Seeing the Cult Master's bewildered expression, Lu Yang was even more bewildered than he was.
"The Immortal Celestial! The object of worship of your Immortal Cult, named Bu Yaolian."
The Cult Master frowned. "The Immortal Celestial is indeed our faith, but from what you're saying, he's here with us?"
"Of course! After he was revived by your Immortal Cult, he had only a soul and no physical body. He needed to find a suitable vessel, so you gathered all the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Immortal Cult for a contest. I was the one who won in the end, and under your lead, I met the Immortal Celestial."
"Right after that, the Immortal Celestial got thrashed inside my spiritual space. Eldest Senior Sister also contacted the imperial court and rounded up your Immortal Cult in one fell swoop. The few of you were refined by Eldest Senior Sister into chang ghosts."
The more Lu Yang spoke, the deeper the Cult Master's brow furrowed. Lu Yang certainly had no reason to lie to him about something like this. Was his own memory wrong, or was Lu Yang's?
The Cult Master called over Master Liu, Master Gao, and the others to verify whether the Immortal Celestial had ever appeared in the world.
From the two barbecue masters down to the three seductive ghosts, all denied ever having seen the Immortal Celestial.
"As I recall it," the Cult Master said, "we gathered all the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Immortal Cult back then to select promising young talents to serve as reserves for the cult's leadership. You truly did win that contest, and just as I was about to present you with your reward, the imperial court barged in with their men and arrested our entire cult. Afterward, the few of us were refined into chang ghosts by Lady Yun Zhi to atone for our sins here."
"From start to finish, there was never any Immortal Celestial."
"Then what about you people constantly telling me to expand the barbecue shop, open chain stores out in the world, and spread barbecue shops across the entire continent? Wasn't that goal set for you by the Immortal Celestial too?"
The Cult Master denied it once more. "That wasn't the case at all. I simply felt that rather than idling away our lives here in a daze, it would be better to find a purpose. So I asked for Fellow Daoist Lu Yang's help to branch out the barbecue shop. Only then did you, Fellow Daoist Lu Yang, seek out the Nine Nether Cult to help us open chain stores."
Lu Yang thought of another piece of evidence proving the Immortal Celestial's existence: "What about your statue of the Immortal Celestial? In the past, your statues of the Immortal Celestial were so vague you couldn't even tell if they were male or female. But after the Immortal Celestial appeared, you replaced every statue with his true likeness, holding a copy of the Penal Code in his hands."
"That wasn't how it happened either. One day while meditating in seclusion, I saw the Immortal Celestial walking toward me in a hazy vision. Holding a copy of the Penal Code, he said to me with a benevolent expression that I had done well, that we had all done well, and that in a few more days, he would truly be born. When I woke up, I realized it was a dream sent by an immortal, a stroke of immortal providence, which is why I replaced the statues."
"In the end, before that day even arrived, your Dao Seeking Sect and the court raided our Immortal Cult's headquarters."
The Immortal Celestial had often shown his face at the barbecue shop. Everyone along the commercial street knew him, even if they had no idea of his true identity. Lu Yang went to ask the neighboring shops, but they had no impression of the Immortal Celestial either.
Lu Yang also found several passing senior brothers and sisters who were regulars at the barbecue shop, and all of them said they had never seen an Immortal Celestial.
"Could there really be no Immortal Celestial?" After asking around, Lu Yang began to doubt his own memory, wondering if a nonexistent memory had been planted in his head.
"Fairy, wake up! Something's happened!" Lu Yang shook awake the sleeping Immortal Fairy.
After the grand celebration ended, the Immortal Fairy had curled up in his spiritual space, fast asleep, claiming to be exhausted in both body and mind from excessive brain use.
Regardless, Lu Yang still couldn't fathom what could possibly have tired her out when she had spent the entire time sitting up on the viewing stands, doing nothing besides acting out a scene opposite him.
"What is it...?" The Immortal Fairy mumbled upon hearing his calls, drawing out the last syllable lazily.
With immense effort, she pried open a tiny sliver of an eye, glanced at Lu Yang, and rolled back over to sleep.
"Let this sect master sleep a little longer..." she said, eyes shutting again.
"The Immortal Celestial is missing."
"Say what? The Third-in-Command is missing?!"
The Immortal Fairy sat bolt upright. Their Immortal Lineage consisted of three people: she was the First-in-Command, Lu Yang was the Second-in-Command, and the Immortal Celestial was the Third-in-Command. The three of them averaged out to half-immortal cultivation, which could be called peerlessly formidable. Now that they were short one Immortal Celestial...
Wait, wasn't their average cultivation still half-immortal?
It seemed the Third-in-Command wasn't all that important after all.
"No, wait. Why would he go missing out of nowhere?"
The Immortal Fairy's reaction actually gave Lu Yang a sigh of relief. It seemed nothing had gone wrong with his own memories; rather, the memory of the Immortal Celestial had been erased from everyone else's minds, with an alternate memory inserted in its place.
Lu Yang explained in detail how he had noticed the discrepancies and shared the results of his investigation so far.
"Hmm, that's somewhat interesting. Sounds like he was struck by a karma spell. But that sort of parlor trick is nothing to this celestial. With this celestial's protection, you weren't affected either."
"A karma spell?" Karma was obscure and profound; at Lu Yang's current realm, there was no need for him to comprehend such things yet.
"From the moment a person is born—no, from the moment a soul is conceived in the womb—they establish a connection with the world."
To illustrate her point better, the Immortal Fairy conjured a sheet of white paper and drew a circle on it.
"This circle is you, newly born."
She drew another circle not far from the first.
"This is someone else."
A line connected the two circles.
"After you are born, someone sees you, and you forge karma with them. By the same token, if you see them, karma is formed between you two as well."
"If you're strangers, the karma is very shallow. They give you a glance and soon forget you, and then the karma between you ceases to exist."
"Suppose that right after you're born, you have superhuman strength and kick their leg until it breaks. That way, there's no way they'll ever forget you, and your karma will deepen."
As she spoke, the line connecting the two circles grew thicker and darker, becoming exceptionally striking.
"As you grow up and come into contact with more and more people, you forge more karma with this world."
"Your childhood playmates, the fellow disciples and elders you met after entering the Dao Seeking Sect—all of these are beings with whom you have forged close karma."
"Why do some cultivators choose reclusive cultivation? It is because they generate too much karma in the mortal world, and having too much karma is detrimental to cultivation."
"When everyone forgets your existence, the karma between those people and you no longer exists. That is precisely the situation the Third-in-Command is facing right now."
Lu Yang hadn't realized it before, but hearing this, he saw that ever since the Immortal Celestial descended into the world, the circle of people he had interacted with was indeed limited to this.
When the Immortal Celestial was born, he came into contact with the higher-ups of the Immortal Cult; next, he met Lu Yang, the Immortal Fairy, and Eldest Senior Sister; and after that, he came to the Dao Seeking Sect, where he met the people on the commercial street and the Dao Seeking Sect disciples.
As long as all traces of those interactions were severed and the karma was cut—with everyone either forgetting him or having their memories replaced—this person would lose all connection to the entire world.
"Of course, considering the Third-in-Command's cultivation realm and how cleanly they've all forgotten him, no karma spell within my knowledge could achieve this extent. Either your current era has developed far more powerful karma spells, or someone has formed a Dao fruit like the Karma Dao fruit."
Chapter 502