Dao Equaling the Heavens
Chapter 354 - 221: Dao and Heaven Together (Volume One Complete)_3

Chapter 354: Chapter 221: Dao and Heaven Together (Volume One Complete)_3

"He doesn’t have the surname Gu, does he?"

"He has the surname Yu. Do you know him?"

"Have him come here."

The Crown Prince, perplexed, walked out and a half "two hours" later, he came running back with a portly man, a merchant clad in gold and silver, fat-eared and trembling, prostrate on the ground.

He was puzzled why the one sitting on the Dragon Throne was a Cloth Daoist, then he thought of the various legends about the founding of the new dynasty.

"Have you ever encountered an Immortal in the sky?"

The merchant shakily replied, "I, a lowly commoner, do not possess the virtue or ability to see Immortals."

"It’s funny, I have." Gu Wen’s smile grew deeper as if boasting, "I did see one back in the day, and often spent the entire night with her, side by side."

None of the three people present dared to join the conversation; they just listened to Gu Wen recount the past and suddenly fell silent again.

"Jucai, you are not young anymore. It’s time to pass on your position."

The old Emperor’s eyes brimmed with energy, and the Crown Prince could not contain his joy.

Three months later, Jiang Jucai passed away from illness, and the Crown Prince succeeded the throne.

——————————

In the sixty-fifth year of Daxia.

Gu Wen neared eighty and returned to Nanshui, sitting in a hut, his gaze reaching beyond trivial matters.

Only his Fate Diagram within vibrated, shaking loose his once-unfulfilled heavens, peeling away like old paint, stripping away all that he had once taken pride in.

He watched quietly, crying nor complaining, calmly accepting everything.

As the heavens vanished completely, it seemed like a curtain was pulled away, revealing a grand figure behind it, dressed in dark garments, his face unseen.

Gu Wen calmly looked on and asked, "Is this Fate Diagram given by you?"

He nodded slightly, saying, "All beings between heaven and earth have a destiny, only for some reason you had none, not existing within the cosmos."

"So you corrected it by giving me an Immortal Fate Diagram, and now you’re taking it away?"

"A heavy fate is a heavy burden, if you cannot carry it, you return to being a mortal."

A faint, profound sound echoed in all directions, as if the laws of heaven were being declared.

"Every creature in the ten directions has its fate; you were without, and now you have."

With those words, the Fate Diagram vanished completely, and there was no more Heavenly Marrow or Imperial Elixir, and the Saint who maintained the heavens and earth withdrew his gaze.

He had been first under heaven because of his Fate Diagram, now the tide had receded, and he was merely returned to his original state.

The Lord had granted him the Fate Diagram of a Red Dust Immortal, and now he had lost it.

He had endured the humiliation of licking snow off the ground, begging, being subjected to disgrace, kneeling as a slave.

He had withstood being an enemy of the entire world, isolated and without support, hiding everywhere.

He had also endured being trapped at the bottom of a well, losing dear friends, alone.

Losing the Fate Diagram means becoming a mortal?

"Heh... Neither Fate Diagram, Heavenly Marrow, nor Imperial Elixir could create a Cultivation Technique out of thin air for me, nor could they enable me to have insight without feeling. Conversely, what I possess now, why isn’t it all that I have come to understand?"

Gu Wen chuckled, his eyelids half-closed, a brilliance suddenly burst forth within them, shining like the morning sun.

"I have never retreated, nor have I ever deviated from my path. I want to leave this well bottom to witness the vast heavens and earth."

He sat down in meditation and slowly closed his eyes.

"What I have lost is only the Fate Diagram, but what I will gain is the Great Dao."

Day and night alternated, sunlight entered and receded from the hut time and again, and moonlight shone on his face over and over.

The house fell into ruin, rotted wood gave rise to vegetation, autumn fires turned to ashes, and in the following year, new plants sprouted again.

Eight hundred springs and autumns passed in a blink; Daxia perished, a new dynasty stood up, and then that dynasty also fell.

The Daoist sat in meditation, oblivious to the passage of seasons.

Refining Essence and Transforming Qi, refining Qi into God, returning God to the void, refining the void to achieve Harmonization.

Beyond Harmonization lies transcendence, and beyond transcendence lies the Great Dao.

Ninety-nine fulfilled, on top of fulfullment lies further fulfillment, the count of ninety-nine never exhausted.

Above the Great Dao, lies utmost fulfillment.

My body is level with the earth; my Dao is equal with the heavens.

Birdsong and fragrance heralded another spring, and the Daoist, who had closed his eyes for eight hundred autumns, slowly opened them, exhaling his first breath.

And thus, in the Immortal Land, new Spiritual Medicine grew.