Fine — however much he enjoyed savoring a fresh CG, now was not the time to sit back and admire one.
Because the elders of every peak of the Hunyuan Sect, up to and including the Sect Head himself, had already been roused.
The special effects of thirty thousand li of purple qi rolling in from the east hadn't even finished dispersing before several sky-splitting shrieks cracked open one after another over the rear mountain.
The unnamed old man's soul snapped back into his body at a speed that did full justice to his reputation as a devious old fox.
One instant he was standing frozen below the terrace, wine sloshing out of the bowl in his hand and soaking half his robe without his noticing. The next, he had crossed the distance in two bounds, sprung up onto the Chengyuan Terrace, clamped a hand down hard on Gu Chengming's shoulder, and delivered his line practically before anyone else could draw breath.
"This old man brought him here!"
Hua Daiyi turned to face the direction of the main peak, where the newcomers were descending, and bellowed in a voice like a great bronze bell, lungs full and steady:
"The Yuanzhu recognizes the person, not the sect — this is the iron law laid down by the founding patriarch of the Hunyuan Sect! As an elder of this sect, I followed the ancient institution and recommended an outstanding talent of another sect for the trial of the Chengyuan Terrace. It accords with the rules and it has the backing of law!"
Gu Chengming silently gave Martial Uncle Hua a thumbs-up. Your reflexes really are something, old man.
Song Heng, Sect Head of the Hunyuan Sect, stood at the front with his hands behind his back, seven or eight peak elders crowding in behind him, every face grave as still water.
A celestial upheaval, purple qi from the east, ancient bells tolling in unison — any era would have called that a grand spectacle. And the pillar of light that had punched into the heavens had come straight up off the Chengyuan Terrace.
But when every gaze landed at once on Gu Chengming standing on the terrace, and on the Yuanzhu he had lifted, the whole place went quiet.
Sect Head Song Heng was silent a long while before he finally spoke. "…Elder Hua. What was it you just said?"
"Reporting to the Sect Head, this old man followed ancestral institution and recommended—"
"I heard that half." Song Heng raised a hand and cut the replay short with clean efficiency. "What is going on with the Yuanzhu?"
Gu Chengming quietly set the Yuanzhu back down on the terrace.
It landed with a dull thud, and the instant it settled, the last of its luster went out entirely. The whole pillar had gone ashen and dead, for all the world like something that had been drained dry.
Beside him, Hua Daiyi coughed hard and, jaw set, waded in to smooth things over on Gu Chengming's behalf. "The Yuanzhu's disturbance was likely caused by the Chengyuan Trial triggering some ancient ward. The precise cause will require investigation. What matters more at present—"
The unnamed old man pivoted mid-sentence. "By the ancient precepts of the Huntian Sect, whoever lifts the Yuanzhu clear of the terrace shall be invested as Holy Son of the sect. Honored colleagues, the celestial phenomenon just now was witnessed by the entire sect, high and low. It cannot be faked!"
The moment the words were out, the faces of the assembled elders became a study in shifting color.
In all fairness, the bare fact that Gu Chengming had lifted the Yuanzhu wasn't in itself open to objection.
The Chengyuan Terrace was hardly a forbidden ground of the Hunyuan Sect. Across the dynasties, outside-sect body cultivators had come to test themselves against it in numbers that two hands couldn't count.
And Hua Daiyi, an elder with genuine authority, bringing a junior along to try his hand was well within the rules.
The problem was that he had actually lifted the thing… which changed the nature of the matter entirely.
If "Holy Son" were nothing more than a nice-sounding title, everyone in the Hunyuan Sect would have been delighted.
Gu Chengming's name as a prodigy rang throughout the Great Qian. Hanging an honorary Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect around his neck would amount to picking up a future top-tier cultivator of the Great Qian for free — a trade with all profit and no risk.
The trouble was that the ancient precepts of the Chengyuan Trial recorded, in explicit terms, that the Holy Son held real power.
Standing equal to the senior elders. Free to intervene openly in the sect's internal affairs. Free to requisition manpower, materials and resources at will.
That was tantamount to carving a fat slab of meat straight out of the rice bowls of every elder present — and handing it to an outsider from the Wenjian Sect, no less. Put that on anyone and who could stomach it?
Sure enough, the first to leap out and open the assault was that lean, spare-framed Elder Feng.
Elder Feng's seniority within the Hunyuan Sect ran deep. He held the authority over the bulk of the sect's spirit-material allocation as well as disciple evaluations — a mainstay of the faction that actually wielded power.
His opposition wasn't wholly without logic, either, and his calculation was straightforward enough. With the Hunyuan Sect's seal still unstable and the hidden threat of the Dao Plague not yet fully rooted out, the sect was in a season of troubles.
At a juncture like this, an outside-sect disciple suddenly airdropped in as Holy Son — and a Holy Son with real power to intervene directly in internal governance, at that — wasn't that pouring oil on an already chaotic fire?
What was more, the Yuanzhu's current state was plainly wrong. The inscriptions had gone entirely black. Look at it from any angle and it didn't resemble a normal passing of the "Chengyuan Trial."
What if the boy had used some heterodox trick that couldn't bear daylight?
Elder Feng cleared his throat and opened his attack, unhurried.
"Elder Hua."
He didn't aim at Gu Chengming at all, but went straight at Hua Daiyi. "The Chengyuan Terrace is a critical site of this sect. Without joint authorization from the Sect Head and no fewer than three elders, no one may bring an outside-sect cultivator in on his own initiative. May I ask, Elder Hua — when you brought this person in, did you go through the procedure? Did you obtain authorization?"
Hua Daiyi's brows shot up. "Elder Feng, you said it yourself — joint authorization. But the Chengyuan Terrace has always been open to outsiders. Generation after generation of outside-sect body cultivators have come to challenge it. When has anyone ever needed some joint—"
"Those were cases of failure."
Elder Feng cut him off without ceremony. "Since no one ever succeeded, naturally there was never any dispute. But the situation now is different. The Yuanzhu was lifted, the heavens changed, the entire sect was shaken. Retroactively verifying procedural legitimacy is both reasonable and proper."
With that he turned to face Sect Head Song Heng and cupped his hands in salute. "Sect Head, per Article Thirty-Seven of the sect code, any matter involving a major change to the sect's inheritance must be put to a vote of the Elder Council before it can take effect. The matter of the Yuanzhu concerns the exalted seat of Holy Son. It ought to proceed through formal deliberation — not be settled in the dead of night on the rear mountain by a single elder banging the gavel on his own."
Hua Daiyi's face went iron-dark, and fury tipped over into laughter. "You're twisting words to fit your—"
"Elder Hua." Elder Feng's tone remained perfectly level. "I am merely addressing the matter as it stands. You brought an outsider into the rear mountain in the dead of night and opened the Chengyuan Terrace without leave. Whatever the final outcome, the procedure is genuinely flawed. If this isn't clarified, where will the sect's authority stand hereafter?"
There was no denying it: the hat Elder Feng had pinned on him was backed by reason, tightly argued, with no loose thread anyone could pick at on short notice.
Gu Chengming stood off to one side with his hands behind his back, listening quietly, his own feelings on the matter distinctly complicated.
—Elder Feng, you pin hats on people fast, and you pin them accurately.
Anyone who didn't know better would think you were the one who'd just unlocked the hat-pinning CG.
Walled in from every side by the grand formation of sect regulations Elder Feng had trotted out, Hua Daiyi's old face flushed crimson. He looked one breath away from erupting.
Another elder beside him — the burly Elder Zhao — spotted the opening and stepped out at once to second the motion.
"Elder Feng speaks sense! The rules of the Chengyuan Trial are dead letters, but the order of a sect is a living thing. Young friend Gu's talent is outstanding, no question. But in the end he is a Third Realm disciple of the Wenjian Sect. Letting him come to our Hunyuan Sect as Holy Son and meddle in internal affairs — set aside our own side for a moment, I doubt the Wenjian Sect would be pleased either."
Don't be so sure, Gu Chengming thought. Master might actually be quite pleased to hear it.
Though Sect Leader Shen would probably nurse a headache over it for a good while.
In no time, voices backing a procedural inquiry rose from every direction.
One mouth was never going to out-argue seven or eight, and the veins at Hua Daiyi's temple began to jump. He was close to going off entirely.
Sect Head Song Heng still hadn't moved from where he stood, hands clasped behind his back, saying nothing at all — only his brows drew tighter and tighter.
The two sides went at each other, spittle flying, for a solid quarter-hour, turning over the same handful of arguments again and again.
Hua Daiyi insisted the founding precepts outranked all sect regulations; Elder Feng and his allies clamped down on the principle that procedural justice could not be discarded. And just as the quarrel reached white heat, the detailed information panel for that new CG finally unfurled, complete, across Gu Chengming's vision.
[CG / Weaving a Thousand Warm Hats With You]
(Weaving a Thousand Warm Hats With You: catalyzed and evolved after the Free and Unfettered Art drew in the ancient power of the Yuanzhu; Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method and the Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula convene court in partnership. Effect: pulls the target into a brief illusory realm, the "Hat Tribunal." The two incarnate judges will, each according to her own principles, appraise the target's crimes one by one. For every count that passes judgment, a hat is woven and placed upon the target's head by hand, concluding with profound chastisement administered via a "brass-buckled belt." After leaving the illusion, the target will retain no memory of the specifics, but repentance and reverence will remain permanently. Elapsed time in the outside world: a single breath.)
(Annotation: Young friend, the sky is clear and the air is fine today — a perfect day to sit down with you and weave a few hats for those who have lost their way.)
Gu Chengming stared at the frankly outrageous description on the panel, his expression growing more complicated by the second.
—Damn it, this is Infinite Tsukuyomi, brass-buckled belt edition?!
And in a situation where everyone present was flinging hats at everyone else, the effect seemed absurdly on-topic.
He let out a slow breath of stale air and finally broke his own silence.
"Honored seniors."
Gu Chengming's clear voice wasn't loud, but it pressed down over the clamor with perfect steadiness.
The area went quiet in an instant. Every gaze converged on him.
"This junior has a few questions he would like to put to Elder Feng."
Elder Feng's eyes narrowed slightly, gaze turning keen. "Speak, young friend Gu."
Gu Chengming took a step forward. "Elder Feng said just now that the procedure of the Chengyuan Trial was flawed. This junior would like to ask: when the founding patriarch of the Huntian Sect left behind the Chengyuan Trial, did he write into the ancient precepts, in plain words, that entry required the joint authorization of the elders?"
Elder Feng had no answer.
Naturally, no such bureaucratic clause existed in the ancient precepts. The original text of the Chengyuan Trial stated in black and white: "Whoever comes hither may attempt it," setting no threshold whatsoever. The so-called authorization was nothing but a regulatory patch later generations had slapped on to manage a restricted site — aimed at venue administration, not at the trial itself.
"Ancient precepts and sect regulations run in parallel without contradiction—" Elder Feng tried to talk his way around the trap.
"Then this junior asks again." Gu Chengming's pace stayed even even as he pressed in step by step, giving the other man no room to breathe or regroup. "Elder Feng says the Yuanzhu is damaged, and suspects irregular methods were the cause. May I ask, Elder Feng — have you ever seen with your own eyes what a normal passing of the Chengyuan Trial looks like?"
"…No one has passed since the sect's founding, so naturally there is no point of reference."
"Then if there is no point of reference, on what grounds does Elder Feng declare, flatly, that damage to the Yuanzhu is 'irregular'?"
Elder Feng's face changed color, his brows knotting. "This—"
"And one more thing." Gu Chengming advanced another step, driving his gaze straight into Elder Feng's eyes, and demanded in a ringing voice:
"Elder Feng, you insist over and over that an outside-sect cultivator is unfit to be Holy Son of the Hunyuan Sect. Then why has the Hunyuan Sect kept the Chengyuan Terrace open to outsiders, publicly and loudly, for a thousand years?"
The moment the words landed, his presence surged to its peak.
And at the same instant, the effect of [Group CG / Weaving a Thousand Warm Hats With You] detonated.
The world spun before Elder Feng's eyes, heaven and earth turning upside down.
When his vision refocused, the Sect Head was gone. His colleagues from the council hall were gone.
In their place was a dim, cramped chamber. Across the center of it lay a long wooden bench of a desk, and behind that desk sat two figures of wildly different styles.
On the left was a girl in blue-green robes, upright and proper in bearing, bamboo slips at her waist, her cool clear eyes studying him in silence, her whole person radiating a Righteous Noble Breath that made petty schemers shiver.
On the right sat a woman with her collar hanging loose, one leg crossed over the other, idly swinging half a flask of strong liquor in one hand as she tilted her head and looked him over — thoroughly casual, thoroughly bold.
Scattered across the grey brick floor in front of the desk was a heap of blank little skullcaps.
Before Elder Feng could ask what manner of illusion this was, the girl in blue-green had already unrolled the bamboo slips before her.
"Elder surnamed Feng."
The voice of Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method came neither fast nor slow, like a morning bell and an evening drum.
"The Chengyuan Trial is a testament left by the founding patriarch of the Huntian Sect. Its Station stands above the sect regulations of later generations. That you obstructed the execution of an ancient institution by invoking clauses appended by later generations constitutes an inferior transgressing against a superior, and a usurpation of proper rites."
With that, she raised a hand, picked up a blank hat from the desk, and made a small gesture with it toward Elder Feng.
The instant she finished speaking, four thick, ink-black characters surfaced across the hat's face — USURPING THE ANCIENT INSTITUTION.
Elder Feng simply froze where he stood.
"Wait — hold on! When did this old man ever usurp—"
Fwap. The hat was already seated firmly on his head.
He reached up to pull it off. The thing didn't budge a hair, as if it had grown roots into his scalp.
"You—"
On the right, the Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula gave her flask a shake.
"The sect's seal has been degrading for decades. Elder Feng, you hold the authority over spirit-material allocation, and you never added so much as a copper's worth of funding for the seal's wear and tear, leaving repairs shelved for years on end. The Dao Plague leaked out. You cannot shirk the blame."
She likewise plucked up a blank hat. "Dereliction of duty and slacking on the job."
Golden light flashed across the hat's surface, and four large characters appeared: HOLDING OFFICE AND EATING IDLY.
"Absurd! When did this old man ever, regarding the seal—" Elder Feng's beard bristled, his eyes bulged, and he prepared to rebut with chapter and verse.
Fwap. The second hat went on.
Two hats stacked together, tilted crookedly, ridiculous as the clown on a stage.
"Just who in the heavens are you two? Are you listening to a single word this old man says?"
Both judges lifted their heads and looked at him in unison. Then both lowered their heads in unison and went on leafing through the bamboo slips.
"Count three." Zhouli turned to the next page. "Elder Feng opposes an outside-sect cultivator taking the position of Holy Son, ostensibly citing sect regulations, but in truth defending his own monopoly over the domain of spirit-material allocation. This constitutes exploiting public office for private gain."
"Count four." The Wine-Sword Formula picked up the thread without a hitch, the two of them in flawless rhythm. "Elder Feng coerced his colleagues in the Elder Council into joint opposition, using numbers to bully the few and squeezing out those who disagree with him."
She held up a hat, tilted her head, and gave the question of wording a few seconds of serious thought before sweeping her hand across it.
"Factionalism for private gain — anti-cultivator element!"
Elder Feng's eyes went perfectly round. "What in the world is an 'anti-cultivator element'? Since when is that a crime in the cultivation world?"
Fwap. The third hat went on. Three hats now stacked into a swaying pagoda.
"No — hold on, the two of you—"
"Count five."
"Could you at least let this old man finish a sentence—"
"In a season when the sect's survival hangs in the balance, Elder Feng gave no thought to resolving the scourge of the Dao Plague, and instead spent his energy scrambling for power and profit." Zhouli closed the bamboo slips, her tone grave as iron. "This constitutes disregard for the greater good."
The Wine-Sword Formula followed straight on, flicking her wrist. "Big bully!"
Elder Feng's mouth opened and shut, shut and opened, exactly like a bighead carp gasping in an airless tank.
"Big bully? How did this old man become a big bully? That hat is being pinned on rather carelessly, wouldn't you say?"
No one paid his protest any mind.
The two judges had already risen from behind the desk, each drawing out a brass-buckled belt that glinted with a dim, cold light.
Elder Feng's pupils shrank, and his voice cracked. "You — what do the two of you intend to do?"
Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method inclined her head slightly, her manner still upright and proper. "Carry out the sentence per the code."
The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula tipped her head back, took a hard pull of liquor, wiped the trickle from the corner of her mouth, and smiled with sunny brilliance. "Relax, old-timer. It'll be quick."
The next moment, Elder Feng's body was bound to a pillar.
The crackling smack of brass-buckled leather against flesh and Elder Feng's screams went on without pause.
Meanwhile, on the Chengyuan Terrace.
To everyone watching, the span between Gu Chengming's ringing challenge and Elder Feng's reaction lasted no more than a single breath.
But in that one short breath, Elder Feng's body went rigid.
His eyes emptied and unfocused, his lips moved faintly as though he were mouthing something without sound, and he looked for all the world like a man whose three souls and seven spirits had been yanked out on the spot.
Elder Zhao, seated nearby, noticed something was off and was about to call out to him.
Elder Feng came back to himself.
But the entire color of his face had changed.
The assured, unhurried, world-directing air he'd worn before was utterly gone. In its place was a guilt he couldn't have named if pressed, written across every inch of him.
His neck retracted into his shoulders of its own accord, and one hand went furtively up to pat the top of his head — the motion as shifty as a petty thief fresh from stealing a chicken — as if checking whether anything had appeared up there that shouldn't be.
Stranger still was his back. Wave after wave of heat rolled along Elder Feng's spine, as though something heavy had thrashed him a few thousand times, solidly and thoroughly. There was no pain at all, and yet the concrete sense of having been beaten was clear beyond all reason.
He couldn't remember what had happened in that instant, yet he was groundlessly, absolutely convinced that he had just done something wrong — and he badly, badly wanted to confess it.
"Elder Feng?" Elder Zhao lowered his voice. "What's the matter with you?"
Elder Feng's mouth opened. The fourth line of objection he'd already drafted in his gut lodged solid in his throat, and not a single word would come out.
"…It's nothing." Two dry words, and then he dropped back into his chair and said no more.
Elder Zhao's brows knotted. Instinct told him old Feng's state was deeply suspicious.
But before he could think it through, Gu Chengming's gaze slid over onto him.
"Elder Zhao."
Gu Chengming's tone stayed level as he pressed on. "Elder Zhao said a moment ago that conferring the position of Holy Son upon this junior would affect relations between our two sects. This junior would like to ask — when this junior risked his life to go deep into the old pavilion, brought out Senior Shen Yuanbai's seal records, and cut down the fiend with a single sword to save dozens of Hunyuan Sect disciples, were those acts also 'affecting relations between our two sects'?"
At those words, something jolted through Elder Zhao.
The treatment Elder Zhao received upon dropping into the illusion was cut from precisely the same cloth as Elder Feng's.
The only difference was that, since his crimes were so blindingly obvious, the two judges simply maxed out their case-processing efficiency.
Zhouli swept a glance over the bamboo slips and ruled on the spot: "To receive a great kindness from another and, rather than seeking to repay it, to obstruct him instead. This constitutes ingratitude and betrayal!"
Hat pinned on.
The Wine-Sword Formula didn't even leave her chair, just tossed one over. "Repays a life-risking rescue by an outside-sect disciple with hostility. A pure, unadulterated white-eyed wolf."
Another hat pinned on.
Elder Zhao's head was full of paste as he desperately tried to assemble words. "Would the two of you at least permit this old man—"
"Carry out the sentence."
The brass-buckled belt came howling down through the air.
In the council hall, Elder Zhao likewise went briefly blank, soul adrift.
When his wits returned to their proper seat, this broad, heavy Fourth Realm body-cultivator expert found his back scorching hot, and both of his legs faintly weak beneath him.
With no memory of the illusion left to him, shame surged up out of his chest, and something like fear entered the way he looked at Gu Chengming.
But he himself had no idea why he was afraid… Elder Zhao swallowed, sat obediently back down, kept his eyes on the tip of his nose and his mind on his own heart, and shut his mouth completely.
At that point the elders who hadn't been touched finally caught the scent of something wrong and began exchanging glances.
First old Feng, deflated by a single counter-question. Now old Zhao in the exact same state.
The two of them had come down with it identically: the blank spell, the guilt, the neck pulling in, the hand groping at the back, the collective silence.
"Has old Feng been possessed?" muttered an elder seated at the far end, keeping his voice low. "One question from a Third Realm junior and he caves?"
"Old Zhao too. On any ordinary day his voice is louder than anyone's. Today he looks like an eggplant hit by frost."
Gu Chengming, however, gave them no great stretch of time to discuss the case.
He shifted slightly and trained himself on the third elder who had spoken out of turn — the one who had declared, with total conviction, that there was "clearly something wrong" with the Yuanzhu.
"Senior."
"This junior would ask: you say again and again that the Yuanzhu's uprooting was likely due to irregular methods. May I ask whether you have personally examined the Yuanzhu? Is there so much as a shred of hard evidence supporting your loose talk?"
This time, the process inside the illusion was short and brutal in the extreme.
Zhouli couldn't be bothered to open the bamboo slips at all, and stated coldly, "Without proof or evidence, fabricating from thin air, slandering a fellow of the Dao."
Hat issued.
The Wine-Sword Formula let out a long yawn. "Spreading rumors and stirring up trouble. Obviously a spy sent by the Eternal Life Sect."
"A spy? What spy? This old man has bled for the sect — how am I suddenly a spy—"
Hat pinned on.
"Carry out the sentence per the code."
The brass-buckled belt bloomed for the third time.
In the council hall, the third elder followed his two predecessors at the speed of light: a blank spell, and then total, wilted collapse.
At that point the remaining elders truly could not sit still.
One, even two, could just barely be explained away as guilty consciences. But three elders, called out and questioned by Gu Chengming one after another, all wearing the identical expression?
The blank spell, the guilt, the collective withdrawal. There was no such coincidence under heaven.
Several of the older elders traded a quick round of looks.
Among them, a white-haired, white-bearded Elder Qian narrowed his aged eyes, letting his gaze sweep repeatedly over Gu Chengming, his expression thoughtful.
"A blow to the head, a shout to wake the sleeper…?" he murmured under his breath.
The elder beside him didn't catch it clearly. "Senior Brother Qian, what did you just say?"
Elder Qian gave a small shake of his head and offered no answer.
But in his mind, an astonishing conjecture had already worked itself out.
Besides leaving behind the test of the Chengyuan Trial, the founding patriarch of the Huntian Sect was said to have created a rather peculiar secret art of edification, used specifically for rectifying the conduct of the sect.
That art harmed no one's foundation and destroyed no one's cultivation, yet it could make a man feel remorse rise from his very bones.
The sect's ancient texts recorded it in a mere eight characters: "One shout from the patriarch, and a hundred evils know shame."
Could this Gu prodigy standing before them possibly be…
Elder Qian took another long, deep look at Gu Chengming, and the reverence in his eyes was now that of a man beholding the founding patriarch reincarnated.
Able to pull the Yuanzhu up by the roots, able to summon an ancient secret art at a casual thought — there was every chance he really was the true-transmission head disciple designated by the patriarch across the generations!
Gu Chengming, naturally, had no idea that in the eyes of this crowd of old men he had already been mentally promoted to personally-transmitted heir of the Huntian Sect's founding patriarch.
He was only running a quiet tally of the current situation.
The three loudest troublemakers had all gone mute, and the attitudes of the remaining elders were visibly wavering.
The elders who hadn't been named each had their own private abacus clicking away.
—The fate of the opposition was laid out in plain sight. What if one hardened one's skull and jumped out, only to be questioned in public by the boy and then, for no reason anyone could explain, turn into another guilt-ridden, thoroughly-thrashed quail?
With bones this old, a man couldn't gamble that much face.
Sect Head Song Heng sat as steady as a man on his fishing platform, taking in the myriad mortal forms arrayed below him.
He too had no idea what divine ability Gu Chengming had actually deployed, but he had seen this much clearly: the opposition from Elder Feng, Elder Zhao and the rest had gone out entirely, and they had gone quiet willingly, with not the faintest trace of anyone having been coerced by force. That was extremely interesting.
"Honored colleagues." Song Heng spoke at the appropriate moment, his tone steady as a mountain. "Regarding the position of Holy Son — does anyone else have a lofty opinion to offer?"
The whole hall was silent as a graveyard.
Elder Feng kept his head down, staring hard at his own knees. Elder Zhao's right hand rubbed absently back and forth across his back. The third elder held his teacup with a bloodless face, tea slopping all over the desk before him without his noticing.
Song Heng looked around the circle and nodded, satisfied.
"Since there are no objections—"
"Elder Hua." He turned to Hua Daiyi in the lowest seat, his tone switching back to official, businesslike authority. "By the ancient precepts of the Huntian Sect, whoever passes the Chengyuan Trial is invested as Holy Son at once. You will read out the original text of the ancient institution."
Hua Daiyi shot up off the ground so fast he nearly flung the wine flask out of his hand.
"Right away!"
The unnamed old man cleared his throat and began reciting the original text of the Huntian Sect's ancient precepts at full, resonant volume — and the smug delight of a petty man come into his hour was so thick in that soaring voice that no amount of effort could have hidden it.
Gu Chengming stood with his hands behind his back, serene as drifting cloud and light wind.
Inside his Sea of Consciousness, however, the cultivation methods' group chat had blown wide open.
[The Hundred Bones Resonance cheers and capers: It's done! Heavenly Emperor Gu has taken the throne! This Emperor told you so — who else could the seat of Heavenly Emperor belong to?]
[The Immortal-Concealing Wine-Sword Formula puts away the brass-buckled belt in deep contentment, humming a tune no one recognizes: Not bad. Not bad at all.]
[Zhouli's Heaven-Human Heart-Rectifying Method rolls the bamboo slips shut, her expression unchanged.]
Gu Chengming's own expression turned complicated.
—The old generation's methods really do get the job done.
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