Lu Yang silently took two steps back, demonstrating beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had zero intention of taking down the talisman. That way, if Eldest Senior Sister suddenly dropped from the sky, he could clear himself of all involvement.
A gentleman does not stand beneath a collapsing wall; this was probably the exact situation the proverb described.
The talisman left behind by Eldest Senior Sister did not give off even the faintest pulse of spiritual power, so removing it wouldn't pose any danger in itself, but Lu Yang simply did not dare to peel it off.
He would have to be tired of living to touch that talisman.
*Master, it's not that your disciple lacks filial piety, but your disciple has only one life, and there's even an immortal residing in my spiritual space. If Eldest Senior Sister beats me to death, that'll be two lives ended in a single blow. It's just not worth it.*
Seeing Lu Yang waver, raising his hand only to drop it again, how could Daoist Buyu not understand his misgivings?
Lu Yang wasn't the first person to react like this. Daoist Buyu wasn't surprised in the least and chuckled. "It's only natural that you don't know much about me. You can go ask the other elders about me. Once you have a more well-rounded understanding of who I am, you'll know that what I said is the truth.
"Just don't tell them about Little Yun imprisoning me. Little Yun has been running the Dao Seeking Sect for ten years now, so some of the elders might not necessarily take my side."
Lu Yang felt his master made sense. All he knew was that his master was Daoist Buyu, but he had never looked into what kind of person his master really was. This might be a good opportunity. Thinking thus, he departed from the pine forest.
After Lu Yang left, Daoist Buyu scratched his head. He had asked several people to peel off the talisman, and none of them were willing.
"Did she write something on that talisman to make them so terrified?" He craned his neck and peered at it for ages, but still couldn't see what was on it.
Lu Yang returned to the Mission Hall, only to be told that the Grand Elder was out on business and not in the sect. Left with no other choice, Lu Yang headed to Preaching Peak, where the Second Elder resided.
Preaching Peak was responsible for teaching the foundational knowledge of immortal cultivation. When Lu Yang first joined the Dao Seeking Sect, he had spent a month on Preaching Peak cramming the basics, though he had never laid eyes on the Second Elder.
"Senior Brother, excuse me, is the Second Elder present?" Lu Yang asked the disciple on duty at Preaching Peak.
The senior brother looked at Lu Yang with a peculiar expression. "You're looking for the Second Elder? Then you should head to the Herb Garden. The one lying at the entrance of the Herb Garden is him."
Lu Yang froze. He never imagined that Old Ba, the man who had made him dig up soil, was actually the Second Elder.
He thanked the senior brother and went to the Herb Garden. Sure enough, Old Ba was right there.
"Hmm? Looking to come dig some more soil?" Old Ba asked with a chuckle.
"No, I just wanted to ask about my master."
"Old Ninth? Of course I know about him." Old Ba instantly perked up at the mention of this.
"Old Ninth?"
"That's right. From the Grand Elder all the way down to the Eighth Elder, and then your master Daoist Buyu—we were all taught by the same master. Your master is the youngest and entered the sect latest, so he ranks ninth.
"Old Ninth has a loose tongue. His little mouth is constantly yakking without a pause from dawn to dusk. Have you seen *Introduction to Crosstalk* on the first floor of the Scripture Pavilion? Old Ninth was the one who donated that to the pavilion."
Lu Yang nodded. He remembered it vividly. When he saw *Introduction to Crosstalk* in the Scripture Pavilion back then, he had stared blankly for a long time, wondering if he had walked into the wrong place.
"Later, our venerable master really couldn't bear listening to Old Ninth talk anymore, so he gave him the Daoist moniker 'Buyu'—meaning 'do not speak'—hoping he would talk a little less."
Lu Yang asked, "Did it work?"
"Not in the slightest! Old Ninth said, 'Confucius did not speak of strange powers and disorderly spirits; so as long as I don't talk about strange powers and disorderly spirits, I'm fine!' Then his little mouth just kept on yakking. That wretched mouth of his was practically begging to be stitched shut.
"Still, Old Ninth's cultivation talent was the greatest among the nine of us. Of course, he can't compare to Yun Zhi. Her talent is something I reckon only a handful in all of history could match.
"When our master went into seclusion, the nine of us had to decide who would become Sect Master. The eight of us unanimously agreed on Old Ninth. Since he was such a smooth talker, he'd surely do a fine job. But Old Ninth refused no matter what. So we invoked the rules of the pugilistic world: whoever's strongest gets the final say. Old Ninth said, 'Deal.'
"Then the eight of us ganged up on him, beat him to a pulp, and forced him into becoming Sect Master."
Lu Yang was reminded of what his master had described as "a bloody, hard-fought battle."
Technically, that wasn't wrong.
"Our judgment turned out to be spot-on. Old Ninth was remarkably gifted at management. He ran the sect with pristine order, sweeping away all the previous lethargy and gloom. Of course, that probably had to do with his personality.
"Then, for reasons unknown, Yun Zhi suddenly came to us ten years ago and said that she would manage the sect from then on. We figured that the world would belong to the young sooner or later anyway, and taking over early was fine too. So if she wanted to run things, why not?
"As for where Old Ninth went, we didn't pay much attention. The guy is nearly two thousand years old, with a mind sharper than any youngster. Who knows where he's running around bouncing about right now? It's not like he could get lost."
A supreme cultivator of Old Ba's caliber had a vastly different perception of time compared to ordinary people; ten years was hardly anything to them.
Bidding farewell to Old Ba, Lu Yang headed to Body Tempering Peak to find the Third Elder.
Meng Jingzhou was currently on Body Tempering Peak, and with his help, Lu Yang quickly located the Third Elder.
The Third Elder was currently sitting at the edge of the fields, playing chess with the ancestor of the azure-eyed water buffaloes.
The Third Elder was of short and squat stature. If Lu Yang had encountered him out in the wider world, he would never have associated this man with a pinnacle body cultivator.
Yet Lu Yang knew that an utterly terrifying power lay dormant within the Third Elder's body. Moving mountains or filling oceans would be a matter of a single finger to him.
The "Heaven-Shaking Six Forms" he had created were fervently pursued by every body cultivator, all wishing they were worthy of learning just the basics. Who knew how many people longed to study under the Third Elder but were turned away?
Lu Yang even tried to look around the fields for the ten water buffaloes he had previously summoned, only to find that all the buffaloes looked identical; there was no telling them apart.
"You're asking about Old Ninth? Haha, then you've certainly asked the right person! Old Ninth was picked up off the mountain by me, and I fed him on shit and piss until he was all grown up!" The Third Elder put on a grand air, as if running into him was the fortune of a lifetime.
At his side, Meng Jingzhou quietly corrected him, "Master, you *raised* him through shit and piss, not fed him on it."
The Third Elder waved his hand impatiently. "It's all the same thing! Stop nitpicking words all day like Old Fourth.
"Old Ninth was famous for being clever. Out of the nine of us, he was the first to master the Size Manipulation spell.
"Now, Size Manipulation is supposed to make the whole body bigger or smaller, right? So Old Ninth thought: could we tweak it? Make Size Manipulation work only locally—not overly big, just an inch or two longer. It'd be easy to use, require very little spiritual power to sustain, and would surely be immensely popular between men and women. Men could enlarge the lower half, and women could enlarge the upper half.
"Old Ninth pursued this line of research, and would you believe it? He actually pulled it off!" The Third Elder slapped his thigh, marveling at Daoist Buyu's stroke of genius.
"Later on, he wrote a new spell manual called *Size Manipulation (Localized Edition)*. The moment the spell came out, people went wild snapping it up! We made a fortune in spirit stones back then. When we brothers went out to eat, we ordered the most expensive dishes, and if spirit stones fell on the ground, we didn't even bother picking them up.
"Unfortunately, the good times didn't last. The Great Xia Dynasty stepped in soon after, halting the spell and banning its sale."
"Why?"
"They said it was obscene material."
Lu Yang: "...To be fair, they weren't exactly wrong."
Chapter 109