Pei Shiju did not answer rashly. His brows drew together as he weighed the meaning behind the question.
As he thought, he carefully observed his surroundings without betraying a thing.
Only then did Pei Shiju notice that, at some point, everything outside the room had fallen silent. He could hear neither guards nor attendants—not even the faintest chirp of an insect or bird.
Perhaps because he had been through this before, Pei Shiju neither raised an alarm nor panicked. Instead, he settled himself and studied the old man before him.
After a while, he said, "You do not seem to be an ordinary man, sir. Why concern yourself with worldly affairs? Whether the Zhou Kingdom gains territory should be a headache for its court."
"Because my path lies here."
The old man in golden adornment was, of course, Chen Cuo's Golden Lotus Incarnation.
Chen Cuo had previously questioned Pei Shiju through his Azure Lotus Incarnation and gained inspiration. He had then used his White Lotus Avatar to enter and leave the Formation of Chaos, consolidating what he had learned.
Now he had built a complete framework for his fourth Daoist Humanity Path Consensus. What remained was to broaden the concept as much as possible, make it more comprehensive, and truly bring ideas such as the "Two Han Dynasties and Wei-Jin" within its scope!
As it happened, the courts of the two northern kingdoms and the South Chen Kingdom had all fallen into turmoil. The Zhou Kingdom and Great Qi had even taken up arms, and territory had changed hands.
Under the supervision of the Underworld Office, if Chen Cuo, as a cultivator, rashly involved himself in worldly warfare, he would not only damage his karmic merit but might also incur entanglements that trapped him at a bottleneck and hindered his