When Immortal Suiyue returned to the North Star, the commotion stirred up by the Immortal Fairy and the dragon and phoenix prodigies had grown even greater, making his heart leap into his throat.
"Suiyue, you're back? How are Qilin and Ying Tian doing?"
Immortal Suiyue said solemnly, "That terrible board gamer Ying Tian was cheating, so I taught him a lesson. Then they went back to playing. When I left, Qilin and Ying Tian had both entered a state of enlightenment, looking as if they had perceived the Five Elements, the Eight Trigrams, heaven and earth, and Yin and Yang within gomoku!"
"Immortal Jiuchong, as the creator of gomoku, is protecting them while they meditate. I came back ahead of them."
"Yay! To think those two would stumble upon such fortune! In that case, I'll cook up something delicious to nourish them."
Watching the Immortal Fairy bustling about, Immortal Suiyue kindly reminded her, "Be sure to give Ying Tian extra nourishment. He was the deepest in enlightenment, so he needs the biggest boost!"
"No problem!" the Immortal Fairy shouted back. "That's my specialty!"
She rolled up her sleeves, tied her bandana tightly, and fired on all cylinders. Soon, the anguished wails of ingredients echoed through the room.
Immortal Suiyue sneered inwardly. *That's what you get for calling me insidious and crafty, Ying Tian. Let's see if this doesn't poison you to death!*
***
"So this is the immortals' match? I can't really make anything out of it," Meng Jingzhou mumbled. No matter how he looked at it from every angle, he could not discern any profound mysteries left on the board by the two ancient immortals.
Tao Yaoye and Man Gu had similar reactions, seeing nothing at all.
Qiu Jin'an thought to himself, *Nonsense! In a hundred thousand years, not a second person in our Five Elements Sect has seen the historical reflection, and you lot expect to see it the moment you walk through the door?*
Lu Yang merely yawned out of boredom.
Having just awakened from the historical reflection, his mind was exhausted, and for a moment he could not even tell where he was.
Before Immortal Ying Tian and the others discovered the Immortal Fairy, Lu Yang had watched twenty years of gomoku—albeit at an accelerated pace courtesy of the Immortal Fairy.
Even so, the mental toll was immense.
Not to mention that he had faced the Four Ancient Celestials directly across a spatiotemporal channel, linking past, present, and future together.
Qiu Jin'an noticed Lu Yang's reaction but did not think much of it.
The Patriarch had been immersed in the historical reflection for a hundred years, completely different from Lu Yang.
To an outsider, Lu Yang had simply lowered his head and then yawned, the whole thing taking no more than two or three breaths. No one would ever imagine that he had witnessed the historical reflection.
Even if it was thanks to the Immortal Fairy's influence.
After a quarter of an hour, Qiu Jin'an asked with a smile, "Done looking?"
As expected, nothing had happened. Young people only came here out of novelty.
The others sighed in unison. They had hoped to run into an immortal encounter, or at the very least catch a glimpse of an immortal.
Yet there was nothing.
*Fairy, wasn't the message you sent earlier a bit too brief?*
The Immortal Fairy had managed only five words before the channel closed for reasons unknown, and Lu Yang worried the communication had accomplished nothing.
"Don't worry. Although their wisdom doesn't match mine, their intellect still far exceeds ordinary mortals. They'll definitely deduce something and prepare backup measures."
"Of course, I still ended up dead anyway, so whatever measures they left behind probably weren't meant to save me, but for something else."
*As long as it had some effect, that's enough.*
Even though he knew plenty of embarrassing history about the Four Ancient Celestials and risked being silenced by them—and Immortal Kirin had even tricked him into eating dirt—Lu Yang still hoped they were alive.
Li Haoran's mind drifted for a second. When he had looked at the board earlier, he had suddenly dozed off, and in a daze, he had seen four figures in an immortal realm, each wielding heaven-reaching might so immense that one could not look upon them directly.
Then he woke up, blinking his eyes.
*Was that a dream?*
He struggled to recall what had happened in the dream and who the four people in the secret realm were, but the harder he tried to remember, the hazier the memory became.
*What just happened?*
Li Haoran frowned. He felt strongly that something had occurred, but upon closer inspection, nothing had happened at all.
As the group left the immortal realm, none of them noticed a figure seated atop a mountain peak, motionless as a stone statue. The figure lifted his eyelids, glanced at the departing youths, and then floated downward into the immortal realm.
Finding the realm unchanged, a trace of doubt appeared in the figure's eyes.
"Strange. Was it an illusion? Why did it feel as though someone just witnessed the historical reflection?"
The figure shook his head and tossed the thought aside.
It had to be an illusion. How could anyone touch the historical reflection without becoming immersed in it?
***
In the blink of an eye, a month passed. Lu Yang and his companions gained a great deal at the Five Elements Sect. Positioned according to the Five Elements, they cultivated in their respective branches, smoothed out their meridians, and consolidated what they had learned over the month.
Cultivating in the Metal branch, Lu Yang advanced from the first tier of the late Golden Core stage to the peak of the second tier minor completion, a substantial breakthrough in cultivation.
"Fellow Daoist Bai Ming, until we meet again in the Jianghu!" From aboard their flying boat, Lu Yang and the others waved vigorously and shouted farewell.
The disciples and elders of the Five Elements Sect all came out to see them off.
***
At the Dao Seeking Sect livestock farm.
"Long ago in the Primordial Azure Heaven, clear songs echoed in the azure void, across the Great Fuli Earth..."
The senior leaders of the Immortal Cult swayed their heads, their voices resonant with Buddhist cadence.
After nearly a month of Buddhist immersion, they were no longer who they once were. The Immortal Celestial in particular showed the highest aptitude for the Dharma, making rapid strides.
Had he not deliberately reined it in, his entire body would have radiated golden light.
"Patron Bu possesses deep Buddhist affinity. In the future, you may well join our Hanging Temple."
"You flatter me. It is all thanks to the young master's fine instruction."
The Immortal Celestial and Shi Chan bowed to each other.
"Alas, my time is up. This humble monk must return to the slaughterhouse to comprehend the Dharma of laying down the butcher's knife and becoming a Buddha on the spot."
Shi Chan felt deep regret. Meeting the Immortal Celestial felt like finding a long-lost friend; so many of his views found resonance with the Immortal Celestial, who proved far more open-minded than his own master.
This was a patron of great wisdom!
Just getting to know Patron Bu made his trip to the Dao Seeking Sect well worth it!
Under the influence of the Dharma, the three female ghosts, including Xiao Wu, successfully advanced to the Golden Core stage.
This was only natural. Even though the senior leaders of the Immortal Cult had been refined into chang ghosts and barred from cultivation resources, a few casual pointers from them gave the three ghosts a transformative understanding of cultivation, rendering resources unnecessary.
Coupled with Shi Chan preaching the Dharma and expounding its principles to help their souls undergo metamorphosis, reaching the Golden Core stage followed as a matter of course.
The disciples of the Dao Seeking Sect all agreed that over the past month, the grilled skewers had tasted even better.
Slaughtering livestock inevitably infused the meat with grievances. While True Fire could dispel these lingering grudges, its effectiveness fell a step short compared to the Dharma.
Whenever the Cult Master and Vice Cult Master Jin slaughtered animals, they would recite Buddhist scriptures to dissolve the resentment.
Upon discovering this, the Immortal Celestial was overjoyed. "This is a fantastic method! When there's a chance, I must mention it to the Second-in-Command and see if we can roll it out to all the barbecue shops!"
This was proof of positive reform through labor.
"Junior Brother Shi Chan, visit again whenever you have the chance. If there's anything you need, I will definitely grant it," Dai Bufan said, personally seeing Shi Chan off.
Having learned that his master was still alive, Dai Bufan was convinced that his own acts of kindness had moved Master Jiesha from afar, thereby sparing his master's life.
As it turned out, Shi Chan truly did need a favor.
"Could Senior Brother Dai lend this humble monk some travel money?"
Chapter 554