Chapter 2772: Insufficient fate

Wu Tianlin was so frightened by Wu Feiyan's gaze that he trembled all over. He hurriedly knelt on both knees and knocked his forehead heavily on the ground, saying in extreme horror, "Your servant deserves to die, I beg the Lord for forgiveness!"

Wu Feiyan snorted coldly and scolded, "From now on, if you dare to say one more word, just roll back to the ancestral tomb in Liaodong to fend for yourself!"

The Wu family's ancestral home was in Liaodong, where the Wu family's ancestral tomb was located.

However, for the Wu family members within the Routhless Society, once the Lord ordered them to guard the ancestral tomb in Liaodong, it was equivalent to being exiled to Ningguta during the Qing Dynasty. Once they went, they could only die there for the rest of their lives.

Wu Tianlin was terrified to the extreme. He slapped himself twice and kept kowtowing and crying, "Your servant deserves to die, your servant deserves to die! Thank you, Lord, for your great grace!"

Wu Feiyan didn't pay any more attention to him and said indifferently, "Get out, and arrange the things I told you!"

"Your servant obeys!" Wu Tianlin felt as if he had been granted amnesty. He kowtowed three more times and scrambled out of the door.

Wu Feiyan suddenly shouted, "Stop!"

Wu Tianlin felt a chill down his back. He hurriedly turned his head and asked tremblingly, "Lo... Lord... what... what other instructions do you have?"

Wu Feiyan asked him, "How are the three great elders?"

Wu Tianlin saw that Wu Feiyan wasn't pursuing him, and while feeling relieved, he said respectfully, "Back to the Lord, the three great elders are all waiting in the secret meeting hall."

Wu Feiyan frowned and asked him, "When I ordered you to turn back, did you notice any changes in the three of them?"

"This..." Wu Tianlin hesitated for a moment and said respectfully, "Back to the Lord, when you ordered the return, the three great elders all seemed somewhat displeased."

"Displeased?" Wu Feiyan sneered and said indifferently, "These three are dissatisfied that I interrupted their seclusion. It seems human nature is like this: if you give them a bowl of rice, they might not be very grateful to you, but if you want to take away the rice they've only half-eaten, they will hold a grudge against you instead."

Wu Tianlin asked cautiously, "Lord, what do you think should be done?"

Wu Feiyan said indifferently, "Reward! Naturally, they should be rewarded! In war, if you win, you reward; if you are tired, you reward; if you run for nothing, you reward even more!"

After saying this, she added, "However, the reward is not for now. Let them hang there and let them grumble in their hearts. Rewarding them directly will make them feel they deserved it anyway. It's better to let their own thoughts run wild, and when the time is right, make them feel ashamed of their previous grumbling."

Wu Tianlin was confused, but could only flatter her, "The Lord is wise, your servant is inferior!"

Wu Feiyan knew he was just flattering her, so she waved her hand impatiently, "Alright, go arrange a place for them to stay, and accompany them well for these few days. As for the rest, wait until I return."

Wu Tianlin said without hesitation, "Your servant obeys!"

After Wu Tianlin went out, Wu Feiyan paced to a world map projected onto the wall by a laser.

On the six-meter-high wall of the main hall, a world map six meters high and twelve meters wide was projected.

She looked at Myanmar on the map, looked at Yunnan bordering Myanmar, and looked at the Ten Thousand Great Mountains thousands of miles away from Yunnan, her thoughts flying.

She thought of her senior brother and her master.

Thinking of the Master's portrait being brought out by someone today to warn her, she couldn't help but whisper, "Master, it seems you really look down on me and Senior Brother. You didn't tell us the secret of longevity before you left. Even so, I have to learn the details of the secret of longevity from others three hundred years after your death. Am I, Wu Feiyan, really that unworthy of your eyes?!"

Thinking of this, Wu Feiyan's thoughts instantly returned to 1650, over three hundred years ago.

In the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, there was a forbidden area inaccessible to humans.

There had been no residents within a hundred miles here for several hundred years because of a bizarre miasma that had been lingering here. Anyone who entered would have headaches, nausea, and lose their way. No matter which way they walked, they would eventually circle back outside the miasma. Moreover, after inhaling the miasma, the headaches and nausea would last for months, causing extreme pain. There were also people who didn't know whether they were alive or dead who were determined to enter the interior of the miasma to find out, eventually dying inside.

Therefore, over time, the surrounding mountain people stayed away from here, regarding this place as an absolute forbidden area.

However, these mountain people didn't know that the center of this miasma was actually Meng Changsheng's cave for closed-door cultivation.

And those miasmas were nothing more than the formation he had set up around it to isolate the disturbances of mortals.

He was devoted to asking about the Dao, seeking only longevity, and had lived in the mountains for hundreds of years alone.

When Wu Feiyan and Lin Zhulu were chased by the Qing army to the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, they were at the end of their rope and plunged into the endless miasma.

If the Qing army hadn't set fire to the mountains and angered Meng Changsheng, he wouldn't have accidentally saved the two.

After Meng Changsheng saved the two, he learned that the outside world had undergone drastic changes. The Han dynasty had been overthrown by the Jurchen, which made him, also a Han, feel regret.

It was precisely because of this that he took

As for himself, he still could not let go of the desire for immortality and remained in the Ten Thousand Mountains to cultivate in seclusion.

At this time, Wu Feiyan's thoughts flew back to the year 1662.

At that time, she was still single-mindedly focused on working with her senior brother, Lin Zhulu, to exhaust her efforts for the anti-Qing cause until her dying day.

Together, they attempted to assassinate Wu Sangui, but they never imagined that Wu Sangui had also gathered many talented and extraordinary people around him. The assassination failed, and almost all the patriots who participated in the operation with them died in battle; it was only by fighting for their lives that she and her senior brother managed to carve out a bloody path to escape.

After the operation failed, both were exceptionally dejected. At that time, the Southern Ming Dynasty had also almost collapsed, and there was no longer a main force for the anti-Qing cause in the interior. Thus, Lin Zhulu proposed that they both go to Taiwan to seek refuge with the Lord of the State, Zheng Chenggong, hoping to follow him and continue their grand anti-Qing ambition.

The two of them went through untold hardships to escape from the layers of Qing army encirclements in southern Yunnan. Unfortunately, heaven did not grant their wish; before they had even completed half their journey, news of the Lord of the State's sudden passing reached the interior.

At that time, the Qing court wished the whole country could celebrate.

And she and Lin Zhulu were heartbroken at that very moment.

Both knew their strength was limited and they could not stop a chariot with their arms. Furthermore, the Qing army was hunting them everywhere. With no other choice, the two could only return to the Ten Thousand Mountains and once again seek refuge with Meng Changsheng.

But who could have imagined that Meng Changsheng had already reached his limit at that time.

Thinking of this, Wu Feiyan's thoughts fast-forwarded again, arriving at the spring of 1663.

The scene from that year surfaced in her mind once more.

She and her senior brother were meditating and breathing when Meng Changsheng, whose eyebrows and beard were already snow-white, came before them with a hunched posture and said calmly, "Zhulu, Feiyan, you two follow me inside."

The two only felt that their master was exceptionally tired today, but they did not notice anything amiss.

Thus, the two followed Meng Changsheng into his stone chamber.

Meng Changsheng pointed to the two meditation cushions in front of him and said to them, "Sit down!"

Seeing this, the two respectfully sat cross-legged before him.

Meng Changsheng then spoke, "Although my affinity with you is shallow, we have been master and disciple after all. You both harbor the grand anti-Qing cause, and as a fellow Han, I also hope you can persist in this grand cause and restore the Han empire as soon as possible..."

After speaking, he took two pills from his pocket, placed them on the stone table in front of them, and said faintly, "These two pills are the Eternal Evergreen Pills I once mentioned to you. Taking this pill can extend your lifespan to five hundred years. In five hundred years, the world will change. I hope that with these two pills, you can complete the grand anti-Qing cause."

Upon hearing that the pills before her were the Eternal Evergreen Pills capable of granting five hundred years of life, Wu Feiyan was instantly overcome with excitement and thanked him repeatedly, "Feiyan thanks you, Master! Rest assured, Master, Feiyan will definitely drive the Manchu Qing emperor back to Ningguta!"

Lin Zhulu looked at the two pills, then looked up at Meng Changsheng, asking with some nervousness, "Master, why do you wish to gift such precious pills to your disciples today?"

Meng Changsheng said calmly, "One thousand years seems long, but it is nothing more than the snap of a finger. So-called immortality, seen from today, is actually just forcibly stretching a normal life. It is like an ingot of gold; although it can be stretched into an extremely long gold thread, its essence is still just that ingot of gold."

Lin Zhulu said blankly, "Master, your disciple is dull and does not understand your meaning. I hope Master will clarify..."

Meng Changsheng said faintly, "Zhulu, I entered the Dao in middle age. Although I have lived for a thousand years, more than nine hundred years were spent in meditation and cultivation. If I hadn't met you, I wouldn't have known that the outside world had already undergone such great changes. Now that I think about it, although I have lived for a thousand years, the truly brilliant life was only a few decades. The remaining nine hundred years were dull and tasteless. Thinking about it now, it would have been better not to enter the Dao in the first place. I could have enjoyed the family happiness of having children and grandchildren..."

Lin Zhulu was even more confused and blurted out, "Master, you have cultivated for a thousand years to defy heaven and change your fate. If you succeed in ascending one day, wouldn't you truly have attained immortality?"

Meng Changsheng gave a miserable smile and sighed, "Defying heaven and changing fate... there is no such thing as defying heaven and changing fate; it is nothing more than a dream. Others' dreams end when they wake up, but for me, it is a thousand-year dream ending. A thousand-year dream, a dream of a thousand years. I am a fool!"

Lin Zhulu realized that his master's mood was different from usual and asked with concern, "Master, what is wrong with you today? Did you recall some sad event that makes you feel resentful?"

Meng Changsheng waved his hand and said faintly, "I have no sad events; I am just unwilling to accept that my time has come."

"Your time?!" Lin Zhulu and Wu Feiyan were both shocked.

Meng Changsheng said with a calm face, "My thousand-year limit has arrived. It is a pity that I have not solved the next riddle and cannot extend my life further. These two pills are a token of my affection for you before my time is up. After I am gone, you should take the pills, go down the mountain, and continue the anti-Qing cause!"

Lin Zhulu immediately shed tears and asked in disbelief, "Master, you are not joking, are you... Your strength is so great, how could you..."

Meng Changsheng gave a bitter smile, "No matter how strong, one cannot defeat the Heavenly Dao; one can only delay it for a while. It seems my Heavenly Dao will be these next two days."

Wu Feiyan, standing to the side, remembered something and quickly said, "Master, if your Heavenly Dao is approaching... then... then..."

Speaking to this point, Wu Feiyan suddenly began to stutter, unable to finish her sentence.

Meng Changsheng looked at Wu Feiyan and asked with a smile, "Feiyan, if you have something to say, feel free to speak."

Wu Feiyan pursed her lips and gathered her courage, "Master, if your Heavenly Dao is approaching, could you pass on all your lifelong learning, as well as the magic tools and pills you have cultivated throughout your life, to me and my senior brother? Otherwise, if you really... really pass away, wouldn't these treasures be wasted..."

Meng Changsheng looked at the two Eternal Evergreen Pills, then looked at Wu Feiyan, knowing what she was thinking. Wu Feiyan must have felt that since he had cultivated for a thousand years, the treasures in his hands must be countless, and it was impossible for there to be only two pills.

Before Meng Changsheng could speak, Lin Zhulu, standing to the side, sternly reprimanded, "Feiyan! What are you saying?! How can you speak to Master like that!"

"Zhulu, no need to say more." Meng Changsheng reached out to interrupt him, looked at Wu Feiyan, and said with a smile, "Feiyan, I do indeed have much lifelong learning and many precious magic tools, but I am not stingy in refusing to pass them to you. It is just that your destiny is not sufficient; you are not qualified to inherit and learn my lifelong knowledge."