Jin Chixiao first went blank, then a rush of hot blood surged up to his head. Every vein in his body felt ready to burst, and he nearly cursed out loud. When had he ever been looked down on like this?

Even if he could not read the ancient script, did he deserve to be berated like that? But he dared not act out. Right now he was skewered in midair on a golden war spear, his life in Ye Fan’s hands — he did not dare breathe too loudly.

“The blood of an Ancient King flows through you. As their descendant, did you not even learn those characters?” Ye Fan was quite displeased.

“Constant intermarriage with the human race has made us nearly half-human. The ancient bloodline grows thinner with each generation — the imprint of the Ancestral Kings has long since faded.” Jin Chixiao explained.

His heart was bitter. He was the heir of a great Golden King, and here he was being called illiterate. There could be nothing worse or more absurd, and he very much wanted to swallow this hated enemy whole.

Ye Fan was deeply disappointed, his expression cold. He had finally captured an ancient creature, hoping to have the Immortal Tear Green Gold book translated — only to find that Jin Chixiao could not read a single character.

“What of the Cyan Void Bell King?”

“It was sent to the Northern Plains.”

“Lies — hand it over now!” Ye Fan glared.

Jin Chixiao felt a jolt of fear and explained carefully: “The Cyan Void Bell was a weapon belonging to a matchlessly powerful king of old, but it has been defiled. I sent it home to have the family cleanse it…”

“Does the Golden Family possess Earth Divine Milk?” Ye Fan was surprised.

“A small amount. It should be enough to restore the treasure to its former glory.” Jin Chixiao answered cautiously.

“When will they deliver it to you?” Ye Fan pondered. With a rare treasure like Earth Divine Milk, the Cyan Void Bell could certainly be cleansed.

“I do not know…”

“Then what use are you?” Ye Fan groaned in frustration. He had captured an ancient creature who couldn’t read ancient writing and whose bell had already been sent away — the more he looked at Jin Chixiao, the more pointless the man seemed.

“As long as you spare my life, I am willing to pay any price.” Jin Chixiao pleaded. He could sense the killing intent radiating from the other man.

“You ambushed me three times, and you still want to live?” Ye Fan had nothing more to say. He gave the golden war spear a single shake — and Jin Chixiao was reduced to a pulp of flesh, body and soul annihilated.

“No!”

The three Supreme Elders rushed in from the distance and witnessed this scene. Their hearts nearly shattered. He was their young master — and he had died like this. They had no way to account for it.

Ye Fan walked away without looking back, leaving only a faint lingering afterimage before vanishing into the vast, boundless sky.

“How many times does one float through life’s fleeting dream? Through life’s dream, troubles multiply and teem. No one has taught me the art of living forever, so in the spring hills I sing and let my spirit wander free…”

The trees were lush and verdant, winding vines wrapped around old trunks, and a stone path climbed gradually up into the deep mountains. A woodcutter sang out at full voice, creating quite a picturesque scene.

Ye Fan had come from the east. He chose this range of mountains more than a thousand li from West Dam City, intending to enter seclusion here and make a breakthrough to the Fourth Transformation of Dragon Sublimation.

The place could not be called particularly beautiful — but mountain and water complemented each other well enough. A lake dotted the base of the hills, and a dilapidated Daoist temple sat partway up the slope. It was no immortal land, but it possessed a certain quality of returning to simplicity.

Ye Fan saw the woodcutter from a distance, descending the stone path from above with a bundle of firewood on his back — solidly built, with a full, unkempt beard.

“Good sir, hearing your singing — could you be a cultivator?”

“You’ve mistaken me, young friend. I’m nothing but a common man. I’m no cultivator. I only heard an old Daoist chanting this and committed it to memory.”

Ye Fan was surprised. “Where might this distinguished person be found?”

“There is a Daoist temple in the mountains. There used to be an old Daoist there. It’s fallen into disrepair these past years — the old man was too aged. He passed away some years ago.”

A thought stirred in Ye Fan’s heart. He bid farewell to the woodcutter and followed the stone path up into the mountains. After crossing nine peaks and looking back from each summit, he finally spotted a dilapidated Daoist temple seated atop a low hill.

That low hill had nothing remarkable on it — no blue bamboo or emerald cypress, no spirit medicines or jade herbs. It was simple and plain. There was a small vegetable patch, now gone to ruin and overgrown with weeds. Beside it, a single grapevine clung to a trellis — dry, withered tendrils hanging with two or three clusters of purple grapes.

“Method, method, method — the original has no method. Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness — emptiness is not truly empty. The states of stillness and noise, of speaking and silence, are fundamentally one. In the dream, who has ever spoken of dreaming? Useful things within their use hold what is useless. Within effortless action, effort is applied. Just as fruit ripens and turns red of itself, do not ask how to cultivate and plant…”

Two hunters emerged from the mountains, dressed in animal-skin garments, striding with vigor, bows and quivers slung over their backs, carrying a wild deer between them — moving without effort, clearly powerfully built.

“Good sirs, what is it you are reciting?” Ye Fan went forward to ask.

“Oh, that? We often heard an old Daoist chanting it, and learned it without realizing. Every time we come back from hunting and pass through here, we think of him and can’t help but sing a verse.” One of the hunters answered.

This was a true master, Ye Fan was now certain. The old Daoist on that low hill was no ordinary person — far from common.

“A pity — he was too old. He passed away two or three years ago,” the other man said.

Ye Fan asked a few more questions and learned that the old Daoist had also taught them a method of breath cultivation — quite simple, but capable of strengthening tendons and bones. It was the most suited kind of practice for ordinary mortals.

“Young friend, are you seeking immortals and the Dao? A pity you have come too late…”

It was clear that both hunters had a deep fondness for the old Daoist, for they lingered and spoke at some length.

The old man was very advanced in age. Even their grandfathers said they could remember this old Daoist from when they were very young. No one knew how many years he had lived alone on the mountain.

“My thanks to you both.” Ye Fan departed, and this time followed the mountain path until he climbed the low hill.

A small Daoist temple, decrepit and low, like a thatched hall. It had been abandoned for several years with no one coming or going — cold and desolate.

In front of the small temple stood an ancient pine tree. Its trunk was hollow, far too wide for many people’s arms to encircle it; its branches were gnarled and powerful, but its needles were sparse. The old tree was nearly dead.

There was no field of medicinal herbs — only a small vegetable patch, now gone to ruin. Beside it, a single grapevine, its tendrils wizened and dry, bore two or three clusters of purple grapes.

“This Daoist temple, with its ancient tree… at least four thousand years old.” Ye Fan felt a tremor in his heart as he perceived an aura of deep, accumulated time.

Had the old Daoist built this temple himself? Had he planted this ancient tree with his own hands? If so, then this was unquestionably a terrifyingly powerful master.

Ye Fan entered the dilapidated temple and searched carefully, hoping to find some clue or trace. But thick dust had accumulated inside, and there was nothing resembling ancient texts or stone carvings.

Very ordinary — no different from any common Daoist temple. A worn prayer mat, a few tattered Daoist robes, a horsetail whisk gnawed apart by insects. Not a single unusual object.

Ye Fan walked out and went around to the back of the temple, where a small grave mound stood — no tombstone, no inscription, just a simple mound of yellow earth.

“This is his grave. He passed without leaving a single written word. Whoever he was, he left behind neither cultivation methods to pass down to the world…”

He stood before the earthen mound, activated the Heaven Origin Divine Eye, and gazed downward into the ground, hoping to examine the remains and determine what level of cultivation this person had reached.

“Strange…” He was startled. It was an empty grave — no skeletal remains.

“No — there are tattered Daoist robes, a hairpin, and shoes and socks…” A thought stirred within him. Could this be a cenotaph?

“Transformation into the Dao!” He was deeply shocked. Upon final examination, there should have been a body — but the person had dissolved themselves before death. This was unquestionably a master of extraordinary power.

In general, only a peerless king or above could achieve transformation into the Dao — dissolving oneself back into the natural order of heaven and earth. This was true dissolution into the Dao, not mere self-destruction of one’s physical form.

“Truly it is said: tigers and leopards lurk in the deep mountains, and a qilin lies hidden in the open fields. In a place as small as this, there was a great king of old — quite possibly even a saint who passed into nirvana here!”

Ye Fan was profoundly astonished. This person’s name had not been passed down to the world. No one knew of him at all. He had simply died in obscurity.

“The world is not without great masters — they simply go unrecognized. Here was a peerless expert, likely no inferior to the peerless divine king Jiang Taixu — perhaps even… a saint.”

Yet this person was gone now, leaving nothing behind — not even a name known to the world.

Ye Fan searched the entire area with meticulous care. The prayer mat, whisk, and Daoist robes were all probed with his divine sense — not a single treasure to be found.

“Too thorough. He truly left nothing for those who came after. A being beyond all imagination — and his lineage has been severed. The loss to the world is incalculable.”

Ye Fan took up residence here. The place was quiet, suited for seclusion and seeking the Dao — no one to disturb him.

The low hill, the dilapidated Daoist temple — there was an ineffable rhythm of the Dao here, deeply suited to quiet cultivation. A quality of returning to natural simplicity pervaded everything.

“Of course. How could a place where such a person chose to live in seclusion be ordinary soil? And since he dissolved into the Dao here, this place will one day become a sacred cultivation ground.”

Ye Fan had obtained the Dragon Marrow — but consuming it did not automatically bring him to the Fourth Transformation of Dragon Sublimation. Everything still depended on his own comprehension.

The Dragon Marrow contained fragments of great Dao laws that could offer assistance, but they were not the fundamental key to breaking through. The first and most essential element lay within the cultivator’s own heart and mind.

Deep in the night, all was still and quiet, and the stars were scattered across the sky. Ye Fan sat cross-legged before the Daoist temple, hands resting palm-upward on his knees. A great dragon rose along his spine and ultimately took form, coiling and dancing around him.

“Sometimes I rest beneath the pine tree, head pillowed on a stone to sleep. Within the mountains, there is no calendar — and when the cold has passed, I do not know what year…”

Suddenly, a soft murmuring jolted Ye Fan awake. His eyes snapped open.

At that moment, a dark bank of clouds drifted across the sky, blocking out the stars and moon above. The earth was plunged into complete darkness, and deep within the mountains, not a single thing could be seen.

Just there, before the Daoist temple, in front of the ancient tree that no number of people’s arms could encircle, a figure appeared out of nowhere. The voice was his.

Ye Fan’s heart trembled. Who was this? To slip past his spiritual awareness and appear this close without him sensing anything at all — it was terrifying.

He activated his divine senses and looked carefully. In that instant, his hair stood on end. Ancient, worn Daoist robes swayed gently, and a gaunt, diminutive old Daoist appeared beneath the withered tree.

Those aged robes were intimately familiar — identical to the ones inside the Daoist temple, and indistinguishable from those within the yellow earthen grave.

Ye Fan felt a chill crawl up his spine as he looked at the man’s hair. A simple, plain wooden hairpin was similarly unmistakable, no different from the one lying in the grave mound.

“I am seeing a ghost!”

Ye Fan leapt to his feet and stumbled back several paces. How could someone who had already dissolved into the Dao possibly appear again?

“How many times has the mortal world turned to mulberry fields and back again? Though the fields transform, the painted scrolls endure. Who is it that, within the painted scrolls, has attained immortality…”

The slender, slight old Daoist walked beneath the ancient tree, murmuring to himself, blending into the pitch-dark depths of the night.

“You…” Ye Fan stepped back.

A gust of cool wind passed through, carrying the fresh scent of grass and trees. The dark clouds in the sky drifted away. The breeze still moved before the Daoist temple — but the old Daoist was nowhere to be seen.

Ye Fan’s scalp tingled. He had not moved his gaze even a fraction, staring fixedly ahead — yet the old Daoist had simply vanished like smoke, leaving no trace.