The Great Sage Teacher

"The Great Sage Teacher is here!"

"Wonderful!"

"I joined the Peace Sect with my father when I was young and trained bitterly in martial arts for eighteen years. Today, at last, I can behold the heavenly countenance of the Great Sage Teacher!"

The originally calm crowd instantly began to boil over.

The three hundred youths who were about to undergo blood exchange, plus their Dao protectors—six hundred pairs of eyes in all—turned in unison toward the three-zhang-high platform that had risen straight from the center.

This vast plaza platform, shaped like an oval beast arena, stood over two zhang high and was extremely spacious.

Accompanied by that excited ceremonial cry—"The Great Sage Teacher, arriving!"

A vast, radiant glow suddenly pierced through the wall twenty zhang above and spilled down with perfect precision onto the three-zhang platform.

An old Daoist in a white Daoist robe, holding a horsetail whisk, stepped upon the glow and slowly descended from the firmament, drifting lightly onto the high platform.

Thousands upon thousands of peach blossoms fell from the sky.

The instant the old Daoist's feet were about to touch the platform—

One green lotus after another suddenly emerged from the ground, covering the entire platform in a flash.

Among them, one enormous green lotus, a full zhang tall, opened like an upturned canopy net of the heavens and gently caught the old Daoist.

Heavenly flowers scattered in wild profusion!

Green lotuses surged from the earth!

This scene, like a divine miracle, coupled with the radiant glow bathing the old Daoist's entire body and matched with his aloof, outstanding bearing—

In an instant, all six hundred people present dropped to their knees, every one of them prostrating in devout worship.

"This humble one, Zhou Tao, respectfully welcomes the Great Sage Teacher to the Holy Sect branch!"

In the crowd, a chubby youth suddenly spoke first, his voice ringing out clearly.

"Respectfully welcoming the Great Sage Teacher..."

Only then did the youths and Dao protectors come back to themselves. Inwardly, they cursed one after another, but on the surface, they fell over themselves to flatter the old Daoist.

Yang Xiao was naturally no exception.

However, Yang Xiao did not want to be the bird that stuck its head out. His voice was neither loud nor soft and drew no one's attention.

But in secret, through the Spirit Cicada Transformation, Yang Xiao avoided the old Daoist and cautiously "looked" around.

The Great Sage Teacher was the Heavenly Master of the Peace Sect. His cultivation had already reached the Grandmaster realm. In terms of spiritual perception alone, he was likely on the same level as the great scholar Mr. Zou.

Last time at Vermilion Bird Tower, when Mr. Zou lectured on the classics in the private room, he had merely swept a casual glance through the wall and had almost caused Yang Xiao's mind to collapse and die.

Even though Yang Xiao's strength was no longer what it had been—he was already the strongest Iron Skin, and with the Faceless Woman's gift, his tendons, bones, and skin were now firm yet supple, with no lingering danger of sudden death within three months—

Given the lesson from Mr. Zou that time, Yang Xiao naturally did not want to gamble this time, nor could he afford to.

As long as I don't "look" at the Great Sage Teacher, I won't alert him, and I won't have to worry about being discovered.

As Yang Xiao was thinking this, his pupils suddenly shrank, his eyes filling with horror.

"Old Zhao, Old Zhao?"

Beside him, Zhang Long was prostrating on the ground when he suddenly sensed that something was off with Yang Xiao and could not help but look at him in confusion.

"Big Brother, I'm fine. The Great Sage Teacher makes me feel as if I'm gazing up at a towering mountain, so I lost myself for a moment."

Yang Xiao hurriedly said.

Zhang Long did not think too much of it and continued prostrating.

Yang Xiao also lowered his head and prostrated, but his heart could not help surging with stormy waves.

What sacred lotuses were those on the high platform?

Every single lotus had been assembled by cruelly chopping off a person's little-finger bones, filling the bones with densely packed minced flesh from black ferocious beasts, and splicing them together!

The largest lotus was made from thousands upon thousands of little-finger bones, cleverly joined with mortise-and-tenon structure and gathered into one!

This was the so-called—green lotuses surging from the earth?

As for those so-called "heavenly flowers scattering in wild profusion," they were made by a similar principle.

Every heavenly flower had been crafted from a woman's finger bones!

And the sacred radiant glow that poured down from the firmament?

How was that any radiant glow!

It was clearly a massive amount of filthy blood—disgusting and foul-smelling!

Yet these cruel, bloody, revolting things, for some unknown reason, actually gave people a sense of sacred solemnity, driving all six hundred people present into frenzied worship.

Emperor Ming mobilized the people, wealth, and material strength of an entire nation to launch three campaigns against the Peace Sect, swearing to exterminate these demons. Emperor Ming was right after all!

Yang Xiao lowered his head, appearing calm and unmoved, but his heart was full of revulsion and anger.

But anger was anger. Yang Xiao knew that he absolutely could not reveal the slightest dissatisfaction or abnormality.

Otherwise, with the slightest carelessness, it would be—eternal damnation!

Fortunately, the Great Sage Teacher atop the high platform did not notice anything unusual about Yang Xiao. Instead, he sat cross-legged on that enormous green lotus and began his so-called "Dao lecture."

"All of you are outstanding geniuses of my Holy Sect who are soon to undergo blood replacement. Do not think that today's Holy Sect belongs to old fellows like us. The future—will ultimately belong to you young people!"

"These are chaotic times. The Great Yan Dynasty's fate is exhausted. So long as we unite as one, we will surely be able to strike back against the heavens and let the radiance of Yellow Heaven shine upon every corner under heaven!"

"Perhaps today is very dark, and perhaps tomorrow will also be a tempest of wind and rain, but this poor Daoist believes the future will surely belong to my Holy Sect, and to all of you present here..."

The Great Sage Teacher was sentimental one moment, raising his arms and shouting the next, covering his face and weeping the next, then wagging his head as he spoke in rising and falling cadences, successfully stirring up the atmosphere of the entire crowd.

The youths and Dao protectors were all as if injected with chicken blood, each raising their arms and shouting, their emotions surging.

Zhang Long even shed tears several times, filled with boundless admiration for the Great Sage Teacher and inexplicably moved.

"..."

Yang Xiao silently watched this farce, ten thousand alpacas thundering through his heart.

The so-called Great Sage Teacher—this was it?

"No wonder the Peace Sect is like wildfire that cannot be burned out; when the spring breeze blows, it grows again."

"With this kind of rhetoric that bewitches people's hearts, in this world, aside from me, I'm afraid no one can match it—and no one can withstand this kind of brainwashing assault either."

Yang Xiao could not help sighing with emotion.

Such an era-surpassing, dimensionality-crushing brainwashing—never mind that most of the common people could not read a single character.

He feared that even many scholars, local tyrants, and wealthy merchants would likewise be unable to resist it!

Just based on this point alone, Yang Xiao already understood that even if those demons failed in the upcoming Grandmaster Dao Discussion, the "inheritance" flame of the Peace Sect would probably not be extinguished. It would still spread generation after generation into the future.

However, this Great Sage Teacher's words were not entirely nonsense either.

From this person's "emotional speech," Yang Xiao still heard many "truths" that he could never have come into contact with in the outside world—truths that no one even dared to speak of.

"So it turns out that if one wants to increase the chance of succeeding at blood replacement, one must use high-quality secret blood-replacement medicine."

"But those expensive, high-quality secret medicines are monopolized by the imperial court, aristocratic families, and powerful clans."

"Unless one attaches oneself to a noble and willingly becomes a slave, ordinary people simply cannot obtain these high-quality secret medicines, and the possibility of failing blood replacement is extremely high."

"Even the flesh and blood required for each blood replacement has its own particular requirements."

"Without the support of the imperial court or a great clan, trying to obtain high-quality flesh and blood with fewer side effects is absolutely impossible!"

"Those major sects of the jianghu, or those very famous Martial Halls, all secretly collude in the same filthy stream with the imperial court, aristocratic families, and powerful clans..."

The more Yang Xiao listened, the more speechless he became.

Actually, thinking it over carefully, although this matter was absurd, it was not exactly random.

The Great Yan Founding Emperor pacified the realm, swept through the major sects, gathered the martial arts of the world into the Scripture Pavilion of the Vermilion Bird Tower, and used the Blood Qi Martial Dao to spread martial power throughout the land, completely replacing all other paths of cultivation.

Then, over the next several hundred years, successive Great Yan emperors continuously perfected the Blood Qi Martial Dao and constantly developed secret blood-replacement medicines, using this to control the number of martial artists at each realm.

In doing so, they ensured that no matter how chaotic the world became, no one could truly shake the foundation of the state.

With high-quality flesh and blood operated exclusively by the imperial court, they could solve the problem once and for all, directly cutting off at the root any possibility of the poor rising up.

But the poor were the foundation of this world, and the people were, in the end, the root of a ruler's state!

No matter how far-sighted the Great Yan Founding Emperor had been, no matter how successive emperors had laid out their plans together with aristocratic families and powerful clans, no matter how hard the nobles had tried, attempting to make the rivers and mountains endure forever and their families pass down through the generations—

was that possible?

"So in other words, the reason the Peace Sect has remained undiminished for thousands of years is because—only the Peace Sect can give the common people at the bottom a path to practice martial arts and become stronger, and it is also the only hope in the world for the poor to rise?"

When this absurd thought surfaced in his mind, Yang Xiao could not help staring dumbfounded, feeling it was extremely ridiculous.

The Peace Sect was evil and cruel. Those demons who held power and possessed powerful cultivation naturally could not possibly plead for the people's lives, nor could they possibly speak for the poor.

But if the Great Sage Teacher's words were true, then regardless of the Peace Sect's motives, at least in practice, the Peace Sect had indeed given talented people from poor families a chance.

A way out that allowed them to rise against the tide without becoming dogs for the imperial court, aristocratic families, and powerful clans.

Only, was this path truly a way out?

"I'm just an ordinary waiter at the Vermilion Bird Tower. I only want to keep a low profile and quietly grow in this damned chaotic age."

"Although I also hate this cruel and cold world, how could the great trend of the world, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the future fate of the nation possibly be changed by a tiny shrimp like me?"

Yang Xiao sighed softly, his "gaze" falling upon the Great Sage Teacher without him quite noticing it.

If he had not looked, it would have been fine.

But with this one look, Yang Xiao's entire body instantly trembled, and an unprecedented cold light erupted in his eyes...