8mi Chapter 512 : Mochi… This Is the Way of This World
Chapter 512 : Mochi… This Is the Way of This World
Above the firmament, a huge hole was torn open.From within that hole, two hands reached out.
Those hands gripped the edges and tore the opening wider and wider.
Xu Ming lifted his head—and once again, he saw a palace resplendent in gold and jade.
This palace… he had seen it before, and not just once.
Xu Ming had originally thought it was merely a strange phenomenon triggered by some unknown cause.
But now, it seemed that wasn't the case at all.
And this time, Xu Ming could see it far more clearly!
Ninety thousand white-jade steps flickered in and out of sight within the sea of clouds, each stair engraved with the trajectories of the celestial constellations. To the east, the clouds split apart and released ten thousand zhang of rosy radiance. The divine Black Tortoise was swallowing and exhaling the vast ocean, and the hexagrams drifting across its shell transformed the waters of the Heavenly River into sweet rain, sprinkling down upon the double-eaved palace roofs paved with Eight-Treasure Glazed Tiles below.
There stood a grand palace—twelve golden pillars coiled with dragons pierced straight into the dome of the sky. Every dragon scale was inlaid with Kunlun jade marrow. Their eyes were ten-thousand-year clam pearls. When mermaid-silk robes brushed over the ground, they roused the golden-threaded chiwen slumbering within the jade bricks. These palm-sized infant divine beasts instantly turned into streaks of light and gave chase.
Passing through thirty-six moon gates carved with "A Hundred Flowers Paying Homage to the Phoenix," one suddenly heard a clear and piercing phoenix cry falling from the clouds. A blue luan unfurled its luminous tail feathers and skimmed the water's surface—every droplet shaken from each plume blossomed in midair into crystal lotus flowers.
"Xiao Mochi! How dare you!"
A voice of an old man boomed from above the heavens.
Immediately after, eight elders' Dharma Forms appeared across the sky.
They took their positions in eight directions, encircling Xiao Mochi, their eyes filled with fury and incomprehension.
They could not comprehend how such a young cultivator could appear in this lower realm prison—someone who, not yet fifty years old, had stepped into the Ascension Realm!
Even in the ancient age, when spiritual energy was abundant, such a feat would still have been absurdly monstrous!
Xiao Mochi stood at the edge of a cliff, his blue robe shredded and whipped by the gale, snapping loudly.
He gazed at the eight mountain-like phantoms looming within the cloud sea. His fingers lightly rubbed the Imperial Sword at his waist, and the corner of his lips lifted into a faint smile. In his expression there was both a calm of "as it should be" and the serenity of one walking toward death.
"In the end… you 'heavenly folk' still came."
"Xiao Mochi, what you have done cannot be tolerated by the Dao of Heaven. But seeing your virtue and talent, you already have the qualifications to ascend and receive heavenly rewards. Are you willing?"
An elder with a golden beard spoke, his voice resounding between Heaven and Earth. Within ten thousand li, all could hear him clearly.
"Rewards?" Xiao Mochi froze for a moment, then burst into laughter. "I'd like to ask—what right do you have to 'reward' me? Could it be that filthy creatures like you can replace the Dao of Heaven?"
"Xiao Mochi, don't be so ignorant of what's good for you! We are the Dao of Heaven!" another phantom roared.
"Oh? Is that so?" Xiao Mochi stepped forward. "Then come and try."
The scholar took one step forward—vast righteous qi erupted outward, scattering ten thousand li like the whole world was echoing with the sacred Dharma voice of Confucian sages!
The scholar untied his hair ribbon, letting three thousand strands of ink-black hair whip wildly in the wind.
From his robe, Xiao Mochi drew out brush and inkstone.
Unlike ordinary people.
An ordinary person possessed only a single natal treasure—only enough focus to refine one.
But Xiao Mochi was different.
He had two!
One book.
And one set of brush and inkstone.
He dipped into vermilion sand within the inkstone and, with a sweep of his brush, wrote the character—
"Benevolence."
In an instant, azure light shot straight into the sky.
The spiritual energy that had been forcibly drawn away suddenly reversed and surged back, transforming into seventy-two figures holding bamboo slips—remnants of the sages, the righteous might left behind by Confucian sages of all generations.
"You court death!"
A thunderous roar shattered several mountains within the borders of Wu Kingdom. The golden-armored elder at the lead stepped upon a mystic tortoise, and with a wave of his command banner—
The starry heavens appeared in broad daylight.
The other seven Dharma Forms each occupied their positions: some rode blue luan birds, others drove fire dragons. They sucked the spiritual energy within a hundred li into a vacuum.
"The use of ritual… lies in harmony."
Xiao Mochi's voice was clear as chime-stone. His brush danced like coiling dragons.
Verses from the Book of Rites became golden chains that bound the first fire phoenix that lunged forward. That divine bird, forged from the Li Fire of the Southern Ming, let out a shrill, anguished cry. Under the restraints of ritual law, each tail feather shed its ferocity—until it scattered into a sky full of fireflies.
"Suppress!"
A tiger-riding cultivator roared in rage. The bronze chime bells in his hands rang with a soul-destroying immortal tone.
Where the sound waves passed, mountains and stones crumbled into dust. Even space itself fractured into spiderweb cracks, faint blue fissures spreading through the void.
Yet Xiao Mochi remained unhurried. With his brush, he traced the five tones—gong, shang, jue, zhi, yu—and the solemn sacrificial music of the ancestral temple transformed killing sound into endless spring rain.
When Xiao Mochi wrote—
"Music is the harmony of Heaven and Earth,"
that bronze bell was suddenly covered in moss, and clusters of white plum blossoms bloomed upon its striker.
"Confucian Saint…"
At last, the heavenly beings' expressions changed, as those two words surged up in their hearts!
In the mortal world, all qi cultivators followed the same path:
Qi Entry, Mind Clarity, Furnace Burning, Qi Refining, Furnace Foundation, Cave Mansion, Sea Observation, Dragon Gate, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Jade Purity, Immortal, Ascension.
The highest realm known to the world was Ascension.
Above Ascension, there were two legendary lost realms.
Those two lost realms had no names.
Because every Great Dao had its own unique title.
And "Confucian Saint"—was the realm a Confucian cultivator reached beyond Ascension!
How many years had it been…
Since such a cultivator appeared?
How many years…
And now such a genius had emerged!
A Confucian Saint not yet fifty years old!
If he did not enter the Heavenly Court—
Then he could not be allowed to live.
He must die!
Above the heavens, the eight Dharma Forms formed seals at the same time. The Northern Dipper Seven Stars were ripped down into the mortal realm, transforming into seven icy immortal swords.
Finally, the old Daoist who had kept his eyes shut all this time opened them.
Double pupils.
Within them flowed the River of Time itself.
In his hand, the whisk's every silver thread was wrapped in karmic cause and effect.
The elder spoke, his voice like a great bell:
"Sir… would you care to test swords?"
Xiao Mochi smiled calmly, and bowed with clasped hands.
"Xiao will accompany you."
Seven swords forged of condensed starlight pierced toward Xiao Mochi.
The scholar bit his fingertip.
As blood beads merged into the vermilion ink, he wrote one character—
"Mountain."
In an instant, an entire mountain slammed into the heavens.
At the same time, wooden slips inscribed with the grand principles of the Spring and Autumn Annals joined together in the air, forming a colossal sword spanning Heaven and Earth. Upon its blade, four ancient seal characters blazed like a scorching sun—
"Uphold the true record; strike down the wicked."
It cleaved the seven starlight swords cleanly in two.
The Daoist's whisk suddenly expanded violently, silver threads piercing through the void and wrapping around Xiao Mochi's ankle.
In that instant, Xiao Mochi saw visions of his ten lifetimes of reincarnation.
A loyal minister who died by smashing his head against a pillar before the throne.
A common-clothed sage who enlightened a hundred tribes in the barbaric wilds.
A white-robed teacher who played the zither atop a city wall and drove back an invading army.
Each life flickered upon those silver threads, trying to drag his soul into the whirlpool of samsara.
Until the final life—
A man dressed in blue robes.
At the last moment of his life, blood spilling from his lips, the corner of his mouth still lifted in a smile as he looked at Xiao Mochi.
He raised a hand, and with a bloodstained finger, gently tapped Xiao Mochi's brow.
"Mochi… this is the way of this world."
"Victory… and cold."
Xiao Mochi lifted his head, staring at the eight immortal Dharma Forms, and murmured softly:
"This world… I'll try and change it."