My brother is so cunning

Chapter 1034 Insider Leak
In the rear hall of Lingxiao Palace, in the Imperial Study, it was nighttime in the Heavenly Realm.
The celestial realm also has day and night, but unlike the nights on earth, the nights in the celestial realm are not dark. On the contrary, the scenery of the night sky is more beautiful and colorful than the bright, clear, and golden scenery of daytime.

In the night sky, the Milky Way slowly rotates, and brilliant shooting stars drift like silver petals, shimmering with silver light.

The nebula, resembling water, flows along the "riverbed," and one can almost hear the murmuring of the water.

Looking south, one can see the aurora borealis in the southern sky; looking north, one can see thunder, clouds, and lightning; looking west, one can see the Buddha's light in the western sky; and looking east, one can see countless stars in the star field.

Inside the study, the candlelight made of the blubber of the giant whale from the South China Sea emitted a pure and bright white light, illuminating the Jade Emperor's tense profile.

Wen Rui had also promoted electric lights and appliances in the Heavenly Court for a period of time, thinking that he could use electricity, which was almost free for him, to squeeze some more immortal jade from the pockets of the immortals.

Although the electric lights provided better illumination than the most exquisite palace lanterns in the Lingxiao Palace, they were already widely used in the mortal realm. The immortals felt it was beneath their dignity to use the same level of things as mortals, and Wen Rui's attempt to promote electric lights and appliances failed shamefully.

Therefore, many immortals in the Heavenly Court still use celestial oil lamps made from burning whale fat or even mermaid fat at night.

Among these celestial lamp oils, mermaid fat is the best. Not only does it emit a pure white light with extremely high brightness, but it also burns for a very long time. When burning, it produces no smoke and instead emits a refreshing fragrance.

However, in recent decades, the amount of mermaid fat offered by the Dragon Kings of the Four Seas has decreased year by year. The Jade Emperor once sent envoys to question them. Several groups of people were sent, but they were intercepted by the patrol teams of the Demon Alliance before they even entered the Four Seas. They never managed to reach the Dragon Palace and deliver the Jade Emperor's edict.

By this time, even the palace lanterns in the Jade Emperor's study could no longer burn with mermaid fat, so he had to settle for using giant whale fat instead.

The Jade Emperor held a jade tablet between his fingers, the four characters "Lord of the Three Realms" engraved on it gleaming coldly in the light.

On the map of mountains and rivers spread out on the imperial desk, the red dots representing the incense and wishes of the mortal world were strangely converging towards one point, and that area was circled with cinnabar ink—it was the sphere of influence of the Creator God in the Southern Jambudvipa.

Standing before him were three celestial officials: Venus and Yang Ren and Yin Jiao from the Tai Sui Department.

"You all saw what Dou Bu did at the court meeting."

The Jade Emperor's voice was extremely low, filled with suppressed anger: "The Creator Heavenly Venerable, taking advantage of the Intercepting Sect's power, has turned the offerings of the mortal realm into his private property. If this continues, the Heavenly Court's fortune will be drained dry."

Yin Jiao slammed his hand on the table, and the phantom of the halberd flashed past behind him: "How could the Tongtian Sect Leader sit idly by and do nothing about such an act of stealing the fortune of the Three Realms? In my humble opinion, it would be better to directly ask the Primordial Heavenly Lord to step forward, storm Biyou Palace, and ask him for an explanation!"

"Confused!"

Yang Ren's eyes flashed with golden light as he swept across the star map, his tone tinged with urgency: "After the Investiture of the Gods, the three religions swore not to attack each other. Asking Yuanshi Tianzun to intervene now would only give Tongtian Jiaozhu a handle to use against us, saying that the Heavenly Court is biased towards the Chan religion."

He pointed to the location representing Kunlun Mountain on the star map, "Moreover, Laozi has always advocated tranquility and inaction. Why would he easily intervene without a very good reason?" The Jade Emperor was silent for a moment, then shook his head and smiled bitterly, "I thought that by taking him as my son-in-law, fulfilling all his unreasonable demands, and bestowing upon him supreme honor, I could feed this tiger lying beside my bed. I never expected his ambitions to be so great. What else does he want? Does he have to sit on my throne to satisfy his insatiable desires?"

"Your Majesty, I have a secret report to report. It concerns Wen Rui's theft of the foundation of the people's faith. I implore Your Majesty to consider this matter carefully."

"Speak quickly!" the Jade Emperor hurriedly said.

Taibai Jinxing's hand holding the whisk tightened slightly, and his white eyebrows furrowed: "This old minister has investigated carefully. The Creator Heavenly Venerable has been preaching in the mortal world for nearly a thousand years. Before he was conferred the title of god, he had promoted the method of 'investigating things to acquire knowledge'. When he was cultivating in the Golden Spirit Immortal Sect, he tried to teach it to his fellow disciples, but he only received ridicule and ended up with the reputation of being the most useless disciple of the Intercepting Sect."

"For nearly two hundred years, he has been using the name of the Tongtian Sect Master to repackage his old method of 'investigating things to gain knowledge' as the Sect Master's secret method of 'intercepting the heavens'. This is how he tricked the disciples of the Lishan Immortal Sect into following him to practice. He also recruited a group of lesser demons as his personal disciples, and that's how he spread the so-called 'intercepting the heavens' method."

"What? Those books on new knowledge of the Jie Sect that Wen Rui is distributing everywhere, bearing the inscription 'Written by the Tongtian Sect Master,' are forgeries falsely attributed to a sage?"

The Jade Emperor was taken aback. He had also collected many new knowledge books of the Jie Sect and had carefully studied many of the works in various disciplines.

Before he knew that these books were actually written by Wen Rui under the pseudonym Tongtian Jiaozhu, the Jade Emperor had praised them highly when he read some chapters that recorded astronomy, geography, physics, chemistry, and natural laws. He exclaimed that they were indeed the work of a sage, who had analyzed the extremely complex principles of the heavens so thoroughly and compiled them into teaching materials in such a simple and easy-to-understand way, so that such profound principles could be so easily taught to ordinary people.

"Those books do indeed record the profound principles of Heaven. I have benefited greatly from reading them. Wen Rui was only conferred the title of god a little over two hundred years ago, and his total lifespan was only a little over seven hundred years. Compared with the immortals of Heaven, he is like an infant or a child. How could he possibly comprehend those principles on his own?"

"Over the years, this old minister has also befriended many Doufu Star Lords and secretly inquired about their opinions. Among them are many disciples of the Jie Sect who personally heard the Tongtian Daozu preach in Biyou Palace back then."

Venus patiently explained, "The teachings of the Tongtian Sect Leader have absolutely nothing to do with the new knowledge collection of the Jie Sect that Wen Rui claims to have compiled based on his teachings. The Tongtian Sect Leader talked most about the *Huangting Jing*, and second most about the methods of demon immortal transformation. He never talked about physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geometry, algebra, or advanced mathematics..."

"When Wen Rui was cultivating at the Golden Spirit Immortal Sect, he tried to teach these subjects to his fellow disciples, saying that if one mastered mathematics, physics, and chemistry, one would be fearless in the Three Realms."

Taibai Jinxing lowered his voice and said, "I have an informant from the Jie Sect who once heard Wen Rui preach. He said that what Wen Rui preached back then is the same content he wrote in the books he is now writing under the name of Tongtian Jiaozhu."

"Back then, disciples of the Golden Spirit Immortal Sect often frequented Biyou Palace. At that time, he dared not impersonate the Tongtian Sect Master. Otherwise, if a disciple of the Golden Spirit Immortal Sect believed him and went directly to the Sect Master for guidance when he encountered problems he didn't understand, wouldn't he be exposed?"

"How dare they! They even misuse the sacred name of their own ancestor!"

The Jade Emperor's eyes flashed with divine light, and he sneered, "He uses the name of the Tongtian Sect Master and the pretext of promoting the Jie Sect, but he is actually peddling his own heresies... If the Tongtian Sect Master knew the truth, how could he allow him to continue to distort the Great Dao of the Sages in this way!"

(End of this chapter)