Hong Shengtin sat there in a daze for a long while before slowly coming back to himself. He did not believe Ji Yuan had deliberately tried to frighten him, because these were all facts. Once Ji Yuan had laid them out, Hong Shengtin cast a hexagram as instructed and could work it out with ease.
Moreover, Hong Shengtin could even imagine that even if he had always opposed Great Zhen holding its Fengshan ceremony at Tingqiu Mountain, nearly half of Tingqiu Mountain lay at the heart of Great Zhen's territory, with only a small part on the Tingliang Kingdom's border. So long as Great Zhen performed the Fengshan ceremony, Tingqiu Mountain would find it equally difficult to stay out of it.
Even taking ten thousand steps back, even if Tingqiu Mountain and he, Hong Shengtin, could truly remain uninvolved in Great Zhen's affairs, at his level of cultivation, he now vaguely sensed the shifts in Heaven's ordained fate. One day, there would be nowhere left for him to retreat.
"I understand!"
Ji Yuan said nothing more and gestured toward the other cup.
"Mountain God Hong, please drink some water."
Though it was merely a cup of plain boiled water, Hong Shengtin still lifted the tea cup and slowly drank it as though drinking tea.
Ji Yuan did not wish to say any more about the Fengshan ceremony or how Hong Shengtin ought to conduct himself. Since he understood, that was enough. As for what specifically to do, it was not Ji Yuan's place to teach him. As the great deity of Tingqiu Mountain, Hong Shengtin naturally had his own understanding.
Day by day, time passed, and the Great Zhen Emperor's party, accompanied by the civil and military officials, drew ever closer to Tingqiu Mountain.
Throughout history, Fengshan ceremonies, whether those