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

But then he thought about it again, and realized that this was exactly what he was hoping for. If Mu Ling'er were truly cold-blooded and ruthless, it would make him feel uncomfortable.

Thinking about it, Mu An habitually rubbed Mu Ling'er's head and whispered.

"Those who came here from all over Changzhou had already made up their minds to die. This requires immense courage, overcoming numerous obstacles, and conquering their own inner demons."

These people finally mustered up the courage and made the decision to pave the way for future generations with their own lives. If you stop them now, aren't you disrespecting them in the same way?

Mu An's words made Mu Ling'er's face stiffen. She lowered her head and breathed out several hot breaths before raising her head again.

"I understand, but it's still hard not to feel a little uncomfortable..."

Mu An shook his head and pointed to the water curtain in front of him.

Inside the water curtain, one after another, the students of the Great Tongdao sect collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Even so, they did not give up, but continued to take pills to stimulate their potential, exchanging the cost of their lives for more power.

The birth and refinement of a theory requires a long period of time and the dedication of countless people.

In the past, only Zhuangzi did this.

He was the founder and pioneer of the Great Harmony School, and now, these students who intend to die with Zhuangzi are the first generation of pioneers.

The budding and blossoming of ideas are often accompanied by blood and fire, and most of the first generation will be burned to ashes in this fire.

They will become firewood, illuminating the path for those who come after them.

The blossoming of a brilliant idea requires hundreds or even thousands of years, and it all begins with the moths drawn to a flame by the first generation.

Zhuangzi and his students are pioneers on the path of the Great Harmony, and they are using their actions to prove to the world the significance and value of the Great Harmony.

Their meticulously prepared grand sacrifice will leave an indelible mark on people's hearts.

After this day, the Great Harmony Path, or rather, the ideals it represents, will spread throughout the Great Awakening and throughout the Nine Realms.

Even though Mu An had made her point very clearly, Mu Ling'er was still somewhat indignant. She clenched her fists and suppressed her voice.

"But they could have avoided dying, and a slower pace wouldn't have mattered, so why did they choose such a radical approach?"

This is completely unfair. Why should all the pioneers die on the road? If this continues, even if the Great Harmony Path truly spreads throughout the world in the future, who among them will ever see it?

Faced with Mu Ling'er's questioning, Mu An sighed helplessly.

"That's why people like them are idealists; people like us can never understand them..."

As she spoke, Mu An paused slightly, her voice becoming somewhat regretful.

"Moreover, Zhuangzi's Dao has long been shattered..."

Mu Ling'er wasn't surprised by those words. She looked at Mu An and continued to ask questions.

"Is the book 'The Book of Great Harmony' truly a concrete manifestation of Zhuangzi's Daoist philosophy?"

"That's right. You've also read the book 'The Book of Great Harmony.' What the book looks like is exactly what Zhuangzi's Dao looks like now."

Remembering the tattered copy of "The Book of Great Harmony," Mu Ling'er shut her mouth and remained silent for a long time.

After a long while, she spoke again.

"Even so, these people can't stop this flood, can they?"

At the current rate, the largest flood peak will reach their location in no more than fifteen minutes, engulfing everything.

What good is their death then? Who would care about a bunch of losers?

If they fail, and you then step in to quell the flood, that will be your achievement. What value will those people have left then?

This time, Mu An did not continue to answer Mu Ling'er's question. Instead, he sat in the chair and stared intently at the water screen in front of him.

Mu An also had no answer to this question, so he was still waiting.

In the future that he and the Bodhisattva Xuanling predicted, Zhuangzi had no chance of success.

However, both he and Xuanling Bodhisattva looked forward to a future where they wouldn't have to intervene.

Zhuangzi stood quietly in the water curtain, motionless.

Further away, Qin Xiucai stood atop a small hill, cradling countless white cocoons in his arms.

"I don't know, but perhaps a miracle really will happen?"

……

At 3-5 AM, by the river.

Wave after wave of waves breached the defenses set up by the students of Datongdao. People on the shore retreated again and again, but eventually they reached a point where they had nowhere left to retreat.

After nearly ten hours of desperate struggle, of the 3,462 "sinful village" villagers who initially came out of the village, only 1,212 remain.

The rest, except for a few who escaped on the way here, all perished in the waves that kept crashing in.

The number of casualties among the 3,072 Datongdao students was slightly less, but more than 700 still died. The remaining students had all grown old, their clothes stained with blood, and there was no possibility of them recovering.

On the contrary, most of the people in Pingluo County evacuated from the riverbank.

To paraphrase the old county magistrate...

Since everyone is going to die anyway, at least before they die, they should be able to reunite with their families, die together, and have each other in the underworld. They can be reincarnated together and perhaps even be family again in the next life.

The old magistrate said these words not only to the people of Pingluo County, but also to the villagers of the "criminal village".

The difference was that the villagers of "Sin Village" looked around, then looked at each other, and finally chose to stay.

They had long since lost their homes, and rather than find a strange place, they preferred to die with people they knew.

The heavy rain gradually subsided, but the roar in our ears grew louder and louder, and even the earth trembled.

A giant wave appeared at the edge of the horizon, initially just a tiny dot, looking no different from the previous waves.

But as the ground beneath their feet shook more violently and the giant waves drew ever closer, a sense of despair crept into the eyes of everyone on the riverbank.

With a deafening roar, the green hills along the riverbank collapsed and slid entirely into the river, creating a crack in the earth.

Under unparalleled force, the river changed course.

A 30-meter-high giant wave swept across the sky, the roaring river carrying a destructive force, rushing straight towards Pingluo County, unstoppable.

The location of this gambling den in Pingluo County was initially chosen by the Buddhist deity Xuanling.

It was at this moment that Zhuangzi finally understood why they said the flood they were about to face was a cataclysmic disaster that only occurred once every few centuries.

Seeing the giant wave coming towards him, Zhuangzi finally moved.

He waved his sleeve, sending the villagers and disciples around him to a small hill a hundred meters away.

After doing all this, Zhuang Sheng smiled apologetically at Wan Shu on the distant hill.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, the elderly schoolteacher strode forward against the giant waves.

With a calm expression, he moved forward step by step towards the towering waves.

In the first step, on the boiling river surface, the Great Harmony Book shone brightly with purple light, and countless purple wisps shot out from Zhuangzi's body, merging with the Great Harmony Book.

In the second step, the pages of the book in the air flipped rapidly, and the shattered scroll was restored to its original state at a speed visible to the naked eye. High in the sky, faint rays of light bloomed, mingling with the thick clouds.

In the third step, thousands of milky-white butterflies flew out of the mountains and forests, swirling and fluttering around the Great Harmony Book.

He burned away his remaining lifespan, burned away all the fortune he possessed, burned away all the authority bestowed upon him by heaven and earth, and burned away all the foundation that the Great Harmony Path had accumulated to this day.

At this moment, Zhuangzi stepped halfway into the realm of terrestrial immortals. He had no real immortal status or heavenly rank, but he could temporarily perform the duties of an immortal.

In this final round, Zhuang Sheng's bet never changed.

They staked their lives on the sages of literature and the Dao, and on the fate of Heaven and Earth.

that is it.