Chapter 1105: A Fresh Story
Life is easy to get drunk on heady wine, but in this world, one has yet to meet an opponent in chess.
A solitary city amid the colorful clouds, the entire White Emperor City, except for Zheng Juzhong, was already empty of people. Even the Glazed Pavilion had been tossed out of the city by Zheng Juzhong.
After all, as the junior disciple, one had to listen to the senior brother. Liu Chicheng was helpless about this and dared not say a word of refusal. However, he insisted on bidding farewell to the City Lord senior brother in person before leaving. Zheng Juzhong looked at the tearful Liu Chicheng, sighed, and recalled a minor old matter from years ago. Zheng Juzhong’s heart softened for once, so he appeared at the mountain gate and instructed his junior brother, who was clad in a pink Daoist robe, with a few words. For example, when he got outside, if he stirred up trouble, he should not casually report his master’s name, lest the other party not dare to kill him.
Liu Chicheng immediately understood. It meant he could not report his master’s name—only his senior brother’s!
Zheng Juzhong waved his hand, signaling Liu Chicheng to stop standing there and being an eyesore.
Liu Chicheng, perhaps reluctant to leave, tried to make conversation, wanting to confirm one thing through mental voice: just how many Fourteenth Realm versions of the senior brother were there?
He, as the junior brother, was certainly willing to believe, but he truly dared not believe.
Zheng Juzhong smiled and asked in return, “How many do you want?” Liu Chicheng cautiously said, “Of course, the more the merrier. Two wouldn’t be too few, three wouldn’t be too many.”
Liu Chicheng then asked if the senior brother could go even further. Zheng Juzhong saw a kind of… worry in the other’s eyes. He patted Liu Chicheng’s shoulder and said with a laugh, “The smart are eager to learn; it’s not easy being a fool. Don’t rack your brains over things that aren’t your concern. Just be a good fool.”
If there were any Qi refiner in the Haoran World who truly wished they themselves were not in the Fourteenth Realm and would rather have someone else take that place, Liu Chicheng would definitely count as one. And he would do so without any hesitation, without a trace of pretense.
Just like back then, when Zheng Juzhong hesitated over which path to take to enter the Fourteenth Realm. With nothing better to do, he set up a puppet, maneuvering and colluding internally and externally, completely unaware that it was Zheng Juzhong killing Zheng Juzhong, himself killing himself. In short, in that conspiracy that engulfed the entire White Emperor City, even people like Han Qiaose were no exception. Only one person, Liu Chicheng in his pink Daoist robe, stood between that one person and ten thousand people. He uttered no grand words, nor did he make any threats. In an instant, he was ground into meat paste by several hundred sword lights, techniques, and divine abilities. Even to his death, he still hated Han Qiaose and the others for their betrayal, worrying about the safety of his senior brother behind him. In the moment before his body and Dao vanished, the pink-robed Liu Chicheng only looked back once. “Senior brother, take care.”
At the highest point of the Colorful Clouds stood a large banner, on which was written: “Offering to yield precedence to all under heaven.”
Below it was a stone table carved with a chessboard, on which rested two jars of Go stones.
Zheng Juzhong sat beside the table. The jar beside him contained white stones.
After waiting for an unknown length of time, Zheng Juzhong swapped the positions of the two jars. With one hand lightly supporting his sleeve, he reached two fingers into the jar and picked up a black stone.
From the look of it, Zheng Juzhong was about to make the first move on the board. Breaking precedent like this would be contrary to what was written on the banner.
A woman with a robust build and a coarse face crossed two worlds, ignoring the prohibitions of White Emperor City as if entering an unguarded realm. Arriving here, she said heartily, “Long time no see, Huaixian!”
Zheng Juzhong ignored her, neither seeing nor hearing her. Just as the black stone between his fingers was about to touch the board, the “woman” sighed mournfully. “I’m really afraid of you, Zheng Juzhong.”
“Tell me, what do you want by calling me over? I have a gentleman’s agreement with the Dao Ancestor; it’s not good for my words and deeds to cross the line. Please understand.”
“With three Fourteenth Realm bodies—sword techniques, Dao methods, divine abilities—you’re still no higher than a truly invincible one. There’s nothing shameful about that. You and Yu Dou were just sparring, not a life-and-death struggle.”
The visitor was none other than the aggregation of countless outlandish demons from the outer heavens. As she spoke, she changed her form, becoming the old Daoist who hung at the highest point of the Jade Capital, the image of the Dao Ancestor in the Azure Underworld.
Zheng Juzhong tossed the black stone back into the jar and asked, “Do you want freedom?”
Was there anything in the world freer than an outlandish demon? Since it was so pure, how could there be a concept of freedom?
The outlandish demon sneered. “With you?”
Zheng Juzhong nodded. “With me.”
It asked, “Could it be a wild fantasy to establish a sect and claim the title of Ancestor? Then I must ask you, Zheng Juzhong—what sect would you establish, and what Ancestor would you claim?!”
Before Zheng Juzhong could give an answer that, no matter what, would shock the world, it laughed heartily to itself. “I am the heart demon, the inverted reflection, the outlandish demon that everyone wants to kill. Zheng Juzhong is the first great demon overlord in the human world. If you say it like that, we are indeed a perfect match. Once you refine and devour me, this pseudo-Fifteenth Realm, you’ll achieve perfect merit and rise to the true Fifteenth Realm, becoming unique? Killing Fourteenth Realm cultivators like chopping vegetables?”
Zheng Juzhong slowly spoke three sentences. “First, I will help you shatter that immortal cage.”
“Then, I will make heaven and earth devoid of spiritual energy, devoid of Qi refiners, devoid of mountain and water gods, devoid of spirits, ghosts, and anomalies. No former lives, no reincarnations, no yin and yang, no cause and effect.”
“Ultimately, I will make this human world without sects and without Ancestors.”
The outlandish demon shook its head. “How boring. I never imagined that Zheng Juzhong, whom I most looked forward to seeing, would still be so dull, unable to escape the same old mold. A new man treading an old path, at most walking a bit farther than some predecessors.”
Spirits make no mistakes; they are the least free.
To some extent, the ones with the purest freedom are they, the outlandish demons—unfettered and unbound. Every single thought of theirs can be delightfully interesting, a riot of flowers, blurring truth and falsehood.
What Zheng Juzhong called shattering the cage was nothing more than making “it” unfree. Which ordinary Fourteenth Realm would dare to speak such wild words, confident enough to claim superiority over this pseudo-Fifteenth Realm in Dao power? In ten thousand years, which Fourteenth Realm had dared to refine it, truly unafraid of burning through their guts? Of being usurped, of the guest overriding the host? Even if someone dared to think that far, they still would not dare to go through with it. And what Zheng Juzhong wanted to do—the Dao Ancestor had long been able to do it, of course. But the Dao Ancestor was in the Fifteenth Realm, his Dao merged with the entire Azure Underworld, so it was not appropriate for him to act this way. He had to resort to letting it roam free, or more accurately, penning it up on a single Jade Capital Mountain, which the world called the Outer Heavens.
Someone once said rightly, “A Daoist clearing his heart demon is like proofreading a book, like sweeping fallen leaves from the mind. No sooner are they swept than they fall again; leaves flutter and raise dust, and no sooner is it swept than it returns.”
Even the Dao Ancestor, powerful as he was, remained a Daoist, unable to transcend this scope. Faced with heart demons originating from the minds of all Daoists across several worlds, he could not eliminate them, nor could he refine them all.
The reason for this was still that the ruins of the ancient Heavenly Court continued to exist, unable to be completely destroyed. Moreover, Wen Hai Zhou Mi, who had ascended and departed, presided over the new Heavenly Court, inviting the gods to return to their positions.
Otherwise, the Three Religion Founders could truly have reached a consensus, allowing the Dao Ancestor to free his hands and, by refining billions of heart demons for millennia, using it as the Great Path of a Fifteenth Realm Qi refiner, to verify the Dao again and attain the Dao. It was not impossible that the first Sixteenth Realm in the human world would be the Dao Ancestor’s prize.
Zheng Juzhong smiled faintly. “To be looked down upon by an outlandish demon—how interesting.”
He stood up and looked toward an ordinary spot in White Emperor City.
Following Zheng Juzhong’s gaze, the outlandish demon saw a bamboo grove.
Rain fell from the sky. New Fourteenth Realms, like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, were popping up one after another. The tips of the shoots were about to emerge but had not yet done so, just like yellow mud arches—tender and delicious.
Spring bamboo shoots grow very quickly, provided they are not pulled out and eaten, of course, and have the chance to break through the soil, grow into a stalk of green bamboo, eventually become old bamboo, until they bloom.
Even though Zheng Juzhong himself was a brand-new Fourteenth Realm, the three Zheng Juzhong bodies—three different kinds of merged Dao—had nothing to do with the Three Religion Founders’ scattering of their Dao as a gift.
There existed a watershed, and Zheng Juzhong still belonged to the old Fourteenth Realm.
As for Ning Yao, the number one person in the Five Colors World, because she heeded Chen Qingdu’s warning and chose to go into seclusion to “shelter from the rain,” in terms of timeline, Ning Yao was a new Fourteenth Realm.
So when Zheng Juzhong looked at Ning Yao, it was no different from how that old blind man named Zhi Ci in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains felt. Both believed that Ning Yao’s Fourteenth Realm had exceptionally high killing power.
Formerly Jia Sheng of Haoran, later Zhou Mi of the Barren Wastes. Apart from the nickname “Old Fox Who Reaches Heaven,” which was given to him by others, the title “Wen Hai” was more like a self-appellation from the Master, and was still better known. Wen Hai had two interpretations: one, that Zhou Mi’s knowledge was vast and profound like an endless, bottomless sea; the other, that Zhou Mi had created tens of thousands of Barren Wastes characters called “Cloud Water Script.”
The entire Netherworld Yin Realm, as well as a small handful of ghost cultivators who were very well hidden in the Yang Realm—like the two ghost immortals of Xianzan City, the old woman with the Dao name “Qiong Ou,” who was hiding on the Yellow Spring Road and had lost the supreme treasure called “Dust Whisk,” her true form being a mosquito ghost immortal full of self-pity; and also Wu Ti, the master of the Ascension Realm great demon Xuan Pu, who was also in a concealed Dao field. Earlier, when they heard that grand vow under heaven to kill Chen Ping’an of the Yang Realm, Wu Ti lamented that time was not on his side. Unexpectedly, that senior who had already reached the threshold seemed unable to cross that step. But just as Wu Ti felt there might still be a thread of opportunity, in the unseen workings of fate, they all detected some profoundly mysterious sign. Their Dao hearts trembled in unison. These ghost immortals, each with their own Dao practices, either sighed deeply or breathed a faint sigh, their hearts feeling empty.
A single-log bridge—first come, first served. They were all ghosts, and their Great Path was destined to be severed.
No one knew which old fellow would obtain this fortune.
But in fact, the ghost Xu Jun’s Dao age was now less than fifty years. He had relied entirely on his Dao partner, eating soft rice, to achieve the Fourteenth Realm.
In the Azure Underworld, Youzhou, the new sect leader of the Huayang Palace at Difei Mountain was an outsider, using the alias Mao Zhui, with the Dao name “White Bone.”
After deducing the results, Mao Zhui did not have much resentment. He merely looked carefree, laughed, and cursed at that Sect Leader Lu, “You dog, you’re ruthless enough to even screw yourself over.”
Intercalary Moon Peak.
As Lu Tai had said before climbing the mountain, Zhang Fenghai, who was only half a step away from the Fourteenth Realm, only needed to wait for the heavy rain to fall upon the world to cross that half step.
That was exactly how it was. Zhang Fenghai, who had long been at the peak of the Ascension Realm, took it a step further without any suspense.
Zhang Fenghai, who had read through all the books in Yushu City by the age of thirty, had been imprisoned in the Yanyan Cave of Zhenyue Palace for many years. In the end, he chose to betray the Jade Capital, join forces with the martial artist Xinku, and establish his own sect.
With Lu Tai’s mediation, a total of six people founded a sect, which had already been announced to the entire Azure Underworld.
Zhang Fenghai was naturally the sect leader, and the hardworking Lu Tai, in addition to being the agreed-upon chief guest elder, also served as the deputy sect leader.
Lu Tai lowered his head and hunched his back, dragging a dog by the tail with both hands, wobbling as he walked toward Zhang Fenghai, who was drinking by the cliff. He said, “Have some sense of occasion. Hurry up and congratulate the sect leader.”
That poor dog, sensing Zhang Fenghai’s overwhelming Dao aura, dared not go, but it had no choice, so it could only whimper.
Lu Tai tugged the dog’s tail and laughed heartily. “Sect Leader, congratulations are in order. That agreement we had earlier—does it still count?”
Earlier, Lu Tai had fanned the flames, saying that the Barren Wastes had produced a few interesting young people. According to Zhang Fenghai’s deductions, before he and Xinku could take that extra step, they would need five Ascension Realm cultivators to ensure that the trip to the Barren Wastes would have no accidents—or rather, no major accidents. Lu Tai then climbed the pole and said, asking Zhang Fenghai and Xinku to work a little harder. Lu Tai threw the dog that was not fit for the table aside, clapped his hands, sat next to Zhang Fenghai, and asked in a low voice, “What did Xinku say?”
Zhang Fenghai said, “One step turned into half a step. His current martial arts skill is probably equivalent to Lin Jiangxian’s a hundred years ago.”
Lu Tai rubbed his hands together. “Our little sect with a small household rarely gets to go out for a change of scenery. We don’t dare hope for great achievements. As long as we don’t have to worry about being casually killed, it should be about enough, right?”
Zhang Fenghai nodded. “As long as you don’t go around causing trouble everywhere, it should be fine. Xinku just doesn’t say it, but he has always wanted to visit other worlds and have a look.”
Lu Tai spat. “I am a man who walks the martial world, always friendly to everyone, with sincerity in everything.”
He wasn’t that Sect Leader Lu, who could chat with a dog passing by on the roadside. Even a dog wouldn’t touch the shit that Sect Leader Lu dropped.
Zhang Fenghai tucked the wine flask at his waist, stood up, and turned to look at the sect members, who all had more or less expectant looks. But before he, the sect leader, could speak, the deputy sect leader put his hands on his hips and laughed heartily. “The six of us experts, plus a Lu Chen—where in the world under heaven can we not go?”
Lu Tai glanced at the “Lu Chen” lying down, who immediately understood and opened its mouth to bark. “Woof.”
Lü Bixia asked curiously, “That phenomenon over in Yinzhou earlier was quite significant. Was it that ghost Xu Jun?”
This female rogue cultivator was at the peak of the Ascension Realm, and she was also one of the candidates in the Azure Underworld.
Lu Tai nodded. “His skill at eating soft rice is number one in the world. No way around it.”
Yuan Ying smiled. “In the end, the Hidden Officer was a step behind Xu Jun.”
The Fourteenth Realm Zhang Fenghai, Xinku who was the second-ranked martial artist in the Azure Underworld, Lü Bixia, Lu Tai, Yuan Ying who was one of the top ten young candidates across several worlds, and Shi Xingyuan.
These six planned to go out for a change of scenery and take a trip to the Barren Wastes World. Of course, they would just be sightseeing. But if anyone dared to block their sightseeing, they would turn that someone into scenery.
Maybe they would also add in a dog named “Lu Chen.”
Their first stop as they crossed worlds for their distant journey was estimated to be the Sword Qi Great Wall, now broken in two and reduced to ruins.
At the summit of the great mountain “Green Mountain” in the Barren Wastes World.
A black-robed girl with small horn-like buns stared intently at a skinny, skin-and-bones girl. She asked a very rude question, “Are you the bastard child of this world?”
The girl’s gaze was dull. The horn-bun girl walked a circle around her, then stopped behind the girl and kicked her in the back of the knee. The girl fell to her knees, still expressionless.
The horn-bun girl nodded. Now she was more satisfied with the height difference. She came to the girl’s side and saw that the girl’s cheek seemed to have been punished with ink tattooing, carved with an ancient golden character: “Burn.”
Who else could have carved that word on the “girl’s” face besides Zhou Mi?
And who else could insult the “girl” so wantonly, other than Xiao Xun, the former Hidden Officer who had betrayed the Sword Qi Great Wall?
Xiao Xun reached out, grabbed the girl’s cheek, and twisted it gently. “The meaning of ‘burning the oil and continuing the sundial’?”
The wooden girl nodded.
Back then, Bai Ze had found her—or more accurately, she had actively let Bai Ze find her. She said she had given herself a name: Guike.
She was born at the beginning of the Barren Wastes heaven and earth. She was of the same kind as Xinku, the martial artist of Intercalary Moon Peak in the Azure Underworld; as the one in the Haoran World who had once contended with the Supreme Sage, once named Liu Xiang, styled Zijun, also styled Jujun; and as Feng Yuanxiao, the apprentice that Huang Ting had found in the Five Colors World purely by luck.
Barren Wastes Guike, Azure Underworld Xinku, Haoran Liu Xiang, Five Colors Feng Yuanxiao—they were all the same kind.
To Guike, every immortal mansion and Dao field, every human city in the Barren Wastes World, was like a blade carving the character for “tattoo” onto her face. The more concentrated the spiritual energy in a place, the more it was like a festering sore on her body that would never scab over. Of course, this was deeply related to her inner revulsion toward the Tuoyue Mountain Great Ancestor and the later Wen Hai Zhou Mi. If their Great Paths had been aligned and their minds in communion, these painful existences would have been beautiful patterns on a fine garment. Her refusal to acknowledge the Dao of the Tuoyue Mountain Great Ancestor was largely due to her resentment that he could not break through the Sword Qi Great Wall and take back the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains—it was that simple. And her disapproval of Wen Hai Zhou Mi came more from his status as an outsider, yet another simple reason.
Xiao Xun released her fingers and turned to look at the three sword cultivators who had come with her.
Xiao Xun was clearly asking with her eyes: How about it? Isn’t my knowledge deep, profound, terrifying?
She nodded to herself. She felt good about guessing this riddle correctly. Sure enough, when I’m impressive, even I find myself terrifying!
The ones following Xiao Xun on this trip were three local sword cultivators from the Sword Qi Great Wall: Luoshan and Zhu’an from the former Summer Resort Hidden Officer lineage.
Also, Zhang Lu, the boisterous great sword immortal who had guarded the gate at Daoxuan Mountain for many years, was now drinking and still reeling drunk. Alcohol—the more you drink, the more sorrow you feel; the most sorrowful is when you don’t drink.
Two more great figures from the Barren Wastes, who were always inseparable, walked to the summit: Fei Ran and Zhou Qinggao.
Xiao Xun asked, “Where’s that beast?”
Zhou Qinggao smiled and corrected, “Chusheng.”
Xiao Xun turned her head, pretending to listen carefully, then said in mock shock, “What? You said that ‘Chusheng’ is a beast?”
She immediately showed a look of sudden realization, and she gave Zhou Qinggao, Wen Hai Zhou Mi’s closed-door disciple, two thumbs up, praising, “A sesame-sized Immortal Realm cultivator dares to insult an experienced Fourteenth Realm like that. No wonder Zhou Mi accepted you as his closed-door disciple.”
Zhou Qinggao smiled. “I can’t win an argument with you, senior. I shouldn’t have spoken. I admit defeat.”
Xiao Xun pointed at the ground. “If you admit defeat, then kowtow a few times. Show some sincerity.”
Zhou Qinggao patted his forehead. “Although this junior’s realm is low, in this life, I only kowtow to my master.”
Xiao Xun squinted, reached out, and grabbed one of her own horn buns.
Zhou Qinggao hid his hands in his sleeves, secretly forming two Dao seals, ready to run at any moment.
This was how it was in the Barren Wastes. For Dao cultivators, a high realm did not mean fewer troubles; on the contrary, the higher the realm, the greater the trouble. Even if he was Zhou Mi’s closed-door disciple, in this Barren Wastes, that still did not count as a life-saving token. Sometimes, it even became a death warrant. That was why Zhou Qinggao had to stay by Fei Ran’s side all these years.
Fei Ran mediated, “How about doing me a favor?”
Xiao Xun stretched out her hand.
Fei Ran did not hesitate. He tossed out a rusted bronze short sword. Xiao Xun caught it, weighed it a few times, and found it acceptable. She nodded. “Fine, I’ll buy this face.”
Xiao Xun then casually tossed the newly acquired immortal artifact sword to Luoshan, instructing, “You can give it to that disciple you just took on. Remember to make it clear to that clueless little girl that I gave it to you.”
Zhang Lu laughed. “Why didn’t you give it to me? You promised I’d eat well and drink well, but look—three days and nine meals empty, we’re broke as a bell. Selling a sword to buy wine sounds heroic enough.”
Xiao Xun chuckled. “No rush. Just wait a moment. Someone will be sending things soon.”
In the early days of the Sword Qi Great Wall, Xiao Xun and Lu Zhi were collectively known as “Ferocity.”
Fei Ran looked at the former Hidden Officer, whom Zhou Mi had specifically instructed him not to provoke, letting her do as she pleased and never interfering.
A Fourteenth Realm sword cultivator who had refined and devoured the entire Hall of Heroes in the Barren Wastes—it did not seem very pure.
And after the heavy rain, there was also the newly ascended Fourteenth Realm sword cultivator, Fei Ran. He was not pure either.
Xiao Xun glanced at Fei Ran and shook her head dismissively. You, a Fourteenth Realm—once you leave the Barren Wastes, you’d probably be handing your head over on a silver platter. Too frustrating, right?
Not to mention facing that old blind man; could you even beat that girl Ning Yao?
Fei Ran smiled and explained, “I’m different from you. I don’t need the word ‘pure.’ Even if you offered it to me, I wouldn’t take it.”
Fei Ran had already become a like-minded ally with Guike. He had also fulfilled his agreement with Zhou Mi: he had created two branches of the River of Time in the Barren Wastes. Then, as the most legitimate master of the Barren Wastes World, under the premise that Mr. Bai Ze would not contend with him for the Great Path, Fei Ran had a great chance to step into the Fifteenth Realm in the future—it was only a matter of time.
If so, would Fei Ran still bother to strive for a pure sword cultivator’s Fifteenth Realm?
Would Zou Zi be willing? Would Zheng Juzhong agree?
Xiao Xun asked knowingly, “Fei Ran, why did you call me over?”
Fei Ran said helplessly, “Senior, you refined and devoured the Hall of Heroes, right?”
Xiao Xun retorted, “Back then, the Tuoyue Mountain Great Ancestor, Wen Hai Zhou Mi, and that one Zhou Qinggao called a beast—none of them said I couldn’t carry this Heavenly Well around?”
Fei Ran said, “So I had to ask senior to come to Green Mountain for a discussion. We can rearrange the positions properly. From now on, when we each do our own things, it will be justified and proper. No one will defy anyone else, and no one will think the other is a waste. This time, when we enter the Hall of Heroes, we can make everything clear, then each take our seats. That will save a lot of trouble.”
Unfortunately, that “Xiao Mo” who had slept in the moon for ten millennia had defected to the Hidden Officer Chen, causing Bai Jing to betray the Barren Wastes as well.
Otherwise, those two Ascension Realm sword cultivators—one at the peak, one at the perfect level—could definitely have taken seats in the Hall of Heroes.
Before that great war, the group of fourteen old Thrones, with the Tuoyue Mountain Great Ancestor first, Zhou Mi second, and Liu Cha third, was hailed as the most powerful and the most capable generation.
Now, that group of new Thrones had too many who were just drafted to fill the ranks. It was a complete joke. Even Fei Ran, who did not take realms that seriously, found it a bit disgraceful.
Xiao Xun looked at Zhou Qinggao.
Fei Ran smiled. “He is still stuck at the Immortal Realm bottleneck. Of course, he is not qualified to enter and take a seat now.”
Zhou Qinggao, whose Dao name was “Clogs,” had his former name turned into his Dao name.
Zhou Qinggao had replaced Ziwu Meng as the leader of the Barren Wastes Heavenly Stems.
He had once jumped directly from the Third Realm to the Jade Pu Realm, and within a few years, he had become an Immortal. Now he was at a bottleneck.
Xiao Xun laughed. “It seems that as long as you find a good master, your cultivation can go so smoothly that it makes people jealous.”
This time, Zhou Qinggao was smart enough not to reply. He swallowed the words “It’s a pity this junior is the master’s closed-door disciple” back into his stomach.
Two more arrived: a boy with double pupils, Ligou, with the Dao name “Flying Coins.”
After being awakened by Bai Ze, Ligou had collected eight immortal artifact heavy treasures from all over the Barren Wastes in one go.
Also, a man who seemed to never wake up properly, yawning. He was called Wumingshi (Nameless).
Tied to Ligou’s waist was a yellow storage pouch and a purple demon-capturing gourd.
After waking up, Ligou’s previous path of refining objects to merge with the Dao had already been occupied by the female Daoist “Taiyin” from the Azure Underworld. But Ligou had long prepared a candidate path for himself.
A book city—taking the opposite approach, claiming kingship in the north.
That Wang Youwu had clearly succeeded in merging with the Dao. What a fellow! Instead of parading around, she had found a hidden Dao field with no trace and hid herself.
In contrast, this boy with double pupils, Ligou, along with his close friend “Wumingshi,” swaggered to this mountain, openly coming to see Fei Ran and Xiao Xun.
Ligou only succeeded in merging with the Dao after the rain had “stopped” across several worlds.
It was Zhou Mi who had given up a path—not just given it up, but one could even say he had paved an entire path for Ligou to walk directly to the Fourteenth Realm.
Because before ascending, Zhou Mi had handed something to Zhou Qinggao: a set of character woodblocks, which were exactly Zhou Mi’s self-created Cloud Water Script of the Barren Wastes.
In this way, Ligou replaced Zhou Mi as the lord of words in the Barren Wastes, able to enjoy the Great Path gifts brought by the flow of a world’s literary fortune.
Wumingshi looked at the “little girl” with horn buns and sighed. Since Zhou Mi had left behind the objects and the person to control the Barren Wastes’ literary fortune, the martial fortune of this world would naturally follow suit.
Xiao Xun pointed at the boy’s waist, at the demon-capturing gourd, and crooked her finger.
Ligou did not say a word. He took down the golden gourd and tossed it to Xiao Xun.
Xiao Xun slapped it over to Zhang Lu, staring straight at Ligou, and asked, “Don’t you want to fight me first before giving it?”
This was not simply robbing; it was like asking the robbed person, “Don’t you want to take a cut at me before handing it over?”
Ligou said, “Right now, these external things are optional to me.”
Xiao Xun said angrily, “That’s going too far!”
She punched and shattered Ligou’s body.
Ligou instantly returned to his original appearance.
Xiao Xun did not feel that her effort was wasted. She just followed one punch with another, sending Ligou exploding and reforming again. It was just for fun!
Taking advantage of Xiao Xun being occupied, Fei Ran asked gently, “Do you regret not cooperating with Zhou Mi back then?”
Guike nodded and said hoarsely, “I regret it to death.”
If she had been willing to accompany Zhou Mi in killing his way to the Haoran World, the Barren Wastes demons might have taken Bottle Gourd Continent and used corpses to level that great river.
She might have already devoured that “fellow traveler,” and she could have become half the master of both the Barren Wastes and Haoran Worlds.
Fei Ran asked in mental voice, “If you become my Dao partner, would you regret it again?”
The girl, who seemed paralyzed and had hollow eyes, suddenly smiled. She hesitated, then extended a pale, withered finger and gently grabbed Fei Ran’s wrist. She blushed slightly, lowered her eyelids, and said shyly, “You are very warm.”
Fei Ran laughed silently. He turned his hand to hold her somewhat cold one, then looked toward Xiao Xun and said with a smile, “A reminder: don’t let it happen again.”
Xiao Xun glanced sideways, pouted, and surprisingly did not talk back. She nodded. “You two lovebirds live well together. Consider my gift money paid by Ligou.”
Fei Ran smiled and cupped his hands in thanks.
Xiao Xun muttered under her breath, “Damn scholar—they’re all cut from the same mold.”
One after another, a group of genuine great demons of the Barren Wastes were called over by Fei Ran to discuss matters, so that Senior Xiao Xun would not be kept waiting too long.
Among the fourteen old Throne great demons were Zhu Yan, the Moving Mountain Ancestor, and Fei Fei, the new master of the Yeluo River.
Among the new Throne great demons was the sword immortal Shouchen, Zhou Mi’s first disciple. He was an Ascension Realm sword cultivator, carrying a sword case with six swords, dressed in a green robe called “Bunching Banana Refinement.”
When Zhou Qinggao saw Shouchen, he bowed and called him “Senior Brother.” Shouchen smiled and nodded.
Also, there was the great demon Guanxiang, with white hair, white eyebrows, and white robes, who was obsessed with persuading the young Hidden Officer to become his granddaughter’s Dao partner.
The Tuoyue Mountain Great Ancestor’s personal disciple, with the Dao name Xinzhuang, was a female Ascension Realm formation master and also a martial artist at the Ultimate Realm.
A tall, armored figure in radiant golden armor and a mask, whose Great Path origins and true identity were unknown even to Fei Ran.
A female Daoist with the Dao name Rourou. The Dao crown on her head was unique in the world: a lotus bloomed above a hibiscus, and above that lotus was a fish tail. She was the severed third corpse of the old Throne great demon Huang Luan. After Zhou Mi ate Huang Luan, he returned all the secret treasures to her.
Finally, Bai Ze ascended the mountain slowly with two others. They were ancient great demons, just like Ligou and Wumingshi, personally awakened by Bai Ze.
A beautiful woman, Guan Yi, with the Dao name “Snow Hidden.”
A short, stooped old crone, her entire body radiating Dao aura in five colors. Every time the old woman lifted her foot to step onto a step, the mountain lord of this Green Mountain felt tremendous pressure, needing to use divine abilities to offset the weight of her Great Path.
Zhu Yan, standing on the railing, saw this old crone and wiped his mouth. Since none had reached the Fourteenth Realm yet, all had a chance!
The old woman raised her head, smiled, and pointed at Mr. Bai Ze in front of her, indicating to Zhu Yan: what is more important, merging with the Dao, or your life?
Fei Ran asked with a smile, “Mr. Bai Ze, Wang Youwu is definitely absent today, right?”
As for that “Hu Tu,” another ancient great demon who had lived for ten thousand years, there was no need for him to come.
Bai Ze said, “She has arrived.”
As he spoke, Wang Youwu, the newly ascended Fourteenth Realm cultivator who thought she had hidden herself very well, was casually pulled out of that hidden Dao field by Bai Ze and forced to appear beside Guan Yi.
A Hall of Heroes.
New Thrones of the Barren Wastes.
At the highest seat: Fei Ran, master of the world.
Second highest seat: Bai Ze, who had returned to the Barren Wastes from the Haoran World.
Of course, if Bai Ze wanted to take the highest seat, no one, including Fei Ran, would object. They would not dare to say anything aloud, nor even in their hearts.
Third: Guike, the embodiment of the Great Path of the Barren Wastes World.
Xiao Xun was fourth. She was not happy about that. She stared hard at Guike, who had just collected her gift money. The girl then voluntarily offered to swap seats with Xiao Xun.
Bai Ze said nothing about it. Fei Ran said nothing either. So they just swapped places.
Xiao Xun put her hands on her hips and laughed heartily. “If you don’t mind, treat this place as your bridal chamber. May you bear a son soon.”
Ancestor Chusheng, leaning on a staff.
Ligou, who no longer had the storage pouch and demon-capturing gourd at his waist.
Wang Youwu, in a bamboo hat, riding a deer.
These three were all Fourteenth Realm.
After them: Wumingshi, the number one martial artist in the Barren Wastes World, at the peak of the Ascension Realm.
Zhu Yan, Guan Yi, and the short old crone whose Dao name and alias could not be revealed.
Fei Fei, Shouchen, Guanxiang, Xinzhuang, Rourou, and that golden-armored mystery figure as shrouded in fog as the old crone.
Seventeen new Throne great demons of the Barren Wastes World.
But Bai Ze said, “Wait a moment.”
In an instant, a robust female martial artist tore open—or rather, forcibly pried open—a great door with both hands. From that cold realm of endless vengeful spirits and ghosts, she strode out. As she stepped across the door, martial fortune rumbled like thunder from heaven and earth, surging toward this place. She raised her hands, casually separated her long black hair, and tied it up, revealing a peerlessly beautiful face without eyebrows. When she took another step and both feet crossed the door, another bestowal of martial fortune surged toward her from the Haoran World, the Barren Wastes World, and the Western Buddhist Kingdom together.
She took only two steps. From the Martial Dao’s Ultimate Realm level of Qi Overflow, she reached Return to Truth. Then Spirit Arrival.
Haoran world.
At the Celestial Master Mansion of Dragon Tiger Mountain, the ten-tailed celestial fox Lianzhen prostrated himself, welcoming the Celestial Master Zhao Tianlai, who had successfully emerged from seclusion.
In a mountain countryside courtyard, after the first rain, lotus leaves fluttered. Cherry blossoms blazed like fire. Pomegranate flowers were about to burst into flame. Among the flowers, bees and butterflies fluttered, as if they were sharing the spoils of the spring in the human world.
Liu Qi sat under the eaves and sighed softly. Without that most proud man in the world blocking the path, he had succeeded after all. Su Zi was a bold man, so he probably wouldn’t mind this.
In Beiju Luzhou, Liu Jubao walked out of the family ancestral hall. He turned and looked at the continuous stretch of thirty-seven peaks in the same province, deep in thought.
Western Buddhist Kingdom.
A bronze-gilt mandala stood tall, with countless dharma pillars erected. Someone had achieved the Dao here. A ray of heavenly light broke through layers of mist, like sweet dew, slowly descending onto the world’s head.
A monk who had already reincarnated eighty times finally remembered all his past lives in this one. Beside the monk was a river, and by the river was a boat. On the bank was a cart drawn by a horse.
Azure Underworld world.
The deputy city lord of Nanhua City, Lady Wei, had achieved perfect merit.
At a site of an ancient battlefield, a desolate wilderness rarely visited by men, there stood only a lonely, desolate temple. It enshrined the Supreme Sage, the Buddha, and the Dao Ancestor together, and was called Incense Accumulation Temple.
Inside the temple was a young boy wearing a Daoist crown, a monk’s kasaya, and a hanging jade pendant, sitting on a prayer mat. Beneath that slightly trembling prayer mat, something unknown was suppressed.
With every breath he took, he scattered his own Dao power, helping the heroic spirits and ghostly souls to open a path and travel to the Fengdu underworld. He did not know how many millennia had passed in the world.
The boy raised his hand, wiped away tears, and murmured, “Accumulating external merit, my heart has no blemish. A true Daoist indeed.”
A knocking sound rang out: “Dok dok dok.” Someone was using a sword scabbard to tap on the door.
The visitor outside the door was none other than the monk Jiang Xiu, who had only just ascended to the Fourteenth Realm not long ago.
At a place called Gushe Mountain, there was a “young man” who had never set foot beyond the boundaries of this mountain since childhood. Relying on a Dao book, he had been silently refining Qi until now. After confirming that he had indeed entered the Fourteenth Realm, this young man, who had repeatedly told himself that when he reached a higher realm he would go out and have a look, backed out every time, telling himself to wait until next time. Now, he still did not plan to leave the mountain. He continued to hide, being a woodcutter who cut wood, burned charcoal, and brewed his own wine. “I don’t want to know about you, and you don’t need to know about me.”
In the aftermath of the rain, new Fourteenth Realms.
Within a hundred years, there would be more.
In an inconspicuous little Daoist temple, an old man named Chang Geng read by lamplight. He picked up a salted peanut and tossed it into his mouth, chewing carefully. Across the table, a lazy boy lay with his head on the table, murmuring complaints about the heavy burden of Daoist studies. The old man smiled. “Chen Cong, your talent for naming is actually not bad.”
One day in the future, the two would merge into one and walk the world as a single person, a true Chen.
The padded-jacket boy didn’t take this kind of cryptic nonsense seriously. Now that the temple had a new abbot, the rules were even stricter. Thinking about having to wake up early tomorrow to do the Daoist studies homework, Chen Cong sighed deeply. He reached into the plate, grabbed a handful of salted peanuts, and threw them into his mouth. But he didn’t forget to leave a few for the old man through his fingers. Then the boy stood up, with a mischievous smile, and said indistinctly, “Uncle Chang, take your time eating. I’m going to sleep first. Tomorrow morning, I’ll definitely help sweep the courtyard, clean and tidy!”
The old man smiled. “It’s still early. How about I tell you a story?”
Chen Cong hesitated. “Don’t let it be a ghost story. You know I’m timid! Hmm, if it’s a spicy one, I wouldn’t mind!”
The old man reached out, pinched the lamp wick, and smiled. “This story has everything.”
Sometimes he felt a bit frustrated. This kid—his original nature was quite lively, quite annoying.
Chen Cong flopped back onto the stool, propped his chin on his hands, and said seriously, “Uncle Chang, can you make up a story on the spot with me as the main character? You can be in it too, as the expert!”
The old man nodded. “Alright. This is a fresh story about Senior Brother Cui Chan and little junior brother Chen Ping’an learning the Dao together.”