Who Let Him Cultivate?! (WX)-Chapter 814: The Omnipresent Taciturn Daoist Priest

“Little Lu, Meng boy, over here, over here.” The Taciturn Daoist Priest beckoned them over. He had heard Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou’s footsteps long ago.

“Shifu, why are you here?” Lu Yang’s eyelid twitched. How should I put it? I’m not at all surprised to encounter Shifu in a prison cell.

Although his great shifu had altered his appearance, Lu Yang recognized him at a glance.

“And Chieftain Jin, you...”

On the other hand, Chieftain Jin hadn’t changed his appearance.

Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou were unaware that after the Demon Kingdom’s founding ceremony, Chieftain Jin had acknowledged the Taciturn Daoist Priest as his big brother to hone his eloquence.

Lu Yang still remembered Chieftain Jin’s high spirits when they met in the Qiongqi Tribe, maintaining his composure in the face of Supreme Lord Zhu Tian’s oppressive pressure. How had he sunk to the same level as Shifu in the blink of an eye?

The speed of this downfall is too alarming.

“I’m here to learn from Big Brother Taciturn.” Chieftain Jin tittered, somewhat abashed about meeting acquaintances in such a place for the first time.

Lu Yang genuinely couldn’t think of what there was to learn from his shifu.

The Taciturn Daoist Priest laughed heartily, feeling not the least bit embarrassed. “Aiya, I was teaching Little Jin the principle that those who deceive will eventually be captured in the net. To help him adapt to prison life in advance and learn how to live comfortably in a prison cell, I deliberately left a small flaw, allowing the Ye City authorities to arrest both me and Little Jin.”

He patted Chieftain Jin on the shoulder, imparting precious knowledge. “Be more confident! In our line of work, the most important thing is self-assurance. Your appearance stems from your mind and heart. With inner confidence, your face will glow, and only then will the other party believe your lies!”

Lu Yang facepalmed. Why wasn’t Shifu this earnest when teaching me... Oh, right, there’s no need to teach me such things.

“Who would have thought there would be an unexpected bonus, running into the Founding Ancestor? I heard the Founding Ancestor was arrested because he wanted to go undercover in the Heartless Creed?”

Lu Yang nodded, recounting what he had previously found out. “The Ye City’s yamen received intelligence about the Heartless Creed’s base and coordinated with several nearby cities to raid that base. The Founding Ancestor was consequently captured.”

“So that’s what happened.”

“We bought some dishes from the Blessed Fortune Restaurant. I’m not sure if they suit your taste, Founding Ancestor.”

Meng Jingzhou opened the two large meal boxes, and a fragrant aroma wafted out. Although the Innate Daoist Priest had long passed the stage of craving gustatory pleasures, his current body was at the Basic Foundation Establishment Stage and reacted instinctively.

“So fragrant.” The Innate Daoist Priest’s nose twitched as he accepted the chopsticks and began digging in.

“What about my chopsticks?” The Taciturn Daoist Priest pointed at himself. As secular cultivators, we don’t adhere to concepts like grain abstinence; savoring delicious food is the true Dao for us.

“There’s only one pair of chopsticks,” Meng Jingzhou replied. Sect Leader, how was I supposed to know that you were also imprisoned here?

Of course, even if he had known the Taciturn Daoist Priest was here, he wouldn’t have brought extra chopsticks.

The Taciturn Daoist Priest had no choice but to use his spirit energy to materialize a pair of chopsticks to pick up the food and eat.

The Ye City prison contained arrays that restricted cultivation and spirit energy. Even for Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou, using spirit energy here was immensely difficult, akin to being mired in a swamp.

Ye City was considered a major city. Its city lord was at the Void Refinement Stage, and the arrays were also at the Void Refinement level. However, Void Refinement-level arrays were nothing before the Taciturn Daoist Priest.

As a Half-Step Transcendent Tribulation cultivator, the arrays of a mere local prison couldn’t possibly restrain him. He could employ spells at will. Not to mention, even Chieftain Jin, a Fusion cultivator, could freely cast spells.

Considering that revealing his true identity might attract a group of old friends to come and gawk at him, the Taciturn Daoist Priest had used a false identity when entering the prison, posing as a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The same went for Chieftain Jin.

“Speaking of which, it’s fortunate the Founding Ancestor didn’t join the Heartless Creed. I spent some time there myself in the past. That was truly no place for normal folk.” Not even eating could shut the Taciturn Daoist Priest’s mouth. “Back then, I came across the Heartless Creed’s recruitment. There was no time to inform others, so I said I’d test the waters first and ended up joining them.”

“Ah?” No one expected the Taciturn Daoist Priest to have such a past.

“Isn’t the Heartless Creed’s trial about killing the person closest to you? How did you pass the trial?”

“Simple. The person closest to me is myself. I encountered another me with identical strength in the array. Since the array makes you forget your circumstances, I thought I had accidentally stumbled into some secret domain where I had to defeat myself to pass. Then, I broke through on the spot and eliminated myself.

“After passing the trial, the Heartless Creed would investigate who the person closest to you, as manifested in the array, was. You would need to kill that person in reality to truly become a member.

“They discovered the closest person to me was myself, but they couldn’t possibly ask me to commit suicide, so they let me pass.

“After I joined the Heartless Creed, I realized the Heartless Creed was researching the Heartless Dao. To study it, they would marry, attempt to walk the Heartful Dao, then kill their wives to prove their Dao, thereby strengthening the heartlessness in their hearts.

“I thought this wouldn’t do. If the Heartless Dao continued this way, how many innocent women would suffer?

“Therefore, at the time, I suggested to the Heartless Creed’s higher-ups that the way of killing one’s wife to prove their Dao was incorrect. Does killing your wife truly prove you are a heartless person? What if you killed your wife in a moment of impulse and regretted it later?

“The Heartless Creed’s higher-ups thought my words held some merit and asked me if I had better ideas.

“I said that one must be long-sighted to prove the Heartless Dao. You can’t just keep killing. Once you’ve killed all those close to you, how will you continue to prove your Heartless Dao later?’

“I proposed that instead of falling in love with your wife and then killing her, it would be better to fall in love with your wife and then let her sleep with someone else.

“Common sense dictates that letting your wife sleep with another person would evoke either rage or agitation. However, neither of these is an emotion a Heartless Creed member should display.

“Furthermore, witnessing your wife sleep with someone else would maximize feelings of rage or agitation. Hence, I further recommended that Heartless Creed followers observe the whole process of themselves being cuckolded from the sidelines.

“Having your wife cuckold you but still showing no reaction—that is the mark of a qualified Heartless Creed follower!

“The Heartless Creed higher-ups felt that my words made some sense and widely promoted it within the Heartless Creed.

“My theory also exposed many followers who couldn’t achieve heartlessness. Those who wanted to defect were all executed.

“It was also good that they died. After all, these people had blood on their hands when they joined. They deserved to die.

“Later, I discovered that the Heartless Creed’s fundamental doctrine wasn’t heartless but using any means necessary to become stronger.

“Moreover, the Heartless Creed had a strict internal promotion system. You could say that every radish had a hole—there was only one position per person. Each promotion significantly increased the resources one could obtain. It’s similar to the system of outer and inner disciples in other sects.

“At the time, I told them that since having people above prevented those below from being promoted, if we got rid of those above, wouldn’t there be a chance to rise?

“They thought I had a point, so they secretly killed several superiors, successfully climbing the ranks.

“Other branches noticed this and followed suit. The Heartless Creed was quite chaotic during that period.”