After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The three looked at each other in bewilderment.

Xiao Rou and Zhou Ran are both cultivators. Although Xiao Rou is not as strong as Zhou Ran, she is still a truly extraordinary person.

Aning, on the other hand, speaks from the perspective of an ordinary person.

Looking at the same person less than ten meters away.

They were able to discern at the same time three completely different genders, ages, and identities: a middle-aged man, a little boy, and an old woman!

This is not an illusion.

Because Zhou Ran had just witnessed the laws of the Void Realm, any illusion would be forcibly distorted in front of the Primordial Overlord Body.

Since it's not an illusion, then it means that one's perception has been directly altered by the underlying rules.

No.

Even "tampering" is incorrect.

No one tampered with it.

There were no spells in operation, and no formations interfering.

It is their own hearts that, when they see the same existence, each project a different shadow.

The figure sweeping the floor had no face.

It's not blurry, it's not obscured, it's that there isn't a fixed face at all.

Each of the three people had a picture stuck to their head—

You see what resides in your heart.

Zhou then felt a sharp, intense pain in the back of his head, worse than if he had been hit on the head with a club.

The images in my mind exploded.

Frame by frame flashed by, eventually getting stuck on a single scene.

Laoshan Mountain, thick fog, and the heavily injured ancient monk.

When they parted ways at Laoshan, the ancient monk who had taught him the "Mahavairocana Buddha Purification Mantra" said something profound to him before their separation.

"Your appearance reflects your inner state..."

"Your appearance reflects your heart..."

Zhou Ran murmured softly, his voice growing louder and louder until it was almost a shout—

"Master Lingxu!"

boom!

Zhou Ran felt as if a threshold that had been blocking her mind had been shattered by this one sentence.

The extraordinary person Xu Changsheng described as "a dragon whose head is seen but not its tail".

It's not some new hidden big shot at all, it's that monk from Jiangcheng back then!

I'm afraid that ascetic monk didn't even have a physical form.

Because he himself does not exist!

"Owner!"

Xiao Rou suddenly grabbed Zhou Ran's arm, her face turning deathly pale:

Your eyes are bleeding!

"Was it corroded by that thing?!"

"Wake up!"

Ah Ning also rushed over, grabbing Zhou Ran's pulse point and screaming.

"It's gone, the person who was sweeping is gone..."

There's a cliff in front of us, and the stone steps are gone!

We're possessed!

In their eyes, Zhou Ran's face was bloodshot, and he was yelling and shouting at a thick, empty fog—

One second they were conducting a normal mountain search, the next they went crazy.

If it's not possession by an evil spirit, then what is it?

Zhou Ran ignored them.

The white peony in the flowerpot also quieted down.

Its golden spore strand draped over Zhou Ran's wrist, trembling constantly.

From the moment it started, a thought got stuck in its tiny brain, which couldn't be uttered.

Fog—a thick fog that appears out of nowhere.

Stone steps—even though you've reached the end of the cliff, a path suddenly appears beneath your feet.

The sweeper—something that even divine sense couldn't find across the entire mountain—stood just ten meters away.

None of them make sense.

However, Bai Xuan's mycelium did not detect any fluctuations in magical power, remnants of arrays, or even traces of spatial folding.

These things are not "manufactured".

They were as if they were always meant to be there, but they hadn't been "allowed to see" before.

Until the sweeper decided to let them see.

Bai Xuan's intelligence seemed to have been illuminated by something.

It remembered.

Thousands of years ago, it was just an ordinary white umbrella mushroom deep in the Mangshan Mountains.

It has no intelligence or consciousness; it only absorbs nutrients from the rotten soil.

A man dressed in a coarse monk's robe passed by and casually brushed against its canopy.

Just that one moment.

It gained sentience.

It opened the "eyes" of consciousness, saw the heavens and the earth, heard the sound of the wind, and learned to think.

It transformed from a mushroom into Bai Xuan.

Until that day in the prison mountain, it was awakened again by an old monk.

It almost got swallowed up by the enemy.

It turns out that none of this was a coincidence.

That awakening was the result of karma sown thousands of years ago!

This person can transform plants and trees for a thousand years with a single finger.

His cultivation level is unfathomable.

But now, when he reappears, he is a thousand different people.

From the moment they appeared until they left, there was not a trace of spiritual energy.

Perhaps this world is the old monk's sacred ground!

Bai Xuan shrank back into the flowerpot, its umbrella-shaped canopy tightly tucked into a ball.

"Master, please wait!"

Zhou Ran suddenly turned around, unleashing his boundless primordial energy, trying to reach out and stop the figure holding the broom.

However, it was too late.

The figure that was standing clearly ten meters away just now, along with the broom, looked like a reflection thrown into the lake.

After a gentle breeze, it turned into ripples on the water and disappeared silently into the air.

Not even a single fallen leaf was left after being swept away.

"Master, please forgive me!"

Zhou Ran's eyes turned red with anxiety.

He shoved A Ning and Xiao Rou aside, his hands suddenly forming a hand seal, frantically activating the Yin-Yang Technique within his body.

He pushed his Purple-Gold Demon Eyes to their limits, and fine blood vessels even appeared at the corners of his eyes.

He no longer uses his naked eye to capture physical traces, nor does he use his divine sense to scan for fluctuations in spiritual energy.

Instead, he transformed his will into the purest obsession, staring intently at the space where the figure had just disappeared, trying to capture the "idealistic causal line" left behind in that instant.

caught!

Under the ultimate perspective of the Demon Eye, a thin, semi-transparent line is slowly contracting.

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhou Ran's will followed the causal line and crashed into it forcefully.

Om-!

All five senses are extinguished simultaneously.

The world before my eyes is rapidly receding.

The bluestone slabs, the cliffs, the thick fog, and even Xiaorou and Aning's terrified screams were stripped of all color and sound in an instant.

The surroundings turned into a suffocating pale white.

Zhou Ran felt as if he were cutting through a physical veil that was much thicker than the barrier of the virtual world, forcibly squeezing into another dimension.

There is no concept of the passage of time.

I don't know if a moment or a year has passed.

When the colors before Zhou Ran's eyes re-coalesced, the feeling of weightlessness suddenly disappeared.

He looked down.

Beneath my feet were no longer the cold, hard bluestone slabs of the steep cliffs of Laoshan, but soft, black earth with the fragrance of soil.

Raise your head.

Ahead was an ordinary farmhouse courtyard.

The wooden gate was half-closed, and several lush green bamboos grew along the courtyard wall.

A stone table was placed in the center of the courtyard.

The ancient monk who had taught him martial arts and saved him from falling into demonic possession was now sitting cross-legged beside the stone table.

He still had that kind and benevolent look, with a pot of boiling water on the clay stove in front of him, the aroma of tea filling the air.

The ancient monk raised his eyelids, looked at Zhou Ran who had barged into the place with a murderous aura, and a gentle smile appeared on his lips.

"Benefactor, you have arrived sooner than the date I calculated."