A Pawn's Passage

The Western Region Daoist Mansion was an exceptionally unique Daoist Mansion. Under normal circumstances, it should have had a Mansion Master overseeing it. However, since it was so close to Jade Capital, any major incident could be dealt with simply by dispatching personnel directly from the capital. As a result, no Mansion Master was ever appointed there.

If Madam Wu were to ascend to immortality and needed to be assigned an official post, making her the Western Region Daoist Mansion Master would be an excellent fit and by no means a wasted appointment.

That was because the Western Region Daoist Mansion was a troubled region, with influence from the Golden Horde and the Rus Kingdom in the east and the Buddhist Sect from the west.

The apparent cause of the Western Region War several years earlier was the Shamanistic Sect’s attempt to recapture the Daxue Mountain.

The Daxue Mountain had originally been the sacred land of the Shamanistic Sect and was also home to one of the Golden Horde Khan’s Four Grand Palaces. However, in the 11th year of the Great Xuan Taiping Era, it was captured by the Great Xuan Court and the Daoist Order. The Daxue Mountain Palace subsequently became the seat of the Western Region Daoist Mansion. In order to reclaim their holy land, the Shamanistic Sect repeatedly went to war with the Western Region Daoist Mansion.

However, the real reasons were far more complicated. The Shamanistic Sect alone was incapable of standing against the Daoist Order, so they were backed by the Holy Court’s forces within the Rus Kingdom and the Western Region Buddhist Sect. These two institutions had reached a common understanding and had even formed a loose alliance.

This was also the Holy Court’s retaliation against the Daoist Order. After the Daoist Order had united local forces in East Shakya and the Southern Continent, repeatedly frustrating the Holy Court’s ambitions, the Holy Court joined forces with the Buddhist Sect to stir up trouble time and again in Nanyang and the Western Region.

As a result, not only were the overland trade routes virtually severed, but conflicts of every scale became commonplace, transforming the region into a major military stronghold.

Even so, a certain tacit understanding still existed between the Daoist Order and the Buddhist Sect. The two sides avoided direct confrontation, or at the very least, avoided large-scale military conflict. On the surface, the other two of the Three Religions still remained aligned with the Daoist Order.

It was not because the Daoist Order feared the Buddhist Sect. Rather, the Daoist Order simply considered such a war not worth the cost.

The Western Region Buddhist Sect had already been driven into the barren Gobi Desert, a land poor in resources and value. If the Daoist Order went to war with them and won, it would merely be the expected outcome, with little to gain. But if they lost, the consequences would be severe.

At present, the Daoist Order’s primary focus remained on the eastern and southern frontiers, with overseas expansion taking priority. As long as nothing went wrong in the Western Region Daoist Mansion, that was considered sufficient.

However, peace cannot be won through compromise alone. It must be secured through struggle. If someone bullied one nation, which retreated without retaliation, the nation would only get bullied more fiercely the next time. But if the nation struck back hard enough to make the bullies pay a painful price, the bullies would often be far less willing to provoke the nation again.

Under these circumstances, the Daoist Order resolved to launch the Western Region Campaign, concentrating its strength to deliver a decisive victory that would demonstrate both its power and prestige.

Since the region fell within the sphere of influence of the Quanzhen Sect, Sage Donghua personally took command of the campaign. He ultimately defeated the Shamanistic Sect and forced the Golden Horde to relocate its capital three separate times.

At that time, Qi Xuansu was still drifting aimlessly through Jianghu and had little awareness of these events. By the time he joined the Tiangang Hall, the Western Region Campaign was already winding down, and he had only managed to catch its final stages.

After that war, the Western Region had no more major conflicts, but countless minor clashes continued. Backed by the Holy Court, the Western Region Buddhist Sect constantly provoked the Daoist Order yet never dared to wage an all-out war. As a result, the two sides frequently engaged in small-scale skirmishes or covert tit-for-tat struggles behind the scenes.

The Western Region Buddhist Sect had accurately assessed the situation. The Daoist Order and the Holy Court kept one another in check, with neither side willing to make the first major move. The Daoist Order had no desire to commit fully against the Buddhists, while the Holy Court was constantly trying to win the Buddhists over. This allowed the Western Region Buddhist Sect to play both sides. Moreover, it had never abandoned its ambition of reclaiming the Western Region and forcing the Daoist Order into a situation where the Grand Master would have to defend Jade Capital itself. Thus, its constant stream of provocations never ceased.

If the Imperial Capital Daoist Mansion could be described as having too little to do, then the Western Region Daoist Mansion was the complete opposite. Major incidents and minor troubles arose without end. It had to guard against the Western Region Buddhist Sect, the Holy Court, and the Shamanistic Sect, while also suppressing the rampant secret societies operating throughout the region.

Yao Pei’s transfer to serve as the Chief Deputy of the Western Region Daoist Mansion therefore offered plenty of opportunities to distinguish herself.

As Chief Deputy of the Western Region Daoist Mansion, Yao Pei barely needed to concern herself with economic affairs. Unless the overland trade routes could somehow be reopened, the region could never compare with Nanyang economically. The Daoist Order had no intention of assigning tax or fiscal responsibilities here. On the contrary, other Daoist Mansions were expected to provide support, and Jade Capital itself frequently allocated funds to sustain the region.

Under these circumstances, Yao Pei’s role as Chief Deputy of the Western Region Daoist Mansion was fundamentally different from the positions Qi Xuansu and Zhang Yuelu had held as Chief Deputy of the Poluo Daoist Mansion.

Aside from Chen Shuhua’s and Wang Jiaohe’s matters, Qi Xuansu had primarily focused on wind disasters, foreign trade, the Nanyang United Trading Company, and Lion City.

On the other hand, Zhang Yuelu focused on the local gentry who had prospered under the Daoist Order and formed powerful alliances to protect their interests. The old Daoists’ constant struggle with Zhang Yuelu was, at its core, a battle over the redistribution of benefits.

Meanwhile, Yao Pei had to deal with the Cult of Fates, the Lingshan Witch Cult, the Western Region Buddhist Sect, the Shamanistic Sect, the Goddess Society, and countless other external powers. Unlike the internal disputes elsewhere, these were conflicts between friend and foe. The situation was highly complicated. She could neither suppress them indiscriminately nor simply compromise with them. She had to combine military force with political conciliation.

The Western Region Buddhist Sect’s provocations were a strategy of gradual encroachment. One day, they would build a temple. The next day, they would build a platform and begin preaching Buddhist scriptures. The Daoist Order would then dispatch people to drive them away, which the Buddhists naturally refused to accept. Fighting would inevitably break out, though both sides remained relatively restrained. Neither side resorted to artillery bombardments, flying ship support, or deploying large formations. Instead, everything depended upon individual cultivation, often dissolving into one-on-one duels.

Since arriving at the Western Region Daoist Mansion, Yao Pei had dealt with countless incidents of this sort. They had become almost routine.

Under normal circumstances, Yao Pei merely issued orders and did not need to intervene personally. However, today was an exception. What had begun as a relatively restrained confrontation gradually escalated as tempers flared. Both sides continuously called for reinforcements, causing the conflict to grow larger and larger until it began slipping out of control. Left with little choice, Yao Pei had to take the field herself.

When Yao Pei arrived at the site of the confrontation, she found the two camps facing one another across a stretch of barren desert. Not far away was a crude temple that remained unfinished.

Standing at the front of the Buddhist formation was a Buddhist Virtuous One, with an aura of sacred radiance flowing across his face. He wore a bright red monk’s robe with one arm left bare. His skin shimmered with a faint golden glow, making him resemble one of the gilded Buddha statues enshrined within a temple.

Besides Daoist Godly Immortals who had golden bodies, Buddhist Bhikkhus also possessed a golden body. The two shared many similarities but were not identical. Once a Buddhist Golden Body was perfected, it became as immovable as a mountain, unyielding and incapable of retreat. When cultivated to its utmost limits, it was in no way inferior to the physique of a Manly Immortal.

This monk had clearly mastered the golden body. He stood like an immovable mountain, gazing down upon all living beings.

Hanging across the monk’s chest was a string of prayer beads made of bone, each as large as a clenched fist. A closer look revealed that every bead had been refined from a human skull through a secret technique. The cavities within the skulls had been filled with gemstones, agate, and other materials from the Buddhist’s Seven Treasures, causing each bead to gleam with a brilliant radiance.

These human-skull prayer beads were unique to the Western Region Buddhist Sect. After a monk peacefully entered nirvana, a sky burial was performed, with the body offered to vultures in emulation of the Buddha’s compassionate act of cutting his own flesh to feed a starving eagle. The remaining bones were then fashioned into ritual tools. Every single bead was carved from the skull of an eminent monk. Thus, the 21 beads hanging around this monk’s neck required the remains of 21 monks at the Heavenly-Being level before they could be completed, demonstrating just how extraordinarily rare such a treasure was.

The cultivation methods of the Western Region Buddhist Sect had always differed fundamentally from those of the Central Plains Buddhist Sect. Even after the Daoist Order had absorbed and integrated many Buddhist traditions, it still could not fully encompass the unique practices of the Western Region Buddhists.

Although the Western Region Buddhist Sect originated from Buddhism, after spreading into the grasslands and the Western Region, it gradually merged with the Shamanistic Sect, which was derived from the Ancient Wuist Sect. Through these successive transformations, the Western Region Buddhists developed a unique method of transmission. A master’s cultivation was directly passed down to the next generation of disciples and repeated over the generations. This unbroken lineage allowed the Western Region Buddhist Sect to remain standing even as the other Buddhist Sects declined.

In Yao Pei’s perception, the monk before her possessed a Zaohua-stage cultivation. However, his aura seemed strangely detached and unstable. Unlike a genuine Zaohua-stage Heavenly Being, whose cultivation was perfectly integrated and flawless, this monk had clearly reached his present level through external means. Presumably, this was the result of the so-called inherited cultivation.

This cultivation method placed one’s entire cultivation within the physical body, directly contradicting the teachings of Central Plains Buddhism, which regarded the flesh as nothing more than a sack of skin and sought transcendence beyond the physical body.

The physical body was the human shell possessing a nose, eyes, mouth, ears, a rounded head upon a square frame, arms, and legs—a body with tangible form and substance. It was precisely the physique that Martial Arts Practitioners temper through countless refinements.

It was precisely because the Western Region Buddhist Sect placed such overwhelming emphasis on the physical body that it had once been denounced by the Central Plains Buddhist Sect as heretical and deviant. Yet today, with the Central Plains Buddhist Sect having fallen into decline, it was instead the Western Region Buddhist Sect that had become the orthodox tradition.

The Central Plains Buddhist Sect regarded the seven bodily orifices as mere holes, the four limbs as lifeless wooden joints, the skin and flesh as festering sores, and the five internal organs as nothing more than diseased tumors. One was to cast aside this physical body entirely and seek the True Body, which was without form.

If one remained deluded, mistaking the physical body for one’s true self, taking the false as true and the illusory as real, then one’s life force would be destroyed by the external distractions and internal woes.

Everything in this world that possessed form was destined to perish. If one clung to this illusory physical body while failing to seek the true nature of life and existence, then when one’s allotted lifespan finally came to an end, what defined the self?

In other words, if one could not attain an undying body, then the physical form was nothing more than a sack of flesh, a garment to be discarded at will. This was why the Central Plains Buddhists regarded the body with disdain, referring to it merely as the physical body.

Likewise, the Godly Immortals and Ghostly Immortals of the Daoist Order held the physical body in low regard, abandoning it altogether. The former golden bodies were forged through divine power, while the latter projected their souls from their bodies, as though taking off the clothes they wore. Even Earthly Immortals and Heavenly Immortals underwent a complete rebirth, shedding their mortal bodies as though changing into a new set of garments.

Only the Manly Immortal lineage broke through the boundary between mortal and immortal with the physical body itself, using the body as a vessel to cross the Sea of Suffering and reach the opposite shore, thereby attaining immortality.

After Yao Pei revealed herself, the monk first intoned a Buddhist invocation before speaking in an unpolished Central Plains official speech. “I never expected that you would come in person, Sage Yao.”

The monk’s voice sounded like a tolling bell, thunderous enough to awaken the deaf. The rolling waves of sound were so powerful they seemed almost tangible.

This was the Buddhist Lion’s Roar. When cultivated to its highest level, it could do far more than simply shake the mind. The sheer force of a single roar was capable of injuring the soul itself. At best, it would destabilize one’s soul and shatter one’s sanity, reducing the victim to a madman or an idiot. At worst, it could disperse the soul entirely, leaving behind nothing but a walking corpse. In that regard, it bore considerable resemblance to the Manly Immortal’s Blood Roar.

However, Yao Pei remained completely unaffected. Her expression barely changed, still as lifeless as ever. She simply said, “What do you want?”

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