"Come on, Second Brother, you're the one in the wrong here. You clearly don't trust the blood ties between us Ancestral Witches. You're making your younger brother here feel a little sad!"
Qiangliang pointed at himself, teasing in his tone, though his face wore a sincere smile.
"Exactly, Second Brother! How can you look down on the bond between us Ancestral Witches?" Zhurong followed up with a broad grin.
"Second Brother, we all understand. The Great Dao Merit we received this time was actually something Father God had entrusted to the Great Dao on our behalf long ago. And now that you've gained so much merit, it proves that everything you've obtained was arranged by Father God long ago."
Houtu was truly Houtu. Compared with the other Ancestral Witches, she was more rational in how she viewed the matter.
"Father God's approval, bestowed by the Great Dao itself—what an honor! How could we, your brothers and sisters, harbor such petty suspicions? Second Brother, this time you really did underestimate us!"
In the end, Dijiang's words settled the matter once and for all.
As it happened, Dijiang had also established that Zhu Jiuyin had received three-tenths of the Great Dao Merit and a Chaos Spiritual Treasure.
What did "Father God's approval, bestowed by the Great Dao itself" mean?
With those eight words, not just the Witch Race, but not a single living being in the entire Primordial World would dare raise the slightest objection.
In principle, any living being could raise an objection to anything.
The problem was, the principle was on Zhu Jiuyin's side now!
The Ancestral Witches traded a few words, and in just a handful of sentences, they had settled the matter of Zhu Jiuyin taking three-tenths of the Great Dao Merit for himself and receiving a Chaos Spiritual Treasure directly from the Great Dao. Not one of the twelve Ancestral Witches had blushed or even broken a sweat, as if Zhu Jiuyin had merely picked an herb from the roadside...
At that moment, many mighty figures truly couldn't hold it together.
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
Yuanshi actually sprang to his feet this time. "This is Great Dao Merit! This is a Chaos Spiritual Treasure! These are priceless treasures! And the Ancestral Witches just let Zhu Jiuyin take them all? That's absolutely impossible!"
"Right, I've got it! They must know that all their actions are being watched by the many mighty figures, so they don't want to argue in front of outsiders. I bet they'll start arguing again once they get back to the Ancestral Land of the Witch Race or the Great Thousand World they've just opened up!"
Yuanshi truly couldn't believe that there could be living beings in this world who valued so-called blood ties more than peerless treasures.
It came down to a difference in perception.
In the Ancestral Witches' eyes, "blood ties and Father God's arrangements" outweighed everything. But to other living beings, with Great Dao Merit and Chaos Spiritual Treasures on the line, let alone a brother—even their own son could be killed!
More importantly, Yuanshi was a Quasi-Sage in the middle stage, with cultivation so profound that he had already severed his second corpse. Changing his perception would be harder than leveling Kunlun Mountain!
The higher a living being's cultivation, the more stubborn they became.
Or rather, it was precisely because they were so stubborn that they could attain such high cultivation.
You had to go mad to survive.
Just like Yuanshi now: when something directly contradicted his perception, he wouldn't think that he was wrong. Instead, he would instinctively assume that something was amiss.
Even if the whole world told him he was wrong one day, he would still think that he wasn't the one in the wrong—the world was.
Seeing Yuanshi's near-mad look, however, Tongtian laughed.
"Enough, Second Senior Brother. If you think the Ancestral Witches are putting on an act, then let's say they're putting on an act."
"But I don't want to keep playing out this farce between us anymore. From now on, the Three Pure Ones are going their separate ways!"
With that, Tongtian didn't even take the High-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure he had won from Yuanshi. He left Kunlun Mountain without looking back.
"Eldest Senior Brother, look at Tongtian! What kind of behavior is that? Does he have any respect for you, his Eldest Senior Brother, or for me, his Second Senior Brother? How rude!"
Yuanshi glared angrily at Laozi, hoping he would take his side as he always had.
But Laozi couldn't help feeling a tremor in his heart.
"With Tongtian here, Yuanshi's attention was mainly fixed on him. Now that Tongtian's gone, won't Yuanshi be troubling me every day from now on?
"Forget it, forget it. It looks like the Three Pure Ones are destined to split up. Since Tongtian has left, I might as well leave too."
With that thought, Laozi said, "It seems that under the grand trend of the Heavenly Dao, we Three Pure Ones are destined to go our separate ways. Since that's the case, this old Daoist will leave too.
"From now on, Kunlun Mountain is yours."
At that moment, Yuanshi's expression was indescribably complicated.
He felt the fury of being abandoned by his brothers, the joy of having Kunlun Mountain—a supreme blessed land of the Primordial World—all to himself, and a faint sorrow that the Three Pure Ones were splitting up.
"Eldest Senior Brother, why go this far?"
Seeing Yuanshi like this, Laozi couldn't help sighing.
"Don't make such a childish display. The grand trend of the Heavenly Dao is what it is. If we're splitting up, then we're splitting up!"
With that, Laozi stepped onto a cloud and drifted away.
Only Yuanshi remained alone on Kunlun Mountain, looking rather lonely.
The Three Pure Ones held an immensely important place in the Primordial World.
So the instant they officially split up, the Heavenly Dao sensed it.
And the Heavenly Dao's awareness immediately alerted Hongjun.
"What? The Three Pure Ones have split up?!"
At that moment, Hongjun nearly exploded all over again.
He had already been disappointed to see that the Ancestral Witches hadn't gotten into a fight—not even an argument. He couldn't help wondering how Zhu Jiuyin's luck could be so good.
But before he could finish sighing over it and feeling envious, the Heavenly Dao told him there was trouble: the Three Pure Ones had split up!
Hongjun hurriedly shifted his view and sensed toward Kunlun Mountain.
To Hongjun, it didn't matter whether the Three Pure Ones were on Kunlun Mountain. What mattered was whether the fortune unique to the Three Pure Ones, which had always been united, had changed.
The next moment, Hongjun's face went dark!
The Three Pure Ones' terrifying fortune, which had once blotted out the sky and covered the entire region of Kunlun Mountain, had now completely dispersed, splitting into three.
In the Primordial World, fortune represented everything.
From that perspective, the Three Pure Ones had truly split up.
Bang!
Hongjun could no longer hold back. He snatched up the Jade Ruyi, a High-Grade Innate Spiritual Treasure, and slammed it against the floor of the Purple Heaven Palace.
"Damn it! How could they split up? How could the Three Pure Ones split up?"
"What a disgrace! An absolute disgrace! The Ancestral Witches faced Great Dao Merit and Chaos Spiritual Treasures and still treated one another with brotherly affection. But you Three Pure Ones can't even get along without splitting up! Truly, you're such fine disciples of mine!"
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