Lei Zhen stared at his hands, dumbfounded. The biting scars on his arms from the Nether Beast were gone.
Su Qingyan touched her side where a nether blade had left a permanent cold poison for ten thousand years. The cold was gone. Completely.
Jing Kong pressed his palms together, his eyes shaking. "Amitabha... this..."
All the injuries they got here while fighting those nether races had healed completely.
Su Qingyan was the most surprised of the three. She looked at Huai with pure reverence in her eyes, then dropped to her knees and bowed deeply.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness! For doubting you..."
Jing Kong and Lei Zhen quickly followed, bowing low as well.
"We are also sorry, Your Highness..."
From the side, Wuhe let out a cold hum. "Humph! Hypocrites."
Just that one sound tore through their minds and shook their souls. The three of them looked up at Wuhe in horror. They knew how terrifying an Immortal Sovereign was and now they were facing someone that even an Immortal Sovereign showed respect to.
Huai waved his hand lightly, his expression calm. "It's okay. Just sit down. I want to ask you something."
Everyone nodded and returned to their seats.
Huai looked at them. "Which forces are you hiding in now?"
Lei Zhen and the others glanced at each other, then looked at Bai Liuli. She gave them a small nod, telling them to answer honestly.
Lei Zhen spoke first. "I'm staying at the Thunder Dragon Holy Sect. They don't have any Galaxy Sovereigns yet... but I can help them reach it within the next thousand years."
Huai nodded, then turned to Jing Kong.
Jing Kong pressed his palms together. "Amitabha! Your Highness, this poor monk is a Buddhist, so I created a temple called the Nine Petals Holy Land. They also don't have any Galaxy Sovereigns yet, but I can..."
Huai cut him off, annoyed. "Stop! Stop! You've been here for tens of thousands of years and you still haven't helped them reach Galaxy Sovereign?"
It was Su Qingyan who answered for him, her head lowered. "My Lord... we actually don't have any materials to make pills for them. All our resources were used up just to stay alive..."
Huai looked at her. "And you? Where have you been staying all this time?"
She answered quickly. "Your Highness! I stayed at a small sect. It's not even a holy sect. I only acted in secret when those nether Immortal Lords interfered, to save the humans without revealing myself."
Huai nodded slowly, then sighed. "Now tell me what were you two arguing about?" He looked towards Lei Zhen and Jing Kong.
Lei Zhen immediately pointed at Jing Kong. "Your Highness! Even though the Jade Sea Immortal Holy Land sent us here to protect the humans, this old bald monk refuses to take action against the nether races! He keeps saying they are living creatures too and deserve mercy."
Huai frowned.
Jing Kong quickly said, "Amitabha! Amitabha! It is true I said that... but the Buddha teaches us to be merciful to all living beings..."
Lei Zhen immediately sneered. "So you just let those filthy extraterrestrial races take human lives like they own them? Have you gone nuts, bald monkey!"
Jing Kong didn't get angry. He just closed his eyes and chanted again, his voice steady.
"Amitabha! Amitabha! How can this poor monk disobey the Buddha!"
The hall went quiet for a second. The lightning around Lei Zhen crackled louder.
Huai, who had been watching silently from the throne, finally tapped his finger once on the armrest.
The sound was light, but it made the entire Jade Serenity Palace shake.
Both Lei Zhen and Jing Kong froze.
Huai looked at the monk. "Mercy is for those who know repentance. Tell me, monk — in the tens of thousands of years you've been here, how many nether lords have repented because of your mercy?"
Jing Kong opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Huai then looked at Lei Zhen. "And you — in the tens of thousands of years you've been here, how many humans have you saved by killing?"
Lei Zhen clenched his fist. "...Not enough."
Huai leaned back. "Then both of you are useless."
The three Immortal Lords lowered their heads, their faces burning with shame.
Wuhe smirked from his throne. "He's right. One is talking nonsense while the other one only knows to kill, and the humans are still dying. The Holy Land should have sent dogs instead. At least they obey commands when told..."
Huai sighed . He didn't shout at Jing Kong. He just looked at him.
"Monk," Huai said, his voice calm, "you keep saying 'Amitabha.' You keep saying 'the Buddha teaches mercy.' But do you even know what mercy the Buddha spoke of?"
Jing Kong lifted his head, his hands still pressed together. "Amitabha. The Buddha taught compassion for all living beings. To not kill. To forgive."
Huai nodded slowly. "Right. And wrong."
He stood up from the throne and walked down one step. The entire hall felt his presence, but his voice was still like a normal conversation.
"The Buddha did teach compassion. But he also taught wisdom. He said — 'Compassion without wisdom is cruelty.'"
Jing Kong's eyes trembled.
Huai continued, "You let a nether lord live because you pity him. That lord then goes down the mountain and eats a hundred human children. Whose karma is that, monk? His? Or yours, for giving him the knife?"
Jing Kong's prayer beads stopped moving in his hand.
"The Buddha picked up a sword too, monk," Huai said. "Not to kill out of hate, but to cut off suffering at the root. In the old sutras, there is the story of the captain who killed the pirate to save five hundred merchants. He took the sin upon himself so others could live. That is true mercy — to carry the blood on your own hands so innocents don't have to."
Lei Zhen stared, shocked. Even he had never heard a Buddhist teaching explained like that.
Jing Kong's lips were dry. "But... the precepts... 'do not kill'..."
Huai looked straight into his eyes. "The first precept is 'do not kill.' The first vow of a Bodhisattva is 'to save all beings.' When the two clash, which one do you choose? To keep your own hands clean, or to keep other people alive?"
The hall was completely silent.
Huai placed a hand lightly on Jing Kong's bald head, like an elder blessing a disciple. A warm light flowed in. True buddhist aura appeared around Huai. As if ,everyone saw a divine being standing there ...
"True Buddhism is not closing your eyes to evil. It is having the courage to become the evil in their eyes, so that the weak can live in peace. If you are afraid of hell for killing a demon, then I will tell the Buddha myself — send me to hell in your place."
Jing Kong's whole body shook. Tears fell down his old face onto the floor.
He knelt down fully, his forehead touching the ground before Huai.
"Amitabha... this disciple was blind. This disciple... understands now. Mercy for the nether races is cruelty to humans. I'll not afraid of killing anymore if needed , if I can save more by killing few I'll take the karma on my head and let them be at peace."
Huai turned back to hsi throne, " good ! Then do your best to eliminate the enemies, from now on you'll teach your disciples well. "
Jing Kong kowtowed three times, his voice choked. "As Your Highness commands."
Huai turned from Jing Kong and looked at Lei Zhen.
Lei Zhen was still standing there with lightning crackling around his fists, his jaw tight. He thought Huai would praise him.
Instead, Huai's gaze made him take half a step back.
"You," Huai said, "you think killing solves everything."
Lei Zhen frowned. "Your Highness, the nether races only understand blood. If we don't kill them, they'll kill us."
Huai didn't answer right away. He walked back up to his throne, but he didn't sit. He stood there, hands behind his back, and suddenly...
BOOM.
A vast, righteous aura exploded from his body. It wasn't immortal power. It wasn't killing intent.
It was Scholar Qi.
the righteous qi of a Confucian scholar. It filled the entire Jade Serenity Palace in an instant. The pillars hummed, the murals of sages on the walls seemed to light up, and the air became heavy with the scent of old books and ink.
Jing Kong, Bai Liuli, Su Qingyan all of them felt their hearts calm down at once, like a noisy market had suddenly gone quiet.
Lei Zhen felt his violent lightning qi get pressed down, not by force, but by something heavier by order.
Huai's voice changed. It was no longer just a cultivator speaking. It was a teacher lecturing to the world.
"Confucius said: 'To govern with virtue is like the North Star — it stays in its place, and all other stars turn towards it.'"
He looked down at Lei Zhen.
"You kill one nether lord today. Good. Tomorrow, ten more come for revenge. You kill those ten. The day after, a hundred come. You will spend ten thousand years killing, and at the end, what will be left of the humans you were supposed to protect? Corpses you stepped over to reach the next enemy."
Lei Zhen opened his mouth, but the Scholar Qi pressed on his chest, making his words stuck.
Huai raised a finger, and in the air, the qi formed images — a whole world appearing inside the hall.
They saw a village. Lei Zhen appeared in the image, covered in blood, standing over dead nether beasts. The villagers cheered at first. Then they saw the next image, the nether army came back, burned the village to ashes because of his revenge killing. The children he saved the first time were now dead.
"That is killing without mercy," Huai said.
The image changed. Now Jing Kong appeared, chanting, letting a wounded nether general go. The general left, then returned with an army and slaughtered the temple.
"That is mercy without killing," Huai said.
The images faded.
Huai's Scholar Qi became as steady as a mountain. "Confucianism does not teach you to only kill, nor to only forgive. It teaches balance. It teaches Ren; benevolence. And it teaches Yi; righteousness."
He stepped closer to Lei Zhen.
"Ren without Yi makes you a coward like the monk was. Yi without Ren makes you a butcher and a butcher cannot protect a country, he can only paint it red."
Lei Zhen's lightning completely disappeared. He was sweating.
"What you need is not a sword that never stops," Huai said, his voice echoing with the sound of a thousand scholars reading at once. "You need a sword that knows when to be sheathed. Kill the leader who will not repent, that is Yi. Spare the young ones who can be taught ,that is Ren. Rule the people you save with rites and order, so they don't become beasts themselves, that is Li."