Houtu said nothing, while the transparent little Feng Xi stood to one side, utterly dazzled by what he saw.
Having someone as powerful as Dijiang, and one so intimately familiar with the personalities and strengths of the Great Divine Ability Users in the Primordial World, offer his assessments was of immense significance. It had truly begun to let Feng Xi understand and come into contact with that circle.
Before, he could only speculate through a pile of information whose authenticity he did not know. The images he had formed in his mind of the many divine beings of the Primordial World had been distorted in many places. Now that he had obtained definite inside information, he would be able to get incomparably closer to the truth!
And the closer he got, the more similar the reality became... Perhaps one day in the future, he would reap an unexpected harvest.
"On this trip to Phoenix Perch Mountain, Nuwa is nothing to worry about." Dijiang gazed into the distance. "But Fuxi... the Emperor Fuxi will become a very troublesome opponent."
"Still, that's what makes it interesting..." He suddenly chuckled. "Constantly bullying a bunch of weaklings gets boring after a while."
"Only a divine being as supremely intelligent and astonishingly talented as Fuxi can serve as an opponent worthy of a truly exhilarating battle... Houtu, don't you agree?"
"Hehe... As long as you're happy." Houtu smiled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
Feng Xi watched from the side, always feeling that Ancestral Witch Houtu's smile was somewhat forced and fake—the kind where the lips smiled, but the flesh did not.
"Now, hurry to Phoenix Perch Mountain!" Ancestral Witch Dijiang gave the order. Under his will, the team's speed climbed to an entirely new level.
At last, after some time had passed, an endless stretch of rolling mountains appeared at the edge of their vision, as though heralding their arrival at their destination.
The reason for saying this was entirely because the closer they got, the more divine birds and exotic fowl they could see!
All kinds of birds with dazzling, radiant feathers gathered around that seemingly boundless and vast mountain range as their central habitat... Such a sight could not be seen anywhere else.
Fenghuang, Green Luan, Vermilion Bird, Bi Fang Bird, Swan Goose, Great Wind Bird... Birds whose names he could call out and birds whose names he could not left Feng Xi dazzled and bewildered.
But this was not the end!
Perhaps the arrival of this Witch Clan procession had startled the birds in the area. When one bird took flight in alarm, it stirred up the other divine birds as well.
In the end, countless divine birds rose into the air above the boundless mountains and soared into the heavens, blotting out the sky!
Under the golden sunlight, their feathers reflected and radiated the most beautiful brilliance... Countless rays of light converged, transforming into a resplendent sea of multicolored radiance!
The ocean stretched without end, spreading beyond the limits of sight, dazzling in every color and dreamlike to the point of unreality.
The divine birds and exotic fowl soared and wheeled through the sky, making the sea rise and fall in waves. The tides rolled across heaven and earth, causing everything in sight to seem unreal.
"Phoenix Perch Bird Scenery." Ancestral Witch Dijiang's leisurely voice roused Feng Xi, who had become somewhat immersed and intoxicated by the sight. "Among the ten thousand wonders of the Primordial World, whether they are phenomena evolved naturally by heaven and earth or marvels carved out by ancient divine beings over endless years, it ranks among the top hundred."
"No matter how many times I see it, it remains pleasing to the eye."
Feng Xi did not blink, merely nodding vigorously to show his agreement and approval.
"Actually, we didn't come at the right time. We still can't see the most dreamlike and beautiful aspect of this scenery." Dijiang smiled. "If we waited until the Phoenix Tree Spiritual Root in Phoenix Perch Mountain bloomed, and the will of the Phoenix Progenitor sleeping beneath these mountains, suppressing the Nirvana-sealed Undying Fire Vein, awakened and illuminated the world, causing all the phoenixes to cry out together and the hundred birds to pay homage to the phoenix... then the sight would surpass what we see today by a hundred or a thousand times!"
"My lord, have you seen it?" Feng Xi's heart soared at the thought, and he wished he could cross space and time to witness it himself.
"Of course." Dijiang said blandly, "Although the Phoenix Tree Spiritual Root has not bloomed for hundreds of thousands of years, supposedly because it suffered a calamity and was cut down by the Music King—Fuxi, who used Wutong Wood to imitate the shape of a phoenix and make a zither..."
—Fuxi saw the phoenixes gather on the parasol tree, so he modeled its shape, "carved the parasol tree," and made it into a zither!
"But Great Luo beings travel freely through time, with the past, present, and future all within reach... I went to the past and witnessed the splendid sight of the parasol flowers blooming, the phoenixes singing, and the myriad birds paying homage." Dijiang sighed. "Such a magnificent scene can make people forget all pressure and troubles..."
"It lets the people of the world know that in the Primordial World, there is more than cultivation, contention for supremacy, and slaughter. There is also the beauty jointly performed by heaven, earth, and all living beings..."
"Then when I have time, I'll definitely go out and take a look." Feng Xi's gaze was filled with longing.
The world was so vast. He wanted to go see it.
"If you want to go, you should go as soon as possible." Dijiang smiled. "Go before the Witch-Demon War begins, while you still have the mood and leisure for it, and before... those wonders are destroyed."
"After they are destroyed, you'll have to prove the Great Luo Dao before you can witness their magnificence and grandeur firsthand."
"I understand." Feng Xi nodded repeatedly.
Suddenly, he noticed a blind spot, and his expression turned strange. "Great Sage Fuxi and Empress Nuwa both have their daoist grounds in Phoenix Perch Mountain? And beneath Phoenix Perch Mountain, there's also the Phoenix Progenitor?"
"In such a tiny place, three of the strongest Innate Divine Beings are actually crouching there... Who is the landlord?"
"Obviously the Phoenix... Phoenix Perch Mountain, Phoenix Perch Mountain—isn't it already perfectly clear?" Ancestral Witch Dijiang glanced at him. "Actually, Fuxi and Nuwa's original daoist ground was in Buzhou Mountain. They only moved to the Phoenix Perch Mountain range later."
"According to some unofficial information, Great Sage Nuwa felt that Buzhou Mountain was not very safe... As the Demon Emperor, how broad-minded would one have to be to set up camp right beside the Witch Clan's headquarters?"
"Besides, through countless pieces of information collected from the future, they also learned that Gong Gong Ancestral Witch would crash into Buzhou Mountain and break it—regardless of whether his iron head struck the mountain because the Witch Clan was defeated or because he was forced into it by the Human King Zhuanxu."
"It was perfectly normal for Fuxi and Nuwa to choose to move."
"Would the Phoenix Lineage allow that? Sell off their ancestral land?" Feng Xi muttered.
"They couldn't reject the fists of these two Great Sages, nor their wealth... They had no choice but to give a plot of land to the siblings." Dijiang shook his head. "However, thanks to the Emperor Fuxi's methods and abilities, the Hundred Birds Group in Phoenix Perch Mountain has flourished more and more in recent years. The various phoenixes have made a fortune and escaped the businesses of renting out their clansmen to act cute and put on grand displays—they still do such work, but only at the high end, for those female Great Divine Ability Users."
"Look at things now. True Dragons are mostly the ones pulling carriages, and when they pull, nine of them do it together." Dijiang sighed, patting the carriage frame. "As for phoenix mounts, they're rare to begin with... Most of the ones you can see are solitary birds, with three at most—and those are phoenix branches like the Green Luan."
"Why?"
"Because they're rich!"
"Phoenixes look down on mere manual labor now... The price of labor has risen far too much!" Dijiang said, heartbroken. "I've rented nine True Dragons long-term, and it still costs less than half the price of one phoenix of the same level!"
"Of the Dragon and Phoenix Clans, only the Dragon Clan is still relying on this business to support and manage its people. At any rate, they have a unique racial path. Any living being carrying even a trace of Dragon Clan blood can evolve into a member of the Dragon Clan after birth, allowing the Dragon Clan to continue expanding."
Before you continue