“Laojun, Your Majesty, do not listen to this demoness’s nonsense! It was she who repeatedly schemed against me first. Unable to bear the anger, I merely gave her a small punishment.”
Overwhelmed by emotion, Li Jing clasped his fists and knelt. “I beg Laojun and Your Majesty to see the truth clearly!”
After his lengthy explanation, Taishang Laojun seemed to have only registered the word “demoness.” He said calmly, “My Thunderous Divine Fire Pill is specifically designed to suppress demons and evil spirits, as well as those among the gods and buddhas with impure hearts. According to the Heavenly King, if this pill has now been refined by a demoness, does that mean it is nothing but an empty reputation?”
The words “Thunderous Divine Fire Pill” struck Li Jing’s ears like thunder, leaving him stunned. “Wh-what?”
Not only him, but the many immortals and deities below the platform were also astonished.
The strange bead that this little Celestial Attendant used to blast the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King was actually one of the nine great divine pills rumored to have been refined by Taishang Laojun!
And she had refined it herself.
Where did she get the pill formula?
At this thought, the deities present looked at Shen Fuxing with changed expressions—thoughtful and meaningful.
What had she said earlier?
Looking for her grandpa… Hiss, could this “grandpa” be…
“This is impossible!” Li Jing glanced incredulously at Shen Fuxing, then looked up at Taishang Laojun and the Jade Emperor seated above, voicing the greatest doubt in everyone’s minds. “As far as I know, within the Three Realms, no one but Laojun can refine the Thunderous Divine Fire Pill. How could a mere Celestial Attendant with such low cultivation achieve this?”
“Moreover, the formula for the Divine Fire Pill is stored only in the Tushita Palace of the Thirty-Three Heavens. With her level of cultivation, she can’t even ascend past the Ninth Heaven, let alone—”
Before Li Jing could ramble on further, Taishang Laojun translated for him: “Are you saying that I am so old and dim-sighted that I can’t even recognize a pill I made myself?”
His tone clearly carried displeasure.
How could Li Jing bear the wrath of a Saint? Panic flashed across his face as he hurriedly defended himself. “I dare not! That is not what I meant!”
Taishang Laojun did not listen, did not care, and did not bother.
Here, he was the highest authority, the boss, and he would proceed at his own preferred pace.
“I believe that is exactly what you meant. She is clearly an Immortal Body, yet you call her a demoness. You are insulting my judgment!”
His vast, majestic voice seemed to come from the edge of the heavens, the pressure growing increasingly intense. With just a glance, he sent Li Jing flying off the platform, blood spurting from his mouth.
Watching this scene, Shen Fuxing’s eyes brightened.
Truly worthy of being a Primordial Saint—his power was terrifyingly formidable.
One day, she too would become this strong, so strong that no one could rival her!
Across the Three Realms and the Eight Desolations, if anyone dared to defy her, she would fight them!
Let’s see who would dare stop her from finding her grandpa!
Taishang Laojun could not hear her inner thoughts, but seeing her bright and determined gaze, he felt confident that he had made a good first impression.
Unfortunately, after several calculations, the results all indicated that this child had no master-disciple fate with him.
Otherwise, he would have simply slapped Li Jing into oblivion and then, as Shen Fuxing’s idol and master, openly whisked her back to the Tushita Palace.
Once she achieved great success in the art of pill refining, he would immediately summon Yuanshi Tianzun to bring his Twelve Golden Immortals to the Tushita Palace for a feast. The menu would feature fried golden pills, cold-tossed golden pills, golden pill salad… all refined by his precious beloved disciple! Hahahahahahaha…
But it was just a fantasy. What was he laughing about?
With an indifferent expression, Taishang Laojun performed a “crow sits on an airplane” move in his mind, knocking the version of himself that was laughing like an old fool into a Sleeping Beauty.
His immediate superior suddenly wore a grim expression, an almost imperceptible aura of resentment radiating from him. The Jade Emperor was greatly alarmed, slamming the imperial table in fury and rebuking, “Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King! How dare you!!”
Li Jing, not bothering to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, struggled to rise and kneel properly, crying out in grievance, “Your Majesty, I… I don’t know what crime I have committed!”
The Jade Emperor did not respond immediately. Instead, he shifted his gaze, stealing a glance at Taishang Laojun’s reaction beside him.
At that moment, Laojun was thinking to himself: Since this child so desires a grandfather, and I cannot be her master, becoming her grandfather would be an excellent alternative.
Having a prodigy in alchemy as a granddaughter—what more could one ask for!
Thus, his expression softened, even showing a hint of delight.
Seeing that his approach had struck a chord with his superior, the Jade Emperor felt a surge of joy inwardly, though outwardly he maintained an enraged demeanor, pressing further: “What’s wrong with standing still and taking a few explosions if you said something wrong? You’ve achieved Physical Body Sanctification—what is there to fear? Look at you, scurrying around and wreaking havoc in my Heavenly Court!!”
Li Jing: “…??”
“Your Majesty, that demoness targeted me with relentless bombardment. I had no choice but to—”
The Jade Emperor, enraged, spread his arms like a great roc taking flight, speaking only for himself: “If you hadn’t scurried around, would my Heavenly Court have suffered such damage?!”
“………………”
Li Jing wanted to speak but found himself at a loss for words.
Shen Fuxing bombing him was one thing, but if he hadn’t fled, the palaces of the other immortals would indeed have been spared.
The problem was, he couldn’t possibly have stayed put. Taishang Laojun himself had confirmed that Shen Fuxing was using Thunderous Divine Fire Pills. If he hadn’t retracted his pagoda in time, he would have been skewered into a sieve by Nezha’s Fire-Tipped Spear.
Besides, standing still and taking a beating—wasn’t that the act of a fool?
The Jade Emperor stole another glance at Taishang Laojun’s expression.
The inexplicably grave look on his superior’s face made his heart skip another beat.
Surely, his voice wasn’t loud enough, and his reprimand of Li Jing wasn’t severe enough!
In reality, that wasn’t the case. Taishang Laojun was merely puzzled. Just as he had conceived the idea of becoming Shen Fuxing’s grandfather, he suddenly sensed an impending tribulation.
But he had already weathered the Great Tribulation of the Primordial Era, and the Heavenly Dao rarely targeted saints so easily. Where did this tribulation come from?
Because of this tribulation, Taishang Laojun decided to visit the Violet Heaven Palace to seek guidance from his master, Hongjun Patriarch, temporarily setting aside his plan to become Shen Fuxing’s grandfather.
Coincidentally, the moment he abandoned the idea, the tribulation vanished.
Such a bizarre occurrence left even Taishang Laojun, who was deeply versed in the laws of heaven and earth, with a question mark hovering over his head. No matter how he calculated, he couldn’t make sense of it.
With his exceptional insight, Laojun soon grasped the crux of the matter. He oscillated repeatedly between the decision to become Shen Fuxing’s grandfather or not.
Sure enough, his tribulation appeared and disappeared intermittently.
After repeating this over twenty times, the mysterious force imposing this tribulation seemed to grow angry. A gentle breeze swept by, and Laojun felt as if someone had slapped his face.
“…”
As the saying goes, if a cultivator has foul words to say, they must be spoken aloud; holding them in taints the heart.
This breeze seemed to penetrate his thoughts. The fleeting thought in his mind, like a shallow meteor streaking across the sky, vanished in an instant. The breeze that had blown it away returned along its original path.
Slap.
Turning the world to silence, one could hear the sound of Laojun’s composure shattering.
—How utterly uncouth of you.
The breeze halted beside his face, refusing to leave. It circled his head, observing which part of his skin was the thickest.
—My master is Hongjun Patriarch.
Slap.
At the same moment, in the Violet Heaven Palace, a Daoist seated in meditation suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
The elderly Daoist opened his eyes: “?”
Since Taishang Laojun had already given up on everything, feeling frustrated but with nowhere to vent, he narrowed his eyes and turned his gaze toward Li Jing.
Then, the Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King blurted out his true thoughts without thinking: “Only a fool would stand there and take a beating!”
The gods, unaware of the situation, were stunned.
How could a god be so shameless?
Li Jing, realizing what he had just said, was utterly dumbfounded, but it was too late to take back his words.
The Jade Emperor was furious—not because of Taishang Laojun, but purely because Li Jing had called him a fool. “How dare you! How dare you!! How dare you!!!”
“You!” he pointed at Li Jing and roared, “Starting tomorrow, you will no longer oversee the Heavenly Generals of the various departments. Instead, you shall cultivate peach trees for me in the Peach Garden of Immortality!”
“Furthermore, the costs of rebuilding all the palaces and halls shall be borne by you alone. No further arguments!”
If he didn’t make an example of him, they’d really think all the Heavenly Soldiers were surnamed Li.
After saying this, he turned to Taishang Laojun and Shen Fuxing, who was blinking innocently in his arms, and immediately broke into a smile. Bending down slightly, he asked softly, “The child did cause a little trouble, after all. How about punishing her by having her guard the Peach Garden of Immortality? What does Laojun think?”
With a little thought, it was clear that while the punishments for the two sounded similar, they were vastly different in practice.
Cultivating involved a series of chores like watering, fertilizing, and other miscellaneous tasks, while guarding essentially meant strolling around the peach garden—a leisurely walk would suffice as duty.
The Jade Emperor truly had no better idea, as Nezha still needed Li Jing to keep him in check.
If he were to kill Li Jing, it would be like unleashing a beast from its cage, with unimaginable consequences.
In the past, he had carelessly entrusted the task of guarding the peach garden to a monkey.
This time, with Li Jing nearby, even if Shen Fuxing got greedy and stole a few peaches, her little stomach would be full after three at most. So be it if she ate a few.
He refused to believe that a child could produce a sequel to Sun Wukong’s legendary deeds.