Smack! The book fell from Li Langxuan's hands.
"How is this possible?"
Disbelief filled his face, which slowly turned deathly pale. He muttered, "I remember it perfectly. The scripture didn't describe Houtu God this way back then. Faceless—it was definitely faceless—"
Li Shun picked up the scripture and examined it again. He found no strange aura within it.
So the scripture itself isn't the problem. Li Langxuan was corrupted when he read it all those years ago.
Zhao Cheng, that visitor from beyond the heavens, chose him as a partner. That may have brought him to its attention as well—
That was Li Shun's guess.
As for whether that being was an Outer God, he could not yet say.
Li Shun carefully questioned Li Langxuan about how he had come to read the scripture.
"Come to think of it, I don't know why, but even after all these years, that night is still vivid in my mind."
"I had just been ordered to tutor the crown prince. He was unruly and even devised tricks to torment me."
"I was at my wits' end, miserable, with nowhere to vent. I wandered through the palace and somehow entered the Dao Repository Pavilion."
As Li Langxuan recounted his memories, Li Shun immediately sensed that something was wrong.
The imperial palace was heavily guarded. How could Li Langxuan have wandered wherever he pleased?
And what a coincidence that, among the countless books in the Dao Repository Pavilion, he had found the very scripture that recorded Houtu God.
One thing was certain: from beginning to end, Li Langxuan had done it all under that being's unseen guidance.
At first, it had planted only a faint suggestion in his mind.
Later, when he began building Daoist sanctuaries across the land, that thought suddenly took root and