The Eve (5,000 Words)

Three months had passed since Meng Chuan entered the Spirit Beast Forest and began Lecturing on the Dao.

By then, far fewer Spirit Beasts remained to listen outside Meng Chuan's Thatched Cottage.

These Spirit Beasts had never been creatures of great perseverance or wisdom.

The Daoist teachings Meng Chuan expounded were Profound and abstruse. Putting them into practice was exceedingly difficult, and apart from the opening section, which was fairly easy to understand, everything that followed sounded like a heavenly book to the Spirit Beasts!

When Meng Chuan first began Lecturing on the Dao, novelty and curiosity had been enough to bring the Spirit Beasts back every day to listen.

But after listening for two or three months and still understanding nothing, many of the Spirit Beasts grew bored and stopped coming. Even several of the regular seats behind Bibi Dong had been left empty.

There was a strict hierarchy among the Spirit Beasts, however. Even with seats vacant, the hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beasts refused to let any of their younger kind sit there.

That day, Meng Chuan happened to finish explaining all the cultivation methods below Dragon Transformation for the second time.

Bibi Dong and the other Spirit Beasts still listening rose and bowed. As usual, Meng Chuan should have fallen silent then and returned straight to the Thatched Cottage.

But this time, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he smiled at Bibi Dong and said, "Walk about fifteen li east from the cottage. You'll find a young man and a young woman. They have a destined connection with me. Bring them here."

"Yes." Bibi Dong was astonished, but after listening to Meng Chuan for so long, obedience had become a habit. She agreed without hesitation.

"Also, from today onward, anyone who makes it thirty li into the Spirit Beast