Xiao Kuang, who had returned from Buzhou Mountain "fully loaded," sprawled around Purple Heaven Palace for several more days. He hammered and tinkered with the various ores he had swiped from the Wu Clan, sniffed and chewed the herbs, and once he had grown bored of it all, that hollow feeling of having nothing to do struck again.
"I've been to the Eastern Heavenly Court and toured the central Wu Clan. Next... it's time to check out the west!" He stroked his chin, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "I heard the west is incredibly barren. Jieyin and Zhunti, those two poor bastards, cry about how miserable they are every day. Maybe they've got some unusual local specialties? And... maybe the girls in the west have their own charm?"
He left as soon as he made up his mind. Once again, he rode his signature crooked escape light toward the west of the Primordial Chaos, in the direction of the famed barren land—Mount Sumeru.
The farther west he went, the thinner the spiritual essence became and the more desolate the land grew. Compared to the mystical beauty of the east and the majestic grandeur of the central regions, the west seemed dim and lifeless. Even the Chaos Qi Flow appeared weak and sluggish here.
At last, amid a stretch of barren mountains, a peak with a faint glimmer of spiritual light—though only barely—came into view. It was Jieyin and Zhunti's Daoist ground, Mount Sumeru.
At the foot of the mountain stood only a few drooping Bodhi Trees and Bitter Bamboo stalks. Several sallow, skinny young attendants were laboriously watering them with mountain spring water that contained barely any spiritual essence. The entire Daoist ground reeked of poverty and misery.
When Xiao Kuang's escape light descended, its bizarre shape and his lazy aura, so utterly out of place in the west, immediately put the attendants on guard.
"Amitabha... uh, Fellow Daoist, please stop! This is a pure and tranquil place of the west. May I ask..." One attendant timidly stepped forward to block him.
Xiao Kuang waved a hand and cut him off. "Go inform Jieyin and Zhunti that their long-awaited Dao Ancestor big brother has arrived! I've come to bring them some warmth!"
The attendant was so stunned by that form of address that he nearly fell apart, then hurried inside to report.
Before long, Jieyin and Zhunti rushed out to greet him. They still wore those sorrowful expressions, though their eyes held uncertainty and a trace of... barely concealed anticipation? After all, although this Dao Ancestor was strange, even a little something slipping through his fingers would be enough to feed them well.
"This humble Daoist, Jieyin—Zhunti—welcomes the Dao Ancestor!" The two bowed respectfully, lowering themselves as much as possible.
"Oh, no need for such ceremony, Fellow Daoists!" Xiao Kuang cheerfully helped them up, but his gaze was already roaming around. The longer he looked, the deeper his frown became. "I say... this place of yours... is way too shabby, isn't it? This isn't a place for cultivation. It's a refugee camp!"
Jieyin and Zhunti blushed in embarrassment, their expressions growing even more bitter. "Please forgive our disgrace before the Dao Ancestor... The west is barren, its spiritual veins are damaged, and we brothers truly... cannot make bricks without straw!" As Zhunti spoke, his eyes began to redden again, clearly preparing to unleash his ultimate art of crying poverty.
"Stop, stop, stop!" Xiao Kuang quickly interrupted him. "If crying were useful, what would we need the Heavenly Dao for? Fine, I'm in a good mood today, so I'll show some kindness and help you plan things out!"
He immediately got into character, pointing at the bald Mount Sumeru and gesturing wildly.
"First, you need to work on the landscaping! Plant more trees! Plant... hmm, the kind that glows! Then you won't need lamps at night, saving electricity... saving spiritual essence! The mountain gate needs renovating too! Make it look grand! Add some gold trim or something! No money? No problem, a coat of gold paint works too. It'll still look intimidating! And these attendants of yours are all sallow and skinny. It hurts your image! Improve their meals! Even if you don't have spiritual food, you can figure out how to make ordinary food look like spiritual cuisine! Presentation matters! Most importantly, you need projects! Distinctive projects! For example... a 'One-Day Western Ascetic Cultivation Experience Tour'? Let those rich eastern cultivators come experience the hardships of life. You can charge them more! Or develop a 'Bodhi Seed Consecration Service'? Just say you've empowered them with great divine power, that they ward off evil and attract wealth. No one can tell anyway!"
Jieyin and Zhunti were dumbfounded, their minds completely unable to keep up with Xiao Kuang's pace. Landscaping? Gold paint? Presentation? Tourism? Consecration? What kind of demonic nonsense was this?!
"Dao... Dao Ancestor..." Jieyin said with difficulty. "Would such... such measures not be too... ostentatious? They go against the western principles of purity, inaction, and diligent cultivation..."
"Old-fashioned!" Xiao Kuang glared at him. "Can purity and inaction fill your stomach? Can diligent cultivation get you spiritual treasures? You need to learn to adapt! This is called a 'marketing strategy'! First, build up your reputation and trick... attract resources over. Then you can talk about cultivation!"
He lowered his voice again and said mysteriously, "Once you have money and resources, can't you be as pure and tranquil as you like? By then, build eight hundred golden temples and chant scriptures inside them every day. Wouldn't that be great?"
Jieyin and Zhunti: "..."
They felt as if their Dao Hearts had suffered unprecedented contamination.
But... for some reason, hearing about "eight hundred golden temples" made their hearts feel... a little itchy.
Zhunti could not help asking, "Then, Dao Ancestor... how exactly should we proceed?"
Seeing that they had taken the bait, Xiao Kuang grew even more enthusiastic. "Simple! First, packaging! Package your 'poor and miserable' image into the noble image of 'willingly enduring poverty and steadfastly guarding the Dao Heart'! Then tell stories! Talk about how you struggled from nothing, how you sacrificed yourselves for others, how... anyway, make it as miserable as possible and fabricate it as noble as possible! Once those eastern cultivators are left stunned, won't they obediently fork over money and donate merit?"
"Finally, and most importantly!" Xiao Kuang revealed his true intentions, staring at them with blazing eyes. "The west may be poor, but you must have some local specialties tucked away at the bottom of your chests, right? Like that Bitter Bamboo. It may taste awful, but perhaps someone in the east likes that sort of thing? And those Bodhi seeds—even if they're not much use, they feel nice to roll in your hands! Bring them out. I'll help you 'appraise' them and find you some buyers!"
After circling around for so long, he was still after their family fortune!
Jieyin and Zhunti immediately became wary. No matter how poor the west was, those few innate spiritual roots were their lifeblood!
Jieyin hastily said, "Dao Ancestor, the west is truly barren. We have nothing worth presenting..."
Before he could finish, Xiao Kuang had already begun wandering around on his own, touching this and inspecting that.
"Eh? This Bitter Bamboo looks pretty unusual! Chop a few stalks and they'd make decent back scratchers!" "Oh? These Bodhi Tree branches have bizarre enough shapes! I'll take them back as natural clothes hangers!" "Whoa! The rocks on the ground have a creepy color! I'll take them back to line a fish tank!"
He had entered zero-cost shopping mode again, picking up anything that looked strange and unusual without caring whether it was useful.
Jieyin and Zhunti's hearts bled at the sight. That Bitter Bamboo, those Bodhi branches, the stones beside the Eight Treasures Merit Pool... they had accumulated all of it bit by bit! It might not have been valuable, but it was still their property!
"Dao Ancestor! You mustn't!" Zhunti cried as he stepped forward to stop him. "These are all the little hopes of the west..."
"Oh, so stingy!" Xiao Kuang said unhappily. "I'm helping you develop the place. What's wrong with charging a few samples as a fee? Once the projects turn a profit, I'll pay you back tenfold!"
As he spoke, he casually plucked a lotus pod from a lotus that looked half-dead—possibly the prototype of some important future figure of the Western Teachings?
In the end, under Jieyin and Zhunti's tearful, despairing gazes, Xiao Kuang's sleeves were once again stuffed full of all sorts of western "junk."
After satisfying himself, he turned his gaze toward several western female cultivators standing nearby. Though the west was barren, a small number of female cultivators had still come here by reputation to help build the west.
Most of these female cultivators looked malnourished, but their eyes were devout and resolute.
Xiao Kuang sighed and shook his head. "You Fellow Daoists are suffering here! Look at those complexions! Come to Purple Heaven Palace! Food and lodging included, easy work, and Heavenly Dao Merit to earn! Listening to those two funeral-faced fellows chant scriptures every day is terrible for your mood!"
He had started poaching again! And he was poaching the west's scarcest resource—people!
Jieyin and Zhunti trembled with rage, nearly performing an on-the-spot "immediate nirvana"!
In the end, beneath Jieyin and Zhunti's grief-stricken gazes, Xiao Kuang swaggered away with a sleeve full of western "local specialties" and "samples," along with several promises to "consider changing jobs."
Even far from Mount Sumeru, Zhunti's grief-stricken howl could still faintly be heard. "Senior Brother! Our Bitter Bamboo! Our Bodhi branches! Our destined people!!!"
Xiao Kuang picked at his ears and curled his lip. "So stingy. They're just a few lousy branches. Still... these western lotus pods taste rather bitter and refreshing. Good for reducing internal heat."
Heavenly Dao (routine sensing): ...(Record: Western Teachings [future tense] assets have severely shrunk, and its talent faces the risk of departure... culprit: Xiao Kuang...)...
Before you continue