Sect Recruitment: I Can See Attribute Entries

Chapter 726 - 727: The Time Has Come

Chapter 726: Chapter 727: The Time Has Come

Wu Wang had asked Yun Li if he had any ideas, but in his heart he held no hope at all.

Yun Li couldn’t even manage surface pleasantries properly—how could he possibly have a good solution facing a situation like this?

"Mortal affairs should be resolved by mortals. Cultivator problems are for us to handle," Yun Li said, his tone airy. "Outside the door stand people with absolutely no cultivation. Kneeling inside the temple are people with absolutely no cultivation. We can’t lay a hand—so can those kneeling not lay a hand either?"

Wu Wang’s expression shifted in surprise. For the first time, he looked at Yun Li straight on.

Yun Li’s gaze drifted to the commoners below as he continued:

"The Buddhist Sect’s blessings are vast. Surely it wouldn’t be excessive to spend a few natural treasures on the suffering people to improve their physiques, would it? And surely it wouldn’t be excessive to forge some hoes and iron tools to distribute for farming, would it? As for whether they use those hoes to till the fields—or to hoe something else that shouldn’t be hoed..."

"I imagine that’s beyond what us cultivators, with our immortal-mortal divide, have any business meddling in."

Wu Wang was silent for a moment in thought, then spoke:

"This is fundamentally the immortal sects involving themselves in secular dynasties. The righteous heavens look down upon us—this isn’t something we can deny just by saying the words."

Yun Li let out a soft laugh, his tone oddly amused, as if imitating someone’s cadence:

"If you wish to promote the Small Vehicle Buddhist Teachings and act accordingly, then naturally it’s the immortal sects involving themselves in the secular world. But if, in your heart of hearts, you simply want to act as a Buddhist cultivator and give these desperate people a way to live—I don’t think that counts, do you?"

"Besides, when you want to accomplish something, how could there be no cost at all? If such a thing truly fell from the heavens, fellow Daoist—would you really dare take it?"

"Fellow Daoist, you must understand one thing: a clay Buddha is supreme inside the temple, but once it falls into the water, it’s nothing but a heap of mud."

"Whether the world sees mud or a Buddha depends entirely on what you do today."

Wu Wang’s gaze locked onto Yun Li:

"Fellow Daoist—who taught you these words? Was it Sect Master Chu? Does he know about the current situation?"

Yun Li regarded Wu Wang’s dead-serious expression. Though the Sect Master and Eldest Senior Sister had indeed taught him, that didn’t stop him from putting on a good show right now.

His tone was supremely leisurely as he shook his head slightly:

"Does it matter? Since I’ve offered you a thought, naturally I hope this matter gets done. What matters now, fellow Daoist, is how you choose to act."

With that, Yun Li turned and strolled away at a leisurely pace.

Wu Wang watched Yun Li’s figure recede into the distance, and within his steady eyes, some unfathomable thought was taking root.

——

The capital of Xuanwu Kingdom.

Li Yingling sat in the seat of honor in the side hall, messages streaming in from all directions.

Chen Baiqing was responsible for helping Li Yingling filter and process the information.

Lin Luoyu was assisting Li Junzi with the final touches of her book.

As for Cui Hao, Li Yingling had assigned him a separate task—continue writing children’s songs.

Naturally, the songs he continued writing were no longer meant to mock Li Junzi, but to praise her.

Cui Hao had written a few mocking songs. Now he would write that many more praising ones.

At the same time, Cui Hao’s idea of combining songs with literacy instruction was quite meaningful, so he was assigned that as well, with the number matching the songs above.

If Li Yingling judged the quality to be mere padding, then what awaited Cui Hao was the Eldest Senior Sister’s particular brand of supervision.

Everyone had work to do.

Only Li Xingtian sat off to one side, watching Li Yingling and Chen Baiqing handle affairs.

He could handle those matters too, of course—just not as quickly or as well as Li Yingling and Chen Baiqing.

These things weren’t his forte to begin with, and there was no need to force himself into the spotlight for the sake of it.

Li Xingtian understood: let the experts handle the expert work.

He picked up the tea Xiao Baiqing had brewed, took a light sip, and let his gaze drift leisurely out the door.

Perhaps because he was always so earnest, this rare moment of stolen leisure went unremarked.

Though he knew the outer sect’s situation changed by the day—with countless people swept up in it—right now, there was a quiet that belonged to him alone.

Though Li Xingtian didn’t handle the specifics, he made it a point to understand the situation thoroughly, lest he drag anyone down when the time came for him to act.

On a mission, one shouldn’t forget the basics of professional conduct.

Over in Cangwu Kingdom, Wu Wang had ultimately given things that small push. But many of history’s most profound transformations often began with what looked like a casual nudge.

A single spark in a vast wilderness was enough to set the whole world ablaze.

The great families had dug their roots for a thousand years—naturally built upon the backs of those below.

A millennium of fury, when deliberately fanned, burned upward.

A thousand years of injustice suffered by generation after ancestor generation now all became fuel.

The great families suffered incalculable upheaval, and Cangwu Kingdom had already mobilized its military to suppress it.

Whether this would be defined as rebellion seemed to hinge on one final question: whether blades would truly be drawn.

The great families naturally pressured the King of Cangwu, demanding the suppression of these greedy rebels.

But those rebels held high the Small Vehicle Buddhist Teachings, calling themselves Buddhist faithful, brandishing the signboard of Great Thunder Temple—hoe in one hand, a crude clay Bodhisattva in the other. The clay Bodhisattva didn’t even look human.

They wore rags. Their only weapons were hoes and sickles that could barely be called weapons.

No one knew, if such a group were truly massacred, whether the Buddhist Sect would really show no reaction at all.

No one knew whether massacring them would cause the Small Vehicle Teachings to spread even further.

But if they yielded, the great families would bear the full brunt of the fury.

Right now, in the eyes of these great families, Li Junzi herself was worth less than a single hair of the Small Vehicle Teachings’ promotion.

Li Junzi pushed her New Policy, but the number of great families it could truly overturn was small. The people who carried the Small Vehicle Teachings, though—they were quite literally digging up graves and uprooting foundations.

Cangwu Kingdom was the cautionary tale.

Now, the great families of Xuanwu Kingdom no longer treated the Small Vehicle Teachings with their previous disdain. They faced it like a mortal enemy.

They went to every length to obstruct its spread—even going so far as to beg and grovel to a number of Daoist immortal sects.

The Xuanwu Kingdom’s great families could only bide their time for now, pinching their noses and accepting the land-tribute arrangement.

They too were watching, waiting to see how the Cangwu Kingdom trial of the Small Vehicle Teachings would ultimately resolve.

If the great families held firm and won by force, then the Small Vehicle Teachings would lose its deterrent.

But if they lost—then that was something worth contemplating.

The promotion of the Small Vehicle Buddhist Teachings, which had started as what seemed like mere faith propagation, had now taken on a completely different shape.

Those great families didn’t cultivate, so perhaps they couldn’t see it clearly.

But Li Xingtian could see it with perfect clarity.

From the very beginning, Wu Wang—this Integration-realm Buddhist Son—regardless of how things turned out, had already lost the option of backing down.

Wu Wang would at the very least not allow the Buddhist Sect to lose on the account of believers having faith in it, even if that faith was impure.

Especially since all of this had been set in motion by Wu Wang himself.

Li Xingtian recalled what his master had said:

Sunk cost would drown a person completely.

Even when they could turn and walk away, they would throw themselves in headlong instead.

Li Xingtian shook his head helplessly.

His master was, in a certain sense, truly terrifying beyond words.

Li Yingling, seated in the seat of honor, suddenly spoke:

"The time has come."Wu Wang had asked Yun Li if he had any ideas, but in his heart he held no hope at all.