Practice the False

Chapter 750: Practice the False

When the young girl picked up the chopsticks, squinted, and scrutinized the edge of the pot for a long while, she thrust the chopsticks in and clamped down hard.

When she lifted them, she found pinched between the chopsticks a braised duck head, still attached to a short length of neck.

The girl, too impatient to care about the heat, cupped the duck head reverently and ran towards her two younger sisters waiting nearby.

The three of them devoured that duck head as if it were a rare delicacy, their eyes filled with joy and delight. The youngest even tilted her head back and let out a giggling laugh.

Bai Lingmiao walked on in silence. She could almost feel their happiness, and the corners of her own mouth lifted slightly.

She had once had a younger brother too. When she had something good to eat, she would share it with him.

Watching this girl, Bai Lingmiao felt as if she were seeing a younger version of herself.

She walked on until she reached a crossroads. It was bustling there. A young couple was getting married before the Shuang Xi Shen, and everyone was laughing and cheering, as if the trials they had just endured were nothing but an illusion.

Without any actual wedding sweets, they brought out two treasured dried persimmons, cut them into tiny pieces, and distributed them as celebration candy.

No one looked down on such a meager offering. Instead, they savored every bite, not daring to chew, focused on tasting this hard-won sweetness.

Some did not eat. They carefully tucked the candy into their pockets, planning to bring this precious thing home for their families.

"They're all dead. Have they all gone to Wusheng Laomu's Native Land of True Emptiness?"

No sooner had this thought arisen in Bai Lingmiao's mind than she felt herself go blind. The clairvoyance granted to her by the relic went completely silent, leaving her in utter darkness.

"No. They… they don't need to go to the Native Land. It's enough that they're alive. Only someone like me… someone who needs to escape, needs the Native Land."

Suddenly, Bai Lingmiao felt the reach of the clairvoyance granted by the relic extend much further. She could sense the movements of people two or three li away.

And then she felt Li Huowang. He was on the main street, saying something to a thug.

"Senior Brother Li?" Bai Lingmiao's right foot had just begun to lift when she stopped, sensing the joys, angers, sorrows, and pleasures of everyone within her range.

Her past self had placed too much importance on her own emotions. But in truth, this kind of feeling was not the whole of life.

Compared to the lives of all the White Lotus faithful, this emotion was so pitifully small.

Bai Lingmiao turned around and began walking towards the White Lotus hall. "Er Shen. Let's go."

"Go where?"

Bai Lingmiao, sensing half the city's people, slowly spoke: "Too many people. Too many days exist for us. We can't… we can't just think of ourselves."

"We need to find a way so that more people don't lose their families. The feeling of losing a family member… it's very bad. I don't want what I went through to happen to more people."

"Ha. Fine. At least you're not twisted up about it anymore. If that piece of trash Lyu Xiucai could do it, how could we possibly do worse than that scumbag?"

——————

Gurgle, gurgle. In a kitchen, boiling water bubbled ceaselessly over stones in a pot. A man in a white headband was earnestly feeding firewood into the stove.

When Hu Biao, following his daily routine, poked at the stones in the pot with his chopsticks, his expression suddenly became inexpressibly excited. The stones had actually been softened by the boil!

Lord Shidu had said that once the stones were boiled soft and eaten, they could cure all diseases and grant immortality!

"Father! Father!" Hu Biao, clutching a ceramic pot filled with the stones, rushed out excitedly.

But as soon as he burst through the door, he saw his senior brother walking towards him, carrying a pot.

Hu Biao quickly forced himself to calm down and, carrying his softened stones, headed home.

Just as they passed each other, Hu Biao saw his senior brother suddenly raise his own pot and smash it against his ceramic jar.

With the sound of shattering ceramics, Hu Biao's stones tumbled to the ground, bouncing softly. The sight made his senior brother's eyes go wide.

"You! You little bastard actually did it! So it's true!"

At these words, heads—all members of the Fa Sect—popped out from under the eaves, from windows, and from behind wooden doors. Their eyes were filled with shock and desire, fixed on the stones on the ground.

Hu Biao immediately reached down, grabbed the softened stones, and shoved them towards his mouth.

But a flying stone struck his head, smashing it open and spilling blood everywhere. The stones slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground.

"Snatch them!" A voice from nowhere turned every Fa Sect believer present wild. They rushed at Hu Biao.

Faced with the chance to become immortals, the disciples who had trained and lived together day and night instantly turned on each other, becoming mortal enemies. In no time at all, the short alley was awash in a bloody storm.

The softened stone changed hands constantly. Even when someone managed to swallow it, others would cut open his belly, dig it out, and stuff it into their own mouths.

Two sticks of incense later, the alley was completely covered in blood and corpses. Only two battered, wounded men remained, staring at each other. Hu Biao was one of them.

He stood there, swaying, muttering to himself: "It's mine… It was mine…"

Li Huowang, standing on the rooftop, watched the tragedy unfold below. Stones could not be softened by boiling. This was all just his scheme.

When he saw the last man, who had eagerly devoured the thing, fail to become an immortal—the look of desperate, shattered despair on his face—a smile crept onto Li Huowang's own face.

He had to admit, fooling people felt really good. Especially when it was his enemies.

Feeling the Non-Law surging into him, Li Huowang nodded in satisfaction. He jumped down and, with a single kick, crushed the man's head.

At that moment, Li Huowang finally understood why the Zuowangdao liked to trick so many people at once. Even if the Non-Law from fooling a single mortal was pitifully small, it added up.

And some of the Zuowangdao's experts even loved to set up elaborate traps. As long as they maintained their scheme well, the Non-Law would flow unceasingly, like a spring.

These schemes could be complex or simple. Sometimes, a single rumor was all it took. The "Genie in the bottle" scam he had encountered years ago was just one of the Zuowangdao's traps.

But more than feeling the Non-Law growing inside him, Li Huowang felt that the change in his own mindset was even more important.

In the past, he had always struggled to tell true from false. But as he committed more and more acts of deception, he finally began to feel the difference between what was genuinely real and what was genuinely false.

The Zuowangdao, as they deceived, could easily lose their own sincerity. They could easily come to believe that everything was false.

That honor and shame were false. That family and friends were false. That even their own selves might be false.

Since everything was false, naturally, there were no limits on what they would do.

Just as Cultivating the True without Cultivating the False could lead to inner-demonic deviation, so too could Cultivating the False without Cultivating the True.