The Three Stages

"So this really was someone interested only in killing emperors, not in becoming one himself?"

That night, Hu Ma stayed at the estate and drank ten jars of wine. For the first time, he also gained a clear understanding of Old Lord's Eyebrow's past.

Of course, that was also because Senior Disciple Brother of Do Not Eat Beef had changed his attitude toward him.

Before this, neither Senior Disciple Brother nor the others of Do Not Eat Beef would have told him so much in such detail about the Great Teacher of Virtuousness.

Whenever they did speak of him, they all gave the same account: red light filled the sky when he was born; he grew up compassionate and righteous; later, he received a heavenly book from the gods; and he had all sorts of extraordinary qualities. Everyone shared the same reverence for their elders.

That attitude was common in this world. Do Not Eat Beef might be an unconventional sect, but its members still couldn't escape the habit.

The Great Teacher of Virtuousness described through that kind of thinking naturally seemed unreal, and even harder to fathom.

But this time, Senior Disciple Brother of Do Not Eat Beef even told him how the Great Teacher of Virtuousness, in his youth, had been chased around like a dog; how, while roaming the martial world, he'd run out of silver and stolen sweet potatoes from other people's fields; how he'd made a name for himself in all sorts of ways, only for those stories to be erased later as embarrassing secrets.

Hu Ma understood that the Great Teacher of Virtuousness he'd learned about now was the real man.

Or, rather, Old Lord's Eyebrow.

The Great Teacher of Virtuousness was just one of Old Lord's Eyebrow's many aliases. How many others did