Chapter 1126: Heaven and Earth are the Lodging for All Living Beings

**Chapter 1131: Heaven and Earth are the Inn of All Beings**

In the Western Regions, at the Dao Immortal Sect.

In the boundless, fertile fields, the struggle between the two medicinal herbs concluded at this moment.

One stood tall, blooming gloriously, its branches and leaves swaying, shimmering with starlight. The other beside it had withered and fallen, its branches dry, its flowers faded, seemingly merging with the muddy earth.

However… the Poison Sovereign continued to gaze. He wasn't looking at the seemingly victorious plant, but rather at the other one, gradually melding with the mud.

“Born from death?” the Poison Sovereign murmured, a strange glint appearing in his eyes.

At the same time, above the Western Regions’ sky, Li Mengtu’s face was pale. As he sped along, his internal injuries surged, occasionally causing him to cough up blood. No matter how much he suppressed them, they had reached a critical point.

This battle had been the most intense life-or-death struggle of his life. Though he had narrowly won, his injuries were unprecedentedly severe.

“Even battling other stars, this is probably the limit of what I can endure,” Li Mengtu murmured. Even though he had won, recalling the previous scenes left him with lingering fear.

This mindset prevented him from relaxing even slightly now. “In this world, variables are never lacking, and variables… especially favor prodigies.”

Li Mengtu took a deep breath. He couldn't allow any variables to appear in this matter, so he knew his speed was still too slow. Then, in the next instant, he raised his right hand and pressed it against his forehead. Amidst a roar, his complexion became unnaturally flushed, as if he had unleashed his potential and burned a portion of his authority. This exchange granted him increased speed, allowing him to instantly teleport.

Thus, after three days, utilizing his own teleportation and the power of ancient teleportation arrays, he finally returned to the Li family before the fourth Aurora Vortex Day arrived. Not the forbidden land located east of the center, but the true ancestral home of the Li family: Li City!

The city was magnificent and vast, bustling with countless cultivators.

Beneath the city, deep within the earth, lay an astonishing subterranean palace. This underground palace was like a world unto itself. More precisely, it was indeed a small world. It had sky and earth, but no living beings. The entire world was silent, with only the wind howling, blowing across rivers, sweeping over plains, and rushing over a high peak.

On the mountaintop, a wooden hut had been built. Its door was tightly shut. In the courtyard, a large cauldron stood. Incense burned, its smoke curling upwards, straight and unwavering in the wind, like green clouds ascending.

After a long while, the sky of this small world rippled silently, and Li Mengtu’s figure stepped out from within. Upon arriving, he took a deep breath, walked into the wooden hut's courtyard, and gazed at the closed door, his expression solemn. He knelt down.

This place was the sacred land of their Li family, the dwelling place of their Old Ancestor in his later years. After the Old Ancestor passed away, it became their Li family’s ancestral hall. According to clan rules, no clan members were permitted here except on ancestral worship days.

“Your descendant, Li Mengtu, disturbs the peace of the ancestors,” Li Mengtu spoke in a low voice, then touched his forehead to the ground, solemnly kowtowing.

After a moment, Li Mengtu stood up, his gaze withdrawing from the hut and falling upon the cauldron before him. This cauldron was the true purpose and focus of his visit. With a wave of his hand, the scroll containing Xu Qing’s seal flew out from Li Mengtu’s body, heading straight for the cauldron.

The moment it fell into the cauldron, the entire cauldron shook violently, and this small world instantly quaked, rumbling loudly. Endless flames rose from underground, illuminating the world while arrays also shimmered. With the world as an array and the underground fire as its boundary, they converged into the cauldron, transforming it into a refining furnace. This augmented the scroll, causing its refining power to surge dramatically.

“With this, it’s foolproof. Xu Qing absolutely cannot cause any variables; he is sure to die!” Witnessing all of this, Li Mengtu’s heart finally settled.

After bowing once more towards the ancestral hall’s wooden hut, he ascended into the sky, preparing to leave this place and return to the Dao Immortal Sect to heal his injuries with its abundant immortal qi.

“When my injuries have recovered and I return here, Xu Qing will have already disintegrated into the vast earth, and my heritage will return to me.” Li Mengtu lowered his head, glancing once more at the cauldron, at the scroll within it.

What exactly the scroll left behind by the Li family’s Old Ancestor before his passing contained, most of his descendants only knew partially, not the specifics. They only knew that this scroll was the family’s supreme treasure, originating from a place called Hou Tu (Thick Earth). That place was the Old Ancestor’s homeland. They only knew that if someone could open it, even a Lesser Immortal could be sealed.

Only Li Mengtu, who could open the scroll slightly at the cost of his lifespan, knew more. “The body withers into nothingness, the soul passes through reincarnation, continuously eroding, until finally… the spirit disperses into Hou Tu.”

As he murmured, Li Mengtu’s body flickered and he vanished from the place. With his departure, the small world’s tranquility, once broken, plunged into an endless roar of flames. This sound… echoed for a long, long time.

The sound of heavenly thunder seemed to come from beyond the distant sky, traversing the real world and falling into the ethereal heavens, becoming a muffled roar. It exploded in the ears of countless sleeping people in the capital city, waking all beings in the city. It also awakened an old man, who silently opened his eyes and lightly coughed.

This sound, in a sense, seemed to surpass the heavenly thunder, causing the old man’s mansion to instantly light up, with countless servants immediately rushing over. They dared not delay in the slightest. For the thunder in the sky killed according to fate, but the old man killed simply based on his mood. Thus, his cough surpassed heavenly thunder.

The old man wore an expensive silk inner garment, indicating his noble status. Although his hair was completely white, his face covered in wrinkles, and dark brown age spots were clearly visible on his body, the aura of authority he had cultivated from years in high office made people overlook the fact that he was nearing the end of his life when looking at him. They only remembered his thunderous methods throughout his life.

“What time is it?” the old man spoke hoarsely.

The dozens of servants who had rushed in were all cautious, one of them speaking softly. “Master, it’s the fourth watch.”

The old man was silent, then lay back down after a moment, speaking faintly. “You may all withdraw.”

The servants, one by one, sighed in relief inwardly and respectfully withdrew. Silence returned to the room, broken only by the muffled thunder from beyond the sky, echoing occasionally.

In the darkness, the old man did not close his eyes. He stared into the blackness, feeling the withering of life, the weakness he refused to accept, and the approach of death.

“I’m old… but I always feel as if I’ve forgotten something,” the old man murmured, finally closing his eyes after a long while.

This was the 79th year of the Tiangui Era of the Great Ning Dynasty, in the capital city of Great Ning, Tianbao City. Xu Jinfa, the Prime Minister who wielded immense power, assisted Emperor Tiangui in ascending the throne, campaigned against twenty-five nations, and established the unprecedented foundation of Great Ning… departed this life. That night, thunder roared incessantly. Like samsara, it was endless. Yet, among those in this cycle, some might be remembered by history, but most… were merely fleeting waves.

Just like Xu Hong, born on this very day in another world.

His father was a merchant whose lifelong ambition was to become a wealthy and successful businessman. Thus, the eldest son born to the family that night was given the character ‘Hong’. And indeed, Xu Hong spent his life striving to fulfill his father’s dream, giving up his studies to take over the family business early and pursue that ideal. Day after day, year after year.

Along this path, he was benevolent and charitable, becoming known as a great philanthropist. But alas, a deception orchestrated by someone close to him shattered his family’s dream. An epidemic shattered his own dream. His vast fortune turned to nothing. He ended up losing his wife and children, utterly miserable. Before his death… he was wrapped in a mat in the city, thrown onto a pile of corpses, and with a single fire… completely annihilated.

Regrets? Xu Shan wasn't sure, only feeling a sense of ill omen. So, suppressing a headache, he looked at the burning corpses ahead and spat a mouthful of bloody phlegm. Around him were overturned carriages on the official road, gold ingots scattered everywhere, trembling female family members, and in the flames, pairs of greedy eyes.

He was one of them. As a bandit on Yunlai Mountain, he was originally unwilling. After all, Xu Sanye (Third Master Xu) had always been accustomed to a carefree life; people of the martial world sought freedom. Staying on this mountain, robbing passing caravans, occasionally facing life and death, and the result was… others ate meat, while he only had the soup. He was very impatient with such a life. The main point was, his head hurt more and more.

This was a childhood ailment; his mother said it was his brain growing. He believed it then. But as he grew, the headaches worsened, yet his intelligence didn’t seem to have increased much. He was always deceived, always wronged, his mother was also killed by someone, and he seemed to have taken revenge… He didn’t remember, only remembered that he couldn’t kill enough.

So he forcefully knocked his own head, then bandaged the wound on his leg, thinking of the knife wound he’d received from the dying bodyguard just now, which had almost cut his genitals. Xu Shan felt even more unlucky. “I need to find a time to leave this place, preferably to find a doctor to carefully examine what’s wrong with my head.”

As Xu Shan was thinking, a laugh came from afar, followed by a trembling woman who was thrown in front of Xu Shan. “Silly San, you did well today. How about Grandpa gives you a wife?”

Xu Shan trembled. This sentence made his headache seemingly disappear; his breathing became ragged as he stared intently at the trembling woman. He suddenly felt that being a bandit here wasn’t bad after all. So he quickly spoke to the Second-in-Command who had given him the reward. “Ah, thank…”

A rock flew rapidly and hit Xu Shan on the head. The force was great. Xu Shan winced in pain, and as he stumbled back a few steps, the Second-in-Command in his eyes began to mock him. “You actually want her?” This was accompanied by countless laughs from around them.

“No, no…” Xu Shan also laughed, but beneath his seemingly indifferent exterior was a headache several times worse than before. The pain made him want to kill, or… kill himself too.

So, as the group gathered all their spoils and headed back to the stronghold, he lunged at the Second-in-Command, and amidst the other’s mocking, he stabbed him with a knife. Unfortunately, it missed. What greeted him instead was a storm-like stinging pain. His entire body became like a riddled rag doll, drenched in blood.

But before he died, he smiled. Amidst the horror in the eyes of the Second-in-Command before him, and the gasps of the surrounding crowd, he swallowed the flesh he had bitten off. That piece of flesh was from the Second-in-Command’s throat.

The world blurred. In this blur, Xu Shan suddenly found that his headache was gone. A sentence, seemingly not from his own memory, floated into his mind.

“Heaven and Earth are the Inn of all beings…”

“What does that mean?” Xu Shan was uneducated and didn't understand. As he tried to ponder it… his life withered away.