Deep within the Taiyin Star Core, the silence sealed in ice for countless ages was utterly shattered.
Wangshu, the ancient goddess who had transformed into the Taiyin at the dawn of creation and commanded the laws of ultimate yin, slowly "opened" eyes condensed from pure moonlight in her slumber. No longer did they hold their eternal stillness; faint yet genuine ripples spread within them—surprise, anger, and a trace of bewilderment at being forcibly dragged from her endless sleep.
That "Big Sister Wangshu"... that frivolous, lazy tone... that crude signal which had barged in by force, mixed with countless chaotic laws...
Over countless yuanhui, who had ever dared desecrate the sacred grounds of the Taiyin like this? Even Demon Ancestor Luohu, whose baleful aura had once soared to the heavens, had never turned his gaze upon this land of ultimate yin. Yet now, someone had directly "called" her at her bedside in such a... childish manner?
She tried to calculate the heavenly secrets and trace the source. Yet the secrets of heaven were a blur of chaos, shrouded by an immense, indolent, yet supreme power of the Heavenly Dao that made the truth impossible to discern. She could only vaguely sense that the signal's source was closely connected to the Heavenly Dao and... entwined with the auras of her two disciples, Xi He and Chang Xi!
Xi He, Chang Xi... Were they not serving in the Heavenly Court, overseeing the movements of the sun and the radiance of the Taiyin Star? Why had they become entangled with such an existence? That voice had called itself the "Dao Ancestor"? Since when had Fellow Daoist Hongjun become so... disgraceful?
Countless questions surged through the long-still lake of her heart like undercurrents beneath ice. She tried once more to close her mind and return to the silence of ages, only to discover... she could not.
That "hello, hello" was like a tiny ice thorn piercing her flawless frozen heart, leaving behind a hole too small to notice yet impossible to ignore. The outside world's "noise" and "variables" were seeping in through it, thread by thread.
She floated silently amid the moonlight, her cool gaze seeming to pierce endless space as she looked upon the lands of the Primordial Chaos, toward the direction from which she vaguely sensed the source that had caused subtle changes in her disciples' auras.
An utterly unfamiliar emotion called "worry" quietly took root.
Meanwhile, in the Zixiao Palace, Xiao Kuang was utterly unaware of the small storm he had caused in the Taiyin Star Core. He stared at the pile of smoking parts and sighed miserably.
"Piece of junk! Knockoff goods really are useless!" He kicked the communicator's wreckage, thoroughly displeased. "Looks like I need to get some proper materials... Next time, I'll 'borrow' some good stuff from the Demon Race Heavenly Court or Kunlun Mountain!"
His gaze once again turned toward the Demon Race and Kunlun Mountain with ill intent.
Xi He and Chang Xi beside him, however, were restless and uneasy.
Though they could not precisely sense their master's condition, master and disciples were connected at heart, and their Taiyin Origin faintly resonated. They had clearly caught that momentary disturbance in the Taiyin Star's power, as well as the tiniest fluctuation in their master's aura!
Their master... had truly been disturbed!
And it seemed... she was not entirely angry?
That uncertainty only made them more anxious.
"Sister..." Chang Xi could not help sending a message to Xi He, her voice tinged with panic. "Master... will she really come looking for us? What... what should we do?"
Xi He's expression was solemn as she forced herself to remain calm. "Stay calm. Master has remained within the Star Core for countless yuanhui; she will not easily enter the world. Even if... even if she truly comes, we shall adapt as events unfold. No matter what, we must not let Master suffer humiliation!"
She instinctively clenched the three strands of Primordial Violet Qi hidden in her sleeve, feeling that the things were becoming increasingly difficult to handle. Perhaps... when the time came, she could use them to prove to her master that they had not remained here solely to suffer humiliation, but had gained an opportunity as well?
But would a person as cold and aloof as her master acknowledge such an "opportunity"? Would she think they had already fallen into degradation?
Those two conflicting thoughts tormented them greatly.
The other "residents" of the hall also sensed subtle changes.
Dragon Girl Ao Qingxin carefully smoothed the leaves of the nurtured spirit herbs. She could feel that the origin within the Water Spirit Pearl seemed more lively, as though it had been cleansed by that chaotic fluctuation of laws just now. The Southern Bright Lihuo in Phoenix Girl Feng Wanxia's hand flickered, its color seemingly becoming purer. The range of life-force radiance rippling beneath Kirin Girl Qi Yao's bare feet had unintentionally expanded by a sliver.
Even the dragons, phoenixes, and kirin in the backyard zoo seemed much quieter, their eyes more spirited, as if the earlier disturbance had greatly benefited them as well.
The entire Zixiao Palace seemed to have undergone an invisible "tempering." Though the source had been someone's reckless nonsense, the outcome appeared to be... mostly positive?
Heavenly Dao (silently recording): ...Detected a 3.7% increase in law activity within the palace... Slight rise in the affinity of living beings' origins... Cause: law overflow produced by the agent's unauthorized experiment... Conclusion: incomprehensible... Continue observation...
After complaining, Xiao Kuang turned his attention back to the "serious business"—preparing for the second sermon.
He flipped through the "Quasi-Saint Training Materials" that the Heavenly Dao had forcibly stuffed into his hands, which looked like a heavenly tome to him, and muttered endlessly with a miserable expression. "Slaying the Three Corpses... How do you even slay those? Like slicing cucumbers? What brand of knife do I need?" "Achieving sainthood through merit... How much merit do I need to save up? Would handing out an 'immortal gathering bonus' once be enough?" "Prove Dao by Strength... That one sounds the most tiring. Hard pass!"
The reading made his head spin, and in the end, he simply threw the materials aside and gave up. "Forget it! When the time comes, I'll just read from the text! Whether they want to listen or not is their problem! If they can't understand, serves them right! I'll only do the reading; whether they gain enlightenment depends on their own fortune!"
Having made up his mind, he instantly relaxed. He happily hummed a little tune again and began considering whether to have roasted kirin leg that evening—the ones in the zoo shuddered in fright—or dragon-phoenix soup—Ao Qingxin and Feng Wanxia felt a chill run down their backs.
Everyone in the hall felt even more conflicted as they watched him behave like this.
On one hand, they had benefited from the environment of the Zixiao Palace, and their cultivation had advanced. On the other hand, their futures seemed tied to this utterly unreliable Dao Ancestor. And now, Wangshu might become involved as well...
Beneath the calm surface of the Zixiao Palace, undercurrents quietly stirred. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something: a sermon destined to be absurd, the arrival of an ancient sacred being, or... the next even more outrageous accident.
At the center of the entire vortex, that salted fish merely rubbed his stomach and sighed. "Sigh, preparing lessons really drains my strength. I'm already hungry... Extra dishes tonight!"
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