Everything is predestined.
Yan Dan was furious. Even if such a treacherous person rose to a higher immortal rank, they would never amount to anything. She struggled to hold Zhi Xi, while painstakingly poking Ying Yuanjun with her small, delicate fingers, speaking each word with difficulty:
"You... you despicable person..."
What she really meant was, "You despicable and shameless scoundrel."
But before they finished speaking, it was almost the same thing: Ying Yuanjun's handsome face darkened, the flamboyant white-robed immortal snapped his fan shut and laughed arrogantly, the Jade Emperor in his golden dragon robe stroked his long beard and remained silent, and the white-bearded immortal who had carried her earlier wiped his sweat with his sleeve and repeatedly said, "Jade Emperor, Ying Yuanjun, Bai Lian Lingjun, this, this..."
Yan Dan glanced sideways at the flamboyant white-robed immortal lord, thinking to herself, "So he's the White Lotus Spirit Lord." She had long heard of him; she'd heard his name often since she was a lotus bud. But seeing him in person was far better than hearing about him. So this is what he looks like.
A celestial being, ethereal and imposing, dressed in a lake-blue robe, strode forward with an air of grandeur and said with great poise, “I see that these twins, inhabited by four lotus blossoms, are exceptionally intelligent. Perhaps I should entrust them to my care and discipline.”
Thus, Yan Dan was inexplicably given the title of having great wisdom and became an apprentice of Yuanshi Changsheng Emperor, one of the Nine Emperors.
Therefore, it's all fate.
The Primordial Eternal Emperor had five disciples, with Yan Dan and Zhi Xi being the last to join.
The eldest brother, Tan Zhuo, is the most promising. He has taken on the important task of guarding the immortal herbs on Tianchi Mountain. He has considerable insight into immortal techniques and Zen principles, and is a steady and reliable person.
Yan Dan believed that given time, her senior brother would surely rise to the rank of an immortal. However, their master was extremely critical of him, thinking that he was too dull and lacked the wisdom that Yan Dan possessed.
Yan Dan genuinely felt that Tan Zhuo's down-to-earth nature was a good thing, and certainly not a sign of dullness. As for her, she was merely clever in a superficial way. She felt that she had no affinity with Buddhist teachings, Zen principles, or Taoist doctrines, let alone any innate wisdom.
She was definitely not being modest about this.
Her master, the Primordial Longevity Emperor, one of the Nine Emperors, liked to leave difficult problems for his disciples.
The first time, Master pointed to the crabapple tree in the courtyard and said, "This is today's topic. If you can't figure it out, stay here and keep thinking until you do."
Yan Dan was already able to run and walk, and she was quite agile at that time. She immediately ran to the tree, hugged a cluster of flowers, and smiled at her master.
The Master asked, "Why do you smile while holding up a flower?"
Yan Dan answered quickly, her gentle smile revealing wisdom.
She became the only person to leave the courtyard that day. In truth, the Primordial Emperor of Immortality only needed to ask one more question: What is Prajna? Then, Yan Dan would have been speechless.
Yan Dan often thought that if everyone paid a little more attention to the books on their master's desk, they wouldn't have to rack their brains all day long. For example, the time when he pointed to the crabapple blossoms, there was a book called "Prajna" on his desk, and the third page contained the story of the "flower-holding smile" tale, and even the question and answer were all taken from the book.
However, she never dared to reveal this secret. If her master found out the truth and was so angry that he vomited blood, the sin would be immense. It was precisely because of this guilt that Yan Dan was still quite diligent in her cultivation of immortal techniques.
Master has many close friends, one of whom is the Antarctic Immortal of Suspended Heart Cliff.
Even among close friends, there are those with good relationships and those with bad ones. The Antarctic Immortal and the Master were definitely the latter. Having been immortals for thousands of years, they had secretly competed for millennia, from comparing the abilities of their own disciples to comparing how many flower buds had sprouted in the pot placed outside the window this year.
Yan Dan was already about thirteen or fourteen years old at that time, but for some reason, she hadn't grown taller, which worried her greatly. Meanwhile, the Primordial Eternal Emperor had been praising her for her innate wisdom in front of the Antarctic Immortal, saying that she had just grasped some profound Zen principle. Yan Dan didn't feel embarrassed by her master's praise; on the contrary, she felt uneasy about the Antarctic Immortal's gaze.
Later, when her master was away, the Antarctic Immortal would often bring her some bright red, round fruits. He also sincerely told her that their master was a bad person, making her ponder such complicated Zen and Taoist principles all day long at such a young age, causing her to not grow tall as she got older. His desire to kill her was merely to glorify his title as the Primordial Longevity Emperor and one day replace the Heavenly Pole Purple Void Holy Emperor as the head of the Nine Emperors.
Yan Dan remained silent. Could it be that the celestial lords in the Heavenly Court all thought she looked too young and was just a clueless, easily fooled little brat who knew nothing?
Aside from this, the Old Man of the South Pole can be considered a remarkable person in the Heavenly Court.
His immortal abode was built atop Suspended Heart Cliff, directly opposite the Netherworld. A chilling wind howled, thunder rumbled, and ghostly corpses littered the area; for miles around, nothing grew, only jagged rocks. To become the immortal's disciple, one had to possess exceptional resilience and immense courage, lest one be overwhelmed by the sudden discovery of a severed limb stuck to their body upon looking down.
Yan Dan felt inferior to him.
She lived peacefully under her master's guidance for a hundred years until finally something, neither big nor small, happened.
That day, Yan Dan visited Suspended Heart Cliff.
Her arrival was extremely unfortunate; the Antarctic Immortal had just left on a long journey. The immortal boy under the Antarctic Immortal's seat happily told her that their immortal had gone to a Buddhist conference of the Buddha in the West and would not be back for at least ten days or half a month.
As the fairy boy spoke, he poured a little water into the shallow white jade dish on the table.
Yan Dan leaned closer to look and saw a slender, silvery-white water snake nestled in a shallow white jade dish. The little snake had its eyes closed, its chest rising and falling gently, its breathing shallow and fine, and its mouth slightly open, sleeping soundly.
Yan Dan rested her chin on her hand and looked at it, then asked in a low voice, "When did the Immortal Elder raise this little water snake?"
The fairy boy hurriedly said, "This is not a snake, but a dragon, the young master Ao Xuan, the son of the Dragon King Ao Guang of the East Sea. The immortal has recently taken him as his disciple."
Yan Danzai carefully examined the little dragon in the jade plate. Apart from noticing that it had two strange, tumor-like horns on its head, she couldn't see any resemblance to a dragon. Even a half-dragon would be more imposing than it.
The little dragon named Ao Xuan was sleeping peacefully when he heard someone talking. He slowly rolled over, opened his eyes, and looked up.
Yan Dan said sincerely, "He really doesn't look like a dragon."
As soon as she finished speaking, the little dragon let out a fierce hiss and pounced on her finger with lightning speed.
Yan Dan was shocked. She swung her arm forcefully, but failed to shake the little dragon off. She swung even harder, and on the third swing, the little dragon was disoriented and turned into a streak of silver light, rushing out the window. Immediately afterward, a splash was heard outside. Yan Dan couldn't help but think that she vaguely remembered that the window faced the lotus pond in the courtyard. She had accidentally thrown the young master of the Ao Guang Dragon King's family into the lotus pond; what a sin!
The fairy boy turned pale with fright: "You, how could you throw him out?" Yan Dan thought, since it is a dragon, it shouldn't drown in the lotus pond, right?
The fairy boy then stammered, "That nine-finned dragon in this pool is the last one in the world. If it gets frightened, the immortal will definitely skin me alive!"
Yan Dan was stunned for a moment, then immediately ran to the edge of the lotus pond. The pond was calm and still, with many fish swimming around, swishing their tails. She rolled up her sleeves, took off her shoes, and gently climbed over the pond wall to enter the water.
The Nine-Finned are an ancient race, an extremely intelligent aquatic species. However, they are born with shallow desires and their reproduction is not abundant, which is why they are now on the verge of extinction. Although she felt that the only Nine-Finned in the world would not be so weak as to be frightened by a small silver-white dragon, since she had thrown the dragon in, she still had to retrieve him.
She had just entered the water when she saw the fairy boy with a mournful face say, "Be quiet, and don't disturb that nine-finned creature."
Yan Dan stood in the pool for a while, feeling around, when suddenly she touched something slippery and delicate. She immediately picked it up, laughing, "Luckily I caught you!" She opened her palm, and there was a small, soft, jet-black fish splashing around in her hand, but it wasn't the silvery-white dragon from before. She quickly put the fish back in the water, clasped her hands together, and said apologetically, "I'm so sorry, so sorry. Are you alright? I actually came looking for a little dragon, well, although it's called a dragon, it looks like a water snake. Have you seen it?"
The little fish wiggled its tail and opened its mouth to blow out a string of bubbles.
Yan Dan was stunned.
In that instant, she clearly felt that the little fish was showing a look of disdain...
But it's just a fish, how could it show such disdain? This must just be a hallucination she's having in broad daylight because she's been working too hard cultivating immortal arts lately.
Before she could think any further, she heard a clear splash beside her, and a huge tiger-whiskered fish leaped out of the water, its slippery tail sweeping against her back, trying to push her down into the lotus pond. Because the tiger-whiskered fish was so strong, Yan Dan lost her balance and lurched forward, falling into the water.
She thrashed about in the water, but the tigerfish relentlessly rubbed against her, preventing her from surfacing for a moment. As she thrashed about, she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her arm, a pain very similar to the one she had felt when the little dragon bit her.
Yan Dan waved her hand to shoo away the tiger-whiskered fish, finally managing to surface. She raised her arm and, sure enough, saw the small, silvery-white dragon firmly in its jaws, glaring fiercely at her. She forcefully pulled the dragon off and tossed it towards the fairy boy on the shore: "Found it!"
The fairy boy hurriedly took it and carefully tucked the little dragon into his sleeve.
Yan Dan slowly waded ashore. The small, dark fish she had startled was still beside her, motionless. Yan Dan examined it closely and noticed that its eyes were actually red. Its stillness worried her; judging from how she had felt it earlier, the fish seemed quite fragile. She wondered if she had hurt it by squeezing it.
Yan Dan slowly stretched out her finger, wanting to touch the fish's tail, but before she could even touch it, the little fish darted away.
Yan Dan immediately realized that this little fish was unlike any she had ever seen before. The fish in the Heavenly Court were celestial fish, bound by celestial contracts, naturally extraordinary. She had fed the pond fish in her master's celestial residence before; initially, the fish were very shy, darting away as soon as she reached out her hand. But this red-eyed little fish, though it swam away, didn't go very far, as if simply trying to avoid her touch.
She found it strange and reached out again. Just as her fingers touched the back of the little red-eyed fish, it flicked its tail and slid away.
The fairy boy on the shore saw that she was still in the lotus pond and was sweating profusely with anxiety: "Come up quickly, if the immortal elder finds out, he will definitely be furious."
Yan Dan climbed ashore and stood by the lotus pond, looking back. The little red-eyed fish from before had long since disappeared, while the huge tiger-whiskered fish leaped out of the water with a splash, spraying her face with water. She couldn't help but exclaim, "This nine-finned fish is so lively..."
It's rather strange that such a fierce race would be reduced to the brink of extinction. Perhaps the Nine-Finned Clan has some unknown quirk?
The fairy boy said with a bitter face, "What's the use of being lively? This is the only thing left. If he dies, our clan will really be wiped out."
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