"I should have read this book before."
"Only, the contents seem somewhat different."
As scenes from the book flashed through his mind, Li Fan felt a wave of specious familiarity wash over him, and he frowned slightly.
"Fellow Daoist, does this book have any other editions?" He looked at the cultivator running the stall, who was engrossed in watching the aerial duel above, and spoke up.
The book-peddling cultivator was initially a bit annoyed, but when he turned around and saw clearly the picture album in Li Fan's hand, an unusual glint flashed across his eyes.
"Fellow Daoist, you must be joking. This *Secret History of Ancient Cultivation* was penned by the Lord Heavenly Venerable himself. How could there possibly be other editions?" Yet he immediately denied it.
Even though the one controlling this body was merely a wisp of divine sense stripped of the vast majority of its memories, reading people's expressions and demeanor was already second nature.
With just a single glance, Li Fan confirmed his suspicion.
"Name a price," he said bluntly, lowering his voice. "A mutual acquaintance referred me."
Seeing this, the bookseller couldn't help hesitating.
After looking around for a moment and noticing that the entire city's cultivators were focused on the battle in the sky, he sent a voice transmission: "Ten thousand Divine Soul Points, or an equivalent value in spirit stones. Firm price."
Li Fan instinctively reached for his storage ring to pay,
only to realize that he was penniless, lacking even a storage ring.
"Wait a moment, Fellow Daoist."
Offering an apologetic remark, he returned to the crowd.
Once Lu Fan's current battle ended, Li Fan flew up to him and explained why he had come.
Having secured yet another victory, Lu Fan was brimming with high spirits, completely devoid of the pettiness he had shown during their earlier dealings.
Generously handing over a storage ring filled with standard spirit stones to Li Fan, he said, "Mere worldly possessions! Take whatever you need, Daoist Jiao!"
After thanking him, Li Fan floated back under the watchful eyes of the crowd.
Seeing this, how could the bookseller not realize he had been duped? His face turned slightly green, and he immediately began packing his things, preparing to leave.
"You truly lack the integrity of a businessman. If you really just walk away like this, Fellow Daoist, then I'll start shouting!" Li Fan threatened via voice transmission.
The bookseller froze at once, glanced left and right, and shuddered.
"Damn it all..." After agonizing over it for a long while, he ultimately pulled out a picture album glowing with a faint pink radiance and handed it over discreetly.
Li Fan took the picture album and handed over the spirit stones in return.
With the transaction complete, the bookseller was about to beat a retreat, only to see that Li Fan actually intended to open the album right then and there.
His face went deathly pale, and he lunged forward in a panic, pinning Li Fan's hands down.
"Have you lost your mind?!"
His body trembled violently, his face stricken with terror.
"It doesn't matter!" Applying a slight bit of force, Li Fan pushed the bookseller's hands aside and insisted on opening the pink album.
Cold sweat poured from the bookseller's forehead like beans. Seeing that he couldn't stop him, he looked around and found that no one had noticed anything amiss here yet.
Without delay, wind surged beneath his feet, and he fled at top speed, escaping straight through the city's teleportation array.
Meanwhile, Li Fan had already plunged into an immersive, intensely realistic illusion.
[Qin Shou courted Senior Sister Zhao many times, only to be rejected repeatedly. Enraged by shame, he harbored wicked intentions.]
[Senior Sister Zhao was struck by Yin-Yang Joyous Union Powder, her consciousness descending into a blur...]
...
The expression on Li Fan's face shifted continuously, and even his breathing grew rapid.
The eerie pink glow on the album seemed to synchronize with Li Fan's breathing rhythm, pulsing without pause.
Immersed within it, Li Fan remained completely unaffected, no matter how clamorous the surroundings were.
At the same time, he kept muttering something under his breath.
"To think there could be such a beauty in this world..."
"Utterly incompetent! You've already had intimate contact once, yet you don't strike while the iron is hot..."
"What useless trash! Isn't her meaning obvious enough?!"
"If you don't take your chance now, then when?!"
...
...
As if the plot developments in the picture album were not to his liking, he knitted his brows from time to time, cursing under his breath.
"Sigh, how could there be such a pathetic protagonist?!"
"If this old man had taken the field, Senior Sister would have long since submitted beneath my crot—"
His voice cut off abruptly.
With Li Fan's puppet body as the center, the small area around him seemed to freeze entirely in an instant.
Even the eerie pink glow emanating from the album came to a standstill midair.
Above in the firmament, a pure white beam of light suddenly appeared, shooting straight down.
It enveloped the motionless Li Fan within it.
Weichang City, which had been bustling and boisterous with spectators watching the battle, fell into absolute silence at this moment.
The white radiance grew increasingly brilliant, and a pulling force descended from the heavens.
Like a statue, Li Fan was drawn upward, slowly ascending into the sky.
"The Guiding Immortal Light! That's the Guiding Immortal Light!"
"Who is it? Canhong Province has another cultivator favored by the Lord Heavenly Venerable so soon?!"
"Hahaha! Three Immortal Sect disciples produced in just a single month! Our Canhong Province is truly going to make a resounding name for itself now!"
...
No one cared about Lu Fan's duel anymore.
The gazes of all the cultivators present were fixed dead on that white pillar of light connecting heaven and earth.
Their eyes were filled with reverence and envy as they stared at the blurred figure within the pillar of light, their expressions agitated and excited as chatter erupted.
Lu Fan stopped fighting as well.
He stared blankly at the pillar of light. A feeling as if the love of his life had been ripped away right before his eyes welled up from the depths of his heart.
His heart felt sliced by blades.
Victory or defeat, cultivation, realm...
Everything in the world seemed to lose all meaning in an instant.
"Why? Why..." Lu Fan muttered, utterly at a loss, his soul seemingly hollowed out.
As the figure inside the white pillar of light rose higher and higher, Lu Fan suddenly thought that person looked somewhat familiar.
His pupils dilated abruptly, and Lu Fan hurriedly looked down, scanning his surroundings.
Sure enough, "Daoist Jiao's" figure had vanished without a trace.
"How can this be?" Lu Fan's face was filled with disbelief.
"I defeated over twenty Golden Cores of the Five Elders Association in a row—did you not see that?!"
"Why choose him of all people and ignore me?!"
Endless grievance, unwillingness, and fury surged within Lu Fan's heart.
"No!"
He roared madly, completely abandoning reason as he charged toward the pillar of light heedless of everything.
Yet it was futile.
Just when it seemed he was about to touch the pillar of light, the very next moment, Lu Fan simply plunged straight through it.
The pillar of light was like flowers in a mirror or the moon reflected in water; though right before his eyes, it remained completely intangible.
Carrying Li Fan, the pillar of light slowly dissolved into heaven and earth.
In Lu Fan's eyes, a trace of despair could not help surfacing.
---
"Junior Brother, you're awake."
A crisp, clear voice sounded beside his ear, and Li Fan opened his eyes.
"Cough, cough..." The sharp pain in his chest made him suck in a breath of cold air.
"You just entered the sect, and I told you not to let your temper get the better of you, but you simply wouldn't listen." A graceful, lovely figure appeared beside Li Fan.
She helped Li Fan sit up, leaning him against the head of the bed.
"This is medicine I brewed for you; it will help your injuries heal. Drink it quickly." With a look of concern on her face, she scooped up a spoonful of medicinal broth and brought it to Li Fan's lips.
His mind was a muddled haze, unable to recall anything.
Li Fan merely opened his mouth by instinct and drank the medicine down.
Chapter 506