Throughout history, anyone who had left the Peach Blossom Secret Realm had never returned. Back when she had parted with Xiao Zhi, Yun Mengmeng had wept as heartbrokenly as could be, believing it was an eternal farewell.
And the root cause behind Xiao Zhi's departure from the Peach Blossom Secret Realm was this very fellow named Ye Wanli!
Daoist Buyu had only ever met Yun Mengmeng once, and at the time, she had been less than ten years old. Whenever Yun Zhi returned to the secret realm to visit her kin, he had never accompanied her. Consequently, he had completely failed to recognize Yun Mengmeng at first glance.
Only when he carefully replayed what Yun Mengmeng had just said upon seeing him did he finally realize who she was, dawn breaking upon him.
"You're that little girl who cried so terribly back then!"
"You still dare bring that up!"
Yun Mengmeng glared, and without another word, she detonated herself, catching Daoist Buyu utterly off guard.
No matter how rich one's combat experience might be, no cultivator could react instantly to an opponent whose first move was a suicide bombing.
Yun Mengmeng immediately unleashed upon Daoist Buyu the continuous self-detonation method she had just learned from the Immortal Fairy. Rumbles thundered continuously above Tianmen Peak, tossing Daoist Buyu about like a tattered kite in the shockwaves.
Lu Yang felt somewhat fortunate—fortunate that Yun Mengmeng had just learned how to utilize the rudimentary Immortal Dao fruit from the Fairy. Had she not learned it yet, ambushing Master wouldn't have been nearly so easy.
"Master was fated to suffer this calamity," Lu Yang said with an air of complete composure, speaking like a blind fortune-teller making excuses for why he wasn't stepping forward to help.
Gan Tian agreed rather strongly with her junior brother's sentiment. "Since Master is at the Tribulation Transcendence stage, undergoing a few human tribulations is only natural and reasonable."
Senior Sister Gan Tian's outing in search of musical inspiration had not been fruitless. She had brought back a local specialty—a crisp, sweet white melon with very few seeds and plenty of juice. Using a zither string, she sliced the white melon into eight wedges and handed one to her junior brother. The senior sister and junior brother munched away with great relish.
The commotion on Tianmen Peak soon drew a crowd of Dao Seeking Sect disciples. They pointed and chattered at Daoist Buyu as he was blown back and forth, all deeply curious about who was actually beating him.
"Incredible! Our Dao Seeking Sect has an expert like this?"
The Dao Seeking Sect disciples engaged in spirited discussion, eager to know the identity of this supreme expert.
Even if the child-faced Grandmaster from Prison Peak or Elder Tao from the Scripture Pavilion had taken action, it wouldn't have produced such an exaggerated spectacle.
Right at that moment, Yun Zhi rushed back. Watching Yun Mengmeng detonate herself in a frenzy while Daoist Buyu looked like a candle guttering in the wind, the corners of her eyes twitched.
"All right, all right. Mengmeng, stop. That's enough."
Yun Zhi stepped between the two, interrupting Yun Mengmeng's continuous self-detonations, and Daoist Buyu was finally spared from maintaining his protective sword qi barrier.
Seeing that Xiao Zhi had arrived, Yun Mengmeng huffed indignantly and stayed her hand. Daoist Buyu let out a sigh of relief as well; he truly had no idea how to handle Yun Mengmeng.
If he fought back, she was the one in the right, and the grievance between them was hardly minor.
If he didn't fight back, taking blow after blow would break even his sturdy bones.
Suddenly, a clap of thunder resounded, making Daoist Buyu instinctively assume Yun Mengmeng was about to blow herself up again.
Then he realized the thunder came from very far away—and was intimately familiar.
"A heavenly tribulation's thunder... Who is breaking through to the Tribulation Transcendence stage?"
Daoist Buyu looked toward the sound of the thunder, his eyes narrowing slightly. If he wasn't mistaken, that was the canyon where his eldest brother was in seclusion.
"The Grand Elder is undergoing his tribulation!"
Lu Yang realized it too. He had visited the Grand Elder's seclusion spot before; it was filled with coffins.
The Grand Elder had been in seclusion for over a year, and his efforts were finally bearing fruit today.
Drawn by the Grand Elder's commotion, the people of the Dao Seeking Sect rushed toward the vicinity of the canyon to watch the tribulation process.
Lu Yang and the others hurried over as well.
By this point, the sky above the canyon had turned pitch-black as ink, the oppressive might of the thunder as profound and bottomless as an abyss.
Though the lightning tribulation the Grand Elder was undergoing wasn't quite as terrifying as Daoist Buyu's had been, it was scarcely inferior, fully living up to the title of the half-step Tribulation Transcendence stage.
Down in the canyon, a coffin trembled. The immortal peach placed before it was reduced to a mere pit. Suddenly, a pale hand reached out from the coffin, gripping the edge of the board, veins bulging on the back of the hand.
With a booming crash, the coffin shattered. The Grand Elder soared into the sky, positioning himself above the canyon to face the lightning tribulation without a shred of fear. His head hung low, and he was snoring.
"The Grand Elder seems to be asleep... Is he going to be all right?" Lu Yang asked worriedly.
"No matter. Eldest Brother cultivates the Dao of Dreams; only in his slumber is he at his strongest. Enemies in reality appear in his dreams under different guises. As he battles them in his dreams, his body in reality acts in accordance," Daoist Buyu explained, the memory of being disciplined by a sleepwalking Grand Elder in his youth still vivid in his mind.
The Grand Elder's tribulation was a momentous affair. The Second Elder, the Third Elder... even the Sixth Elder had come.
The child-faced Grandmaster and Elder Tao had arrived as well.
*Rumble!*
To everyone's surprise, the first bolt of tribulation lightning surged up from the bottom of the canyon; the lightning in the sky was merely a diversion!
A sudden thunderclap erupted from the ground, surging straight for the Grand Elder's face. With his eyes shut tight, the Grand Elder swung a hand-blade downward, intending to meet the lightning tribulation head-on!
Countless tendrils of lightning rose from below like tentacles, binding the Grand Elder tightly. He let out a great roar as his muscles bulged, manifesting an Arhat Dharma Body brandishing a vajra pestle to tear free from the lightning's restraints, leaving Lu Yang watching with a pounding heart.
Lu Yang could see clearly that the Grand Elder's flesh had been blasted open, wounds deep enough to expose bone. Yet as if devoid of sensation, the Grand Elder merely struck back at the lightning tribulation, paying no heed whatsoever to his injuries.
"He's like this when he's asleep—he only knows how to attack, not defend, and he can't feel pain," Daoist Buyu explained once more.
No one knew what the Grand Elder was dreaming, but his expression was ferocious, like an Arhat subduing demons depicted upon a mural.
"Let me tell you, I am the strongest zombie! I've already reached the realm of a Hanba! How could a bunch of Undecaying Bones like you ever hope to surpass me?!" the Grand Elder suddenly roared.
"Hear this! This graveyard is my turf, and none of you are taking it from me!"
"Refuse to yield? Then let our fists do the talking!"
Lu Yang: "..."
*Grand Elder, just what on earth are you dreaming about?*
When the Grand Elder repelled the ninety-ninth lightning tribulation, the lightning at the canyon floor and in the sky dispersed simultaneously. Sunlight illuminated the Grand Elder as he hovered in the air—battered and bruised, standing like a god of war. Slowly opening his eyes, his expression was solemn and rigid, as though he was still savoring the feeling of having become a Hanba.
"Hiss—ouch, ouch, ouch!"
Soon enough, the post-tribulation pain dragged the Grand Elder back to reality. The power left within him by the lightning tribulation continuously mended his body. Only then did he realize that he had just undergone a heavenly tribulation—and that he was now a cultivator of the Tribulation Transcendence stage.
"Eldest Brother, you've finally reached the Tribulation Transcendence stage! Congratulations!" Daoist Buyu was the first to step forward with his greetings, and Old Ba and the others flew up in succession to offer their congratulations as well.
The Dao Seeking Sect was filled with jubilation. Gaining another Tribulation Transcendence cultivator was truly a cause for celebration.
"Senior Brother, where did Little Qin get this habit of loving zombies and graveyards?" Elder Tao asked, eyeing the child-faced Grandmaster with a strange expression, suspecting the matter had something to do with him.
The child-faced Grandmaster gave a dry cough, too embarrassed to admit that he had constantly used ghost stories about zombies to scare the Grand Elder back then. Who could have guessed that instead of frightening the boy, it had sparked his fascination?
Chapter 1006