Chapter Forty-Nine: The Final Sermon on the Grasslands
Three months later, atop the hill where Liaochen had once fought the Asura, there appeared a delicate and compact Daoist temple. Within its main hall, the Three Pure Ones were still venerated; the side halls were dedicated to the Lords of the Northern Dipper, the Emperor of the Eastern Florescence, as well as Lü Chunyang and Zhong Quanli. Behind the temple, nestled in a bamboo grove, stood the Spirit Infant Hall, its shelves crowded with dolls sporting oversized heads. This place was established as a shrine for the unfortunate infants of the grasslands who had died young. Since its founding, dolls were constantly being brought in or taken away. Those taken away represented infants whose spirits had successfully entered the cycle of reincarnation, while those brought in were for the restless souls of children unwilling to die, whose parents brought them to the Spirit Infant Hall to pray for their deliverance. Legend had it that on moonlit nights, when all was silent, the grove surrounding the Spirit Infant Hall would echo with the laughter and playful cries of children.
At last, Liaochen had achieved his goal. Now, throughout every tribe within several hundred miles of the temple, his reputation was as that of a living deity. Mongolian herdsmen and nobles alike revered him as a god among mortals. As his renown continued to spread, it became a simple matter for him to secure Hong Yuan’s freedom and fortune. After a few words of advice, Liaochen had the tribes dispatch a cavalry escort to send the unfortunate old man back within the passes, so he could spend his final years in peace.
On the grasslands, the tribes rarely settled in one place, migrating with the pastures. But things changed around Liaochen’s temple. The steady stream of pilgrims and worshippers, among whom were no shortage of nobles, drew ever more people. Where there were people, a market naturally followed. Livestock from the tribes fetched excellent prices, and merchants from distant lands, drawn by rumors of prosperity, arrived with goods the Mongols desired. The influx attracted even more Mongolians. Sensing opportunity, several merchants discussed establishing permanent shops to purchase local specialties and transport goods from Ming China. Negotiations began with the temple, since all land for ten miles around, including a small lake, belonged to the temple. No buildings could be erected without its consent. To be honest, Liaochen had no fondness for the Shanxi merchants of the Ming dynasty, but to preserve the temple and spread the faith, he required their support. Terms akin to taxation were quickly agreed upon, much to Liaochen’s bewilderment—why, he wondered, did these people refuse to pay taxes within Ming borders but became so generous when on foreign soil?
As time passed, the Xuangang Temple’s fame spread far across the steppe. In the nineteenth year of the Hongzhi reign, at the invitation of Dayan Khan, the Mongol khan, Liaochen journeyed north of the desert. He returned that summer, accompanied by an imperial edict conferring upon him the title of National Preceptor of Mongolia and granting the temple and its environs a hundred-mile radius as its domain. For a time, Xuangang Temple shone unrivaled across the Mongolian plains, its incense burning strong, and Daoist followers multiplying rapidly, leaving Cloud Master Child, the abbot, grinning from ear to ear. Yet after returning from the northern desert, Liaochen no longer appeared in public. Each day he instructed Yunhua in cultivation and taught Yunhuzi—the fox—how to be a fox of ideals, cultivation, knowledge, and accomplishment, responsible for his own fox life. To no avail. Yunhuzi persisted in running with a pack of Tibetan mastiffs near the temple, regarding himself as one of their own, which nearly made Liaochen cough blood in frustration. With his hopes of refining the fox’s character dashed, he focused his efforts on Yunhua’s training. Persistence paid off at last: in the autumn, as the wild grass of the steppe turned yellow, Yunhuzi finally entered the Dao, spitting out two cherry-sized fireballs, which so discouraged Yunhua that she ran crying to her room and refused to come out, leaving Liaochen speechless as he watched the fox capering about.
At the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, Liaochen resolved to return south. Before leaving, he led a party of Mongol nobles and their retinues to Xuanfu Town, long a battleground between the Ming and the Mongols, causing a stir there with three alarms in a single day. Liaochen sent a letter inviting the Prince of Jin and the Xuanfu governor to a meeting. The prince, representing the emperor, and the governor, representing the court, arrived on the Hetao grassland with trepidation and imperial permission.
A little over ten days later, a truce was concluded between Mongolia and the Ming, opening the border market to mutual trade. The Ming border people found peace, while the Mongol herders finally received the Ming goods they had long awaited. As the closing act, Liaochen and the Daoists of Xuangang Temple conducted seven days of rituals to deliver the souls of those fallen in battle. When the rites concluded, the night sky was suddenly lit by the aurora, casting a dreamlike glow over the ceremonial ground. From the heavens came the sound of horns, and before all eyes, the souls of the dead—Chinese and Mongolian alike—formed orderly ranks and marched into the aurora, vanishing from sight. Only as dawn approached did the aurora fade. As the stunned crowd regained their senses, Liaochen, his disciples, and the fox had already slipped away, leaving only the Daoists of Xuangang Temple to bid farewell on their behalf.
Within just a few days, Liaochen’s name became synonymous with divinity both in Xuanfu and across the Mongolian plateau. Numerous shrines sprang up in his honor, incense smoke curling skyward. Yet by then, Liaochen was already sitting in a cave dwelling near Xuangang Temple in Ming China, watching Yunhua and Yunhuzi with no small headache.
End of this volume.