At those words, Shen Gongbao felt every pore on his body open and close, as though fine rays of golden light were streaming through him, flickering in and out.
He felt as though heaven and earth had become a vast white expanse, with only him gleaming in radiant, dazzling splendor.
Thousands of years!
For a Leopard Spirit to take human form and be accepted into the Chan Sect by Yuanshi Tianzun should have been a blessing, yet his thirty-odd years in the sect had been the most helpless, most sorrowful years of his life.
His fellow disciples all came from extraordinary origins. A monster like him stood at the very bottom of the Chan Sect's pecking order; only before unaffiliated cultivators outside the sect did he enjoy any standing.
"Fellow Daoist, Please Stay" was what he said most often as he trained bitterly on Cloud Dream Mountain, holding a stone in his mouth and braving the wind.
It was also what he longed for most.
All Shen Gongbao wanted was for his fellow disciples to acknowledge his thousand years of cultivation, treat him as an equal, and sit down with him to discuss the Dao.
Today, he had achieved it, as Great Shang's Imperial Preceptor.
Yun Zhongzi decided to do Shen Gongbao a favor. He turned back and said, "Your Majesty's actions today were foolish in the extreme. You are unfit to be a sovereign."
Zi Shou's heart skipped a beat. Keeping Yun Zhongzi in Chaoge had been the right decision after all!
Shooting Heaven with Blood, filling a sack with earth and whipping it, then burning a few wooden effigies to show disrespect to the gods-if that earned him the name of a foolish ruler, it was a fucking bargain!
"Unfit to be a sovereign?"
Zi Shou snorted a