Chapter 50: I don't know who hit me.
The old ancestor was determined to die.
"What auspicious aura? This thing has lived for over 36.7 million years, yet the Heavenly Realm is still plagued by constant strife and dynastic changes. It hasn't brought about any peaceful and prosperous era!"
Duan Jiuyou has always scoffed at the idea of the "national guardian beast," finding it as absurd as the idea that because she is immortal, people who come to worship her believe they can also achieve eternal life.
The key point is that it doesn't look auspicious either.
Duan Jiuyou looked at the fire-eating beast, which resembled both a jackal and a tiger, with disdain. It had a large head, eyes like copper bells, and a mouth like a toad. From a distance, it looked dull, but up close, it was utterly stupid!
"Fire generates earth, earth generates wealth, wealth is stable in all directions, drawing the five elements of water to the six celestial pools..."
The dragon clan had some old man chanting scriptures, seemingly determined to make her see something good about the fire-eating beast.
Duan Jiuyou had no intention of killing them all. With a flick of his body, he withdrew his Dharma body and transformed back into his petite and adorable human form.
She was too lazy to argue with these pedantic people. She straightened her sleeves and glanced at the fire-eating beast that had been beaten senseless, saying, "Go and pick me a green bamboo vine."
The Fire-Eating Beast let out a roar and obediently jumped into the Flame Heart Pool.
That's where the green bamboo vine grows. The roots of this vine are extremely deep, and you have to go deep into the bottom of the pool to pull it out. The temperature in the center of the pool is extremely high, like a pool of molten iron, no less than the ferry crossing in Zhaozhao City.
Only then did the dragons understand why only Duan Jiuyou could take this green bamboo vine.
Only the Fire-Eating Beast could pull the Green Bamboo Vine out of the Flame Heart Pool unscathed, and only Duan Jiuyou could subdue it.
They really overestimated themselves.
"We are truly ashamed that we have only been able to do so thanks to our ancestor's help."
They wanted to say some polite words, since Duan Jiuyou had saved their lives regardless, but Duan Jiuyou ignored them and looked in the same direction as Di Jiang.
They heard a series of footsteps coming up from the mountainside.
"What's going on? Why is there such a commotion? Today is neither the first nor the fifteenth of the month, what's causing this..."
A few breaths later, the group saw a group of people rushing towards them in the direction they were looking.
Their hearing wasn't as sharp as Duan Jiuyou's and Di Jiang's, but they knew the newcomer meant no harm. Otherwise, with Duan Jiuyou's hearing, he would have sent a burst of magical light past them before they even got close.
The leader was an old man in his sixties, thin and bony, wearing a coarse cloth long gown, holding two handfuls of muddy vegetables in his hands. Behind him were twelve or thirteen people, all dressed as farmers, each holding some wild vegetables and fruits.
Based on the wooden hairpin in the old man's hair, Duan Jiuyou judged that this was a high-ranking earth immortal.
Celestial officials are stationed in all thirty-six divine continents and seventy-two divine mountains of the Heavenly Realm. Even in an inconspicuous and remote place like Flame Mountain, there are earth immortals in charge. The one who has come here now is Bai Hugong, a ninth-rank earth immortal of this place.
Bai Hugong originally lived on Yanshan Mountain, along with more than a thousand other households. They lived in two separate areas from the fire-eating beasts; the people lived on the mountaintop, and the beasts lived on the mountainside.
Humans and beasts initially lived in harmony, but in recent years, for some unknown reason, the Fire-Eating Beast suddenly developed a violent disease. On the first and fifteenth of each lunar month, it would become irritable and lose its will. When it was in a frenzy, it would even rush into people's homes and smash houses, killing many innocent people.
Unable to control the Fire-Eating Beasts, Baihugong could only lead them to live at the foot of Flame Mountain. Once the Fire-Eating Beasts' violent attack subsided, they would return to the mountains to gather wild vegetables and fruits.
Today was the day for fruit picking, and many villagers went up the mountain with Bai Hugong. The roar of the Fire-Eating Beast earlier made Bai Hugong mistakenly think that it had gone berserk again. Fearing that it would harm the elderly and children who were picking wild vegetables behind Flame Heart Pool, he risked his life to lead people over.
When they arrived, they were dumbfounded. The Fire-Eating Beast had been beaten by someone, and it was covered in soot, with a vine still in its mouth. The crimson flames on its body had long since been extinguished, and it was limping as it walked.
White Beard grinned, his chipped front tooth gleaming with amusement. He thought it deserved it; he usually couldn't do anything about it and it gave him a real headache.
Looking around, all I saw were high-ranking officials and dignitaries!
Although the dragons were dressed in ordinary clothes, they all had jade pendants hanging from their waists, clearly indicating that they were royalty. The other side had an even larger procession, with a huge cloud chair, not occupied by a human, but by a young wolf, followed by sixteen people, all in official robes and with official swords at their waists.
Bai Hugong had only officially become a terrestrial immortal two years ago, and he had never received so many important figures before. He nervously bowed to each of them, performing the official etiquette one by one, before finally walking up to the most inconspicuous Duan Jiuyou.
She was the youngest among them, and Bai Hugong wanted to learn about the origins of the officials in front of him through her.
"Which lord did you come with? The Earth Breath Palace, the Qiankun Hall, or the Bureau of Officials? I am not very knowledgeable and only know the names of a few government offices. I do not know the names of those lords, nor do I know who that wolf cub is. Is it a pet of the Ao Clan? Where is their master? How should we address them?"
The girl looked at him with a serious expression and obvious disdain, her face showing a hint of displeasure at being offended, and threw down a waist token.
"I am ordered to remove the vines; this is the Emperor's decree."
—Was she ordered to pick the vines?
With a look of doubt in his eyes, Bai Hugong turned over the waist token. It was indeed Bai Yanxing's Heavenly Ascension Order. Below the token was another seal, which was the official seal of the person receiving the order, with the four characters "Supreme Heavenly Emperor" engraved on it.
He wanted to pick the smallest one, but unexpectedly picked the largest one.
Bai Hugong's knees buckled, and he knelt down, never expecting that the half-grown child in front of him was actually the old ancestor of Dixi Mountain—Duan Jiuyou!
"Elder Duan... This humble official is short-sighted and did not know of your arrival. I have not come to greet you properly. Please forgive me!"
"Ancestor, my celestial official is simple-minded. Please forgive him for any offense he may have committed!" The villagers who had come up the mountain with him were afraid that he would be blamed, so they quickly stepped forward to apologize on his behalf.
The highest-ranking official they had ever met was a sixth-rank official named Chaosheng. Chaosheng was an official position with the right to submit memorials to the Heavenly Realm. He was a red-crowned crane with eyes in the sky and an astonishingly grand entourage. He had more attendants than this old ancestor Duan on each trip. The old ancestor only brought sixteen people with him, while he had thirty-two or sixty-four.
In short, I was terrified. I wonder if these high-ranking officials in the Heavenly Realm are as difficult to deal with as red-crowned cranes.
Duan Jiuyou lifted everyone up with a flick of his hand.
"There's no need for that."
She asked Bai Hugong, "You rushed here anxiously just now, saying it wasn't the first or the fifteenth of the month. What exactly did you mean by that?"
Bai Hu, having nowhere to confide his grievances, immediately recounted the whole story of the Fire-Eating Beast Violence Syndrome.
Bai Hugong said, "The people on this mountain have suffered from this harassment for many years, and countless people have died or been injured. In the last three months, the Fire-Eating Beast has even shown signs of coming down the mountain to wreak havoc. If this continues, I'm afraid all the villagers on the mountain will perish at its hands!"
Duan Jiuyou's eyes were deep, and he thought that this beast should not be allowed to live.
Di Jiang twitched his ears, thinking that if he helped these people get rid of this fire-eating beast, the merit he would gain, plus what he had earned from the Four Seasons Demon and Liu Tianshi, would be enough to rebuild at least two-thirds of his primordial spirit.
Two-thirds of his primordial spirit can greatly alleviate his cold symptoms.
Two-thirds of it can also help him recover 70% of his divine power.
But when he looked around and scanned the true forms of these people, he discovered that, unfortunately, they were all descendants of the dragon race.
Di Jiang slowly narrowed his wolf-like eyes, thinking to himself: This is indeed a rather unpleasant discovery.
The Wilderness Clan cannot tolerate those who are not of other races, and the Dragon Clan is even more so. Should they be slaughtered, or should they be used to nourish their own primordial spirit?
The former sounds much more tempting.
"I'm not sick! Stop talking nonsense!"
At the same time, the Fire-Eating Beast, which had just been severely beaten, was so angry when it heard the White-Bearded Announcement that it was in a bad state that it almost died of anger. It glared at the bead and let out a roar.
The Fire-Eating Beast had a rough, hoarse voice, sounding very much like a middle-aged, burly man with a thick beard.
It had always found it strange that those people were living peacefully on the mountain, so why did they suddenly move down the mountain? Now they say it went mad and rammed into houses, but when did it ever do that? It had no memory of that at all, and even if what the White-Bearded Man said was as true as it seemed, it wouldn't believe it!
"So you can talk."
White Beard looked at it with a look of surprise.
"Of course it can talk, and it's not young at all. It's just that the Five Elements Beast Clan can't take human form," Duan Jiuyou said. "You say he's talking nonsense, but are these villagers also wronging you?"
"How should I know? I'm very docile!!"
The Fire-Eating Beast is naturally irritable, and it is probably the only beast in Flame Mountain that unilaterally believes that it has a good personality.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com