Chapter 300 - Looking for the Grave of Marquis Wu

In a wilderness, Wang Bugui and others walked far away.

“Fatty, is this really the grave of the prime minister? Let alone small animals, I can’t even find any bugs,” Zhao Changge looked around and uttered.

“Of course it is. The prime minister even reckoned that I would come. He left me a stone and told me to rush to Juyongguan. Otherwise, I wouldn’t come here,” Yu Wude said with his hands crossed in front of chest.

Then, he took out the black stone. Everyone gathered to take a look and found that it was really a prophetic stone. Even Fatty’s name was predicted. Amazing!

“Then don’t waste time here. Let’s quickly find the prime minister’s resting place, and figure out those strange things,” Lyu Hao urged.

“Right. But you have to stay back. If the prime minister has set the Eight Diagram Tactics, we’ll all suffer.” Yu Wude nodded.

Then he asked everyone to step back and pulled Wang Bugui to the front.

“What? Are you using me as a shield!?” Wang Bugui asked loudly.

“I wouldn’t dare! I just think that your body is powerful, which can help us turn calamities into blessings. Let’s share weal and woe. You rush to the front, and I can be given time to calculate.”

Yu Wude grinned and replied shamelessly. As he spoke, he withdrew behind Wang Bugui while pushing Wang Bugui forward, looking indecent.

“Fine, you use me as a meat shield, Fatty! If I don’t teach you a lesson after going back, you will want more!” Wang Bugui rolled up his sleeve and said angrily.

But he didn’t object and was pushed forward by Yu Wude, who had a bad smile. When they reached a certain spot, a big Eight Diagram Tactics appeared at their feet.

“Qian and Kun are attached. Heaven and earth merge into one. The four images are led. Eight directions are determined. The reclining dragon appears now!”

Yu Wude, looking solemn, chanted the Taoist sounds, released his Innate Prana Power from his fingertips, and distributed it in eight directions to activate the array. In less than a minute, tens of thousands of accurate calculations were made.

Every calculation could get rid of some mazes here and narrow the scope. Then he targeted a location and penetrated his Innate Prana Power into the earth. But there was a strong force in it to prevent him from calculating.

That was not the location where he dug out the stone. In fact, Yu Wude had already thought about it. The prime minister was full of wisdom. Since he predicted that Yu Wude would come to him, it would not be so easy for him to be found.

After calculating, Yu Wude found that there was really no mausoleum in the place where the stone was buried. Now, the power to fight against him must come from the real burial place of the prime minister. It contained not only strong spiritual strength, but also the power of heaven and earth.

And it was so powerful. He didn’t believe that there was no big formation here. Those forces were too strong and confused Yu Wude in finding the wrong place and weakened his array strength at the same time.

“Yiyi!”

Yu Wude blushed and gritted his teeth to shout. Hearing the call, Shangguan Yiyi immediately came to him and began to perform martial arts with him.

“Everyone, give them spiritual strength to help them!” Wang Bugui screamed with a frown.

Then, he took the lead to inject his spiritual strength into Yu Wude and Shangguan Yiyi. The others followed him from behind.

“Buzz!”

But at this time, a huge doctrine array rose from the ground, which was made of ordinary gravel. But the spiritual strength it contained was terrifying.

“The Eight Diagram Tactics?!” Yu Wude shouted in surprise.

It was said that Zhuge Liang had used random stones to form a stone formation when he had been fighting against his enemies. The formation had eight gates, known as Sheng, Shang, Xiu, Du, Jing, Si, Jing and Kai, according to the Dunjia, a school of ancient Chinese sorcery. It was changeable and could block a hundred thousand elite soldiers.

Then, Yu Wude began to observe the Eight Diagram Tactics of wind with his memory. He found that the array was almost identical to the Eight Diagram Tactics. It was certain that this was the Eight Diagram Tactics that Zhuge Liang modified according to the Eight Diagram Tactics of wind.

“What? The Eight Diagram Tactics is really here! Can we break it?” Shangguan Yiyi frowned and asked.

Yu Wude shook his head, replying, “It’s not easy to say. If the prime minister wants to fight us, I’m afraid it’ll difficult for us to break it. After all, the Eight Diagram Tactics is his life’s work and can be traced back to the reign of the Yellow Emperor.

“It was first known as the Five Tactics of the Yellow Emperor, and then the Taigong Tactics of Jiang Taigong, and then the Five-element Tactics of Sima Rangju. Guan Zhong reconstructed the Taigong Tactics, and then Sun Zi improved it and changed it into the Eight Diagram Tactics.

“Based on the continuous improvement by these elders and sages, the prime minister finally made this array reach its peak in the Three Kingdoms period, which is the Eight Diagram Tactics that we see today!

“The eight tactics are arranged with the post-celestial eight diagrams chart, and each of them is composed of six small arrays, which goes with the Six Yaos mentioned in The Book of Changes.

“There are a total of 64 small arrays in the eighth tactic, which are in accordance with the 64 diagrams of The Book of Changes. They absorbed the arrangement and combination of the field system and the Taoist Eight Diagrams, which is also compatible with astrogeography.

“It seems that the Eight Diagram Tactics we knew before is not the complete one that the prime minister created. The one we see now may be genuine. Such a mysterious array requires careful analysis!”

What he said puzzled everyone. But since this array involved the Yellow Emperor and was a combination of The Book of Changes and the post-celestial Eight Diagrams, it must not be simple!

As cultivators, they did desultory reading about all kinds of Chinese martial arts and ancient codes and records of each sect. They even selected some to study deeply.

The Book of Changes belonged to the Legalists, that is, the road that Emperor Qin Shihuang took. The Eight Diagrams belonged to Taoism. Zhuge Liang advocated the Legalists and Huang-Lao Thought and combined the two.

Huang referred to the Yellow Emperor, Lao referred to Lao Tzu, and Zhi emphasized that Taoism was the origin of Legalists.

Combined with the views of Yin and Yang, Confucianism, Legalists, Mo, etc., it inherited and developed Lao Tzu’s idea of Taoism. It believed that Taoism was an objective inevitability and zero approached one infinitely, but ended at one.

In addition, it also emphasized that Taoism was the origin of Legalists, advocating that there was a division between right and wrong, which was judged by law, and that law was the standard to distinguish lies from truth.

Take Taoism as heaven, and heaven gave birth to Yin and Yang. Heaven was the father of all things. Nothing could live without heaven. Yin alone couldn’t exist, nor could Yang. Yin and Yang merged with heaven and earth, and then beings were made, which was the law of heaven.

And there were five elements in heaven—wood, fire, earth, gold, and water. Wood made fire, fire made earth, earth made gold, and gold made water. The five elements were both related to and restricted by each other. In this way, everything in the world, including spring, summer, autumn, winter, and the four directions, evolved.

The five elements, the four seasons, and all things in the world must be born in accordance with its rules. Therefore, this was the law. People must follow these rules in order to gain the power of heaven and earth.

Conform to the destiny, insight into the geographical advantage, people stood out in the end, and eventually succeeded, which was the so-called good timing, geographical convenience, and good human relations.

“Then, how to break the array?” Feng Tianming asked.

“What else can we do? Since we’ve come in, will the prime minister let us go out easily? Look around, we’ve been surrounded for a long time.” Yu Wude shrugged.

The group looked around and found that the surrounding terrain had changed greatly. Between heaven and earth, it was full of five elements. They were in the most dangerous situation.

“The prime minister once said in the Jiangyuan·Zhiyong to follow heaven, adjust time, and depend on people to win. It emphasized that an excellent general should know astronomy, personnel, and geography, and should see all the world as his home.

“What he was most good at was to take advantage of heaven, earth, and people. So that he was invincible and would always gain a complete victory.

“He gave full play to the thought of the integration of heaven, earth, and man in The Book of Changes. Now we want to retreat, so there is no other way but to break the array.

“The surrounding mountain landscape has changed, and we are in the center. The five elements, gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, are dense all around. Whether we want to go to heaven or to the earth, there is the power of Yin and Yang to stop us. We must find a breakthrough!”

Yu Wude whispered, holding his chin. He wanted to break the formation with the law of length and breadth, but found that the arrays were closely linked. If he rushed out, the 64 small arrays would all be activated to attack him.

So, he could only seek the cracks by using the five elements method. But if he couldn’t find the rules, he couldn’t break the formation. It was too mysterious.

“Why haven’t we been attacked yet?” Lyu Hao stood with a halberd in his hand and said defensively.

“Because the prime minister is giving us time to think about the countermeasures. Otherwise, we would have been shattered to pieces,” Yu Wude answered with a frown.

“What? The prime minister knows that we are thinking it over?”

Zhao Changge looked back in shock, and he almost dropped his dragon gut silver spear. Zhuge Liang was already dead. He could predict that Yu Wude would come to him. But it was only a prediction.

But after thousands of years, when the great formation reappeared, he could still control it. How terrible was he?!

Yu Wude nodded and said, “The essence of The Book of Changes is to regard heaven, earth, and man as a whole, and to connect things of different qualities and different states together to discuss the law of their operation.

“It emphasizes the unity of number, theory, and phase. Theory is expressed through phase, and number and theory are the same as the natural heart.

“And the essence of our Hua Xia’s philosophy also lies at heart, which is used to understand the world and life. It is the so-called mutual birth from the heart.

“My heart is the universe, and the universe is my heart. When I am in heaven and earth, I am the natural Taoism, my heart is the location, and my heart is the formation. This is the prime minister, and this is his attainment of his formation.

“Although we are separated from the prime minister by thousands of years, once we face the Eight Diagram Tactics that he personally set, it is equal to fighting against him!”

“This…”

Everyone was speechless, including Wang Bugui. Fight against Zhuge Liang? Even if they all had 10 lives, it was not enough. The Eight Diagram Tactics was a great weapon for the army.

No one knew if there was Taoist power that could easily kill Greater Powers. It was scary to even think about it.

“Senior Ying Zheng is a Legalist, so is the prime minister. The Legalists are so powerful…” Chu He couldn’t help sighing.

“Oh! I have an idea!”

Suddenly, at a time when everyone was at a loss, Wang Bugui clapped and laughed. He came up with a countermeasure.