Chapter 144: Profound Beyond Words

"Hehe, who else could it be? You are the number one enlightened master of our time. Even Yuan Tiangang and his martial brother publicly expressed their admiration for you. If I don't look for you, should I look for a mortal flesh-and-blood like me?" Fang Xuanling said with a chuckle. The more chaotic things were, the better; the fiercer the conflict, the greater the consumption of strength, and the easier it would be to clean up the mess later. He wished he could push Cai Cong into the fray as well, muddying these treacherous waters even further.

"False reputation, all just a false reputation," Cai Cong said with a shy smile, which made Fang Xuanling want to throw a punch right at his face.

"How are the food supplies prepared? Yesterday, on the way to the military camp, I noticed many small locusts jumping around in the grass by the roadside. I stopped and watched for a while, and the crunching sound of them chewing gave me goosebumps!" Cai Cong asked abruptly. Just thinking about those tiny locusts made his heart tremble. If those things took flight, it would turn into an overwhelming, apocalyptic nightmare.

"The public granaries in many places have already been set up, and they are fully stocked. Why is Heaven treating our Great Tang this way?" Fang Xuanling asked in agony. He could not understand what was wrong with the heavens either; disasters just kept following one after another.

"What I simply don't understand is, since you all knew the natural disaster was coming, why didn't you take preventive measures? As long as we catch the locusts right now, wouldn't everything be fine and settled?"

"This is Heaven's punishment. How can it be resisted by human effort?" Fang Xuanling said solemnly. Ever since their ancient ancestors, whenever the Chinese encountered something they could not understand, they would seek the blessing of ethereal deities. There were mountain gods, river gods, and the sun, moon, and stars were all deities.

After Dong Zhongshu of the Han Dynasty proposed the theory of interaction between heaven and mankind, the mystery and supreme majesty of Heaven were deeply engraved into the hearts of the world. Even when facing such a colossal disaster, people never thought of exterminating the locusts; instead, they expected the locusts to eat the crops while they themselves would starve to death or rely on government relief.

"You guys... These disasters are merely caused by the changing of the four seasons. Last winter wasn't cold enough, so the insect eggs weren't frozen to death, which is why this natural disaster happened. What does this have to do with the Dao of Heaven?" Cai Cong really didn't know what to say. Since ancient times, it had always been like this: these people would rather treat the lives of ordinary people as child's play than dare to violate the will of Heaven and Earth.

"Watch your words! Heaven has spirits. If you show such disrespect to the heavens, be careful of being struck dead by divine thunder!" Fang Xuanling said with a hint of fear, shivering as he looked up at the sky.

"Hahaha... I wonder what Fang Lao thinks the Dao of Heaven is?" Cai Cong laughed heartily. He really wanted to know what the heavens looked like in the eyes of ordinary people.

"The heavens are the rulers of all realms. The destiny of everyone, the destiny of all things in existence, from the sun, moon, and stars above down to the ants and grains of sand below, are all ruled by the heavens. To go against Heaven is to invite divine retribution, and that is something no one can escape."

"I, however, have a different view than you. The Dao of Heaven is merely a set of rules—ruthless, emotionless, and ice-cold. All things in the universe operate under these rules."

"That's right, then! The destiny of all things is arranged from the very beginning. We walk along the path arranged by Heaven until the very end," Fang Xuanling said as a matter of course. Cai Cong could only feel a sense of profound sorrow. This man was one of the most brilliant minds of this era, yet his way of thinking was so heartbreaking.

They dared to dream of shaking up the heavens and replacing the earth, yet they did not dare to kill these harmless locusts, paralyzed by the fear of ethereal divine punishment.

"In my view, the Dao of Heaven only manages the operation of the rules. As long as the seasonal cycles remain undisturbed, human life and death, fortune and misfortune fluctuate unpredictably, and birth, aging, illness, death, natural and man-made disasters keep running—that is the Dao of Heaven. As for the individual encounters of all things, the Dao of Heaven doesn't care at all. Whether you eliminate a disaster or the disaster ravages the mortal world, from the perspective of the Dao of Heaven, this is simply a normal operation, and it will not interfere. Otherwise, when you guys overthrew the previous dynasty, you would have already been blasted to ashes by divine lightning."

When Cai Cong finished speaking, Fang Xuanling's face turned pale with fright. To anyone else, this sounded like profound and abstruse philosophy, but Fang Xuanling only heard eight words: "Are kings and nobles born with a special seed?"

Cai Cong's words directly refuted the theory of the divine right of kings. If this were to spread out, not to mention anyone else, Li Shimin and his family would definitely find a pit in the back mountains and bury Cai Cong alive.

My family has treated you so well, and with a few flickers of your tongue, you went and erased the legitimate right of my family to be emperors. If we didn't finish you off, we wouldn't be doing ourselves justice.

"How dare you? How could you dare..." Fang Xuanling didn't even know what to say. He currently felt that he was in grave danger. In his eyes, Cai Cong's calm face seemed unspeakably eerie, as if in the next second someone would come to cut off his head, and Cai Cong would use his skull to consecrate the flags for a rebellion.

"Fang Lao, why are you looking at me with such an eerie expression?"

"Do you even know what you are saying? Once this kind of theory spreads out, the people of the world will not let you go. The Emperor will want to kill you, and the common people will want to kill you. You will make everyone panic."

For the first time, Fang Xuanling felt that he was truly terrified. When Meng Bao told him he wanted to kill him that morning, he hadn't been scared at all; he had only felt angry.

"You really are something! You always love to cast a dark shadow over simple things. I've said these exact words to His Majesty as well, but he just beat me up and said I was thinking too simply—unlike you, who overcomplicates everything. I said all this simply to ask Fang Lao to submit a memorial to His Majesty, urging him to kill the locusts and save the common people."

"You actually said such things to His Majesty?" Fang Xuanling asked with a face full of shock. He understood Li Shimin too well. As the second son who bumped off his older brother to inherit the family enterprise, his legitimacy was inherently questionable, and it relied entirely on the divine right of kings to prop it up. With Cai Cong saying things like this, His Majesty actually hadn't killed him?

"Our陛下 is destined to be an emperor through the ages, and his breadth of mind surpasses your imagination. He won't slaughter me just because of these words." Throughout history, the only founding emperor who didn't kill any of his meritorious officials was the First Emperor of Qin. Although Old Li Er killed a few people because his subordinates rebelled, he could still be considered quite extraordinary.

"No matter what you say, killing the locusts is utterly impossible. Should the heavens fly into a rage and send down a divine punishment upon our Great Tang, the outcome will be absolute annihilation," Fang Xuanling said in an uncompromising tone. Apart from a madman like Cai Cong, very few people in the Great Tang dared to do such a thing. At the very least, he, Fang Xuanling, did not dare.

"Fang Lao..."

"Say no more. No matter what, this old man will not agree," Fang Xuanling said decisively. He could not afford to take this risk, and neither could the Great Tang.

"If that's the case, then let our New Army handle it ourselves. We don't ask the imperial court for much assistance; as long as you all agree not to meddle behind our backs, that's enough. Whatever divine retribution or karmic backlash comes, I, Cai Cong, will bear it all alone. Even if heavenly lightning strikes from above or ten thousand arrows pierce my heart, I am not afraid."

Cai Cong said resolutely. Seeking Fang Xuanling's approval today was just a test; the main goal was to get the head of the civil officials to agree not to hold them back.

"This old man cannot give you an answer right now. I need to go back and discuss it with Keming and Wuji and the others," Fang Xuanling said after a moment of hesitation. No matter how much Cai Cong guaranteed it, he did not dare to make a unilateral decision on such a matter.

"Very well then. I will write a sacrificial text to inform the heavens, and I, Cai Cong, will bear all the heavenly retribution. But let's make the ugly truth clear first: whoever wants to make a move against me can come ahead; whoever wants to impeach me is welcome to try. If anyone dares to instigate the common people to obstruct my work, I will throw caution to the wind, and you all should know how terrifying it is when we throw caution to the wind."

Cai Cong was resorting to courtesy before force. The most terrifying thing in disaster relief was a lack of support from the common people; that would yield half the results with twice the effort and waste an untold amount of time.

"You're always like this. Every time the common people face trouble, you become utterly ruthless. Whoever dares to block you from saving the people, you kill them. Have you ever thought that by offending people like this, you will find yourself isolated and helpless in the future?"

Fang Xuanling said earnestly and persuasively. This behavior of Cai Cong's was what he and Du Ruhui called "supreme benevolence." It filled him and Du Ruhui with secret admiration, yet also struck them with fear—for someone of supreme benevolence would stop at nothing to achieve their goal.

"Hmph, I am fundamentally different from you people," Cai Cong said coldly. Fang Xuanling nodded; a person who had comprehended the mind of Heaven naturally operated on a realm far beyond their understanding.