Volume Two: Bandits Around Here - Chapter 142: Ancient Tales

"Shameless scoundrel! You stinky Taoist trying to get a free ride, I'd rather die than lend her to you!" Lin Changtian cursed aloud, expressing his strong condemnation of a hypocritical beast like Xuan Ziye.

Xuan Ziye spread his hands and said with a straight face, "How can a matter concerning a person of the cloth be called borrowing? What malicious intent could I possibly have? I merely wish to study Western women out of a pursuit of the Great Cheng Buddhist Dharma."

"Aren't you a Taoist? Why are you dragging Buddhism into this?"

"To be honest with you, my master once said that all schools of thought are interconnected. One must draw upon the strengths of all and read widely to achieve the supreme Dao."

Lin Changtian frowned and said thoughtfully, "Master, I am enlightened. Are you saying... Buddhism is essentially Taoism?"

"No, my master meant that when you do something bad, you invoke the Buddha, and when you do something good, you invoke the Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable."

Xuan Ziye spoke with such composure that Lin Changtian could not help but marvel inwardly. As expected of an expert in the Heaven-Imperial Realm, this shamelessness was indeed far superior to his own.

"Taoist Priest, then... could you use the identity of the Immeasurable Heavenly Venerable to explain to me why the Heaven-Imperial experts of the Northern Territory are hiding?"

Xuan Ziye burst into laughter. Instead of replying immediately, he asked, "Why did you come to the Northern Territory? And why did you leave the Northern Territory, wander around the Central Plains for a while, and then... come back?"

"That's not the same thing. I got lost. Ma Hui told me later that this was all a scheme orchestrated by someone even more shameless than you."

Hearing this, Xuan Ziye suddenly fell silent, the smile at the corners of his mouth vanishing. He lowered his head and looked somewhat at a loss.

"The person Lin Changtian is speaking of... could it be Yu Baili?"

Lin Changtian nodded. He was not surprised in his heart; after all, these Heaven-Imperial experts were stranger than the last. From Li Daoyong in the Central Plains to Ma Hui in the Northern Territory, and now coupled with Xuan Ziye before him, they were all eccentric characters.

"Actually, it's not that the Heaven-Imperial experts of the Northern Territory want to hide, but rather... have you ever seen rats running down the street?"

Xuan Ziye tapped his own head and continued, "Look at the sky. It seems to be just a single canopy, dotted with a sun and hung with a moon. It departs when the wind blows and calms when the rain passes."

Lin Changtian looked up. The weather today was fine, completely unmoved by human joys and sorrows.

"Master, I am enlightened once again. Are you saying... does the Northern Territory need a weather forecast?" Lin Changtian asked with a straight face.

Xuan Ziye ignored him, deeply blaming himself for why he had taken over Ma Hui's mess.

The matter was not complicated, but once this carbon-based lifeform before him was mixed into it, everything became complicated.

Just as the great literary giant Master Xun of the Central Plains said a thousand years ago: The roads in this world are not naturally crooked; it is simply that when there are too many people with peculiar thought processes, the road becomes crooked.

"Whether the Northern Territory needs a weather forecast is beyond me, but if you utter any more nonsense, then... the weather on someone's face will be overcast for quite a long time. Monks do not lie."

Xuan Ziye made a bow, displaying the massive biceps on his arms, and pressed down on Lin Changtian's head, making him quiet down in a refined and gentle manner.

"Taoist Priest... you said you were going to slap my face, why did you punch my stomach?" Lin Changtian cradled his lower abdomen, squatting on the ground, his mind somewhat muddled.

"Monks do not lie, but I am a Taoist priest," Xuan Ziye blinked and smiled. "You need to learn shamelessness from me, because the enemies you encounter in the future will be far harder to reason with than those in our Northern Territory."

Lin Changtian did not dare to make a sound, and began drawing circles on the ground.

"Are you researching how to take out that egg of yours again?" Xuan Ziye asked curiously.

"No, I want to draw a circle to curse you..."

Xuan Ziye: ...

"I won't chat idly with you anymore. That person laid out many heavenly secrets, and I am merely telling you what I am supposed to say."

Lin Changtian turned sideways. This time he was very serious, adopting an attentive posture and obediently waiting for Xuan Ziye to continue.

"Do you know the relationship between the Northern Territory and the Central Plains?"

"This... Isn't the Northern Territory a barren land? I only know that the realm-masters of the Central Plains and the local sin-clans once guarded the borders together. Aside from that, I don't know of any other entanglements."

Xuan Ziye frowned slightly, shrugged, and said somewhat displeased, "What do you mean by a barren land? The Northern Territory is a genuine blessed land of the mortal world! It's just that there was a great battle here, reportedly a struggle among ancient immortals. It was fought so fiercely that the sun and moon lost their light, and countless human heroes perished right here. Even the cannon fodder used merely as stepping stones consisted of Heaven-Imperial experts."

"This... no one has ever mentioned this before?" Lin Changtian blinked, looking somewhat dazed. "Ancient times? Several thousand years ago?"

"No, it's an old affair from a few hundred years ago," Xuan Ziye said calmly, as though he had anticipated Lin Changtian's reaction.

His mouth suddenly opened wide and stayed that way for a long time, much like a freshwater fish crawling out of the ocean of knowledge, struggling desperately in a manner that seemed utterly absurd.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!" Lin Changtian was extremely certain. If it were the ancient era of several thousand years ago, then such a long and unknown secret would indeed exist.

But if it were only a few hundred years ago, there was simply no way it could have happened.

First, after the Jiazi Revolution, theology declined, and the entire Central Plains plunged into the wave of the technological age; second, a battlefield of such massive scale could never have been covered up.

A Heaven-Imperial expert was already a top-tier powerhouse in this world, whose commands to the masses were unquestioned. For such figures to merely act as cannon fodder was simply... far too preposterous.

"Above the Heaven-Imperial realm, do you know what comes next?"

Lin Changtian waved his hand. He was being tested with a question even Chen Ziliang understood? He said with utter conviction, "Naturally, it is the three realms of Supreme Void, Profound Penetration, and True Penetration."

"And what lies beyond these three realms?" Xuan Ziye countered.

"Your question is beyond the syllabus."

Xuan Ziye frowned and asked uncomprehendingly, "What do you mean by beyond the syllabus?"

"It means... everyone clearly went through nine years of compulsory education, but you insist on posing questions outside the scope. Aside from a show-off, no one can answer this."

"Whether anyone is showing off or not, I don't know, but you are definitely a fish that slipped through the net of nine years of compulsory education!"

Lin Changtian was alarmed, "Eh? How did you know?"

"Because the ragtag bunch at the bottom are the fondest of using the word 'everyone'."

Hearing this, Lin Changtian looked thoughtful and nodded, feeling that made sense.

"Listen well. The so-called six realms of realm-masters are: 'Life-Servant', 'Spirit-Penetration', 'Heaven-Imperial', 'Supreme Void', 'Profound Penetration', and 'True Penetration'. Once one steps into the 'Life-Servant' realm, it means transforming from a mortal body into a running dog of the heavens."

"I work hard at cultivation just to become... a dog of the heavens?" Lin Changtian glanced at him sideways with a blank expression, utterly unwilling to believe it.

Xuan Ziye nodded and said very earnestly, "Even so, how many people want that opportunity and don't even get it!"

"Then I must give up the thought of bullying men and women in the future?"

"Why would such words come out of your mouth?" Xuan Ziye was somewhat astonished, pointing at the author typing away outside the screen, "You are the protagonist of this book!"