Junior Brother's Next Life to Achieve Immortality

"Junior brother, you..."

Jiang Ziya looked at the three bloody claw marks on Shen Gongbao's face, dumbstruck. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.

"Vixen, shrew! I have never seen such an unreasonable, impossible woman in all my life..."

Shen Gongbao touched the three bloody marks on his face, both shocked and furious. "And she calls herself a woman! Ah, Senior Brother, look at this—I was barely grazed and I'm already bleeding! Calling her a tigress is an understatement."

Jiang Ziya kept his head bowed, saying nothing. He crouched on the ground, consumed by gloom and silence.

"Senior Brother, you saw it yourself. It's not that your junior brother won't help you, it's that... I truly cannot!"

Shen Gongbao was genuinely incensed. He cupped his hands in a gesture of defeat and said, "In any case, I cannot afford to provoke this tigress again. As I take my leave, I hope you will carefully consider the middle strategy. Farewell!"

With that, he twisted his body, transformed into a streak of light, and vanished.

Jiang Ziya remained silent.

Whoosh!

Yet, before long, Shen Gongbao returned.

However, this time he arrived with a pole over his shoulder, carrying a load of flour.

"Senior Brother, I've brought the flour back for you. You didn't sell any today... be careful."

Shen Gongbao set the load down and sighed softly as he looked at Jiang Ziya's pathetic state.

Jiang Ziya, crouching with his back against the corner of the wall, twitched the corner of his mouth at these words and said, exhausted, "I have troubled you, Junior Brother."

"Think nothing of it, Senior Brother. Also, I've been thinking: once you return, that wicked woman will surely ask about me and use it as an excuse to vent her anger on you."

Shen Gongbao gave a bitter laugh. "So, after you go back today... just pin all the blame on your junior brother."

"Just say you don't have a junior brother at all, and that I'm just a wandering con artist. Remember, stick to that story and don't budge. Even if she suspects something, there's nothing she can do if you don't admit it."

Jiang Ziya hesitated. "Wouldn't that... wouldn't that be unfair to you, having to take the fall for no reason?"

Shen Gongbao smiled helplessly, thinking to himself that following him here was likely just to be his scapegoat. He turned and transformed into a streak of light once more.

After he left, Jiang Ziya remained alone in the corner for a long time, feeling utterly despondent.

Chaoge.

After returning to the shop, Shen Gongbao passed by Lu Chuan's room and glanced inside, finding that there was still no movement.

Seeing this, he headed straight to his own room.

"That shrew, that wicked woman... she's truly formidable."

Inside his room, as he applied medicinal powder to the wounds on his face in front of a bronze mirror, Shen Gongbao's lingering rage remained. His teeth itched with frustration, but he had to concede to her sheer combat prowess.

Before this, he, Shen Gongbao, had never suffered such a great loss or such humiliation—and at the hands of a woman, no less.

If this Ma were not Jiang Ziya's wife, he would have taught her a lesson long ago. How could he have been forced to run back in such a stifled state, only to end up taking the blame for everything?

The crux of the matter was...

Though he possessed a silver tongue, that Ma was simply impossible; she didn't listen to reason at all. He had no opportunity to explain himself because she simply wouldn't hear it.

She hadn't said more than a few words before she sat on the ground, throwing a tantrum and falsely accusing him of striking her...

Ruthless!

Too ruthless. Being defeated by a woman like Ma left him with a feeling of having strength he couldn't use.

It was damnably stifling and infuriating!

"Forget it, forget it. I won't get angry. It's not worth getting worked up over a woman like that!"

Shen Gongbao comforted himself, but the thought of Ma's ferocious, clawing appearance earlier still made him feel a lingering sense of fear.

"I never imagined there could be such a terrifying woman in this world. It's laughable that Senior Brother is still so soft-hearted and unable to let her go. It truly is the tribulation of his life."

His thoughts shifted, and Shen Gongbao secretly rejoiced. "Fortunately, I, Shen Gongbao, have attained the Dao for many years and have long since severed all desires. I shall never face such a tribulation in the future."

"Hmm, once my disciple finishes his seclusion, I must tell him of his senior uncle's bloody lesson. I will warn him to take heed so he does not repeat the same mistake. Yes, he must take heed..."

Soon, a day passed.

The next day, Lu Chuan still had not emerged. With his disciple absent, Shen Gongbao had no heart to run the shop, so he kept it closed for another day.

Until the ninth day.

Early in the morning, as the sun slowly rose, the temperature in the courtyard began to rise in a peculiar fashion.

"Is it beginning to gather fire-attributed spiritual energy?"

Shen Gongbao whispered, "It seems he has successfully refined the Samadhi, and is now cultivating the Li Essence. Not bad, not bad!"

His eyes were glowing, and the scene he perceived was vastly different from what others would see.

While the courtyard appeared perfectly normal to everyone else, in his eyes, tiny specks of crimson light were gathering from all directions, eventually forming three small, scarlet rivers that poured into Lu Chuan's room.

"Once the Li Essence is formed, the Samadhi True Fire will naturally be complete!"

Shen Gongbao nodded in satisfaction. Having cultivated it himself, he knew exactly what this process entailed.

The Samadhi True Fire was a top-tier Daoist technique, potent and its cultivation time varied with individual aptitude.

Exceptional disciples could master it within a month, while those slightly less gifted could achieve it within a year.

But thinking of this, he couldn't help but recall Jiang Ziya.

Jiang Ziya, a disciple of Yuxu, was the one who took the longest to cultivate the Samadhi True Fire, the slowest of all disciples.

He had to painstakingly practice the Samadhi True Fire for a full three years before succeeding, a process that was incredibly arduous and difficult. The Samadhi True Fire thus became one of the only two top-tier Daoist techniques he mastered.

What others accomplished in a few months, he required several times the time and effort to achieve.

It was precisely Jiang Ziya's perseverance and dedication that, upon hearing of it, filled him with admiration, leading him to seek him out and become close brothers in Yuxu Palace.

However, some things simply cannot be achieved through effort and persistence alone, such as the Immortal Path.

Without superior innate talent, exceptional comprehension, and a measure of destiny and good fortune, the path to becoming an immortal was fundamentally impassable.

Jiang Ziya possessed inferior roots, average talent and comprehension. After seventy years of cultivation, he had only learned a few Daoist techniques: the Five Elements Escape Technique, the Samadhi True Fire, and the Five Thunders Method.

He had cultivated the refinement of essence into qi to perfection years ago, but his Primordial Spirit had been slow to form. Consequently, his master had sent him down the mountain.

Thinking that in a hundred years, Jiang Ziya would be nothing but a pile of dry bones in a grave, Shen Gongbao couldn't help but feel a pang of sorrow.

"Senior Brother, if you accumulate enough fortune in this life, this junior brother will guide you to immortality in the next!"

Shen Gongbao vowed firmly in his heart.

In Yuxu Palace, only he, who had the closest relationship with Jiang Ziya, knew the immense effort and dedication Jiang Ziya had poured into his cultivation thus far.

If Jiang Ziya could accumulate enough merit and fortune in this life, he would possess excellent cultivation roots in his next reincarnation.

Yet, this alone was not enough; he would also need a wise master to guide him, to teach him cultivation, otherwise, he would still waste his life like an ordinary mortal.

He had decided that no matter how difficult it might be in the next life, he would find Jiang Ziya in the vast sea of humanity, guide him into the path, impart the dharma, and teach him cultivation!

As time ticked by, the temperature in the courtyard grew hotter and hotter, as if it had become a furnace, with invisible flames burning fiercely.

In the courtyard, the plants and trees, scorched by the intense heat, began to wilt bit by bit, their leaves losing moisture and turning yellow.

Shen Gongbao, originally lost in his memories, hadn't noticed the rising temperature. But suddenly, he snapped back to awareness.

Glancing at the slightly yellowing plants and trees, he immediately extended his hand, raised his sleeve, and waved it forward. A force transformed into a funnel-shaped light screen, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, enveloping Lu Chuan's room.

Instantly, the high temperature receded like a tide, and the courtyard became much cooler, while rolling spiritual fire energy flowed from above into Lu Chuan's room.

Looking again at the plants and trees in the courtyard, Shen Gongbao sighed, "Heaven cherishes all life!"

Before his voice faded, he waved his arm again, scattering a shower of sparkling emerald-green light that fell upon the yellowing branches and leaves.

Immediately, the branches and leaves regained their luster, and the plants and trees exuded a vibrant vitality and greenery once more.

"It's much more pleasant to see them like this!"

Shen Gongbao smiled faintly.

As he spoke, the sun in the sky suddenly seemed to brighten considerably.

"It's noon!"

Shen Gongbao looked up and said. Noon was the time of day when the yang energy between heaven and earth was most potent, with the hour of noon and a quarter being the peak.

The powerful yang energy could suppress many malevolent spirits and ghosts, which was why ancient executions were often carried out at noon and a quarter, precisely to prevent the condemned's corpses from becoming malevolent entities.

Whoosh!

Another quarter of an hour passed, that is, the peak of noon and a quarter when yang energy was most abundant. The spiritual fire energy finally ceased to converge here.

Shen Gongbao's eyes glowed again. He saw Lu Chuan's body in the room emitting light all around, his eyes slightly closed, as he slowly swallowed the spiritual fire energy. It finally formed a small, sun-like glowing object in his chest.

"It's done!"

Shen Gongbao clapped his hands and laughed heartily.