“Ahem!”

Along with Ye Lan came Jianyang Prefecture's other two demon slayers.

Ye Jing was pale, obviously badly hurt. Meng Xiuwen seemed fine, a toothpick between his teeth, but his face was grim.

The three of them stepped into the residence, and Ye Lan formed a message-sending formula.

A hunched figure soon rose up out of the ground.

“You're back. How did it go?”

Min Zhiyan leaned on his cane and glanced at Ye Jing, sighing inwardly.

The girl's cultivation had reached True Immortal, and she had been trained by the Mist-Haze General's own hand. Her skills were nothing to scoff at. If even she had come to grief, this business had turned into something big.

Ye Lan led them into the courtyard, nodded to Shen Yi, and only then said quietly, “The Divine Dynasty is furious. Unfortunately, the Seven-Treasure Bodhisattva was prepared, and he still got away back to his Teaching. The Demon-Slaying Offices of the seventeen prefectures are working with the court to contain the spread of the Lotus Dais Method, with very little to show for it…”

Ye Jing hadn't been able to reveal that she was from the Demon-Slaying Office, but she had been acting with the court all the same.

And she had met resistance, and even been badly wounded.

That could only mean that a large share of the cultivators and demon-kin who had heard the Bodhisattva expounding the dharma that day had lost their senses. Tempted by the road of the sixth-rank Golden Lotus Pilgrim, they were willing to defy the court itself to carry the method back to their sects and clans.

“The first signs of chaos.” Min Zhiyan frowned deeply.

“This is only the beginning.” Meng Xiuwen spat out the toothpick, his eyes cold. “Once they have that Golden Lotus Method in hand, you expect them to go honestly through the body's kalpas?”

The Divine Dynasty truly wasn't being petty. As long as immortal sects and great teachings recruited disciples and taught their methods in the ordinary way, the court had never interfered.

But ever since cultivators had worked out the…