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

The fifty-ninth year of the Qiming era.

Under the leadership of Wan Shu, the leader of the Datong Dao, the Datong Academy launched an uprising in Changzhou.

One call and a hundred responses.

Even though the country has never deliberately developed its military strength in the past, it has never regarded rebellion as a development goal of the Great Harmony Path.

A century of accumulation has been enough for the influence of Datongdao to penetrate into all aspects of Changzhou.

From Zhuangzi founding the Great Harmony Path, to the nine gambling games witnessed by the Wenhua Palace where Zhuangzi himself risked his life for the opportunity to grow and expand, to the present day when it has spread its branches and leaves, with students all over the major countries of the human race.

The Great Alliance is no longer the small force that was once chased around.

Like dandelion seeds, the students drifted away on the wind, taking root and sprouting in their respective places.

Today, students of the Datong Dao have spread throughout the nine regions.

……

As the largest academy in Changzhou, Datongdao students can be found all over Changzhou.

It is no exaggeration to say that over the years, Datong Academy has been the first choice for the children of prominent families in Changzhou when they went to school.

Although these academies were affiliated with Datong Academy and theoretically all regarded Wan Shu as their leader and studied the Datong Dao's philosophy, in reality they had long since formed their own lineage and added too many other things to their teaching.

If the old academy where Wanshu lived still retained its original purity and represented idealism, then the Datong academies in other regions had lost this purity and become a combination of interests.

This was not Wan Shu's deliberate guidance, but rather an inevitable consequence of Datong Academy's expansion.

powerful clans, aristocratic families, academic cliques...

All of these things will arise as power develops.

Just like Qishan Road today, it is no longer as full of opportunities as it was at the beginning, where even ordinary people can find opportunities to step into the center of power.

Even though Mu Ling'er has implemented many measures, the Qishan Road is still monopolized by a few powerful families at the top, and high-ranking officials almost all come from the same families.

The relationships involved are complex and cannot be resolved by a few simple orders or modifications to the selection system.

Only in stories can everyone be honest and upright, free from corrupt officials, power struggles, and unspeakable filth.

Reality is not black and white; there are far too many things to weigh and too many things to judge easily.

It's even less likely that they would simply go and kill.

The same applies to the Great Harmony Path.

When a power grows too large, it naturally becomes mixed with other things, and gradually loses its original purity.

……

Over a century of development, the support of Wenhua Palace, and the existence of the Datong Book, a treasure of literature and Taoism, have led Datong Tao further and further away from becoming an academic clique.

Countless students formed marriage alliances with prominent local families in Changzhou and took up official positions of varying ranks throughout the city.

Throughout the officialdom of Changzhou, from the prefectural government down to the townships, one could see the figures of Datongdao students everywhere, their relationships with each other intricate and complex.

From classmates at the beginning, to in-laws later, and now to blood relatives.

You have me I have you.

In Changzhou today, you can find any two students from the same school and they can all be related in some way.

Unbeknownst to Wan Shu, the monopoly of powerful clans had already spontaneously formed, and the students of Datongdao were undoubtedly the nodes that connected this vast network.

Rebellions broke out across the land, and the Great Qi Dynasty was on the verge of collapse. It was just waiting for a loud call that would allow the academic clique known as the Great Harmony Sect to rise up in rebellion.

Leaders have their own ideas, and those below them also have their own ideas.

If a few more years pass, even if Wan Shu is unwilling to raise an army, the students of Datongdao will use various means to push Wan Shu to rebel.

……

Against this backdrop, no sooner had Wan Shu announced her uprising than the major clans of Changzhou handed over their sharpened knives.

The major clans had long been prepared to raise the banner of rebellion; all they lacked was a leader who was nominally qualified to unite everyone.

In Changzhou, only Wan Shu, the legitimate leader of the Datong Dao, is qualified to do this.

For all the forces that are attached to Datongdao, a leader who has no interest in power is undoubtedly the best leader.

The guards and servants, who had been prepared in advance, quickly took over the original order in Changzhou.

Even most of the original local officials in Changzhou defected.

Within a month of the uprising's commencement, actual control of Changzhou was transferred to the Datong Dao.

Even in Fanzhou, located to the left of Changzhou, and Qingzhou, located to the right of Changzhou, many powerful families joined the Datong Dao, making the Datong Dao uprising incredibly smooth.

……

The sixty-first year of the Qiming era.

Most of Fanzhou and Qingzhou fell under the control of the Datong Dao.

In the same year, a young man named Tianming became Wanshu's disciple and was accepted as her personal disciple.

The boy named Tianming is only nine years old this year. When he was five, his father died in a gang conflict.

When he was seven years old, his mother committed suicide because she could not bear the humiliation of being raped by the local magistrate.

When he was eight years old, his sister, who depended on him for survival, was abused by soldiers and sold to a brothel under duress.

After his sister was sold into a brothel, Tianming was left penniless within three months, and his family's house was seized by his gambling uncle.

After six months of wandering, Tianming, hiding in a dark corner, met Wanshu.

A shadowy alleyway, a boy begging for a living, a tragic life story...

Everything about it irritated Wanshu, reminding her of herself when she was a child.

As if fate were repeating itself, Wan Shu felt that Tian Ming was her former self, and that she was Zhuang Sheng from back then.

Fate intersected here, just as Zhuangzi redeemed Wanshu back then, and now Wanshu has taken Tianming as her disciple.

Despite spending half their lives together, Zhuang Sheng never actually accepted Wan Shu as his disciple, and Wan Shu never called Zhuang Sheng "Master."

Wan Shu had always felt that the reason she had those inappropriate feelings was because Zhuang Sheng had never become her true master and disciple.

This time, Wan Shu decided to eliminate such a possibility and took Tian Ming as her personal disciple from the very beginning.

The fate of the Datongdao sect also took a new turn here.

……

The sixty-third year of the Qiming era.

Amidst the raging war, a prophecy quietly spread across the highest level of the Nine Realms.

An unnamed meteor came from beyond the heavens, traversing the boundless void, heading towards the Nine Realms.

According to the Heavenly Dao's prediction, when the meteorite passes the edge of the Nine Realms, it will be attracted by the gravity of the Nine Realms and crash straight into them.

This meteorite was over 30,000 miles in diameter!

Unbeknownst to mortals, the terrestrial deities who received revelation from the Heavenly Dao were plunged into despair.

A meteorite with a diameter of over 30,000 miles—the terrestrial deities simply couldn't figure out how to deal with it.

Even if they had the power to move mountains and fill seas, they could not possibly destroy such a behemoth.

Even the Heavenly Dao itself made prophecies of the end of the world and the change of eras.

How could these terrestrial deities, who depend on the laws of heaven, possibly have any other options?

All they could do was build a shelter and try their best to survive the impact of the meteorite.

With the end of the world approaching, all those previous conflicts have become meaningless.

War and territory are both insignificant.