Chapter 160: A Dogshit-Sized World

"This senior expert from the Witch God Palace, why does he seem somewhat familiar?"

He Chang'an walked up the mountain along a narrow path, his heart filled with suspicion and uncertainty, yet his expression revealed no emotion, maintaining an air of nonchalance that actually caused the 'expert' on the mountain to momentarily pause.

The peak was extremely high, and the mountain trail was exceedingly steep, but He Chang'an walked up as if treading on flat ground. In less than the time it takes to brew a cup of tea, he reached the summit.

The mountaintop was as smooth as if sliced by a knife or chopped by an axe, measuring roughly three to four li across.

Right in the center, beneath a towering giant tree whose canopy spread like a ceremonial umbrella, a sturdy middle-aged man sat casually. A bamboo hat covered the greater part of his face, and an iron sword lay horizontally across his knees. He was holding a huge purple-skinned gourd and slowly sipping wine.

"Tsk tsk, not bad. Not only a martial artist, but also a Qi practitioner," the middle-aged man eyed He Chang'an and chuckled, "Little friend, care for a sip?"

"Sure." He Chang'an stood on no ceremony; he stepped forward and reached for the wine.

"Wait," the middle-aged man suddenly said. "How is your swordsmanship?"

"Among all under heaven, there are only a handful of people qualified to drink my wine. You must possess some genuine skill; otherwise, go drink your own wine."

His words were exceedingly rude.

Yet since the man was supposedly an expert, such rudeness was no longer rudeness, but rather the so-called 'aura' of a master...

He Chang'an's expression stiffened, and anger suddenly flared in his heart.

"Since your wine can only be drunk by experts, you can drink it all by yourself." He Chang'an flipped his hand to retrieve his own wine jar, along with two coarse ceramic bowls, filling both bowls to the brim.

"My wine, He Chang'an's wine, is fierce, and it is also harsh. It's just ordinary sorghum wine, with no fancy claims or reputation, save for carrying an extra trace of the mortal world's hearth and dust."

"Senior expert, please!"

He Chang'an picked up a large bowl himself, drained it in one gulp, wiped his wet mouth and chin with his sleeve, and smiled.

Damn it, what's so great about being an expert? I've seen experts who act incredibly arrogant, and some who have no idea how to put on airs. Who do you think you are?

Anyway, having fallen into someone else's hands today, I probably won't come out unscathed. Even if you want to kill me, it's beyond my control. Instead of cowering, I might as well play the rogue and drink and talk openly with you so-called senior experts.

"Quite interesting, He Chang'an," the middle-aged man laughed, reaching out to take He Chang'an's wine, only to be stopped by He Chang'an's hand.

"Senior expert, my wine is mortal wine. Since you are an immortal, you shouldn't drink it."

"Haha, interesting, interesting! This old man used the Soul-Stealing Grand Technique to lure you here simply intending to beat you up to vent some frustration. Now it seems one beating won't suffice; I must beat you twice... No, let's beat you for days and nights on end."

The middle-aged man snatched off his bamboo hat, revealing a rugged and utterly unremarkable face, and grinned widely at He Chang'an.

'This person... his manner of speaking and tone are somewhat similar to that self-proclaimed sword cultivator...'

'Why even his unremarkable appearance bears seven or eight points of similarity?'

He Chang'an felt somewhat bewildered and uncomprehending.

No wonder despite his diligent practice, he had only just grasped a tiny fraction of swordsmanship these past few days—turns out it was simply because he was too handsome?

"Are you a sword cultivator?" He Chang'an asked.

"That's right, of course I'm a sword cultivator. Otherwise, why would I go out of my way to lure you... cough cough, why would I bother giving you a pleasant look!" The middle-aged man chuckled foolishly, reaching up to tidy the strands of hair by his ear.

Indeed, even more full of himself than A-Fei.

"Do you know A-Fei? Right, that unremarkable-looking, terribly vain sword cultivator A-Fei?" He Chang'an asked unceremoniously, his eyes casually sizing up the middle-aged man from top to bottom.

When dealing with such senior experts, the more seriously you take them, the more seriously they take themselves—this was a small piece of experience He Chang'an had gathered.

It was no mysterious metaphysics, purely a personal guess.

"Of course I know him. That kid's swordsmanship is mediocre, but he's somewhat interesting." The middle-aged man laughed heartily, completely unbothered by He Chang'an's rudeness.

"You can't beat him." He Chang'an proactively picked up a bowl of wine and handed it to the man.

"Uh, do you have to be so blunt about it!" The middle-aged man's weathered face flushed red. He accepted the wine He Chang'an handed over, but instead of drinking immediately, he looked at He Chang'an with playful amusement and chuckled coldly:

"You brat, your swordsmanship is lacking, but your nerve is quite big. You really suit that fellow's tastes."

"Tell me, how many sword strikes do you want me to poke you with?"

***

He Chang'an: "..."

These senior experts all seemed to have slight issues with their brains; why were their thought processes so uniquely bizarre?

"What is your name?" He Chang'an asked.

"Me? My name is Sword Cultivator. Right, you can also call me Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang." The middle-aged man patted the iron sword across his knees with a self-satisfied air and said boisterously, "I certainly can't beat that kid A-Fei, but I can beat his disciple."

Watching the shameless demeanor of Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang, He Chang'an suddenly smiled.

"Great Sword Immortal Wu Yongliang, Senior, actually, I am not A-Fei's disciple."

"No way? Your sword-wielding techniques and cultivation methods are clearly A-Fei's style," Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang frowned, appearing to search his memory deeply. "Especially your aura, you are simply a born sword embryo."

"A born sword embryo must necessarily be A-Fei's disciple?" He Chang'an smiled and said mildly, "Actually, A-Fei can be considered half a teacher to me. The other half is an old scholar."

"Madman Lü... is also your teacher?" Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang froze, and then a look of wild ecstasy appeared on his face. "Hahaha, truly, stepping iron shoes leave no trace, obtaining it takes no effort at all! Heavens, your old eyes have finally gone blind!"

He Chang'an: "..."

What is the meaning of all this? The logic didn't quite flow.

However, from the depths of this unremarkable middle-aged man's eyes, he caught a flash of vindictive pleasure, which immediately made his hair stand on end: 'This guy's brain has issues—could he have a grudge against the old scholar?'

That would be quite troublesome.

Too hasty, too hasty. Having wandered the martial world for so long, even the consistently cautious He Chang'an had his moments of carelessness...

"Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang, Senior, are you alright?" He Chang'an asked cautiously.

"I'm fine. Of course I'm fine,哈哈哈..." Great Sword Cultivator Wu Yongliang raised his bowl of wine, drained it in one gulp, and grinned. "Because the one who won't be fine is you, brat."

"Speak, I'll give you a month. How many times do you want me to poke you with a sword every day?"

As he spoke, he directly picked up the iron sword and poked casually, seemingly without a care in the world.

With a muffled groan of pain, He Chang'an was knocked over by a somersault from the iron sword. He whimpered and groaned for a long time before scrambling back up, opening his mouth to curse: "If you have the ability, don't poke me to death!"

As he spoke, he even spat a mouthful of saliva onto the ground.

Wu Yongliang: "I'll just... Alright, alright! Within three months, I guarantee I won't poke you to death!"

"But after three months, it's hard to say."

As he spoke, he raised his iron sword and jabbed wildly at He Chang'an's Shanzhong, Quchi, and more than a dozen other acupuncture points, cursing as he did so:

"This sword poke is for A-Fei, this sword poke is for Madman Lü, this sword poke is for Madman Lü..."

***

Inside Chang'an City, atop the Star-Plucking Tower.

Grand Tutor Li Qinglian felt somewhat depressed. Every time he took a sip of tea, he felt an urge to spit out a mouthful of blood.

The Emperor sitting opposite him did not look too well either.

The old scholar and the sword cultivator A-Fei were notorious for loving to lecture others on reason—this was common knowledge. But this time, they acted as if they had gone mad, searching everywhere to lecture people, which was pushing things a bit too far.

They had gone successively to the Western Buddhist Realm, lecturing the Buddha on reason for three whole days and nights, forcing the Buddhist realm to dispatch ten thousand monk soldiers to line the border between the Buddhist realm and the Demon Domain in a mutual standoff.

To maintain balance, the pair then went to the Demon Domain, tiresomely lecturing the Demon Lords on reason for several days and nights. In the end, the Demon Lords personally escorted the two out of the Demon Domain, exchanged polite farewells, and then limped back to their demonic lairs.

After that, the pair traveled to the extreme northern frozen lands and lectured the ancestors of those nether-ghost entities on reason for a very long time—about a month or two. In any case, the commotion they stirred up was massive, almost dismantling that mysterious sacrificial altar.

The result of lecturing the Ghost Mother on reason was that the ghost army began to retreat, shrinking back to the northern snow plains three thousand li away.

When the two returned to Chang'an City, urged on by the sword cultivator, the old scholar went and lectured Zheng Xiaomei, Li Qinglian, Hu Buyan, and others, nearly beating several of the most famous figures in the Great Tang Empire until they crawled in the dirt.

Finally, they tracked down the Emperor surnamed Li, who ignored state affairs and sought only longevity, and lectured him on reason for half an hour.

If that Emperor hadn't run fast enough, they probably could have lectured him for another hour or two.

Of course, none of that mattered anymore.

Once the necessary reasons had been lectured, how you choose to take your next steps is your own business. If you continue to lord it over this tiny mortal realm, that simply will not do.

The old scholar's meaning was crystal clear: can you bunch of good-for-nothings show some ambition? Since this world no longer holds the possibility of longevity, why not properly tidy it up and do what ought to be done for mortals?

Had He Chang'an been present, he surely would have found it hard to understand: since the demons and ghosts are scumbags, why not just palm-strike them to death to eliminate future trouble?

Experts naturally have their own considerations...

Some matters, if you haven't reached that realm, are inevitably hard to understand.

Li Qinglian and the Great Tang Emperor surnamed Li were both intelligent men and naturally understood the old scholar's intent—this world, in truth, did not amount to much. Therefore, there was no need to fight and contend over it; everyone should cast their dog-eyes to look at the mortal world a bit more often, and stop thinking they were high and mighty, because that simply wouldn't do.

"Grand Tutor, Madman Lü and A-Fei have disciplined all the experts in this world. I wonder what they mean by this?" the Emperor surnamed Li asked with a bitter face.

As the dignified Emperor of the Great Tang, reputed to be the first-ever martial artist of the Second Rank realm, he had been pinned down completely by the old scholar's single sentence, "An Emperor must not overstep his bounds," and then subjected to a chaotic poking by that sword cultivator, breaking seven or eight of his ribs.

It was rather humiliating to speak of.

"I understand his meaning well enough. It roughly amounts to this: the mortal world requires a bit of mortal warmth, and even more so, it requires proper rules," Li Qinglian said, his expression equally bitter.

"Rules? Aren't there plenty of Confucian rules? I believe I have never overstepped my bounds," the Emperor surnamed Li argued.

"Mr. Lü's rules should be to make us feel a sense of awe. After all, for these hundreds of years, truthfully... we haven't done very well," Li Qinglian continued.

"The world is only this large. To ordinary people, it might feel larger than the sky, but Your Majesty also understands—can a world less than a million li across truly be considered a grand world?"

"Surpassing the second rank of martial arts, a single step covers a hundred or eighty li, not to mention the Daoist Qi practitioners flying on swords. Even touring the entire world in two or three days, how difficult is that?"

"Your Majesty, in truth, this world is merely a small world—what legends call a spatial fragment. Achieving longevity here is utterly impossible."

"Because the spiritual qi capacity is simply insufficient."

"At the same time, Your Majesty should have also noticed that the Great Dao of this heaven and earth is severely fractured; it is fundamentally... impossible to attain immortality."

Li Qinglian had actually bottled up these words for many years, never quite knowing how to voice them.

As the Grand Tutor and concurrently the leader of the Daoist sects, there were certain hidden truths he truly found inconvenient to divulge.

To ordinary people, a world a million li wide seemed boundless, such that even exhausting a lifetime might not see its end. Combined with the mysterious oceans beyond the continent, the impression given was one of endlessness.

Yet in reality, as the old scholar put it: this world was indeed just a fraction larger than a pile of dog manure.

So, where shall the human race, the demon race, the ghost race, the Buddhist realm, the sea race, and the mysterious tribes of the southern ten thousand mountains—the Wu race—go from here?

Or rather, what ought they to be doing?

"Grand Tutor, I understand the reasoning. From the perspective of a scholar, they simply want the human race to have a decent future," the Emperor surnamed Li said in a deep voice. "The problem is that the demon race, ghost race, sea race, and Wu race hold no goodwill toward humanity..."

"Your Majesty, Mr. Lü's reasoning is not like that," Li Qinglian rebuked the Emperor's words directly for the first time in decades. "From this poor Taoist's perspective, his intent should be for us to pay closer attention to the people's livelihood and fulfill the duties an emperor ought to perform."

"My words are somewhat crude, and I ask Your Majesty's forgiveness. In Qinglian's view, Mr. Lü's reasoning is the ultimate truth. We cultivators of the Dao consume the grain of the common people and drink their water, yet in the end, we treat their lives and deaths with indifference, leaving them to fend for themselves—that is wrong."

With that, the Grand Tutor of the Great Tang flicked his sleeves and stood up. Standing on the ninth level of the Star-Plucking Tower, looking down at the brilliantly illuminated city of Chang'an, he said in a bitter voice, "Have we all been wrong, Your Majesty?"

The Emperor surnamed Li also stood up, standing beside Li Qinglian, gazing into the distance.

The direction the Emperor looked was precisely Mount Taihua.

In that place, there stood an academy.

Through nearly a thousand years of exclusion, the scholars of the academy had long faded from the public eye, yet those stinking acid scholars were truly like "wildfires that cannot burn them out, spring breezes that bring them back to life," stubbornly refusing to disband, which deeply annoyed the Emperor surnamed Li.

"Grand Tutor, I have made up my mind. Starting tomorrow, I will let the scholars of the academy enter the imperial court," the Emperor calmly stated. "We shall follow those scholars' words and initiate the imperial examinations for selecting officials."

"Your Majesty, the imperial examinations alone are not enough," Li Qinglian shook his head slightly, a trace of disappointment flashing in his eyes. "We must also find ways to build water conservancy projects, reclaim wasteland, and allow the common people a period of recuperation..."

"Very well, I know." The Emperor surnamed Li flicked his sleeves and departed.

With a single step, he vanished deep into the imperial palace...