Immortality: Starting with a grave, I'm invincible when burying corpses.

June of the 30th year of the Tianshun reign.

A new generation of martial arts alliance leader has been selected. He is skilled in using a long spear and his appearance is as tall as thirteen zhang.

Because his surname was Lin and his given name was Fei, he was respectfully called Leader Lin by the world.

In the thirty-first year of the Tianshun era, at Mu Ling'er's request, Mu An refined two youth-preserving pills.

Both pills were given to Mu Ling'er; she took one herself and gave the other to Wang Pingshan.

Mu An asked Mu Ling'er again if she had ever thought about starting her own family. Mu Ling'er smiled and refused, saying that she had no intention of getting married in her life.

……

The first day of the first month of the thirty-second year of the Tianshun reign.

Located in Changzhou, the southernmost part of Daqi, in a small city called Fanchang City.

After years of silence, Zhuangzi compiled all his learning and wrote the book "The Way of Great Harmony".

The day the book was completed was the beginning of the new year, and the sky above Fanchang City was filled with radiant glow and purple mist.

An elderly man of mediocre talent suddenly ascended to the realm of the divine, extending his lifespan by a hundred years.

On the same day, practitioners of literature and Taoism throughout the world felt something in their hearts.

The prototype of the new literary path was thus born, and a brand-new path of literary cultivation appeared in the Nine Realms.

That night, Mu An arrived in Fanchang City and found Zhuang Sheng and his apprentice Wan Shu.

The two talked all night, and Mu An inquired in detail about the specific process by which Zhuang Sheng entered the realm of heaven and man.

In terms of talent, Zhuang Sheng is far inferior to Mu Ling'er. If the path could be replicated, he could use it to plan a new path for Mu Ling'er.

After a night of conversation, Mu An returned home disappointed.

Zhuangzi's path was the result of the combined influence of favorable timing, location, and human relationships. More importantly, it was because his own will aligned with the universe, and it was more like a transformation of the way of the mind.

There is almost no chance that Mu Ling'er can succeed on this path.

Before leaving, Mu An used the radiant light of heaven and earth and the purple aura of all spirits to refine Zhuangzi's "The Way of Great Harmony" into a magical artifact with the power of the Five Elements, which could conceal the secrets of heaven and deceive those who sought to investigate.

At the same time as the new Wendao was born, multiple projections simultaneously descended upon the Wenhua Palace, the sacred land of Wendao in the Tianming Domain.

A heated debate erupted surrounding the emergence of this new path.

Meng Yan, who was far away in the capital of Daqi, also participated in the discussion and gave a detailed introduction to the new path created by Zhuangzi.

The following day, Wenhua Palace broke apart, and the Seven Sages of Literature and Taoism split into two factions.

The sage of literature, Meng Yan, and three other sages who supported him believed that the new path created by Zhuangzi was cutting off the root of literature and the Way, which would eventually lead to the collapse of rites and music, and the destruction of the country and the state.

At that time, war will sweep across the entire world, the Nine Realms will never have peace again, the mortal dynasties will be littered with corpses, and the world will be draped in mourning.

They believed that it should be announced to the world that "The Way of Great Harmony" should be banned and an execution order should be issued to exterminate all those who practiced the new doctrine.

The other three sages held the opposite view. They believed that since the new path had been born, it should be allowed to develop freely and compete with the old path. All scholars in the world had the right to choose the future path.

Even if in the future, a new road replaces the old one, it only proves that the new road is superior to the old one, representing the future direction of development.

This is a natural evolution of culture and morality, in accordance with the laws of development, and should not be stifled by external forces.

The two sides parted ways due to their disagreement. The literary sages serving different empires each sent their own people, one side wanting to kill Zhuang Sheng, and the other side wanting to find Zhuang Sheng and protect him.

Strangely, even someone as capable as Meng Yan could not calculate Zhuangzi's exact location.

With Meng Yan focusing his attention on Zhuang Sheng, the infighting in the Daqi court eased considerably.

……

The thirty-third year of the Tianshun reign.

Mu An attended three funerals that year.

Three veteran officials who had followed Mu An since the time of the Anshan Patrol Office passed away one after another.

Mu An treated his former subordinates with utmost kindness and righteousness.

Mu An arranged good positions for all the former subordinates of Anshan Patrol Office, and those who were capable became important officials in Qishan Circuit.

Even those without ability were given prestigious but sinecure positions, ensuring their wealth and prosperity for three generations.

Moreover, Mu An personally helped each of these veteran officials to relieve them of the troubles of illness.

The three men were healthy and died of old age, which was considered a happy occasion.

When Mu An returned from the funeral and saw Xiao He and Xiao Lü's heads full of white hair, she admitted that she panicked.

Mu An had never been very sensitive to time until he attended these three funerals, when he suddenly realized that he had far less time left than he had imagined.

He could see clearly that Xiao He and Xiao Lü's normal lifespan was ninety-eight years, and the longevity medicine given by the Old Celestial Master extended their lives by five years.

Xiaohe will be eighty years old this year.

That winter, Mu An announced his seclusion, even ceasing his teaching of Mu Ling'er.

He made a special trip to an area rife with cults, arrested thousands of cult members, imprisoned them in dungeons, and devoted himself entirely to the research of methods to prolong life.

For the next three years, cult members died tragically every day in various bizarre ways.

Over the course of three years, Mu An tried various radical methods, and thousands of cult members died in his experiments, but still made no progress.

Extending one's lifespan is like a taboo, something that can never be achieved.

Over the years, more than a dozen former officials have passed away one after another, and Mu An has not attended their funerals.

……

In the thirty-sixth year of the Tianshun reign, after several decades, Xiao Lü, unusually, lost her temper with Mu An over the matter of extending lifespan.

She scolded Mu An for locking herself in her room all day, becoming less and less like a normal person, and questioned how much of the past Mu An still remembered.

Finally, Xiao Lü cried and begged Mu An to give back their cheerful young master.

Mu An did not refute, but simply stopped the ongoing experiment and spent a whole year playing with the three people in her family.

He himself realized that over the years, his feelings for the three of them had gradually faded, to the point that he had neglected to spend time with them.

It is truly wrong to neglect the present moment in pursuit of a vague and uncertain future.

The three set off from Qishan Road, heading east.

In the peach orchards covering the mountains, they spread out a soft carpet, bathed in a shower of blossoms, and savored the wild delicacies of the mountains.

At the summit of the mountain, they set up a copper pot and nestled together to watch the starry sky.

On the mirror of Tianhu Lake, they rowed boats on the lake, each with a fishing rod, competing to see who could catch more fish.

Sunrise and sunset, the bright moon hangs high, and the stars shine brightly.

They traversed mountains and rivers, witnessed the mighty Yangtze flowing eastward, and saw the endless green mountains on both banks.

They saw fields of red maple leaves, the sun shining brightly, birds returning to their nests, and the sunset glow like smoke.

In every place they visited, they would sample the local delicacies.

Whether delicious or ordinary, you can eat wherever you go.

Some of them were enjoyed by all four of them, while others, like the youngest, were too old to eat them and only dared to try a little bit.

Although Mu An helped them reshape their teeth and told them they could eat whatever they wanted without any problems, they still didn't try much.

Finally, the three of them sat together on the beach, watching the sea and sky merge into one, and watching flocks of petrels navigate through the storm.

Throughout the year, they would bicker over all sorts of trivial things, and also sit together and marvel at a beautiful sight.

Xiao Lü draws wherever she goes, while Xiao He studies wood carvings from various places.

Each of them bought a great many things, enough to fill an entire room.

Fortunately, the carriage was made by Mu An in imitation of the style used by Princess Yongning when she traveled, and it contained a small cave, which was enough to hold all the things they bought.

Mu An traveled along the way, recording the joyful moments with magic.

Instead of keeping it himself, he put the recorded images into a jade stone and gave it to Mu Ling'er.

Memories are precious, but Mu An has no intention of giving up.

……