If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

Five days have passed in the blink of an eye.

Zhou Ming's life was extremely regular:

Get up, go to the kitchen to eat, go to the training ground to tell stories, go back to the kitchen for lunch, go back to the training ground to tell stories again, go back to the kitchen for dinner, and go back to your room to sleep.

The entire process is as precise as the shadow on a sundial, and every day is exactly as if it were copied and pasted.

Two days ago, he "healed" the leg he had been pretending to limp, and now he walks with a normal gait. However, he still deliberately slows down, not daring to appear too agile all at once.

Dongmei has completely forgotten her original intention in calling Zhou Ming to the training ground.

The terms "monkey fist" and "horse stance" have been absent from her mouth for five whole days.

Instead, the question became, "What happened to that swordsman later?"

"Can that broken sword be reattached?"

"What exactly did you mean when you said yesterday that the villain wasn't as simple as he seemed?"

Her small stool had been moved from the center of the training ground to the coolest spot under the shade of a tree, and there was even a small tea table next to it with a pot of cool tea and two rough porcelain bowls on it.

Zhou Ming's own position was also upgraded from the muddy ground.

I don't know when, but there was a short wooden stool. Although it was still uncomfortable to sit on, it was better than sitting on the ground.

However, Zhou Ming's worries did not diminish as life became more comfortable.

Three days ago, the more than one hundred causal chains that had appeared between his eyebrows had all solidified.

Each one transformed into a solidified thread, suspended within the causal network, shimmering faintly with a luster visible only to him, along with the causal chains of the square and the pillar.

But since then, the number of causal chains has never increased, not even one.

There was no new addition, no breakage; it just hung there, as if frozen.

For the past two days, Zhou Ming has been waiting, and he would often stare intently at the space between his eyebrows.

He even developed a habit: every now and then he would immerse himself in the subject and take a quick look, only to find that it was always the same.

This made him somewhat anxious.

If the scriptures are not spread, the causal chain will not increase, and his speed of becoming stronger will be slowed down.

Currently, he has already reached the second level of Qi Refining thanks to the few broken causal chains.

But what level is the second level of Qi Refining considered in this world?

Is it enough to protect ourselves?

He was uncertain, and he even felt a strong urge to sneak out of the mansion again to spread the teachings.

That night, he lay in bed with his hands behind his head, staring blankly at a small patch of newly formed spider web on the roof beam.

As usual, he once again focused his consciousness on the causal network between his eyebrows, casually scanning it before turning over and going to sleep.

Then he suddenly sat up.

At the center of the forehead, the first set of causal chains that appeared were breaking one by one.

Zhou Ming stared wide-eyed at the web of cause and effect.

Those broken chains of cause and effect were the very first ones he had planted himself.

It was planted on the first day he slipped out of the Marquis's mansion and traded white flour buns for beggars' words in a dilapidated temple outside the city.

Now he can recognize the order and thickness of those causal chains even with his eyes closed.

He was very familiar with these causal chains.

They are the thinnest and weakest strands in the entire web of cause and effect.

It hasn't grown much thicker since the first day it was planted; it's always looked malnourished.

Now they are dimming and breaking one by one, the threads at both ends silently dispersing, their luster extinguished, and they disappearing completely from the web of cause and effect.

Zhou Ming subconsciously counted. One. Two. Three. Four. He counted all the way up to nine.

All nine beggars in the dilapidated temple died.

Not one left.

He sat on the bed, eyes open in the darkness, his mood surprisingly calm.

He was not angry.

To put it bluntly, the life and death of these beggars really had little to do with him.

None of them read it a hundred times from beginning to end, none of them developed magical power, and none of them even felt a trace of qi in their dantian.

Even if they die, he will not inherit any of their cultivation.

He initially taught them to chant scriptures only to test the rules of the Golden Finger.

The rules proved to be true; it's just that these people were uncooperative.

But he was puzzled.

I'm very confused.

A group of beggars living in a dilapidated temple, the most insignificant ants at the bottom of Yuyang County, who would specifically go to kill them?

It wasn't just one or two people who were killed; it was a full nine, not one of them was left.

This matter is rather strange.

Could it be the Marquis's residence?

After prying the origin of the scriptures out of the pillar, the Hou family followed the clues and found the dilapidated temple.

In order to thoroughly investigate the source of the scriptures, people were sent to the dilapidated temple overnight to deal with the beggars.

possible.

Aristocratic families have always been known for their practice of "better to kill a hundred innocent people than let one guilty person go free."

But there is another possibility.

It was done by the people behind those more than one hundred newly created solidified causal chains.

Perhaps some powerful family discovered the secret of the scriptures and, fearing its leakage, sent people to clean up all traces that might have come into contact with them.

Although those beggars hadn't mastered the skills, they had still recited scriptures. In the eyes of those with ulterior motives, they were people who had to be eliminated.

Zhou Ming had no way of knowing the truth.

He sat in the dark for a while, then lay back down on the bed, slowly circulating the two streams of energy from his dantian twice, as if to soothe himself.

Regardless of who did it, what happened in the dilapidated temple was no longer directly related to him.

The next morning, Zhou Ming got up as usual and went to the kitchen for breakfast.

This morning, Liu Sandao made millet porridge with scallion pancakes. Zhou Ming ate two pancakes and drank two bowls of porridge, filling his stomach completely, and then walked to the training ground as usual.

When he reached the outer edge of the training ground, he saw Dongmei already sitting on a small stool under the old locust tree.

He took a few steps closer, and as was his habit, he glanced at the top of her head before abruptly stopping.

A chain of cause and effect appeared above Dongmei's head.

Zhou Ming thought he was seeing things, so he blinked hard and looked at it again with focused attention.

Indeed, there is a chain of cause and effect hanging over Dongmei's head.

That causal chain was still very faint and almost translucent, as if it would dissipate with a gust of wind, but it truly existed, one end connected to Dongmei, and the other end disappearing in the direction between his eyebrows.

When did Dongmei acquire the "Scripture of Crossing the World"?

Several possibilities flashed through Zhou Ming's mind in an instant.

Dongmei was Su Mingyue's head maid, and she lived a secluded life in Haitang Garden. It was impossible for her to have obtained the scriptures that he had previously distributed without his knowledge.

There is only one possibility: Su Mingyue has already obtained the "Scripture of Crossing the World".

Further speculation suggests that after Madam Zhao extracted the scriptures from Zhu Zi, she made a copy and gave it to the eldest daughter.

The young lady then had her personal maid try it first.

All of this happened within just a few days, and Dongmei had only just begun reciting.

Therefore, her causal chain is still very weak. In contrast, the previous batch of solid causal chains should be the result of other people in the mansion reciting them.

This logic fit perfectly into Zhou Ming's mind, leaving almost no room for error.

Regarding how to deal with the causal chain involving Dongmei, his first reaction was that he was not very willing.

I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with it.

He probably felt that Dongmei sat under the same tree with him every day, he told stories and she listened to stories, and he had become accustomed to this pure relationship without any ulterior motives.

Now, without her knowledge, a causal chain connecting her to him hangs above her head, like a drop of ink falling into a glass of cold water.

But he also knew that the scriptures had already been spread within the Marquis's residence, and this was an irreversible trend.

"Zhou Ming? What are you standing there daydreaming about? Come over here right now!" Dongmei's voice came from under the shade of the tree.

Zhou Ming snapped out of his daze, composed himself, and went over to sit on his wooden stool.

"Today I'll talk about the siege of Bright Peak by the six major sects." He cleared his throat and began to speak.

But as he spoke, he realized that not only was he absent-minded, but Dongmei was also absent-minded.

She sat on a small stool, holding a teacup in her hands but not drinking a drop, her gaze fixed on the direction of the bamboo forest, lost in thought.

When Zhou Ming talked about Zhang Wuji learning the Qiankun Great Shift, Dongmei hummed in agreement but didn't ask any further questions.

Zhou Ming then mentioned that Zhang Wuji had appeared at Bright Peak, and Dongmei hummed in agreement again, but still didn't ask any further questions.

When Zhou Ming recounted the third episode and there was a turning point that should have made her slap her thigh, she didn't even bother to say "um," and just stared straight at the bamboo forest, as if she were competing with the bamboo.

Zhou Ming couldn't continue speaking and stopped talking.

Dongmei snapped out of her daze and waved her hand impatiently: "Go back first. That's enough for today. We'll listen again in a couple of days."

Back in the kitchen, Zhou Ming sat on his usual stool, holding a bowl of cold tea, and focused his consciousness on the web of cause and effect between his eyebrows.

Sure enough, about ten new causal chains appeared.

Unlike the previous hundred or so, most of these ten or so are still very weak, clearly indicating that they were planted not long ago.

He looked at them one by one and found Dongmei's, which was one of the weakest and faintest among all the newly added causal chains.

It must be the beginning of recitation; I estimate that it has only been read a few times so far.