See the Buddha All the Way to the West
Yang Mei looked at the little figure no bigger than a palm. He said nothing, but meeting his gaze, Xiang Dong felt as though he had said everything.
After all that commotion you made, I thought you were holding in something big. And what came out? A little turd...
Once you go out into the world, whatever you do, don't tell anyone I taught you the Space Great Dao and how to take human form. These days, most mighty beings and Innate Divine Beings are Chaos Demon Gods. As the Space Demon God, I still have some face to save.
I taught you personally, gave you one-on-one guidance, and even threw in a cup of Enlightenment Tea.
And this is the result? This?!!
Under that silent stare, Xiang Dong felt his face burning.
"Ahem, well, the essence is in the concentrated part."
Yang Mei said nothing, merely remaining silent.
Xiang Dong felt this wouldn't do. He had to regain his dignity.
"There was a little problem, but it's nothing serious. Watch me put on a show for you. Heaven and Earth Manifestation, activate!"
"Bigger, bigger, bigger!"
"Get bigger for your grandpa!"
The surrounding sunflowers answered his call as one. Countless golden motes poured from their flower heads and converged on Xiang Dong's tiny body of light.
As grains of sand gathered into a tower, Xiang Dong's palm-sized body swelled rapidly.
One meter, two meters, five meters...
Finally, it stopped at ten meters tall.
A giant made of light stood amid the sea of sunflowers.
The radiance of the stars wheeling through the heavens was drawn over as well, gathering around Xiang Dong and forming dazzling halos around his body.
Hmm, these special effects are nice. They've got a bit of that light-pollution feel.
It's just the height. It's not merely a far cry from Heaven and Earth Manifestation; it doesn't have half a copper's worth of anything to do with it.
And somehow, I couldn't even stay cool for three seconds in this state.
The motes of light on his body began to break apart, vanishing bit by bit. A tower built from grains of sand could never withstand the slap of a wave.
Once the light faded, Xiang Dong returned to being a palm-sized little figure of light. He looked at his palm, not quite understanding why this had happened.
"Little friend, unless you reclaim the origin you scattered, your true body can only be this small."
Yang Mei understood. Xiang Dong's true body was so small because his origin had been scattered, forming this sea of flowers.
Getting bigger was simple enough. As long as he gathered his origin back together, his true body would naturally no longer be small.
But Xiang Dong didn't really want to do that. With this sea of flowers keeping him company, he felt less lonely.
"You have successfully taken human form, little friend. What do you plan to do next?"
Yang Mei changed the subject.
Xiang Dong jumped onto the flower head of his original body, planted one hand on his hip, and pointed in a direction as he spoke with great bravado.
"My goal is clear. I'm going to Buzhou Mountain to do something big."
"I don't know whether the Twelve Ancestral Witches have been born yet, but even if they have, their strength and cultivation realms probably aren't too high. I'm going to give them some purification treatment and get rid of as much of their Sha Qi as I can."
This was the trouble Xiang Dong planned to cause Hongjun.
The Witch Clan didn't cultivate their Primordial Spirits, but was that because they didn't want to?
The most fundamental reason was that the Twelve Ancestral Witches had been formed from Pangu's Essence Blood. While they were being nurtured and formed, they were tainted by the Heaven-Opening Sha Qi and turbid Qi, which affected their minds and souls.
On top of that, the inheritance they received followed the path of cultivating the physical body instead, so every one of them became a brawny, simple-minded brute.
Thus, the Witch Clan's tradition became one of not cultivating their Primordial Spirits, showing no reverence for heaven and earth, and honoring only Pangu.
That was utterly incompatible with the Xuanmen Daoist Orthodoxy that Hongjun later founded—their eight characters were in complete conflict.
After all, Hongjun merged with the Heavenly Dao and became its spokesperson. If they showed no reverence for heaven and earth, then, in other words, weren't they disregarding him and treating him as a nobody?
How could Hongjun tolerate the Witch Clan then? If he didn't go after them, who would he go after? They were naturally at odds.
But what if Xiang Dong purified all the Sha Qi affecting the Twelve Ancestral Witches?
Whether it worked or not, Xiang Dong would do it now that he'd thought of it.
When you're going out to make your way in the world, the most important thing is to go out first, right?
When Yang Mei heard the name Twelve Ancestral Witches, a sharp light flashed in his eyes, and he instinctively made a calculation.
He could not learn the Twelve Ancestral Witches' specific details, but he could calculate one vague piece of information: they had been formed from Pangu's Essence Blood.
Although they had not yet been born, those origins alone were enough to make him take them seriously.
As for Buzhou Mountain, it had been formed from Pangu's spine. It was the pillar that propped up the heavens of the Primordial World, and also the place where Pangu's pressure was strongest.
"Little friend, you're pointing in the wrong direction. Buzhou Mountain is to the east."
Yang Mei helped correct him.
"And in your current state, little friend, who knows how many Yuanhui it would take you to reach Buzhou Mountain?"
"Is it that far?" Xiang Dong was somewhat puzzled. "I comprehended your Space Great Dao. Even though I've only grasped the barest basics, I can still teleport. One teleport takes me 108,000 li."
108,000 li—that's on the same level as Brother Monkey. If I remember correctly, that's about the radius of Earth.
Even traveling that fast, I'd still have to measure the journey in Yuanhui?
"Of course!"
Yang Mei rubbed his brow, seeming somewhat weary.
"Even I would have to put in some effort to get from here to Buzhou Mountain. And the closer one gets to the mountain, the stronger Pangu's lingering pressure becomes. Once at the foot of the mountain, one cannot use the Dao of Space to teleport, nor can one use movement Divine Abilities. The only way up is on foot."
"Tsk, that really is a headache."
Xiang Dong squatted on the flower head, thinking seriously. If the journey alone took several Yuanhui, or even tens or hundreds of Yuanhui, he might not make it in time.
"Going by what you said, won't the daylilies be cold by the time I get there?"
"And none of the Twelve Ancestral Witches are easy to talk to. I don't want to be ganged up on by twelve big men. They couldn't kill me, but I don't want a beating either. I'm not a masochist."
Yang Mei sighed helplessly. He felt that the number of times he had sighed today was probably the most in his entire life.
But what else could he do?
He had given him the Space Great Dao and the Enlightenment Tea, so he could only see his good deed through to the end and escort the Buddha all the way to the West.
"How about this? I can take you there, little friend, but I can only teleport you to somewhere near Buzhou Mountain. You'll have to handle the rest yourself."
"Old Yang, you're a real friend. I don't have anything else, so I can only treat you to sunflower seeds. As many as you can eat."
As Xiang Dong spoke, he grabbed a nearby sunflower and pulled it over, replenishing Yang Mei's supply with another handful of seeds.
But before setting out, there was one more thing to take care of.
There was this sea of sunflowers. Xiang Dong couldn't bear to just leave and abandon them all here, nor could he feel at ease doing so.
After all, these were all his clones, and they were all innate Spirit Roots. He could crack their seeds for fun himself, but he didn't want a ferocious beast or some passing mighty being to ruin the whole lot or carry them all off.
So he would pack them all up and take them with him.