Chapter 736: Dao Ancestor, the Big Horse Monkey!
The Clairvoyant and “Wind Accompanying Ears” (Shunfeng’er) were actually quite interesting.
They were originally a pair of brothers of the human race. After they died, they encountered two wisps of Heaven Earth Golden Essence and Water Essence aura and turned into demon immortals to join Jie School.
The clairvoyant was called Gao Jue, and the “Wind Accompanying Ears” (Shunfeng’er) was called Gao Ming. He was a Jie School immortal who had entered the Divine Seal Altar in the early stages of the Great G.o.d-Conferment Tribulation.
The two brothers did not have much ability, but they were smart and quick to react. They also had the detection mystical ability of “Half a Day Life”. They looked a little casual and dignified.
Li Changshou left the Primordial World while Jiang Shang presided over the G.o.d Conferment. The two brothers were selected to be messengers running errands in front of the Lingxiao Hall. With the support of the power of the Heavenly Dao, they could instantly investigate the various parts of the Heaven, Earth, and Man Three Realms.
The seven-colored light rushed towards the Lingxiao Hall. The immortals in the meeting hall were alarmed.
The Jade Emperor was angry and was about to flare up. The clairvoyant and clairaudient first entered the hall and reported in time. Then, they looked at the situation where the light began and entered the hall to report.
“Your Majesty!”
Gao Jue said firmly, “I can see that there is a stone monkey where the light comes from. It is in the place where the demons of the East Continent belong to the Huaguo Mountain. This stone monkey seems to be born with a mystical ability. When it appears, it will cause spiritual energy fluctuations and disturb the Heavenly Courts!”
“Stone monkey?”
The Jade Emperor was silent for a while. The Heavenly Dao power fluctuations appeared in the Lingxiao Treasure Hall.
Soon, the Jade Emperor said slowly, “The Heaven Mending Stone is just nurturing the stone embryo. Perhaps it has obtained the Dharma powers bestowed by the G.o.ddess of the human race. Dear ministers, continue your discussion. There’s no need to bother.”
The G.o.ds lowered their heads and accepted the order. They said, “Yes.”
The Clairvoyant and “Wind Accompanying Ears” (Shunfeng’er) lowered their heads and retreated. They went to guard outside the hall and stood side by side with the four Saints of the Nine Dragons Island and the four marshals of the Lingxiao Hall. They were awe-inspiring.
The Jade Emperor’s mood inexplicably improved when the discussion in the Lingxiao Hall continued.
It had been a long time since the Heavenly Emperor smiled. Today, he smiled a few times.
At the Spirit Platform Mountain, Li Changshou pinched his fingers and deduced. Soon, he deduced through the Heavenly Dao that the stone monkey of the East Ocean had appeared and alarmed the Heavenly Courts.
He hesitated slightly and rode a cloud to the East Ocean to secretly observe the Heavenly Courts’ reaction.
It was a “duty” for the Dao Ancestor to personally appoint a monkey master.
Half a day later, at night, Li Changshou finally saw the stone monkey.
He was curled up in a crack in the forest. His light golden monkey fur was covered by mud, and there were leaves around his waist that had turned into something to hide him.
Don’t underestimate this object. This is the difference between the spiritual embryo of the world and ordinary living beings.
In the stone monkey’s eyes, Li Changshou saw confusion and panic. He also saw a sense of yearning and curiosity.
As the night deepened, the stone monkey touched its shriveled belly and went out to find some leaves and gra.s.s. It placed them in its mouth and chewed a few times. Soon, it found a few peach trees and climbed up to eat them.
Then, the stone monkey cautiously returned to the crack in the mountain wall. It curled up quietly and spent the first night after it was born.
Dark clouds floated over the East Ocean, and a storm arose in the Huaguo Mountain.
The stone monkey looked at the dark mountain in a daze and listened to the rain and the wind. Li Changshou did not know what it could see or feel.
However, he should have sensed the loneliness of living beings.
The stone monkey yawned. Its eyelids kept trembling, and it slowly fell asleep.
Li Changshou landed on the mountain wall and sat cross-legged. He hid his aura and turned into nothingness. He also looked thoughtful and guarded there for the entire night.
With the protection of the Heavenly Dao, Li Changshou was not worried about the safety of the stone monkey.
However, for some reason, he wanted to be closer to the monkey. He could be considered to have secretly accompanied it through the most difficult night.
The next morning, when Li Changshou was about to leave quietly, many insights surfaced in his heart.
These insights were not about the Great Dao and mystical abilities, but about life.
Living beings were born lonely, so they yearned to be together.
Loneliness in this dark night without any light might cause the stone monkey to yearn for light and chase it.
Because the night was so deep, he believed that the light was ahead.
Li Changshou felt emotional. For some reason, he thought of the difficult days before his death in his previous life.
When his condition worsened for the second time, he hid it from his family. He only asked his best friend to send him off for the last time and left a video of him bidding farewell to express his grat.i.tude, grat.i.tude, and guilt towards his family.
Li Changshou endured the pain of his illness and sat in the wheelchair. When he looked up at the yellow leaves of a parasol tree, Li Changshou had also questioned and felt lost. He did not know what his life, which had died early when he was middle-aged, was.
However, doubts and suspicions did not change anything. The end of life was complete darkness.
Li Changshou had asked himself that question more than once. “Is the me who woke up in the Primordial World still the me in my previous life?”
He had already found the answer.
Yes.
This was not a graft of a memory, nor was it the rebirth of a soul, nor was it the reincarnation after drinking Meng Po’s soup.
To put it simply, Li Changshou’s True Spirit, an individual living being, had been pulled into the Six Paths of Reincarnation system of the Primordial World through a spatial rift.
The True Spirit River did not only flow in the Chaos Sea and the Primordial World. It flowed in all tangible worlds and projected thousands of living beings.
The Chaos Sea was not the only tangible world.
As long as he found the spatial rift, he could return to Earth.
The truth of his transmigration is an extremely small matter. A True Spirit retains the consciousness of the living beings projected by the previous generation.
When Li Changshou understood that, his Dao Realm rose rapidly.
Previously, in the Purple Cloud Palace, Li Changshou had debated with the Dao Ancestor about that matter. He had deliberately said the answer that the Dao Ancestor wanted to hear, making the Dao Ancestor think that he had already believed that Senior Lang had pulled him to the Primordial World.
In fact, Senior Lang could not do that at all. The Dao Ancestor could not do that either.
It was purely a coincidence.
Through deducing the Heavenly Dao, Senior Lang saw Li Changshou in the future of the Primordial World. Instead, he thought that the Dao Ancestor and the Heavenly Dao had taken action and recruited Li Changshou as a supplement to their incomplete plan.
After all, Dao Ancestor Hong Jun and Senior Lang were only deducing the problem from their respective perspectives.
However, Li Changshou took another path. He studied the characteristics of the True Spirit and how the True Spirit interacted with the Dao. He proved his method of transmigration.
The incomplete plan of the Primordial World Residence Committee was the truth of Senior Lang’s final struggle. Li Changshou did not have sufficient evidence at that moment and could not be completely sure.
However, from that perspective, Li Changshou and the stone monkey were in the same boat.
When Li Changshou looked at the stone monkey, he seemed to have seen the boy who had just awakened his memories from his previous life and was curled up in his parents’ tent, his body trembling.
Facing the fear of the unknown,
He yearned for the outside world.
The excitement of obtaining life.
The pathetic and ridiculous loneliness in his heart…
“Forget it.”
Li Changshou sighed softly.
At that moment, he decided to teach the stone monkey well. He did not put on any mission for him and did not deliberately tie the stone monkey to the war chariot of the Anti-Heaven.
On the contrary, he alone was enough.
Before he left, Li Changshou saw a group of monkeys pa.s.sing by the mountain crevice where the stone monkeys were. He smiled.
Master should be safe and sound in the reincarnation cycle.
Although it was not appropriate to compare his master to a monkey, weren’t these monkeys who had picked up the stone monkeys his master back then?
Li Changshou frowned slightly.
However, he did not do anything. The cloud did not stop. His figure was hidden among the white clouds.
He did not give the stone monkeys a mission or add destiny. However, the Heavenly Dao wanted to use the stone monkeys to plot against the demons and let Buddhism prosper. The stone monkeys were even born because of this destiny.
Whether he could break this fence would depend on how the stone monkey chose in the future.
Li Changshou did not mind sacrificing some chances of winning for the monkey and fighting the Dao Ancestor in advance.
It would depend on how the Dao Ancestor chose.
…
After returning to Fangcun Mountain, Li Changshou did not idle.
Previously, he had taken in some disciples from the Middle Continent. This time, when he went to the Huaguo Mountain, Li Changshou had taken in another batch of demons along the way. He brought them back to the Daoist temple to train them and take them in as disciples.
Anyway, he was the disciple of Patriarch Bodhi. What did it have to do with Li Changshou, the exiled?
He had taken in some demons because he wanted the monkey to adapt to the teaching atmosphere of the Ling Tai Mountain. He did not want to develop any inferiority complex. When he cultivated there, he could have a few companions.
From some details last night, he could tell that the stone monkey was very meticulous.
Therefore, Li Changshou gathered 27 children. From then on, the boys and girls who were previously enlightened were in charge of taking care of their food and lodging. They began to teach and preach Dao in the Crescent Tristar Cave.
Li Changshou treated every disciple equally. They were all considered his in-name disciples.
He also had strict requirements on the character of each disciple—to prevent them from causing trouble and implicating his master.
When he was teaching those disciples, Li Changshou recalled the happy times he had spent nurturing Ling’e.
Of course, he did not feel emotional. Ling’e was beside him. Now, he would take time to accompany her regularly.
Li Changshou only felt that he had taught Ling’e quite well back then. Ling’e could be considered a qualified disciple.
It had been more than sixty years since spring and autumn arrived.
Li Changshou and the other in-name disciples had already grown up. Half of them had survived the Immortal Ascension Tribulation and had immortal bodies.
Under Li Changshou’s deliberate guidance, they would not care about their followers. They treated living beings equally. They would help the woodcutter who was lost in the forest, and they would also help the black bear that was shot by the hunter.
As the range of activity of these disciples became wider and wider, the reputation of the Crescent Tristar Cave.
Many Qi Refinement cultivators came because of the name, but they could not find the location of Fangcun Mountain.
There were also some old immortals who wanted to get to know Patriarch Subhuti, but they were simply dismissed by the disciples of the sect.
To be safe, Li Changshou reduced the activity of his main body and focused on acting the Void Bodhi.
Ah, the two quasi Dao companions beside me are waiting for the monkey to come and acknowledge me as his master…
He could not think about it. If he did, he would cry.
That day, Li Changshou was taking a nap in the rear hall when he suddenly sensed a wisp of Dao runes spreading in his heart. The Dao Ancestor’s voice appeared in the spiritual platform.
“Bodhi, the stone embryo is already away from the Huaguo Mountain. Protect it secretly. Don’t let others take him in.”
Li Changshou jumped up and bowed to the sky.
He tied his Daoist robe and picked up his horsetail whisk. He rushed to the border between the South Continent and the East Continent and secretly guarded the stone monkey that had intruded into the mortal world.
That rascal…
He had just entered the human world and was full of jokes.
The stone monkey naturally left the Huaguo Mountain with only one goal—to become an immortal’s disciple and seek the Great Dao of Longevity.
The stone monkeys were extraordinary and had various accompanying mystical abilities. It was naturally not difficult for them to conquer the monkey groups that only had a few monkey spirits.
In the past sixty years, the stone monkeys had been enjoying themselves on the Huaguo Mountain. They brought a large number of monkeys to play everywhere.
The Huaguo Mountain was rich in resources. Previously, there were demons entrenched there. The monkey spirits quickly discovered some Cave Abodes and found some weapons and treasures. Not only did they not have to worry about food and drinks, but they also lived the life of a “small and prosperous demon”.
It was carefree and lively.
Perhaps because the stone monkeys had too much spirituality, the monkeys developed intelligence in a group in a few years. They could speak and were agile. They also attracted more monkeys to join their “tribe”.
They drove tigers, wolves, jackals, and leopards to brew wine and produce children.
The stone monkeys were the best at fighting, and they were also the strongest. Many female monkeys had thoughts about him, but the stone monkeys were not ordinary living beings. They did not play along.
When the stone monkey discovered the Water Curtain Cave in the blessed land of the Huaguo Mountain, a group of monkey spirits took the opportunity to wors.h.i.+p the stone monkey as king.
The stone monkeys called themselves grandfathers, and the monkey spirits became monkeys.
In just a few decades, the essence of the Water Curtain Cave had become the “overlord” of the Huaguo Mountain. Although there were not many experts, the fact that everyone had activated their spiritual intelligence made the demons who were secretly observing the Huaguo Mountain tremble in fear.
The stone monkey did not know that the eyes of the ancient demons when they looked at him were green!
After living happily for sixty years, an old monkey spirit’s lifespan was over. It died of old age in the Water Curtain Cave, allowing the stone monkey to sense the power of “birth, old age, illness, and death”.
Living beings were afraid of death and wanted to live. The stone monkey was the same. It asked what death was.
A huge monkey at the side explained a mysterious logic. It led the immortals and the Dao of Longevity to tell the stone monkey that the immortal cultivation technique could allow him to live forever.
The stone monkey suddenly understood. It then set off to the west to find an immortal to cultivate the longevity technique.
The stone monkey did not simply want to live forever. Before he left, he waved his hand and said,
“When I return, I will definitely let my children cultivate and obtain immortality!”
He dared to say that those monkeys really believed him.
By the way, the monkey must be an incarnation of the Heavenly Dao.
Just like that, the monkey barged into the South Continent and experienced the mortal world under the gaze of the Heavenly Dao, Li Changshou’s protection, and the screams of mortals.
It was also thanks to the rise of the “monkey tricks” in the early years of the mortal world. The stone monkeys were smart enough. Otherwise, they would definitely cause some tragedy.
The stone monkey was in the mortal world. It was despised, beaten, and scolded. However, it was cheeky and had taken it to heart.
He had also met many good people who took the initiative to feed him, give him clothes, and even let him stay at home.
However, the stone monkey did not care about the laughter, beatings, and scoldings. It did not accept pity or charity. It only played in the mortal world and did not have its pure Dao heart covered by the mortal world.
He had teased the little monkey who was chained up and picked up some gold, silver, and silk. He had eaten meat in the restaurant.
He had also taught the local ruffians, who he did not like, a lesson, chased away the wild boars who were eating the crops, and lay on the edge of the newlyweds’ window with a group of teenagers.
He had even helped others exorcise ghosts, fought some fake immortals, and destroyed a few black Daoist temples…
In more than ten years, he walked from the east of the South Continent to the northwest of the South Continent.
The stone monkey naturally found loneliness in the mortal world.
When he was secretly guided by the Heavenly Dao to the vicinity of Fangcun Mountain and heard the name of Patriarch Bodhi, his expression was already very calm.
When the stone monkey looked at the direction of Fangcun Mountain from afar, it saw the spiritual energy and immortal light surrounding it. It was shocked and knew that it had found the residence of a true immortal.
Hence, he ran wildly and rushed through the wilderness. He jumped over the mountain stream and rushed through the fog. He subconsciously lost his direction and encountered the woodcutter who was chopping wood. He heard the mysterious poem.
The stone monkey bowed repeatedly and begged the woodcutter to take him in as a disciple. The woodcutter naturally pointed to the clouds and led him to the Crescent Tristar Cave.
Li Changshou sat quietly in the Cave Abode. When his immortal senses saw the monkey, he smiled.
Finally, the stone monkey jumped and rushed to the front of the Daoist temple. It sized up the surroundings and hesitated. It climbed trees and circled around. Finally, it could not help but reach the Daoist temple.
The stone monkey looked around and saw two words engraved on the door frame.
Those who enter my sect will obtain the Dao. They can live for hundreds of years.
“Yes?”
The stone monkey shuddered and rushed to the wooden door in a few steps. It knocked a few times and immediately shouted, “Master! Master! I’m here to become your disciple!”