Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

The old Taoist's voice was as shrill as a night owl.

The Dao heart that had been forged over two thousand years collapsed into nothingness at this moment.

Li Changqing put the folding fan back into his sleeve and put his hands behind his back again.

He looked at the old Taoist priest teetering in mid-air, his expression showing no joy of victory, only endless vicissitudes.

"A true immortal?"

Li Changqing chuckled softly, a laugh tinged with a profound loneliness that seemed to have seen through the ages.

There are no immortals in this world. As you live longer and see more, you will naturally understand some of the principles of this world.

"The immortal path you seek is nothing more than drawing a prison for yourselves in this mortal world."

He slowly lifted his foot and lightly stomped on the white marble steps.

"Thump."

A dull thud that struck straight to the soul.

The old Taoist priest Xuanji didn't even have time to beg for mercy.

I felt an irresistible, overwhelming force pressing in from all directions.

"Bang!"

In mid-air, a blinding cloud of blood mist exploded.

This supreme sect master of the Penglai Immortal Sect, who has lived for two thousand years, along with his nascent soul and divine spirit.

With that stomp, it was shattered into the smallest dust particles, completely erased from this world.

In the late autumn twilight, the setting sun shone like blood.

The square outside Fengtian Gate was deathly silent.

The howling autumn wind seemed to have had its throat snapped by that devastating stomp.

In mid-air, the dazzling blood mist that the sect leader of Penglai Immortal Sect, Xuanji Laodao, had transformed into was slowly dissipating with the remaining air currents, turning into a salty drizzle.

It rained down on the barely surviving cultivators below.

Those who usually held themselves high and mighty, considering themselves celestial beings, were now all prostrating themselves on the cold gold bricks.

Their tall hats and wide belts embroidered with cloud patterns were already soaked with sweat and blood, and several disciples with slightly weaker cultivation were limp as mud.

He trembled violently, and he didn't even have the courage to look up at the figure in the blue robe.

In the face of true, immense power, the so-called two-thousand-year-old foundation of the immortal sect is nothing more than a mud fortress on the beach.

Once the tide recedes, it vanishes without a trace.

Li Changqing stood quietly on the steps, the mottled Xiangfei bamboo folding fan in his hand already folded up.

His faded coarse blue robe fluttered gently in the breeze, seemingly frail and delicate, yet it silenced the entire world.

Clang.

A crisp metallic clang abruptly shattered the suffocating silence.

The Emperor's sword, symbolizing the supreme imperial power of the Ming Dynasty, slipped from Emperor Chengping Zhu Youzhen's trembling fingers and crashed heavily onto the white marble steps.

This ruthless emperor, whose power extended across the land and whose word could determine the life and death of millions, now had bloodshot eyes, with tears welling up in them that he could not hold back.

He stumbled forward two steps.

The dark gold mountain-patterned armor made a heavy scraping sound, but it couldn't mask his extremely hoarse voice.

"Grand...Grand Tutor...is it really you?"

Zhu Youzhen's voice carried a childlike caution, as if he were afraid of the upright figure in the blue robe before him.

It was just a grand dream that I had before I died.

Li Changqing slowly turned around.

On that handsome yet weathered face, the ruthlessness that had casually annihilated the Nascent Soul stage expert was gone; only a gentle and profound understanding of the long river of time and the all-encompassing nature of things remained.

He looked at Zhu Youzhen's graying temples, a wistful sigh flashing in his deep eyes.

"Your Majesty, you are getting old."

Li Changqing sighed softly, his tone just as it had been when he was teaching that ten-year-old child in the Wenhua Hall.

There's a unique sense of intimacy beneath the casual demeanor.

"The burden of this empire is heavy, making it hard to breathe. You have managed to bring the Ming Dynasty to its current state of prosperity, where the whole world submits to you. You have not disgraced the late emperor's entrustment, nor have you failed to live up to my efforts back then."

Upon hearing these words, Zhu Youzhen's imperial facade, which he had maintained for over twenty years, completely collapsed at that moment.

"Grand Tutor!"

Zhu Youzhen's knees buckled, and disregarding his dignity as the emperor, he knelt directly on the white marble steps, weeping bitterly.

Below the steps, Grand Secretary Song Yin and the senior officials of the Six Ministries and Nine Ministers were also in tears, kneeling down in unison.

The tens of thousands of Ming soldiers on the periphery had no idea who this man in blue was.

But when the emperor kowtowed, he too knelt on one knee like a tidal wave, the clanging sound of armor clashing echoing through the sky.

"Your humble servants pay their respects to the Grand Tutor!"

Song Yin and others shouted, their voices choked with emotion.

They didn't know why Pei Yuan had changed his appearance, nor did they know why he possessed such divine abilities as to pluck stars from the sky.

But that familiar style of doing things, that domineering ability to turn the tide in desperate situations.

There is only one such person in the entire world.

Li Changqing did not help Zhu Youzhen up.

He allowed the emperor to vent the fear and grievances that had been building up in his heart.

After a long while, when Zhu Youzhen's crying gradually subsided, Li Changqing slowly walked down the steps and came to Zhu Youzhen's side.

"Get up. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty kneels to Heaven, Earth, and his ancestors. How can he lose his dignity in front of these foreign heretics?"

Li Changqing reached out a hand, gently supported Zhu Youzhen's arm, and pulled him up.

A warm, mellow current flowed from Li Changqing's palm into Zhu Youzhen's body.

Zhu Youzhen felt that his blood and energy, which had been depleted by worry and fear over the past few days, suddenly became abundant again in that instant.

Even the chronic illnesses accumulated from years of handling government affairs vanished without a trace.

"Grand Tutor, why did you leave without saying goodbye back then, and why...?"

Zhu Youzhen's eyes were red, and a bellyful of questions were stuck in his throat.

"Let bygones be bygones. I am by nature fond of leisure. I originally thought that the course of the Ming Dynasty had been corrected, so I went to the desert beyond the Great Wall to brew wine and chop wood, seeking a life of freedom."

Li Changqing shook his folding fan, turned his head, and cast his gaze at the ashen-faced cultivators in the square.

"Who would have thought that the tree could not remain still while the wind continued to blow? In this world, there are always some self-important fools who like to overturn other people's chessboards."

Upon hearing Li Changqing's words, the few surviving elders of the Penglai Immortal Sect trembled, terrified.

One of the middle-aged cultivators, dressed in a gray robe, crawled on his knees to within a foot of Li Changqing's feet and kowtowed frantically.

His forehead slammed into the gold brick, leaving a patch of bright red blood.

"Immortal, have mercy! Senior, have mercy! We were blind and ignorant, and offended your sacred place of cultivation. We deserve to die! We only beg you, senior, to spare us, for the sake of Heaven's benevolence!"

"We swear an oath to Heaven, that we will never set foot on the Central Plains again in this lifetime!"

The other disciples were also crying and wailing, and there was no trace of the aloof and immortal demeanor that had previously made them regard mortals as worthless.

A deep hatred flashed in Zhu Youzhen's eyes.

These sorcerers destroyed ten of his treasure ships, killed tens of thousands of his elite troops, and even forced him to the brink of suicide for his country.

Such deep-seated hatred cannot be easily forgiven.