Northern Darkness Lake.
Moonlight shrouded the endless emerald waves. Plants flourished along the shore, and now and then, wild deer and foxes could be seen coming down to drink, only to race away into the night at the slightest disturbance.
Shang Mingzhen stood on the shore in a brocade robe, his hands behind his back, turning two iron balls in his right hand as he frowned in thought. Suddenly, he understood his master a little.
His master's talent, Daoist cultivation, and influence all ranked among the foremost in the mortal world. Had he devoted himself to the Righteous Path, both North and South should have revered him as "Sage Shang," and he would have become the eclectic Grandmaster who cultivated the arts of all Five Cults.
And had he devoted himself to the unorthodox Dao, the resources Dragonbone Shoal had accumulated over a century would have been enough to make the entire Righteous Path shudder if he staked everything on one great venture.
Yet his master insisted on being both righteous and unorthodox, pleasing neither side.
Misty-Wave City had done countless good deeds over the past century, and its public order could be described as a place where no one pocketed things lost on the road. But this was not what his master truly wanted; it was to leave the Righteous Path no grounds to punish him.
Yet to say his master secretly harbored sinister designs would not be right either. He had done nothing privately that outraged heaven and violated human decency. His personal life could even be called monotonous: aside from cultivating, he studied the arts of a hundred schools. He did not drink, go out, or play with women. He had only taught a disciple like Shang Mingzhen because his holdings were too vast and needed someone