Many children, many blessings; the twelve ancestral witches forced marriages throughout the primordi

The Heavenly Court, the Lingxiao Palace.

Inside this dilapidated hall, where three layers of floorboards had been scraped off and the air leaked from all sides, the atmosphere was strangely tense.

Haotian, wearing the patched-up nine-dragon imperial robe, arrogantly placed one foot on the dragon throne, which only had half an armrest remaining.

He gripped the dark, ominous God-Slaying Whip tightly in his hand, radiating a terrifying aura, a twisted and perverse smile of pleasure on his face.

Below the white jade steps in front of him, Maitreya was leading a dozen or so Western Sect disciples who had also been listed on the Investiture of the Gods, humiliatingly scrubbing the floor tiles with tattered rags.

These once lofty Arhats and Bodhisattvas now wear foul-smelling servants' clothes, and their faces and bald heads are covered with crisscrossing red and purple whip marks, making them look as miserable as can be.

"Hurry up, all of you! Haven't you eaten yet?!"

Haotian roared arrogantly and lashed out with his God-Slaying Whip.

"Snapped!"

The whip struck Maitreya's fat back with extreme precision, tearing his skin and causing him to let out a pig-like scream. He rolled several times on the ground in a very disheveled state.

"Hahaha! That's awesome! So awesome!"

Haotian felt so happy watching this scene that he felt like he could fly.

After being a pawn for tens of thousands of years, I've finally turned the tables and become the master! I don't care what kind of successor to the Western Religion you are; once you're on this Investiture of the Gods list, you're just a dog in the hands of the Jade Emperor! He can whip you however he wants!

Although Lin Xuan, that bandit, destroyed his Heavenly Court, this God-Slaying Whip was truly satisfying!

Just as Haotian was preparing to find another excuse to whip Maitreya a few more times for fun.

Above the dilapidated roof of the Lingxiao Palace, a purple-gold crack suddenly appeared once again.

A supreme, cold, and merciless pressure from the Heavenly Dao descended suddenly, directly crushing the messy rubble in the main hall into the finest powder.

Haotian's maniacal laughter froze instantly. He trembled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, and with practiced ease, he rolled off the dragon throne, which only had half an armrest, and knelt prostrate on the cold floor tiles, not daring to even breathe.

Not again?!

His heart skipped a beat, and an extremely ominous premonition welled up within him.

A divine decree of creation, radiating dazzling divine light, drifted down very slowly from the crack and hovered precisely in front of his pale face.

"The teacher's... third decree?"

Haotian's hands trembled as if he had Parkinson's disease. He held the jade edict with utmost respect and probed it with his divine sense.

The moment Haotian saw the contents of the decree, all the color drained from his face. His eyes widened, and his blood seemed to have been drained from his body, leaving him icy cold.

"I...I'll fuck your ass!"

Haotian broke down completely, and couldn't help but blurt out an extremely vulgar swear word.

The decree was still simple and brutal: it ordered Haotian to push forward the Journey to the West script, and to ensure that Ao Lie, the third prince of the West Sea Dragon Palace, was punished for burning the bright pearl in the palace and demoted to a white dragon horse, so as to make up for the karmic consequences of the mount in the Journey to the West calamity.

Dragons!

And this time it's the Dragon Palace of the West Sea!

Haotian grabbed his hair in utter despair, almost tearing his scalp off.

What is the West Sea Dragon Palace? It's the maternal home of Lin Xuan's wife, Ao Cunxin!

Did they go to the West Sea to cause trouble and scheme against Ao Cunxin's younger brother?

Haotian felt his vision blurring, and he seemed to see Lin Xuan, that bandit, leading his unruly bunch of kids, carrying pickaxes and sacks, storming up the Heavenly Court and uprooting the last four pillars of his Lingxiao Palace to use as firewood.

"Dao Ancestor, do you have a grudge against me?"

Haotian slumped onto the cold floor tiles, tears streaming down his face without any backbone.

"Can't you use a different setting when writing a script? Why do you always have to target the relatives of those lunatics in the Pangu Palace? Last time with Tianpeng, I almost messed things up!"

He is now once again in a dilemma.

If he disobeys the imperial decree, the heavenly punishment will surely strike him down, obliterating him completely.

If he obeys the imperial decree, the wrath of the Pangu Palace will surely make him wish he were dead, and he might not even be able to remain a lone Heavenly Emperor. Instead, he will be banished to the underworld to clean latrines.

Maitreya, who was lying not far away, looked at Haotian's miserable and broken state, which was even worse than if his own father had died, and felt a kind of extremely resentful and smug satisfaction.

Serves you right! You lashed me with the God-Slaying Whip! Now you're getting your comeuppance! Serves you right for being so arrogant!

Haotian lay sprawled on the ground for a full half hour, his mind racing like a rusty millstone.

This time, I absolutely cannot do it myself! Kicking Tianpeng last time was already a huge risk. If I personally intervene again this time, and even the slightest clue is left behind, Lin Xuan, that abnormally protective guy, will definitely follow the causal thread and come after me.

We need to find a scapegoat!

A scapegoat who can get things done and take the blame perfectly, even if Lin Xuan beats him to death, it has nothing to do with Haotian!

His eyes, which always gleamed with the smugness of a petty person, now gleamed with extremely despicable and insidious scheming.

"Got it!"

Haotian slapped his thigh and jumped up from the ground.

He thought of the perfect scapegoat—the Western Church!

Weren't those bald monks just swindled out of everything by Lin Xuan during the Investiture of the Gods? They must hate Lin Xuan just as much as they hate him!

Sending them to cause trouble at the West Sea Dragon Palace is absolutely perfect!

Once the matter was settled, Haotian achieved the Dao Ancestor's KPI, and the Western Sect also got their revenge.

If things go wrong, Lin Xuan will only seek trouble with those two poor saints from the Western Sect. Haotian can completely stay out of it and even stand on the moral high ground to hypocritically condemn the Western Sect for being unethical.

"Hahaha, I'm such a genius!"

Haotian laughed with extreme pride, as if he could already see the bright future of his plan's success.

He quickly straightened his disheveled imperial robes, cleared his throat, and once again adopted the demeanor of the Heavenly Emperor. He pulled out a highly concealed one-way communication jade talisman from his robes, a communication tool he had secretly established with Zhunti as a precaution against any unforeseen circumstances, for the "anti-Lin Xuan united front."

He probed into it with his divine sense and, in an extremely insidious manner, modified the contents of Hongjun Daozu's decree, adding embellishments and deleting all the words about "execution by the Heavenly Court," leaving only the core result of "punishing Ao Lie and demoting him to a mount."

At the same time, he also maliciously implied that if this matter succeeded, the Western Sect could make arrangements in the Western Sea in advance after the start of the Journey to the West calamity and get a share of the spoils.

After doing all this, he crushed the jade talisman without hesitation.

……

Meanwhile, far away in the dilapidated temple on Mount Sumeru in Xiniuhezhou.

Zhunti was clutching his right arm, which had just sprouted a tiny bit of flesh and was still throbbing with pain. He looked at the dried-up and smelly Eight Treasures Merit Pool in front of him with a worried expression, wondering where he could beg for money to refill the pool.

Suddenly, he sensed a very faint spatial fluctuation.

A jade talisman appeared out of thin air and hovered in front of him.

"That good-for-nothing Haotian?"

Zhunti curled his lip in utter disdain, but still probed in with his divine sense.

When he saw what was inside, his already miserable old face instantly lit up with an extremely greedy and excited light!

"Senior brother! Senior brother! Come and see!" Zhunti's voice trembled with excitement as he scrambled to Jieyin, who was meditating and healing.

"What a golden opportunity! The Dao Ancestor Hongjun has personally issued a decree to take action against the Dragon Clan! If we can accomplish this, we can lay our groundwork ahead of schedule in the Journey to the West Tribulation and thoroughly humiliate Lin Xuan!"

Upon hearing this, Jieyin's empty, bleeding left eye socket twitched violently. He didn't even bother to heal his wounds and hurriedly took the jade talisman to examine it.

A moment later, the two saints, who were at their wits' end, looked at each other in the dilapidated temple and saw in each other's eyes an extremely crazy and resentful light.

"Let's do it!" Jieyin slapped his thigh hard. "We have to do it! And we have to do it perfectly!"

"We can't take action ourselves; that bandit Lin Xuan is keeping too close an eye on us," Zhunti said coldly. "Let's send the Joyful Arhat, the disciple of the Medicine Buddha who narrowly escaped the Investiture of the Gods because of his training abroad!"

"Let him take my sect's most precious treasure, the [Bewitching Incense], and sneak into the West Sea Dragon Palace. He can then drive Ao Lie mad without anyone noticing, causing him to burn down the palace hall. That would solidify the charge!"

"Brilliant! This plan is brilliant!"

The two cunning old foxes hit it off immediately and promptly issued a decree.

A moment later, an extremely sneaky figure, exuding the aura of a peak Taiyi Golden Immortal, silently left Mount Sumeru, harboring a wicked plot, and sped away towards the distant Western Sea.