The Crown Prince Zhao Xiang looked up the sky and sighed. He threw the precious sword in his hand to the floor and said, “Sir, I knew you before father did. Why do you do this?”
From the sound of dropped weapons, Zhao Xiang knew it was the end of his uprising.
Shen Lian lamented—if not because of him, there was no reason why Zhao Xiang would not succeed. At this point, the purple Qi of Zhao Xiang turned into a real dragon. While others could not see it, the dragon was baring its fangs and teeth towards him.
Shen Lian remained steady as he allowed the purple Qi to blast his body. He did not move an inch and the Qi dispersed.
Zhao Xiang felt something deep in his heart as the purple Qi dispersed. He looked like he was in a slump, like he lost something extremely important to him. He felt lost and he did not know what to do.
When Shen Lian saw it, he just shook his head slightly. This only happened because his personality did not stand strong. He took out an imperial seal from his sleeve, and suddenly there was the glitter of gold. It carried a heavy sense of authority.
Zhao Xun felt the imperial seal was unfamiliar but familiar at the same time. He felt like he had an unknown connection with the imperial seal.
The imperial seal flew off his hand and landed on Zhao Xun’s palm. At that moment, a warm stream entered Zhao Xun’s body. He felt energetic like he had an infinite amount of energy reserve. Zhao Xiang too observed that his old father suddenly became younger by ten plus years. His white hair had all turned to black.
Zhao Xiang carried a complicated look in his eyes as he saw his father regained youth. He felt even more depressed, as even if father did not kill him, he would be old by the time his father passed away.
Zhao Xun looked at Shen Lian and spoke with a deep voice, “Mister Shen, thank you.” His gratitude towards Shen Lian was sincere, and just like what Zhao Xiang said, in the beginning, he was surprised at how soon Shen Lian turned up. When Shen Lian answered later, he then knew Shen Lian had already predicted what the Crown Prince would do previously.
If he did not use the jade, perhaps Shen Lian would not appear. Ultimately, he decided to remain as the emperor. Shen Lian smiled, “Your Majesty, I’ve got all the insurgents under control. Your subordinates will be here soon. I shall say goodbye now.”
He wanted to leave as he was now done with his business. He did not intend to have any association with the royal family again.
In the royal family, the father and the son had doubts about each other, and it was hard to say who was right or wrong. It reminded him of a poem from his previous life, he read it out.
“The morals of three emperors and five kings, their fame were ranked Xia, then Shang and Zhou.
The five heroes had a battle, and Qin and Han exchanged their glory.
There were only several names that were recorded in history, but there were countless empty graveyards in the north.
To pursue a narrow gain while neglecting a greater danger, such is the way of a fight.”
The recital rang through the palace, and it described a bleak but dignified situation. Zhao Xun did not know the content of what Shen Lian had just said, but the words hit on his chest. It made him sad.
A white cloud was formed underneath Shen Lian’s feet. He flew to the sky by himself and he went quite a distance within the blink of an eye. He could not help but to feel envy.
His eyes fell on Zhao Xiang, the phrase ‘to pursue a narrow gain while neglecting a greater danger’ rang through his mind. It turned into a sigh, and there was a painful groan.
In the blink of an eye, the Crown Price Zhao Xiang had picked up the precious sword from the floor and committed suicide.
The coup d’etat within Dawei Dynasty was quickly pacified by the current emperor. Since then, Zhao Xun managed the country with intense focus. One should not mention that the imperial seal had caused another crisis. It was an after-story.
Shen Lian had not gone far enough with his cloud ride, and hence he knew about Zhao Xiang’s suicide, but he felt nothing.
The mortals could only live once, and the plants only through to autumn. Despite having the success of a king, people would just end up being dried up skeletons. He was able to not get too caught up with many things ever since he achieved Dao’s immortality.
It was not because he had cut out emotions and desires entirely, but that at this stage, even the same landscape would look different to him compared to the past.
An analogy was that the world looked different to a kid and to an adult. Both were from two different worlds and hence it was hard to just lump them together.
Shen Lian felt slightly lost now. To achieve Dao’s immortality was considered a great success, but for the next thousand and five hundred years, he had to go through three tragic trials. If he could not get passed them, immortality was just an empty talk.
If the immortal Zhenren had the trial of Dao, it was natural for a getaway to exist. However, other than some of the earth-shaking secret methods, others getaways could only be used to delay the time the trial arrived. There was no way one could avoid it entirely.
It would be fine if that was all. Now while Shen Lian had achieved the Dao of the Five Elements, but he had no idea what the next step was going to be. The Dao of the Five Elements was profound, and despite the fact that he could demystify all the techniques of immortal cultivators, but he only managed to scrape the surface of the Dao of the Five Elements. There were even more details to it, but he had to spend time discovering about it himself, and every new discovery would take a lot of time and effort.
It was no wonder that the celestials in the myths would decide to just retreat for up to a hundred years.
Shen Lian naturally did not have that much time to retreat and to understand Xuan, as ten years later it would be the time for the Bier Discourse of Dao.
He had a lot of thoughts in his mind as he rode the cloud. Nothing happened during the time.
This was because as he achieved immortality, he had an imposing aura which was let out slightly. The cultivating living creatures who detected it naturally stayed away. They dared not to get close.
He could keep the imposing aura under control, but Shen Lian was happy about it, just in case there was any issue.
The world was a huge place and there were a lot of cultivating living creatures. Some of the places had spirits of the masses who claimed to be the king of the mountain. They were tyrannical and they could not stand it if anyone flew past them.
Given that, there would definitely be issues.
Similar things happened frequently. Shen Lian could not be bothered to pretend he was not threatening, and hence he went by with his glory.
It had made a lot of cultivation living creatures to notice there was an immortal Zhenren passing by.
Shen Lian did not fly at full speed, and hence there were a few cultivators with spiritual wisdom who were following him with the intention to be his students along the way.
This was something common within the cultivation community of Yuan Continent. It was hard to find an authentic technique. The ways to achieve immortality were held by the four main Daoist sects. For the celestial sects, such as Green Lotus Sword Sect, Qingjiang Sword Sect which had produced immortal Zhenrens, while they had the authentic technique, it was too simplistic and was only suited to a small group of people.
For cultivators, a supreme technique was not even as precious as a suitable path to immortality.
Most cultivators did not know what was suitable for them.
Only deities who had the mental perception could easily tell the root of a living creature and hence give accurate advice.
In this world, for people to achieve Daoist immortality, compared to the vast number of cultivators, was a pitiful numbered few. Within Yuan Continent, there were only several tens of immortal Zhenrens whose names were known.
This was the accumulation of one to two thousand years.
One could imagine how difficult it was to achieve immortality.
While Shen Lian was not so stingy as to not spread Daoism to the boundless universe, but he would not simply teach others. It depended on whether there was destiny involved.
As he thought about it to pass time, he suddenly heard a phrase that went passed the wind and transmitted to his ears.
“Friend, please stay.”
