Gou Zai Fei Men made up myths

"Whether they believe it or not is unimportant." Shen Mo looked at the excited disciples outside the window. "What matters is that they believe it."

He recalled the secret reports he had received during the day: the vanguard of the Blazing Sun Sect had encountered "spatial turbulence" on the outskirts of the Black Wind Mountains and suffered heavy losses; the Heavenly Sword Sect and the Profound Yin Sect had fought fiercely at the entrance of the Myriad Laws Abyss and both sides were severely injured; and the disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect were busy treating the wounded and counting the spoils of war, as if the battle just now had nothing to do with them.

"Sect Leader," Su Xiao's voice pulled him back from his thoughts, "The Xuan Yin Sect has sent word that their leader will personally travel to the Black Wind Mountains in three days."

"Oh?" Shen Mo raised an eyebrow. "Looks like the fish are almost all here."

As soon as the morning market in Black Wind Town opened, the area in front of Baibaoge was packed with people. Old Wang, who sold steamed buns, stood on tiptoe to look and saw Manager Chen Hao standing on the steps, holding a sandalwood box in his hands. Inside the box, on a velvet lining, were several pieces of yellowed tortoise shell.

"Gentlemen! Good news for the market opening today!" Chen Hao's voice boomed. "While tidying the storeroom last night, I discovered a fragment of the 'Record of All Sages and Masters' at the bottom of the 'Treasure Chest' left by our ancestors!"

The crowd erupted in a buzz. Several elders from minor sects pushed to the front, their eyes fixed on the ancient, worm-eaten seal script on the tortoise shell.

Liu, the deacon of the Heavenly Sword Sect, stroked his goatee and asked, "Manager Chen, could this 'Sage of Ten Thousand Laws' be related to the recently rumored Myriad Laws Abyss?"

"What a coincidence!" Chen Hao snapped the wooden box shut. "The fragment contains the eight characters 'All laws return to the same source, the sacred path comes first'! Even more wonderful is—" He deliberately drew out his words, waiting for everyone's ears to perk up before continuing, "According to research, this sage's Daoist title shares the same origin as the original name of the Qingyun Sect's Flowing Cloud Ancestor!"

The crowd instantly swarmed like a hornet's nest. Zhao Laosan, the talisman seller, slapped his thigh: "I knew it! Last month, that kid from the Qingyun Sect named Jin Hao came to buy cinnabar, demanding three hundred catties of 'Star Sand,' saying he wanted to draw some kind of 'Myriad Laws Guiding Talisman'!"

"No wonder!" A waiter from Zuixianlou squeezed in. "The other day, Uncle-Master Li Xiaocao from Qingyun Sect came to buy wine and specifically asked for a jar of 'Millennium Intoxication,' saying that the sect leader wanted to offer sacrifices to some ancient sage!"

Chen Hao watched the rumors spread with a smile, the communication jade talisman in his sleeve slightly warm—it was a message from Su Xiaogang: "The ancient book fragments have been disseminated, the second step can be initiated."

On the same day, at the northern foot of the Black Wind Mountains.

Mu Qingqing led several disciples of the Pill Hall to collect "Moon Shadow Grass," deliberately circling around to the ancient stele forest on the west side of Eagle Beak Gorge. The weeds here were waist-high, and even ghosts wouldn't come here on ordinary days.

"Senior sister, what kind of herbs are we gathering in this desolate wilderness?" The newly initiated Lin Xiaowan pouted, parting the spiderweb. "There's plenty of Moonshadow Grass on the back mountain!"

Mu Qingqing squatted in front of a half-buried broken stele, carefully scraping away the moss with a medicinal hoe: "The sect leader said that this forest of steles might contain ancient elixir formulas... Huh?"

She suddenly exclaimed, "Look!"

The disciples gathered around, and there, on the cleaned surface of the stele, were eight powerful, ancient characters:

All things converge, the sacred path comes first.

"This...this..." Lin Xiaowan stammered, "It's exactly the same as that incomplete scroll from the Hundred Treasures Pavilion!"

Mu Qingqing's fingertips trembled as she traced the words (she had personally carved them last night using the "Flowing Cloud Etching Technique," and her palms were still burning hot): "Quick! Go and invite the Sect Leader and Elder Han!"

The news spread like wildfire throughout the Qingyun Sect. By the time Han Lin arrived with his array hall disciples, the area in front of the stele was already surrounded by layers of people. Shi Tie swung his axe to disperse the onlookers: "Get out of the way! You're blocking my way to make this rubbing!"

"Wait!" Liu Yishou of the Heavenly Sword Sect appeared out of nowhere. "This stele is an ancient site and should be authenticated by the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion!"

"Don't even think about it!" Shi Tie glared, "If it's on my Qingyun Sect's territory, it's mine!"

In the midst of the argument, no one noticed that Zhao Qingyan secretly slipped a "record jade" into the crack in the base of the stele. That very night, rubbings of the inscription appeared on the storytelling stages of every teahouse in Black Wind Town.

Five days later, in the basement of Dantang.

Li Xiaocao stared at the charred alchemy furnace, troubled. The "Illusionary Heart Pill" she was refining inside had failed again. This pill, which could induce specific hallucinations, was originally intended to...

"Uncle-Master!" Mu Qingqing ran over in a panic.

"The Xuan Yin Sect has captured three of us herb-gathering disciples, saying they want to exchange us for Wan Fa Yuan's 'Entry Talisman'!"

Li Xiaocao suddenly stood up, causing the alchemy furnace to crash to the ground. Suddenly, a brilliant idea struck her. She grabbed some ashes and smeared them on Mu Qingqing's face: "Quick! Go to the Eagle's Beak Ancient Stele Forest and pretend to be seriously injured!"

Half an hour later, when the Black Fiend Ancestor, the vice leader of the Xuan Yin Sect, arrived at the Stele Forest, he saw Mu Qingqing leaning against the stele, seemingly on the verge of death, clutching half a piece of yellowed talisman paper tightly in her hand. Strange patterns were drawn on the paper with cinnabar, making it a fragment of the "Ten Thousand Laws Guiding Talisman"!

"Witch! Hand over the entrance talisman!" Old Ancestor Black Fiend reached out to snatch it.

"boom--!"

Suddenly, the ancient stele erupted with a beam of azure-gold light, blasting the Black Fiend Ancestor three zhang away! The talisman in Mu Qingqing's arms spontaneously combusted without fire, and the phantom of the Flowing Cloud Ancestor appeared in the air:

"All things have their own path; those with the right conditions will find their own salvation."

Black Fiend Ancestor scrambled away. He didn't see Mu Qingqing secretly flick the "Radiant Powder" hidden in her palm into the grass. That stuff ignites upon contact with spirits; it was Li Xiaocao's new trick.

Seven days later, the Black Wind Mountains went completely mad.

Scouts from the Blazing Sun Sect discovered that disciples of the Azure Cloud Sect always delivered food to Eagle's Beak Ravine on the night of the full moon: "They must be offering sacrifices to the guardian beast of the abyss!"

The sword cultivators of the Heavenly Sword Sect saw Shi Tie leading a group to set up an array in the ancient stele forest: "They're definitely trying to break the entrance restriction!"

The most outrageous were the sorcerers of the Xuan Yin Sect, who confidently claimed that they used a blood mirror to see "Shen Mo practicing swordsmanship in the abyss, his sword intent transforming into all laws."

"Sect Leader, isn't this lie a bit too outrageous?" Even Shi Tie felt uneasy. "This morning, Burning Heaven Valley sent ten cartloads of gifts, saying they wanted to 'explore the ancestral origins together'."

Shen Mo was teaching A Yuan to identify medicinal herbs. Upon hearing this, he didn't even look up and said, "Accept the gifts and tell them: Wanfayuan has nine layers of restrictions, and breaking the restrictions requires the 'Flowing Cloud Token'."

"But we don't have the Flowing Cloud Token!"

"Now we have it." Shen Mo casually whittled a piece of peach wood and carved the eight characters "By the Mandate of Heaven, All Laws Return to Their Source." "Have the Weapon Hall make three hundred replicas, and sell them for this price each." He gestured.

Shi Tie's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets: "You're going to...?"

"Since they want a myth, give them something substantial." Golden-blue flames flickered at Shen Mo's fingertips, and the peach wood token instantly exuded an ancient aura. "You will preside over the auction in three days."

On the day of the auction, the threshold of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion collapsed three times from the sheer volume of people walking on it. When Shi Tie presented the "Flowing Cloud Token," an elder from the Blazing Sun Sect smashed his teacup: "This was clearly just carved!"

"Bullshit!" Shi Tie slammed the wooden token onto the spirit-testing stele, causing the inscription to suddenly glow. "Look at this Daoist aura! Could it have such luster without a thousand years of aging?"

Xuanji Daoist stared at the data on the Spirit Testing Stele, his hands trembling as if he were having a stroke—the Daoist aura indicated "over three thousand years." Little did he know that Zhao Qingyan had secretly tampered with the Spirit Testing Stele the night before.

In the end, three hundred wooden tokens fetched an astronomical price. The sects that won the bid rushed towards Eagle's Beak Gorge with great joy, while those that didn't grit their teeth and stared at the Azure Cloud Sect. Everyone believed it: the key to the Myriad Laws Abyss was in Shen Mo's hands!

That night, Shen Mo set up the "Myriad Illusions Array" in the ancient stele forest. Those who ventured into the array all witnessed a dazzling, ethereal realm, but their accounts differed greatly: the Blazing Sun Sect insisted they saw Ancestor Liuyun preaching, the Heavenly Sword Sect claimed to have ten thousand divine swords suspended in the air, and the Profound Yin Sect swore they encountered a thousand immortal corpses refining elixirs...

The rumors snowballed and grew larger. By the time they reached the Northern Region of the Eastern Wilderness, they had become "There is an opportunity to become an immortal in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Laws, and the Azure Cloud Sect is the only one who knows about it."

"Sect Leader," Su Xiao knocked on the door of the Sword Sharpening Cliff cave late at night, "the three major sects jointly request to 'explore the Sacred Abyss'."

Shen Mo was wiping the peach wood sword. Hearing this, he chuckled and said, "Tell them that on the night of the full moon on the fifteenth of next month, the Abyss of All Laws will open."

"But Eagle's Beak Gorge doesn't exist..."

"Now we have it." Shen Mo pointed the tip of his sword down the cliff. Su Xiao looked in the direction he pointed and saw Zhao Qingyan leading the disciples of the Array Hall to set up a giant illusion array. Hanging at the array's core was the "Flowing Cloud Token" that had been auctioned that day.

"But......"

"No buts." Shen Mo flicked his finger, and the peach wood sword transformed into a stream of light and disappeared into the illusion array. "They want a myth, so we'll give them an eternal legend."