The Path Toward Heaven

Most of the Green Mountain disciples didn’t know that much about music, and those on

Shenmo Peak were even worse at it.

Jing Jiu didn’t know the meaning of this piece of music, but he thought it was ear-

pleasing enough, so he didn’t mind it as he turned to head toward the meditation room.

The Green Girl was listening enthusiastically to the music under the corridor. As she

saw Jing Jiu approaching, she lifted up her face and asked, “Who is this person? His

zither playing is wonderful to listen to, and I have a sort of feeling that is hard to

describe while listening to it.”

Jing Jiu didn’t respond to her as he walked into the meditation room. He came to the

front of the pile of winter quilts and reached out his hand toward the exposed part of the

Snow Girl’s face.

He was rather interested in this kind of high-state being and wanted to study their

structures and find out what made them different from other life forms, like whether she

had a mouth; but…he didn’t do anything in the end, and pulled back his hand.

He didn’t touch the Snow Girl for safety reasons. Though the Snow Girl would wake up

in a few days, it was unnecessary to wake her up ahead of time and make everybody

feel nervous.

Jing Jiu walked to a corner of the room, turned over a few winter quilts and took out the

Green Sky Mirror hidden in them. He stepped over the round window and came to the

lakeside.

The Green Girl didn’t dare pass through the meditation room. She flapped her

transparent wings and turned into a flash of light and arrived by the lakeside after

rounding the whole building.

Standing on the small bridge, Tong Yan’s gaze followed them to the lakeside. He

thought that he couldn’t find the Green Sky Mirror no matter how hard he tried because

Jing Jiu hid it under the winter quilts; his brows were arched.

Nobody dared awake the Snow Girl, which meant no one could find the Green Sky

Mirror hidden under the winter quilts.

Looking at the lakeside, Tong Yan didn’t dare avert his gaze, because he didn’t want to

lose track of Jing Jiu when Jing Jiu decided to run away with the Green Sky Mirror

again.

A dozen sword wills suddenly appeared by the lakeside, forming a formation to protect

Jing Jiu and the Green Girl.

Tong Yan’s eyebrows became thicker, which were more apparent in comparison to the

snowy bridge. He wondered what was going on over there and why the Green Girl was

unwilling to tell him anything.

He pulled back his gaze and looked at the other side of the snowy bridge. He wondered

who the zither player was and what relationship he had with this nunnery and Jing Jiu.

The Young Master Li was playing the zither while sitting in the snow and wearing a

black overcoat. Though his fingers were red due to the cold weather, his zither playing

hadn’t stopped for a second.

The sound of music went over the snowy bridge and quiet nunnery hall and plum trees,

finally arriving at the lake. Stirred by the wind, the lake looked more enigmatic.

The formation could prevent others from seeing what was going on inside, but it could

also let the music stray inside. Jing Jiu reached out his right hand, broke the ice and

snow on the lake, and scooped a handful of water to spray onto the Green Sky Mirror.

Seeing this, the Green Girl felt a bit cold. She folded her wings to wrap herself in them

and squatted by Jing Jiu. “Are you going to sharpen the sword?” she asked.

She had entered Jing Jiu’s body at the Fruit Formation Temple and knew many of his

secrets as a result. So she, unlike Tong Yan, didn’t think the sword Jing Jiu was to

sharpen was the Sword of the Universe.

In Chaotian now, she only had this one peer, so she wouldn’t tell anybody about Jing

Jiu’s secret, including Tong Yan; though she was curious nonetheless.

Jing Jiu uttered “hmm”. Back when they were at the Fruit Formation Temple, he and the

Unicorn had reached an accord; he wanted to borrow the Green Sky Mirror to enter the

Illusionary Realm one more time. It was because he had promised the Green Girl he’d

solve some problems for her. Unexpectedly, he was severely wounded by Monk Duhai,

and as a result, he was truly in need of the Green Sky Mirror. Now he happened to run

into it.

The Zen sects always preached that eating certain foods and drinking a certain cup of

water were all destined. Judging from this event, the saying was somewhat sensible. If

Jing Jiu hadn’t remembered that he had promised the Green Girl and wanted to borrow

the Green Sky Mirror, he might not have been wounded; if he hadn’t been wounded, he

wouldn’t have needed the Green Sky Mirror.

The so-called cause and effect was something like this.

Seeing Jing Jiu rub his right hand against the surface of the mirror, the Green Girl asked

worriedly, “Does this work? Why don’t you try to use the side with the carvings?”

It was evident that this mirror spirit was most familiar with the Green Sky Mirror.

The surface of the mirror was indeed very smooth, so it would be slow and ineffective to

sharpen the sword. But Jing Jiu was not concerned.

He was certain that the Green Sky Mirror was the whetstone he had been looking for

over a year.

The bronze mirror was the best whetstone to begin with; the smoother its surface the

better. The smoother surface of the mirror would be able to sharpen the sword more

perfectly.

“As long as one persists, the iron rod can be ground into a needle,” Jing Jiu said.

“Though sharpening the sword is harder than grinding the iron rod into a needle, I still

believe that I can do it.”

The Green Girl found it hard to understand. Then, she changed the subject by asking, “I

asked you how to become a real human two days ago, and you told me to think on it

myself. I can’t figure it out after thinking of it for two days. If I could figure it out myself,

why would I bother asking for your help?”

Jing Jiu looked at the bronze mirror and adjusted the angle of his right hand before

saying, “The answer is very simple. As long as you think you are a human, then you

are.”

The Green Girl felt bewildered, and exclaimed, “This is no different from deceiving

yourself!”

Jing Jiu pressed without raising his head, “Deceiving yourself of what?”

The Green Girl seemed to have understood him, lost in thought.

“The most important question is why you want to become a human, not a mountain, a

river, a lake, a sea, a flower, a tree, a grass or an animal.”

Jing Jiu scooped a handful of water from the snowy lake and sprayed it onto the Green

Sky Mirror, and kept on sharpening the sword noiselessly.

After a long pause, the Green Girl said, “They are all humans. You are a human, Tong

Yan is, and little Bai Zao is; so I want to be a human.”

Jing Jiu knew that she had already had it figured out, and that she had no need for his

help anymore. He didn’t say anything more.

The zither music came over from the other side of the snowy bridge, adding a sense of

warmth to the cold wintry night.

The Young Master Li came here to play the zither to that horse every night ten years

ago. The horse was eating grass on Green Mountain currently.

It was the Green Sky Mirror that was listening to the music tonight; did it mean that this

bronze mirror would go to Green Mountain?

Thinking of the possibility, Jing Jiu felt contented.

The longevity lamps were hung on the trees by the lakeside, illuminating the nunnery

hall and Jing Jiu’s face.

The formation of the Water-Moon Nunnery insulated the cold intent in the meditation

room. The wind and snow stopped and the temperature rose; the ice on the surface of

the lake broke apart, giving off cracking sounds.

A lotus that had been pressed under the ice and snow last night poked its head out from

the snow and straightened up.

A familiar voice burst out in the deep part of his mind. As Jing Jiu thought about it, he

slowed the rubbing movements of his right hand, and rubbed against the mirror more

gently.

…

…

In the Illusionary Realm of the Green Sky Mirror, the violent wind whistled, and the dark

clouds were thick in the sky. Every half a minute a flash of lightning would emit in the

night sky.

The flash of the lightning was enormously magnificent, extending from the north to the

southernmost part of the ocean for the length of at least ten thousand miles, as if it

would tear the sky apart.

Along with the lightning came the booming heavenly thunders and snowflakes.

The eldest son of Grand Scholar Zhang, wrapping himself with a thick winter coat,

crested the small hill behind his house and swore at the thunder and lightning in the

night sky, with a straight back, both of his hands akimbo.

His swearing words couldn’t be described in words, they were mostly the dirty words

like damning the sky and so forth.

All of a sudden, the sound of the thunders in the night sky became quieter, and the

dreadful and magnificent flash of lightning occurred at a longer interval as the

snowflakes grew thinner

The eldest son of Grand Scholar Zhang was taken aback for a moment, and then

hurried down the hill.

He returned to his courtyard, locked the door and went to bed without washing himself.

He covered his head with the quilt and turned his back to the door, making an effort to

sleep.

However, he couldn’t fall asleep. He kept his eyes open in the darkness under the quilt,

wondering if His Majesty had become the Master of Heaven.

Thinking of this and whether His Majesty had heard his swears, he grew nervous. He

failed to notice that his son and daughter-in-law in the next room had one corner of their

quilt flipped, and he was not aware that the members of the Scholar Zhao family and

many other families in the town were showing signs of awaking from their long and deep

sleep.