Chapter 17
Chapter 17.
“Master. Since you've emerged from seclusion after five years, how about holding a small feast to celebrate?”
“A feast?”
“Yes. It's a chance to celebrate by sharing something delicious. Of course, it would only be you, me, and Ho Chung...”
A celebratory feast, huh.
Not a bad idea.
Come to think of it, I couldn't remember ever eating with Seo Geum.
‘Even though I was born Korean, I never even made plans to eat with her. I'm a disgrace to Korea.’
Gyo Ran usually finished meals by biting into a single spirit fruit.
Just one spirit fruit could keep her full for a week, or even half a month.
But surely a meal wasn't only about filling your stomach.
Sharing and enjoying it together was part of a meal, too, so it was definitely a good idea.
“All right. But I can't cook.”
“What are you saying? Of course I'll prepare everything. This is a happy occasion for you, Master.”
“Hmm, okay?”
“Yes. Then I'll get things ready, so please wait here.”
“All right.”
At a glance, Seo Geum seemed to know her way around a kitchen. There was a hearth in her room.
If I waited a little, she'd bring out all sorts of dishes.
Gyo Ran returned to her quarters, flopped down, and started thinking.
“I advanced two levels with just one sip of immortal wine. At this rate, I should be able to break through my realm after a few more sips.”
Of course, drinking the same elixir again would build up a resistance, making it hard to get much benefit from it.
But it seemed like I could break through at least one more level.
‘The Immortal Wine Gourd Bug's wine gathers all kinds of energy and grants enlightenment.’
The impermanence of life (人生無常).
The strange turns of worldly affairs (世事異知).
The world is fleeting, yet human affairs within it have their own depths and intricacies.
People can be good or evil, but what determines the standard for good and evil?
Is killing someone to protect yourself truly evil?
Who counts as weak?
Is a boy who makes a habit of stealing weak, or evil? If he steals to care for his sick mother, is that good?
Within Ho Chung's immortal wine, such insights into human affairs repeated endlessly.
It was as if the wine were asking me:
Do you know what is evil and what is good?
What is your Great Dao?
“Evil is evil, and good is good.”
To begin with, good and evil are concepts defined by human standards.
To those who have awakened their spiritual nature, good and evil don't really mean much.
Cultivation is, by nature, defying Heaven.
Cultivators are those who rebel against Heaven's natural order.
Wasn't it strange for people like that to distinguish between good and evil, then seek the Dao within those distinctions?
No one in this world is without a story, and no one is without both good and evil.
There are no people who are only evil, nor are there people who are only good.
In this world, only the laws of the Three Thousand Great Daos exist.
“Phew... As I thought. The Immortal Wine Gourd Bug doesn't gather mere energy.”
A force akin to flowing qi.
It held all kinds of human emotions, both fierce and tender.
Evil hearts and good hearts.
It was an energy in which both existed together.
It gathered everything that pervaded the affairs of the world.
For Ho Chung, that was the Dao.
And the immortal wine was brewed from it.
So that's what the Immortal Wine Gourd Bug was.
Lightning crackled through Gyo Ran's body, where the enlightenment had settled.
“Could this, too, be called good fortune? Some sort of arrangement by someone...”
After thinking that far, Gyo Ran shook her head and cleared away the thoughts.
If she followed that line of thought, one thought would lead to another without end.
It wasn't good to keep dwelling on questions with no answers.
“Let's just call it a fortuitous opportunity. The Dao-Bone New Scripture says it, too. My luck stat is crazy high.”
Luck: 150 (High-Low)
While most of my other stats were fairly low—either (Low-Mid) or (Low-High)—my luck alone was (High-Low).
I decided to believe that my own luck was drawing all these fortuitous opportunities to me.
After sorting out my thoughts, I naturally opened the Yao Immortal Gallery.
It seemed Seo Geum would need more time to prepare the food.
And then I remembered something I'd forgotten.
“Ah!”
It had been right after I dropped the bombshell that I was leaving the Gallery.
Five years had passed.
“Hmm... What a mess.”
I'd unintentionally gone and followed through on my threat to leave the Gallery.
Naturally, the Yao Immortal Gallery had been filled with tearful posts from Yao Immortals, including LotsaTails.
The moment I logged in, I was met with a sight that made me doubt my eyes.
The message board had long since turned into a hellscape beyond anything I'd imagined. Everyone's soft-hearted attitude from chatting on the Gallery had grown as sharp as it was in real life.
Maybe that was why.
LotsaTails, who'd drawn all the Yao Immortals' anger in the Gallery, had taken quite a beating.
[Yao Immortal (178.1): LotsaTails, cut off one of your tails and apologize right now!]
-Because of you, all our ascensions have been blocked. Apologize!!
There was no riot like this one.
Most of the Yao Immortals who regularly showed up in the Gallery had been tearing into LotsaTails. Slaughter Poison was a matter of life and death to them, so of course they'd react so fiercely.
Of course, I'd known that when I did it, but I hadn't expected things to turn out like this.
“This is scary.”
It felt downright strange to see Yao Immortals who usually spouted nonsense getting so seriously angry.
It felt like this had been going on for quite a while.
I scrolled back as far as I could and read some older posts.
[Yao Immortal (963.3): Is the Baby really not coming back to the Gallery...? It's already been three years.]
-I thought it was a joke at first, but now I'm actually worried... You were always humblebragging, which got on my nerves, but the Gallery feels kind of gloomy without you. Baby Jiaolong! Please come back! If you don't, LotsaTails is seriously going to die!
After the Gallery caught fire, LotsaTails hardly posted or replied at all.
Even though they'd been one of the regulars who were always around.
[Yao Immortal (456.45): Anyone want to come help me cut off LotsaTails's tail?]
-I'd given up because of Slaughter Poison, but Purple Heart Pills gave me hope. Now LotsaTails has killed that hope again, so I'll just kill that guy and plan for my next life. There seem to be plenty like me. Give me the plane's location and coordinates, and I'll force my way in.
└Yao Immortal (66.66): Do you even know LotsaTails's plane coordinates?
└Yao Immortal (456.45): I do. I've visited other planes often to reforge Dharma artifacts, so I know them. There's a Yao Venerable famous for ruling one of those planes. I think it's probably that guy.
└Yao Immortal (963.3): How can you be sure?
└Yao Immortal (456.45): He's famous for having lots of tails.
Gasp!
And they'd even secured my plane's coordinates?
My heart started pounding, even though this had nothing to do with me.
Was this about to turn into a real disaster?
Then LotsaTails, who'd kept quiet for a while, finally couldn't take it anymore and made a post.
[LotsaTails: I have no excuse.]
-I apologize for bringing such a heavy burden of karma upon the Yao Immortal Gallery through my mistake. I never thought a small joke would turn into such a serious matter. I deeply regret it, and rather than just offering words, I'll post one apology a day until Baby Jiaolong comes back and forgives me.
“Holy crap.”
The words slipped out on their own.
While I spent five years in seclusion drinking immortal wine, the Yao Immortal Gallery seems to have believed I'd really left and fallen into grief.
And all that anger had been directed squarely at LotsaTails.
‘The reaction is unreal.’
Scrolling up a little farther, I found an even more ridiculous sight.
From the moment I disappeared, people had been howling at LotsaTails to ‘bring Baby Jiaolong back.’ When LotsaTails couldn't take it anymore and protested that it was unfair, the other Yao Immortals bombarded the Gallery with petitions to have them banned from posting, and they'd already been banned several times.
‘So that's how you get banned for posting petitions... I had no idea.’
After taking the full force of every karmic backlash, LotsaTails eventually accepted the punishment of ‘writing one apology a day until Baby Jiaolong returns,’ with tears in their eyes.
What's more, when the others mocked them, saying, “That's not sincere. Get naked and prostrate yourself,” they actually went through with it and posted proof.
[Yao Immortal (444.4): [LotsaTails], your apology isn't sincere.]
-It's a serious matter that Baby Jiaolong, who was practically addicted to the Yao Immortal Gallery, hasn't shown up for five years. If you truly want to change Baby's mind, I recommend taking off all your clothes, returning to your primordial state, and prostrating yourself in apology.
Even something written as a joke could turn frightening once people got serious about it.
After several apologies failed to restore the mood, and the others tore into LotsaTails whenever they missed a daily apology or complained even once, they finally surrendered and performed a tearful, naked dogeza.
[LotsaTails: A Sincere Apology.]
「A secret post only visible to Baby Jiaolong.」
And it was a secret post only I could see!!
I opened it immediately, and was shocked to see LotsaTails's sincere dogeza.
“Wait... wasn't LotsaTails at the Yao Venerable level? The strongest on the plane, and they went this far??”
To think someone practically the ruler of an entire plane would bow down like this after getting chewed out on the Yao Immortal Gallery.
At first, I'd found it a little funny, but now I realized the situation was far more serious than I'd imagined.
“Save. Save.”
Getting scammed had made me angry, but not this angry.
If I left things like this, a bloody storm might break out in the Yao Immortal Gallery.
I didn't want things to go that far.
LotsaTails was a jerk, but I didn't want them to die.
‘I should bring peace back at this point.’
I dug out the Purple Heart Pills I'd stashed away in my storage pouch.
My alchemy proficiency had improved since then, and now that my cultivation had jumped to the fourth layer of the Yao Art, I was confident I could raise the grade of the pills even further with the yao qi flowing from my inner core.
If I sold the four Purple Heart Pills I'd already made and brewed a few more to put up for sale, the Yao Immortal Gallery would find peace on its own.
[Baby Jiaolong: I'm back!!]
-I listed Purple Heart Pills in the Yao Immortal Pavilion. I, Baby Jiaolong, accept LotsaTails's apology, and to restore peace to the Yao Immortal Gallery, I'll be releasing Purple Heart Pills!! Everybody, make some noise!!
The moment I listed them in the Yao Immortal Pavilion along with my post, the mood in the Yao Immortal Gallery flipped 180 degrees.
└Yao Immortal (178.1): Waaaaaah!! Baby Jiaolong is alive!! They're back!!
└HumansSuck: Purple Heart Pills! Purple Heart Pills! Purple Heart Pills! I knew you'd come through!!
└SunshineIsThisWorld: They're here, they're here, they're here, they're here, they're here, they're here, they're here!!!!!!!!!!
└LotsaTails: Baby! I knew you'd come back! My heartfelt apology reached the heavens! Sob... I don't have to apologize naked anymore, right?!
└Baby Jiaolong: You make me a little uncomfortable.
└LotsaTails: S-s-sorry!!
How seriously do you take posting on this Gallery?
LotsaTails!!
I nearly started feeling bad for them for no reason.