"There isn't... but it seems there is."
Fang Zhiyi didn't even look at Little Hei. He knew that Little Hei was quite cautious in this Journey to the West background world, naturally not daring to stroll around recklessly as he did in other worlds.
"How do you know?"
"A guess." Fang Zhiyi took out a talisman. "Written on this talisman is the righteous law of heaven and earth, borrowing the power of heaven and earth. But in this world, if you don't believe in gods and immortals, it has no effect whatsoever. This proves... the breath of the Heavenly Dao has long been monopolized by these gods and Buddhas."
"So what?" Little Hei didn't understand. "Aren't you still a mortal, and a dying mortal at that."
Fang Zhiyi shook his head: "Vengeful spirits run rampant, and monsters can still cultivate. This alone is enough to prove that there are loopholes in their system. Of course, maybe it shouldn't be called a loophole, but... this is also my only way."
Little Hei looked at him and didn't speak.
Fang Zhiyi's pupils were so red they looked like they were going to bleed. The demonic aura he had forcibly absorbed gradually went berserk inside his body, constantly battering his mind. Even though Fang Zhiyi's mental strength was extremely formidable, he was somewhat teetering on the edge of collapse right now. Yet, he just smiled, resting one hand on the altar table and the other on the jar sealing He Yuling.
"Holy crap, are you crazy? Absorbing both ghost qi and immortal qi?"
Fang Zhiyi didn't answer. He could clearly feel the meridians and bones in his body letting out cracking sounds.
Suddenly, a tentacle pierced straight into his consciousness, which also brought back a bit of Fang Zhiyi's rationality.
"Let's just fight them to the bitter end! I'm going all out!" Little Hei clamored.
Fang Zhiyi felt his consciousness gradually floating up. He looked at his own body sitting there, while he uncontrollably drifted further and further away from it.
Humans, monsters, vengeful spirits, gods and immortals... one absurd scene after another gradually entered his brain.
He saw how those gods and immortals firmly grasped the Heavenly Dao in their own hands, and how they established those complicated mortal destinies. He even saw the monk who set off from the Eastern Lands heading West to seek scriptures, along with his three disciples.
The time that supposedly didn't exist in the mouth of the Heavenly Dao was now presented right before his eyes.
Until a tentacle firmly wrapped around his body.
"Found it, there's a loophole."
Fang Zhiyi turned his head to look. There was some faint aura of the Heavenly Dao drilling through the massive net constructed by the gods and immortals, sprinkling down toward the mortal realm.
Birds and beasts that obtained it could gain sentience, while humans who obtained it could acquire fortune.
Little Hei dragged Fang Zhiyi and floated toward one of the cracks.
The black bear was currently pacing back and forth in front of its shack. Today was already the seventh day, yet that Fang Zhiyi still hadn't come out. It had been seven days since it offered incense to the Patriarch.
Just as it was getting a bit anxious, it heard shouting and cursing coming from the Daoist temple not far away.
"I was already pissed off at you guys last time. Undergoing a tribulation? Using mortal lives to form your tribulation? Go screw yourselves! Have you stayed up there so long that you've even forgotten your own surnames? Mortals don't ask the gods to do much, they just want to pray for peace, is that so hard?"
The Black Bear Spirit subconsciously shrank its neck. Maybe it should wait until he was in a better mood before going to ask?
Fang Zhiyi turned around and rushed into the main hall, sweeping the incense burner enshrined by the Black Bear Spirit onto the floor with one swipe: "Receiving incense offerings all year round, and what's the result? Vengeful spirits plague the mortal realm and you all pretend not to see it, even sugarcoating it by saying it's a destined tribulation. Bah! You've really had it too good!"
The statue of the Patriarch stood there quietly, showing neither sorrow nor joy.
"Today I'm going to ruin your plans, what are you gonna do about it!" Fang Zhiyi acted as if he had gone mad, smashing things from the inside out, but there was no sound around him.
"You're fit to be gods? Let me tell you, the rules you don't dare to break, I will break! The people you don't dare to protect, I will protect! The lives of the more than one thousand three hundred and twenty people in Jiang Town, I am absolutely protecting them!"
The sky remained clear.
Those high and mighty gods and Buddhas didn't even disdain to pay attention to him.
However, Fang Zhiyi turned around and picked up the jar that sealed He Yuling.
"This is your chess piece, right? When one person achieves the Dao, even their poultry and dogs ascend to heaven. Every single one of you treats human lives as capital for your tribulations. Today, I will break this rule of yours!" He raised his hand, and a berserk aura gathered in his palm.
Just as he was about to slam his palm down, an old man appeared out of thin air and blocked his hand.
"Do not make any more mistakes, you have already made too many."
Fang Zhiyi looked at the old man in front of him, bared his teeth in a smile, and the demonic aura in his hand suddenly changed direction, surging out toward the old man!
The old man clearly hadn't expected Fang Zhiyi to actually dare to attack him. However, this little bit of minor monster's demonic aura couldn't cause him any harm at all; at most, it made him look a bit disheveled.
"Stubborn and foolish," the old man remained looking as calm as a gentle breeze and light clouds.
But in the very next moment, he received a slap to the face.
It dealt almost no damage, but the level of insult was maxed out.
"Who the hell are you pretending to be?" Fang Zhiyi cursed.
The old man's body instantly grew larger. In just the blink of an eye, he became a giant, his eyes shooting out piercing light as he stared fixedly at Fang Zhiyi.
Obviously, as a god, he didn't care about an ant like Fang Zhiyi, but for him to actually be slapped by an ant was a supreme humiliation!
"Originally, that little monster traded its own immortal path for your lifespan. Now it seems you no longer need it."
He slowly slammed a palm down.
Not far away, the Black Bear Spirit, who was building a shack, was already dumbfounded. What the hell was that? He wasn't going to tear down its Daoist temple, was he?
With no time to think carefully, the Black Bear Spirit directly revealed its true form. Its seemingly clumsy body rushed forward at an extremely fast speed: "Stop! Stop!"
It watched helplessly as that massive hand pressed down, but the expected flying dust did not appear.
Instead, that hand was steadily caught.
Fang Zhiyi raised his hand and just like that, held up the massive hand that wanted to smash him to death.
The old man frowned slightly: "Hmm?"
"I have cultivated immortality, and I have been a god too... Did you really think I was that easy to bully?" Fang Zhiyi exerted force in his hand, forcibly repelling that giant hand.
"So that's how it is, borrowing demonic aura to deceive the Great Dao... Crooked ways and wicked paths," the old man said again.
But he quickly shut his mouth, because that ant actually disappeared directly from where he stood. By the time he noticed, Fang Zhiyi had already appeared right in front of his giant face.
"If you make a mistake, admit it; if you're getting beaten, stand up straight!" Fang Zhiyi smashed a fist down. That giant god forcefully took this punch with his face, his body swaying a few times, and then he actually fell flat on his butt on the ground, his figure gradually shrinking.
"You, you aren't..."
"Me? I'm not on my last legs, am I?" Fang Zhiyi landed on the ground and shook his hand. "I've been a ghost, I've been a monster, I've been a god, and I've been a human... If going through tribulations is a required course for you all, then I've experienced quite a few. If I didn't act a bit more like it, would you have dared to show up?"
That god panicked.
"You think that just because you stole the secrets of heaven and became immortal gods, you can obscure the Great Dao of the mortal realm? Go screw yourselves." Fang Zhiyi took a step forward, a thick aura of the Heavenly Dao radiating around his body.
"You... when did you become an Immortal?!!!" the old man asked in astonishment.
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
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.
