Chapter 33: Are You Planning to Become a Monk? (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader Yu Yu!)

After settling the date for their next meeting with Xingchi, Li Miao rose to bid farewell. Having entered the Shaolin Temple at the hour of the ox to engage in a philosophical discourse with Xingchi, he found the conversation had consumed more time than he had anticipated. It was now nearing the hour of the tiger, close to the time he had agreed to meet Zhu Zai.

Li Miao first vaulted onto the roof of the Mahavira Hall, looking down from his vantage point at the Imperial Guard encampment outside the temple. The Commander-in-Chief’s tent was naturally distinct in design from those of the common guards, and Li Miao easily located it. He had previously instructed Yin Minjun to pass a message to Zhu Zai: if the Imperial court’s "Heaven-Man" realm expert was present during the day, a single lantern should be hung outside the tent; if not, two. Gazing down, he saw two lanterns clearly swaying in the breeze. It seemed the expert was absent, allowing Li Miao to breathe a sigh of relief.

With a light push, Li Miao ascended several yards into the void using the Quanzhen sect’s "Heavenly Ladder" technique, followed by three consecutive steps in mid-air using the Wudang sect’s "Cloud-Ladder Leap," carrying him a great distance forward. Finally, employing the Ming Cult’s "Flying Catkins and Green Smoke" technique, he descended upon the Imperial Guard camp as weightlessly as a wisp of cloud drifting through the night.

Inside the tent, Zhu Zai sat with his eyes closed, seemingly taking a light nap, though he was secretly listening intently to the slightest disturbance in his surroundings. As the hour of the tiger struck, the tent flap opened. Li Miao walked in slowly, casting a faint smile at the man who kept his eyes shut.

"Commander, resting?"

"Resting my foot!"

Zhu Zai snapped his eyes open, let out a thunderous roar, and hurled his waist-worn Xiuchun saber toward him. Li Miao caught it with ease. The familiar sensation returned. Back in Shuntian Prefecture, Zhu Zai would pull this stunt every few days. During the months they had spent away from the capital, Li Miao had actually missed this. He pulled up a chair with practiced ease, sat down, propped his chin in his hand, and looked at Zhu Zai with a lazy, sidelong glance.

"Commander, didn't Wang Hai already tell you about my martial arts?" Li Miao said languidly. "Before, when you thought I was merely 'Peerless,' you threw at me with the strength of a 'First-Class' master. Now that you know I am in the 'Heaven-Man' realm, you throw with the strength of a 'Peerless' master. But even if you threw every single saber in the Imperial Guard at me, you wouldn't hit me. Why waste the effort? Don't be angry; at your age, anger is hard on the liver."

Li Miao was clearly teasing the old man. As expected, hearing this only infuriated Zhu Zai further.

"If you were afraid of angering me, you should have been honest from the start! Keeping secrets back in Shuntian, only to cause such trouble once you left the capital—do you have any idea how hard it is to clean up your mess this time? If that person had seen you today and discovered your level of cultivation, we would both be in grave trouble!"

Zhu Zai rose and paced back and forth a few times, struggling to calm his emotions before turning sharply to look at Li Miao. "How many paths have you cultivated now?"

"Three," Li Miao replied nonchalantly.

"How many have you perfected?" Zhu Zai continued.

"One. If I risk my life, I can barely manage two, but I have to drop back down after the fight."

When Li Miao finished, Zhu Zai was momentarily stunned. "Drop... down? Drop what?" he asked hesitantly.

"My realm. Isn't it said that one dies after perfecting all paths? So, I perfect them when I need to fight, and then I drop back down afterward."

"???"

Zhu Zai remained silent for a long while before speaking with difficulty. "If I hadn't been the one to pick you up and bring you into the Imperial Guard, and personally guided your foundational training, I would suspect you were some kind of monster crawled out of a grave. With the mediocre aptitude you had back then, how did you cultivate all this in silence?"

"I was born with divine strength."

"Bullshit!"

"I have a unique, innate talent."

"Bullshit!"

"I am the reincarnation of Bodhidharma."

"...Really?"

"No—" Li Miao could barely keep his composure. "Are you getting senile? You don't believe in divine strength or innate talent, but you believe in reincarnation?"

"Don't talk nonsense," Zhu Zai retorted. "If the Heaven-Man realm were achievable just by having talent, there wouldn't be so few in the world. Your bones are exceptionally good, that's true, but talent alone would only ever make you a 'Peerless' master at best. Most of the martial arts the Imperial Guard has collected are incomplete fragments. Since you cultivated them on your own, what other possibility is there besides being the reincarnation of a god?"

Li Miao sighed helplessly. "Fine, fine. Just assume I am a reincarnation and suddenly awakened to the wisdom of past lives."

That wasn't entirely incorrect. It was a reincarnation of sorts, just from another world. Zhu Zai fell silent for a moment before looking at Li Miao. "So, are you going to become a monk? No wonder you refused to marry even in your thirties, despite all the matches I introduced. So that’s where the root lies. Did you just come from Shaolin? Is Xingchi dying, and are you taking over as the Abbot of Shaolin?"

There was a tone of resentment in his words, sounding like an old man who had finally put his son through university, expecting to enjoy his twilight years, only to find the acceptance letter was from a Buddhist seminary.

"Hey! You old man, you're getting carried away! I'll report you for slandering an official of the court!" Li Miao couldn't help but say. "I don't marry because I don't like being managed. I have plenty of lady friends—seven or eight of them! Some I don't even dare tell you about; if you met them, you'd be the one having to pay your respects."

Zhu Zai pondered this for a long time, looking at Li Miao with suspicion. "You're really not becoming a monk?"

"I'm really not... you old man."

"Sigh... actually, if you really were the reincarnation of Bodhidharma, it would save a lot of trouble." Zhu Zai slumped back into his chair, rubbing his brow.

Li Miao put away his lazy expression and looked at Zhu Zai seriously. "What kind of trouble?"

"What kind of trouble?" Zhu Zai sneered. "A scholar uses martial arts to violate the law, let alone a man of the 'Heaven-Man' realm. Eternal youth, an unbreakable body—who doesn't want that? Doesn't the Emperor want that? Perfecting all three paths without showing any signs of the five decays of the Heaven-Man—who doesn't want to uncover the secrets behind that? Doesn't that person in the sedan chair today want that? You don't bear the surname Zhu, you're not a eunuch, and you have no family—do you think the Emperor will feel at ease with you? Why did Ji Tianrui have to die? Why are there no Heaven-Man experts in traditions like Shaolin or Wudang? There are things I don't know, but these truths are clear if you just think about them."

Zhu Zai delivered the final verdict: "Whether you are a rebel or not doesn't depend on what you want, but on what you are capable of."

Li Miao was silent for a while before looking at Zhu Zai. "That is precisely why I didn't tell you about my cultivation. If I had told you the truth back then, you might not have even let me continue."

"I am not a martial arts fanatic. Practicing martial arts is not my goal, but it is my only means."

Zhu Zai looked at Li Miao and asked, "What do you want?"

"Liberation," Li Miao said. "Come to think of it, I have died twice. Once on the day you found me—I thought I had died, but I inexplicably came back to life. The second time was fifteen years ago at the Ming Cult. Only between life and death can one clearly see their own nature. What I seek is the world of mountains and seas, not a cage."