Under One Person: The Seeker of the Dao in the Lü Family

Chapter 246 Zhou Sheng: No, I'm afraid people will misunderstand.

A dazzling light suddenly shone in the room, and the fire, wind, and thunder born from nothingness instantly transformed into dragons, raging and rampaging within the room.

A fierce and powerful gale swirled around, and raging lightning danced wildly with the wind. The intense Samadhi Fire mingled within, illuminating the originally dim room with its radiant light.

In an instant, the once dark and quiet room was transformed into a fiery inferno, with raging winds swirling within it.

These three entities seemed to arrive with destruction, sweeping across every corner of the room without damaging any items within it.

The curtains were not blown or fluttered by the strong wind, and there were no traces of lightning damage on the walls and floors. Even the cloth and paper were intact.

The forces of fire, thunder, and wind surged within the room, their destructive intent growing ever stronger, yet these tangible objects remained unharmed.

As if these three forces were just an empty dream, an unreal illusion, the room remained as quiet and dark as ever.

These are the three calamities: lightning strikes that kill and destroy one's nature, fire strikes that burn one's spirit and body, and wind strikes that erode bones and flesh.

Lightning strikes the cultivator's life-threatening cultivation against the heavens, fire burns the cultivator's body, mind, and spirit, and wind blows away the cultivator's physical form and spirit.

The three calamities are all tribulations for the cultivators themselves, so they naturally do not harm other things; only Qu Tong is harmed.

Qu Tong, who had been sitting cross-legged with her palms facing upwards, was no longer as composed as before, but was now struggling violently amidst the three calamities.

"what!"

A piercing scream shattered the scene that intertwined illusion and reality. The sound was sharp and shrill, mixed with painful trembling. It sounded more like the wailing of a non-human creature than a human scream.

"call--"

"Snap!"

"Bear--"

After the screams rang out, the fire, thunder, and wind that filled the space transformed into ropes and shackles, intertwining and weaving together to form a large net that enveloped Qu Tong's figure.

As the net completely enveloped Qu Tong, the intense radiance in the room grew even stronger, and a mysterious and profound atmosphere seemed to permeate the void.

"Sizzle sizzle..."

The raging lightning bolts traveled down from the knots of the large net, like thousands of lightning serpents, opening their bloody maws toward Qu Tong in the middle.

The snakes spread across Qu Tong's flawless skin, destroying the life force within her flesh and revealing charred lines, like the death marks of a decaying tree.

"Sizzle sizzle..."

These marks permeated each other, and in the blink of an eye, the color of decaying wood had already stained half of Qu Tong's body. This lifeless color continued to devour and plunder the remaining life force.

"Whoosh—"

Amidst the dazzling lightning, a hazy red and blue light suddenly shone, overshadowing the blinding lightning and suppressing the deathly silence that eroded the wood.

The red and blue light intertwined and entwined, like two snakes intertwining and flicking their tongues. The relationship between the two became increasingly close in this spiral, as if they were one.

"hiss!"

With its tongue flicking in and out, the two red and blue snakes, which had seemed like one, continued to split, one into two, two into four, four into eight... becoming a group of spiraling, intertwined two-colored snakes, vying with the Thunder Serpent.

At this moment, Qu Tong seemed to have transformed into a tree, which was also the battlefield between the two groups of snakes.

A group of red and blue snakes slithered and climbed among the branches of the trees. Where they crawled, the once lifeless flesh and blood came back to life, as if rotten wood were sprouting new buds.

These newly sprouted areas seemed to have become a forbidden zone for the Razer snakes. They could no longer draw life from them and instead slid off the tree branches and vanished into the void.

As the Razer disappeared completely, the dazzling lightning that had been hanging over Qu Tong's head also vanished in a flash.

"That brat from the Lü family has actually managed to push me to this point."

After the lightning disaster was averted, Qu Tong's complexion returned to normal. The red and blue light in her pupils settled, and the brilliance within them faded and dissipated in the interweaving of the light.

"So this is what it feels like to forcibly elevate a life using both hands?"

An eerie stillness flowed through her eyes, empty and desolate, like a stagnant abyss without a source, devoid of any vitality.

"Having stripped myself of the seven emotions and six desires, and severed the three poisons and six roots, I am now truly in a predicament."

Qu Tong just used the "Dual Perfection Technique" to modify and elevate her life, achieving a unique kind of "enlightenment," which is why she has the ability to avoid lightning disasters.

This method was also the way she brainwashed and manipulated her subordinates, no less than cutting herself in the process, completely severing the root of all troubles.

Although it achieves the tranquility described by Taoism and the emptiness described by Buddhism, this state is still very strange no matter how you look at it.

"The consequences of cause and effect are unpredictable, whether one is fortunate or unfortunate."

"The backlash from the Eight Extraordinary Techniques... this is troublesome."

Overly calm, Qu Tong sat cross-legged again, her gaze sweeping over the net of three calamities. Even if the lightning calamity dissipated, the wind calamity and fire calamity would weave this net so tightly that it would be impenetrable.

This net bound her from top to bottom and from left to right, binding her in every way, leaving her with no way to avoid it or hide from it.

Faced with such a dangerous situation, Qu Tong was neither anxious nor flustered, remaining as calm as a real robot or bystander.

She silently tidied her disheveled clothes and hair, and calmly looked out the window through the net of the Three Calamities.

"Third Brother, no, Senior Zhou Sheng, your vision and comprehension are truly among the best of the thirty-six."

Qu Tong sat upright, her tone calm and even, devoid of joy, sorrow, anger, or resentment, as she calmly stated her praise.

"The Eight Extraordinary Skills vary in quality, but the [Feng Hou Qi Men] that you comprehended from the Wudang tradition has surpassed that of others by many times."

The voice lingered in the empty, dimly lit room, then slowly dissipated, until only Qu Tong's own steady breathing remained, without any other sound.

"I've already fallen to such a state, yet you still refuse to show yourself?"

This tranquility lasted for a while, then was broken again by Qu Tong, who was still staring at the window beside her, seemingly certain of someone's presence.

The curtains, hanging low, were slightly lifted by the breeze seeping through the gaps in the glass, allowing the bright sunlight outside to stream into the room and illuminate a corner of the windowsill.

Qu Tong stared intently at the small space on the windowsill, as if she had seen something. She blinked twice, but her expression remained calm.

"You've arrived."

"Sigh, why bother?"

A gentle breeze, stirring the curtains, drifted and danced before Qu Tong, carrying with it an aged sigh.

"Whether it's tough or not is a matter for the younger generation; whether we do it or not is a matter for all thirty-six of us back then."

Inside the Three Calamities Cage, Qu Tong shook her head. "Senior Zhou Sheng, as for you, are you unwilling to even see this junior now?"

"No need, this is fine. I'm afraid people will misunderstand."

The gentle breeze circled around Qu Tong once, then stopped in front of her again. Immediately afterwards, a scroll and a writing brush appeared from the wind.

A gentle breeze turned the pages of the blue book, which was covered in ink marks. It found a blank page, and then the brush touched the page, writing a new mark.

"The past is a settled matter, merely a page written in black and white."

"At this moment, the old gives way to the new, and those who came before will follow one after another."