Chapter 1983: Removing Clothes

Just who is Dao Qiongcang?

When Su Yin reflected, his assessment of Dao Qiongcang was exceptionally clear, simply put…

He was a cast-off, abandoned by the Medicine Ancestor after giving up halfway through studying the Way of Life—someone not even comparable to Bei Huai.

He was fundamentally a schemer and a cheat who, by virtue of sitting on the “Hall Master of Dao” seat, inherently gained access to more information than others.

He was a jack-of-all-trades, dabbling in body cultivation, spirit refinement, and swordsmanship—even able to manifest the "Three Venerables - Qiongcang"—but truly a master of none.

He was an excellent self-promoter, deeply understanding human flaws and exaggerating certain strengths to effectively mask his weaknesses.

This “deception” was, without a doubt, highly successful among the cultivators of the Five Domains.

However, from the perspective of those in high positions, under the Ancestral Gods' superior discernment compared to mere ants, once his disguise was stripped away, Dao Qiongcang was synonymous with being outwardly strong but inwardly weak.

While not entirely useless, compared to the true luminaries among the Ten Venerables, he couldn't hold a candle to them; he was far from a first-tier genius.

Therefore, even after the battle in the Divine Remains, which ended in his own defeat, Su Yin still didn't pay Dao Qiongcang any mind.

Even now, who, recalling that day's battle, would believe that the victory was decided by Xu Xiaoshou and Dao Qiongcang, rather than the Eight Venerables An Jianwo, who provided remote assistance from the Sword Codex?

Looking at the achievements of these three today, one can see where Su Yin truly suffered defeat at that time.

Consequently, whether it was Dao Qiongcang or Xu Xiaoshou, Su Yin fundamentally looked down on them, even if he cooperated or wished to cooperate.

In short, two words: unworthy!

And that was indeed the case. Even after the battle in the Divine Remains, where Xu and Dao achieved ultimate victory—exchanging a faded red boxer brief for the true source stele, the Dragon.

Ultimately, using the "囧" character on those briefs, Dao Qiongcang later contacted Su Yin to establish a psychic communication channel and conspire for a cooperative alliance, yet his demeanor was not that of a victor.

He knew his place well, so his words were exceedingly humble, repeatedly calling Su Yin "Lord Su Yin," which only made Su Yin despise him more.

Had he respected himself, and displayed arrogance in words or actions due to the battle's outcome, Su Yin would have actually regarded him more highly.

That would have been the proper demeanor for a victor!

He should have flaunted his power, because that would have proven he at least possessed some substance!

But Dao Qiongcang did not.

He had completely let go.

He seemed to know that winning was equivalent to losing, and that he truly possessed nothing, which led him to repeatedly humble himself, only to be increasingly scorned by Su Yin.

In the end, this Dao Qiongcang, who had humbled himself into the dust, astonishingly dared to storm into the Blood World Pearl's internal space, even rushing right up to him.

Such a stark contrast left Su Yin bewildered, unsure of the man's newfound confidence.

Yet, to his surprise, he didn't stop there; he forcibly ascended the throne and slapped him!

Su Yin was utterly stunned.

A mere slap was nothing; Su Yin could withstand it.

However, the sheer impact of this incident on Su Yin was no less than an ant-like ancient sword cultivator, who had just manifested innate sword intent, piercing the heart of the Eight Venerables An, who had sealed the Ancestor and returned to zero!

Was this even possible?

It was utterly impossible!

Yet, it had undeniably happened: an ant's slap, within the Blood World Pearl's internal space, had landed squarely on the face of him, an Ancestral God!

“Lord Su Yin, you have been eliminated.”

He even dared to mock, lying opposite him, on the divine throne that was exclusively his.

Su Yin clutched his face, for a moment forgetting to think.

As his hand slowly fell, a tidal wave of fury and murderous intent surged forth.

But at the same time, a faint light flickered within the Blood World Pearl's internal space. Xu Xiaoshou might not have noticed, but Su Yin saw it clearly…

“囧!”

An incredibly clear "囧" character, resembling a robot's heavenly mechanism pattern, appeared on the struck side of his face, then quickly faded.

Where had this "囧" character been seen before?

On a pair of soiled red boxer briefs!

How could someone as arrogant as Su Yin endure such an insult?

“Seal!”

Su Yin immediately turned over, forming hand seals, intent on acting to sever Dao Qiongcang's will.

But he had forgotten that his true body was still high above the Ghost Buddha Realm, serving as the Medicine Ancestor's seed, tortured to the brink of death.

It was merely that the Blood World Pearl, stimulated by Bei Huai's life force, had activated a wisp of Su Yin's consciousness within it, enabling him to summon Xu Xiaoshou.

As for Dao Qiongcang, in earlier years, he had been secretive; whether it was pursuing the enemy Saint Slave on Void Island or forcing Xu Xiaoshou up Mount Qingyuan—these “major events” were all handled by his clones.

However, when it came to facing ancestors—whether it was the Medicine Ancestor resetting and powerless in the Dragon's Den, or the “minor matter” of Su Yin's will awakening in the Blood World Pearl to ally with Xu Xiaoshou—he always appeared in his true form, intending to use an ox-cleaver to slay a chicken.

The moment Su Yin made a move, just as he formed his hand seals...

Dao Qiongcang, though moving later, arrived first. His body, lazily reclined on the divine throne, didn't move an inch. He too formed Su Yin's hand seals, performing his utterly ridiculous Thirty-six Heavenly Mechanisms right in front of Su Yin:

“Great Suppression Art!”

A mere Dao Qiongcang, attempting to suppress Su Yin?

Starlight scattered. Beneath the divine throne, a faint splashing sound, like water, subtly echoed once more.

Su Yin had just begun to sneer, his forbidden art not yet fully formed, when he suddenly felt an immense pressure descend, almost shattering his divine projection.

“How is this possible?!”

His art interrupted, Su Yin's eyes widened in shock.

He, the progenitor of the Art of the Dao, was being suppressed by Dao Qiongcang, who dabbled in Su's Art?

“Impudence!”

The Blood World Pearl space rumbled.

The divine throne suddenly exploded, and Su Yin vanished with it.

At the same time, a colossal purple vertical pupil split open in the sky, glaring wide, its depths seemingly reflecting Su Yin's indistinct figure as he formed hand seals.

“Seal!”

Still, not a single word had left his mouth.

On Dao Qiongcang's side, having completed his art, he remained unaffected by the shattering of the divine throne.

He even remained reclined in mid-air, maintaining the exact same elegantly relaxed posture as Su Yin had, amusingly watching Xu Xiaoshou:

“Do you believe me when I say that after spending this time together, I've completely figured out what Su Yin is thinking?”

Xu Xiaoshou remained silent.

In fact, the "囧" character startled more than just Su Yin, and it wasn't only the red boxer briefs that sparked wild conjectures.

There was also the identical "囧" pattern on the statue of the Demonic Ancestor, which he had glimpsed fleetingly during his journey through the River of Time, within the stone hall of the Frigid Palace Emperor Realm.

To this day, Xu Xiaoshou still didn't understand when it was placed there, by whom, or how the Demonic Ancestor remained unaware.

Even more astonishing was the flamboyant old Dao's current display of assertiveness.

It was widely known that Dao Qiongcang was an extremely timid person; even if there was the slightest "what if" possibility, this guy wouldn't reveal his trump card directly.

Yet now, facing Su Yin, he dared to tear off his disguise, confront him head-on, and even speak boastfully?

If it were anyone else, Xu Xiaoshou would have thought that person was truly courting death.

But this person was Dao Qiongcang…

Xu Xiaoshou couldn't help but entertain the absurd thought: was Su Yin about to be defeated?

“Su Yin's intention, if he can't defeat me, is to use the power of the Blood World Pearl.”

Dao Qiongcang finished speaking. His consciousness avatar here remained motionless, but at the moment the purple vertical pupil split open in the sky within the pearl's space...

At the crossroads, his true body, which had been trampling the Blood World Pearl, raised its foot again with a heavy stomp.

“Great Extermination Art!”

Another stomp landed.

It was merely a burst of saintly power, yet it caused severe turbulence within the Blood World Pearl's internal space.

Even the vertical pupil in the sky had its casting process halted, allowing Dao Qiongcang to once again move later but arrive first, manipulating Su's Art.

He was seen lying horizontally in the air, one hand propping his chin, the other pointing distantly into the void:

“Great Confinement Art!”

Another faint splashing sound like water. This time, Xu Xiaoshou completely understood: there was a fundamental difference compared to the Thirty-six Heavenly Mechanisms he had seen before.

At this moment, every time Dao Qiongcang cast an art, the River of Memories would surge forth beneath him.

And the antiquity of this river, the formidable power, the domineering amplification...

It inevitably brought to mind the Temporal Ancestor and the River of Time, and Su Yin's remark about the River of Time and the Temporal Ancestor, Empty Regret:

“Standing atop the River of Time, not entering the great cycle of creation and destruction, comprehending past and present, knowing fate, present in the mortal world, yet transcendent in form and intent.”

Such was the River of Time.

This River of Memories, differing from the River of Time by only two characters, what was the fundamental difference between them?

Xu Xiaoshou's Extreme Realm of the Way of Intent was astonishingly unable to discern any profound insights from that fleeting River of Memories.

Or rather, he clearly saw the River of Memories appear, but after it vanished, he didn't pay it much mind.

As if...

The River of Time was important.

The River of Memories was not important at all.

“Buzz!”

The starlight diminished.

High in the sky, the forbidden art within Su Yin's vertical pupil had not yet been unleashed; all its power was confined by Dao Qiongcang's Great Confinement Art, sealed within an invisible bottle.

Su Yin attempted to break free, but it was as if he had been pressed into a piece of paper, momentarily unable to escape.

Unlike Xu Xiaoshou's observer perspective...

After being struck by the art, Su Yin felt extremely constrained.

The splashing sound of water echoed in his ears again, but this time, no river was visible.

Instead, Su Yin, with a brief glance from within the cramped spatial art and an extremely oppressive perspective, saw numerous “memory fragments,” like parts of himself, drifting across the “river.”

“Had he become a part of the river?”

Su Yin, realizing his predicament, was greatly alarmed.

To be within the mountain and realize its grandeur.

To be within the river and know its vastness.

Could this River of Memories signify that Dao Qiongcang's Way of Memory had already transcended the Dao?

Even...

Impossible!

How could that ant possibly do this?

At this moment, Su Yin could accept, or rather, had to accept, that Dao Qiongcang's previous pretense of weakness was entirely a tactic to underestimate his enemy.

But he still couldn't accept that when Dao Qiongcang shed his disguise and discarded his seemingly frail and vulnerable exterior, the posture and methods he revealed could be so formidable!

“Seal!”

The two previous arts had both failed.

Su Yin had to set aside his contempt and treat Dao Qiongcang with caution. Just as he barely began to form his third art...

“Shh, listen.”

Below, Dao Qiongcang, who was reclined in the void in a posture even more ethereal than Su Yin's, gently placed a finger to his lips.

“Listen to what?”

Xu Xiaoshou, showing respect, tilted his head to listen.

Unexpectedly, the lofty Su Yin also paused his art, seemingly disbelieving that Dao Qiongcang could repeatedly divine his thoughts with a single word.

The unpredictability of the human heart is immeasurable.

How could one who speculates on human minds ever be completely infallible, without any deviation?

Dao Qiongcang, however, curled the corner of his lips: “The sound of frantic desperation.”

Su Yin froze, then erupted in rage.

He had been tricked!

This fellow hadn't truly deciphered Su Yin's thoughts; he had merely accurately grasped Su Yin's character.

Knowing that if he guessed correctly once or twice, given Su Yin's nature, he would pause to hear his third guess.

“Seal – Source…”

Within the Ghost Buddha Realm, inside the intricate seed, Su Yin's true form, whose hand seals were already prepared, was overcome with uncontrollable fury and had no intention of holding back, immediately intending to burst out of the seed.

Who would have thought that within the Blood World Pearl space, after Dao Qiongcang playfully finished speaking, he chuckled and said to Xu Xiaoshou again:

“Embarrassed rage, followed by utter exasperation.”

“Because of your excessive focus on me, this third art will manifest from the Ghost Buddha Realm's seed. Do you believe that?”

Not only did Xu Xiaoshou not immediately connect it to the distant Ghost Buddha Realm seed, but Su Yin's consciousness, remaining in this space, was utterly terrified upon hearing it.

It was as if he had seen a ghost!

He then reconsidered: even if Dao Qiongcang truly guessed his thoughts again, so what?

His body was at the crossroads, his intent in the Blood World Pearl space. Could this mere Dao Qiongcang instantly teleport to the Ghost Buddha Realm and interrupt Su Yin's true form from casting its art within the seed?

“Buzz!”

As this thought crossed his mind, Su Yin's art within the seed accelerated, but then his head suddenly reeled with dizziness.

The arrival of this "abnormality" sent shivers down his spine.

Before Su Yin could pinpoint the source of the anomaly, on the left cheek of his true form within the seed, a faint light shimmered, revealing a glowing "囧" character, like a robot's pattern.

At this moment, in Su Yin's world, all sounds vanished.

Not only those within the Blood World Pearl, but also the Divine Yi battle still raging in the Ghost Buddha Realm outside the seed.

“How could this be…”

How was it possible that this "囧" character, having struck his consciousness in the Blood World Pearl, could instantly transfer to his true form's cheek?

One must know that the Blood World Pearl's internal space was self-contained, not only isolated from the outside but also protected by a great Heavenly Mechanism array externally.

Even further out, it was separated by the Crossroads and the Ghost Buddha Realm's seed by over a dozen realms, with an additional layer of the Medicine Ancestor's “seed” power acting as an obstruction.

Indeed, a single blow from Divine Yi might penetrate all these barriers.

However, Dao Qiongcang, who was not adept at direct combat, absolutely could not have achieved this. Yet, it had brutally happened, leaving only one possibility…

“The Way of Memory?”

Using memory as a medium, he knocked open the door of consciousness, treating the tangible barriers of the real world as nothing. Yet, it wasn't the pure Great Way of Intent that ignored Su Yin's guidance in the Way of Intent.

Instead, he took a circuitous path, from the backside of memory—a place no one, perhaps not even Ancestral Gods, paid attention to—and through the consciousness avatar, bypassed all defenses to land on the true form's physical cheek.

The "囧" character was on his face.

Branded into his memory.

This was a circumvention method for branding a mark that even conventional means could hardly remove, and it had never been used before. Caught off guard, Su Yin, the dignified progenitor of the Art of the Dao, couldn't even immediately conceive...

what art he could create to remove this utterly humiliating "囧" character from his face and memory!

“Crack!”

He could only watch as a jade-white hand extended from the "囧" pattern on his cheek and snapped two fingers of his painstakingly formed Su Yin hand seal.

The broken fingers, still retaining the posture of Su Yin's hand seal, returned from the "囧" pattern the same way they had appeared.

When they reappeared, they were already within the Blood World Pearl's internal space, where Dao Qiongcang was shaking them in his hand:

“Two fingers from 'Su Yin about to cast an art,' I wonder if they'll be useful later.”

At this moment, even Xu Xiaoshou didn't grasp the meaning of Dao Qiongcang's words.

Then he saw him wave a hand, apparently having no further intention of toying with Su Yin. He actually disrupted the Daoist arts within the Blood World Pearl's internal space, causing himself and Xu Xiaoshou to exit the pearl's interior.

“Meow!”

At the crossroads, the Greedy God saw the two figures squatting before the pearl shudder, as if their souls had returned, knowing they were back.

Dao Qiongcang ignored the cat, covering the pearl again with a black cloth, as if that could block any prying from within the Blood World Pearl's internal space.

“Great Shielding Art…”

Xu Xiaoshou's gaze swept over it, and from it, he could discern many intricacies of Dao Qiongcang's Heavenly Mechanism Art.

It really worked!

This Great Shielding Art cast on the black cloth was essentially pre-packaged, like a spiritual technique applied to a talisman.

Moreover, its Daoist art level was high, on the level of utilizing the River of Memories.

At a minimum, it was Transcendent Dao Transformation.

Its upper limit could truly be what Dao Qiongcang himself admitted: the Extreme Realm of the Way of Memory.

“Look.”

After coming out, Dao Qiongcang didn't stop his actions.

He wrapped the Blood World Pearl with the black cloth, turned around, and pointed a finger distantly towards Bei Huai, who was curled up in the deep pit.

Xu Xiaoshou looked over, his heart stirring with a faint guess, and asked, “What now?”

Dao Qiongcang chuckled:

“It seems like there are many other methods, but in reality, if you carefully consider it, Su Yin might be able to defeat me at this moment, no matter what other method he chooses.”

“But for Su Yin, what's the point of defeating me? Winning would only be what he 'should' do, yet he wouldn't gain any real benefit, and afterward, he still wouldn't be able to defeat the Demonic and Medicine Ancestors.”

“Therefore, Su Yin has no other plans left to employ.”

“In other words, he's reached a dead end!”

To be honest, just by observing those few moves just now, Xu Xiaoshou had already picked up a thought he had previously discarded:

Dao Qiongcang might not be someone to befriend, but he absolutely must not be made an enemy.

He was too difficult to deal with!

The bravery of the Eight, the Gods, and Cao could shake the heavens; at the very least, the Crushing Shield could slightly curb their invincible momentum.

Fighting Dao Qiongcang required not only defending against everything, front and back, until one's brain was utterly exhausted, but also possessing absolute certainty to completely snuff him out.

If he didn't die…

He would return like grass in spring.

A returning Dao Qiongcang truly lived up to Aunt Xiang's words: after shedding his disguise, he was like no human!

Therefore, if he had to make a single choice between the dilemma of being an enemy or a friend, Xu Xiaoshou's answer at this moment was…

“See? He's really moving now, like a cornered dog.”

Dao Qiongcang's words drew their minds back.

It was as if he had perfectly calculated the time for Su Yin's rage, the time for him to reflect on how to break his Great Divine Descent Art and retrieve his fingers, and finally, the time for him to realize none of that mattered and take the final step.

Dao Qiongcang was waiting.

When Bei Huai's body barely trembled, he was still confident, able to leisurely and unhurriedly say:

“Don't pursue a desperate enemy, and don't push people to their deaths—these have always been my principles for interacting with the world. After all, leaving others a path to live is also leaving yourself one. But there's one exception…”

“What situation?” Xu Xiaoshou tilted his head.

Dao Qiongcang smiled without speaking, leading Xu Xiaoshou towards Bei Huai's location in the deep pit.

The two walked side by side. The wide road didn't seem crowded with their parallel steps.

As they walked, Dao Qiongcang suddenly splayed his feet outwards and heavily stepped on Xu Xiaoshou's toe.

Xu Xiaoshou immediately stopped walking and glared at him, saying:

“You stepped on me.”

Dao Qiongcang also stopped, turned his head, looked at the person beside him, then lowered his gaze to their overlapping feet. “Oh, my apologies.”

He moved his foot, returning to his own path.

“You did that on purpose,” Xu Xiaoshou said. How could he not see the flamboyant old Dao's deliberate action?

“Mm.”

Dao Qiongcang gave a slight nod, admitting it, then led Xu Xiaoshou to the edge of the deep pit, looked down at Bei Huai, and said:

“Though Su Yin has no such intention, he will nevertheless seize my Way.”

“Since I know I've been cut off, and I'm not as good as you—feeling pain both physically and mentally—why should I continue to swallow my anger?”