Fuxi felt as though an invisible giant hammer had smashed brutally into his primordial spirit's sea of consciousness, leaving it buzzing.
What had he just seen?
His own sister, Nuwa—the Goddess of Creation who had always been aloof and proud, viewing all things as insignificant—was actually holding a baby like an ordinary mortal woman, her face filled with unprecedented tenderness and affection.
The Three Pure Ones' auras were unfathomably deep. They had clearly stepped into the legendary Hunyuan Realm!
And Hongjun Daozu!
He was even more outrageous. His aura was utterly beyond description. He was heaven and earth, and heaven and earth were him!
A Sage!
Absolutely the realm of a Sage!
In just a thousand years, the primordial world had completely changed!
And the center of all these changes, the convergence point of all karma, fortune, and heavenly secrets, actually pointed to that harmless-looking, exquisitely adorable baby in Nuwa's arms!
What exactly was this child's origin?
An unprecedented curiosity surged within Fuxi.
As the primordial world's foremost diviner, wielding the River Diagram and Luo Script, he was confident that nothing under heaven could escape his deductions.
Almost instinctively, he was about to circulate his primordial spirit and activate the River Diagram and Luo Script, which he had cultivated alongside his life, to forcibly peer into the child's heavenly secrets.
However, the instant that thought arose—
A sudden change occurred!
Lin Shen, who Tongtian Jiaozhu had been lifting high like a tossed embroidered ball, giggling happily as he played, suddenly stopped laughing.
He turned his chubby little head.
Those pitch-black eyes, purer than the stars of the heavens and deeper than the Nine Nether Spring, gazed curiously at Fuxi.
Their eyes met.
Fuxi felt an invisible hand seize his primordial spirit!
His supreme deduction art, which he took such pride in and which could deduce even a Sage's future, completely failed at that moment!
What he saw was neither the past nor the future, but a bottomless Chaos brimming with the power of creation and transformation!
That Chaos was older and more primordial than any Chaos he had ever known!
"Puh—"
Fuxi swayed, coughing out a mouthful of golden divine blood. His face instantly turned deathly pale.
A backlash from his cultivation!
He had merely entertained a thought. Before he had even begun an actual deduction, the incomprehensible existence itself had already shaken his primordial spirit and injured him!
How was that possible?!
A towering wave surged through Fuxi's heart.
He stared at the baby, his eyes filled with shock and disbelief.
Meanwhile, Lin Shen looked at the strange uncle who had vomited blood right after arriving and tilted his little head.
He noticed that the uncle's Daoist robe was covered in strange circles and lines he could not understand. They somewhat resembled the patterns on the tortoise shells his Second Master, Yuanshi Tianzun, occasionally used to set up formations.
Lin Shen's thought process was simple.
An uncle covered in strange patterns + tortoise shells = a fortune-teller?
So, he stretched out his chubby little hand toward Fuxi and asked in a childish voice a question that shattered the Dao Hearts of all the great figures present:
"Uncle... draw... turtles?"
His voice was soft and sweet, brimming with innocent curiosity.
Drawing turtles?
Those three words struck Fuxi's head like three bolts of Chaos Divine Thunder.
He...
He called his Innate Eight Trigrams and the profound principles of the River Diagram and Luo Script drawing turtles?
Fuxi felt fine cracks spread across his Dao Heart at that moment.
The great Dao of deduction he had studied all his life and taken such pride in was no different from drawing turtles by the roadside in this baby's eyes?
What kind of Dimensional Strike was this?!
"Puh—"
Fuxi spat out another mouthful of divine blood, his aura becoming even more feeble.
Looking into Lin Shen's pure and innocent eyes, he felt deep doubt toward his own "Dao" for the first time.
"Brother!"
Nuwa was startled. She hurried over to support him, sending a stream of pure Qi of Creation into him to stabilize his injuries.
"How are you? How did you suddenly get hurt?"
Nuwa asked anxiously.
Fuxi shook his head with a bitter smile. He glanced at Lin Shen, his expression incomparably complicated.
"I... I'm fine. It's just... my Dao Heart is a little unstable."
He did not dare say that he had wanted to deduce the little fellow, only to suffer a backlash.
That was far too embarrassing!
If word got out, where would the primordial world's foremost diviner put his face?
The Three Pure Ones and Hongjun understood what had happened as they watched the scene unfold.
"Hahaha!"
Tongtian Jiaozhu was the first to lose control, bursting into loud laughter. He laughed so hard he bent back and forth, nearly bringing tears to his eyes.
"Drawing turtles! Hahaha! My disciple is too talented!"
As he laughed, he frantically @'d everyone in the Kunlun Mountain upper-echelon group chat with his divine sense.
Tongtian Jiaozhu: "@Yuanshi Tianzun @Taiqing Laozi @Nuwa @Hongjun, did you all see that?! That old fellow Fuxi wanted to secretly calculate my disciple's origin, but my disciple made him vomit blood with one sentence! Hahahaha! I'm dying of laughter!"
Yuanshi Tianzun: "(Ice Mountain face emoji) Third Brother, mind your bearing! Still... 'drawing turtles' is... rather fitting."
Taiqing Laozi: "(Smiling while stroking beard emoji) The little disciple possesses an innocent heart and points directly to the Origin of the Great Dao. Fellow Daoist Fuxi has become fixated on appearances."
Nuwa: "(Covering face, laughing and crying emoji) My brother... sigh, he brought this upon himself."
Hongjun: "(Unfathomable emoji) Heavenly secrets must not be revealed, much less pried into. This little friend's existence itself is the Great Dao. Fuxi's actions were no different from striking a stone with an egg."
Fuxi watched those top-tier figures whose shoulders were shaking with laughter despite their pretended solemnity. His face alternated between green and white.
He knew that he had utterly disgraced himself today.
"Ahem!"
Hongjun cleared his throat and stepped forward to smooth things over.
He walked to Fuxi's side, and a gentle Sage's Dao aura enveloped him. Fuxi's turbulent primordial spirit immediately calmed.
"Fellow Daoist Fuxi, do not take it to heart."
Hongjun said gently, "This little friend is innocent and lively. He meant no harm."
On the surface, he was comforting Fuxi, but underneath, he was warning him: Stop setting your sights on this little fellow. You cannot afford to play this game.
Fuxi was exceptionally intelligent and naturally understood Hongjun's implication.
He gave Hongjun and the Three Pure Ones a bitter smile and cupped his hands.
"This poor Daoist was rash. Thank you, Dao Ancestor, and thank you, three Daoist brothers, for your guidance."
Then he looked at Lin Shen, who Tongtian Jiaozhu was holding in his arms and showing off everywhere like a trophy, his gaze filled with reverence.
He knew that this child was someone no one in the entire primordial world—or even the entire Chaos—could afford to provoke.
Lin Shen was held by Tongtian Jiaozhu, listening to them say things he did not understand.
Seeing that the uncle who had vomited blood seemed fine now, he did not think much more about it.
His attention was quickly drawn to something new.
He saw that, at some point, a jade tablet had appeared in Fuxi's hand. It was engraved with densely packed patterns, and at its center was a clearly defined black-and-white Tai Chi Diagram that continuously rotated.
It was the supreme Innate Spiritual Treasure—the River Diagram and Luo Script.
Lin Shen's eyes lit up again when he saw the spinning Tai Chi Diagram.
Wow!
This thing was so cool!
It looked like a black-and-white pinwheel!
He stretched out his chubby little hand, pointed at the River Diagram and Luo Script, and said to Fuxi in a childish voice:
"Uncle... pinwheel... play!"
Fuxi: "..."
The cracks in his Dao Heart, which Hongjun had just soothed, split open again with a crack, growing even wider.
The River Diagram and Luo Script...
A pinwheel?
Fuxi felt that he had come to Kunlun Mountain today just to undergo tribulation.
Tongtian Jiaozhu erupted into another earth-shaking fit of laughter.
Yuanshi Tianzun's mouth twitched as he struggled to suppress his laughter, but his shaking shoulders had already betrayed him.
Taiqing Laozi simply turned around and pretended to admire the scenery.
Nuwa covered her face, unable to bear looking at her brother's life-questioning expression any longer.
Hongjun did not know whether to laugh or cry.
He felt that when he lectured at Zixiao Palace in the future, perhaps he should offer a special course called <On the Importance of the Dao Heart and How to Prevent a Baby from Shattering It>.
Fuxi took a deep breath, then another.
He looked into Lin Shen's incomparably clear eyes, which were filled with longing for the "pinwheel."
In the end, he resigned himself to his fate.
What else could he do?
Argue reason with a three-year-old baby?
Tell him that this was not a pinwheel, but an Innate Spiritual Treasure containing the profound principles behind the movement of the Myriad Stars Array?
What a joke.
He feared that before he could finish speaking, the little fellow would make him vomit blood again with a single "Uncle, you're so long-winded."
Fuxi forced out a smile uglier than crying.
Trembling, he handed over the River Diagram and Luo Script, which he had cultivated with his life and never let leave his side.
"L-little friend, if you like it... then... take it and play with it."
Even his voice was trembling.
Not from anger, but from heartache.
Before you continue