Lecturing on the Dao—You Teach, I Teach Too

"Wuwuwu... Senior Brother, the West is barren. To come hear the Dao, we endured untold hardships, yet now we do not even have a seat. What meaning is there in living? We might as well smash our heads against the pillars of this Violet Firmament Palace and die!"

Amid a burst of mournful wailing, two raggedly dressed Daoists with sorrowful faces staggered into the Violet Firmament Palace.

They were none other than Jieyin and Zhunti, who had rushed here from the West.

As Zhunti wept, he secretly glanced from the corners of his eyes at the six cushions at the very front.

When he saw Red Cloud Patriarch seated on the fifth cushion, a gleam flashed through his eyes. He cried even louder and even made as if to hurl himself against a nearby pillar.

Red Cloud Patriarch was kind by nature and could not bear to see others suffer. His heart softened at once, and he rose to his feet. "Fellow Daoist, do not seek death. I shall yield this seat to you."

"Thank you, Fellow Daoist! Thank you, Fellow Daoist!"

Zhunti was overjoyed. Without the slightest courtesy, he plopped himself down onto the fifth cushion.

Then he looked at Kunpeng Ancestor, who sat on the sixth cushion, and his face instantly turned cold and stern.

"You, fur-covered creature with horns, born damp and hatched from eggs—how are you worthy of sitting alongside us? Get lost at once and give your seat to my Senior Brother!"

Kunpeng Ancestor flew into a rage upon hearing this. "What are you supposed to be, to dare snatch this seat from me?!"

Just as the two stood at daggers drawn.

Yuanshi Tianzun, seated on the second cushion, also cast Kunpeng a chilly glance. "Fellow Daoist Zhunti is right. A creature born damp and hatched from eggs like you is indeed unworthy of sitting with us of the Pangu Orthodox Lineage."

Though Laozi said nothing, the indifferent look in his eyes clearly showed that he agreed with Yuanshi.

Kunpeng Ancestor trembled with fury all over, but he was alone. Faced with the joint pressure of the Three Pure Ones and the two Sages of the West, he could only rise in humiliation and yield his seat to Jieyin in the end.

"Red Cloud!

Zhunti!

Yuanshi! I shall remember today's humiliation!"

Kunpeng Ancestor retreated to the rear, his eyes brimming with venomous hatred.

Just as the ownership of the six cushions was completely settled.

"Dong—"

A crisp bell chime rang through the Violet Firmament Palace.

Hongjun's figure appeared without warning atop the purple cushion at the highest point.

His gaze swept over the three thousand visitors below. When he saw those seated upon the six golden cushions, he gave a slight nod.

But immediately afterward, his gaze roamed around the Violet Firmament Palace, and his brows creased almost imperceptibly.

"The Twelve Ancestral Witches... not one of them came?"

Hongjun's heart sank. A trace of gloom, nearly impossible to detect, flashed across his eternally placid face.

His purpose in expounding the Great Dao this time was nominally to enlighten all living beings, but in truth, it was to gather the Primordial World's fortune unto himself, preparing for the day he merged with Heaven's Way and became its spokesperson.

The three thousand guests within the Violet Firmament Palace were all innate sacred beings favored by the Primordial World's fortune.

Once they heard his teachings, they would owe Hongjun karma, and the fortune upon them would naturally gather toward him.

And among these three thousand guests, those possessing the greatest and most essential fortune were none other than the Pangu Orthodox Lineage!

The Three Pure Ones had come. That was good.

But the Twelve Ancestral Witches, who likewise bore the fortune of Pangu creating heaven and earth, had all absented themselves!

"These twelve variables..."

The scene from beneath Mount Sumeru back then surfaced in Hongjun's mind: Dijiang and the others had swept away every treasure like orioles waiting behind the mantis, then departed in grand fashion.

Those had been twelve Primordial Golden Immortals!

And every one of them controlled a complete Great Dao law!

Not only was their strength terrifying, more importantly, they bore Pangu's legacy and immense Primordial World fortune.

Now that they had not come to hear the Dao, a massive hole had appeared in Hongjun's plan to gather fortune—a hole too great for him to ignore.

"Forget it."

Hongjun sighed inwardly.

Though he was a Sage, beneath the great tide of Heaven's Way, he could not forcibly seize the Twelve Ancestral Witches and make them hear the Dao.

Besides, the enmity from the Dao-Demon War still remained. The Twelve Ancestral Witches relied on their formidable strength and had Pangu Hall's protection. It was only natural that they would not come.

"After I merge with the Dao, I will settle accounts with you slowly."

Hongjun gathered his thoughts, no longer dwelling on the Twelve Ancestral Witches, and slowly opened his mouth.

"Silence."

A Sage's words became law.

The previously somewhat noisy Violet Firmament Palace fell silent in an instant; even a falling needle could be heard.

"I am Hongjun, and I have now attained the Dao. This exposition shall be divided into three sessions, each lasting three thousand years. What I shall teach this time is the Dao of the Zenith Heaven Golden Immortal."

Hongjun's voice was ethereal and distant, as though it drifted down from beyond the Ninth Heaven, carrying a profundity that pointed straight to the origin.

As he spoke, heavenly blossoms rained down in the Violet Firmament Palace, golden lotuses sprang from the earth, and boundless Dao resonance condensed into tangible runes that danced through the air.

The three thousand visitors below listened, utterly entranced. At times their brows furrowed tightly, at times their faces lit up with wild delight, completely immersed in this supreme Great Dao.

Meanwhile, on the Primordial Wilderness Continent, at the foot of Mount Buzhou.

Unlike the lofty teachings at the Violet Firmament Palace, whose threshold stood so high, the teachings at Mount Buzhou were far more down-to-earth—and far livelier.

Within the Spirit-Gathering Formation, tens of millions of living beings had gathered together, a vast black sea of heads stretching beyond sight.

Not only were there the beings who had originally lived within the formation, even Rogue Cultivators and lesser demons from around Mount Buzhou—those with such meager cultivation that they could not cross the chaos to hear the Dao at the Violet Firmament Palace—had rushed over with their families after hearing that the Ancestral Witches were expounding the Great Dao.

Dijiang sat cross-legged upon an auspicious cloud in midair. No terrifying pressure radiated from him; instead, he carried a tranquil air of returning to simplicity.

"The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name."

"All things beneath heaven and earth possess their principles. What we cultivate is precisely the principles of heaven and earth, the source of laws."

Dijiang's voice was not loud, yet it entered the ears of every living being with perfect clarity.

He did not speak of the obscure and difficult Primordial Origin Great Dao. Instead, he began with the most fundamental methods of breathing and absorbing spiritual energy, explaining in simple terms the workings of heaven and earth's spiritual energy, as well as how to safeguard the Primordial Spirit and temper the fleshly body.

The tens of millions of beings below listened in rapt fascination.

The overwhelming majority of them were lowly beings without inheritances. To them, the foundational Great Dao Dijiang taught was like sweet rain after a long drought!

As Dijiang taught the Dao, his divine sense swept over the beings below.

Suddenly, his gaze paused at a corner on the very edge of the crowd.

There crouched a mud monkey covered head to toe in dirt, utterly inconspicuous in appearance.

This mud monkey's cultivation was extremely low. He had only just awakened his intelligence and could not even take human form.

Yet he listened with extraordinary seriousness. Wisdom gleamed in his lively eyes, and from time to time, following the rhythm of Dijiang's teachings, he would even wave his arms and gesture about.

"Six-Eared Macaque?"

Dijiang's heart stirred slightly.

At a glance, he saw through the mud monkey's origins.

One of the Four Monkeys of Chaos, adept at hearing sounds, able to discern principles, knowing what came before and after, understanding all things.

In the original course of the Primordial World, the Six-Eared Macaque had secretly listened to Hongjun's teachings, only for Hongjun to sever his Dao Path with the single sentence, "The Dharma shall not be passed to Six Ears." From then on, he drifted through the Primordial World, suffering hardship after hardship, until he finally met the tragic end of being beaten to death by Sun Wukong with one stroke of his staff.

Who would have thought that in this life, he had come to Mount Buzhou to hear the Dao instead.