Standalone Chapter: Year-End Summary (with Brief Q&A on Chapter 170's Plot)
First, the plot. (These thoughts don't cost Qidian coins~)
Regarding the last half of the previous chapter, I saw some esteemed readers complain that it was rather long-winded and deliberately overcautious. In truth, just like the Great Mage, they had fallen into Immortal Changshou's routine.
This was deliberate on Li Changshou's part. From initially refusing, to reluctantly accepting the task, to saying, "Please make an oath," what he wanted to establish was the image of someone who sought stability and acted with caution.
Li Changshou had never intended to make Grand Master Xuandu swear an oath.
This way, he could both reduce the number of times the Great Mage would use him as a magic-treasure tool in the future, and establish himself as someone who thought thrice before acting and would not cause trouble for the Great Mage or the Grand Pure Sage...
That was Li Changshou's true goal.
If everyone savors the several hundred words after the ellipsis in the previous chapter, together with the part where the Great Mage came to understand it afterward, you should have a different reading experience.
It simply wasn't spelled out clearly here so as not to disrupt the pacing.
The Great Mage's promise was an unexpected gain. Li Changshou also promptly brought up having him protect him during the Golden Immortal Tribulation, resolving one of his major future concerns.
Also, some esteemed readers disliked seeing Li Changshou suffer minor losses and miss opportunities in the previous chapters. This was something Author Fungus had expected. The protagonist suffering a few harmless minor losses because he was too cautious was one of this novel's major settings.
Year-End Summary
2019 was the fourth year that Author Fungus had been writing full-time.
Over the