Chapter 968: Yomi and Mount Fuyo
Sage Qingwei invited Princess Himiya Akiko for a meeting, and the two had a detailed conversation.
What they discussed was unrelated to the Fenglin royal family or the Tenmon Sect’s new policies. It concerned only Izanagi-no-Mikoto.
Princess Himiya Akiko wished to hold something back, but Tamamo-no-Mae, a fox demon who had served the Tenmon Sect for centuries, was by her side, so though the latter might not know every secret, she could easily discern a lie.
Moreover, a figure like Princess Himiya Akiko, who was the Saio of the Tenmon Sect, was somewhat revered like a god herself. Her relationship with the Three Great Kami was not of the traditional deity and devotee, but more like superior and subordinate. There was no humility or piety. At most, it was loyalty.
However, Princess Himiya Akiko’s loyalty was limited. She was more concerned with practical interests.
In the end, forced by circumstance, Princess Himiya Akiko had no choice but to bow her head and reveal all that she knew.
Some secrets of the Tenmon Sect were never written down but passed orally from one Saio to the next.
According to Princess Himiya Akiko, Izanagi was indeed the father of the Three Noble Children. He was once known as the King of Deities, but after being defeated by his children and the Buddhist Sect, the Three Noble Children renamed themselves as the Three Great Kami. Fenglin then entered an age of shinbutsu-shugo, where gods and buddhas were integrated. When the Vairocana ceased to appear during the Confucian golden age, the Three Great Kami switched allegiance and became faithful disciples of the Confucian school. Thus, the Confucian ideology of revering the king and expelling the barbarians came about.
From that time onward, the Tenmon Sect ceased to be a vassal of the Buddhist Sect and became independent as Fenglin’s state religion. Still, it maintained good relations with the Buddhist Sect.
The term “expel the Daoists” only arose when the Daoist Order entered Fenglin. The Tenmon Sect dared not label those from the Central Plains as “barbarians,” as most of Fenglin prided itself on emulating the Central Plains.