Whether a disciple won the Ancestor's favor was the clearest sign of their talent. But Wei Yuan had stood there for a long while, watching five or six groups go in, and only one person had received a gift.
At that moment, Zhang Sheng stood some distance away, talking with Sun Yu. According to the rules, he could only stand ten zhang from the main hall, alongside the elders of the new disciples.
Zhang Sheng glanced over the number of new disciples and said, "There really are more new disciples this year."
"One hundred and fifty were accepted from all seventeen provinces. That's fewer than ten per province—not that many."
"My year had only eighty-four," Zhang Sheng said.
Sun Yu replied, "True Lord Yanshi's position is to open the mountain gates wide and teach everyone without distinction. In my opinion, accepting a few more disciples may not be a bad thing."
"I hope so."
Just then, another group of disciples entered. The Ancestor's statue changed once more, and a speck of light flew from the jade hair crown atop the Ancestor's head and entered a young girl's body. An old man nearby erupted with delight and laughed aloud. "Wonderful! Wonderful! This gift is supreme! My Jiao family's revival is in sight! Our ancestors have opened their eyes! They've opened their eyes!"
The old man laughed and cried at once, drawing sidelong glances from the crowd. Someone immediately asked his companion in a mocking tone, "Do you know what that crown represents?"
"Of course I don't!"
"The crown may be a treasure, but it's neither the Ancestor's true body nor a killing treasure like an immortal sword. It's just like clothing—a daily-use item, meant for delicate work. Those who receive this gift usually make rapid progress in weapon refining, treasure-making, and auxiliary Dao arts. In other words, when her fellow disciples charge into battle, she can stay in the rear and lend a hand, repairing their magical treasures and such."
After the man finished speaking mockingly, the old man's face flushed red, then turned pale. He shouted, "Whatever it is, it's a gift from the Ancestor! It's better than getting nothing!"
The mocking man flew into a rage. "What did you say? My child hasn't even gone in yet. How dare you say he'll get nothing?"
The old man pointed at the hall. "Isn't that him going in now?"
The mocking man's child was among this group. But even after the worship was over, the Ancestor's statue showed no response at all. Humiliated and enraged, and then subjected to the old man's repeated taunts, the man could no longer bear to stay. He hurried off.
Just then, the ceremonial Daoist's voice rang out in the distance: "Wei Yuan of Fengyuan Commandery, Fengyuan Commandery's Bao Yun, Fengyuan Commandery's Xiao Yu, ... Fengyuan Commandery's Yan Ming."
The string of names stirred a commotion in the crowd.
"Why are there so many from Fengyuan Commandery?"
"Exactly! Gansu Province only accepted five new disciples, but that one commandery got six!"
A common-clothed old man suddenly stepped forward and shouted, "Our Chu Province is one of the great provinces under heaven, yet we only got eight places. Youzhou is a remote backwater, but one of its commanderies got six! If there's no trickery involved, I'll be the first not to believe it! Taichu Palace is an immortal sect, yet it acts so unfairly. How can it expect to command respect?! I refuse to accept this!"
The old man's shout immediately drew a chorus of agreement. Even someone from Youzhou said, "Youzhou has nine commanderies. The other eight got only one place between them. What gives Fengyuan Commandery the right to have six?"
The ceremonial Daoist called for silence several times, but the crowd grew more and more agitated. The old man leading the protest stamped his feet and cried foul, insisting that his precious grandson had missed admission by just a hair. If Taichu Palace truly acted fairly, it should give Fengyuan Commandery's places to Chu Province so his grandson could enter Taichu Palace too.
Zhang Sheng glanced around and spotted the burly man and the old man from the Bao family. The old man's expression was wooden, as if nothing in the world could make him change color, while the burly man stood with his arms folded, sneering. When he saw Zhang Sheng looking over, he simply came up and asked, "Why aren't you going over to argue?"
Zhang Sheng replied calmly, "That man's targeting you great clans. What does it have to do with me? But why is your Xiao family letting people act so recklessly?"
The burly man grinned. "This is Taichu Palace's business. If he names my Xiao family, I'll deal with him myself. But I doubt he'd dare."
While the burly man remained as unmoved as a mountain, the ceremonial Daoists were young and inexperienced, and they were beginning to panic. They tried to reason with the old man while holding him back, but seeing this only made him cause a bigger scene. He kept demanding fairness. Sweat beaded on the young Daoists' foreheads; flustered and helpless, they had no idea what to do.
At that moment, a Daoist suddenly appeared in the square. The instant he arrived, a massive, fierce horned dragon appeared above his head. An invisible pressure swept over the entire square, leaving everyone below the Dharma Idol unable to move. Only then was the chaos brought under control.
All the ceremonial Daoists immediately bowed. "Greetings, Tengqiu True Person!"
The Daoist asked coldly, "What is all this commotion?"
A young ceremonial Daoist immediately explained what had happened. As the True Person listened, his expression darkened. The invisible pressure grew heavier, and the old man froze in place, as if pinned beneath a mountain. He could neither move nor speak, his face full of panic.
Tengqiu True Person rebuked him. "The number of disciples accepted from each province is decided by the True Lords. What right have you to question it! You dared cause a disturbance before the Ancestor Hall. You must be punished."
The Daoist reached out and made a grabbing motion. A long whip of lightning appeared in his hand, and he lashed it down onto the old man's head!
A screen immediately appeared above the old man's head, bearing a plum tree in full bloom. The whip cracked down, and the screen instantly split apart. Plum blossoms fell like rain, and in the blink of an eye, only a few remained. After taking the blow, the old man slumped to the ground. His hair turned more than half white in an instant, and the wrinkles on his face deepened, as if he had aged a dozen years.
Quite a few onlookers drew sharp breaths. That one lash from Tengqiu True Person had scattered much of the old man's Dao Foundation, ruining decades of his cultivation at the very least.
Tengqiu True Person put away the lightning whip. "This lash is only a minor punishment. Considering your child is young and ignorant, I'll spare him expulsion for now. He will be demoted to a registered disciple and cultivate with the others in the palace. We'll see how he fares."
The old man couldn't speak. He only coughed up blood as his family and disciples carried him away.
After dealing with the disturbance, Tengqiu True Person stayed in the square to watch the new disciples enter the hall and pay their respects to the Ancestor.
Sun Yu suddenly sighed and said quietly, "That man only wanted to fight for a chance for his descendants. He chose the wrong way to do it and ended up sacrificing his own Dao Path. He'd still had a sliver of hope of cultivating a Dharma Idol."
Someone beside him said, "Cultivators from small, humble families have few resources, so they have to fight for everything. They fight all the time, everywhere, until it becomes a habit—and then they end up picking a fight with Taichu Palace. Just having one descendant enter Taichu Palace is enough to make a family like that leap over the dragon gate. To think that still isn't enough for him. His greed knows no bounds."
At that moment, Wei Yuan followed the ceremonial Daoist's directions into the Ancestor Hall. Beneath the Ancestor's statue, which towered dozens of zhang high, both the new disciples and the ceremonial Daoists looked as tiny as ants.
Following the officiating Daoist's instructions, Wei Yuan knelt on the cushion before the statue and began the worship. After seven bows, he silently recited the sacrificial text. Then he felt a gaze descend from immeasurable heights, seeing straight through him, inside and out, in an instant.
For a moment, Wei Yuan felt as if his consciousness had been pulled from his body and lifted to immeasurable heights. The grand hall below had shrunk to the size of a palm. That gaze still looked down at him from even higher up, and Wei Yuan couldn't sense where it came from at all.
Wei Yuan suddenly grew uneasy and looked around. Nothing but empty space surrounded him.
As the gaze from above settled on him, the qi of fortune within Wei Yuan seemed to be stirred, beginning to sprout. Then he sensed an invisible presence high above, standing opposite the source of the gaze.
The invisible presence was impossibly vast, ancient, and desolate. He couldn't sense where it ended. It seemed to be connected to Wei Yuan's qi of fortune somehow, but the connection felt so indistinct that he couldn't tell whether it was real.
Wei Yuan's consciousness hung alone in the heights, caught between two unknown existences. He was like an ant between two mountains, one that could be crushed without either noticing.
No matter how hard Wei Yuan struggled, he couldn't move. All he could do was watch the figure below bow again and again, as if the world of reality had nothing to do with him anymore.
Suddenly, faint music echoed through the hall. A column of light descended from the sky, illuminating the Ancestor's statue as countless petals drifted down through it like rain.
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