In the end, he still did not die.
Zhang Ruochen woke up with a splitting headache. His internal organs felt even worse, as though they had been set ablaze.
His eyes somewhat vacant, he gave a self-mocking laugh. “What ‘Between Life and Death’? It cannot kill a man at all!”
His voice was hoarse and aged.
Extremely unpleasant to hear.
When such a voice first came from his own mouth, Zhang Ruochen had still felt discomfort. But after decades, he had long grown accustomed to it. Just like this old and weathered body, it had become part of him.
“It is not that the wine I brewed was insufficiently fierce, but that your vitality is too tenacious.”
A voice of extreme beauty rang out in the room, like gentle rain in green mountains, capable of washing away the dust in one’s heart.
Merely hearing it could conjure countless illusions in the mind about the owner of the voice.
It formed the utmost contrast with Zhang Ruochen’s own voice.
Zhang Ruochen slowly sat up and discovered he was lying on a soft bed, covered with a white beast pelt that radiated divine lustre.
The hide of a divine beast.
Any Great Saint, or even some false gods, would fight desperately to seize such a pelt. Yet now it could only serve as bedding, pressed beneath this old man Zhang Ruochen. It no longer resembled a treasure at all.
The entire room was antique and elegant, hung with calligraphy, paintings, and lanterns. In the vast space there was also a pool.
Spring water tinkled within the pool.
Every corner of the large room was refined.
Moreover, every detail was breathtaking. The paintings, lanterns, and pool water… all possessed extraordinary origins that saint-realm cultivators could never hope to touch.
Zhang Ruochen propped up his aged body and walked towards the voice. He saw a white-clothed figure standing by the window, gazing at the lake outside.
Purple bamboo swayed along the lakeside, the scenery picturesque.
“I am the master of this manor. You may call me Yuyao,” she said.
Zhang Ruochen found a chair and sat down, poured himself a cup of hot tea, and sipped it slowly. “Huangtian has left?”
“He has left!” Yuyao replied.
“Very well. Then I shall take my leave as well!”
Zhang Ruochen took a divine stone from his spatial ring, placed it on the table, and prepared to depart.
“This morning someone delivered an old yellow ox, saying it belongs to you.”
Yuyao finally turned her face towards him and fixed her gaze upon him.
Zhang Ruochen was slightly startled and looked at Yuyao.
This woman was indeed peerlessly refined and pure, worthy of her beautiful voice.
She carried an air of scholarly elegance, appearing rather delicate, yet brimming with boundless vitality and liveliness. She wore no ornaments at all; even her jet-black long hair was simply tied back with a cloth ribbon.
But though she was as beautiful as a celestial, in Zhang Ruochen’s heart she stirred not the slightest ripple.
His heart was like a calm lake.
The old yellow ox was tethered in the purple bamboo grove, utterly out of place amid the exquisite surroundings. At that moment, two exceptionally beautiful saint-realm maidservants were attending to it, feeding it.
What it ate was naturally not ordinary grass, but saintly medicines and divine spring water that even Great Saints rarely tasted.
Seeing this scene, Zhang Ruochen immediately felt that leaving just one divine stone was far from enough. Apart from gods, who could afford to stay in a place like this?
Zhang Ruochen did not need to guess who had sent the old yellow ox here.
Besides the Drunkard, who else would be so idle?
Zhang Ruochen stroked the fur on the old yellow ox’s back and sighed. “You are merely a yellow ox, not a divine beast. Eating such fine things, are you not afraid your body will burst?”
On the old yellow ox’s body was a spiritual-force brand that even Zhang Ruochen found difficult to detect. It was precisely this that allowed it to withstand the great saint patterns, dao locks, and divine patterns of the holy city.
It even caused the cultivators of this manor to mistake it for a divine beast and bring it the most precious food.
Did they not see the two top-tier saint-realm beauties attending to it?
“Let me help you.”
Zhang Ruochen released his spiritual force, drawing in the saint qi and divine qi of heaven and earth, infusing them into the old yellow ox’s body to temper its flesh.
Whoosh!
The old yellow ox’s body immediately radiated bright light.
The light shifted from yellow to gold.
During those decades at the inn, Zhang Ruochen had prolonged the lives of the old yellow ox and the two large white geese, but he had only crushed saint sources into powder and fed them small amounts.
Yet after decades of companionship, how could there be no affection?
Since the Drunkard insisted on having the old yellow ox compete with the large white geese and had even personally delivered the ox here, Zhang Ruochen could hardly abandon it to fend for itself in Xinghuan Heaven, could he?
It was time to fully awaken its spiritual intelligence and impart cultivation methods to it.
Not for the competition.
Zhang Ruochen was thinking that after he died, the old yellow ox would at least have the power to protect itself and not end up slaughtered and served as a meal.
But then something unexpected happened!
Zhang Ruochen had only intended to temper the old yellow ox’s body to the half-saint level. That way, even without the Drunkard’s spiritual-force brand for protection, it could move freely in the holy city.
For a spiritual-force god, this was no difficult task!
Yet halfway through the tempering, the powers of heaven and earth surged madly towards them. The saint qi of the entire holy city, including the divine qi from an underground divine vein, poured into the old yellow ox’s body as though drawn by a black hole.
In a holy city, naturally, experts were as numerous as clouds.
The gazes of all the powerhouses turned towards the manor. Above it, a massive vortex of saint qi and divine qi had appeared, dragging down the clouds from the sky.
“Why has such terrifying energy fluctuation suddenly appeared, draining the saint qi and divine qi of the entire holy city?”
“A holy city can support the normal cultivation of a million saint-realm cultivators. How could it be emptied in an instant?”
“Even a great god cultivating inside the holy city could not cause this. It cannot be that a god venerable has arrived, can it?”
“Not necessarily. If someone is undergoing tribulation to ascend to godhood, the moment of ascension could also produce such a phenomenon.”
…
Although the entire holy city was alarmed, no cultivator dared approach the manor.
Those who dared were repeatedly warned by voice transmission from their elders.
Even Zhang Ruochen, who was tempering the ox’s body, had not expected this. It was as if he had only wanted to dig a canal to bring water to the desert.
Yet what he drew in was an entire ocean.
He thought he had doomed the old yellow ox.
The ox would surely be unable to withstand such immense energy and would turn into a mist of blood, body and soul obliterated.
But then something even more astonishing occurred. The saint qi and divine qi drawn from heaven and earth were not wild or foreign in the slightest; they were as familiar as if the ox itself had cultivated them.
Although they entered the old yellow ox’s body and fused into its blood, flesh, bones, and organs, under Zhang Ruochen’s control they formed a marvellous balance with its body.
Just like when Zhang Ruochen had once cultivated the Wuji Holy Will.
His own power had been insignificant, yet by controlling the balance of time and space, the five elements, yin and yang, he could contend against the power of the entire universe.
And he had survived.
The current state of the old yellow ox was exactly like his state back then.
As long as the balance was maintained, even the slightest disruption would instantly shatter the ox’s body.
The only difference was that this balance was being maintained by Zhang Ruochen for the ox; the ox could not do it itself. Moreover, even Zhang Ruochen himself did not understand how he was achieving it.
Under normal circumstances, maintaining such balance was beyond his current spiritual force.
The two saint-realm maidservants standing nearby were already dumbfounded, then extreme reverence appeared in their eyes. They immediately knelt before Zhang Ruochen as though they had seen a god venerable.
With their cultivation, they naturally could not perceive the profound mystery within.
Yet they could feel the transformation of the old yellow ox’s body.
In an instant, it reached the half-saint level.
Then it continued climbing at an astonishing speed, achieving sainthood in the flesh and still growing stronger.
The two of them had cultivated for centuries to reach their current saint realm.
Yet with this old senior’s help, an ordinary old yellow ox had instantly reached their level. What kind of method was this?
Even a great god might not possess such means!
Not to mention them, even Yuyao watching from afar revealed shock in her normally calm, bright eyes.
For she had seen through some of the clues.
“No wonder… no wonder he personally delivered the yellow ox. Could this old gentleman also be an ancient sage who has reached that level?”
Yet after thinking about it, Yuyao felt something was amiss.
If this old gentleman were truly such a figure, yesterday’s meeting with Huangtian could not possibly have unfolded like that.
In Yuyao’s heart, the mystery surrounding this old man had undoubtedly grown immensely thick.
No matter how much saint qi and divine qi entered its body, time was still needed to nourish the flesh and make it stronger.
After achieving sainthood in the flesh, the rate at which the old yellow ox’s body strengthened did not slow much, but reaching the Saint King level in the flesh was not something that could be accomplished overnight.
A half-saint is a cup.
A saint is a vat.
A Saint King is a pond.
A Great Saint is a lake.
Filling a cup or a vat is not too difficult. But filling a pond at the same speed still requires considerable time.
Without knowledge of body-tempering methods to accelerate absorption and nourishment, that time could be extremely long.
Zhang Ruochen led the old yellow ox out of the manor and went straight to Goddess First City.
Yuyao did not stop him.
Goddess First City and the holy city where Zhang Ruochen now was were in fact the same city. Or rather, Goddess First City was a city within a city.
That was not quite accurate either.
In Xinghuan Heaven, Goddess First City had existed first. Because of its prosperity, buildings had gradually been constructed around it, taking countless tens of thousands of years to develop into a holy city.
Goddess First City was completely isolated from the outer holy city by walls, and even their protective arrays were independent.
The outer holy city was called Clothing City, or Goddess Clothing City.
Almost all the cultivators entering Goddess First City from Goddess Clothing City were very young. Even those Great Saint elders who had lived tens of thousands of years deliberately altered their physical appearance to look youthful.
Such changes naturally could not fool spiritual-force powerhouses.
Only Zhang Ruochen, an old man leading a yellow ox, stood out glaringly, drawing pointing fingers and mockery from many cultivators.
