The girl in the pink dress ran out of the attic holding a large stack of ancient books, her eyes showing fear as she looked at Chen Ping’an.

At the same time, a boy in blue robes fell from the sky, his clothes tattered and disheveled. A glimmer of golden light flickered around him, like a fierce soldier escorting a prisoner.

The boy in blue lay on the ground, panting. He wiped the blood from his face and turned to look at the Over-River Dragon of unknown origins, malice still lingering in his eyes. This was not surprising, having reigned supreme in the great river outside the city for hundreds of years, he was suddenly beaten into a stray dog, and resentment naturally filled his heart.

Cui Chan snapped his fingers, and the golden light flew back into his sleeve like a swallow returning to its nest.

Seeing Chen Ping’an’s puzzled expression, Cui Chan smiled, “Does Mister remember when we were outside Yefu Pass, I boasted about how generous my apprenticeship gift was? I mentioned this temporarily unowned Natal Flying Sword, named ‘Golden Autumn’. It’s of decent quality and can be controlled with ease without needing too high a realm.”

Cui Chan grinned, quite pleased with himself, “The previous owner of this Flying Sword was a true Sword Immortal of the Central Earth Divine Continent. He was a chess maniac, perhaps his brain was squeezed by a door, and he actually thought of changing course, switching from Sword Cultivation to the Way of Chess. Alas, his chess skills were poor, and he gambled his life with me, losing this Flying Sword. But in the end, he also wanted to burn his boats, unwilling to have any lingering attachments to this Flying Sword.”

Chen Ping’an asked curiously, “Then can Lin Shiyi use this ‘Golden Autumn’?”

Cui Chan grimaced as if in pain, “Mister, you can’t be so biased. Of course Lin Shiyi can use it, but it would be a waste for him to refine and control it. I am willing to give it to Mister, but definitely not to an outsider like Lin Shiyi.”

The girl in the pink dress and the boy in blue exchanged a knowing glance, both seeing shock in the other’s eyes.

Central Earth, Sword Immortal, Way of Chess, Gambling Life.

These words strung together were enough to shock the world.

Chen Ping’an looked around, seeing nothing amiss, and prepared to leave to continue his journey.

“Mister, wait a moment. Allow me to explain the principles clearly, so that Mister’s journey home will not be complicated by unexpected troubles.” Cui Chan pondered for a moment, then took out the inkstone that had originally been the treasure of Fulong Temple, and ordered the two Fire-Python Water-Serpents of the Yellow Court Kingdom, “Quickly put your true forms into it. My patience is not very good. My rule is that things don’t happen more than twice. If you dare to delay any further, don’t blame me…”

Before he could say a few words, Cui Chan’s murderous intent rose, and he wanted to slap the boy in blue to death to get rid of the annoyance. After all, according to the plans for Dragon Spring County, being able to establish a connection with the old Flood Dragon was enough. These Fire-Python Water-Serpents were not highly cultivated and had not even completed their transformation into Flood Dragons, far inferior to the Cold Food River Water God of the Great Water Mansion. In the end, their capture was just a small addition to the icing on the cake. Initially, he couldn’t open the treasure trove in his pocket dimension, so he thought of subduing two little fellows for “his Mister”. Even if they weren’t very useful, he could raise them by his side to help guard the mountain. Plus, with their special origins from the Li Zhu Grotto-Heaven, it was barely feasible.

Therefore, Cui Chan really didn’t care about their lives. Now that Mister was Mister, and student was student, Cui Chan was well aware of Chen Ping’an’s personality: like a rock in a latrine, smelly and hard, not acknowledging him, even if he gave him ten thousand Fire-Python Water-Serpents, it would be useless. Now that he had acknowledged him, the absence of two insignificant little fellows was of no consequence.

Thinking of this, Cui Chan was filled with mixed feelings. Dealing with Chen Ping’an was truly exhausting, feeling more difficult than moving the Five Sacred Mountains. But after crossing the invisible threshold of the Way of Schemes, he had a very strange feeling, that even someone as cunning as the Great Li National Preceptor could feel some… peace of mind.

Seeing the golden light flowing out of the white-robed youth’s sleeve, the boy in blue quickly got up and knelt, kowtowing, “I beg Immortal Master to spare my life! I am willing to go through fire and water for the Immortal Masters, giving my all until death without regret!”

The girl in the pink dress, who had read thousands of books in the Zhelan Mansion library, felt somewhat ashamed to be associated with him. She was not the kind of monster who spoke carelessly, and she hesitated, feeling somewhat at a loss.

Cui Chan was too lazy to waste words with the water snake cub, raised the inkstone, “I’ll count to three.”

The girl in the pink dress hesitated slightly, and a thread-like flame python emerged from between her eyebrows and entered the inkstone, then her face turned snow-white and she swayed.

Seeing this, the boy in blue had no choice but to sigh in an old-fashioned manner, muttering, “Forget it, forget it, a wise man submits to circumstances.” He then saw smoke rising from his seven orifices, eventually coalescing into a dark green snake slightly thicker than the fire python, and flew into the inkstone. The python and snake curled up in the inkstone, not daring to move.

After all, on the edge of the inkstone, an old Flood Dragon was coiled up and sleeping soundly, that was the ancestor of their kind of monster, perhaps eighteen generations removed.

Cui Chan put away the inkstone that the Great Li Death Soldiers had delivered halfway, and sneered, “Don’t be ungrateful. It’s just a bit of restraint, but you can use it to sharpen your realms. If other洲’s Flood Dragon-class monsters had this opportunity in front of them, they would have begged and kowtowed until their heads broke.”

The girl in the pink dress, who had grown up in this small library, bowed in thanks.

The boy in blue, who had always been carefree and wild by nature, curled his lip, unconvinced.

Cui Chan ignored it and said with a playful smile, “Do you know Dragon Spring County of the Great Li? The place where the Li Zhu Grotto-Heaven shattered and fell. My Mister is a local tycoon there, owning five mountains, and he has collected many Spiritually rich snake gallstones. This thing is formed from the spiritual blood of the last True Dragon in the world. You can weigh its value yourselves. So, along the way, take good care of my Mister.”

The girl in the pink dress’s eyes lit up, and she bowed to Chen Ping’an, her face full of joy, “This servant is willing to follow Mister.”

The boy in blue was even more straightforward, plopping down and kowtowing, banging his head, “Master, do you need any beautiful maids to warm your bed? I know quite a few, even among cultivators. As long as Master nods, I’ll kidnap… oh, no, I’ll use an eight-carriage sedan to invite them over for Master.”

Chen Ping’an rubbed his forehead and glanced at Cui Chan. Was it a case of birds of a feather flocking together? How did he only attract these unruly freaks? In contrast, Bao Ping, Li Huai, and Lin Shiyi were all very proper.
After Old Scholar cut off the connection of Divine Soul, although Cui Chan now possesses the appearance of a youth and leans more towards a youthful mindset, his vision, insight, and cunning remain. With a single glance, Cui Chan had already guessed seven or eight parts of Chen Ping An’s thoughts. He felt somewhat helpless, “Where are those children like Li Baoping normal? Even if we take a step back, is Chen Ping An himself normal? Who else in the world would single-mindedly think of practicing a broken fist manual a million times before considering anything else?”

The blue-robed little boy raised his head, “Master, Cao Hushan of Zhilan Prefecture also has a young son who was previously responsible for tailing me by the Jiangpan outside the city. His realm isn’t high, but his Daoist cultivation isn’t bad. His talent is quite good, and he has a Xianjia (immortal family) mansion as his backing. He’s probably already joined his father. If we let them be, there will be no end of trouble in the future. Should I…”

The boy made a gesture of opening his mouth wide and swallowing in one gulp.

Cui Chan smiled, “Solving you lot is only half of my reasoning. Next, you accompany Mister out of the city; I’ll stay behind to clean up.”

Chen Ping An nodded and instructed, “Don’t kill indiscriminately.”

Cui Chan laughed heartily, “Since Mister has spoken, how dare I not obey?”

The bamboo basket moved slightly. Chen Ping An turned his head to look. The Sophora japonica wood sword trembled slightly. The miniature, adorable golden-robed girl, all the way following the wooden sword and the back basket, came to Chen Ping An’s shoulder, waving at him. Chen Ping An understood, tilted his head. This bizarre spirit who had been residing in the Sophora japonica wood sword whispered in his ear. After Chen Ping An listened carefully, he said to Cui Chan, “It told me that if you reach the Great Sui Academy, it wants you to say two sentences to Mao Xiaodong. One sentence is ‘Heaven and man are separated, falseness arises from nature,’ and the other is ‘Ritual defines ethics, law leads to tyranny.'”

Cui Chan sighed softly, his expression complex.

Clearly, one sentence was Old Scholar’s farewell gift to him, and the other should be Qi Jingchun’s dying words that he originally hoped to pass on to Mao Xiaodong through Chen Ping An.

Cui Chan felt a little disheartened. He pointed at the little figure on Chen Ping An’s shoulder, “This is the last remaining Incense Altar Little Man from Li Zhu Grotto-heaven. It has been mostly molded into a golden body, which is very rare. Mister’s Fallen Mountain has a mountain god temple. That mountain god is quite trustworthy. In the future, you can put this Incense Altar Little Man in that temple to nurture, using the incense burner as its abode and incense as its food.”

The golden-robed girl standing on Chen Ping An’s shoulder hesitated, finally took a deep breath, and looked at Cui Chan, “Qi Mister also left a sentence, but at the time, Mister said you might not have the chance to hear it. Now that you have recognized Chen Ping An as Mister, although you are still a bad person, I think I can tell you to listen.”

Cui Chan was stunned on the spot, his heart somewhat stirred. He slowly straightened his face and said solemnly, “I am all ears.”

The Incense Altar Little Man in golden robes said in a childish voice, “The student asked, ‘Why does the crab kneel with six legs and two claws?’ Is this a typo? Mister replied, ‘A poor scholar is short of money.'”

Cui Chan burst into laughter, tears streaming down his face.

Everyone else felt baffled.

Cui Chan walked towards the library alone, laughing uncontrollably, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes as he walked. He turned his head and laughed, “Mister, I won’t see you off!”

Cui Chan entered the library. At the window on the second floor, he looked at Chen Ping An’s back and shouted loudly, “Mister, if you encounter a great calamity, you can take a detour to find that old Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. Just say that you are my Mister, then is enough. If you can go against your heart and say that you and Old Scholar have a half-master-student relationship, that would be even better!”

Chen Ping An turned his head and said, “Understood, be careful yourself.”

Cui Chan waved his hand and murmured, “Arise and act, let us encourage each other.”

Cui Chan climbed all the way to the top, reaching the sixth floor, and looked out from a high vantage point.

The reason he didn’t want to climb to this floor before wasn’t because there was some mystery here, but because his youthful nature was acting up again, reminding Cui Chan of some unpleasant past events.

Whether it was the first disciple of the Literary Sage or the Great Li national preceptor, they all came from youthful years.

Cui Chan reached the top floor, leaned backward, and casually placed the ancient inkstone aside, completely disregarding the dust staining his white clothes.

He turned his head and looked at the inkstone, “Now that we’ve started, why not strike while the iron is hot and wipe out all of these Jiaolong aberrant species from the ancient Shu Kingdom, and keep them all in captivity within?”

Cui Chan looked up at the painted caisson ceiling, carved with majestic coiled dragons.

It was different from his own library in his memories. The light was dim, and there wasn’t such a beautiful view.

Cui Chan closed his eyes, feeling a little sleepy.

He still remembered when he was young, his talent was outstanding, but his character was unstable. He was ruthlessly “imprisoned” by his highly expectant grandfather in the small attic on the top floor of the library. The stairs were removed, and three meals were delivered with a rope. Eating, drinking, and excretion were all done in that small place.

Naturally, there was also a chamber pot, which was changed every day. To resist and express his anger and dissatisfaction, the child often tore off pages from books to use as toilet paper, or folded paper into small paper kites and birds, throwing them out of a small window and letting them fly in the wind. Then, every time, he would hear his grandfather cursing loudly below the attic, leaning on a crutch.

At that time, the thing Cui Chan did most was to stack all the books in the attic together, stand on top of the high book pile, and look out the window at the river outside the city, often watching for several hours.

Back then, Cui Chan wasn’t called Cui Chan, but Cui Chan Chan. The character “瀺” means the sound of water, while “巉” means magnificent mountains.

His grandfather, who named him, naturally hoped that this grandson, after growing up, would possess the beauty of famous mountains and great rivers in both moral character, scholarship, and cultivation, with both wisdom and benevolence, both mountain and water being spiritual, and be able to become a seed of reading, joining the ranks of gentlemen and virtuous people. But the child didn’t appreciate it. After finally walking down from the attic, he soon left his hometown to travel far away, walking out of his home country, walking out of a continent, and finally walking to the Central Earth Divine Continent, only hating that he hadn’t walked far enough, the farther away from that stubborn old man the better. And he also deliberately removed the character “巉”, leaving only the relatively favorite character “瀺”, and in the long years that followed, he always claimed to be Cui Chan to the outside world.

Even if Cui Chan returned to Baoping Continent and became the Great Li national preceptor, he still didn’t return to his hometown once.

He didn’t want to go back.

Cui Chan opened his eyes and wiped his face with his sleeve, “What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen great old men being sad?”

An old man in a Confucian robe, whose Yin spirit was wandering, appeared on the top floor. It was the old Jiaolong. The old man stared at the inkstone, his face gloomy.
Cui Chan didn’t rise, with a wave of his sleeve, he flicked the inkstone toward the old man, “Your three hundred years of cultivation have been dispelled, consider the last matter settled. Next, you don’t need to rush to Longquan County. Help capture the remaining evil spawn of the Jiao Dragon lineage, regardless of age or size, and imprison them all within the inkstone. My teacher left behind many snake gallstones of the finest quality, but he didn’t bring them out of his hometown. It’s fortunate he didn’t, otherwise, with his temperament, who knows if he would have acted like a disbursing alms-giver and squandered them all. Now it’s perfect; in the future, they can be put to good use.”

Cui Chan sat up and casually dusted his shoulders.

The old Jiao Dragon accepted the inkstone, clearly sensing the transformation in the young man’s aura. The anger in his heart vanished instantly, replaced by helplessness and admiration. “As expected of the National Preceptor.”

Cui Chan sighed, “From nothing to three, from three to five, it’s not worth making a fuss about. In this small Treasure Bottle Continent, it’s considered rare. But if you were to change it to that Central Earth Divine Continent, you wouldn’t even need to stay there for a thousand years. Within just a hundred years, you would discover countless astonishingly talented geniuses, rising rapidly and then falling just as quickly, so much so that you wouldn’t even be able to keep up. In the end, you would realize that only those who are old and undying, and moreover, old and imperishable, are truly formidable.”

The Confucian-robed old man, the founding ancestor of Ziyang Prefecture and the father of the Cold Food River Water God, nominally the old servant of the Yellow Court Kingdom who resigned and retired, shook his head and smiled, “That’s not a place we can stay. Once discovered, we would likely be captured by those great dynasties and skinned and have our tendons drawn out, wouldn’t we?”

Cui Chan remained seated on the ground, his expression wooden as he said, “There’s been another change. In the Great Li capital, some people feel that you, as the headmaster of the newly established Cloud-Draped Mountain Academy, wouldn’t be able to command respect. Although I opposed it, His Majesty the Emperor has decided to only let you serve as the deputy headmaster, and you might not even be able to secure the second position. This is my miscalculation, Cui Chan, so if you regret it, I won’t have any objections.”

The old man smiled frankly, “A deputy headmaster with a seat in the back? I think that’s quite good, no need to act like a forest bird.”

Cui Chan turned his head and frowned, “Being polite with me now, but if you regret it later, I won’t be so easy to talk to.”

The old man shook his head, “These aren’t just polite words.”

Cui Chan’s strange temperament resurfaced. Instead of feeling relieved, he mocked, “No wonder you’ve lived so long.”

The old man didn’t take it to heart, sighing, “Now, I only hope to live even longer.”

Cui Chan stood up. Without any movement, all the dust shook off his white robes and floated away, “Next, I’ll trouble you to send me to the Great Sui. Afterwards, you can return here and settle the matter of Zhilan Prefecture. You can also take the opportunity to subvert the Water God outside the city.”

The old man’s expression turned odd.

Cui Chan walked in front of the old man, smiling, “What’s wrong? Not used to being ridden on? What’s so embarrassing about that? In ancient times, gods rode dragons, just like rich people riding horses and donkeys today, it’s perfectly normal.”

The Confucian-robed old man wore a wry smile, resigned to his fate, “Then, shall I wait for you outside the building?”

Cui Chan nodded. The old man’s figure flashed and disappeared.

Above the city walls of this prefecture, a sudden surge of wind and clouds gathered, the great clouds hanging low, almost touching the top of the book tower.

The River Water True God outside the city transformed into human form, standing on the riverbank, looking up with awe.

The three deities of the City God Pavilion and the Civil and Military Temples did the same.

Cui Chan tapped his toes and floated out of the window on the top floor, passing through the sea of clouds, landing on the head of an old Jiao Dragon, sitting cross-legged. The old Jiao Dragon swayed its tail, riding the wind forward.

A white-robed youth with a mole between his eyebrows, like a legendary god riding a heavenly dragon.

Cui Chan smiled knowingly, closed his eyes, formed hand seals, and practiced the Sword Furnace Stance out of sheer boredom.

One is influenced by one’s company.

Near the city gate, Chen Ping’an turned his head to look at the rolling clouds in the sky.

On his left and right were two children dressed as pageboys.

As soon as the green-robed child walked out of the city gate, he felt like a tiger returning to the mountains, a Jiao Dragon entering the sea. He swaggered and said, “Master, that guy is quite savage.”

The pink-skirted girl glanced at her indiscreet nemesis. She pursed her lips, determined not to say a word.

Chen Ping’an reached out a palm and gently pressed it on the green-robed child’s head, “He is my student.”

The green-robed child was so frightened that he hurried away.

Chen Ping’an continued forward.

Could this be considered being tainted by one’s surroundings?