96: Chapter 96 A Twist! This is a Test of Mental Fortitude!

"Disciple is bold, I beg Senior... to grant this Disciple a bowl of... the foot-washing water you used!"

Xia Yunxi's voice was soft, yet it struck like an invisible heavy hammer, crashing down into the silent courtyard.

Time seemed to have been drained away at this moment.

The wind stopped, and the chirping of insects vanished as well.

Qin Wudao's jaw nearly dislocated; he stared at his own Disciple, his mind blank, almost suspecting he was suffering from auditory hallucinations.

His precious Disciple, the Genius Saintess hailed as the Pearl of the Eastern Wasteland, cold and immortal-like, actually...

Actually made such a request... one that would nail the entire Taixuan Sect to the pillar of shame!

She's crazy!

This child has absolutely lost her mind!

Su Changge sat upright on the stone stool. His facial muscles did not twitch in the slightest, but his inner world was already experiencing a level-ten storm.

Foot-washing water?

And it's holy water, for f*ck's sake?

Girl, has your brain circuit been struck by lightning?

Aside from smelling a bit like feet, does that basin of water have anything to do with Supreme Dao Rhyme?!

He now desperately longed to rush over, grab Xia Yunxi by the shoulders, and shake her hard, to make her see clearly that he was just a plain, unremarkable handsome man, not some Dao Ancestor!

But he couldn't.

The persona could not crumble.

The cold, aloof demeanor of a Dao Ancestor did not allow him to perform any low-class actions.

Refuse?

How to refuse?

Say "My foot-washing water is useless"? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of exposing himself on the spot, telling everyone he's a fraud?

Say "This act is unrefined"? To these lunatics who would refine themselves into a Medicinal Pill just to break through a Bottleneck, what does a mere basin of foot-washing water amount to?

In an instant, Su Changge found himself roasted on a fire. His brain CPU was almost burning out, and he couldn't think of a perfect way to break the situation.

Just in this suffocating dead silence, a harsh sneer exploded from the crowd outside the courtyard without warning.

"Hahahaha! You're killing me, Young Master! What a massive joke!"

"To cling to power, you've even abandoned your dignity? Taixuan Sect, you really are becoming more and more promising!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice.

They saw a young man in a gorgeous brocade robe with an arrogant expression, swaggering in surrounded by a group of attendants.

He didn't even glance at Qin Wudao and Xia Yunxi, who were kneeling on the ground. His gaze went straight past them, piercing Su Changge on the stone stool like a sharp sword, filled with undisguised scrutiny and contempt.

Qin Wudao's expression changed abruptly. He rose sharply and roared, "Ling Tian! How dare you be presumptuous in front of the Dao Ancestor!"

Ling Tian, the peerless Prodigy of the Ling family from the Central Plains!

How could he appear here!

Ling Tian slanted a contemptuous look at Qin Wudao, the corners of his mouth curling into a mocking arc.

"Sect Master Qin, I think your brain has become muddled from Cultivating?"

"Still Dao Ancestor?"

His voice suddenly rose, and he pointed straight at Su Changge.

"All of you have been played by this con man!"

Once these words were spoken, the crowd instantly exploded.

Everyone's gaze was nailed tightly onto Ling Tian.

"Young Master Ling, what do you mean by this?"

Finally, someone couldn't hold back and asked with a trembling voice.

Ling Tian raised his chin, his posture arrogant to the extreme.

"What do I mean? I mean that this 'Dao Ancestor Saint' you are all worshiping is, from head to toe, a complete and utter Mortal!"

"There isn't even a trace of Spiritual Qi fluctuation on him! He is nothing but a clown playing the god!"

Boom!

Ling Tian's words were like a spark dropped into a pan of oil, instantly detonating the entire scene.

Mortal?

Con man?

How is that possible?!

Could the visions of the sermon that moved the heavens and earth and resonated with the Dao be hallucinations?

"Impossible! I saw with my own eyes, Senior moved the Laws of the Dao!"

"That's right! My Bottleneck just loosened!"

Refutations immediately erupted from the crowd, but those voices sounded clearly tinged with a faint, imperceptible weakness.

Because they, too, had discovered this fatal problem.

After the sermon ended, all the divine phenomena on this "Dao Ancestor" had vanished.

He now looked truly like nothing more than a handsome Mortal with an ethereal temperament, nothing else.

Several Elders with profound cultivation quietly activated investigative secret techniques, their Divine Sense reaching out toward Su Changge like invisible tentacles, carefully probing.

The next instant, all of their expressions changed.

"Nothing... there really is nothing!"

"How can this be? My Divine Sense probed over, like a clay ox into the sea, but the feedback... was actually a Mortal body?"

"My 'Qi Observation Technique' has also failed! There is absolutely no Spiritual Qi light on him that a Cultivator should have!"

Once the seeds of doubt were planted, they spread wildly like a prairie fire.

As much as they had worshiped him a moment ago, their suspicion was now that much more intense.

The crowd began to stir, and whispers gathered into a buzzing ocean.

The color drained from Qin Wudao's face instantly. He looked at Su Changge, his lips trembling, unable to say a word.

Could it be... could it be that the fate of the Sect was truly gambled on a shocking scam?

Xia Yunxi also raised her head. That beautiful face was filled with confusion and unbelievable pain.

She did not want to believe it.

But the facts seemed to be right before her eyes.

Could that majestic existence, for whom she was willing to cast aside all dignity and pride to beg for a bowl of "holy water"... really just be a reflection in the mirror, a moon in the water?

Watching the collapse of everyone's faith, the triumph on Ling Tian's face grew even richer.

This was the effect he wanted!

Exposing this con man in public, letting these country bumpkins from the Eastern Wasteland who had never seen the world understand what true power is!

He stepped forward, approaching Su Changge with an aggressive Aura.

"Con man, what else do you have to say?"

"Now, kneel down, kowtow three times to this Young Master, and admit that you are just playing the god! If this Young Master is in a good mood, perhaps I might leave you a whole corpse!"

His voice carried the pleasure and cruelty of a judgment.

Everyone's heart was in their throat.

They looked at the white-clad figure sitting on the stone stool, who hadn't moved an inch from beginning to end, their hearts filled with mixed feelings.

There was anger at being deceived, disappointment at the shattering of faith, and also a trace of... faint anticipation that even they themselves had not noticed.

Under the gaze of everyone.

Su Changge finally moved.

He slowly raised his head, his gaze calmly passing over the aggressive Ling Tian, looking toward the restless crowd in the distance.

His eyes remained as deep as an ancient well, without the slightest ripple.

Then, he spoke lightly.

The voice was not loud, but it clearly entered everyone's ears.

"Oh?"

Just one word.

A light, playful rhetorical question.

Yet, the moment this sound fell.

The sky tore open.

Rumble—!

A terrifying, pitch-black crack tore open across the clear sky of ten thousand miles, like a scar on the sky!

Behind the crack was the Chaos and void that made one's Soul tremble!

Immediately after, three thousand towering, gargantuan black shadows slowly emerged from the crack.

Some had three heads and six arms, others had green faces and fangs, each one radiating a terrifying Divine Might capable of crushing the ancient wilderness.

Yet, these three thousand gods and demons, who seemed to have walked out of ancient myths, made an action that caused everyone's eyeballs to burst after descending.

They faced the direction of Changge Peak.

They faced the white-clad figure sitting on the stone stool.

Together, they bowed their majestic bodies and lowered their arrogant heads!

That posture was submission! It was reverence! It was a kowtow before the Supreme Dominator!

"What... what is that ghost thing!"

"Heaven! Gods and demons worshiping! This is the supreme phenomenon that only appears in legends when a Saint descends to the world!"

Uncontrollable screams of terror erupted from the crowd.

But this was just the beginning.

The earth began to tremble slightly.

One after another, golden lotus flowers emerged from the cracked earth out of thin air, blooming in the wind.

The extremely pure Spiritual Qi turned into visible golden mist, spreading in all directions.

Within the Taixuan Sect, those ancient trees that had been dead for hundreds of years burst into brilliant greenery at this moment, sprouting tender buds.

In the spiritual spring at the back mountain that had long since dried up, golden spring water bubbled up from the eye of the spring, emitting a fragrance that seeped into the Soul!

In just a few breaths.

The entire Taixuan Sect, from a declining, bottom-tier Sect, was forcibly transformed into a holy Realm on earth permeated with Immortal Qi!

Everyone was shocked into speechlessness by this miracle-like scene.

The triumph and arrogance on Ling Tian's face had long been replaced by endless fear and dullness.

His body was as stiff as a piece of wood. He struggled to turn his head and looked at the figure who was still standing in the same place.

Su Changge slowly stood up, his hands behind his back.

The empty, Mortal-like feeling around him disappeared, replaced by a profound, indescribable Dao Rhyme.

His voice, modified by the System, became vast and ethereal, as if it were no longer coming from his throat, but descending from the Nine Heavens.

"When the true is taken as false, the false is also true; when the void is taken as existence, existence is also void."

"You all have been deluded by appearances."

Boom!

These few sentences were like divine thunder from the Nine Heavens, fiercely striking the depths of everyone's Divine Soul.

Deluded by appearances...

So that's it!

So it was like this!

The Dao Ancestor, in his old age, was not a Mortal at all!

That Mortal appearance was simply a test of our Dao Heart!

He was testing whether we could see through appearances and hold fast to our original heart after witnessing the true Dao!

Thinking this through, everyone's intestines turned green with regret.

Especially those who had just harbored suspicion and even spoken rudely, they wished they could tear their own mouths apart on the spot.

"I... I was wrong! I actually doubted the Dao Ancestor!"

"I am truly a fool! How could the Realm of a Saint be something that ants like us can speculate on!"

"Thump!"

A Cultivator could no longer bear the regret and excitement in his heart. His knees went soft, and he knelt heavily on the ground, tears streaming down his face toward Su Changge.

"Disciple's Dao Heart is covered in dust, I have insulted the Saint's hearing, I beg the Dao Ancestor to punish me!"

His action was like pushing the first domino.

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

Hundreds and thousands of Cultivators, like dumplings being dropped into a pot, knelt down in unison.

Inside and outside the entire Taixuan Sect, the sounds of crying, repentance, and kowtowing resounded through the sky.

Qin Wudao was streaming with old tears, kneeling on the ground, using his forehead to slam against the ground again and again, his heart filled only with endless guilt and self-reproach.

Xia Yunxi was even more tearful. She gazed infatuatedly at the majestic figure shrouded in divine light, and the faith in her heart was, at this moment, unprecedentedly hot and firm.

So, this was the real test.

And she, by a hair's breadth, had almost failed.

As for Ling Tian, who had been arrogant just before, he was now limp like mud, his face bloodless, and his body trembling like a leaf in the autumn wind.

He looked at the three thousand gods and demons worshiping in the sky, feeling the pressure of the Dao that froze his very Soul, his mind left completely blank.

It's over.

He just... actually pointed at a true living Saint and called him a con man?

The moment this thought flashed through his mind, Ling Tian rolled his eyes and was actually scared fainted on the spot.

And Su Changge just stood there quietly, overlooking the incomparably spectacular scene of worship before him, with only one thought in his mind.

"System, these special effects... did you go a bit overboard?"