I have Immortality In The Cultivation World

Chapter 196: Chapter 192: Distorting Right and Wrong

"Demon King?"

Zhou Yi's eyebrows raised slightly, pretending to be unaware, and he snorted coldly.

"I had anticipated that the Buddhist and Taoist sects would not be content and were bound to slander my junior brother."

Qin Zheng was slightly taken aback when he heard this, "Junior brother?"

"Xuan Xiao Daojun is indeed my junior brother," Zhou Yi confirmed.

Zhou Yi did not intend to take advantage of Xiao Tiezhu deliberately. Given his age, he had more than enough years to be called an elder brother.

If there really was any objection, let them stand up and speak!

Qin Zheng suddenly regretted asking; matters involving the dark secrets of immortals required that one always maintain a sense of reverence, no matter how amiable and close they might seem.

The divide between immortals and mortals was even more profound than that between father and son, or sovereign and minister.

However, now that things had come to this point, Qin Zheng had no choice but to steel himself and continue asking, "So, is everything recorded in the true man's book real?"

"Back then, I advised him not to come down from the mountain. There are so many calamities in the world, throughout the ages, how many have died from floods and droughts, not just tens of millions?" Zhou Yi sighed.

"But my junior brother insisted that natural disasters and man-made atrocities are different, so he gave up the path to eternal life and fought to the death with those old ancestors from the Buddhist and Taoist sects. In the end, he perished and his reputation was ruined," Zhou Yi added with melancholy.

"The Daojun sacrificed himself for others; he deserves to be revered and worshipped by future generations."

Qin Zheng said solemnly, "When I return, I will vindicate the Daojun and burn all those fake scriptures of the Buddhist and Taoist sects!"

"What use are the notions of true and false when the dead cannot be brought back to life?" Zhou Yi reminded.

"Don't assume that the Buddhist and Taoist sects are easy to bully. How could a lineage that has been handed down since ancient times lack a solid foundation?"

"Does the true man mean the Buddhist and Taoist sects still possess Spiritual Medicine?"

Qin Zheng's heart stirred; far from being afraid, he felt a twinge of greed.

Having communicated with the Spirit Ginseng child these past few days, he learned that the outside world was restrained by the heaven and earth and no longer possessed any Spiritual Energy. Knowing this, Qin Zheng had become somewhat disheartened, holding little hope of finding Spiritual Medicine, but now his confidence was reignited.

"Perhaps they do," Zhou Yi was not baselessly speculating or smearing others, at least those Sect's Supreme Treasures would not degrade into ordinary objects in a mere three hundred years.

"I must vindicate the Daojun!" Qin Zheng swore solemnly to the heavens, still harboring doubts, and asked, "According to the records, the Daojun only entered nirvana for a little over two hundred years. How could the Buddhist and Taoist sects slander him so thoroughly?"

"Mortals have no means of understanding the affairs of the Cultivation World. They only see the dead in one city after another, one continent turned into barren land, without even knowing who the perpetrator is," Zhou Yi explained.

"After my junior brother entered nirvana, those few surviving cultivators became the only exalted beings of the Buddhist and Taoist sects. The facts were then left to their discretion to write and compile into texts..."

Xiao Tiezhu had suppressed the Nine Continents and Four Seas; not only the Buddhist and Taoist sects harbored resentment towards him, even his own sect, the Dan Ding, came to the point of splitting apart.

Baiyun Temple, under the overwhelming onslaught of the Buddhist and Taoist sects, also struggled to preserve itself, and had no choice but to cast out Xuan Xiao as a heretic.

Moreover, the cultivators of Baiyun Temple might not have been without their own grievances. In theory, the True Lord who managed the temple could influence the change of dynastic power, and might even replace the Imperial Court with the Taoist governance, turning the Great Qian into a Taoist nation similar to the Yi Continent Buddhist Nation.

However, they were suppressed by Xiao Tiezhu and had to obey the Great Qian Dynasty. Once the True Lords and True Men of the temple entered nirvana, they no longer held the power to contend with the Imperial Court.

The Great Qian Dynasty reduced Baiyun Temple's prestige and allowed the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple to establish a temple in Qianjing to balance the Buddhist and Taoist sects.

As time passed, these final records of the cultivators became classics of the sages.

The disciples of the Buddhist and Taoist sects revered these texts as their inheritances, deeply convinced from the bottom of their hearts that Xiao Tiezhu was the World-Ending Devil King. Perhaps a few Buddhist and Taoist temples knew the true history, but speaking it out loud would convince no one.

As for the general believers who hadn't even heard of the Cultivation World, let alone discern the truth, the only teachings they could access were the Buddhist and Taoist scriptures.

History was left to the whims of those who recorded it; good and evil, immortal and demon, all turned upside down!

Listening to Zhou Yi's narration, Qin Zheng's expression became even more solemn. He remained silent for a long while before bowing and speaking.

"Thank you for your guidance, my lord, I will take this matter as a lesson! Those in high positions must have their own ways of bypassing their ministers' channels of information, like an emperor who must establish the Jinyiwei or the Imperial Household Department, so as never to let the court officials twist right and wrong!"

"The two indeed have some similarities."

Zhou Yi couldn't help but admire inwardly, being an emperor or a ruler is an innate talent.

Ordinary people, when they hear a secret, might just express surprise or curse at the immorality of monks and Taoists, but Qin Zheng would draw inferences about the relationship between sovereign and subjects from one case.

Among emperors who were all born leaders, some could easily control the court affairs, while others lost the National Dynasty in a state of confusion.

"Just keep practicing martial arts, to contend with monks and Taoists, you need to be strong yourself, otherwise, a single spell could change the dynasty."

"A spell!"

Qin Zheng, with his keen mind and understanding, could grasp the key information in every sentence. Upon learning about the spell-killing techniques of monks and Taoists, he immediately felt caution and intent to kill arise within him.

...

Sunrise to rise, sunset to rest.

Farming, eating, and practicing martial arts—a life as simple as an old farmer's almost made Qin Zheng forget he was in the realm of immortals.

"It feels as if I'm back in my childhood, farming with my maternal grandfather. When I first started, I always broke the wheat seedlings and got whipped from time to time."

After farming, Qin Zheng returned and stuck the hoe beside the pavilion, deftly opening the pot to serve rice.

Zhou Yi asked with curiosity, "Even a noble prince has to farm?"

"I dare not deceive you, Master, I did not know who my father was when I was young, and took my mother's surname, Jin."

Qin Zheng said with a somber expression, "My grandfather was the great elder of Moyun City. He spent his days farming and practicing martial arts. It was only after my father ascended the throne that he took me to Qing Kingdom, by which time... my mother had already passed away for ten years!"

"So it was like that."

Zhou Yi had not expected this connection and took out some pickled vegetables from his storage bag.

"Let's add a dish for today!"

Since they did not raise spiritual beasts, they only had rice for meals. Ordinary vegetables tasted far worse compared to Spirit Rice; really, going to restaurants in the Mortal World to enjoy food and drink was to savor the worldly life.

Qin Zheng picked up a strand of Spirit Ginseng and after carefully chewing it, said, "This flavor is a bit strange."

Zhou Yi said, "Maybe it's been pickled for too long."

Qin Zheng's chopsticks paused slightly, "How many years has it been pickled?"

Zhou Yi calculated with his fingers, "Not too long, just over a thousand years."

Qin Zheng's complexion turned a bit pale, yet he couldn't resist the abundant spiritual energy of the Spirit Ginseng, and ultimately closed his eyes to continue eating. Discover stories with M-V-L

Ugh!

"Don't worry, even if you're poisoned, I can still save you!"

Zhou Yi did not continue to ask about Qin Zheng's past. Judging from the assassination attempt he experienced when being sent to the Great Qian, it was evident that he was not favored by the Imperial Clan or the emperor.

The fact that Qin Zheng practiced the Qi-Blood martial arts from Moyun City was surprising to Zhou Yi. Jin Ang once widely disseminated martial arts, and his disciples continued his legacy, so the method of Qi-Blood cultivation was not a mystery.

Given this, Cloud Continent, with its larger population and more abundant resources, theoretically could optimize Qi-Blood martial arts more easily, making it suitable for cultivation in the Dharma-Ending Age.

Such refined cultivation techniques, kept secretive by each faction to maintain an advantage, gradually formed distinct schools.

To hear that Qin Zheng, a prince of the Qing Kingdom, still practiced the cultivation technique passed down from his maternal grandfather showed that Moyun City had distinctive strengths in Qi-Blood body forging.

"Maybe, the method of tempering Qi-Blood is inherently suited for the struggle against heaven in the great mountains."

Zhou Yi didn't need to ask deliberately; with a sweep of his Divine Sense, he saw through Qin Zheng's cultivation technique completely, after all, he had watched the rise of the Qi-Blood martial arts from its inception and could barely be considered one of its original sources.