A fountain cannot rise higher than its source.

"Quietly I take my leave,"

"As quietly as I came here;"

"Quietly I wave my hand,"

"To bid farewell to the western clouds..."

A bright moon hung in the sky, accompanied by a dazzling array of stars.

A certain man walked leisurely along a mountain path. He had a stalk of foxtail grass dangling from his mouth and held a white jade gourd in his left hand. As he strolled, he chanted a poem of farewell, his wide sleeves swaying freely from side to side in an utterly unhindered and carefree manner.

Suddenly, a tender, long howl pierced the night sky.

"Awoo!!!!"

The birds in the forest scattered in flight.

The howl was so sorrowful that it would bring tears to anyone who heard it.

The man paused his steps slightly.

He turned his head and took one last look in the direction of the cave, as if he could see that little fellow crying with tears streaming down its face, running frantically toward him on its short little legs.

"Sometimes, farewells do not require seeing each other face to face."

Ye Shu sighed softly. Then he turned around and continued walking, tilting his head back to pour all the pills from the white jade gourd into his mouth.

Gulp... gulp... gulp...

As the pills slid down his throat, the sorrow of parting was diluted quite a bit.

A strange current began to flow from his abdomen, traveling through his limbs and bones. Ye Shu felt his entire body lighten, and the speed at which his spiritual energy circulated faintly increased.

"Good stuff!"

He patted the gourd and laughed heartily, "The pill toxicity from hundreds of Qi Recovery Pills was completely resolved with just one gourd!"

"Hmph! This is a product of this Heavenly Dao, after all."

Xiaobai, who was sitting on his shoulder, said disdainfully. Her two fair, white calves dangled back and forth in the moonlight. "How about it? I, as the Heavenly Dao, am still quite useful, right?"

"Of course you are useful."

Ye Shu smiled and flattered her, "Our lovely Lord Heavenly Dao has always been the most useful. You know, I have always liked our dear student Xiaobai the most. I cannot do without you!"

"A-at least you know what's good for you!"

Xiaobai's small face turned red at his words, but the corners of her mouth unconsciously curled up slightly. "H-however, if you think that just sweet-talking me will make this Heavenly Dao fall for you, then you are gravely mistaken!"

"When did I ever say I wanted you to fall for me?"

Ye Shu asked back with a look of utter bewilderment.

Xiaobai froze, immediately realizing that she seemed to have let something slip—no, she had been led astray by this guy.

She quickly turned her head away and changed the subject:

"By the way, your pill toxicity is cleared, and you've gotten the Purple Qi Foundation Establishment Pill from the Lion King. You can establish your foundation now, right?"

Hearing this, Ye Shu's footsteps suddenly faltered, and he almost tripped.

"Well... about that..."

"I'm afraid... I can't quite do it..."

He scratched his cheek with his index finger, stammering and unable to speak for a long time. Seeing him like this, Xiaobai knew that this guy was definitely hiding something from her.

"What's wrong with you?"

She furrowed her little brows and stared suspiciously at Ye Shu. "I gave you the Purple Qi Foundation Establishment Pill and told you to establish your foundation. First, you said it was too windy or raining. Then you said the pill toxicity in your body hadn't been cleared, or the cracks in your dantian hadn't healed. You even said you were too embarrassed to establish your foundation in front of a little beast."

"Now the person is gone, and the pill toxicity is cleared."

"Look at the villain's cultivation level right now! According to the normal plot, they are already at the late Golden Core stage, yet you are still a lowly nobody at the ninth level of Qi Condensation. What excuse do you have left to not establish your foundation?!"

Xiaobai huffed angrily. Then, suddenly realizing something was wrong, she leaned in close to Ye Shu's face, staring wide-eyed into his eyes, and said word by word:

"Are you hiding something from me?"

Looking at those eyes full of suspicion, Ye Shu subconsciously tried to turn his face away, but Xiaobai forcefully grabbed his face and made him look straight into her eyes.

"Answer me! You smelly Ye Shu!!!"

"Are you hiding something from me!"

"Look in my eyes!"

"Uh... actually, I'm not really hiding anything from you." Pushed to this point, Ye Shu had no other choice. He gave a dry laugh and finally spoke up, "Well... you know that I'm not cultivating the Flame Mantra, but my self-created Cosmic Starry Sky."

"I know, an Emperor-grade cultivation method, the cultivation Russell, right?"

Xiaobai nodded, somewhat puzzled. "But what does that have to do with you not establishing your foundation?"

"The Cosmic Starry Sky is an Emperor-grade cultivation method, that's true."

Ye Shu awkwardly corrected her, "But it's currently just a prototype, which means..."

He took a deep breath and finally blurted it out.

"Actually, I've only created the Qi Condensation chapter. As for the Foundation Establishment chapter... I haven't figured out how to write it yet."

After saying that, he looked at Xiaobai with a face full of sincerity.

Xiaobai: "..."

She opened her small mouth wide, unable to speak for a long time.

After a good while, she barely managed to ask, "B-but didn't you say before that your cultivation method has no bottlenecks?"

"It doesn't have any bottlenecks."

Ye Shu nodded with an innocent look. "If I could finish writing the Foundation Establishment chapter, then I could establish my foundation on the spot, completely without the need for any supplementary methods."

"But the problem is you haven't finished writing it!!!"

Xiaobai screamed in frustration. "Isn't that exactly what a bottleneck is?!"

"No, a bottleneck is a bottleneck, and not finishing writing is not finishing writing. These are two completely different things. One is when the road is built, but you don't have a ticket. The other is when you have a ticket, but the road isn't built. It's not the same."

Ye Shu said with a straight face.

"How is it not the same? How on earth is it not the same?"

Xiaobai was so angry she was about to spit blood. "Then why don't you just learn the Flame Mantra? Or next time you have a fortuitous encounter, I'll get you a Heaven-grade cultivation method to use. Your self-created method is worse than not creating one at all!"

"You're wrong!"

Hearing this, Ye Shu interrupted her with a serious expression.

"If we really did it your way, then there would be no point in us continuing from the very beginning, because we would be doomed to fail from the start."

"W-why?"

Xiaobai was taken aback by his serious expression, and even her imposing manner weakened a bit as she asked softly.

Ye Shu looked at the bright moon on the horizon and said word by word:

"Because the height of a fountain will never exceed its source."

"The height of a fountain will not exceed its source?"

Xiaobai repeatedly chewed over this sentence, seemingly comprehending something from it, but before she could fully grasp the meaning, she was about to ask again. However, she saw Ye Shu looking around with a serious face once more, assuming a battle stance. She couldn't help but ask in confusion:

"What's wrong with you?"

"Don't you think... it's too quiet?"

Ye Shu gripped the hilt of his sword and looked around. "Ever since we left the cave, not a single magical beast has bothered us. It's frighteningly quiet, almost as if..."

"Someone is deliberately clearing the path for us!"

The moment his words fell, Ye Shu and Xiaobai both felt something at the same time and looked up straight ahead.

On the path directly in front of them, there was a hill.

On top of the hill stood a majestic Lion King, holding its head high and puffing out its chest, staring intently at them.