Primordial Era: The Three Senior Brothers of the Taiqing Clan

"Why!"

A long, drawn-out sigh, filled with endless helplessness, slowly dissipated above the misty, ethereal summit, startling several innate spirit birds with feathers shimmering with iridescent colors from the branches.

This was the umpteenth time Chen Qing had sighed.

At this moment, he was no longer the little Taoist priest guarding the dilapidated Taoist temple in his previous life, but a huge blue ox with fur as glossy as the finest jade.

With limbs as thick as pillars and hooves gleaming with a faint innate spiritual light, it stood quietly on the blue stone atop the mountain, surrounded by wisps of pure spiritual energy. It looked adorable, yet it also possessed an innate spiritual aura.

And that sigh, full of melancholy, came from the mouth of this blue ox.

Whenever Chen Qing thinks about what happened to her, she feels frustrated and helpless.

He was just an ordinary kid in the 21st century, adopted by an old Taoist priest in the mountains and raised in a dilapidated little Taoist temple. He finally graduated from high school, hoping to learn some skills from his master so he could at least make a living. But fate was cruel; the old Taoist priest didn't survive the winter and passed away, leaving him alone to guard the dilapidated temple that was drafty and had no incense offerings.

Without his master's support, he had no choice but to drop out of school and return home, barely making ends meet in the empty Taoist temple. He relied on collecting herbs to exchange for food and cleaning the statues in the temple, living a poor and lonely life.

Until that day, he was carefully wiping the statues of the Three Pure Ones enshrined in the hall, especially the statue of Lao Tzu in the middle, which had been neglected for many years and whose base was loose. Just as he reached out to brush away the dust, the statue suddenly lurched and smashed straight down on his head.

Chen Qing didn't even have a chance to call for help. He only felt a sudden darkness before his eyes and a sharp pain in his head before he completely lost consciousness. In his own words, he died in a daze.

He thought that once he died, he would return to dust and perhaps be reincarnated as an ordinary person. But to his utter surprise, when he opened his eyes again, he was not back in the human world, but instead found himself in a completely unfamiliar valley. Even more absurdly, he had turned into a bull, a large blue bull with a bluish glow all over its body!

In the beginning, Chen Qing was filled with panic and despair. He was trapped in this desolate valley, unable to speak or walk like a human. He could only move around in the form of an ox. He was surrounded by towering ancient spiritual trees and strange flowers and herbs he had never seen before. Occasionally, he could hear the roars of ferocious beasts in the distance, which shook the valley. Just smelling the ferocious aura made him tremble all over.

"Ugh! How did I end up in this godforsaken place? The very words 'primordial wilderness' represent immense danger. If I dare to wander around recklessly and run into some ferocious beast, wouldn't I be wiped out on the spot, leaving not even ashes?"

Chen Qing couldn't help but sigh again, his heart filled with resentment.

From the time he awoke and transformed into a blue ox to now perched atop this mountain, countless years have passed.

Time was already blurred in the primordial era; being born in the morning and dying at dusk was a calamity. He went from being panicked and sleepless at night to slowly accepting reality and becoming calm and numb. Every day, he guarded this desolate mountain peak, either lying on the blue stone in a daze or slowly pacing in the valley. His days were monotonous and torturous.

The reason he was certain that he was in the legendary primordial world was entirely due to a surge of innate inherited memories that suddenly appeared in his mind.

That memory was directly imprinted deep in his soul, clearly telling him that he was the first green ox born in the world, a primordial being, and that this world was the primordial wilderness in myths and legends, a place of great danger and countless powerful beings!

Upon learning the truth, Chen Qing felt no joy whatsoever; instead, she was even more terrified.

In his previous life, he lived in a Taoist temple and heard his master tell many legends about the prehistoric world, so he naturally knew just how dangerous the prehistoric world was.

Whether it was the remnants of chaos at the beginning of creation, the ferocious beasts that filled the sky during the Great Calamity of Ferocious Beasts, or the later extremely tragic Dragon-Han Calamity, Dao-Demon Calamity, and Witch-Demon Calamity, every period was filled with corpses and devastation. The law of the jungle was the only rule here, and the slightest carelessness would result in the destruction of one's soul.

He was the first green ox in the world, belonging to the innate beings. Most innate beings were born at the beginning of the world, when Mount Buzhou still existed. After Mount Buzhou broke, it became difficult for innate beings to be born in the world.

This means that the era he lived in was the most chaotic and dangerous early period of the primordial world. Any living being that came out could have a higher cultivation level than him, and any calamity could have caused him to perish forever.

For this reason, Chen Qing never dared to step out of the valley.

At first, he only dared to move around in a small area at the foot of the mountain, cautiously probing and only daring to slowly expand his range after confirming that there was no danger. It took him hundreds of years to explore the entire valley. This valley seemed to have been forgotten by heaven and earth. It was located in a remote place, far away from the major spiritual veins of the primordial world, and there were no powerful ferocious beasts lurking there. It became his paradise where he could live a life of hiding.

During his exploration of the valley, Chen Qing encountered an unexpected joy, an opportunity that would change his life forever.

That day, he walked to a spring in the center of the valley and found an inconspicuous sapling growing by the spring.

The sapling was no more than half a foot tall, with lush green leaves and a faint, mysterious aura surrounding it, emanating an aura that made his soul feel comfortable.

At that moment, an inexplicable and irrepressible desire welled up in his heart, like cattle and sheep naturally wanting to eat grass. He instinctively lowered his head and swallowed the sapling whole.

As soon as Chen Qing ate the sapling, he felt a sudden boom in his mind, and a vast yet gentle aura instantly swept over his entire body. Then everything went black, and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

After falling into a coma, his consciousness left the Green Ox's body and entered a hazy, chaotic space.

There was no sky, no earth, no up, down, left, or right in the space, only endless hazy mist. Beside his consciousness, a palm-sized fragment of a jade tablet, radiating a warm and strange light, was slowly rotating, its body swirling with a mysterious aura of creation.

The sapling he had eaten earlier transformed into a pure green light, slowly merging into his consciousness. It felt warm and comforting, as if his soul was being soaked in warm water, and all his fatigue and unease vanished.

Chen Qing's consciousness was trapped in this chaotic space, unable to move or speak, only able to float quietly, utterly bored.

To pass the endless, long time, he began to recall bits and pieces of his past life, especially the Taoist classics that his master forced him to memorize day and night when he grew up in the Taoist temple.

He grew up in a Taoist temple, where he was exposed to various Taoist scriptures. Among them, the one he remembered best and which his master regarded as a Taoist treasure was the Tao Te Ching.

My master often said that this scripture contains the great principles of heaven and earth and is the foundation of Taoist cultivation. Even if one only comprehends a trace of it, one can benefit immensely.

With nothing else to do, Chen Qing began to silently recite the Tao Te Ching word by word in his heart.

"The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the named is the mother of all things. Therefore, constantly without desire, one can observe its mystery; constantly with desire, one can observe its manifestations. These two are the same in origin but different in name; they are both called profound. Profound and yet more profound, the gateway to all mysteries..."

He recited it silently over and over again, from the first chapter to the last, every word clear and distinct. At first, it was just to pass the time, but as he recited, he gradually became immersed in the profound meaning of the Tao Te Ching, forgetting time, forgetting the fact that he was a blue ox, and even forgetting the fear of being in the primordial wilderness.

As he silently chanted, a profound and indescribable aura of the Great Dao slowly drifted out from his consciousness, filling the entire chaotic space.

In the chaotic space, the spinning jade tablet fragment, after the sapling merged into his consciousness, also transformed into a stream of light, instantly disappearing into the depths of his soul, slowly merging with his spirit and gradually becoming one.

The chaotic space dissipated, and his consciousness returned to his original body.

Meanwhile, in the valley outside, the rich innate spiritual energy of heaven and earth seemed to be drawn by an invisible force, rushing wildly toward the body of the green ox on the mountaintop, like rivers flowing into the sea, endlessly.

A massive amount of spiritual energy enveloped the Green Ox's body, surging wildly into his body through his pores and meridians, washing over his innate physical form and cleansing his bloodline.

Chen Qing's cultivation level began to soar without his knowledge.

Earth Immortal, Celestial Immortal, Mysterious Immortal, Golden Immortal...

His cultivation level soared like a rocket, breaking through barriers without any obstacles. In just a few hundred years, he cultivated from a nascent being with newly awakened intelligence to the Golden Immortal realm. The immortal energy around him grew increasingly dense, and the spiritual light on his fur became brighter and brighter. He was no longer the ignorant and weak green ox he once was.

According to the cultivation realms of the prehistoric world, there are Earth Immortals, Heavenly Immortals, Mysterious Immortals, Golden Immortals, Taiyi Golden Immortals, Daluo Golden Immortals, Quasi-Saints (who will appear after Hongjun preaches the Dao), and Saints. Each realm is vastly different. Ordinary beings would need tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years of arduous cultivation to break through from Golden Immortal to Taiyi Golden Immortal. However, Chen Qing, relying on his understanding of the Great Dao from the Tao Te Ching, along with the help of the sapling and the jade tablet fragments, easily crossed through layer after layer of barriers. His talent was so high that it could be described as defying the heavens.

Time flies by, and a thousand years pass in the blink of an eye.

Chen Qing remained immersed in the profound insights of the Tao Te Ching, never waking up from them.

Until this day, the entire primordial world suddenly trembled violently.

A vast and boundless, terrifying pressure that surpassed all things crashed down from the horizon, enveloping the entire primordial land.

In an instant, purple clouds swept eastward for 30,000 miles, covering the sky and stretching across the heavens. Flowers rained down from the sky, petals drifting in the wind, and golden lotuses sprouted from the earth, their fragrance permeating the three realms, filling the world with auspicious energy.

Immediately afterwards, an ancient and profound voice, seemingly originating from the beginning of time, resounded in the ears of every living being, carrying boundless majesty:

"I am Hongjun, and I have now attained sainthood. I am saddened by the lack of enlightenment among all living beings. I wish to open an altar in Zixiao Palace to preach the Dao a hundred years from now. Those who are destined may come and listen to my teachings."

The sound wasn't loud, but it pierced through mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, reaching every corner of the primordial world. Whether it was the innate creatures deep in the mountains and forests, the dragons and phoenixes in the ocean, or the dormant descendants of demon gods, they all heard it clearly.