Wei Zhiruo stepped softly on the freshly mowed grasses wafting of an incredibly delirious scent, calling upon its visitor to come and lay in its embrace and forget of the world – so green, so lush and exuberant; something about all of the meadow in its vibrant youth, and with its many sheep spotting it in their whitened coats bustling about in their mowing works so merrily, and the birds chirping overhead hidden amidst the broad leaves of figs and olives and fluttering ones of jacaranda amidst its blossoming fortunate purple, it all felt and realized a idyllic vestige of some of the worlds softest heart that might have beaten ages back but decided to leave their imprints in this perfection of a creation.
Because it really had all the aura of it – being so far removed from the actuality in its very existence that it could be nothing else than some mellow dream of a nostalgically moved heart.
After stepping into the Temple palace's precincts, this was what had met her in the full wake as if lulling her down to sleep again; but she couldn't sleep - the cold and sticking clothes on her skin were a constant reminder of the falsity of the paradise. Should she have removed that cover and melted in this image that spoke to the deepest corners of her heart? She could, if she wasn't what she was, a hard beaten soul splashed with so many colors of the world that any other was simply a new addition, never a world altering experience. Even the bubbling, frolicking of the brook running somewhere, someplace hidden from view couldn't seduce her to its luring submission.
Wei Zhiruo looked at the bluer than the blue sky, clear of but some idyllically floating clouds. It was a place mesmerizing in its beauty, a landscape enrapturing many a flying sight of poetic idealism, or a silent notice from a drunkard bent on frolicking in unconscious, unreasonable lands in his end of floating sight. She was neither an artist nor drunk. Even though she heard the lyre, the music beguiling her heart she didn't fail to notice the shifting air as well, her feet rooted at the same place since the beginning.
After jumping in the pond and ascending the staircase leading into the hall of the large Artifact, she was immediately led into these wondrous dreams. As there was no other word for it – dreams spun from the deepest, lingering desire of one's heart.
'A Heart Escape Ordeal' – a very famous Array formation that showed one its deepest desires, the gravest wishes and realize it to such perfection that it never felt like an illusion to the examinee. And this particular formation was personally laid out by a Mahayana monk, on the verge of ascending to the God realm. Imagine the finesse, the gripping power; even the most stringent principles could be lulled into delirium with such delicate workmanship.
It all begins with a tingling in the back, then ascends and takes a hold of the dreamer and then impress on them that slipping and enjoying for a while was not an issue of much significance. If one was not on guard against its enchantment there was only one end of that person – immediate absorption into the array plate as a fly caught in the spider's web.
If one was on guard, he will be persuaded a while longer with various changing invitations to the fall; seems ludicrous at front, that he might very well be aware of its falsehood and ready to unentangle his self from the arrangement, but no, the greatest pitfall awaiting him is not the seduction from the imagery, but activation of another layer on the array formation – the runes that will drag down on the spiritual consumption from the person, slowly infiltrating the 'Sea of Consciousness' and then trigger it to lose control. A simple loss of control as such might seem innocent but very clearly he awaits the same fate as the first case, juiced to death.
All very interesting on the paper, but this was the first time for Wei Zhiruo to personally observe a work of ingenious subtlety and mesmerizing clutch hold. She was indeed flattered by the deep arrangements of the Temple owner. Leaving no way to actually exploit – as indeed, no monk of little caliber could emerge in these deep waters and just wade away alive.
'Perhaps they didn't have an inkling of the Blood-race in this part of the universe.'
'Interesting,' she surmised as she took a deep breath of the pure, unfiltered yet pristine air. 'And when she had truly believed that this universe might have some connection with the one she had visited early on, the one she had accidently chanced upon. But this far removes any doubt about that – this was newly unexplored alien-universe, which had remained untouched from the dwindling but ever-present influence and scourge of their blood-clan.'
One thing that all of the blood-clan, removing the various branches they had split themselves into – was the fact that their blood was the life-blood, the medicine, the elixir to their soul and body, the biggest nullifier and void, and simply the greatest tool they had evolved in their deep struggle in the world; every blood-clan was like a plug-in when brought in contact with such generic charms like illusion that worked on principles of influence to Sea of Consciousness or even the body. If she wasn't on guard, that might be a different scenario. But since she had never really let down her suspicions about this whole thing, she couldn't lead a wolf into the doors.
Wei Zhiruo raised her hand a flimsy sheet of blood-colored vapor surrounded her like a coat, wrapping her in its fold.
And then as if the cobweb was swept away by a very industrious hand, unflinching in its intentions – the paradise of idyllic sentiments too shattered into pieces, leaving the little tiny figure of a girl standing alone surrounded in darkness. The cracks which formed in the sky shattered the dream and completely off-set the whole arrangement, no perusal required.
Now, at last, in front of Wei Zhiruo appeared the fruit of her firm and unshaking heart. She wasn't too giddy for this result though. She stood in a hall, surrounded by empty seats. There were mesmerizing motifs etched into pillars and white walls, swirling maidens of heaven, of apsaras bringing down the ambrosia in heavenly vessels, of heavenly maiden's figure fluttering in a march behind the heavenly chariot drawn by Pixiu beasts – heading downward spiraling from the ceiling – that seemed to draw the pious and noble souls amongst humans from their worldly restrictions of morose and mundane thoughts, off into the heaven's embrace; and many more such startling imagery and floating cloud like motifs.
There were statues of pious looking men and women, enshrined.
It was grand as its outward appearance. But not as momentous as the scrutiny she faced when she stepped ardently over the spiraling patterns of colorful etchings etched inside the marbled floors, just under the brightly shining chandelier.
Though, she doubted there would be any light in these walls without the artificial sources like the one shining above her head crafted in gold, and crystals– she liked this particular detail that it did emerge from some observable source. Unlike the gaze penetrating her being which she felt on her face, then on her body and then on her forehead and eyes without knowing from whence. She doubted if the host will stand scrutinizing her for too long, and as soon as such thought had just flitted through her mind, she heard rustling of clothes over the cold stone flooring.
Wei Zhiruo soon came face to face with one of the most enchanting faces she had beheld in all her life – quite uncanny in its immortal beauty too, as if the lustrous lips tender as fresh dews strewn over rosy petals stretched over an arch forming a detached smile, a smile which did enough justice to the porcelain face framed amongst ringlets of liquid golden hair, or the eyes shining in emerald blaze, such green as the viridian forest had glazed its blessing over it or rather finally embracing it in the end decided to leave some of its spirit attached to those peach-blossom shaped eyes, clearer than a newborns; her face was strikingly aloft yet proudly amiable at the same time.
Wei Zhiruo couldn't decide whether the comer had good intentions, but then she wasn't quite expecting a warm welcome or a fine greeting of tea and bread over a hearth full of fire, was she? She looked as impassive as she had been while facing the initial tests at the door of the temple palace.
"Greetings, traveler. It has been ages since someone had stepped over these boundaries and found us. Congratulations indeed, the maker of this palace, you should be made aware by my honor, had never intended such a day to arrive so soon, as the look in your eyes make it very clear you have indeed guessed right. But all of this can wait. I have a present that might interest your kind soul. Look."
An equally enthralling voice fluttered in feathery softness touching the sweetest corners of heart, which to Wei Zhiruo appeared quite identical with a sudden awakening of the brook, and it breaking into a mirthful bubbling melodiously, or even the first call of the early bird in the pre-dawn sky breaking into sweet sleep, breaking reveries; it was a pleasant sound to say the least or even might have been a mesmerizing and lovely breath of fresh air. How heavenly might it sound when they break into a melodious song of good meanings? Wei Zhiruo could only imagine the gravity of that beauty.
Wei Zhiruo admiringly followed the lady in white's moonlight emanating muslin, as she manifested a small ring in her own palms, the black obsidian stone etched in it was strikingly glistening against her palms pale skin.
"A meeting gift, my little friend. Hopefully you will take some delight in this knowledge, or at least, we wish it can aide you in your quest amongst these walls. We have been awaiting, you shall be made to know little darling, waiting since you might not believe how long – for such a miracle as yourself to appear, and for that we have born unknown obstacles to remain standing for that one to be able to meet us sane and not just some dusts flecking through the cosmos – here, take it in your hands, I shall keep you no more. Be fast, my sweet as time waits for no one, even among these timeless walls."
The scentless voice appeared to have been drenched in the most blissfully ripe rose blossoms as if harkening its imminent rot, yet benign enough to stop at the last moment – the moment it blooms with its scents at best and flow with the air in merry breeze in free poise at its best, just a flutter away from falling into decay. If one were to hear that voice sing, it will beg that figure to go on, and keep going on till his last breath as if to say – just a while – just a little longer that the ears delight in thy sweet melody and heart rest in this present blissful repose.
"You are not human. I apologize for being so straightforward in your majesty's presence. Your grace appears too unworldly to be of one of us mortals. You are breathtakingly beautiful."
"Thank you my dear, I am quite pleased you liked my outer appearance." There was still the lingering smile in those lips stretched upward, but at that moment the greens of the eye brightened a shade darker, more like the jade polished a clearer shade greener under a stream by the creek, while the air flirting with her pale golden hair set loose over the shoulder framing her face fluttered more, as if stealing a chance to embrace, or caress that magnificent figure – even the light in the hall seemed to have gathered in those thin strands of liquid gold like hair, stealing away all attention.
"And you might be here in need of something that I can give you, your highness. It appears you do need me to do something for you."
"Oh! Does it appear so clear as that, my little lady? But to me, it appears, you my little darling have plenty of interest in the forgone mysteries of my being and these walls. I had a thought, while I saw you stepping over the greed so copiously present in your kind, that only your denouncement of your present body and soul could have explained that feat – remarkable at your age. But aren't you curious of what I hold here in my palms? Because they do have a connection to you. Should I take your lack of interest as your indifference, if not stemming from your ignorance that is, pardon me."
"Not as much as ignorance, your highness, I can feel what it holds. I have that connection between us even through this distance, I can feel it pulsing in my veins calling me to embrace in the warmth of that kindly tender arms that had nurtured me when I had been but the frailest of beings. I might very well be known to be indifferent to my race than ignorant, no. I am not proud of that fact, yet I speak of it as clear as the day – I am not ashamed of it too. With my character aside, shall I ask if your highness might be one of the noble souls, residing here?"
"Iridean, is the word, in my language little sweet. But people outside seem to call them Mingjun. But don't be too harsh on yourself, dear. You have still much to learn – even your indifference might mellow into sweetest of wines, bespeaking the tenderest of emotions in your long life, as your wisdom has proven you can achieve that – a life longer than most, going against the heaven."
"You are aware that I'm a cultivator?"
She, the lady in white, knows that she can cultivate but appears to treat her as a human? Wei Zhiruo looked at the face so far away up that she had to tilt her head a great deal back to catch the lady's face. It was still as mesmerizing as the first sight, but maybe her words had thawed the emerald coldness in the lady's eyes that now it really broke in sweet smile from the heart (or the closest to taking her in confidence, that cold figure could achieve with its being.)
"Pretty obvious my darling, we all saw your achievements in front of that array, here no soul didn't appreciate your keen heart and unbending back." The lady took Wei Zhiruo's small hand in her own and gently placed the ring in her palm and helped her close her fingers around it.
It was a gentle, flowing manner in which she carried it all that assured Wei Zhiruo that the figure before her, though still very dangerous, was still very affable. The grace and dignity in her poise talked much of her standing in her life before she had walked in these walls.
"May I ask, was it your highnesses kindness that saved a trace of my mother's soul or was it the intention of that person all along, who might have a hand in devising this all?"
"That person being the one who has sent many Mingjun's here in these last few years, you ask? Then no, we had no intention of saving her ourselves, as my child you must be made aware of – that I, or any soul in these walls can have no active intentions or intentions sure enough to act on. Even I will fall in sleep as soon as you walk away from this hall. We are very tired individuals."
There might have been an air of tragedy, in the woman's slow speech or her stoning eyes, as Wei Zhiruo found her heart clenching in the tension. The woman tilted her head and gazed up into the halls dome like roof, spiraling in various motifs and images so graciously carved, so ingeniously etched that they were but a little short of coming to life. It all told tales, but tales which were quite unfamiliar to Wei Zhiruo. In her ignorance she couldn't surmise what all of these things alluded to, the allusion was unclear, the legends were unclear. Many things were still in the dark.
"No, my darling, I can tell you of no more. My time is near, you can go to the seventh door when you do step outside the hall. It is just the right place to know all about this place, it might tell you more than I can in my constricted time. Blessings my child. May you be successful, in all that many had no chance to succeed. You are really lucky, to even have stepped over these floors here. Our wishes will be with you as you go on. Happy return, child. Blessings be on you."
"I wish you sleep a peaceful sleep, your highness." Wei Zhiruo inexplicably liked the gentle woman. She felt a sweet emotion emerging in her heart, as she gazed at the timeless face with aged eyes – perhaps a pity for an innocent victim. Or even bubbling into a well-wishing heart. This might be a fellowship that she was feeling for the first time, but she wasn't sure of anything.
Who could say that the face hadn't played a role in her softening heart, or the unconscious influence of the charm wafting off of the lady's body. But she wouldn't go too deep in that. Wasn't it all innocent at this moment? Wasn't she still a helper in her quest? But she might know more than she let on. For one, there was an oracle in these walls, not this lady, but someone who had found out her purpose ages ago – this knowledge in itself was a testament of his power. But - did he really divine her presence here?
Wei Zhiruo completed her greetings and turned her head away from the lady in white, whom she felt slowly melt away in the ground, as if she were a puddle of water. She didn't turn even when the rustling of the clothes fell into silence filling in the hall, all too suddenly, as if it had happened by accident.
She kept a steady pace as she found the huge entrance to the magnificent hall, where she had appeared. She soon spotted the antechamber leading to another of the halls, staircase spiraling towards second floor of the Temple palace, which had the seven doors she had been directed to. She easily spotted her destination.
The splendor of the murals on walls painted now in contrastingly different style than the one in hall – if the hall could be said to be a dreamy land of pious heart, with resounding traces of religious awakening – then this chamber with luscious images of worldly goods, filled with material bliss, uncountable shining stones embellishing its many corners and pillars full of strong-willed cuts and edges, women dressed in gauzes drawn so realistically in embrace of their lovers, or of winged figures descending down from sky; it was the first time Wei Zhiruo had come in contact with such, lascivious, almost blasphemous in their daring murals style, depicting of what could be summarized as a hedonistic pleasure ground of some men of ages past. Perhaps they had died out as their short-lived pleasures. But this too she couldn't tell clearly. In here she was groping blindly, almost like a village woman let into the most magnificent and peerless of castles on earth and then told of its ancient history - surely, she wasn't to say, I hear ye and know of their value, lay your heart at ease. If anything it would be more like telling the recounter in turn how vexatious all the spendings made her, as the golds could always be used somewhere else like, for more clothing's for that one woman with no clothes on painted in the hall, poor deary, even poorer than her old self.
There were also some very different kinds of seven murals of equal length fixed upon equal distance under the gallery of second floor, all with various level of cheery or austere themes. Some were graver colors than the others, some more cheerful in their bright greens and luscious vermilions; all speaking of different themes but a running parallel in their backgrounds.
There were women taking bath beside lake, a woman weeping under a tree, woman haggling with a flower seller, or women in silent quarters in their inner clothes staring at some distant visitor, a woman embraced by her adoring lover, or a woman crying over a cradle, finally in the last one was the image of a woman on her knees praying with her hair down, her hands joined and eyes closed.
Everything was peculiarly highly defined, and these characters came to life in their sad backgrounds. These seven murals were starkly different from the other etchings, as in they were more modest in content or even the tone or style. She could feel a vague semblance of tension flowing in between the ludicrous gap in themes.
Wei Zhiruo took of her eyes studying those images framed in golden frames, as she slowly ascended one of the spiral stairs, as there were two on both ends of the gallery, arching over the ground floor, secured with balustrade which were even spiraling all around the corridors that could be viewed from downstairs. She picked the nearest staircase to ascend and soon found herself before the doors with the hard choice of choosing – as she found herself, quite adamant on not doing what was told to herself, and with even in face of such care as the lady downstairs had shown her.
There were many doubts in her mind. Doubts about the design of this palace. About the so-called divined signs of her coming here – even she didn't believe a figure similar to herself could appear anywhere near here in anyone's calculation, not even the fates or heavens. She herself had been an accident here. Her being conscious or the fact that her soul had stolen from her universe, travelled through the chaos between two different universes, still surviving intact and then coming here on someone's call – it was too wide a plan full of unexpected surprises, not for anyone who didn't knew her could so minutely devise it, and many who knew her didn't had the luck to remain in the best of their appearances to have this leisure.
The existence of the 'Golden Seal' was her proof. Supposing she hadn't been what they expected her to be, or someone who had fallen in their ploy quite accidentally, then she could easily explain the things that had happened. Someone had wanted a soul from somewhere else to be this Wei Zhiruo, but didn't expect to lay their hands over her soul which had newly escaped the bounds of her own universe. Perfect coincidence, yet not as intentional as the other consideration.
If they knew her past and called her here, Wei Zhiruo couldn't see how that would aid any God or Immortal - because, she had never been known for following in set footsteps. Their blood-kin's who had successfully awakened their talents and joined the ranks of immortal creatures will never be expected to follow in set fate, even on the verge of their death.
She remembered a passage in the common texts for children in her family:
"When the pact was broken, when it was clear that the Veremon's will not follow the accord, they had signed and were adamant on stifling the last trace of the blood-kin in the realm of Silent spirits, the ancestor of fifth lineage ordered a sudden migration of half of the existing family out of the realm.
Unfortunately, it was later found that the Witch clan had also joined the hands of Veremon's and were equally desirous of the 'Common Land'. They had found its existence from a child blood-kin who had been blessed by the marks of ancestor and had inherited the key to it – unfortunately he was found in wrong hands and as such led to his demise and the subsequent attack on the Blood-kin's of Tehr clan.
Finding themselves so hard-pressed of the imminent ethnic cleansing, the fifth lineage ancestor took the onus upon himself to distract the attention with half of the old men and women of the family, while the rest experienced ones and warriors of smaller order will join in guiding the men and women, and young offspring through the cosmic clouds and try to save a trace of blood in such a perilous journey.
By the end of the chase, after the fall of the ancestor and erasure of the half of the clan, it was declared in the various realms around and about, that the God realm had declared the blood-kin's mutinous in their intentions against the world and ordered a chase of first order.
In the chase that followed, it was discovered that even the oracles had joined their hands in divining the traces of blood-clan through an ingenious and equally secretive means and letting them known to the Veremon's and the Witch clan. There were many struggles to get to the depth of the plot or making out the oracle's method in those fifty millenniums of dark, harrowing chase and killing.
This was the beginning of deeper than blood vengeance between the blood-clan and the oracles. There was carnage on both sides. Leaving the ethnic cleansing of blood-kin's, on the side of oracles too, the extent of destruction was equally grand – perhaps the later accounts of those lands painted our clans so horrendously heathenish in our ways owning to that attack, though it can be very well said it was no more than an account settled on both sides, with none the wiser for it.
With half the universe's many oracle families and Witch clan destroyed to a single branch, and Veremon families erased from roots, their secret ways forever destroyed and any clans attached to them always in peril of destruction – the range of influence was so countered that it ended in a new pact from the God realm allowing the blood-kin to move in the universe as they pleased.
It was a feat, on the hands of a bunch of brave souls from there Tehr Bloodkin clan who had been successful in evolving a new practice in their blood – the details of which being so conducive in that harsh environment with the blood-clan members always in the eyes of heaven, always being seen through and chased to death, that it was passed into the 'Holy chambers' of our 'Common land'. It is children, the exercise you practice on your early years called "Seven Souls Eye Retention" which activates in your blood those shielding elements that had been successful in protecting the blood from prying eyes of Gods, immortals and mortals alike.
It should be praised in its ingenuity, as it left behind the Artifacts of "Heaven's Eye Shielding" by miles and miles of distance behind and entered the realm of obscurity, even touching the cognitive edges of our beings. Even after Ten thousand years from that event, there comes no similar knowledge or technique. It has become so ingrained in the blood-kins of all branches that it has been termed as one of our natural instincts – with no record of otherwise being known in the public domain.
The Tehr clan were successful in their attempts at internalizing any such breach from any oracle of the world, any God peeping through their Godly Artifacts, that the subsequent event in the 'Silent Spirits' realm was but a matter of time. Though many knowledge was lost in those eras of war, but many more were added in our library of eternal collections. You might even find the best of the works related to expositions of 'Fate' or 'Heavenly Destiny' and the 'Enforced Destiny' all coming from these eras – all masterpieces in their girth and content."
Yes, this was pretty much the assurance any blood-clan had once they activated their blood-line. Any peeping from external eyes could never find them, to the oracles their existence was a huge blob of innocent nothingness, with possibilities of future so averted from the track that no clue could ever be easily garnered. So, what might have been divined was never her own existence – someone else had a fate with this temple palace. Perfect, now she didn't feel bad in going against the lady in white. What expectations, or wishes? Wasn't it all owing to the identity of being the 'Heaven's Chosen One'? Which she wasn't.
Wei Zhiruo stretched her hands and took a look at the seventh door on the other side from where she stood. She put her small hands on the golden knobs and easily opened the first door and entered it with clear assurance of being ever consistent with her own plans, no interference from any external emotions like 'good-wills' or 'fellowships'.
