In Taibai Mountain, the former ancestral home of the Louguan Taoist sect, there is a high platform inside the Sutra Preaching Platform.

Two "scholars" are performing a kneeling ceremony.

The venue was completely silent, with thousands of people in total silence.

The Taoist gentleman lost, the Confucian scholar Zhao Ziyu, the "one source of body and function", the Lanxi Lin family unexpectedly won, Chongxu Temple...

Everyone is still savoring and digesting it.

The applause that should have come after the third round of discussions did not come. At this moment, silence was the highest form of respect.

Just a moment later, outside the Sutra Platform, or in other words, outside Mount Taibai, in Luojing City, there came a noise so loud that even though it was hundreds of miles away and took several breaths to propagate in the air, it still made people frown.

But it further highlighted the silence inside the preaching platform.

Still no one spoke.

Some people swallowed their saliva, some looked at each other, some held their breath, some shed tears, and some trembled...

Hidden beneath the silence at this moment is a brewing storm.

There are joys and sorrows, but people’s joys and sorrows are not the same. Most people are indifferent and only pursue the strong who win and abandon the weak who fail.

The first thing to break the silence was still a sparse applause in the vast venue, which came from a little fox demon whose hands were clapping red and whose face was even redder.

Su Xiaoxiao, dressed in pink, jumped up and down and clapped her hands. She tilted her head back and stared at the silhouette on the stage that captured her attention.

The little girl smiled happily, "We won, we won, Zhao Rong won!"

A soft and melodious voice echoed in the lecture platform.

“Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap—!”

The next moment, thunderous applause came towards them, covering the sky and the earth, as if it was going to overturn the entire venue and shatter the clouds in the sky.

"We won, we won, we really won!" Lin Qingxuan murmured to himself at first, then his voice became louder and louder, tears sliding down his chin, he hoarse his throat, but his voice was still drowned out by the deafening applause.

Lin Qingxuan suddenly turned his head to look at his brother beside him, only to see that his eyes were bloodshot, his chest was heaving, and his expression was blank. He moved his mouth and seemed to say something, but this time it was drowned out by the ocean of applause, and no one knew what he said.

Lin Wenruo's chest suddenly heaved violently and he forcefully exhaled the foul air in his chest. He looked at his friend who was standing up after the ceremony on the stage, licked his dry lips, lowered his head, raised his right hand, pointed a finger horizontally, and rubbed his eyes.

The next moment, the patriarch of the Lanxi Lin family, one of the future helmsmen of the mountains and hills of Zhongnan Kingdom, slowly raised his head, revealing a pair of calm eyes, and tilted his head to look at the hundreds of Taoists in Chongxu Temple not far away.

His eyes were calm, like the look in the eyes of a hunter who was attacked by a tiger in the deep mountains of Zhongnan Kingdom, and finally picked up the cold blade that fell to the ground with scars all over his body, and slowly walked towards the equally injured beast.

If the Sutra Platform now is a stormy ocean, then the place where Chongxu is watching the crowd is the abyss thousands of feet below the ocean surface, dark, depressing, and trembling.

Something called fear is surging in the abyss like an undercurrent.

Hundreds of blue-robed Taoists looked around in horror, at a loss as to what to do.

Qing Yuanzi had a dull expression, shaking his head from side to side, but his eyes were fixed on someone on the stage. His thin lips trembled and his voice was hoarse and inaudible.

"No, no, we didn't lose. How could we lose? It's fake, fake, that bullshit 'body uses one source' is fake, it's all fake, you are all playing tricks..."

Next to him, there was a figure that was even more shaky.

Qingjingzi's face was as pale as paper, with sweat on his face. He subconsciously retreated, as if he wanted to stay away from the platform that destroyed the thousand-year foundation of Chongxu Temple.

Suddenly, a chill surged in his heart. He looked around aimlessly and met the calm eyes of a tall scholar.

Qingjingzi shuddered violently, and the rosary in his hand fell to the ground.

At this time, Zhao Rong had no idea what was happening off the stage. After he saluted and stood up, he just wanted to get off the stage immediately and beat Su Xiaoxiao up.

You're shouting so loudly, are you afraid that everyone won't know that I won? Can't you just pretend quietly?

Zhao Rong shook his head, pursed his lips, swallowed the blood in his mouth, and prepared to say goodbye and leave the stage, but the Taoist gentleman in front of him suddenly spoke.

"You don't belong here."

Zhao Rong's expression froze and his eyes narrowed slightly, but he felt relieved the next second because it was only half a sentence.

"You should go to Jixia Academy."

Just as Zhao Rong was about to speak, he saw Tao Yuanran do something that puzzled him again.

The Taoist gentleman suddenly looked solemn, knelt down, and kowtowed three times and nine times to him.

Zhao Rong's eyelids twitched, caught off guard.

At the same time, the applause in the arena had stopped, but the noise that had just risen was like the waves hitting the reefs, breaking into pieces.

It seemed that he was also attracted by the strange scene on the stage.

Zhao Rong looked around, and despite the awkward gaze, he quickly stepped forward, ready to help the old man in the Nanhua scarf up.

But he suddenly caught a glimpse of the horrified look in Mr. Liuyi's eyes.

That was... thrown behind him.

Zhao Rong turned around abruptly.

Behind.

There stood a strange old man.

The clothes are strange.

His eyes were lifeless.

Looking at Zhao Rong.

Zhao Rong was shocked.

Where did this old man come from? Why is there no sound at all?

But in the next second, his breathing was choked.

Because this strange old man has no shadow under the sun!

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine and up to the back of his head.

At this moment, the audience was in deathly silence.

Everyone who witnessed the strange old man suddenly appearing behind Zhao Rong was shocked.

It’s not because they don’t know this strange old man. On the contrary, they are very familiar with him, and even everyone who passes by Mount Zhongnan will know him.

Or from the nursery rhymes of country children, or from the idle chats of Luojing people after dinner, or from the rumors circulating in the mountains, or from the cliff carvings that you hurriedly passed by on a moonlit night...

"How could this being appear here?" Lin Qingxuan said in shock, "And in broad daylight!"

Lin Wenruo next to him did not say anything, because he did not know why this being, which had never appeared in the daytime for thousands of years and had left the cliff, would suddenly appear.

He looked at Zhao Rong on the stage with concern.

"Ancestor."

The old man in the Nanhua scarf knelt on the ground and kowtowed, then spoke in a deep and respectful voice.

The strange old man still stared at Zhao Rong lifelessly, his face calm and composed, as if he was deaf to everything.

call.

But Zhao Rong was slightly relieved when he heard this. As long as it wasn't some inexplicable dirty thing, wait, ancestor?

Zhao Rong's heart, which had just been slightly relieved, became tense again.

“What is inaction, and what is inaction for?”

The strange old man suddenly spoke with a puzzled tone, as if he was asking someone, or as if he was asking himself.

"What?" Zhao Rong was stunned.

The strange old man did not repeat himself, but turned around and walked away.

Tao Yuanran stood up and followed.

A light bulb went off in Zhao Rong's mind, and he remembered the story of the old man on a moonlit night carved on the cliff that Liu Sanbian told him when he first entered Mount Zhongnan, and he remembered the "question of inaction".

The young scholar suddenly looked up and said, "Why do you do nothing? The essence and function have one source. Do nothing and you will be able to do everything."

This is actually the point he just argued in the debate.

The strange old man suddenly stopped, turned his back to Zhao Rong, and spoke in confusion, but this time he only asked half a sentence.

"What is inaction?"

Zhao Rong was silent for a moment, thinking about the various things that had happened in Zhongnan Kingdom in recent days, and then he stared and said seriously:

“To do nothing does not mean to attract but not to come, to push but not to go, to press but not to respond, to feel but not to move, to be firm but not to flow, to be rolled up but not to disperse.”

"It means that his private ambitions do not interfere with justice, his desires do not distort the right path, he does things according to reason, he achieves success according to his talents, he does not boast when his work is done, and he does not take credit for his achievements."

After these words were spoken, the strange old man fell silent.

For a moment, no one spoke, and everyone was silently watching this once-in-a-millennium scene.

“…When things are accomplished, one should not boast about them; when achievements are made, one should not take credit for them.” A tall and slender scholar muttered to himself with a twinkling look in his eyes.

He somewhat understood, and this was also the earnest advice given to him by his good friend.

In the view of his good friend, the real Taoist "Wuwei" does not mean doing nothing or leaving everything alone, like the Zhongnan Kingdom under the control of Chongxu Temple before today, where monks and hermits were fascinated by mountains and rivers, and called it "Wuwei".

And he was not as harsh, ruthless, and cruel as he had been in implementing new laws before.

Instead, one should do things without any selfish motives, have desires but not take evil paths, act in accordance with the rules, accomplish things based on one's abilities, accomplish things without getting hurt oneself, and achieve merit without seeking fame or reputation.

In short, "Wuwei" means not doing anything that goes against the natural way. Only in this way can one "do everything", that is, everything one does is in accordance with the natural way.

The tall scholar sighed.

I don’t know how long it took, maybe just a moment, or maybe it was eternity.

The strange old man without a shadow under the sunlight lowered his head slightly.

"good."

This is the ninth word uttered by the strange old man in the past thousands of years, in addition to the "Question of Inaction".

Zhao Rong pursed his lips.

I could hear screams of horror coming from all directions.

Before my eyes, I saw the strange old man's hands clasped in his sleeves suddenly open, and a dry right hand as crystal clear as jade stretched out, and lightly grabbed in a certain direction in the air beside him.

There seemed to be an earthquake in the distance.

There was a slight vibration on the platform.

The sound of mountains breaking and rocks splitting followed closely.

The next moment, two purple auras came from the south in the sky.

Like the tail of a meteor or comet, it "crashed into" the Sutra-preaching platform.

The strange old man clasped his hands together again, turned around and took a step forward, but his body suddenly melted from top to bottom into crystal light. After three steps, only a cluster of starlight remained in the air.

Tao Yuanran raised his hand and took into his palm the projection fragment of the ancestor of the Tao family who was the first deputy head of the Louguan Taoist sect. He tilted his head to glance at Zhao Rong, stepped into the air and left, continuing to head north.

Zhao Rong was the only one left on the high platform.

Oh, by the way, there are two purple auras beside him.

Like a living thing.