Chapter 209: A Party of Three
Gazing at the portrait before him, Lu Xuanyuan sank into thought.
After a good while, he raised his head and asked with deep puzzlement.
"You're certain that man looked just like this?"
"That's right, Senior Lu. That man really did look just like this."
[Image] —And you handsome devils on the other side of the screen are no less easy on the eyes, of course.
Seeing the Vermilion Bird Race Immortal Emperors vow it so earnestly, Lu Xuanyuan let out a sigh.
"Understood. If you get any news of that man, detain him at the first opportunity and I'll reward you handsomely."
"If I don't hurry, I'm afraid I'll miss the Myriad Dao Prodigy Competition."
With that, Lu Xuanyuan's form vanished.
Seeing Lu Xuanyuan leave, the Vermilion Bird Race Immortal Emperors finally let out a breath of relief.
After all, Lu Xuanyuan's strength was rather terrifying; were it not for Lu Xunxian, they wouldn't have wanted to offend Lu Xuanyuan either.
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
"Xunxian, don't tell me you're the mysterious cultivator the Lu Family has been searching for all this time?"
Zhu Qingyan, too, finally caught on at this point, and looked at Lu Xunxian in utter shock.
Lu Xunxian nodded. "If nothing's amiss, then yes — they should be looking for me."
Hearing this, Zhu Qingyan felt everything fall into place within her.
No wonder Lu Xunxian was so terrifying — it turned out he was someone from the Lu Family of the Dao Realm.
In that case, everything made perfect sense.
But at the same time, a powerful surge of self-doubt rose up within her.
Lu Xunxian was so extraordinary — was she truly worthy of him?
The thought, once loose in her mind, grew utterly unstoppable, more intense by the moment.
Lu Xunxian naturally sensed the subtle shift in Zhu Qingyan's feelings, but he said nothing.
A knot in the heart could only be untied by the one who tied it.
Closing his eyes to sense things carefully, once he had pinned down Lu Xuanyuan's location, Lu Xunxian set off in the opposite direction.
At present he was only at the Late Dao Practitioner Realm; facing the Lu Family, which had a Dao Venerable presiding over it, he had no confidence of holding his own.
So at the very least, he'd have to wait until he broke through to the Late Dao Venerable Realm.
Just then, sensing something, Lu Xunxian raised his eyes and looked toward Heavenly Dao Mountain.
"Come on. Let's go take a look."
As the words faded, Lu Xunxian's form vanished.
Zhu Qingyan: "Wait for me!"
Atop Heavenly Dao Mountain, Gu Daoshi opened his eyes and let out a long sigh.
"Still a touch too slow."
With that, he extended a hand, and within his palm condensed an aura of laws entirely different from the Law of Time.
After Lu Xunxian's pointers, he had returned to Heavenly Dao Mountain and entered seclusion to comprehend other laws.
After several years of effort, he had finally cultivated one law to the Immortal Emperor Realm.
And that was precisely the Law of Wood.
"Still, by Fellow Daoist Lu's method, if I cultivate all Three Thousand Laws to the Immortal Emperor tier, perhaps I really could break through the Dao Practitioner Realm."
Sensing that his own strength had grown a little, Gu Daoshi felt a faint stir of excitement within.
Just then, Lu Xunxian's voice came from beside him.
"Congratulations, Fellow Daoist Gu, on successfully cultivating the Law of Wood."
Lu Xunxian walked over, smiling as he offered his congratulations to Gu Daoshi.
Gu Daoshi hurriedly rose to his feet. "It's all thanks to your guidance, Fellow Daoist Profound Immortal."
But Lu Xunxian waved a hand, his expression earnest. "Even had I said nothing, you'd have come to know it yourself one day."
The next moment, Zhu Qingyan hurried over close behind.
Upon seeing the two of them, Gu Daoshi recalled something and asked curiously.
"Fellow Daoist Profound Immortal, might I ask what brings you here this time?"
"Fellow Daoist Gu, blindly toiling away at cultivation is no good thing, so I intend to invite you to journey alongside me and temper yourself out in the Immortal Realm."
Lu Xunxian laid out his true purpose as well.
At present everyone was off cultivating, and the only one who could roam with him was Zhu Qingyan.
But roaming with only Zhu Qingyan felt rather awkward, which was why Lu Xunxian wanted to bring Gu Daoshi along.
And upon hearing Lu Xunxian invite Gu Daoshi, Zhu Qingyan beside him went wide-eyed.
She'd finally found this chance to be alone with Lu Xunxian — and if Gu Daoshi stuck his foot in, what would that make it? A party of three?
Not allowed. She absolutely would not allow it!
"Ahem — Xunxian, look, Fellow Daoist Gu here is devoted heart and soul to the Dao. Where would he find the time to go gallivanting about with us?"
Zhu Qingyan gave a little cough, then spoke with utmost seriousness.
As she spoke, she shot Gu Daoshi pointed looks, winking and grimacing — the very picture of someone warning Gu Daoshi that if he dared agree, she'd make his life hell.
But what Zhu Qingyan clearly didn't know was that Gu Daoshi was a man on whom neither soft words nor hard ones worked; the more others pushed him one way, the more he'd go the other.
To say nothing of the fact that getting to learn at Lu Xunxian's side was his dream.
So the next moment, Gu Daoshi agreed without the slightest hesitation.
"Fellow Daoist Profound Immortal, I'm free — I'm extremely free. So, are we setting out right now? Or shall we make a few preparations first?"
"You!"
Zhu Qingyan's face filled with fury, but with Lu Xunxian right there before her, in the end she forcibly swallowed her anger down — though the look she gave Gu Daoshi was full of resentment.
Gu Daoshi, however, paid it no mind.
After all, she was no match for him in a fight — and besides, he truly did want to learn at Lu Xunxian's side.
"If you've nothing else going on, Fellow Daoist Gu, then let's set out now."
"Mm, let's go now, then."
Gu Daoshi spoke up hurriedly. After all, he'd always been a solitary man with no ties — unlike other mighty beings who, the moment their cultivation came to fruition, spread their Dao lineage far and wide.
Seeing Gu Daoshi put it that way, Lu Xunxian nodded.
"In that case, let's be off."
As the words faded, Lu Xunxian and his companions took a single step and vanished from sight.
...
The world turned, and time slipped by.
In the blink of an eye, fifty years had passed.
The Immortal Realm seemed to have changed somewhat, and yet seemed not to have changed at all.
Within a certain great mountain in the Third Heaven, Zhu Qingyan and Gu Daoshi gazed at the sealed-off cave before them, a trace of worry on their faces.
"Hey, old man Gu, you don't think anything's happened to Xunxian, do you?"
Zhu Qingyan's face was full of worry.
Ten years earlier, they had followed Lu Xunxian to Zhonggui Mountain and settled in.
And five years earlier, Lu Xunxian had said he felt something stir within him, and promptly entered seclusion to break through.
He'd been in seclusion a full five years now.
Though Zhu Qingyan knew that for an existence as powerful as Lu Xunxian, five years of seclusion was perfectly reasonable, she still worried and fretted for him from the bottom of her heart.
Hearing this, Gu Daoshi couldn't help but roll his eyes.
Over these five years, Zhu Qingyan had asked him this very question a good few hundred times — practically once every few days.
"I say, if you're really that worried, why not go into seclusion yourself? Maybe by the time you come out, Senior Lu will have come out too."
But hearing Gu Daoshi's suggestion, Zhu Qingyan shook her head in refusal without a word.
"No. Absolutely not. What if Xunxian comes out of seclusion and can't see me? I want to be the first person he sees when he comes out!"
Watching this, Gu Daoshi couldn't help but shake his head.
Terminal-stage love-brain. There was no saving her.