Aftermath

"Yesterday, Yellow Goat Mountain in our city was shrouded in thick fog, trapping large numbers of tourists on the mountain. After extensive searches by the armed police and firefighters, the tourists trapped in the mountain were finally rescued." A formally dressed news anchor said this solemnly while facing the camera.

"Beep!" Fang Xiu pressed the remote.

"On the morning of the eighteenth, the tourists trapped within the thick fog that had sealed off Yellow Goat Mountain successfully escaped danger. This strange fog left a total of more than one hundred and eighty people trapped..." This time, the male news anchor was dressed in a suit and leather shoes, and the logo in the upper-right corner had also been changed to the Provincial TV Station.

Fang Xiu switched through several more channels and immediately found an interview program about Yellow Goat Mountain.

"The Yellow Goat Mountain incident currently spreading like wildfire online has already sparked heated discussion and reactions among many netizens in the province. Professor Lu Zhou, what scientific explanation do you have for the strange sights that appeared in the thick fog on Yellow Goat Mountain?" A sweet-looking short-haired female host extended her microphone toward a portly expert in his forties.

"Everyone should know about the existence of mirages. They are natural phenomena formed through the refraction and total internal reflection of light—virtual images created when light reflected by objects on Earth is refracted by the atmosphere. Under ordinary conditions of heavy fog, such strange sights can appear even more easily. On top of that, Wei Port City is close to the sea, and Yellow Goat Mountain itself also has a lake..."

"Based on my deductions and conjectures..."

Fang Xiu kept adjusting the channels. On television, they went out of their way to avoid mentioning the existence of immortals and monsters, as well as the true events that had occurred on Yellow Goat Mountain, but the fact that so many TV stations were reporting on the incident was enough to show how hot the topic had become. It also meant that the authorities had truly begun paying attention. This was different from the previous two times.

Fang Xiu sighed. "Things have gotten big!"

Although he said that, there was no trace of panic on his face. First, Fang Xiu had not done anything illegal or disruptive, so there was no reason for him to feel flustered. Second, he estimated that the other side was unlikely to uncover his true identity. Third, even if they did, Fang Xiu had ways to deal with it.

Since that was the case, there was no reason to stop Fang Xiu from calmly enjoying his own heroic image and the netizens' adoration of him.

Unlike what was shown on television, when he opened his phone and notebook, photos and videos about Yellow Goat Mountain covered the internet. At the very beginning, these videos and pictures would be deleted as soon as they were uploaded.

However, at the time, at least ten thousand people in the vicinity of Yellow Goat Mountain had directly witnessed and watched the events unfold. Many of them had livestreamed or uploaded things from the scene, and those short videos, animated pictures, and memes had already spread everywhere online.

Once they realized they could no longer suppress it, they simply let netizens discuss it freely. At that moment, what was spreading online was not limited to pictures and videos of Yellow Goat Mountain. There were also videos of Fang Xiu rescuing people at the fire, destroying a building with one strike, killing the Clown Demon, and trampling the Red Devil to death.

"Damn! So besides the tree demon, there are other monsters too!" Many people were learning for the first time about the incidents that had occurred in Wei Port City recently.

"What kind of monster is this? A Toad Spirit? A clown spirit?" The video had been filmed from far away. Most people could only see a red-skinned figure wearing a mask, but no matter how they looked at it, it did not seem human.

"Is this still the world we know? What kind of world is this, exactly?"

"So immortals and monsters have been hiding all around us this whole time? Does that mean zombies, demons, Evil Ghosts, and things like that are real too?"

"My worldview has already collapsed!"

"Didn't the television say it was a mirage?"

"You actually believe those so-called experts? I live in Wei Port City. Let me tell you, when I hurried over there, all of Yellow Goat Mountain had been placed under military lockdown. A mirage? Would a mirage cause such a huge commotion?"

Fang Xiu casually opened a video on Weibo about himself killing Eramon's Tree of the Undead. He saw a fierce beam of light pierce upward from the earth, shaking the heavens, while the dense pillar of gray fog filling the land and sky collapsed in an instant and turned into a ring of light that rippled outward.

A silver-haired Taoist burst from the gray fog. Cloud patterns were embroidered around the edges of his moon-white Taoist robe, and a Five Elements Eight Trigrams design covered his back. He leaped dozens of meters, lightly touching down several times before shooting up into the clouds. Looking down over the earth, he then vanished into the layers of cloud.

The scene was so shocking that everyone who watched the video was utterly overwhelmed.

"I'm wet, I'm wet! He was so damn cool!"

"For the first time, I understand what it means for a sword's light to chill the Nineteen Provinces. This is definitely the Sword Immortal!"

"Was that tree demon undergoing tribulation? It looked like it was about to succeed at the final step. What a pity it died miserably beneath that silver-haired Taoist's sword!"

"I heard the one who appeared this time was the Founding Ancestor of Three Goat Temple on Yellow Goat Mountain! My family often goes to Three Goat Temple to offer incense. My dad just told me! When the Taoists came down from the mountain, they said they had seen their Founding Ancestor with their own eyes—that immortal. And that tree demon was a monster their Founding Ancestor had sealed on Yellow Goat Mountain a thousand years ago."

"Really? The ancestor of Three Goat Temple? If I go up the mountain now, is it still too late to join Three Goat Temple?"

"Count me in! I swear I'll devote myself to cultivation. I'd even be willing to stay single for the rest of my life!"

"Tch! You're talking as if you could find a girlfriend even without cultivating!"

"Wasn't the mountain sealed off? No one can get in now!"

"Not just that. All the Taoists from Three Goat Temple have been taken away, and everything inside Three Goat Temple has been placed under strict lockdown and protection!"

"There really is a Taoist Canon! Maybe Three Goat Temple contains methods of cultivation! Immortal cultivation is genuinely possible! I believe in the occult again!"

The internet continued discussing the Yellow Goat Mountain incident, the so-called Sword Immortal, and the Founding Ancestor of Three Goat Temple. Beyond that, it also set off a wave of debate about Taoist learning and Taoism, even sparking a resurgence of interest in Taoist thought and its traditions.

Fang Xiu kept scrolling. He even saw people running advertisements, selling the moon-white Taoist robe he had worn when he transformed into an immortal. When he clicked in, he found that sales had exploded, with even the advance orders completely sold out.

"Immortal Fang Xiu! His magic power knows no bounds!"

"May he reign for ten thousand ages! Unite the martial world!"

At that moment, on the sofa where Fang Xiu was sitting, Black Fiend stood on its hind legs like a human, hunching over and crawling back and forth along the sofa. It then made strange noises, like a cheerleader. Ever since returning from Yellow Goat Mountain, Black Fiend had been constantly thinking of different ways to curry favor with Fang Xiu.

However, its attempts to fawn over him clearly had not pleased Fang Xiu.

Without even turning his head, Fang Xiu extended a hand and flicked Black Fiend on the forehead with a sharp snap. The black cat was already wobbling as it stood on two feet, and now it immediately tumbled off the back of the sofa.

"Meow!"

Fang Xiu turned off the television and sank into thought. He felt that he had indeed made quite a commotion this time, so he should keep a low profile and stay steady for a while—at least until the storm had passed.

He stood up and walked toward the study upstairs. In this Yellow Goat Mountain incident, the destruction of Eramon's Tree of the Undead had cost Fang Xiu quite a lot, and the Saint's Ring had only one use left.

Still, Fang Xiu felt it had been worth it. He had obtained a sapling of Eramon's Tree. Although most of the immense demonic power it had originally gathered had dispersed, and its formidable soul consciousness had vanished with it, leaving behind only the last trace of its origin, its essence as a Necro Tree, Gate of Hell, and Nightmare Tree, along with its innate powerful abilities, remained.

It was an existence capable of drawing soul power from the earth's Gaia Consciousness, which was precisely what Fang Xiu needed most at present.

From that perspective, sacrificing one use of the Saint's Ring in exchange for a sapling of Eramon's Tree had been an incredible bargain.

As Fang Xiu headed upstairs, the black cat Black Fiend also followed close behind on tiny cat steps, raising its little head to look at him.

"Master! I want to learn magic too!"

"No. Your inherently rotten nature hasn't changed! Your demonic nature is impossible to tame! If a creature like you learned magic, who knows what kind of disaster you'd cause!"

"Mm! But if you behave well, I can give you a chance!" Fang Xiu immediately rejected Black Fiend's request, but after thinking it over, he felt that Black Fiend's abilities to control and summon groups of cats could still be useful. So he did not shut the door completely. If you wanted a donkey to work, you had to dangle a carrot in front of it.