The Daoists in the two Daoist Palaces felt their hearts tighten, their expressions changing slightly.

‘Has our plot been exposed??’

The Blind Daoist and the Lame Daoist thought at the same time.

However, Supreme merely lifted his head, feigned a sigh, and spoke softly:

“My disciple’s Cultivation is still a bit lacking; he’s only an Earth Immortal… Still, for an Earth Immortal to depose a Celestial Court, smoothly preach my Great Dao, and make all the Immortals and Buddhas listen respectfully… I’d say that’s not too bad. What do you two think?”

The faces of the Blind Daoist and the Lame Daoist twitched. While they felt a sense of relief, they were also left a little speechless.

‘Seriously? This old coot came here just to show off?’

Immediately, the Lame Daoist and the Blind Daoist exchanged a look. A meaningful smile appeared on their faces as they both feigned envy and sighed.

“Supreme, oh Supreme, you really shouldn’t be so insatiable. To have such a disciple… from ancient times to the present day, who could possibly compare to you?”

The smile on Supreme’s face widened even more. He then gave two humble coughs and said, “Oh, dear.”

“Not at all, not at all. That little brat still has many areas for improvement. If he had truly received my teachings, how could his Cultivation be so low? He should have slapped that little fellow Gouchen to death with a single palm long ago.”

“I must disagree,” the Blind Daoist said with a chuckle. “If he had really killed Gouchen, we’d be the ones with a headache… But Xiaoxuan not only has astonishing talent, he also has immense courage. None of my twelve disciples can compare!”

“Mm.”

The Lame Daoist also chuckled and said:

“Though I claim three thousand disciples, upon careful consideration, there may be some whose talent can match Xiaoxuan’s, but none whose courage can stand alongside his. Supreme, you truly have good fortune, such good fortune!”

The two Great Celestial Venerables praised him with utmost sincerity, the smiles on their faces growing even wider.

In contrast, the smile on Supreme’s face faded a little. He started to feel puzzled. ‘These two… shouldn’t they be green with envy?’

He suddenly felt a sense of boredom, finding the situation rather dull. The Three Pristine Ones were one body, from the same source, a single family. But precisely because of this, they always wanted to compete and see who was superior.

Supreme felt a bit out of sorts. He immediately coughed lightly twice more and said with a gentle smile:

“Be that as it may, it’s not entirely set in stone. Perhaps you two will also find a disciple comparable to Xiaoxuan someday. There’s no need to be too disheartened.”

“Indeed, indeed!” the Blind Daoist said with a solemn expression.

“That’s right, that’s right!” the Lame Daoist chimed in, beaming.

Supreme felt a figurative toothache and grew even more vexed. He sighed and spoke again:

“You two… why are you acting so abnormally? Are you hiding something from me?”

“How could you say such a thing!” the Blind Daoist feigned fury.

“We are one body! How could we hide anything?” the Lame Daoist declared with righteous indignation.

Supreme was a bit suspicious, but in the end, he didn’t say anything more. Having lost his interest, he waved his hand.

“Forget it. So be it, so be it!”

With that, he sullenly turned his head and returned to Douluo Palace.

After he left, the two Daoists, each with their own physical flaw, exchanged a look. Inexplicable smiles appeared on both their faces as they too walked back toward their respective Daoist Palaces.

As he walked, the Blind Daoist called out in a loud voice:

“Supreme, by what virtue or ability do you deserve this?”

The Lame Daoist, meanwhile, shook his head, feigning dejection:

“For Supreme to have such a disciple, my heart aches!”

Inside Douluo Palace, the old man, who had just sat back down before the Eight Trigrams Furnace, finally broke into a smile upon hearing their voices.

But when the other two Daoists returned to their Daoist Palaces and closed the doors, they too broke into brilliant smiles in unison.

It was just that their smiles carried a hint of guilt.

………

「Ancient Times.」

During the Spring and Autumn Period, several years passed in the blink of an eye.

Zhao Zheng led the Cyan Bull to the Lu Kingdom. In the third year of Lu Zi’s presence in the world, he gave his second sermon, seated high above the capital of the Lu Kingdom. This time, he expounded on the second chapter of the “Book of Dao”.

This sermon was even grander than the last. Immortals and Buddhas listened from the side, while birds, beasts, and plants contemplated in silence. In the Lu Kingdom, countless people who had heard the news in advance rushed to the capital, packing the great eight-hundred-li city to bursting.

For a time, the price of a single bed in the capital of the Lu Kingdom skyrocketed by a hundred, even a thousand times. But despite this, those who came to hear the sermon were still an unending stream.

Several days later, after the sermon was finished, Zhao Zheng led the Cyan Bull, which carried the old man. Following behind them were the Eighty-One Armors, who had already reached the Earth Immortal Level, as they headed toward the next kingdom.

In the fifth year of Lu Zi’s presence in the world, he gave his third sermon. After the sermon concluded, beasts and plants that had gained Essence followed behind him.

In the seventh year of Lu Zi’s presence in the world, he gave his fourth sermon. Afterward, among the following plant spirits, and the enlightened beasts and birds, those with better aptitude awoke from their comprehension of the Dao early and hurriedly followed Lu Zi’s pace.

By this time, his followers numbered over a hundred.

In the same year, as they neared the Chu Kingdom, they encountered a disaster zone. Heavy snow had fallen here for seven or eight years, freezing the gates of some cities shut. If an ordinary person were to touch one, the frigid iron gate would surely tear the skin from their fingers.

All life withered, and the people were destitute. Inhuman atrocities such as swapping children to eat them occurred.

Lu Xuan, sitting atop the Cyan Bull, saw this tragic scene in the Human World and felt anger rise in his heart. He peered into Cause and Effect and discovered it was the work of an extremely powerful Evil God. However, he couldn’t find the Evil God’s specific tracks at the moment, nor could he stop the continuous snowfall. He could only provide aid along the way, saving whoever he could.

Following his senses for Cause and Effect, on the ninth day of their journey through this snowy region, they passed through a small town where nearly all life had perished, yet they saw the smoke of a cooking fire curling into the air.

Lu Xuan frowned. He ordered the Eighty-One Armors to wait outside, then dismounted from the Cyan Bull and walked into the small town, accompanied by Zhao Zheng, whose expression was grim and troubled.

Every few steps, they saw the bones of those who had frozen to death by the roadside. Many more were buried beneath the snowdrifts, their skeletal remains beyond counting.

They even saw a large pot, the firewood beneath it frozen solid. Beside the pot lay two commoners in ragged clothes, also frozen to death.

And in the pot, within water that had frozen into a block of ice, an infant was sealed beneath the surface. It was frozen in a crying posture, but it had long been dead.

It appeared that, at some unknown time before, these two people had intended to boil the infant for food. But they were caught in a sudden, extreme cold snap. The firewood was extinguished, they themselves froze to death, the boiling water solidified into ice, and the infant was frozen within it.

The sight was horrifying.

Zhao Zheng trembled with anger, his eyes turning red, but he didn’t know where to direct his rage.

‘Should it be toward these two commoners who were about to eat a person?’

‘But even if they were wicked, they were also victims of the disaster, and they had already frozen to death.’

Zhao Zheng’s eyes grew even redder. Beside him, Lu Xuan also stared at the scene, sighed softly, and asked in a low voice:

“Are you angry?”

“I am.”

“Angry at whom?”

“At the Evil God who caused this disaster!”

“Mm.”

Lu Xuan asked no more questions. He simply led Zhao Zheng toward the source of the curling smoke. Before long, they arrived in front of a small courtyard.

Staring at the cooking smoke rising above the courtyard, the vibrations of Cause and Effect grew more intense. Lu Xuan sensed that the Evil God was nearby. He opened his eyes, his pupils like two Great Sun Golden Lamps.

He also activated [Dao Generating One], allowing him to see the intersecting web of Cause and Effect. Aided by his own one thousand one hundred and fifty units of Human Dao Fortune, he used [Unity of Virtue and Conduct] and snatched an Evil God hidden within the void.

The Evil God seemed to be watching some scene with great relish. Now, suddenly yanked out, it hadn’t yet come to its senses. It looked up with a completely bewildered expression and saw the furious Zhao Zheng, and an old man whose expression was even colder than the snow.

It shuddered, a sudden chill seizing its heart.

“Lu… Lu…”

Lu Xuan clapped his hands together. Under the combined power of [Unity of Virtue and Conduct] and his Human Dao Fortune, he crushed the Grand Grade Evil God, annihilating its Soul completely.

Across a hundred thousand li of the sky, the heavy snow stopped abruptly.

Tossing the Evil God’s corpse aside, Lu Xuan silently pushed open the courtyard gate with Zhao Zheng. He wanted to see the source of the cooking smoke, to see what sight had kept the Evil God watching with such relish.

With a CREAK, the courtyard gate was pushed open. The gazes of the old man and the young man passed through the gateway, taking in the scene within.

In the middle of the courtyard was a large pot, just like the one before, set over a burning fire, with boiling water inside.

A boy of fifteen or sixteen, holding a little girl who looked to be two or three years old, stood by the pot. The boy was numb with cold and didn’t notice the two who had pushed the gate open. He raised the knife in his hand high.

Zhao Zheng’s eyes went wide with fury. He was about to shout, but Lu Xuan stopped him. He said softly:

“His life force is already exhausted. He’s living on by a single breath… Look again.”

Zhao Zheng froze. He stared intently and saw the boy slice a piece of flesh from his own arm. Before the blood could even flow, the wound froze over.

Looking closer, he saw that the boy’s body was covered in such knife wounds. He clearly should have been dead long ago, but just as Lu Xuan had said, he was hanging on by a single breath.

Then, the boy numbly placed the slice of his own flesh into the boiling water, let it cook for a moment, and then fed it to the little girl in his arms. The girl was bundled up warmly, but her eyes were tightly shut as she ate in a daze.

Immediately after, the boy mechanically raised his knife again, repeating the same action over and over. More and more wounds appeared on his body, and his aura grew weaker and weaker, but that single breath in his chest kept him from dying.

Zhao Zheng’s lips trembled. He stared blankly, unable to speak. Lu Xuan, however, closed his eyes and sighed softly, a faint ache in his heart.

Looking at this boy, he seemed to recall himself before the age of nine.

“Child.”

Lu Xuan spoke softly. His voice startled the snowflakes on a frozen tree in the courtyard, causing them to flutter down. The boy was clearly shocked. He instinctively protected the girl in his arms and turned his stiff gaze toward them.

“The snow has stopped…”

The old man in the Daoist Robe said with pity:

“The snow has stopped.”

Only then did the boy seem to realize it. He looked up. The blizzard had ceased, the thick ice clouds had dispersed, and long-missed sunlight was pouring down from the sky.

His lips twitched. He held the little girl forward with his frozen arms, wanting to say something, but no words came out. The single breath in his chest suddenly dissipated. He froze on the spot, dead.

The little girl, her eyes still unable to open, suddenly began to cry.

Tears streamed from Zhao Zheng’s eyes. Lu Xuan walked forward and took the wailing girl from the dead boy’s arms. He could see that the girl’s fate was also sealed; her internal organs were damaged by the cold.

“Foster-Grandfather…” Zhao Zheng wiped away a tear. “Can you save her?”

“I can.”

Lu Xuan nodded. He touched her with a point of divine light, healing all the little girl’s injuries. He then turned his gaze to the frozen boy, remaining silent for a long time.

After a long while, the old man said softly:

“Take his Soul. Let him be reborn into a good family. This child is fated to be with me; in the future, he may enter my tutelage.”

Black and White Impermanence, who had been hiding to the side, appeared. They bowed respectfully, extracted the boy’s Soul, and headed toward the Nine Nether. The boy’s Soul glanced back frequently, looking at the little girl in Lu Xuan’s arms with reluctance.

Lu Xuan asked softly:

“What is your name?”

“My name is Shan Hu,” the boy’s Soul replied.

“Good.”

After the boy had departed, Lu Xuan, holding the little girl, glanced to the side and asked:

“I once asked you what you would do if you could one day unify the lands. You answered that you didn’t know. What about now? Do you have any thoughts?”

Zhao Zheng dazedly pulled his gaze back and looked at his Foster-Grandfather. He nodded forcefully, his eyes red:

“I… I want to slaughter all the evil immortals and Evil Gods in the heavens! With the Human Dao, I will bring war to the Celestial Realm!”

“Good.” Lu Xuan nodded, then shook his head. He said softly, “The road ahead is long. Keep thinking. Keep thinking.”

As he spoke, he looked in the direction of the Chu Kingdom and added:

“Let’s go. To the Chu Kingdom… I have an old friend there.”

As his voice fell, Lu Xuan’s gaze grew profound.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep