Chapter 669: Standard

On the large plaza of Zhanhu Gate.

This place was usually used for collective speeches and martial arts practice, so its area was quite vast, enough for everyone from Zhanhu Gate to stand comfortably.

The recent trial and execution had taken place here.

When Li Qi arrived, Ju Ye immediately stood up and respectfully said, “Sir—”

“Wait a moment, don’t be in a hurry to speak.” Li Qi waved his hand casually and walked up to one of the Beast Taming Mountain Sect members who had been punished.

This was a man, but at this moment, he was trembling all over like a chick, shivering with fear.

Ju Ye’s power was already incredible, but… Ju Ye actually addressed the other party as Sir.

This made him panic, fearing he would die here.

However, Li Qi lifted him up, sent out a wisp of Life Qi, and healed the injuries on his body.

Then, Li Qi said, “I know you were wrongly accused. You had always tried to dissuade the Beast Taming Mountain from letting beasts devour people, and you never participated. For this, you were even punished by a True Disciple because the beast species you submitted were not good enough.”

Upon hearing this, the man burst into tears.

Li Qi, however, ignored him and walked to another True Disciple.

This was a young girl whom Ju Ye had judged to be a good person. She had just been gloating, but now her legs turned to jelly.

Li Qi walked up to her and said indifferently, “The Spiritual Vein you used for your cultivation method, although you were involved, your lackeys should know what happened. Be honest and tell Ju Ye.”

After speaking, Li Qi grabbed her and threw her towards Ju Ye.

Then, it was the next person who was wrongly accused.

Then, the next person who escaped punishment, whom Ju Ye had let go.

One after another, one after another, Li Qi picked out two to three thousand people in a row.

Zhanhu Gate had a total of over a hundred thousand people, and these two to three thousand people were all “bad people.”

After picking out all of them, the sky had gradually darkened.

Li Qi walked over and looked at Ju Ye.

Ju Ye immediately bowed his head: “Sir…”

He was a bit flustered, thinking that Li Qi was dissatisfied with what he had done, and had even specifically pointed out his mistakes.

But Li Qi was very calm, and simply said, “You did well.”

“…Isn’t this, very wrong?” Ju Ye lowered his head and said shamefully.

“That’s not the problem. The key is that you haven’t grasped your own principles. Although you have the intention, you don’t know how to do it,” Li Qi said to Ju Ye.

Then, he continued to explain, “Why did you make mistakes? Besides being young, it’s also because you don’t have a guideline to follow in your heart.”

“With this guideline, you will act with proper measure. I ask you, for you, what is good? What is evil? Can you distinguish clearly?”

“That is naturally… doing good is good, doing evil is evil. Good and evil are inherently distinct. For example, I would never bully others,” Ju Ye immediately said, defending himself.

Li Qi immediately retorted, “Is it good or evil for a person to plunder others so that their own clan can have a better life? Or what about yourself, are you good or evil?”

“I say these things not to punish you, but just to ask you, do you have such a scale in your own heart? One that can weigh all things? And then make your own decisions?”

“People can look at problems from any angle, and everyone can come up with their own views. There is no right or wrong in this; everything depends on one’s original intention, and adhering to one’s original intention requires one’s own Dao,” Li Qi said.

Through shallow thinking, he had already known that after Ju Ye took revenge, all he felt inside was emptiness.

Just as Li Qi said—

Revenge is not that simple.

You need to take revenge, and after you take revenge, you also need other processes to heal your pain.

It’s like you’ve been injured, and there’s clearly a thorn in the wound.

You need to pull out this thorn, which means retaliating against your enemy, and through this act of retaliation, deal with the thorn.

After all, if you don’t retaliate against your enemy, that thorn will always be there, never coming out for a lifetime, causing eternal discomfort.

But, it’s not over yet.

The thorn has been pulled out, but the wound has not healed. You still have to find a way to heal the wound as well.

Ju Ye is like this now.

Therefore, Li Qi specifically appeared and pointed out his mistakes, so that his emptiness was temporarily suppressed.

However, this was only suppression and would not improve anything.

Li Qi still had to do something else.

He continued, “Think carefully, what do you truly want to do when facing these people? What is your standard for judging good and evil?”

“This is very important, because the standard for judging good and evil is your standard for viewing this world, and your standard for viewing this world is your way of understanding the world.”

“Ultimately, all of this constitutes you, your essence, and all your actions. This is ‘Dao within,’” Li Qi said.

Dao external is the Law of natural operation.

Dao internal is a person’s own rules of conduct.

Ju Ye didn’t know what Dao was. He had only done these things before out of a surge of emotion, a simple and rustic sense of justice from his heart.

Therefore, upon hearing Li Qi’s words, he involuntarily fell into deep thought.

What exactly is it like?

What should it be like?

Li Qi did not stop his thinking; in fact, he didn’t need Ju Ye to come up with anything useful at all.

As long as he was thinking, that was enough.

As long as he was thinking, he was moving closer to the ‘Dao,’ and Li Qi’s goal of spreading the Dao would naturally be achieved.

This is the essence of pursuing the Dao.

In the Mortal world of Immortal Heaven, these people cultivate for power, just like animals, pursuing thicker shells and stronger muscles, but they never thought about what this power should be used for.

To become strong for the sake of becoming strong, no one would do this except for martial arts fanatics and idiots. Immortal Heaven is deliberately cultivating idiots, so Li Qi is preparing to teach these idiots to think more and look at the world from another perspective.

Li Qi was prepared to stay in the Mortal world for a very, very long time.

Anyway, Immortal Heaven has something similar to unique cosmic light. According to Teacher Zhu, it can reach a ratio of one to ten thousand, so Li Qi has plenty of time.

Watching Ju Ye sink into thought, Li Qi said to him, “Think carefully, and gain insight.”

With that, he waved his hand, cutting off the sounds around Ju Ye, allowing him to concentrate fully on his contemplation.

Afterward, he took two steps and sat down next to that ‘Senior Sister’.

To be fair, this was not a very beautiful woman; she was just ordinary. In the Mortal world, she might be considered a beauty, but compared to the immortals Li Qi had seen, she was far inferior.

The Senior Sister immediately rose, intending to kneel and bow.

Li Qi nodded slightly, and an invisible force pressed her down: “Sit down. You are pregnant, so it’s inconvenient to perform the full courtesy. Just speak like this. I have some questions I want to ask you.”

“Sir… please, please ask,” the Senior Sister said, lowering her head with a humble tone.

Li Qi pointed to Ju Ye over there and said, “He seems quite conflicted. What are you planning to do?”

Li Qi’s question was quite sharp, directly piercing to the most important and most hurtful point.

For Ju Ye and the Senior Sister, what would they do next?

The Senior Sister herself could see that Ju Ye indeed had a great deal of resentment in his heart, but this was not the Senior Sister’s fault; she couldn’t be blamed.

And the culprits had already been killed by Ju Ye.

Now, only Ju Ye and the Senior Sister remained. How were they to mend such a rift? To heal their wounds.

“I—” The Senior Sister was momentarily speechless.

Li Qi then said, “You are still young, so it’s natural not to know what to do. I’ll give you a suggestion: you should take the initiative to leave him for a period, giving him some time.”

“After you leave, he will definitely feel lost, but more so relieved. This way, he won’t have to bear this pressure, because he knows that even if he chooses to accept you, it would be more out of ‘a troubled conscience.’ After all, abandoning you at this time would make him seem like a scoundrel, and Ju Ye is someone who cares deeply about such things.”

“After he feels relieved and faces life without you, then we’ll see what he chooses—whether he comes to find you or gives up entirely, it’s all up to him.”

“However, doing this would be quite a test for you. After all, if you cling to him, you’ll definitely be free from worries about food and clothing for the rest of your life. Even if his resentment is deep, he certainly won’t abandon you. You can cling to him and live comfortably forever. But if you choose to leave, you will definitely have to endure a lot of hardship.”

There was no need to think about it. After leaving Ju Ye, she would just be a woman with no rank in Cultivation, and in this world where the strong prey on the weak, she even had several children…

It would be very difficult to survive in this world; she would suffer a lot, and might even die.

“How do you plan to choose?” Li Qi asked naturally.

He could not read the other person’s thoughts now, because the Senior Sister’s shallow thoughts were very chaotic at the moment; even she herself didn’t know what she was thinking.

This was indeed a very difficult choice. She actually liked Ju Ye very much, but… was she worthy of him, being like this?

Furthermore, leaving Ju Ye was not just about emotional matters; it would also force her to face the brutal competition of this world, which would be extremely difficult for a single mother.

As long as she stayed by Ju Ye’s side, only Ju Ye would suffer, because Ju Ye would never abandon her no matter what. Ju Ye would endure all the resentment; that was his character.

So—

“Please, Sir, open the exit for me. I will leave now,” the Senior Sister said to Li Qi.

Rather than letting Ju Ye suffer, she would take the pain herself.

“Good.” Li Qi nodded, waved his hand, and a crack appeared in the Formation.

The Senior Sister rose and bowed respectfully. She did not kowtow because her pregnant belly prevented her from doing so.

After bowing, she set off, and Li Qi saw that she also took several children with her.

Hmm, that’s good.

Li Qi stood up and walked to those who had been judged innocent: “You may go now. Go.”

With that, Li Qi opened a rift in another direction.

As soon as he said this, the others hurriedly bowed and then scrambled to leave.

Today was too terrifying; they didn’t want to stay here for another second.

Especially in front of Li Qi.

Yes, whether in front of Ju Ye, the Senior Sister, or the previous Mo Zhanhu, Li Qi was not someone to be trifled with; in fact, he could be said to be even more terrifying than vicious people.

He displayed a high degree of indifference to the outside world, and his actions were incredible and incomprehensible, as if he didn’t care about gains or losses at all.

Even though Li Qi had not personally killed anyone to this day, in their eyes, Li Qi was far more terrifying than those killing gods.

This was an instinctive feeling.

After all, when it came to killing… Li Qi, by his record, was a super killing god who once, with a single command, annihilated billions of worlds.

If Li Qi were to release his Evil Qi, it could spread across several star systems, and no Mortal within that range would survive.

If Li Qi were to die outside the Domain, traces would develop around his corpse, becoming ruins that countless civilizations’ cultivators would risk their lives to explore, with countless people fighting and dying around him, vying for a sliver of possible opportunity.

By now, Li Qi had already reached a Domain that Mortals could barely touch.

However, precisely because of this, what Li Qi said was believed by these people.

They didn’t believe in Li Qi, but in that elusive hope.

Within the unknown, there is hope.

And Li Qi was this unknown entity.

This was actually a rather sad thing.

This indicated that the Mortal world of Immortal Heaven had developed into a very distorted state.

Li Qi felt that he might be able to change this distortion.

Then, he would use this to observe the reactions of the Great Powers of Immortal Heaven.

As for Yao Ji?

Let her do whatever she wants; Li Qi couldn’t be bothered.

Li Qi, and those who had been judged as evil, waited here.

After about half an hour, Ju Ye woke up, but his Cultivation and combat power had not changed.

This was normal. Cultivation is directly linked to the Dao Heart. Whatever is comprehended and learned can be directly manifested. This is a characteristic of all cultivation methods in this world. Many cultivation methods and technologies from outside the Domain do not have this ability.

For example, for cultivators in this world, if they comprehend a certain Law, such as deriving a formula, this formula can be applied to certain mechanical structures.

For people in other worlds, they might need to build machines to apply this formula, or they might need to specifically train and cultivate to materialize what they understand into a physical object within a spell.

But this world doesn’t need that. The cultivation methods of this world, combined with the structure of their Inner World, allow for comprehension to be immediate application.

If it cannot be applied, it means it has not been comprehended.

As long as you learn a structure, you can use the Qi of the Inner World to create this structure out of thin air and apply it to reality.

For this world, learning equals application.

All cultivation in this world is ‘learning,’ learning things you didn’t know before. And for things you have already learned, you can apply them directly.

This is a unique advantage of the great Dao Orthodoxy of this world, which Li Qi has not yet seen others replicate.

Of course, the level of specific application depends on the individual; even if they comprehend the same thing, there can be differences in how it is used.

Therefore, although Ju Ye showed no external changes, Li Qi still clearly sensed it.

Ju Ye had comprehended something.