Gu Tianxin was overjoyed to receive Cècè's reply. It had already been a whole month since she had heard from her. After Cècè said last time that she was accompanying her young master out to take care of some business, she had rarely written back.
Gu Tianxin truly did not care about status or family standing. Since they got along, they naturally became friends, happily talking about almost everything. If not for some matters that really required Uncle Fu's help, and some things that truly needed him to know about, Gu Tianxin would not even have wanted him to see them.
This time, the moment Gu Tianxin opened the letter and read it, she hurriedly called for Uncle Fu.
"Uncle Fu, look. Sister Cècè wrote me a letter."
Uncle Fu merely glanced at its contents before blurting out,
"Impossible."
He then looked at Gu Tianxin and explained in a solemn voice,
"In Great Li, there was once a record of this. Back then, when that generation's White Sun Holy Mother advanced to the Primordial Spirit stage, Great Li also sent a senior at the Nascent Soul stage to join the encirclement and slaughter.
"No one held back in that battle. That generation's White Sun Holy Mother was beaten until both her spirit and form were annihilated on the spot.
"Among the seniors present at the time, there were no fewer than three at the Nascent Soul stage alone.
"It was impossible for anyone to leave even the slightest trace of life beneath the eyes of those three.
"That generation's White Sun Holy Mother must have been utterly annihilated in both spirit and form."
At this point, Uncle Fu fell silent again, remembering the half-bottle of Sweet Dew that Cècè had sent earlier.
Now that something unprecedented had appeared, perhaps it truly possessed some special ability that they did not know about.
He really no longer dared to be as certain as he had been before.
After pondering for a moment, Uncle Fu said,
"Miss, I'll take this letter with me for now. I'll return it to you after I'm finished using it. Would that be all right?"
"All right, then. Remember to return it to me when you're done."
Three days later, in the Eastern Palace of Great Li.
The Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace sat facing an old man.
She personally poured tea for the old man opposite her, then pushed a stack of documents across the table.
"Grand Master, sorry for the trouble of having you come here personally. I have some doubts and would like to ask you to resolve them."
"Your Highness is too kind. It's rare for you to be uncertain about something."
The old man cheerfully picked up the documents and began reading. She explained from the side,
"These documents came from an agent of the Shadow Division who went deep into Great Zhen. They were submitted just today."
"And this letter was sent by another trustworthy person. The writer should have some connection to Jinlan Mountain, so it must be treated with the utmost seriousness."
The old man's eyes flickered. He glanced at the letter, put down the documents in his hand, and waved lightly. The letter floated before him.
The old man held two fingers together like a sword and lightly drew them across the surface of the letter. A trace of sinister energy surfaced, then vanished without a trace in an instant.
The old man's brows furrowed slightly. He seemed to want to say something, but hesitated over whether he should.
"This sinister energy is indeed related to Jinlan Mountain. However, Your Highness..."
"Grand Master, the White Sun Evil Sacrifice is running rampant in Great Zhen, but not in Great Li. I also have the latest scripture of the White Sun Evil Sacrifice here, sent by the Shadow Division. Grand Master should never have seen it before."
The old man opened the scripture and read a few pages. When he saw the section concerning the Hungry Ghosts, he stopped at once. He raised his head and looked at the Crown Prince.
"Grand Master, I once sent someone to deliver a copy there. My intentions were naturally kind. Yet not long afterward, they sent this letter. I feel that the several million Hungry Ghosts in the Jinlan Mountain Forbidden Zone are probably not very happy."
The old man did not answer. He immediately began examining the documents, reading ten lines at a glance with astonishing speed.
The documents contained only firsthand leads and testimonies. They had not been organized at all. Yet after merely sweeping through them once, the first thing the old man thought of was the conclusion in the letter.
"Grand Master should have finished reading. My doubt is simply this: I would like to ask whether this is possible."
The old man's brows drew together slightly. His state of mind had changed somewhat recently as well. Before the Hungry Ghosts appeared, he would certainly have rejected it outright. But now...
"We Dao Practitioners of Lihuo Academy must keep pace with the times and must not jump to conclusions. It's just that as the years pass, we eventually and gradually become the very people we once looked down upon."
The old man sighed, his expression somewhat complicated.
"If this had been before, this old man would certainly have rejected it outright. But now, this old man does not dare say it is impossible.
"That White Sun Evil Sacrifice could not be killed off no matter how many times it was destroyed, like cockroaches. There had always been something suspicious about it.
"I remember that several decades ago, one of my colleagues at Lihuo Academy traveled throughout various places to study matters related to the White Sun Evil Sacrifice. At the time, he proposed that the next appearance of the White Sun Evil Sacrifice might not be far away.
"However, that generation's White Sun Holy Mother, along with most of the upper ranks, was tricked and killed by the head of Langya Academy. Everyone, including that generation's White Sun Holy Mother, was annihilated in both spirit and form. As a result, no one paid any attention to those words."
The old man stopped speaking and excused himself.
"Your Highness, please wait a moment."
The old man remained seated, unmoving. A streak of light flew out from within him. After a moment, it returned, and a sealed dossier appeared in his hand.
After opening it, the old man quickly found the contents he was looking for.
"Sure enough, several decades ago, one of my colleagues at Lihuo Academy had already made a similar deduction. It was simply that no one paid attention at the time."
That was putting it very tactfully...
To put the actual situation bluntly, everyone had thought that this colleague was a fool who refused to follow mainstream views and insisted on being unconventional.
Now that everyone's understanding had recently been overturned completely, when they looked at this article from several decades ago, they could only console themselves a little and count it as recovering some face.
Lihuo Academy is still awesome. We were just blind back then.
The Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace watched all this and understood the old man's attitude.
"Grand Master, who do you think would be suitable to send under the circumstances?"
"Your Highness already has a suitable candidate in mind, don't you?" The old man smiled. How could he not understand? She had called him here merely to use his identity as an endorsement. This Highness, who had always been full of her own ideas, had already made her decision.
"Thank you, Grand Master." The Crown Prince rose and bowed in thanks. Then she took a jade bottle and a jade slip from her sleeve, placed them on the table, and pushed them toward the old man.
"Grand Master, this item is called Sweet Dew. There are twenty drops inside. As for the detailed method of use, please read the jade slip."
"Such a thing exists?" After examining the jade slip, the old man was startled. He hurriedly pushed the jade bottle back. "This... is far too precious. This old man is ashamed to accept it."
"Grand Master." The Crown Prince smiled and pushed it back again. "You have taught me ever since I was little. This is merely my offering to you. Do you really want me to take it back?"
"This..." The old man shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. "Very well, very well. This old man truly needs this item too much, so I'll accept it shamelessly."
After the old man left, the Crown Prince took out another jade bottle. There were, at most, a little over a hundred drops of Sweet Dew remaining inside.
She had already secretly tested it once as well. To cultivators, it was a true divine substance. To Spirit Refining cultivators and Dao Practitioners, it was an invaluable treasure worth more than a thousand pieces of gold—something no one could refuse.
And because of this item, those Hungry Ghosts were no longer the same as ordinary Ghostly beings.
Those Hungry Ghosts who neither ate people nor harmed them might even be entered into the Dharma Canon in the future and receive its protection.
As for Jinlan Mountain, which controlled this resource and had the King of Hungry Ghosts sleeping there, it would truly be difficult for people to continue treating them as enemies...
She even wondered whether the King of Hungry Ghosts had really fallen asleep in Jinlan Mountain.
At that thought, the Crown Prince's expression changed slightly. She immediately raised a finger and touched it to her brow, drawing out that wisp of thought and crushing it on the spot.
She rose and instructed the female official beside her,
"Send word down and have Ah Fu make a trip to Great Zhen. At the same time, issue an order to the Great General of the Western Desolation. If there is any disturbance along Great Zhen's southern border, have him lead people to provide reinforcements the moment he receives the secret signal. He need not concern himself with Great Zhen's reaction.
"As for the Shadow Division...
"Forget it. We'd better not interfere with the Shadow Division, or Imperial Father may become unhappy."
"It's so good to be rich. The pastries Miss Gu sent are truly delicious.
"They're crisp and fluffy, with soft, sandy filling. They're sweet yet carry a rich fruity fragrance, but somehow aren't greasy at all.
"Even the pastry skin, despite having fifty or sixty layers, is thin enough and doesn't affect the texture in the slightest. I really wonder how they made it..."
Yu Ziqing ate the pastries and praised them repeatedly. Honestly, among the things he had eaten since arriving in this world, they were second only to beef jerky in deliciousness.
Speaking of beef jerky, Yu Ziqing wanted some again. Cècè had clearly bought quite a lot of beef and ready-made beef jerky before, but no matter how it was prepared, it never tasted like the beef jerky he had eaten.
If he had not seen the large chunks of beef before they were cut with his own eyes, he would have suspected that the beef was fake.
Moreover, after coming to Great Zhen, a land where cattle could be legally slaughtered, and eating quite a bit of beef little by little over the past few days, Yu Ziqing had no choice but to start thinking.
Could it be that the beef jerky he had possessed back then had actually been made from fake beef?
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. After all, whether in Great Li, Great Qian, or the former Wasteland, cattle were extremely important assets to commoners, perhaps even more valuable than the people in their households...
That made things rather awkward. He did not even know what that beef jerky had been made from. The only thing he could rule out was White Meat. Those Hungry Ghosts could not possibly have given him White Meat.
He had originally planned to get more of the same beef jerky, whether to eat himself or to see if it could be transformed into a class-change certificate.
But now he did not even know what the material was...
Nearby, Cècè noticed that Yu Ziqing seemed to like the box of pastries Gu Tianxin had sent along. When writing back, she praised the pastries, saying that the rice cakes from last time had been delicious too, and that she had nothing good here, so she could only send him a little local specialty as a token of gratitude.
Then she took out a small jade bottle and carefully poured twenty drops of Sweet Dew from her own rations.
She was not nearly as generous as her young master, who had actually given away half a bottle at once.
Although this item was not worth much to her young master, and her young master knew its value to outsiders, he still greatly underestimated how precious it truly was.
In the northern part of the Wasteland, the White Sun Holy Mother, dressed all in white, stood with Grand Priest Liu Xin inside a transparent halo barrier. They gazed from afar at Jinlan Mountain, along with the Locust tree forest surrounding it.
By now, because of Yu Ziqing's planting back then, combined with the forest's own expansion, even its narrowest sections stretched for dozens of li.
The Wasteland's forbidden zone, Jinlan Mountain, had truly lived up to its name. Even cultivators who did not know the truth detoured around it whenever they passed by.
After watching for a long while, the White Sun Holy Mother nodded.
"Let's go. You revised the scripture very well. You can continue."
If you have tickets, please cast one while you're at it. It's already mid-month.
Before you continue