A long while passed.
Lord Taisu's expression finally began to settle.
On his aged face, the shock, wariness, and doubt that had surged and tangled together slowly receded like an ebbing tide.
In their place came a stillness unlike anything he had ever known.
Yet beneath that stillness, deep within his clouded old eyes, that exceedingly faint glimmer did not fade. Instead, it grew a little brighter.
It was anticipation.
Undeniable anticipation, so absurd that even Lord Taisu himself could scarcely believe it.
What sort of existence was Lord Taisu?
In seniority, status, and cultivation, across this universe and through all the ages, the beings worthy of his regard could be counted on one hand.
Hongjun was not one of them.
Neither were the Three Pure Ones.
Neither were the two saints of the Buddhist School.
Even the Elder of Chaos, whom he had treated as a pawn, was merely a Chaos Demon God with some depth to his foundations. In his eyes, he was ultimately nothing more than a junior.
Yet it was precisely a junior among juniors... Gu Changqing.
A "drunkard" who reeked of wine, behaved flippantly, and lacked even a trace of a pre-heavenly Mighty Expert's bearing had stirred anticipation in him, one of the Five Pre-Heavenly Ultimates, for the very first time.
There was only one reason.
Though they had not interacted much, the entire span from Gu Changqing's intrusion into the Chaos Secret Realm to his departure now amounted to no more than a brief stretch of time.
Yet in that short time, what Gu Changqing had displayed was already enough to make Lord Taisu reassess this "junior."
The Taisu True Exposition was the origin Dao Art he had personally imparted to the Elder of Chaos, the crystallization of the Way of Taisu.
Upon receiving