Chapter 681: Great Demon 44

Shi Qi said, "He is the Buddha’s Son, after all. Of course he’s different from everyone else."

Shi Yuan suddenly whispered, "I heard... I heard that every Buddhist cultivator has their own unique Heart Tribulation. If they pass it, the path ahead is smooth. If they fail, they face death and the dissipation of their Dao."

Naturally, there were young people among the spectators. Hearing Shi Yuan’s words, someone immediately chimed in, "I heard that too. The Buddha’s Son’s Heart Tribulation back then was an Emotional Tribulation. Just think about it! The Buddha’s Son had to overcome an Emotional Tribulation."

"They say he left the sect as soon as he learned of his task. Less than a hundred years later, he returned. No one knows how he passed his Emotional Tribulation, but somehow, he did."

"Could it be he had a passionate, whirlwind romance?"

Bai Ze looked at Tan You. "An Emotional Tribulation?"

Tan You chuckled lightly. "One had an Emotional Tribulation, the other sought to achieve the Dao by killing her husband. Both were in pursuit of the Great Dao. They hit it off immediately—a match made in heaven."

Bai Ze thought about it but still couldn’t figure it out. "Then what does that have to do with Qing Ming?"

Tan You replied, "What’s the rush? You’ll know when the man of the hour appears."

As everyone waited with bated breath, the man of the hour, the Buddha’s Son Jing Yue, finally appeared. The procession was certainly grand. First, one hundred and eight Nascent Soul Stage Buddhist cultivators led the way, followed by Divinity Transformation Stage ancestors, and then various cultivators from the Void Amalgamation and Body Integration Realms. Only at the very end came Jing Yue himself.

The visiting cultivators watched in amazement, but the Great Demons from the Demon Market and the Ten-Direction Mountains all fell silent in unison. Peacock glanced at Jing Yue, then at Qing Ming, and suddenly let out a long sigh.

"Qing Ming, you two really look alike."

Qing Ming saw it too. He stared intently at Jing Yue, but after searching his memories, he was certain he had never seen the man before. ’So what kind of karmic connection could there possibly be between us?’

It wasn’t just the Great Demons of the Demon Market whose expressions changed, but also Shi Miao, who had come to watch the ceremony. Shi Miao was no fool. The moment she saw Jing Yue’s face and connected it with the rumors of his Emotional Tribulation, how could she not understand that she had been nothing more than a stepping stone for him?

’How ridiculous. I used him to achieve my Dao, and he used me as a stepping stone. In the end, who really outsmarted whom?’

Shi Miao shot to her feet, about to say something, when Jing Yue, who had reached the center of the high platform, glanced in her direction. His gaze was calm and rippleless, devoid of any warmth, as if no one in the world was truly worthy of his notice.

Meeting that gaze, the anger in Shi Miao’s heart flared even hotter. She was just about to speak when the two Body Integration Realm cultivators accompanying her jointly forced her back down.

"What do you think you’re doing?" The cultivator on the left, who had a stern, square face, was frowning with displeasure.

’The Buddha’s Son of the Buddhist Sect is about to ascend in broad daylight. We’re here to observe the ceremony. If you jump out now, are you trying to start a feud with the Buddhist Sect?’

The female cultivator on the right, who had a sword mark between her brows, added, "Senior Sister, so many cultivators are watching."

Shi Miao couldn’t swallow this humiliation, but what could she do? This was the Buddhist Sect’s territory. And Jing Yue was an Ascension Stage cultivator. He could crush her as easily as an ant.

Thus, Shi Miao could only sit hatefully on her rush mat, praying for Jing Yue’s ascension to fail today. Besides praying for that, what else could she do?

Just as Shi Miao was silently cursing him in her heart, she suddenly recalled the young face she had seen earlier. Shi Miao’s head snapped around, and she saw Tan You, not far away.

At first, because she had been scanning with her Divine Sense, Shi Miao had only gotten a clear look at Qing Ming. The Great Demons of the Demon Market were all powerful and had their own ways of blocking Divine Sense, so Shi Miao hadn’t clearly seen the faces of those around Qing Ming.

Now, seeing Tan You with her own eyes, along with Bai Ze, Peacock, and the others beside her, Shi Miao wasn’t angry. Instead, she smiled. She knew she hadn’t been mistaken; that young man was indeed the Half-demon, Qing Ming, from all those years ago.

’So, Jing Yue, what will you think when you see Qing Ming?’

Ever since the great war several hundred years ago, the Demon Clan and the Human Clan had kept to themselves, like well water and river water, with almost no interaction. But now, Great Demons from the Demon Market had actually come to the Buddhist Sect. What was their purpose?

Whatever their purpose, Shi Miao knew it couldn’t be anything good. So, if she was going to suffer, Jing Yue wasn’t getting off easy either.

Yes, after thinking through the sequence of events, Shi Miao’s Dao heart, which had been forged by killing her husband to achieve the Dao, began to waver. It was only natural. The so-called "kill your husband to achieve the Dao" required the husband to be thoroughly and truly dead.

But Jing Yue was still alive and well, and was even about to ascend. This meant Shi Miao’s path of killing her husband to achieve the Dao was a complete and utter failure. As a result, it wasn’t just her Dao heart that became unstable; even her Sword Dao of Slaughter began to crack and shatter.

Bai Ze saw it clearly. "The backlash is starting."

Tan You said, "It was inevitable. Killing is never the solution, not to mention, even if it were, it’s not her place to reap the lives of others. This world may be survival of the fittest, but that doesn’t mean the strong can just decide who lives and who dies."

While Shi Miao’s Dao heart was in turmoil, Jing Yue, on the high platform, began his tribulation. The Cultivation World truly had an endless array of methods. Although he was undergoing his tribulation right before everyone’s eyes, when the Heavenly Thunder fell, it was as if it were in another time and space, completely harmless to the spectators below.

Jing Yue sat cross-legged on the high platform, a dark-gold alms bowl hovering above his head. The bowl acted like a thick turtle shell, blocking wave after wave of the Heavenly Tribulation for him.

And beneath this ’turtle shell,’ Jing Yue remained completely unharmed.

Tan You couldn’t help but stare greedily at the dark-gold alms bowl. "The Human Clan really has a lot of nice things. If I had that, do you think I’d get blasted to bits every time I faced a tribulation?"

Bai Ze chuckled. "That’s a supreme treasure of the Buddhist Sect. You can only look on with envy. Besides, don’t you focus on Body Refining? Using an artifact to block the Heavenly Tribulation is something only Human Clan cultivators can do."

"If a member of the Demon Clan tried to rely on an external force like that, they would surely die."

Tan You shot him a sideways glance. "Can’t I even talk about it? Do you think he’ll ascend successfully?"

Bai Ze replied with a rare hint of playfulness, "Now that you’re here, even if it was supposed to go smoothly, it probably won’t."

"See? Bai Ze gets me." Tan You smiled. She was clearly about to stir up some trouble.

Jing Yue was truly worthy of being the one the Buddhist Sect had poured all its resources into cultivating. Throughout the tribulation, he tossed out all sorts of Array Plates and Magic Artifacts without the slightest hesitation, fully demonstrating the Buddhist Sect’s immense wealth and power.

Just as the final three purplish-black bolts of tribulation lightning were about to fall, the Cold Dragon smacked its lips. "This is nothing compared to yours, Jin Huan. That blood-colored tribulation lightning last time made my legs go weak just watching."

Tan You narrowed her eyes. "Haven’t I said it before? The ones above are biased toward the Human Clan. If you were to divide favor into ten parts, the Human Clan would get nine, and the Demon Clan would only get one."

The Cold Dragon didn’t dare respond to that. Only someone like Tan You would dare to be so brazenly critical. If it chimed in, the Heavenly Dao would surely smite it without hesitation. The Cold Dragon was very self-aware.