39: Hundreds of people kneel at the mountain gate, the truth is in the mud

Qingyun Mountain before dawn, the chill was like needles, piercing to the bone.

The stone steps leading to the peak from the mountain gate had now become the most humble pilgrimage route in the world.

A vast crowd knelt on the ground, silent, with only heavy breathing and suppressed whimpers interweaving in the mountain wind.

They were the outcasts who walked the world, lonely souls bearing incomplete inheritances.

At the very front of the line, a one-armed old Daoist priest tremblingly held an ancient wooden box, which contained an ancestral alchemical formula that his sect had failed to perfect despite three generations of painstaking effort.

Beside him, a haggard farmwoman tightly clutched a child in her arms, hot as fire, repeatedly muttering a long-lost soul-soothing incantation.

Further away, a resolute-eyed youth carried on his back half a scroll of "Qimen Dunjia" fragments, carefully wrapped in oilcloth—his only hope, obtained through a near-death experience in an ancient ruin.

Hundreds of thousands of incense sticks were lit, their blue smoke curling upwards, not towards the gods and Buddhas in heaven, but converging into a single line, floating straight towards the ridiculously simple stall at the end of the stone steps.

“Click.”

Su Qingzhu’s phone almost slipped from her trembling hand. She fought back tears, aimed the camera at the devout sea of people, and recorded her narration in a whisper: “They say… as long as that stall is still there, as long as the stall owner is still willing to set up shop, they… still have a chance.”

Beside her, Iron Lady, in a combat uniform, stood like a cold sculpture. The muzzle of her modified sniper rifle pointed diagonally at the sky, and on each golden-yellow bullet, two small characters were meticulously carved with a special engraving knife—‘Protector of the Dao’.

What she protected was the last shred of hope for the outcasts of this world, and what she protected was the mortal who offered hope at this stall.

Time passed in dead silence. As the first ray of sunlight pierced through the clouds and became the scorching sun of noon, the tranquility of the sky was torn apart by a violent roar.

“Rumble—”

A black armed helicopter, emblazoned with the ferocious emblem of the Under Heaven Society, parted the clouds and hovered above the mountain gate.

The enormous airflow made everyone’s clothes flap wildly, but it couldn’t blow away the stubbornness in their eyes.

The cabin door opened, and a figure descended like an eagle.

He lightly tapped his toes on the steep mountain wall, then floated down as if treading on invisible steps, landing before everyone.

The newcomer wore a black robe, fluttering in the strong wind, his face as stern as if carved by a knife. It was none other than the President of the Under Heaven Society, Yan Jiuzhang.

Behind him, three figures with equally unfathomable auras followed closely, flanking him in a triangular formation, protecting him in the center. They were the three renowned guest elders of the Under Heaven Society.

Yan Jiuzhang’s gaze swept over the kneeling crowd, devoid of any pity, only cold indifference.

He seemed to be looking at a group of ants who had gone astray. Finally, his eyes, which seemed to contain thunder, locked onto the figure at the end of the stone steps, who was leisurely cracking melon seeds.

“Zhang Xuanyi.”

Yan Jiuzhang’s voice wasn’t loud, but it seemed to carry immense weight, clearly reaching everyone’s ears, “Do you know that your ‘all methods for the people’ act is the root cause of shaking the Daoist tradition and bringing chaos to the world?”

At the end of the stone steps, on a small stool behind the stall, Zhang Xuanyi cracked open a melon seed with a “crunch,” precisely flicked the kernel into his mouth, and then lazily lifted his eyelids: “You talk as if your ‘all methods for the society’ isn’t also a source of chaos.”

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire scene fell into a dead silence.

Among the outcasts of the world, who dared to speak to Yan Jiuzhang like that?

“Presumptuous!” a guest elder behind Yan Jiuzhang shouted sternly, his aura erupting and pressing down on Zhang Xuanyi.

However, Yan Jiuzhang merely raised his hand slightly, stopping him.

His eyes grew even deeper, and his aura steadily climbed, making the air seem to solidify.

“The inheritance of the Daoist tradition has its own order. All methods converging in one place is the only way to set things right, to reverse the tide. Your private bestowal will only allow incomplete and erroneous methods to poison the world, ultimately cutting off our last chance of survival!”

“Easier said than done.” Zhang Xuanyi spat out a melon seed shell, finally stood up, and clapped off the debris from his hands, “Orderly inheritance, is that to fear the emergence of prodigies who might threaten your thrones? Setting things right, is that to grasp all power in your own hands?”

“Stubborn and unyielding!”

Yan Jiuzhang’s patience ran out, and with an angry roar, he stopped wasting words.

He suddenly struck out with his right palm. There were no earth-shattering lights or shadows, but a thunderous explosion echoed in the void.

A condensed and extreme punch force broke through the air. Wherever it passed, the air was compressed and twisted, as if it had solidified!

The Tianshi Mansion’s secret technique—Heavenly Master Demon Subduing Fist!

“Boom!”

The punch force did not strike Zhang Xuanyi, but heavily smashed onto the stone steps in front of him.

In an instant, the bluestone ground, harder than steel, exploded with a roar, sending shattered rocks flying and filling the air with dust.

When the dust settled slightly, everyone was horrified to discover that two large characters, several feet deep, had been forcefully blasted into the ground by that punch—

Daoist Tradition!

These two characters seemed to carry supreme majesty and will, making it difficult for all the outcasts present to even breathe.

This was a warning, and also a judgment.

Facing this overbearing and peerless blow, Zhang Xuanyi did not retreat but laughed, a hint of madness and determination in his smile.

He abruptly tore open the cheap T-shirt on his chest, revealing his unremarkable chest.

The next moment, he unhesitatingly put his right thumb into his mouth and bit down hard!

Blood gushed out.

Using his finger as a brush and blood as ink, he vigorously wrote on the stall cloth, which was spread with a few scattered goods.

His movements were extremely fast, each stroke seemingly using all his strength.

“All methods return to the heart, not to power!”

Eight crimson characters, carrying scorching warmth and an unyielding will, were branded onto the simple stall cloth.

Just as the last stroke fell, a sudden change occurred!

That ordinary stall cloth, which countless people regarded as hope, seemed to have been imbued with a soul.

Zhang Xuanyi’s blood characters actually squirmed like living things, each character emitting dazzling golden light.

Golden light flowed, and the eight blood characters instantly transformed into nine complex and profound golden patterns, intertwining to form a continuously rotating array diagram!

Heart Seal Array Diagram!

Buzz—

Above the array diagram, a phantom of an ancient, simple compass appeared. Its needle spun wildly in reverse, and an invisible yet vast power instantly enveloped the entire scene.

“reverse fate altering compass… activated!”

Yan Jiuzhang’s pupils suddenly constricted. He was about to strike again to completely destroy this “source of chaos,” but his body suddenly stiffened.

An unprecedented feeling of comfort, like timely rain after a long drought, instantly flowed through his limbs and bones.

The “severed meridian” that had plagued him for a full decade, clinging to him like a maggot in the bone, preventing him from advancing further in his life, now felt as if it had been caressed by a pair of warm hands. The blocked meridians were cleared inch by inch, and that long-lost, exhilarating sensation of True Qi flowing freely made him almost groan aloud.

“This… this is…” He incredulously touched his chest, feeling the surging vitality.

His old ailment had, in this instant, been healed for at least three days!

But before he could recover from his ecstasy, an entirely opposite and terrifying experience, like a tidal wave, surged into his mind.

His head felt as if it were being torn apart, countless steel needles furiously churning in his temples.

The world before his eyes began to fade, sounds became distant and blurry, and his five senses were rapidly decaying and stripping away at an astonishing speed!

This was… the backlash Zhang Xuanyi had to endure to activate the system!

Two extreme experiences clashed within him—physical recovery and mental torture—rendering this overlord of the Under Heaven Society unable to stand any longer.

With a “thud,” Yan Jiuzhang fell to his knees.

He didn’t kneel because of pain, but because of the sudden enlightenment that surged into his heart the moment his severed meridian was cleared.

It turned out… the Dao was not in his society that governed all methods.

The true Dao was in this small stall, in those countless exchanges and gifts given without expectation of return.

His lifelong pursuit of “Daoist tradition” seemed so ridiculous, so… insignificant at this moment.

He tremblingly raised his hand, took off the supreme guest elder jade token of the Under Heaven Society from his waist, and with all his strength, threw it onto the stall.

“Clink.” The jade token landed, crisp and pleasant.

“I… seek no method, seek no treasure.” Yan Jiuzhang’s voice was hoarse and trembling, with a hint of release, “I come to ask for a green bean… to ask you to see clearly… what kind of dog shit I’ve been protecting all these years.”

Just then, a ethereal figure appeared silently beside the stall, as if he had always been there.

The newcomer wore a simple gray Daoist robe, his face shrouded in mountain mist, making it impossible to see clearly.

He was Xuan Weizi.

Xuan Weizi’s gaze did not fall on anyone; he merely stared deeply at the golden-glowing Heart Seal Array Diagram. After a long while, he extended a finger and lightly tapped in the air.

A crystalline jade talisman appeared out of thin air, but it was only half a talisman, with two characters carved on it in ancient runes: "To be verified."

He gently placed this half-talisman in a corner of the stall, then turned and took a step, his figure merging into the thick mountain mist like an ink wash painting, leaving no trace.

And just as the jade talisman landed, the golden light of the entire stall suddenly surged, dyeing the entire mountaintop a sacred golden hue!

A system prompt, visible only to Zhang Xuanyi, appeared before his eyes:

“Dao Heart anchored, belief resonated, upgrade conditions met.”

“Stall system beginning upgrade… Upgrade complete. Current level: Lv.5!”

“New product template unlocked: Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid (Mass Production Type).

Daily production limit: 1 bottle.”

The golden light slowly receded, and the stall cloth returned to its original state, only the eight blood characters completely vanished, as if they had never appeared.

On the stall surface, a new, faintly glowing product icon had appeared.

Zhang Xuanyi looked at the faces below the mountain, which had transformed from numb and devout to shocked and fanatical, and then at Yan Jiuzhang, who was kneeling on the ground, disheartened. For a moment, he was a little bewildered.

“Did I… accidentally do something big?” he muttered to himself.

As soon as his voice fell, the unremarkable stall cloth in front of him, and the mysterious silhouette that had appeared countless times in his mind, guiding him, subtly moved.

That silhouette gently, slowly, shook its head at him.