Chapter 19: The Era That Belonged Solely to Him Had Begun

Looking at the skin card he had unlocked, Gu Jiangming only felt the burden on his shoulders grow heavier.

Because the tone he had initially set for 【Shushan】 was, to him, simply a pure player's mindset.

The name Shushan was prestigious and aligned with his own perception of cultivators, so he wanted to found the Shushan Sect.

But when he began trying to do such things in 【Mie Changsheng】.

His perspective changed.

It could not be said that his perspective changed, but rather that after the position he stood in became higher, the world he could see became much broader.

The Gu Jiangming of today saw a chaotic, orderless political situation; he saw some uncontrolled, low-intelligence demons wantonly slaughtering, and he also saw those human cultivators who were inactive, retreated in the face of disaster, and treated human life like blades of grass.

However.

This was not the full picture of this world.

Gu Jiangming also saw, at the other end, Xu Qingyun, who was following his master's orders, putting every word and action into his Dao heart, and never feeling a shred of doubt.

He saw his own wife, Jiu Jiu, who was of the Demon Race but had never harmed a single person.

He saw another group of cultivators who, upon encountering sudden changes in the human world, one after another decided to emerge from their hidden lives.

And especially the moment the 【Shushan Dao Venerable】 card was unlocked, Gu Jiangming knew what kind of person he should become in this Reincarnation.

A person who, at the very least, could live up to his own words and actions.

Seeing this.

Gu Jiangming believed his 【Shushan Dao Venerable】 should not be shackled.

This was not only because Gu Jiangming was unwilling to be bound by worldly conventions, but also because the 'Gu Jiangming' who had experienced so many things in the Reincarnation should not easily compromise his temper to others.

A person who had his own Dao and his own values, how could he change his original intention because of the words and actions of others?

And the important part that made up the 【Shushan Dao Venerable】 before his eyes was every person Gu Jiangming had met along this journey.

The burden and pressure on his shoulders were every decision he had made at the beginning, and these decisions had all evolved into the current trajectory.

But would you say Gu Jiangming regretted it?

No regrets.

Because these decisions were all things Gu Jiangming himself wanted to do in his heart.

"In life, be a hero among men; in death, be a hero among ghosts."

"If a great man walks through this world and does not seek a magnificent and hearty life with integrity, would that not be a pity?"

The realism of the screen and the vivid trends had already allowed Gu Jiangming to immerse himself in it.

【After subduing Jia Zhi into the Hundred Demon Manual, your cultivation and understanding of Daoist arts have entered a new realm once again.】

【The Hundred Demon Manual has a natural dissolving effect on demons with evil natures, but strangely, as Jia Zhi stated, it possesses no good or evil karma, which instead prevented Jia Zhi from being suppressed by the Hundred Demon Manual.】

【The Hundred Demon Manual gradually formed an invisible contract with demons like Jia Zhi; although such demons that do not touch karma are suppressed by the Hundred Demon Manual, they can freely enter and exit the manual in their daily lives, and as long as they do not leave a radius of five kilometers, the demon creatures in the manual can travel freely.】

【And at the Yao Lord's command, the speed at which the Hundred Demons Night Parade invaded the world became increasingly swift.】

【Regrettably, the pattern of the Hundred Demons Night Parade was ultimately repelled by the powerful foundation accumulated by the Human Race cultivators.】

【In this year, Gu Jiangming walked to the highest point of his cultivation career through this catastrophe; an era belonging solely to him, belonging solely to Shushan, finally began.】

【Cultivation is merely a tool to realize one's ideals.】

【What he wants to be is a cultivator who possesses sufficiently powerful strength to benefit the world and protect all people.】

【And Gu Jiangming was also surprised to find that in the chaotic situation of the Hundred Demons Night Parade, the Demon Race did not dispatch any demons born from ancient times; the main combat power was still those demon-named Great Demons—some newly born, simple-minded, possessing only the desire to kill, and not even worthy of being called demons—demon-strange evil thoughts.】

【The Drought Demon that appeared in Guanzhong that year and even triggered a drought, was like a re-slumber after waking, and soon disappeared into nothingness.】

【You buried all these doubts in your heart, devoting yourself to managing the Shushan you founded.】

【Year after year, you put action into your ideals and the name of Shushan.】

【The seventh year of Shenhe, the seventh year after the new emperor of Northern Wei ascended the throne, and also the second era name after Tianming.】

【The Northern Wei Imperial Court where you are located gradually lost the hearts of the people after experiencing the turmoil of the Hundred Demons Night Parade.】

【However, the Northern Wei Imperial Court still attempted to put up a desperate fight; they offered heavy rewards, recruited cultivators widely, did not stick to their origins, and attempted to suppress these senseless rioters through power that transcended mortals.】

【Regrettably, it seemed there was an invisible force in the world guiding this step-by-step progression; the Northern Wei Imperial Court, which thought it had the help of cultivators, ultimately perished.】

【And those cultivators who had helped the Northern Wei Imperial Court also mostly suffered backlash; either their cultivation was difficult to improve, or they suffered from serious illnesses.】

【You fell into deep thought about this phenomenon; you once thought this was the Heaven and Earth trend guided by the dynastic cycle, that it was the trend of Heaven and Earth that the Northern Wei Imperial Court should perish, so the Northern Wei Imperial Court perished.】

【This was the so-called mandate of the state.】

【It was likely the intolerance of Heaven and Earth that forced the Northern Wei Imperial Court to perish.】

【But you quickly overturned this thought, because Heaven and Earth would not care about the revival or destruction of a dynasty.】

【The destruction of Northern Wei was more like the trend of the ten thousand people; it was the will of the ten thousand people gathered together.】

【Those who follow the Dao have much help, those who lose the Dao have little help; without the trend of the ten thousand people, a country loses its foundation, and the national fortune perishes because of it.】

【This was your conjecture, which had not been truly verified.】

【And after the Northern Wei Imperial Court perished, a new dynasty—the Great Jing—appeared in this human world.】

【This year, your Shushan welcomed a large number of disciples.】

【The sect was flourishing, right before your eyes.】

【Your wife, Yin Jiujiu, under your strenuous persuasion over the years, finally lived on Shushan with a sense of insecurity.】

【And you also received good news, which was that at the time of your parting that year, Jiu Jiu was already pregnant with your child.】

【But because of her demon body, your daughter, Gu Mingyue, although she had been around for some years, still looked like a child of six or seven.】

【After the long-awaited reunion, you and your wife, Jiu Jiu, had a heart-to-heart talk, watching the bright moon in the sky together.】

【Another month passed, and your personal disciple, Xu Qingyun, managed the entire Shushan in an orderly fashion; the entire Shushan presented a prosperous appearance.】

【Absence makes the heart grow fonder; your relationship with Jiu Jiu became increasingly deep.】

【And in these few years of cultivating on Shushan, you felt that you were getting closer and closer to comprehending the Great Dao.】

【You customized a systematic set of cultivation realms for the disciples of Mount Shu, making it easier for them to perceive the distinctions in their cultivation strength more clearly.】

【Within this set of cultivation realms, you have stood almost at the very pinnacle, yet you always feel something is missing.】

【In the seventh year of the Great Jing Gongwei era, a great flood occurred in Chuanshu; after descending Mount Shu, you built water conservancy projects in Leshan, using your entire body's spiritual energy to outline a dragon-like, heaven-supporting divine manifestation to suppress the flooding in this region.】

【You felt the Merit surging from within your body and slowly realized that the missing piece you sought seemed to be right before your eyes.】

【But what was worse was that even though you had reached a height unattainable by contemporary cultivators, you still could not stop the speed at which your lifespan was slipping away.】

【However, you did not inform others of the true state of your body, and continued to teach the Dao you had practiced your entire life to the disciples in the hall through both words and deeds.】

【In the twelfth year of the Great Jing Gongwei era, you picked up your Hundred Demon Manual and revealed a smile filled with mixed emotions; this Hundred Demon Manual was already full of the names of demons, and the paper slips acted as seniors, pointing fingers at the later demons.】

【Yet, most of these demons capable of entering the Hundred Demon Manual were actually mischievous in nature; although they did no evil, they loved to terrify the people of the world.】

【If they had truly committed acts that violated the taboos of karma, they would have long since been beaten into scattered souls by the Daoist arts of Gu Jiangming.】

【They were very annoyed at having been captured into the painting by Gu Jiangming, and seeing Jiu Jiu, who was not bound, made them even more filled with righteous indignation.】

【Jiu Jiu had also advised you many times to release these demons, and she was willing to guarantee that these demons would no longer plague the region.】

【She insisted that there are good people among humans, and there are also good demons among demons; since these demons on the Hundred Demon Manual had not been stained by any karma and had not been dissolved by the Hundred Demon Manual, there was no need to forcibly restrict their freedom.】

【"Go now, and do not plague the world any longer."】

【From the moment Gu Jiangming married Jiu Jiu, the boundary between demons and humans had actually ceased to be important.】

【Just as that sentence Jiu Jiu said, there are good people among humans, and naturally there are good demons among demons.】

【Gu Jiangming's life had once been saved by Jiu Jiu, and Jiu Jiu had raised children for him; this karma had already become intertwined.】

【In the seventeenth year of the Great Jing Gongwei era, you comprehended a new Daoist art, while Jiu Jiu seemed to notice that your energy was slowly declining, and she became increasingly nervous about your condition.】

【You merely smiled, raised your cup to drink, and said no more.】

【In the twentieth year of the Great Jing Gongwei era, countless crowds gathered at the foot of Mount Shu; such a large number of people were mostly cultivators who had come from all over, drawn by your reputation.】

【These people insisted on ascending Mount Shu to meet the Mount Shu Dao Venerable, the Real Person Gu Jiangming.】

【And at this moment, Mount Shu already stood proudly in the world, the only one of its kind in this Heaven and Earth, and even more so, the world-renowned number one Daoist sect.】

At this moment.

In Jiu Jiu's heart, a bad premonition had slowly begun to form.

With this group of people making such a big fuss to come knocking, what good could they possibly have?

Watching the scene, Jiu Jiu became nervous in a way she hadn't been for a long time.

This kind of emotion should not have appeared in her.

But by now, she was finding it increasingly easy to be distracted by it.

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Dong dong dong! Kowtowing!

(End of this chapter)