Chapter 1 Nüwa's Dream

Nüwa felt like she was having a dream.

In the dream, she was picking up conches on the coast of the East Sea, preparing to celebrate her father's birthday. The weather was beautiful that day, with a gentle breeze and bright sunshine. She collected many beautiful conches and shells, but when she turned around, she was swallowed by the waves of the East Sea.

She drowned in the water and, after death, turned into a bird called Jingwei.

She could no longer speak or communicate with her people.

She could only see her father aging several decades in an instant.

The bird circled around her father, but Emperor Yan did not know that it was his daughter.

The Jingwei bird was filled with grief and despair, knowing only to fly back and forth.

From the beach, from the earth, it carried stones one by one and threw them into the turbulent East Sea.

It wanted to fill the East Sea.

In the end, it didn't seem to be a dream. Just when she truly felt that she had wings, she suddenly felt a gentle palm pulling her, breaking through layers of sea, the color of the sky, the air suddenly rushing into her lungs, and...

And that feeling of security unique to creatures on the ground, as if she were stepping on the earth again.

An unparalleled sense of security.

She suddenly opened her eyes and saw an unbelievable scene.

The creatures that had fallen into the sea were lifted up by gentle forces, as if they had returned to the earth. Then, with the fluctuation of power, these creatures, and even many human beings living by the sea, were sent back to the earth.

This was not just one or two, nor ten, dozens, or a hundred.

It was as many as hundreds of thousands, even millions, millions of living beings!

There were even large tribes of different races, and human tribes living by the sea!

A woman in a light-colored dress, with gentle and generous features, reached out her hand.

And so, she held up the waters of the four seas.

Causing the waters of the four seas to fall, representing the virtue of the earth, combined with the primordial cause and effect, the resulting yellow streamers transformed into immeasurable auspicious clouds, sending each tribe back.

The yellow auspicious clouds propped open the turbid atmosphere between heaven and earth, universally saving all living beings, rolling and surging, covering the four seas, magnificent and vast, causing one to lose their senses.

"Thank you, gods, for saving the world!"

"Thank you, gods!"

"Wuwuwu, the gods have manifested, the gods have manifested!"

"Thank you, gods!"

Jingwei, or rather, Emperor Yan's daughter, Nüwa, stared blankly at her surroundings. She seemed to see countless creatures prostrating along the four seas, some in tears, others trembling because their fear had not yet dissipated. The tigers and leopards roared, the dragons and elephants lowered their heads. For a time, it was noisy, vast, and magnificent.

The girl stood among them, staring blankly at this scene, her heart filled with shock.

"No need to thank me."

The gentle woman bowed slightly in return with a smile, her voice gentle,

"It was just a small effort."

"You would have died in this disaster. This was originally your fate."

"The one who truly reversed your lives, saved you, and bore the backlash of cause and effect is not me, but my friend. You should thank him."

The woman answered gently. Somehow, all the creatures who had been rescued vaguely saw the scene of their drowning in the sea, but also saw the cause and effect of this scene being changed, and the backlash being borne by another person.

Their hearts were greatly shaken, and they repeatedly bowed and thanked,

"The grace of saving our lives is too great to repay.

"We only wish to know the name of our benefactor so that we may worship and believe in him every year!"

Houtu simply and gently declined their intentions. Then, Jingwei saw the yellow auspicious clouds flowing and changing, seemingly following a certain trajectory of cause and effect, lifting up these beings one by one.

Then, in an extremely fast but stable manner, they passed over the land and sea.

Sending them back to their original tribes and regions.

For a time, the sky pressed down, the four seas churned, and the yellow auspicious clouds flowed and changed, sweeping in all directions, equally magnificent. Jingwei watched this magnificent scene with some absent-mindedness, also waiting and anticipating her own auspicious cloud, but then slowly realized that something was wrong.

The auspicious clouds had dissipated, but none of them stayed in front of her.

A look of panic appeared in the girl's eyes.

When all the auspicious clouds in the sky had dissipated, and only the sound of the waves could be heard by the sea, Jingwei's small face was already pale. She subconsciously raised her head and saw the gentle woman looking at her with regret. Jingwei reached out and grabbed her sleeve, saying, "What about me? Heavenly God."

"I also want to go back and see Father."

[Houtu] reached out and touched her head, remaining silent for a long while before saying,

"You blew the conch at the end, didn't you?"

"I, I wanted to remind the tribe to avoid it quickly..."

The gentle woman looked at the child, her expression becoming more and more compassionate.

It was because that conch had blown all the strength and air out of her body that she was unable to resist the turbid waves. Everyone else tried their best to survive,

Only she didn't cherish her strength and vitality.

"Your body is already dead..."

Only then did Jingwei see a small body floating in the ocean, holding a conch, slowly sinking down. It was not the normal sea, but more like the boundary between life and death, the dividing line between two worlds.

Watching her body sink as if filled with lead, Jingwei sat down dizzily, as if her last strength had been drawn away. Her soul swayed, showing signs of dissipating. Houtu reached out and touched the girl's brow, fixing her soul.

If no one intervened, after her death, she would likely turn into a bird because of her last obsession.

Now that Houtu had intervened and changed her fate, she was spared such a calamity.

Jingwei's soul stabilized into the appearance of a girl. The girl opened her mouth, instinctively wanting to beg this gentle-faced woman to take her in as a disciple, but she was such a good child that she began to worry that her request would make the gentle woman in front of her uncomfortable, and she couldn't bring herself to speak.

Houtu comforted her gently, "I can't take you as a disciple."

"Because I have very important things to do afterward."

"Moreover, because of your life and death, the cause and effect has been borne by my friend, so you are now considered to have a connection with him. In that case..." Houtu recalled that her friend had been quite concerned when he mentioned this daughter of Emperor Yan before. After thinking for a while, she said,

"I can first take you in as a nominal disciple for him."

"And impart the Earth Sword Art, one of the Four Great Arts of the Realm."

"You can cultivate first to settle your mind, and then go find your father."

She reached out and gently touched Jingwei's brow. The cultivation methods of the Earth Path among the Four Great Arts of the Realm slowly flowed into her memory. The girl only felt a warmth flowing, and her soul instantly became much more real.

Dazed, almost no different from ordinary people.

Jingwei saw that the gentle woman seemed about to leave, and hurriedly asked, "Then, Senior."

"When will my teacher come?"

The gentle woman looked back at her, and said softly, "He is still a long way from you."

"No matter how far, I will wait!"

Jingwei replied.

The gentle woman rubbed her head, her eyes complex, and said softly,

"Then, keep waiting."

Houtu's figure slowly disappeared.

Only her voice slowly fell.

"Your teacher is still more than six thousand years away."

Jingwei was stunned, her eyes widened.

Six thousand years?!

Her cultivation was not strong, and it could even be said that even her soul and true spirit were maintained by a wisp of energy left by Houtu. After Houtu left, Jingwei fell into intermittent sleep again. When she was awake, it was as if invisible cause and effect were pulling her, leading her to various regions.

These were the creatures that Houtu had saved, the creatures that her unknown teacher had saved.

There were mortals.

There were also cultivation tribes with a trace of divine blood.

There were also some beast races.

When the girl woke up, she followed the road toward the tribe, riding a small donkey. The mountain gods and old bear tigers she passed asked her, young child, where are you going? She would say that she was going home.

She saw short land deities, flapping birds. Birds stood on her shoulder and asked her.

You walk and walk, who are you waiting for?

She would answer that she was waiting for her teacher.

Where is your teacher?

Six thousand years in the future. Every time she said this, the mountain gods would be surprised, and the land deities would pluck their beards. She would just hold stream water, wash her face, and continue forward on the small donkey, hoping to find the migrating Yan Emperor tribe, but she was always either asleep or awake, and always missed them.

Until twenty years later, after another awakening.

It was in a newly built temple in a seaside tribe. A voice, old and familiar, was saying, "Come, folks, come and see. This is the benefactor who saved our tribe decades ago..." Jingwei blinked and saw that it was one of the humans who had prostrated back then, but was now old and white-haired.

The life of a mortal is always short.

Six thousand years, how long is that?

The girl didn't understand yet, but she raised her eyes to look at the temple, and saw the simple but tall building façade. On one side was the smiling, gentle woman, swaying ribbons, and in the middle was a strangely familiar young Daoist, holding a sword in one hand, with a warm smile.

The yellow celebratory clouds that had been used to save all living beings back then swirled around the Daoist.

Above, it carried all living beings.

Above, it supported the turbid air, and below, it suppressed the seas.

Killing evil was not easy, and all living beings would not fall.

Wisps of smoke rose.

Strands of cause and effect turned, following life and death.

"Cough cough cough..."

Wei Yuan covered his chest, and a faint bloody taste permeated his mouth – cause and effect. He had directly sent out a considerable amount of causal power to help Houtu accurately save those people, and incidentally, to bear the causal backlash for Houtu.

Bearing the change in the fate of all living beings, bearing the huge change of countless lives that had survived in the past, the causal daoguo of the Turbid World seemed unable to bear this kind of choice. Wei Yuan felt that he had suffered a lot of impact.

However, this was also expected in advance, and was within his estimation.

That daoguo of the Turbid World cause and effect,

Could only bear the causal backlash brought about by tricking people behind their backs.

Saving people?

Impossible, completely impossible!

Since he knew that the churning of the Four Seas in the past might cause many people to be separated from their wives and children, and their families to be destroyed, then he could never pretend not to see it, and could never pretend not to know about it. Neither Master Kong, the teacher, nor Xuanzang had ever taught him these things.

Would it backlash against his power?

Would it cause damage to his foundation to a certain extent?

That was indeed the case.

But ah...

Isn't power cultivated precisely for the sake of saving people?!

The young Daoist of that year had a smile on his face, and behind him was the blazing fire of the Yellow Sky, which was precisely the first lesson in the true sense that Wei Yuan had learned.

However, it was time to do other things now.

Wei Yuan wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and suppressed the causal backlash without changing his expression.

His own causal power had suffered a backlash, but such situations were far too many in his past.

In his past, there were too many such situations. Besides, he was currently using the daoguo and daoti of the Turbid World cause and effect, so whether his own foundation was temporarily injured or not did not interfere with his combat ability.

At worst, he would hit it with a big slap from Mount Buzhou. If that didn't work, he would switch to Pangu the True Man and chop it down with a big axe.

Beneath the great axe, all living beings are equal.

Wei Yuan flicked his sleeves and took the Kunlun Ruins partial hall and the spirits of the Three-Headed Kingdom warriors into his sleeve space. Then, with a calm expression, he walked to the scene he had seen countless times in causal glimpses, and saw that mountain rock, and under the rock wall, the still withered and broken palm.

It seemed to be just right.

It also seemed to be a calculation made specifically by Fuxi.

He had found the node of the Heavenly Secret.

When the Daoist walked here, this huge seal seemed to have reached its limit, and there was a violent shaking and collapse. The gravity that had originally remained here also disappeared because of the disintegration of the Heavenly Secret Eight Trigrams. All things returned to their origin, and a terrifying aura soared into the sky.

Bearing decisiveness!

Bearing the madness that had been suppressed to the limit!

Bearing the ecstasy of finally breaking free after this extreme suppression!

"Hahahahahaha!"

"Six thousand years, it's been a full six thousand years!"

"Finally out, this seat is finally out!" A figure swept out, laughing wildly, his eyes slightly protruding and full of bloodshot eyes. He was laughing madly, mobilizing his authority, when suddenly his voice stopped abruptly, his expression froze. He saw a young Daoist in black martial attire in front of him, holding a long sword in one hand, with a gentle and refined expression. He saw the black hair at his temples, faintly mixed with white strands, his eyes deep, reflecting cause and effect, highlighting the colors of the surrounding environment, and blurring everything else.

Strands of twisted cause and effect floated.

It was as if this realm was separated from the outside world.

It was as if the only thing in this realm was himself and the other person.

"God of the Turbid World Earth."

The corners of the Daoist's mouth curled up little by little, with a gentle smile.

He nodded slightly, his voice gentle,

"This humble Daoist is Yu Xu Yuanshi."

"I have been waiting for you here for a long time."

ps: Third update for today...