The Emperor Reigns Them All

Chapter 297 Dare You Answer My Call?

The Son of God couldn’t hide his jealousy anymore. He finally managed to swallow his saliva and asked laboriously, “Since when have you made such huge progress in your cultivation level?”

Nangong Diyi nodded repeatedly. It was the first time that he agreed with the Son of God. With an eager-to-know look, he forced Li Ye to answer. “Tell us quickly! Why did you make such a breakthrough in your cultivation level? Have you achieved the Yang Spiritual Master Realm already?”

Nangong Diyi felt very unfair. With heart and soul, he immersed himself in cultivation. He did nothing else but cultivated every day. But Li Ye was different. As the Commissioner of Pinglu, he usually had to handle endless public affairs, plus he happened to be a diligent commissioner. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have won the common feelings of the people in Pinglu and gained such powerful military strength.

Then there was the question: how long did it take for Li Ye to practice every day?

Every day, Li Ye only used a little time to practice. But his cultivation level was upgrading rapidly and was far higher than Nangong Diyi’s now. Nangong Diyi was always very proud of his great talent, so this news appeared to be unacceptable for him, who was determined to be the best in his world.

Beyond that, in Nangong Diyi’s impression, every time he went to find Li Ye, he rarely saw him sitting in meditation and practicing breathing techniques.

“But I deserve this. Don’t you think so?” Li Ye waved his hand with an indifferent look. Without glancing at them, he strode through Nangong Diyi and the Son of God. Walking in the air just like the two children before, Li Ye went straight to Feihong Bodhisattva. It seemed that he disdained to explain more to them.

His response instantly irritated Nangong Diyi and the Son of God. What did Li Ye’s careless attitude mean? It indicated that he was proud. Moreover, he thought that their cultivation progress was slow, and they were little men with narrow minds who appeared jealous.

Staring at Li Ye’s back, the Son of God and Nangong Diyi gnashed their teeth with hatred, but they could not lose their tempers because Li Ye made much faster progress in cultivation than them. Li Ye had enough reasons to be pride. If the Son of God and Nangong Diyi were very unconvinced, they were obviously envious of his talent! But they could not blame Li Ye for their slow progress. Instead, they should put the blame on themselves who were making slow progress in cultivation!

Nangong Diyi couldn’t help recalling the past years. Back when Li Ye launched the Conspiracy in Imperial Palace to root out Liu Xingshen and Han Wenyue, he asked for his help. At that time, Nangong Diyi was a master, but Li Ye was some citizen. However, the situation was completely reversed now! What a few years had it been!

Secretly, the Son of God clenched his teeth. When he first saw Li Ye, he was able to compete with him. Although he was no fighting match for Li Ye at the time, the gap of strength between them was not significant. But now only a few months had passed. Li Ye could easily knock the opponents that he could never defeat into the air by one slap! The Son of God couldn’t help thinking of the words that Li Ye sneered the nine-tail Demon Fox: you demon clan’s cultivation speed was too slow!

The demon clan had a much longer lifespan than the human’s, so their cultivation speed was slower than mortals’, but it was the law of the world and earth. It was not because of that the Son of God made no efforts.

Upon seeing Li Ye’s calm response, the Son of God and Nangong Diyi exchanged a look. Both of them secretly determined to practice much more diligently in the future. They must not let Li Ye be so arrogant, and they were going to humiliate him!

Looking into each other’s eyes, they found the same idea in the other’s mind. Simultaneously, they nodded at each other and got a tacit understanding. Now to some extent, they were bound by a common hatred for Li Ye and decided to teach him a lesson!

But after all, they did not like each other that much. In unison, they snorted coldly and looked away.

But Li Ye didn’t know what the Son of God and Nangong Diyi were thinking about. If he knew their thoughts, he would feel wronged.

He appeared calm because he cultivated in a different way, but he happened to be unable to tell others that. Or everyone in the world would know that he should win people’s support to elevate his cultivation level, which meant that Li Ye was destined to win the support of the people in the world. However, shouldn’t it be the thing that an emperor was destined to do? Even if Li Yan wouldn’t mind that, would those ministers thought differently?

Feihong Bodhisattva stopped drinking. The white mutton-fat jade pot was tied to her waist by a red string, hanging loosely beside her hand.

She still sat on the treetop sideways. The rays of morning sunlight rested on her shoulders. Along with the breeze, a few hairs of her started to dance, showing their transparent ends in the sunshine. When she landed her eyes on Li Ye, her bright red lips curved into a faint smile. After carefully measuring Li Ye from an elder’s view, she showed her appreciation of him as if she had seen a talented junior who was worth cultivating and promoting.

“Immortals’ bearings are truly different. Merely by sitting there, she can make the surroundings her decorative background. All the things around her actively increase her charm.”

Li Ye secretly sighed.

It was not his false impression. Those people who had reached the Immortal Realm must have comprehended the Great Tao. Therefore, every move of them would fit the Great Tao perfectly and would never hurt the harmony of the world. Even when they sat still, they could draw the Spiritual Qi between the heaven and earth to them. They were like mobile magnetic fields.

Feihong Bodhisattva spoke nothing, nor did Li Ye. Wearing a faintly detectable smile, Feihong Bodhisattva looked at Li Ye. Just like her, Li Ye also watched Feihong Bodhisattva with a smile.

Li Ye knew that he was qualified to be appreciated because of his good-looking appearance and graceful manner, but in Li Ye’s eyes, Feihong Bodhisattva before him was truly gorgeous. No words could describe her beauty, so in fact, it was authentically worthwhile to appreciate her.

The two of them stood still as if there were no people in front of them but only a landscape painting, and they were viewers outside it.

However, the occult match had already begun between them.

The first round of the match was to see who could invite the other one to go into the painting first.

Feihong Bodhisattva had achieved a high-level cultivation realm and got an in-depth understanding of the world’s Great Tao. A mere idea crossed her mind could mobilize the Spiritual Qi in her body and then affect the things around her. To Feihong Bodhisattva, mountains and rivers were, to some extent, paintings that could move freely at her will. Now she was looking at Li Ye as if she were enjoying a picture. By viewing Li Ye as an integral part of the scenery around, she intended to bring him into the painting and take full control of him.

The viewer standing outside the painting was also the painter, who could amend the painting as she pleased, so she could certainly erase the people and objects in the painting.

What Feihong Bodhisattva was going to erase was Li Ye.

This kind of thing appeared to be quite mysterious, but in fact, it was only the basic skill of the masters who had achieved the Immortal Realm.

An Immortal Realm cultivator could directly affect an area of the world. With a simple move, the cultivator could easily move mountains and fill seas as well as change river flows. It was said that the territory was the unique skill of cultivators in the Spiritual Master Realm. Then, the unique skill of cultivators in the Immortal Realm was Immortal Area. Within the territory, the Spiritual Master Realm cultivator was the master. Well, in Immortal Area, everything was controlled by the Immortal. It was just that the Immortal Area was much more complicated and mysterious than the territory.

At first, it looked likely that Feihong Bodhisattva wanted to absorb Li Ye into the picture scroll of heaven and earth, but actually, she was going to drop him into her Immortal Area.

Therefore, Feihong Bodhisattva looked at Li Ye as if she were enjoying a figure in a landscape painting.

So it was the same with Li Ye.

But Li Ye hadn’t yet reached the Immortal Realm. Thus, he could never drag Feihong Bodhisattva into his painting. Only by trying to draw Feihong Bodhisattva into his painting could he keep himself off her painting.

At this moment, Feihong Bodhisattva was a scroll of painting in Li Ye’s eyes.

The beauty of Feihong Bodhisattva was supermundane and refined, but not unreal. Her beauty was much more appealing than the beauty which could overthrow states and cities. People thought that some women were exceedingly beautiful only because their figures conformed to certain specific esthetic standards of women at a particular time. For example, people in the Tang Dynasty regarded fat ladies as beauties.

But no matter what kinds of specific esthetic standards of women were used to scrutinize Feihong Bodhisattva’s face, it was flawless. She was perfect and was beyond the scope of any evaluation. Though it looked like that her posture was so wild and unconstrained, her acts were actually in harmony with Great Tao.

Moreover, behind her was the fascinating background with brilliant morning glows as well as the peaceful and vast mountains. Now, not only she but the whole painting with her was perfect.

When Li Ye appreciated such a painting, he would be mesmerized by her in an unguarded moment. Once occurred that situation, his state of mind would be in a fidget, and he would forget where he was. All the trouble and affairs of human life would vanish from his mind in an instant.

Once this happened, it meant that Li Ye had already walked into her painting automatically.

But Li Ye had lived a life before, plus this body of him had now held the memory of its last life. With such rich experience and strong will, how could he fall into her trap easily?

After some time, Li Ye still had a clear mind and was smiling gently. He was enjoying the beautiful scenery but didn’t fall into the painting. Seeing that, Feihong Bodhisattva felt very surprised, and later, this surprising feeling turned into a sense of shocking.

She was a genuine Immortal Realm master, a well-known Great Power of Buddhism! With her understanding of the Great Tao, she could have sent the helpless Li Ye into her painting at first glance with ease. However, Li Ye didn’t walk into the painting tamely as she had expected!

What did this mean? It meant that Li Ye must have a strong will and had become quite accomplished in the Great Tao’s understanding! But this was impossible. How was it possible that a young man in his twenties had such a powerful strength?

At the Qi-refining Stage or Spiritual Master Realm, a cultivator in this world would mainly rely on the absorbed Spiritual Qi and the continuous improvements of himself to open up a new realm. Thus, the attraction to Spiritual Qi, the speed of and the efficiency in absorbing Spiritual Qi could directly decide the improvement rate of cultivation.

To achieve more after the Immortal Realm, it was far from enough to accumulate Spiritual Qi only. He must also understand the laws of heaven and earth and grasp the truth of Tao! At the same time, there were lots of Kalpa waiting for him. The first hurdle of achieving the Ground Immortal Realm was that he should first survive from the inner-demon Kalpa! After that, many more Kalpa, such as the thunder Kalpa, were there waiting for him, which would make him feel suffered and painful. To get through the Kalpa, he must have tenacious willpower.

However, judging by the level of mental toughness and enlightenment that Li Ye showed, Feihong Bodhisattva thought that his existence was incredible!

A person who was only a Yang Spiritual Master could resist the temptation to go into Daluo Golden Immortal’s painting. Wasn’t he an incredible existence?

Feihong Daishi found the fact was unacceptable. One must know that many gods or Immortals who wanted to comprehend the Great Tao and successfully survive the Kalpa had to be reincarnated many times. By going through numerous sufferings and struggles, they were determined to see through the emptiness of the material world, recognize the world as it was, and understand the law of the Great Tao.

Only after he was toughened by all sorts of things and experienced different lives could he gain various perceptions and stand aloof from worldly affairs. Therefore, one must undergo the long process of making efforts to see through the vanity of life. That was why experiencing the world was the only way to understand the Great Tao.

“But this guy before me is only about 20 years old, how can he have such a deep understanding of the laws of heaven and earth? Does he really know what the true meaning of life?”

Feihong Bodhisattva could never imagine that he could do it.

In other words, with his great tenacity and understanding of the Great Tao, if Li Ye wanted to reach the Immortal Realm or once he achieved the Immortal Realm, his cultivation level would increase at a tremendous speed! It was very likely that the Kalpa that could easily ruin gods was not a threat to him at all!

Thinking of this, Feihong Bodhisattva began to feel a little afraid of Li Ye.

“This guy is an unreasonable freak. I must kill him immediately.”

In fact, Feihong Bodhisattva descended to the world to deal with Li Ye, but she was not well prepared. It was a rough trip for her to come down through the Kunlun Channel. At this time, she was weak and hadn’t yet regained her strength. To put it simply, she was still suffering from seasickness such that she couldn’t exert all her strength.

Initially, she was having a rest in the pavilion of Wutai Mountain, but to her surprise, she encountered Li Keyong. Since he had already seen her, Feihong Bodhisattva thought that she could no longer stay there and should do something for him. After all, she was a god. Otherwise, Li Keyong would not be at her beck and call in the future.

So, she promised him to deal with Li Ye.

At first, Feihong Bodhisattva thought that even though not much of her supernatural power had recovered now, two children in the Yang Spiritual Master realm still followed her. With a relatively much lower realm than her, the two children hadn’t weakened as much as Bodhisattva Feihon and had already fully recovered after they passed the Kunlun Channel. Thus, it was effortless for them to handle Li Ye.

This situation was very easy to understand. When Feihong Bodhisattva passed the Kunlun Channel, much of her cultivation had been weakened. Feihong Bodhisattva felt as if the process scraped a layer of her flesh and bones away, or a severe illness had endangered her life. As for the two children, the whole process was like a cold to them, and so they certainly recovered very fast.

She did not expect that the information she got was wrong that Li Ye had already achieved the Yang Spiritual Master realm. He defeated the two children who came here with her by one move — he directly knocked them into the air by one slap!

In the meantime, Feihong Bodhisattva abused Gautama Buddha secretly in her heart because this guy defrauded her!

In fact, this could not blame Gautama Buddha because Li Ye increased the level of his realm after he got the Zhaoyi Army’s support. But since Li Ye hadn’t gotten the Zhaoyi Army’s full sport, he didn’t get much Luck from it. Otherwise, his realm level wouldn’t have just stayed at the early stage of the Yang Spiritual Master realm.

However, Feihong Bodhisattva did not panic. She firmly believed that by her understanding of the Great Tao, it would be more than enough for her to cope with Li Ye and lead him into her painting with no difficulty. However, she did not expect that Li Ye managed to resist the pressure and didn’t intend to go into her painting at all!

Bodhisattva Feihong cast an in-depth look at Li Ye, feeling very ashamed suddenly. “As a Daluo Golden Immortal, I chose to compete with the apprehension of the Great Tao with him. It was cheating! I have bulled him in such an obvious way. Thus, even if I won, I wouldn’t feel proud of myself. BUT I FAILED! Not being able to pull him into my painting not merely disgraced me but took all my dignity away!”

After all, Feihong Bodhisattva was a god, but Li Ye was still only an ordinary mortal now!

Feihong Bodhisattva had no other choice but to take her Immortal Area back. In her current weak state, she could do no more things other than use her Immortal Area.

“Ahem! Hmm...” She coughed twice to resolve the embarrassment in her heart, and then she gave Li Ye a big smile. Now that after the two attacks that she had launched, Li Ye was still there, safe and sound. Because of that, Li Ye had become a big trouble for her. Feihong Bodhisattva knew that it was not easy to handle him. Fortunately, she was a god who always had a backup.

A god always had Magic Treasures.

Covertly, Bodhisattva Feihong adjusted the angle of the mutton-fat jade bottle. For this little movement, her heart bled. “As a great Daluo Golden Immortal and well-known Great Power in the Land Buddhism, I have to use a little trick to deal with a mortal secretly! This kind of thing has already taken all my dignity away. Even worse, it will bring shame on the whole Land Buddhism.”

It was not hard for Feihong Bodhisattva to imagine that Gautama Buddha and the other Bodhisattvas must have been watching at her right now. She flushed and felt that her face was burning with shame. No matter how much she had comprehended the Great Tao and how calm she could maintain, she felt too shameful to do this kind of disgraceful thing at the moment.

Therefore, Feihong Bodhisattva decided to take her action without further delay. Eyes full of appreciation, she looked at him and gave him a gentle smile because she wanted to let her opponent put down his guard. Then, she asked slowly, “Are you Li Ye?”

Before she asked the question, she had already placed her mutton-fat jade pot at the right angle.

The mutton-fat jade pot was known for its versatility. One of its functions was like the function of Lord Lao Zi’s bottle, which was stolen by Gold Horn King and Silver Horn King and then was brought to the mortal world. The two kings had used the bottle to deal with Handsome Monkey King when it was on its way to escort his master Tang Monk to get the real Buddhist sutras.

The way to get the pot in gear was by saying: dare you to answer my call?