"I learned it from the Eastern Han Ren Family," the young man laughed. "Think about it, the Fairy Palace won’t pass on Immortal Laws, and the World Tree is a Western force. As a folk master, what ancient Taoist Magic could I possibly learn other than the various exquisite techniques from the Ren Family? All those Buddhist and Taoist Magic Techniques and Pill Scriptures are just tricks to fool people."
The echo replied, "I’m telling the truth."
Although what the young man said made sense, Ren Suo still thought he was bragging, convinced it was divined using his Awakening Ability. How preposterous for this young man to boast about the Ren Family in front of Ren Suo himself – what’s the difference between this and showing off with a big sword in front of Guan Gong? He knows jack about the Ren Family!
Indeed, the Ren Family did possess Spells for Divination, but there was an ironclad rule in the family: never to teach their Spells to outsiders, so it could not have been passed down.
But since the young man’s echo said so, it seemed he was in dire need of validation, so Ren Suo nodded and said, "Uh-huh, you make a lot of sense. The Ren Family’s Fate Calculating Law is number one in the world! Awesome, awesome!"
However, the young man’s line of thought was correct after all. Ren Suo immediately stood up and took out a hundred yuan as a consultation fee.
The young man didn’t refuse. After pocketing the money, he added, "Remember, you must get a Magic Artifact presided over by Jinghai; others won’t have the effect you need."
"Don’t worry, I’ll check," Ren Suo said confidently and left.
After he departed, the young man yawned and shouted, "Ba, let’s go!"
Passersby, who were devotees, stopped in their tracks. They noticed a white-haired Great Han with an extremely flamboyant hairstyle sitting not far behind the stall. Towering two meters tall, he stood out like a crane among chickens in the crowd of devotees.
Then, a middle-aged fortune teller with a goatee came over and asked, "You’re leaving? What about the rest of the rent...?"
"Here," the young man handed the middle-aged fortune teller a hundred yuan. "A hundred yuan deposit, a hundred yuan in final payment. We’re even now, right?"
"All clear, all clear," the middle-aged fortune teller nodded repeatedly. "Then your sign...?"
"Just throw it away for me; I don’t need it anymore."
As the middle-aged fortune teller watched the white-haired Great Han and the young man walk away, he sat down, thinking to himself, These rich kids are so strange, even wanting to experience the life of a Martial World trickster?
He then set the sign saying "Nine-Tailed Fox Guidance" back up. He took out a tea bowl, poured himself some hot tea from the thermos he had prepared, and began to drink it with an air of profound mystery. Soon enough, an old lady sat down to ask about her marital prospects.
Meanwhile, after the white-haired Great Han and the young man left the Pure Wisdom Temple, someone followed them silently.
"Yun Wangshu, how’s it going?"
The young man turned his head and glanced at the silver-haired youth following them, then said to the large man beside him, "You two look like brothers, and the type that both have albinism at that."
The young man’s comment made perfect sense. When the three of them walked together, the head-turning rate was one hundred percent. Passersby were wondering how people could be so embarrassingly theatrical, dyeing their hair white—and two brothers doing it together, no less.
The large man didn’t speak, and the silver-haired youth squinted his eyes. "I’ll cut you guys, you know."
"Changsheng, I thought your personality would improve a bit after eating the God of Cookery’s jujubes, but you’re still the same..." the young man sighed.
"Quit the nonsense. He’s the last one from Lian River, so how was it?" the silver-haired youth asked coldly.
"His Cultivation is decent, Talent is fine, but he’s far from the Ren Family’s minimum standard. With my power, I saw no connection between him and the Ren Family Members, nor did I discover any ties with Ren Naiser."
The young man continued, "It seems that nowadays, the Ren Family truly only has the one in Sky Capital."
"But that person couldn’t possibly know; otherwise, they would have found Ren Naiser long ago," the silver-haired youth remarked. "All in all, why do you think Ren Naiser must be related to the Ren Family?"
"Because they both start with ’Ren,’ obviously," the young man replied. "Besides, how do you think ’Over My Dead Body’ was filmed?"
The silver-haired youth said, "I don’t know how they filmed it, but I’m certain that when I was still a sword, I didn’t detect the presence of any cameras."
The young man said, "At that time, it was absolutely impossible for there to be cameras, nor could there be a Spell capable of directly tracing back two thousand years. So, there’s only one possibility: Ren Naiser found a true Ren Family member and used a Spell to trace the past along their DNA... Have you ever played ’Assassin’s Creed’?"
"You should play it sometime; then you’ll understand what I mean."
The young man continued, "In short, Ren Naiser used the lineage as a medium to gain access to the past of successive Ren Family Members. He then found a way to transform that content into video and audio. Although I don’t know how he did it, converting memories into video and audio is actually much simpler than acquiring the memories of the past. This is the only reasonable explanation for ’Over My Dead Body.’ Both you and Changsheng understand that the content of the video is mostly true."
The silver-haired youth fell silent for a moment. "So what do we do now? Without a Ren Family member related to Ren Naiser, the trail ends."
"Go to Shenhai. The Fairy Palace Food God appeared there. Maybe that Earth Spirit imp knows something," said the young man.
The silver-haired youth had no objections, but it was the silent white-haired Great Han who asked, "Why?"
The young man glanced at the white-haired Great Han and asked, "Ba, are you asking why we need to find Ren Naiser?"
The white-haired Great Han nodded, and the young man said, "That’s simple. Because what we’re looking for is not Ren Naiser, but the Supernatural Forces that Ren Naiser represents. We Living Beings have existed for a hundred thousand years, undergone Shape-shifting for ten thousand, and learned to Transform into Human form over a thousand. Now, at last, the time we have long awaited has come. But after acquiring the Foundations for Cultivation, our hundred thousand years of Cultivation will come to naught. Only a trace of our essence will remain, solidifying into our innate Spells."
"However, even if the human Cultivation system develops fast, it’s still too slow and too crude for us. Ba and I have already mastered the Cultivation Techniques of Mysterious Country inside out. If we could join a Supernatural Force that has stood for thousands, even tens of thousands of years, then we too would have made it, like a carp transforming into a dragon. Of course, if we really can’t find them, we could also join humanity and follow behind the Descendants of the Ren Family to reap some benefits."
"Moreover," the young man said with a smile, "I have a feeling there are Ren Family Members in the Fairy Palace. With the relationship I have with the Ren Family, I might even gain some advantages."
"You have a relationship with the Ren Family?" The silver-haired youth was surprised.
"Where would an Earth Spirit get Fate Calculating Technique?" The young man laughed. "Although I’ve also used the one improved over two thousand years, the basis for the Fate Calculating Technique was taught to me by Descendants of the Ren Family."
The silver-haired youth understood. He had always felt that the young man’s Divination Technique was extremely powerful. Relying solely on the list of Ren Family descendants stolen by Ba, the young man had managed to create opportunities to interact with the Ren Family’s descendants time and time again, and with a natural, almost untraceable skill. He had thought it was the young man’s innate Spell, but it turned out to be the Fate Calculating Law from the Ren Family. Because the Cultivation system had just started to develop, the silver-haired youth’s belief, like most people’s, was that ancient peak-level Spells surpass those of the present.
And those who could be called ’ancient peak’ Cultivators, of course, could only be from the Ren Family—those in the Fairy Palace are Immortals, not Cultivators.
"You used to be friends with Ren Family Members? But wasn’t it said that Ren Family Members cannot pass down their Spells?"
"Indeed, there is such a rule, but... there are exceptions. For example, during Spiritual Exchange, because they open their hearts and minds completely, as long as both sides are willing, an Earth Spirit and Ren Family Cultivators can achieve an exchange." The young man pointed to himself and said, "And I am not only a friend of the Ren Family Members but also one of their ancestors."
The silver-haired youth widened his eyes, desperately trying to remember. "I don’t recall you... Which of the Women of the Ren Family did you perform Spiritual Exchange with?"
The silver-haired youth’s eyes widened further. "The Sixth Generation Family Head Ren Han?... Wasn’t he a man?"
"I never said I was male two thousand years ago," the young man looked puzzledly at him. "We Earth Spirits have no gender. Given our relationship, that Ren Family descendant in Sky Capital should call me great-great-great... great-grandmother."
Far away in Sky Capital, Ren Zuo suddenly felt a chill down his spine.