One person: Senior brother Zhang Zhiwei, the Celestial Master begged me to descend the mountain.

As you cross that seemingly endless underground river, the rushing water is gradually replaced by a deeper silence.

The air here was no longer as damp and cold as in the Ziyang Cave. Instead, it had a strange dryness, and even a faint heat, like the breath of some huge creature in its slumber.

"arrive."

Grandma Jin Feng, who was walking at the front, stopped.

With the help of the golden monkey king, she knelt down shakily, facing the very center of the valley.

Zhang Chulan wiped the water droplets from his face and shone his flashlight in the direction where Granny Jin Feng was kneeling in worship.

The next second, the flashlight in his hand almost fell into the water.

"This...this is..."

In the very center of the valley stood an enormous stone wall.

The stone wall was as smooth as a mirror, standing out incongruously in this valley full of jagged rocks, as if it had been carved out of the mountain by a giant sword.

On that stone wall, there were only three large characters written in wild cursive script.

The brushstrokes flow like dragons and snakes, powerful and elegant.

Each stroke seemed to contain a wild energy that wanted to break through the sky, yet it stopped abruptly at the last moment, revealing an indescribable sense of oppression and distortion.

What is a human being?

It was just the instant those three words caught my eye.

boom!

Zhang Chulan felt as if a grenade with its pin pulled had been shoved into his head and exploded instantly.

"ah--!!!"

He clutched his head, let out a piercing scream, and collapsed to his knees, his clothes instantly soaked with cold sweat.

pain.

It hurts too much.

That kind of pain is not physical tearing, but a torment deep within the soul.

who are you?

Why do you live?

What is it that you are pursuing?

Is it the truth about Grandpa? Is it Feng Baobao's background? Or is it just a way to survive in this world of supernatural beings?

These problems, which he usually buried deep in his heart and covered up with jokes, now felt like countless black tentacles, tightly strangling his neck and making it hard for him to breathe.

"Damn it... this word... is poisonous..."

It's not just Zhang Chulan.

Wang Ye, standing nearby, turned deathly pale and coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"puff!"

As a successor of Feng Hou Qi Men, he is most sensitive to changes in the Qi (energy) situation.

In his perception, these were not words at all.

This is clearly a huge, extremely chaotic vortex!

It is frantically devouring all the rules, logic, and order around it.

The Five Elements of Heaven and Earth fail here, and the Yin-Yang and Eight Trigrams collapse here.

"It's...it's such a mess..."

Wang Ye clutched his chest tightly, his pupils dilated.

"How can there be such a chaotic logic in this world..."

"He's denying everything... He's questioning everything..."

Surprisingly, the one who reacted most violently was Zhuge Qing, who was known for his composure.

This descendant of Zhuge Liang was trembling violently, veins bulging on his face, and his narrow eyes were wide open and bloodshot.

He is a sorcerer.

The sorcerer emphasizes calculation, reasoning, and following the way of heaven.

But those three words were like a sledgehammer, shattering all his pride and understanding.

"No...no!!"

Zhuge Qing held his head, muttering unconsciously:

"Humans shouldn't be like this... the Way shouldn't be like this..."

"My Wuhou Qimen Dunjia... my schemes... are all a joke in the face of these three words..."

"It's fake...it's all fake..."

Just one glance.

Three of the top young masters at the time almost had their Dao hearts shattered and went mad with evil spirits.

"Sect Leader...this is the realm of a Sect Leader!!"

Grandma Jin Feng, kneeling on the ground, was in tears. Looking at those three words, her eyes were filled with fervent worship.

"What is a human being... what is a human being?!"

"Our sect leader has spent his entire life searching for this answer. He has seen through the hypocrisy of this world, and he has seen through you so-called righteous sects!"

"Only here can you see the true... Tao!!"

In this chaotic scene filled with painful groans and frenzied shouts.

There were two figures, but they seemed particularly out of place.

Feng Baobao stood there, tilting her head, her large, clear eyes staring intently at the three characters on the stone wall.

She blinked, then blinked again.

His face showed no sign of pain, nor any trace of thought.

It's like looking at a GG sign on the side of the road, or a piece of waste paper.

"What is this writing?"

Feng Baobao scratched her messy hair, her tone as calm as still water:

"The characters are written crookedly, and I can't recognize them."

And another figure.

It is naturally Zhang Taichu.

He stood ramrod straight, his hands in his pockets, like a javelin, unmoved by the spiritual pressure emanating from the stone wall that crashed down like a tsunami.

She didn't even lift the hem of her clothes.

Zhang Taichu raised his head slightly, his indifferent eyes scrutinizing the three large, wildly cursive characters.

After a while.

A disdainful snort escaped from his nose.

"Oh."

What is a person?

Zhang Taichu shook his head, a sneer playing on his lips.

"Making such a simple problem so mysterious."

"Wugensheng, Wugensheng, this is all you've accomplished in your life."

Upon hearing this, Granny Jin Feng, who was kneeling on the ground in worship, suddenly raised her head and screamed:

"shut up!!"

"What do you know?! How could a brute like you, who only knows how to use violence, possibly understand the sect leader's profound realm?!"

"This is a direct and incisive question!! This is an ultimate reflection on humanity!!"

"think?"

Zhang Taichu glanced at her, his eyes looking at her as if she were a hopeless idiot:

"This is called making trouble for oneself."

He took a step forward.

Click.

The gravel underfoot made a crisp sound.

"Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired, do what you want to do, and don't do what you don't want to do."

"That's human nature."

"So-called human nature, so-called true nature, is simply something that follows the natural course of things."

"They insist on digging it out, putting it under a microscope, and adding all sorts of definitions and constraints to it, ultimately getting themselves into a dead end from which they can't get out."

Zhang Taichu stared at the stone wall, his voice growing colder:

"Is this the Dao of Rootless Life?"

"You make yourself look like a monster, and cause the families of those around you to be destroyed."

"And then you leave these three broken characters here for future generations to solve as a riddle?"

"Is this what they call... the end of the art?"

"fart."

The moment the last two words were uttered.

Zhang Taichu's aura suddenly changed.

The primordial energy that had been contained within the body, though not erupting, was like a giant dragon awakening. Just by opening its eyes, it caused the surrounding space to begin to distort slightly.

He slowly raised his right hand.

There were no complicated incantations or earth-shattering thunder spells used.

He simply extended one index finger.

From afar, facing that massive stone wall, he pointed in mid-air.

"Give me……"

"Disperse!!"

Buzz—! ! ! ! !

There was no deafening explosion, nor any dazzling light and shadow effects.

But everyone present heard a crisp cracking sound at that moment.

It was the sound of some invisible field being forcefully shattered by a more powerful force.

It's like using a red-hot iron rod to pierce through a fragile windowpane.

wow-

The heavy, oppressive, and suffocating mental pressure that had been hanging over everyone vanished instantly with that one finger.

Instead.

A cool mountain breeze blew in from the entrance of the valley.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Zhang Chulan took a few deep breaths, and collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily, as if he had just been pulled out of the water.

The feeling that my head was about to split open disappeared.

That feeling of despair and self-doubt also subsided.

"He's...he's alive again..."

Zhang Chulan wiped the cold sweat from his face, staring at the back of the figure still pointing with his finger, his eyes filled with unparalleled shock.

The mental pollution that even Wang Ye and Zhuge Qing couldn't withstand just now.

Uncle-Master only used one finger?

"Pfft, cough cough..."

Wang Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, shook his head with a wry smile:

"I'm impressed."

I'm completely convinced.

"Is this what they mean by brute force overcoming all techniques?"

"I don't care about your philosophical thinking or your questions about human nature, I'll smash them all to pieces with one punch."

Zhuge Qing had also recovered by this time. He adjusted his slightly crooked glasses and looked at the stone wall with a complicated expression.

"Not violence."

"That's a state of being."

"Because in his eyes, the things left behind by Wugensheng were not a problem at all."

"It's like a college student looking at an advanced math problem set by an elementary school student. Although it looks complicated, it's just a joke in the face of a higher dimension."

Grandma Jin Feng stared blankly at the stone wall.

Although those three words were still there, she could clearly feel that the "divinity" that had fascinated and driven her crazy had disappeared.

The stone wall is now just an ordinary stone with words carved on it.

"Gone...the sect leader's aura...gone..."

Grandma Jin Feng seemed to have lost her soul, and instantly aged ten years.

Zhang Taichu withdrew his hand, patted his sleeves, as if he had just waved away a fly.

He turned around, not even glancing at the stone wall, but simply raised his chin at Zhang Chulan and the others:

"Alright, stop pretending to be dead."

"The 'poison' in this place has been removed."

"but……"

Zhang Taichu suddenly paused in his speech.

He turned his head again, his deep eyes narrowing slightly, his gaze seemingly piercing through the thick stone wall, looking into the deepest part of the rock.

there.

As the mental energy field shattered, something seemed to be slowly awakening.

An ancient, faint, yet exceptionally resilient aura, like a seed breaking through the soil, seeped out from within the stone wall.

"That's interesting."

A playful smile curved Zhang Taichu's lips once again:

"It seems this is what that guy really wanted to leave behind."

"That was just a curtain used to keep flies out."

"Now that the curtain has been lifted..."

"Then let's go out and meet him."

"Rootless".