Chapter 284 The Gambling Fight Begins
The evidence was conclusive, and Li Laosi's dream of becoming the Great Demon-Suppressing Marshal was shattered just as it began.
The Queen Mother had no intention of protecting him at all. Instead, she severed ties with him at the first opportunity and even added insult to injury, saying that the laws of heaven must not be violated and that Li Laosi broke the law knowingly, so his crime should be even more severe.
Afterwards, he asked the Jade Emperor to send someone to summon the Fairy Qingluan, his personal female attendant, and interrogate her in public to show that he was impartial.
This behavior is exactly the same as in the original time and space, when Yang Jian was abandoned by his friends and relatives and condemned by thousands of people, and her attitude towards him was exactly the same as in the original time and space.
However, after some interrogation, it turned out that Fairy Qingluan did not know about the affair between Li Laosi and his sister Fairy Jinhui. The Queen Mother only sentenced her to one charge of lax discipline and ordered her to reflect on her mistakes behind closed doors for half a year.
Li Laosi had made great contributions to the Heavenly Court and had not done anything that was against the will of Heaven, such as breaking up the souls of living beings.
The Jade Emperor did not follow the Queen Mother's advice to put him first, but agreed with Yang Jian's decision, abolished Li Laosi's cultivation, and sent him to reincarnation.
Because Fairy Jinhui was the main culprit and had no support, she was directly thrown into the Eighteen Levels of Hell, where she had to serve a hundred years of punishment before she could enter reincarnation.
Yang Jian so cleanly and mercilessly sent the former Meishan brother, now the demon-conquering general, to an irretrievable end, which instantly shocked the entire Three Realms.
All previous rumors disappeared in an instant, and Yang Jian's power in the Three Realms was even greater than before.
However, he also gained a reputation for being cruel and ruthless and not remembering old friendships.
After witnessing the Queen Mother's ruthlessness and seeing Li Laosi suffer such a miserable end, Zhi Jian was so frightened that he dared not to . He asked the Queen Mother for his resignation from his post as the immortal guarding Yaochi and decided to become a leisurely immortal.
When Li Anran learned all this, he was drinking with Nezha in the Heavenly Prison.
He has a close relationship with Nezha and Yang Jian, and owes a favor to Boss Kang, but he does not have much friendship with the other Meishan brothers.
Li Laosi even planned to assassinate him.
It was only because he had the Book of Punishing Evil that he escaped the disaster.
And because Yang Jian and Boss Kang mediated, he did not get into a fight with Boss Li.
Now that he has taken action to prevent the disaster from happening, he naturally will not feel any guilt, nor is he afraid of being discovered by Yang Jian.
The magic he used only magnified the emotions in Li Laosi and Zhijian's hearts and released their dissatisfaction and resentment towards Yang Jian. It was not a magic trick to blind Li Laosi's mind and control him to do these things.
These included informing on Li Jing, being dissatisfied and resentful towards Yang Jian, being hostile to Yang Jian in order to please the Queen Mother, and colluding with Fairy Jinhui in order to please Fairy Qingluan. These were all their own choices.
Li Laosi and Zhijian may have suffered some losses, but it is definitely not unfair!
Yang Jian was sentimental, so when Li Laosi was reincarnated, Yang Jian did not hesitate to use up his own merits to bless Li Laosi, so that Li Laosi could be reborn into a wealthy family in the next life.
After knowing what happened to Li Laosi, Kang Lao Da and his friends felt a little bit resentful towards Yang Jian, but they also knew that all this was caused by Li Laosi and Zhi Jian's lust, and that they had brought it upon themselves.
Afterwards, after obtaining Yang Jian's approval, Boss Kang left Guanjiangkou.
Together with Zhang Laoer, Yao Laosan and Zhang Laowu, he began to search for Li Laosi's reincarnation, preparing to take Li Laosi back on the path of cultivation.
The Heavenly Court's decision not to employ him again only cut off Li Laosi's path to becoming an official in heaven, but did not prohibit him from practicing.
In the eyes of Boss Kang and others, this is also a good thing!
If Li Laosi had not been an official sent by God and blinded by power and wealth, he would not have betrayed his friends and committed evil, thus suffering misfortune and losing all his thousands of years of cultivation in one day.
They also tried to call Zhijian to go with them.
However, Zhijian knew that Li Laosi was pulled to the side of Queen Mother by him, and he felt ashamed to see the Meishan brothers again, so he kept avoiding them.
After being rejected several times, Boss Kang and his team gave up this plan.
After this incident, the three realms returned to peace again.
Yang Jian demonstrated his tyrannical methods on Li Laosi, which made the gods and Buddhas of the three realms even more awed, but he also earned a bad reputation as "unkind and unjust" in the mouths of many people.
As the person who recommended Li Laosi, even if the Queen Mother distanced herself from the matter at the first opportunity, she still had to take some responsibility, and she had to calm down for the time being and no longer be in a hurry to seize power with Yang Jian.
Taishang Laojun has been advancing steadily. He used his prestige as the Supreme Taoist Ancestor and his elixirs and magical weapons to win over the gods in heaven, and at the same time expanded the influence of the human religion in the three realms through the Eight Immortals of the Upper Cave.
In just a dozen years, the Eight Immortals of Shangdong Cave——
In particular, Lü Dongbin, with his handsome appearance and generous and humorous personality, has almost caught up with such great Buddhist figures as Guanyin, Manjusri and Samantabhadra in terms of reputation among the mortal world.
However, many rising stars have emerged in Buddhism in the mortal world, the most famous of whom is Jigong, the living Buddha of Lingyin Temple, who is the reincarnation of Arhat Subduing the Dragon.
Li Anran has learned from Wu Tian that the key to the bet between Tathagata and Wu Tian is most likely Ji Gong.
But, to be honest, Li Anran didn’t watch it!
Although Jigong has a great reputation in later generations, he is still a level lower than the monkey in terms of strength and other aspects!
If everything continued to proceed as in the original time and space, Li Anran would not see any chance of Tathagata winning.
On the other hand, in heaven, after Li Jing was imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison, the Buddhist sect was no longer in a hurry to support a new spokesperson. Instead, they decided to retreat and watch the fight from the sidelines.
During this period of time, the only major event that happened in the Three Realms was the fight between the brothers Jinzha, Muzha and Nezha.
Nezha hated Li Jing so much that he collected evidence of Li Jing's crimes himself, reported them to Yang Jian and the Jade Emperor, and had Li Jing sent to the Heavenly Prison.
In Jinzha and Muzha's view, this is no different from animals!
The two went to the Main Hall and the Lingxiao Hall successively. After pleading with Tathagata and the Jade Emperor to no avail, they went to the Heavenly Prison to seek revenge on Nezha.
Nezha does not have much brotherly affection for Jinzha and Muzha, but he does not have any resentment towards them either.
Before he was born, Jinzhamu Zha was accepted as a disciple by Samantabhadra and Manjusri Bodhisattva and was brought back to the mountains to practice.
The first time they met, he was already in the form of a lotus and was hunting down Li Jing.
Only after the two sides exchanged their names could they be considered brothers.
Then they started fighting because of their different ideas.
In a one-on-one situation, Nezha has a slight advantage, but it is still difficult for him to win.
After the Conferred Gods Catastrophe, although the three Nezha brothers belonged to the same Xiqi Chanjiao camp, Nezha always hung out with Yang Jian, Lei Zhenzi and Huang Tianhua, and was a stranger to Jinzha and Muzha.
This relationship continues to this day.
After ten thousand years, the two sides fought again.
Nezha has already reached the level of a Golden Immortal, and has more magic weapons in his hands than before.
Jinzha and Muzha had just entered the realm of Taiyi Golden Immortal, and the two innate spiritual treasures, Dunlong Pillar and Wu Gou, had already been returned to Manjusri and Samantabhadra.
The gap in strength between the two sides can be said to be huge.
Nezha fought one against two, and with a backhand he knocked both of them to the ground and threw them out.
In other words, Nezha had no intention to kill, otherwise he would have directly beaten and killed the two men on the pretext of trespassing into the Heavenly Prison, and no one would have been able to find fault with him openly.
Jinzha and Muzha were unwilling to give up, so they rushed forward again, but this time they didn't even see Nezha before they were knocked away by the Hun Tian Ling.
Only then did the two realize the disparity in strength between them and Nezha.
Seeing that the hard approach didn't work, the two men chose to use the soft approach and knelt down in front of the Sky Prison.
First, it is said that there is no overnight hatred between father and son, and Mrs. Yin and their sister are still waiting for Li Jing to return.
They also said that as sons of human beings, they were willing to bear all the punishment on behalf of Li Jing, and let Nezha vent his hatred on them, and only asked Nezha to spare Li Jing.
If it were the Nezha of the past, he would definitely not be able to win the argument and would have resorted to violence in the end.
But now, Li Anran is by Nezha's side, and what he is best at is writing official articles and occupying the moral high ground.
Under Li Anran's guidance, Nezha directly denied what Jinzha and Muzha said about him having a personal grudge against Li Jing. He brought out the laws of heaven and the Jade Emperor's banner , and described his actions as being out of a desire for the public good and sacrificing personal interests, and how heartbroken he was over Li Jing's downfall.
Nezha has very poor acting talent. When he said these words, his tone was no different from that of reading a script, and the expression on his face was perfunctory.
However, there is nothing wrong with the content of this statement. It is fair and justified!
Jinzha and Muzha were so angry that their faces turned red and their teeth were gnashing. They almost couldn't hold back and attacked again.
After the two left, Li Anran went to the Temple of Justice to discuss with Yang Jian, and assigned some tasks to Nezha, sending him to the mortal world to subdue demons and eliminate evil.
But he was worried that Li Jing's wife Yin would follow Jinzha and Muzha's example and come to the Heavenly Palace to play such a moral kidnapping!
Yin is Nezha's biological mother. Unlike Jinzha and Muzha, if she kneels down in front of Nezha at the gate of the Heavenly Prison, it would be like roasting Nezha on the fire.
Nezha himself said that he had cut off his flesh to return to his mother and cut off his bones to return to his father. The so-called mother and son concept had long been invalid, and he didn't care about it.
However, Li Anran and Yang Jian took into consideration the dangers of gossip and decided to let Nezha go out and hide for a while, and then return to heaven after Li Jing was done.
And the facts were just as the two had speculated.
Less than an hour after Jinzha and Muzha left, Yin came to the Heavenly Prison and asked to see Nezha by name.
Fortunately, Nezha has left.
There was no point in her making such a fuss.
Ten days later, on the day of Li Jing's execution, Li Anran personally sent him to the Zhuxiantai, destroyed his cultivation, and threw him into the underworld and the six realms of reincarnation.
Jinzha and Muzha followed the heavenly soldiers and generals from heaven to the underworld, and escorted Li Jing all the way to the entrance of the six realms of reincarnation.
The two of them had the same idea as the Meishan brothers.
He wanted to leave some marks on Li Jing's soul so as to find Li Jing's reincarnation and guide him to embark on the path of cultivation again.
This kind of thing is very common in the three realms.
There are even many immortal monks who take in disciples just to give themselves a chance to turn things around if they ever meet with a disaster and avoid being trapped in the cycle of reincarnation forever.
The most famous among them are the master and apprentice pair of Lu Dongbin and Han Zhongli.
Han Zhongli was a disciple enlightened by Emperor Donghua in Lu Dongbin's previous life.
After Emperor Donghua suffered a catastrophe and was reincarnated, he enlightened Emperor Donghua's reincarnation, Lu Dongbin, and accepted Lu Dongbin as his disciple.
But Nezha had already anticipated this!
Nominally, he left heaven and exorcised demons in the mortal world, but in reality he had entered the underworld long ago and became a ghost soldier escorting Li Jing.
When Li Jing's soul was about to be thrown into the reincarnation tunnel, Jinzha and Muzha threw out a golden dragon ball as Li Jing's companion magic weapon and token.
Nezha acted decisively and smashed the golden dragon ball directly.
He also learned the method that the immortals of the Jiejiao used to deal with Jiang Ziya. When Li Jing entered the reincarnation tunnel, he tried his best to erase the aura of cause and effect on Li Jing's body, cutting off the possibility of Jinzha and Muzha finding Li Jing's reincarnation body.
Jinzha and Muzha were so angry that their eyes were red with anger. They didn't care about the huge gap between them and Nezha and started fighting.
Then, he was beaten by Nezha again.
From then on, Nezha's thoughts were completely clear and his cultivation was further improved.
However, his behavior was despised by many gods in the Three Realms, who believed that he was unfilial and had a beastly heart.
Almost overnight, Nezha went from being the respected and praised Nezha the Third Prince to being the object of scorn and contempt by countless people.
Nezha didn't care about it at all.
Li Anran found it a little funny.
Yang Jian's severe punishment of Li Laosi was unkind and unjust, while Nezha's accusation of Li Jing was unfilial and unfraternal.
Then when he joined Wutan later, the three brothers had accumulated all the bad reputations of being unkind, unjust, unfaithful, unfilial, and unfraternal.
Time flies by quickly, just like a white horse passing by.
In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.
Ten years may seem like a long time to mortals, but to the heavens, it is just a moment.
Li Anran still stayed in the Heavenly Prison every day, either listening to the Taoist's teachings or practicing in peace. From time to time, he would drink and discuss with Nezha, and occasionally, he would glance at the Red Cloud Ancestor hiding in the Heavenly Prison.
Yang Jian originally tricked Patriarch Hongyun into taking refuge in the Heavenly Prison because Li Anran wanted to capture a guest from the Zixiao Palace and put him in the Heavenly Prison.
But his method is also very good.
Over a ten-year period, a group of powerful men searched almost every part of the Three Realms and even the Chaos outside the Heavens, but no one had ever thought that Patriarch Hongyun would be hiding in the Heavenly Prison.
However, Patriarch Hongyun still failed to figure out that the Hongmeng Purple Qi was only necessary for becoming a saint...
No, it should be said that it is a favorable condition that is not even necessary!
Not a sufficient condition!
Over the past decade, he has been struggling with the Hongmeng Purple Qi every day, but his cultivation has not improved at all, and he seems to have fallen into a state of visual obstruction.
If no one wakes him up, he will probably be trapped in it forever.
On this day, Li Anran was practicing in the quiet room as usual. Suddenly, he had an idea, opened his eyes, flipped his right hand, and took out a treasure bag.
Buzz!
I saw a purple light shining, and a black lotus flew out from the treasure bag.
The world-destroying black lotus and Wu Tian’s soul merged into one.
These derived black lotuses can all be regarded as one of the incarnations of Wutan’s soul.
Li Anran always kept the black lotus given to him by Wutan in a treasure bag to prevent Wutan from monitoring his movements through the black lotus.
The sixth-grade black lotus of destruction cast down a purple light, and the figure of Wujitian appeared.
"Friend Li, Tathagata has already convinced the gods and Buddhas of the three realms that the gambling match will begin in three years."
