“It’s true that your feelings for her are real, and yet you care more about your own obsession. So tell me—are you clinging to love, or merely to your own nature?” Lu Yin asked.
Yuan Huo shouted, “That’s not it! Kui Niang has never left this city. She doesn’t understand how vast the outside world is. I want to take her to see the world and the universe! I want to spend a marvelous life with her!”
“To her, the world consists of every flower and blade of grass in this city. Each stream and tree forms her universe. Just by stepping out of her home, she’s already living the most splendid life that she could ever want. That is the life that she desires.”
“No! No!” Yuan Huo roared.
“If you showed her the world and she still wanted to return here, what would you do then?”
Without hesitation, Yuan Huo replied, “I would stay here and spend the rest of my life with her.”
Lu Yin nodded. “Very well. I’ll give you an answer.”
With that, he used karma to manifest Yuan Huo’s experiences and weave them into Kui Niang’s past. In this manner, she lived part of Yuan Huo’s life and witnessed the vastness of the world and the grandeur of the universe through the power of karma.
Kui Niang stepped out from her house once more and went to find Yuan Huo. “Brother Yuan, I saw the glow over Changbao Mountain. It was truly beautiful.”
Yuan Huo was bewildered. “Kui Niang, what are you talking about?”
Kui Niang showed a radiant, beautiful smile. “I also saw that fanged tiger you liked. It was so adorable.
“I saw the desserts of Qinuo City, the waterfall at Meilu, the lights of Bing City, I saw all of it. I saw the waterfall that falls from the Sea of Karma and the winding golden sand seas that stretch across the land. Brother Yuan, you’ve seen all these things before, haven’t you?”
Yuan Huo stared at Kui Niang in disbelief. How was this possible? How could she have seen all those things? He looked back at Lu Yin, but Lu Yin was looking at Kui Niang. “Do you still want to leave with him now?”
Kui Niang raised her hand, gently caressing Yuan Huo’s face. “Brother Yuan, would you be willing to stay here with me?”
Yuan Huo trembled, staring blankly at her. “You... want me to stay?”
Kui Niang nodded with a smile.
Yuan Huo’s eyes flushed red with emotion. “Alright. Alright, I’ll stay. I’ll stay. I’ll stay here with you.”
“Thank you, Brother Yuan.” Kui Niang hugged Yuan Huo tightly.
Lu Yin smiled. Yes, this was the man’s true obsession. He had just wanted to hear that one sentence: “Brother Yuan, would you be willing to stay here with me?”
That sentence embodied all of his obsession.
Yuan Huo had wanted to take Kui Niang away, but she could not bear to leave her home city. They had spent eight years entangled with each other, tormenting both themselves and the people of the city.
Finally, they were free.
The truth was that Yuan Huo had always been waiting for Kui Niang to ask him to stay. That was the true root of the issue, as well as his true obsession.
Not even Lu Yin had realized what the man’s obsession was at first. It was only when Kui Niang had asked the question and Yuan Huo let go that Lu Yin finally understood.
People were shrouded in delusions. There were many powerful cultivators who claimed to be able to see the truth of their obsessions, but was that accurate? If people could truly understand their obsessions, then even an ordinary human could transcend. Why was that not possible?
It was because people could never see the truth of their own obsessions. In fact, the more a person experienced, the less they actually understood it.
What people believed they had seen through was nothing more than the surface of their obsessions. Even with Lu Yin’s cultivation, he had needed both Word Manifestation and the power of karma to see through the obsession that tormented Yuan Huo and Kui Niang. How could others hope to see their own obsession?
That was precisely why overcoming Dukkha was the most difficult path to the Immortal realm.
Only by overcoming Dukkha could one enter the Immortal realm, and yet all creatures remained blind to their own obsessions.
But ironically, it was mortals who were able to overcome such things.
Lu Yin could not decide if such a thing was tragic or laughable.
It was possible that cultivation had always been a backward journey, but it was nonetheless one that needed to be walked.
Isn’t life the same for everyone? We chase fame and fortune, only to ultimately let go of such things. We go full circle, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Cultivation is a circle.
Lu Yin had ultimately seen that his power of Word Manifestation could never truly change the human heart.
Even weaving karma was not capable of altering destiny.
When Lu Yin left the city, Kui Niang and Yuan Huo remained there. They had not left. It was as if nothing had changed.
Lu Yin lounged on his bamboo raft. So then, what is my own obsession? How am I supposed to see through it to overcome my own Dukkha?
After the matter with Yuan Huo and Kui Niang, Lu Yin knew that it would be far, far too difficult for him to see through his own obsession. This was not something that cultivation or experience could help with. What he perceived as his obsession might be his Dukkha, but it also might not be.
Occupied with these thoughts, Lu Yin continued to lay on his raft for three days, ignoring all the requests for his fortune telling.
Only after three days had passed did he finally sit up and write the Obsession (执) character. It was a word that would accompany him for the rest of his life.
...
In the Sea of Karma, Greater Sancte Green Lotus withdrew his gaze, a slight smile touching his lips. The results were even better than he had expected. The child seems to have clearly seen something.
There were some things that might appear to be perfectly ordinary to ordinary humans, but to others, they held extraordinary significance.
Despite how brief the young man’s cultivation journey has been, he still has managed to see such things. Truly, he is worthy of being a chosen one who can comprehend karma.
With this, his desires can be set aside.
...
Another year passed, making it two years since Lu Yin had left the Sixth Night Pillar.
In the Tianyuan Megaverse, an endless sea of bugs stretched out. There were occasions when strange and powerful bugs would tear through the void, leaping from one parallel universe to another. Battles frequently broke out. Human cultivators used either pure strength or technological weapons to eradicate swarms of bugs, and there were times when even multiple parallel universes would be purged, only for the bugs to reclaim them a short while later.
Emperor Slayer sat on a shattered planet, watching the ground below break apart and drift into the stars or smash into other planets. He lay down and thought back to what had happened in the Aevum Inch. This... Is this really what that guy considers “peace”?