The old Daoist eagerly took the bamboo basket and began his preparations, occasionally marveling at Fang Zhiyi's talismans.
The two little disciples curiously sized up Fang Zhiyi, only to be called away by their master to prepare the necessary items.
Fang Zhiyi, meanwhile, continuously observed his surroundings.
To be honest, this Daoist temple was even more dilapidated than the one he used to live in.
However, thanks to the old Daoist's offerings, the place was filled with an ethereal aura.
It seemed he had not come to the wrong place.
The old Daoist was softly chanting scriptures, and the talismans and wooden plaques Fang Zhiyi brought were all neatly stacked on the altar.
It looked like it wouldn't end anytime soon.
Fang Zhiyi simply stood up and wandered around. After walking a circle, he suddenly turned around and found the old Daoist's disciple following behind him.
"Why are you following me?"
The slightly dirty-faced little disciple was a bit timid. After a moment, he replied in a low voice, "Master told me to keep an eye on the guest..."
Fang Zhiyi sighed helplessly, "Isn't your master being a bit too petty? Even rats would leave this broken temple in tears. Are you really afraid I'll steal your things?"
Hearing this, the little disciple said, "We still have two large iron pots!"
"Impressive, impressive."
He understood now. This temple was truly poor. Likely due to the chaos of war and its location deep in the mountains, no one had visited for a long time. It was a miracle the old Daoist had held on for this long. It was just... something felt a bit strange.
Fang Zhiyi simply returned to the main hall. Looking at the statue of the ancestral founder, he fell into deep thought.
He stayed there for a whole night.
"I have to say, this branding process is quite exhausting," Fang Zhiyi said, shaking his head. "It used to be so convenient; I could just use them right after drawing..."
The old Daoist remained sitting cross-legged in front of the ancestral founder's statue, his head lowered.
Little Hei's words interrupted Fang Zhiyi's sighing: "This guy fell asleep."
"Ah?"
Before Fang Zhiyi could lose his temper, the old Daoist tactfully picked up all the items and started counting them one by one. "We agreed on forty percent, so it's forty percent..."
Fang Zhiyi ignored him until he handed over his respective share.
"What use do you have for these things?"
The old Daoist was taken aback. "To sell, of course. To sell to pilgrims in exchange for some silver..."
"You don't have a single damn pilgrim here. That incense burner outside probably hasn't been used in years, right?"
"Uh..." the old Daoist turned his head away.
"How about I propose a partnership?"
"Please go ahead."
"I'll take them to the city and sell them for you, then bring the money back to you. You continue processing the next batch for me. How does that sound?"
Fang Zhiyi's eyes burned brightly; he had seen the temple's dire straits with his own eyes.
Unexpectedly, the old Daoist shook his head.
"With years of disasters, life is hard for the common people. It's enough if these things can help people. If I take the initiative to sell them, the ancestral founder will blame me."
Fang Zhiyi was stunned and re-evaluated the old Daoist, noting the patches on the sleeves of his Daoist robe.
"Wait, does the ancestral founder provide you with food and drink? You have to survive first, and you have two disciples. Do you really think you're cultivating immortality?"
The old Daoist, however, slightly closed his eyes. "There is a small vegetable field behind the temple, which is enough to make a living."
Fang Zhiyi glanced at the ancestral founder's statue again and remained silent for a moment.
"I'm giving you face, aren't I?"
Fang Zhiyi suddenly threw a punch. The old Daoist looked elderly, but his movements were exceptionally agile. An ordinary person could not possibly have dodged Fang Zhiyi's fist at such a distance, but the old Daoist managed to evade it completely.
"Benefactor! What are you doing!" the old Daoist's voice rose a little. The two disciples who had gone to rest came running over, still looking at Fang Zhiyi timidly.
"Strange." Fang Zhiyi smiled. "I originally didn't want to meddle in this business, but it's just too strange."
The old Daoist's eyes widened, staring straight at Fang Zhiyi. His gaze completely mismatched his face.
Fang Zhiyi raised his left hand, bending his pinky and pressing his thumb towards his palm. The old Daoist's eyes showed surprise. "A sword seal?"
"What exactly are you?" Fang Zhiyi asked, word by word.
The old Daoist opened his mouth slightly, leaning back a bit. "I am just an ordinary Daoist. Benefactor, I have done what you asked. You may leave."
"No, no, no. Very few things make me curious, so I must figure this out."
The air in the main hall grew tense, only to be broken by the old Daoist's sigh.
Immediately after, the old Daoist's body began to twist and expand. In the blink of an eye, the old Daoist revealed his true form—a bear wearing a Daoist robe. Fang Zhiyi turned his head and saw that the two little disciples were not afraid of the bear, but instead looked at Fang Zhiyi with even greater terror.
"I... I don't want to hurt anyone," the Black Bear Spirit spoke, his voice somewhat muffled. "If you think I took too much, you can take it. Just don't hurt my two junior brothers..."
Fang Zhiyi slowly lowered his hand. Little White, hidden in his sleeve, peeked out slightly before quickly shrinking back in.
"Junior brothers?"
The Black Bear Spirit carefully glanced at Fang Zhiyi. "I know you are an expert, and I cannot afford to offend you. But I have never done anything against the heavens or reason. If you insist on exterminating me, I won't just let myself be slaughtered!"
Fang Zhiyi waved his hand. "You're getting off topic."
He hadn't felt it when he first entered, but after staying for a while, Fang Zhiyi began to sense something amiss. The old Daoist had the same aura around him as Little White, but when he left the main hall, the demonic aura lessened a bit.
Deep mountains, a Daoist temple, two human Daoist boys, and a monster disguised as the old Daoist—anyone would imagine a tragedy.
"What I find strange is that you are a demon, yet this ancestral founder is willing to help you... It's bizarre."
The Black Bear Spirit confirmed that Fang Zhiyi was making no other moves before answering, "Since I gained sentience, I often came here to beg for food. Master was very kind. He never chased me away; instead, he would preach to me. Over time, I became his disciple, even though he never explicitly said so."
"I was afraid of scaring the pilgrims, so I only came at night. I kept this up for ten years. Back then, there were five senior brothers in the temple. They never treated me as a monster, but rather as a junior brother, until..." The black bear looked up towards the gate. "I heard from Eldest Senior Brother that it was chaos outside, humans were at war, and the pilgrims stopped coming."
"Later on, Master took my senior brothers down the mountain. I wanted to follow them, but they asked me to help guard the temple, promising to bring me delicious food when they returned."
The Black Bear Spirit raised a finger and pointed at the two children by the door. "I took these two in on behalf of Master. Their parents died, and if they hadn't met me, they probably would have been carried off by other wild beasts long ago..."
"Master and the others should be coming back soon." The black bear looked at Fang Zhiyi. "I don't know who you really are, but don't get any ideas about this temple. Otherwise, even if you are the reincarnation of a Great Luo Golden Immortal, I won't fear you!"
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
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.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
