Upon the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, Granny Zhu and the others watched Lord Huo and the Zhankong Tathagata with anxious eyes. More than twenty days had passed since the upheaval in the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court. Shen Mu's condition had held steady all the while, but the state of Lord Huo and the Zhankong Tathagata had come to look far from encouraging. Lofty as the Zhankong Tathagata's cultivation of mind might be, his cultivation base was low, and so long a stretch had left this great Buddha sorely strained. Lord Huo's cultivation base was higher, but in cultivation of mind he fell a notch below Zhankong, and by this point he too was laboring beyond measure. Just then Yan'er came flying over, crying to Granny Zhu and the rest, "Disaster! Our holy land has sprouted!" "Our holy land has sprouted?" Granny Zhu and the others could make neither head nor tail of it. Yan'er said, "I was chatting with Mother about this and that, taking her about to admire the fine sights of our holy land..." Everyone frowned deeply and thought, "This girl is blinder than the Blind Elder. The Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains may bear the word 'sacred' in their name, but that is only us gilding our own faces. When did this place ever have fine sights?" Yan'er went on regardless: "...and when we came to the main hall at the heart of the sacred mountain, we saw the hall lifted up on two great leaves, its very foundation split apart! Those two leaves are so huge, and they hold the Young Master's holy hall between them, right in the middle, and it looks so pitiful..." The girl's words came out with no head to them at all. The Blind Elder said hurriedly, "Granny, you all stay here and watch over Shen'er. I will go with her and see." Granny Zhu nodded, and the Silent Artisan said, "I will go and look as well!" Yan'er led the two of them flying toward the heart of the sacred mountain. Before they arrived, the Blind Elder already saw from afar two enormous leaves, like two inconceivably vast palms, holding Shen Mu's palace in their centers! Those two leaves had grown out of the charred stump of the Great Black Wood. The Great Black Wood had long since been cut down by Tai Yi, who set a fire that burned it clean away; all that remained were the growth rings the fire had not finished, become tens of thousands of black mountains. And now the mountain at the very center of it all had actually put forth two great leaves, which was passing strange indeed! By this time a crowd had gathered beside the two leaves. Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, Emperor Ming, and others were flying to and fro around the stalk and roots of the leaves, examining where the plant had pushed its way out. The great hall held up between the two leaves was the holy hall of the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, the place where Shen Mu dwelt; once, Tai Yi had received Heaven Duke and Earth Lord in that very hall. The hall was by no means small, yet beside those two leaves it seemed much smaller, and no wonder Yan'er had called it so pitiful. The two men came beneath the leaves and gazed up at those two vast expanses, awe-struck. The veins upon the leaves were like the dao patterns of the Great Dao itself, mysterious beyond words; a teeming vitality flowed from them, so that merely standing there one felt one's face aglow with life. Suddenly the Blind Elder saw a mighty man stride up with a great axe in hand. He came beneath the two leaves, swung the axe up, and measured it twice against the stalk, as if about to chop. "You there, fellow! What do you think you are doing?" Emperor Ming came flying, furious. "Who are you? Why would you hack at another man's sapling for no reason at all?" The Blind Elder and the Silent Artisan turned ashen, and when Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, and the others arrived they likewise went pale. The mighty fellow's sinews were savage, his frame that of a giant who had split sky from earth, and the great axe in his hand flashed with cold light, as though it held within it the power that sunders heaven and earth. Clearly this was none other than Tai Yi in transformed form! Though Emperor Ming was the most dazzling figure of the Crimson Bright Era, before a being such as this it was plain truth that a single hair plucked from the man would be many times thicker than his waist! And judging by Tai Yi's frame, a hair of his was indeed many times thicker than Emperor Ming's waist. Tai Yi put up his axe and glanced at Emperor Ming, his voice like a great bell: "I have come, naturally, to cut down the tree." "You make it sound as though you had every right!" Emperor Ming choked with rage. "Is this your land?" Tai Yi set the axe down and leaned on its haft. He shook his head. "It is not my land." Emperor Ming sneered, "Is the tree your tree?" The crowd fell silent as cicadas in winter, not daring to make a sound. Tai Yi shook his head again. "Nor is it my tree." "It is not your land, and not your tree; by what right do you cut down another man's?" Emperor Ming said with a cold laugh. "You come running to another man's place, axe on your shoulder, set on felling a tree that grew out of his soil. There is no place on earth where you could argue that into sense! Reason, reason. If you cannot speak reason, can you speak the Dao?" Tai Yi was taken aback a moment. He looked at the crowd. They looked this way and that, not daring to meet his eyes. Emperor Ming clenched his fists and declared in a ringing voice, "This sapling is the Heavenly Venerable Mu's sapling, and this land is the Heavenly Venerable Mu's land. For you to come and cut it down without asking him, that will not do... Xuanxiu, Wen Yuan, do not pull me back! The fellow may be strong, but heaven and earth have common justice, and justice is common right... Do not pull me. The man may be fierce, but how could I fear him? As a guest of the Heavenly Venerable Mu's house, I cannot stand by and do nothing..." Hua Xuanxiu and the youth Wen Yuan dragged him backward, and still Emperor Ming struggled, crying in fury, "You two are bullies of the good and cowards before the wicked! Let me go, and I will reason with him!" Tai Yi thought it over, then sat down and said, "There is something in what you say. I granted this place to the Heavenly Venerable Mu. I am only its former landlord, and now a guest as well; to come and cut the tree, I truly should have his consent. Very well. I will not cut it for now. We will speak of it when he wakes." Emperor Ming gave a snort, brushed aside Hua Xuanxiu and the youth Wen Yuan, raised two fingers to point at his own eyes, then at Tai Yi seated on the ground, and said, "I have my eye on you. Do not think you can make your move while I am not looking... What are you doing? Why are you all looking at me like that?" The crowd marveled inwardly: "The Crimson Bright Era deserves its name as the wildest of eras. Emperor Ming has seen great things in his day, righteous and fearless, daring even to scold a being who has attained the Dao, such as Tai Yi." Xu Shenghua and Lan Yutian stepped forward to question Tai Yi. "Brother Dao, if this sapling is not cut down, what harm will come of it?" Tai Yi said, "If it is not cut, then when the tree's roots and tendrils have all revived, the mighty ones of the former cosmic epoch will be able to climb out along the roots and do harm to the world. And this universe of ours cannot withstand the ravages of such mighty ones for long; it will fall into the Great Annihilation." Xu Shenghua asked, "Then what good would come of not cutting this sapling?" Tai Yi said, "If it is not cut, there is some good in it too. When the tree has grown, its branches and crown stretching into the Ultimate Void, attaining the Dao will become far easier. And when the universe meets the Great Annihilation, there will be those who can use it to hide away into the next universe. But..." He shook his head. "They are all woodworms, every one." Lan Yutian asked again, "And if it is cut? Will the beings of t