Xuanyangzi's eyes were red as he handed over the jade box, watching the Fifth Patriarch "struggle" to open the lid. His heart ached intensely.
The Patriarchs were so weak that they couldn't even open a box!
The moment the box was opened, the rich aura emanating from the Innate Spirit Marrow caused the spiritual energy in the entire forbidden area to tremble.
The Fifth Patriarch's hand shook. That kid Gu Changge was actually willing to give this away?
"This... this is too precious..."
The Fifth Patriarch was truly trembling this time.
Xuanyangzi, however, misunderstood and quickly supported his shaking hand.
"Patriarch, don't be agitated! Take it easy!"
Turning around, he said to the other Patriarchs, "This spiritual tea is also a treasure of Junior Brother Gu. He said it can calm the mind and nourish the qi, and there is a chance of entering a state of epiphany..."
The Fourth Patriarch's beard twitched imperceptibly. Could it really be the Dao Enlightenment Tea?
Seeing that the act was about to be exposed, the First Patriarch quickly "weakly" changed the subject: "Little Yangzi... how... how is the sect doing lately?"
"Thanks to the Patriarchs' blessings, everything is fine."
Xuanyangzi answered respectfully, thinking to himself that the Patriarchs were still worried about the sect even in this state, truly... he felt like shedding tears again.
The Second Patriarch suddenly coughed "violently": "It's... getting late... you... you go back to your work..."
Xuanyangzi understood; the Patriarchs were running out of strength!
He quickly stood up: "This disciple takes his leave. Patriarchs, please rest well."
Before leaving, he didn't forget to gently place the tea canister by the stone platform.
When Xuanyangzi's figure completely disappeared and the forbidden area's barrier had just closed, the five "dying" old men instantly jumped up, full of vigor.
"Quick! Reinforce the barrier with three layers!"
The First Patriarch dropped his weak act, his voice booming like a bell.
The Fifth Patriarch was already circling the spiritual tea on the stone platform: "Is this really the Dao Enlightenment Tea? I've only seen descriptions of it in ancient texts!"
The Third Patriarch hugged the tea canister and sniffed vigorously: "I feel like I'm about to have an epiphany just from smelling the aroma!"
The Fourth Patriarch impatiently snatched the tea canister, his fingers trembling: "Quick, quick, quick, brew a pot to taste first!"
The Second Patriarch, however, suddenly pressed down on the tea canister, his expression grave: "Wait! If this tea is truly the Dao Enlightenment Tea, we must first adjust our state."
The First Patriarch stroked his beard and nodded: "Number Two is right. Let's adjust our own state first..."
Before he finished speaking, the Fifth Patriarch had secretly broken off a small piece of tea leaf and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Number Five! You!" The Third Patriarch's eyes widened.
They saw the Fifth Patriarch shudder, and three phantom golden lotuses suddenly appeared above his head, with Dao rhythm flowing around him.
With his eyes tightly closed, he had directly entered a state of epiphany!
"You prodigal!"
The First Patriarch stomped his feet in anger.
"Swallowing a tea leaf just like that! What a waste of a heavenly treasure!"
The Fourth Patriarch was quick-witted and quickly shielded the remaining tea leaves in his arms.
"Not a single piece of the remaining leaves can be missing! We have to find that kid Gu Changge and ask him exactly where this tea came from!"
Just then, Xuanyangzi's voice suddenly came from outside the barrier: "Patriarchs, this disciple forgot to mention, the sect competition is in four months..."
The five old men instantly froze and, with lightning speed, reverted to their dying appearances.
The First Patriarch even flopped down on the ground with a "thud," not forgetting to drag the enlightened Fifth Patriarch down with him.
The barrier opened, and Xuanyangzi looked at the Patriarchs "fainted" all over the place, immediately panicking: "Patriarchs! What happened to you!"
The Third Patriarch "weakly" raised his hand: "It's... it's nothing... Number Five's... old injury relapsed..."
The Fifth Patriarch cooperatively "twitched" twice, with uncleaned tea dregs still hanging from the corner of his mouth.
Xuanyangzi frantically pulled out a communication jade slip: "I'll call Junior Brother Gu right now!"
"Don't!" The four Patriarchs simultaneously "sat up in shock from their dying sickness," startling Xuanyangzi.
The First Patriarch quickly explained: "This small matter... no need to trouble Changge... you... you go back first..."
Xuanyangzi looked suspiciously at the mess on the ground, then at the suddenly energetic Patriarchs, feeling that something was wrong...
Meanwhile, the Fifth Patriarch was cursing loudly through divine sense transmission.
"You old bastards! I was in the middle of an epiphany! You forcibly interrupted me!"
Xuanyangzi backed out of the forbidden area with heavy steps, the barrier slowly closing behind him.
The Patriarchs' momentary "energy" just now was too abnormal, especially the bit of green tea dregs at the corner of the Fifth Patriarch's mouth, which stuck in his heart like a thorn.
But on second thought, the Patriarchs might have been temporarily stimulated by the aura of the spiritual tea, but their bodies were ultimately exhausted.
He suppressed the urge to turn back and headed toward Qingyun Peak.
Inside the barrier, the "dead wood" on the five stone platforms instantly came alive.
"Quick! Reinforce the barrier!"
The First Patriarch suddenly sprang up from the stone platform, his originally hunched back straightening up, his voice booming like a bell, shaking the stone dust loose.
His fingers formed seals, and three golden lights shot into the edge of the forbidden area. The originally translucent barrier instantly became solid like colored glaze, and even the air seemed to freeze.
The Fifth Patriarch was already squatting on the ground holding the box of Innate Spirit Marrow, his fingers trembling like autumn leaves as he carefully extracted a drop of the Innate Spirit Marrow.
As soon as the spiritual liquid touched the air, it turned into wisps of mist, emitting a warm aura that could make moss grow on gold and stone.
"Tsk tsk, this is Innate Spirit Marrow..."
He popped the spiritual liquid into his mouth, immediately shivering all over, the cloudiness in his eyes completely swept away.
"Just how many treasures did Daoist Zizhu leave for that kid Gu Changge?"
"Don't just enjoy it by yourself!"
The Third Patriarch snatched the tea canister and roughly tore off the lid. The rich tea aroma instantly exploded, actually condensing into tiny golden light particles on the stone platform.
He pinched a tea leaf and brought it to his nose, inhaling deeply, his beard trembling into waves.
"It's Dao Enlightenment Tea! It really is Dao Enlightenment Tea! Ancient texts say that a single leaf can cause a saint to have an epiphany!"
"Cut the crap, brew it!"
The Second Patriarch had already brought over a stone basin and pulled out a chipped coarse porcelain bowl from nowhere.
"Use the spiritual spring to brew it!"
The Fourth Patriarch was quick with his hands. With a flick of his finger, a clear spring gushed out from the cracks in the stone, making a tinkling sound as it fell into the bowl, and a faint spiritual light floated on the water's surface.
The Third Patriarch's hand holding the tea leaves trembled again and again, but he finally threw in five leaves with a hardened heart—any more, and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to control himself and would go mad on the spot.
"You prodigal!"
The First Patriarch was about to curse, but his mind was severely shaken by the tea aroma in the bowl.
The fragrance drilled into his sea of consciousness through his nasal cavity, instantly turning into countless tiny points of light, crashing against the bottleneck that had kept him stuck at the peak of the King Realm until it buzzed.
He could no longer care about teaching the Fifth Patriarch a lesson and picked up the coarse porcelain bowl, draining it in one gulp.
He then sat cross-legged, his eyes tightly closed, the spiritual energy around him surging like a tsunami, and the cracks on the stone platform actually slowly healed under the nourishment of the spiritual energy.
The Second Patriarch and the Fourth Patriarch also scrambled to share the tea soup. After downing it in a few gulps, they each found a clean stone platform to sit on.
On the stone platforms, the five elders were either sitting or lying down, all surrounded by a faint rosy glow. The originally lifeless forbidden area was now even more vibrant than the spiritual fields of Zizhu Peak.
Only the Fifth Patriarch's resentment over his interrupted epiphany was still intermittently drifting in the divine sense: "When I get out... I have to beat up that kid Xuanyangzi..."
Before his words could fade, he was completely engulfed by a surging tide of enlightenment.
The profound roar of the Great Dao echoed within his sea of consciousness, and the golden light radiating from his body blazed ever brighter. Even the moss on the stone platform absorbed the overflowing spiritual energy, growing wildly into vines of vibrant emerald.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
