After leaving Penglai Island, A Lu and the others did not head for the Central Plains, but went straight toward the Southern Sea.
The Central Plains counted as the core territory of the Jade Purity Dao. There was no telling whether the other side had made arrangements there. If A Lu and the others went, their original eighty-percent chance of escape might very well fall to sixty percent, or even lower.
Mount Putuo Island in the Southern Sea, on the other hand, was a better target. Daoist Cihang lived overseas alone, making him easier to strike at.
Yu Chen, having noticed this, was delighted. Daoist Cihang possessed a special identity, very much like the Three Sacred Bodhisattvas of the Western Land.
Had Daoist Tiangong's memories not explicitly confirmed that the two were not the same person, Yu Chen would even have suspected that Cihang and Guanzizai were one entity, merely different images manifested in the Buddhist and Daoist lineages.
Guanzizai's Tide-Sound Method was likewise something Daoist Cihang had mastered. He could use the power of his own thoughts as reefs and ripples, spreading them through the myriad heavens and all phenomena. The prayers and thoughts of sentient beings became reefs and new ripples; when the ripples touched the reefs, they gave rise to fresh ripples that returned. Thus, as the prayers of sentient beings were boundless, the tide-sound was boundless, and so too were its divine abilities.
Yu Chen's thoughts stirred slightly, and a trace of his consciousness shifted into a parallel universe, to Mount Putuo Island in the Southern Sea.
Here, Daoist Cihang, who had been forcibly dragged by the Heavenly Emperor along with most of his Dao qi and trapped in a parallel universe as well, had not given up resisting.
Jade Purity Dao qi churned above Mount