Three thousand years of sitting in oblivion on the Way of the Salted Fish

The lingering echo of Xiao Kuang's "Internet café team-up, five short of one" still reverberated through the hall, mixed with Old Ancestor Minghe's stifled roar of indignation, the suppressed laughter of the other great powers, and the sounds of them coughing up blood.

Just then—

[Heavenly Dao's weak notification]: Ding... Detected that the proxy's 'second sermon' has begun... According to Chapter XX, Article XX of the Primordial Era Basic Law... Statutory sermon duration: three thousand years... Please maintain your state... Timing begins... zzzz...

This notification no longer carried its previous majestic grandeur or frantic irritation. Instead, it sounded like a programmer who had worked overtime all night until his mind had gone blank, listlessly reading out the notice before instantly falling asleep, with even a faint snore at the end.

Xiao Kuang: "..." All the great powers of the Primordial Chaos: "..." Even Wangshu, in the corner, seemed to have the corner of her eternally frozen lips twitch.

Three thousand years? Just sit here and listen for three thousand years? No, wait—just sit here for three thousand years?

Xiao Kuang scratched his head, looked at the bewildered, furious, despairing, and numb faces below the platform, then looked at his comfortable massage chair.

"Fine, fine. Three thousand years it is." He let out an enormous yawn and flopped back into the massage chair, adjusting himself into an even more comfortable position. Muttering, he said, "I'd only be idle otherwise, so I'll put on a performance for you... static enlightenment."

Having said that, he closed his eyes, tilted his head—and truly... stopped moving!

His breathing became exceedingly long and slow, while the aura around him withdrew until it was almost nonexistent. He seemed like a human-shaped stone, with only the massage chair faithfully humming away, creating an utterly bizarre contrast between motion and stillness.

Violet Heavens Palace fell into deathly silence.

Every great power, whether the Three Pure Ones, Nuwa, Jieyin, and Zhunti in the front-row VIP section, or Old Ancestor Minghe, Zhen Yuanzi, the Twelve Ancestral Witches, Kunpeng, Hong Yun, King Father of the East, Queen Mother of the West, and the others standing in the back, was dumbfounded.

What kind of move was this? He was supposed to preach the Dao, yet he was just going to sleep? And he was going to sleep for three thousand years in front of the foremost great powers of the entire Primordial Chaos?

Where was the Heavenly Dao? Heavenly Dao, do something! Was it not going to strike him dead?!

Heavenly Dao (zzzzzz...): Huh... Can't strike... Too lazy... Zzzz...

Primordial Lord of Heaven's face turned livid. The veins bulged on the hand gripping the Pangu Banner, and he dearly wished to blast this fraud who deceived the world and stole his reputation into ashes. But he did not dare. First, he could not beat him—a privileged bastard. Second... what if this "static enlightenment" truly was some supreme realm beyond their comprehension?

Sect Master Tongtian, meanwhile, looked thrilled. In a low voice, he said, "Elder Brother, Second Brother, look! There must be profound meaning behind the Dao Ancestor's actions! Silence surpasses sound, and teaching through nonaction is the greatest teaching! He is testing our resolve and comprehension! I want to learn too!" With that, he copied Xiao Kuang's example and tried to assume a pose in his ergonomic chair that looked "relaxed on the surface but actually enlightened." Though in truth, he looked more like he was dozing off.

The corner of Laozi's mouth twitched. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began silently reciting the Scripture of Purity and Tranquility, trying his best to accept reality. Yet his slightly trembling fly whisk exposed the turmoil in his heart.

Empress Nuwa covered her face with one hand. She truly could not bear to watch any longer. She began seriously considering whether she should have added some "resistance to speechlessness" genes when creating humans.

Jieyin and Zhunti looked at one another, seeing the same despair—and a trace of strange delight—in each other's eyes. The Dao Ancestor was asleep. Did that mean they could sneak off to KTV early? But after looking at the surrounding crowd glaring at them like tigers—mainly the Three Pure Ones and Old Ancestor Minghe—they still did not dare move. They could only sit cross-legged with bitter expressions, imitating the others by closing their eyes, while silently calculating how much incense and faith power they would lose over these three thousand years.

The great powers in the back rows were even more awkward.

Leave? They did not dare. The Heavenly Dao had stipulated that they must listen to the sermon for three thousand years. Though the Dao Ancestor was asleep, the Heavenly Dao's timer was still running! Leaving early counted as skipping class. What if they were punished later? Stay? And do what? Sleep along with him? Sleep standing up for three thousand years? Even if they were innate sacred beings, that was far too humiliating!

Thus, the strangest scene since the creation of the Primordial Chaos appeared:

Within the solemn and majestic main hall of Violet Heavens Palace—though its entire atmosphere had gone completely off the rails—the Dao Ancestor lay sprawled in a massage chair, "undergoing static enlightenment" asleep. The six saints-in-waiting in the front sat in ergonomic chairs, each wearing a different expression: anger, imitation, despair, or scripture-reciting calm. Behind them stood a vast mass of the Primordial Chaos's foremost great powers, every one of them as if struck by a paralysis spell. They could neither leave nor stay, and they did not dare sit down—there were no seats, and they lacked the nerve to act presumptuously before the Dao Ancestor. They could only stand there stiffly, looking as though they were collectively attending an excruciatingly painful funeral.

Time trickled by, drop by drop. One year... ten years... one hundred years...

The hall was terrifyingly quiet. Only the hum of the massage chair, faint breathing, and the occasional subtle crack of bones from standing too long could be heard—mostly from the Ancestral Witches, whose bodies were powerful but whose postures had become rigid.

Wangshu went from cold observation at the beginning, to utter speechlessness later, to now... numbness.

She looked at the young man sleeping without the slightest concern for his image, then at the group of Primordial Chaos elites below who seemed to have turned to stone. The understanding she had accumulated over countless epochs of slumber felt as though it had been shattered in this brief span of time.

Was this the Primordial Chaos of today? Was this the representative chosen by the Heavenly Dao? Was this what pursuing the Great Dao looked like?

She even began to wonder whether her decision back then to become the Lunar Yin and fall into slumber had caused her to miss some "wonderful" part of history.

Xi He and Chang Xi stood behind her, having gone from nervous at first to drowsy now. They had already grown accustomed to Violet Heavens Palace's absurdity. In fact, sleeping while standing for three thousand years did not seem entirely unacceptable anymore. It was better than being dragged by the Dao Ancestor into some kind of "cross-realm telephone" experiment.

A thousand years passed.

The standing great powers began displaying their own methods. A phantom Blood Sea emerged faintly around Old Ancestor Minghe as he pretended to cultivate Blood God Sons, while actually easing the ache in his legs. Zhen Yuanzi took out the Book of Earth and pretended to study earth veins, while actually reading to pass the time. Kunpeng manifested a pair of illusory wings and gently flapped them, pretending to comprehend the supreme speed of wind and water, while actually doing concealed stretches. The Twelve Ancestral Witches were the most straightforward. They began taking turns, extremely slowly and almost imperceptibly, performing the first few movements of radio calisthenics—the Witch Clan battle calisthenics—to keep their muscles from stiffening. Hong Yun, meanwhile, secretly played a silent game of chess with King Father of the East and Queen Mother of the West using divine sense.

The entire Violet Heavens Palace seemed to have become a silent collective performance art exhibition that would last three thousand years.

And at the heart of the exhibition, the salted fish responsible for starting it all slept soundly in his massage chair. He even rolled over, smacked his lips, and murmured in his dreams, "Mm... roasted Kunpeng wings... extra spicy..."

Kunpeng, standing in the back, abruptly shuddered, a chill racing up his spine!

Heavenly Dao (muttering in its sleep): ...Detected that the proxy continues to emit 'silent Dao resonance'... Efficiency of all beings' enlightenment... -99%... Mental condition... continuing to decline... Consistent with the propagation characteristics of the Way of the Salted Fish Dao... Record... Zzzz... Overtime pay... settlement... Primordial Violet Qi... Zzzz...

Only one-third of this bizarre "three thousand years of sitting still" had passed. Every great power shared the same thought: How were they supposed to endure the remaining two thousand years?!