, saying:
"Senior Brother Lin, I shall look after Fellow Daoist Su and ensure he does not fall into a fatal predicament."

In the end, Chen Mu could not restrain himself:
"A cultivator seeking the immortal dao, yet requiring others to look after him—it is utterly absurd."

"Junior Brother Chen!" Lin Taixuan rebuked him sharply with a stern shout.

A moment of silence ensued.

Knowing that only the seven of them could form the Big Dipper Seven-Star Formation, and that not a single one could be spared, Su Ye chose not to haggle over Chen Mu's offensive words.

Inwardly, he sighed at the fickle nature of the world. Unless one experienced it in the guise of an ordinary person, one could never truly taste such human coldness and warmth. Faintly, he gained a sliver of profound insight.

His seventh spell began to sprout within his sea of consciousness.

"By now, there is no path of retreat left to us. Only by slaying the crimson glow fiend can we leave this place," Lin Taixuan said in a deep voice. "If we cannot kill it, our cultivation ends right here."

Chen Mu proclaimed in a loud voice:
"Senior Brother, this humble daoist is willing to serve as your vanguard and trample down all obstacles."

Su Ye thought to himself:
"Sycophantic to superiors and tyrannical to subordinates—this daoist is truly peerless!"

Yet little did he know that this was merely the common, mundane state of mortal nature.

...

Su Ye's Ten-Direction Dream Domain utilized his formidable spiritual awareness as a guide to create dreams connected to reality upon the foundation of truth. If one slew fiends and demons within this sorcery, their physical bodies in the real world would likewise perish in soul due to the backlash. It bore a striking similarity to how the Master of the Underworld had shattered Luo Qinghong's soul.

Su Ye followed the seven daoist practitioners, slowly moving forward.

Beneath the desolate surface of a spring that should have been brimming with vitality, countless resentful souls lay concealed. They contended and scrambled with one another, desperate to pour out the grief they had suffered to Su Ye.

Su Ye cast aside Chen Mu's mockery, leaving only a single resolve: to exterminate the crimson glow fiend and avenge all the common folk of the city who had perished in the calamity of demons.

With the blood of fiends, he would offer a sacrifice to the departed souls!

The very instant his anger flared, an imperceptible trace of malicious intent rose from beneath the earth, transforming into the evil qi of heaven and earth.

A momentary jolt of realization froze Su Ye in his tracks.

His gaze shifted uncertainly.

"So that is how it is..."

Entrusted with the duty of looking after Su Ye, the female daoist practitioner had kept her attention fixed on him throughout. Seeing him suddenly halt with a drastic change in complexion, she asked, "Fellow Daoist Su, have you perceived something unusual?"

"The great tribulation of the sixty-year cycle... is actually brought about by human hands?" Su Ye's pupils were still trembling.

Hearing Su Ye's words clearly, the seven daoist practitioners could not help but laugh aloud.

Lin Taixuan reined in his smile, stopped in his tracks, and said:
"The sins and resentments of mortals and fiends accumulate within heaven and earth. When the evil qi becomes too dense, it causes the Heavenly Dao to grow dim and weak. Although the three thousand worlds are boundlessly vast, the places where primordial chaos remains undivided are all occupied by immortal families. Since this evil qi cannot vent outward, it can only consume itself inward. When this evil qi gives birth to demonic entities and fiends run rampant everywhere, that is the great tribulation of the cycle."

"So that really is the case..." Su Ye understood instantly in his heart.

"As expected of an outer court disciple; without a master's oral teachings and heart-to-heart transmissions, your knowledge is simply shallow," Chen Mu said, brimming with smugness. "Inner court disciples of the Yuntian Sect are taught the grand trends of the world right upon entering the sect. The gap between the inner and outer courts is not merely a matter of innate cultivation talent."

The sensation of Su Ye comprehending his cultivation technique grew increasingly intense.

He casually replied: "Tracing things back to their origin, it is all the cycle of the Heavenly Dao. Sixty-one sexagenary cycles, a cycle within a cycle..."

The female daoist practitioner looked at Chen Mu, her delicate eyebrows slightly knitted as she said:
"Senior Brother Chen, in this perilous place, you need not provoke him further. If you truly drive him mad, it might not reflect well on the face of the Yuxuan Sect."

Another daoist practitioner softly asked:
"Does any sect truly... care about outer court disciples?"

Another silence fell.

Su Ye swept his gaze across the faces of the seven daoist practitioners, listening to the inner voices within their minds.

Some were consistent both inside and out... others appeared concerned on the surface while secretly harboring mockery behind closed doors...

Within the miasmic fog, while one's cultivated wondrous truth perceptions could be obscured, there was no escaping the discerning wisdom bestowed by the Ancestor of Confucianism.

*Thus have I heard.*

These were the opening words of the Buddhist scripture, the Diamond Sutra.

All comprehension stems from personal experience. Just as everyone knows that hawthorns are sour and sugar-coated haws are sweet, only by tasting them oneself does one truly know just how sour the hawthorn is and how sweet the sugar-coated haw is.

It is not merely imprinted upon spiritual awareness; it also stirs the taste buds.

The idiom "quenching thirst by thinking of plums" originates precisely from this.

Lin Taixuan was untainted and upright, with a pure and benevolent disposition. Therefore, his path of cultivation had been smooth and unobstructed, allowing him to reach the wondrous truth realm at a tender age.

Chen Mu was prone to resentment and jealousy, his thoughts straying down crooked paths. Though he had memorized daoist classics by heart, he never grasped their true essence, and heaven and earth bestowed no fortune upon him. Despite squandering several centuries of lifespan, he remained stagnant in the jade flower realm.

Unwilling to delay the group any longer, Su Ye stepped out onto the path once more alongside the seven daoist practitioners.

As their feet moved and their thoughts shifted, the minds of five of the daoists—excluding Lin Taixuan and the female daoist practitioner—shifted once again. Chen Mu harbored the thought of casting off a burden. Even if it lasted merely for a split second, it could not escape perception.

The female daoist practitioner walked side by side with Su Ye.

Su Ye turned his head and asked her:
"Senior Sister Chen, tell me... what is it that cultivators and fiends fear the most?"

"Death."

"Aside from death?"

"Bearing karmic retribution."

Su Ye turned his head back to look ahead, faint Sanskrit chants drifting within his spiritual awareness.

*[...If a bodhisattva holds the notion of self, of person, of living beings, or of a lifespan, they are no longer a bodhisattva...]*

The illusory figure of the Blue Lotus Bodhisattva flickered within his sea of consciousness. Even now, Su Ye still could not clearly make out her features.

Seeing that Su Ye was lost in thought, the female daoist practitioner chose not to disturb him.

Death...

The torrential sheets of rain that blotted out heaven and earth, coupled with the tragic sight of his senior brothers and senior sister perishing at the hands of fiends, transformed those two terrifying words into a burning, bone-corroding pain...

Sensing the female daoist practitioner's thoughts, Su Ye's final trace of bewilderment dissipated.

The Sanskrit chants in his spiritual awareness receded, replaced instead by the sounds of the mortal world.

"If I die, please do not grieve for me." Huohong gazed at him gently, clad in red attire.

Time dilutes intense emotions, transforming them into an imprint carved deep into the river of life—unforgettable for all eternity.

This was the "Sea of Worldly Bitterness."

His seventh spell quietly took shape.