Zixiao Palace.
Three thousand cultivators gathered together.
Some closed their eyes in concentration, while others discussed the Dao in low voices, quietly awaiting the Dao Ancestor's lecture.
On the surface, nothing seemed different from usual, but everyone's gaze occasionally drifted toward the twelve especially conspicuous figures at the very front of the cushions.
Hou Tu sat upright upon her cushion, while the other Ancestral Witches stood neatly behind her.
Every one of them wore a grave expression and stared sharply at the great powers present, as though afraid their little sister might be bullied.
The faintly emanating aura of peak Great Golden Immortals
made everyone present suck in a cold breath.
Zhurong toyed with the Jade Ruyi in his hand, occasionally using it to scratch an itch.
He did not know why.
Ever since he had gotten this Jade Ruyi from Qin Xuan, he had grown fond of the motion.
Yuanshi, standing nearby, watched what Zhurong was doing with it and nearly exploded with rage.
That was his Jade Ruyi!
That was his supreme treasure!
Yet that foolish brute was using it for such a crude purpose?!
The veins on Yuanshi's forehead throbbed as his hands clenched into fists. If he had not been unable to defeat the Twelve Ancestral Witches across from him,
he would have rushed over and chopped off Zhurong's hand!
Just then, Duke Dong's face darkened as he strode heavily toward Jieyin and Zhunti.
"Jieyin, Zhunti!" Duke Dong's voice was low, suppressing the fury in his heart. "Did you loot the three immortal islands of Penglai, Yingzhou, and Fangzhang in the East Sea?"
Jieyin and Zhunti were both stunned when they heard this.
The East Sea?
They had been there.
Looting small islands?
Well... they had indeed done that.
They could not help it. The West was simply too barren, so they could only rely on living off the East.
But three immortal islands?
What kind of concept was that!
They had only looted a few small islands, and all they found had been worthless junk unfit for display.
They could not shoulder such an enormous blame!
Jieyin wore a bitter expression and repeatedly waved his hands.
"My fellow cultivator and I have never been to any East Sea, much less seen any immortal islands. What evidence does our fellow cultivator have to claim we did it?"
Zhunti also nodded frantically, wearing an innocent expression.
"Fellow cultivator, how can you slander us out of thin air? When have my fellow cultivator and I ever done something so shameless?"
But Duke Dong did not believe them at all.
After personally seeing the three immortal islands stripped so thoroughly that even the sky seemed three feet higher,
he had always suspected these two were responsible.
Looking across the entire Primordial World, who besides them could do something like this?
Although the three immortal islands did not have his name carved upon them, that vague sense of destiny clearly told him that they had been opportunities meant for him.
Seeing those opportunities plundered clean, without even a blade of grass left behind, he simply could not swallow this anger!
While the few of them remained locked in a heated dispute, Hou Tu and the Ancestral Witches behind her all felt their hearts pound in unison.
They knew perfectly well.
They were the ones who had looted those three immortal islands.
Now that Duke Dong had gone after the wrong people, they found it somewhat amusing.
Zhurong's eyes rolled as an idea came to him.
He chuckled and deliberately lowered his voice, yet somehow, everyone present could still hear him clearly.
"Brothers, do you remember how, tens of thousands of years ago, there were two bald Daoists sneaking around a stretch of the East Sea?"
The moment he finished speaking, Zhurong put on an expression as if he had let something slip and hurriedly covered his mouth.
Jieyin and Zhunti's hearts jolted!
They immediately forgot everything else and hastily retorted in loud voices.
"Zhurong, you cannot speak nonsense like that!"
"Exactly! You must have mistaken us for someone else. We brothers do not even know what the East Sea looks like!"
Tens of thousands of years ago... Duke Dong calculated with his fingers, and the timing did indeed match!
He had already suspected these two. Now that he heard Zhurong's seemingly inadvertent words, his suspicions were confirmed even further.
But he still wanted to verify it completely, so he turned toward the Ancestral Witches and asked in a deep voice.
"Fellow Ancestral Witches, are you certain that you saw Jieyin and Zhunti in the East Sea tens of thousands of years ago?"
The next moment.
Under Jieyin and Zhunti's eager gazes.
Dijiang, the steady one; Zhurong, the simple-minded one; Xuan Ming, the cold one; Hou Tu, the gentle one...
Every Ancestral Witch nodded with remarkable unanimity and absolute certainty.
Their eyes were so sincere that no one could raise even the slightest doubt.
Jieyin and Zhunti were dumbfounded!
Seeing this, the last trace of doubt in Duke Dong's heart vanished.
His face turned completely livid as he faced Jieyin and Zhunti and shouted sternly.
"What else do you have to say?! Every Ancestral Witch saw it with their own eyes!"
"Could it possibly be false?!"
Yuanshi's eyes lit up nearby. He had not forgotten how these two had caused trouble at Buzhou Mountain. Seizing the chance, he sneered.
"What is the point of being stubborn? Other than you two, who else in the Primordial World could have done such a thing?"
As soon as he said this, everyone present nodded in agreement, clearly sharing the same view.
After all, they had all heard more or less about Jieyin and Zhunti's usual conduct.
Jieyin and Zhunti felt darkness swim before their eyes, while a sweet, metallic taste rose in their throats.
They had been wronged!
They were more wronged than Dou E herself!
This was outright framing!
But faced with the Ancestral Witches' "irrefutable evidence,"
they did not dare fall out with them on the spot.
They could not defeat them...
No one would believe them anyway...
Not only could they not afford to provoke the Ancestral Witches before them, even Duke Dong, who was at the late Great Golden Immortal stage, had a higher cultivation than them.
Ever since Qin Xuan had beaten them viciously during the first lecture at Zixiao Palace, they had barely understood anything from the lectures.
On top of that, they had spent recent years scrounging all over the place, so their cultivation had made virtually no progress and remained at the middle Great Golden Immortal stage.
The two were so aggrieved they felt ready to explode, yet they could only redden their faces and weakly repeat.
"We didn't do it..."
"Fellow Daoist, there must be some misunderstanding here!"
But Duke Dong ignored their explanations entirely. He had already decided that these two bald thieves were responsible.
He shouted sharply.
"Stop quibbling! Tell me, how do you intend to compensate for this?!"
Jieyin still wanted to argue, but Zhunti quietly tugged at his sleeve and spoke first.
"How about this? My fellow cultivator and I will owe you a karmic debt. What do you think?"
"If Fellow Daoist has any orders in the future, we brothers will certainly not refuse!"
Duke Dong considered it briefly before finally nodding helplessly.
"I hope you two Fellow Daoists will not go back on your word!"
Jieyin and Zhunti immediately nodded repeatedly, their faces piled with smiles.
Then the two exchanged a glance, and an unseen strange glint flashed through both their eyes.
A ray of rosy light flashed, and Hongjun's figure appeared upon the foremost seat of the hall.
He had just watched a fine show and was in an excellent mood.
"This lecture will last three thousand years and shall cover the Dao of the Quasi-Sage."
With that, he began speaking on his own.
"What is a Quasi-Sage? All living beings possess good, evil, and self-obsession..."
Lines of Dao sound containing profound truth flowed from Hongjun's mouth. In an instant, purple qi swirled throughout Zixiao Palace, and wondrous phenomena appeared one after another.
Apart from the Twelve Ancestral Witches, everyone present immersed themselves in the profound Dao sound and exerted all their strength to comprehend it.
Meanwhile, atop Buzhou Mountain.
The Six-Eared Macaque knelt before Qin Xuan and respectfully kowtowed three times. With his head lowered deeply, he spoke sincerely and with longing.
"This junior, Six-Eared, begs Senior to accept me as his disciple!"
Qin Xuan slowly shook his head, his voice calm and without the slightest ripple.
"There is no bond of master and disciple between us."
The Six-Eared Macaque's entire body shook violently.
Could it be that this senior also feared the Dao Ancestor of Zixiao Palace and thus dared not accept him as a disciple?
Could it be that this was truly all his life would ever amount to?
Thinking this, the Six-Eared Macaque's heart filled with disappointment. He bowed helplessly, preparing to turn and leave.
But the moment he raised his head, an ancient book suddenly appeared before him.
Its pages seemed neither jade nor stone.
Four large characters, flowing with Dao charm, were clearly inscribed upon it.
Eight Nine Arcane Art!
Before you continue