After the Dao Ancestor Left, They Started Eating? This Innate Spicy Hot Pot Smelled Amazing!

Three thousand years passed in the blink of an eye.

To mortals, it was enough time for the world to change beyond recognition. But to the mighty figures in Purple Sky Palace, it had been nothing more than a long and painful crash course.

At last.

The purple aura above the dais slowly faded.

Old Ancestor Hongjun stopped his lecture. Even he had been driven nearly to a nervous breakdown by three thousand years of snoring.

He didn't even bother with the usual words of encouragement. He simply said, "This lecture is over. We'll meet again in three thousand years. You may leave or stay here to meditate."

Before the last word had even faded,

Hongjun's figure vanished into thin air like a bubble. He disappeared so quickly that it seemed he was more than a little... eager to flee.

He needed to find somewhere quiet and collect himself. While he was at it, he'd figure out how to patch up the story after everything had gone so terribly off the rails.

As the pressure of the Saint faded,

The tension that had gripped Purple Sky Palace for three thousand years finally eased.

"Phew..."

Countless heavy sighs filled the hall.

The mighty figures looked pale and dispirited, as if they'd just survived a life-or-death battle.

They had absorbed more than enough spiritual energy to keep their bodies from feeling hungry, but the exhaustion and hunger deep in their souls were all too real.

The Three Pure Ones stood together. Laozi still had his eyes closed as he rested, Primordial Heavenly Lord scowled as he straightened his rumpled robes, and Sovereign of Heaven wiped down his Qingping Sword.

Di Jun and Tai Yi were quietly talking with several powerful figures from the demon race, clearly taking the opportunity to build connections, though they looked exhausted themselves.

In the deathly quiet, weary hall,

in a corner,

Taiyuan stretched with utter satisfaction. His joints cracked like a handful of popping beans.

"That was a great nap!"

His voice was full of energy, a stark contrast to everyone around him, who looked like wilted eggplants.

Jieyin and Zhunti rubbed their bleary eyes and woke up too. They felt refreshed and had made great progress in their cultivation. Their gazes toward Taiyuan were full of admiration.

Following the right big brother really did mean an easy win!

"Elder Brother, I'm hungry." Zhunti rubbed his stomach. It was a reflex. Grand Luo Golden Immortals didn't need to eat, but after dreaming of delicious food for three thousand years without getting to taste any, his craving had rebelled.

"Hungry? Then let's eat!"

Taiyuan chuckled and swept his sleeve, putting away the tea set and Carefree Chair.

Then—

Clang!

A huge furnace, wreathed in purple divine flames and covered in the symbols of the innate Eight Trigrams, crashed onto the palace floor.

[Innate Purple Gold Eight Trigrams Furnace]

It was a supreme furnace for refining Nine-Turn Golden Elixirs, but Taiyuan had found a different use for it.

He gave the bottom a practiced slap, and Innate Divine Fire roared to life.

Then, from who knew where, he produced a huge bucket of red, glistening sauce that reeked of pungent spices and poured it straight into the furnace.

Sizzle—

The hot oil bubbled.

A fierce, overpowering aroma of spice and savory goodness, mixed with the unique spiritual energy of innate ingredients, swept through every inch of Purple Sky Palace like a nuclear blast.

The smell mingled rare divine peppers and spirit fruits from across the Primordial World with top-quality beef tallow fermented for millions of years.

It smelled amazing!

So amazing!

For the people of the Primordial World, who had spent countless years subsisting on Grain Avoidance pills and breathing in the "northwest wind"—spiritual energy—this was an overwhelming assault on the senses.

The mighty figures, who had been discussing the Great Dao, all twitched their noses in unison.

Among the Three Pure Ones, Primordial Heavenly Lord had just taken out an elixir. At the smell, his hand shook, and the pill nearly fell to the ground.

Before anyone could figure out what the smell was,

Taiyuan produced plate after plate of paper-thin slices of meat, cut so delicately they looked like works of art.

"Come on, come on! These are slices of North Sea Black Jade Flood Dragon loin, this is pork belly from a South Bright Leaving Fire Pig, and this is a ten-thousand-year-old lingzhi I picked at the foot of Buzhou Mountain..."

Finally, he brought out a plate of shimmering, crystalline wing tips that radiated Five-Colored Divine Light.

"And this is the star of the show: phoenix wings! Supposedly, some pure-blooded Phoenix shed them... No, wait, dropped the meat."

As he introduced the ingredients, Taiyuan dropped them into the bubbling red broth.

Before long, the aroma of the meat mingled with the sauce, reaching a whole new level.

"Gulp."

Someone in the hall swallowed. In the silence, the sound rang out like a gunshot.

Nuwa had been about to leave, but now her feet seemed glued to the floor. She couldn't move.

She had comprehended the Dao by witnessing Taiyuan's dreams. Now, the smell of food she'd only encountered in those dreams stirred a primal craving that overwhelmed all restraint.

"Little sister, you mustn't! That's..." Fuxi tugged at Nuwa's sleeve, trying to remind her to maintain her goddess-like composure.

But it was no use.

Nuwa seemed bewitched, or as if she were following some kind of guidance from the Dao. Almost against her will, she turned around and walked toward the corner, one step at a time.

"Um... fellow Daoist?"

Nuwa stood beside the enormous furnace, watching the meat slices bubble in the broth. Her pretty face flushed as she fidgeted awkwardly.

Taiyuan was stirring the pot with a pair of long jade chopsticks. When he looked up and saw Nuwa, he wasn't surprised in the least. Instead, he greeted her like an old neighbor.

"Oh, Fellow Daoist Nuwa! What perfect timing."

"Come on, it's no trouble to add another pair of chopsticks."

With that, Taiyuan tossed her a pair of jade chopsticks and a bowl made of cold jade. He picked up a perfectly cooked, five-colored slice of meat and placed it in the bowl before handing it to her.

"Try this phoenix wing. It's cooked just right. It's packed with collagen, great for your skin, and will leave it soft and smooth."

Nuwa accepted the bowl and chopsticks without thinking.

She looked at the fragrant slice of meat in the bowl, then at Taiyuan's encouraging gaze.

She gritted her teeth and thought, I'm not going to comprehend anything else anyway. I might as well have a proper meal!

And so,

under the stare of thousands of wide eyes,

the future first female Saint of the Primordial World—the aloof and stunning Empress Nuwa—

actually crouched beside the enormous furnace without a shred of decorum. She picked up a slice of meat coated in red oil and put it into her small, cherry-red mouth.

The next second,

her eyes lit up.

A rosy flush appeared on her face. Some of it was from the spice, and some of it was from pure delight.

"Delicious!"

Those two words shattered everyone's worldview.

Elsewhere,

Primordial Heavenly Lord had been stuffing a dry elixir into his mouth. When he saw the scene, his face turned as dark as pig liver, and he crushed the pill in his hand to powder.

"Have you no sense of propriety?! Absolutely no sense of propriety!"

"This is the Dao Ancestor's palace! The sacred realm of Purple Sky!"

"And you're... you're holding a hot pot feast with a crowd of people?!"

"This is truly... an insult to all refinement!"

Though he cursed, Primordial Heavenly Lord's Adam's apple bobbed once, betraying him.

That smells amazing...