Li Fan noticed the part Senior Sister Zhao deliberately left unsaid, and his heart stirred.
Yet he did not pursue it.
Though they were Dao companions, as the Dao Child of the Dadao Sect, she was destined to come into contact with matters of the utmost secrecy.
It was only natural that she could not speak of them openly.
"Regardless, Chuanfa seizing and publishing the Taishang Primordial Scripture indirectly saved countless cultivators. It can well be called an immense act of merit," Li Fan remarked with a sigh.
Suddenly, as if striking upon a thought, Li Fan paused slightly.
"What is it?" Detecting something unusual in him, Senior Sister Zhao asked in surprise.
"Defying heavenly principles..." Li Fan turned around and looked straight at Senior Sister Zhao.
"Dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently—that is also a principle of heaven and earth, is it not? If a cultivator were to reverse this principle and attain the Longevity realm, wouldn't the Xuanhuang Realm be saved?"
Senior Sister Zhao fell silent for a moment before shaking her head slightly. "You are not mistaken in your thinking. Indeed, several seniors sought to do just that."
"Yet without exception, every single one failed."
"The stronger a principle of heaven and earth, the harder it is to overturn. That dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently is a change that arose naturally from heaven and earth to counter us cultivators."
"Looking deeper into it, this principle has already been defied once before. To defy it again would be far more than twice as difficult."
"Otherwise, with countless prodigies among the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao, why has no one defied the Principle of the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable and thoroughly shattered the foundation of the new method?"
Senior Sister Zhao explained to Li Fan.
Pondering the implications of her words, Li Fan sank into thought.
After three years of chaos, cultivators seemed to have gradually grown accustomed to the reality that dharmas could not be cultivated concurrently.
It merely meant their cultivation realms could no longer advance, which happened to save them the daily toil of cultivation. They spent their days idling about the sect grounds, wandering and taking their ease.
Life was actually quite pleasant.
Meanwhile, those of transcendent talent were arranged by the sect elders to enjoy the privilege of being the sole cultivator of a given dharma.
Senior Sister Zhao was no exception.
The Wuchang Lingxuan True Scripture she currently cultivated, while far inferior to the Heaven-Slaying Dao Scripture, was still sufficient to carry her to the Longevity realm.
Yet Senior Sister Zhao, possessed of immense pride, naturally refused to settle for mediocrity.
As the saying went, having once sailed the vast ocean, no other water could compare. After personally practicing and experiencing the most exquisite scripture under heaven, cultivating a lesser technique truly tasted like chewing wax.
Thus, she turned her sights toward the remaining two manuals of the Profound Heaven Sect.
After weighing her options, she ultimately chose the Heaven-Grieving Earth-Lamenting Scripture.
"'Heaven grieves and earth laments; all the world weeps.' This technique is inferior to the Heaven-Slaying Dao Scripture by merely half a notch!" Senior Sister Zhao evaluated.
"The Profound Heaven Sect truly lived up to its legacy as the former ruler of the entire Xuanhuang Realm. A mere Dharma King carried so many peerless techniques. Who knows how many treasures the Sacred Envoy who fled back then must have possessed," Senior Sister Zhao remarked casually.
"A Sacred Envoy? A Sacred Envoy of the Profound Heaven Sect?" Li Fan asked with curiosity. "That person actually managed to escape the manhunt of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao?"
"Indeed. Not only did he escape, but he also took the Profound Heaven Sect's supreme treasure, the Profound Heaven Treasure Mirror, with him. Since then, he vanished without a trace. Even after the Ten Sects searched every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm, they never found a trace of him."
Senior Sister Zhao shook her head and let the matter drop.
"Junior Brother, it has been quite some time since we last engaged in dual cultivation..." A faint blush rose to her cheeks as she whispered.
"Heh..." Understanding her meaning, Li Fan pulled Senior Sister Zhao into the secret chamber in one swift motion and sealed the surrounding space.
-----
The peaceful days did not last long.
Li Fan did not know what was transpiring in the outside world. But when the first disciple within the Dadao Sect reached the end of his lifespan due to the prolonged inability to break through realms, an undercurrent of anxiety and unease began to spread through everyone's hearts.
Li Fan attended the funeral of this cultivator named Zhu Jun.
It was exceptionally crude. The body was merely cremated in haste and buried on a mountain peak in accordance with Zhu Jun's dying wishes, bringing the matter to a close.
The atmosphere of the funeral was not overwhelmingly sorrowful, yet Li Fan clearly saw in the eyes of all the attending cultivators the shared grief of foxes mourning the death of a hare.
Before long, an ominous rhyme began circulating through the Dadao Sect:
"Yesterday Zhu Jun, today all of you, tomorrow the slaughter of you!"
With Longevity realm cultivators holding sway within the Dadao Sect, ordinary disciples had no power to overturn anything even if they wished to resist.
Rather than dying uselessly on the mountain, why not descend and seek a slim chance at survival?
Spurred by the news of Zhu Jun's death, many disciples adopted this mindset. They voluntarily crippled their Dadao Sect cultivation techniques and petitioned to leave the mountain in search of a glimmer of hope.
Sect Master Ji Changxi was not a heartless man; he granted their requests.
Furthermore, he promised that if they truly found themselves at a dead end and felt regret, they could return at any time.
Moved to tears on the spot, several disciples changed their minds and chose to remain within the sect, living and dying alongside it.
Yet a few cultivators still insisted on leaving the mountain.
Ji Changxi made no move to stop them.
With these unstable elements gone, the Dadao Sect returned to a state of peace.
Yet any discerning eye could see that beneath the apparent calm lurked a terror steadily accumulating, ready to erupt at the breaking point at any moment.
Merely half a year later, some of the disciples who had descended the mountain returned outside the mountain gates, weeping and wailing.
They wailed outside the sect protection array, begging the Sect Master to take them back.
When they were let back into the mountain gates and recounted the conditions outside, the surviving cultivators of the Dadao Sect realized just how fortunate they were.
Because dharmas could not be cultivated concurrently, the outside world had completely transformed into a horrific slaughterhouse.
The peace of yesteryear was utterly gone.
A cultivator walking peacefully along a road might suddenly find someone ambushing them in a fight to the death, all for the sake of any cultivation method they might carry.
The Dadao Sect disciples who had left the mountain had already crippled their cultivation methods, leaving them with only a few magical tools for self-defense. How could they survive in such an environment?
Suffering grievous injuries and managing to return alive was already a miracle.
These people completely lost their nerve. They no longer spoke of cultivation, merely whiling away their days in the sect, waiting for death.
Seeing this, the remaining disciples of the Dadao Sect shared their dread and ceased speaking of leaving the mountain.
Then came a certain day.
"Senior Sister, have you noticed anything amiss?" Li Fan approached Senior Sister Zhao and asked with a solemn expression.
"Hmm? Has something gone wrong with your cultivation?" Highly uncharacteristically, Senior Sister Zhao was lost in a daze.
Only after a long while did she snap out of it, asking with a furrowed brow.
"Why have I seen so many disciples coughing incessantly?" Li Fan caught her unusual state. His eyes flashed, but he did not press her on it, instead bringing up the anomalous phenomenon he had discovered.
"Coughing? That should be impossible. Even if their techniques were crippled, their cultivation realms remain. Could a cultivator fall ill like a mortal?"
As Senior Sister Zhao spoke, she swept her divine sense outside.
With a single look, her expression changed drastically.
Without a thought for Li Fan, she flew straight out, landing before a sickly, bedridden disciple.
Chapter 516