Chapter One: Such a Lovely White Lotus

With a thunderous crash that shook the heavens, Bai Jing was abruptly roused from his “sleep.” Instinctively, he tried to rub his eyes, only to realize that his hands seemed to have vanished. Before he could even process this, a torrent of memories surged into the depths of his consciousness.

The earliest memories belonged to an ordinary student who graduated from a second-tier agricultural university. After graduation, he secured a lifelong government job at the local agricultural bureau, diligently working for five years. Just as a promotion seemed within reach, tragedy struck—while returning from the mountains after advising villagers on mushroom cultivation, he was caught in a landslide and died in the prime of his life, at just thirty years old.

After his death, Bai Jing sensed that his soul was being protected by an unknown force, drifting endlessly. He had no idea how much time passed before he found himself in a strange place, where he witnessed a giant wielding a colossal axe, slaughtering a horde of monstrous attackers.

The giant then swung his axe again at a world shrouded in chaos.

At that moment, Bai Jing felt something calling to him. When he came to his senses, he found himself by the giant’s side—or more precisely, settled atop a lotus seed on a lotus platform.

The giant glanced at Bai Jing but paid him no further attention, continuing to swing his axe, splitting heaven and earth apart.

Gradually, Bai Jing’s soul merged with the lotus seed, and he bore witness to the giant’s creation of a brand-new world and his ultimate sacrifice to ensure its evolution. The lotus platform that had sheltered Bai Jing also disintegrated in the process of world-making.

As the lotus platform broke apart, it infused its last trace of essence into the lotus seed where Bai Jing resided.

The giant beheld this scene, seeming to recall something, and summoned a sphere of light. The light and Bai Jing’s lotus seed soared away together, and once again, Bai Jing lost consciousness.

His soul was too frail, requiring an eternity to evolve and grow stronger.

While Bai Jing’s soul gradually matured, the world outside underwent tremendous upheavals.

One by one, living beings took on form. The lingering wills of the monsters the giant had slain transformed into fierce beasts, wreaking havoc across the world.

At this time, the dragons, phoenixes, and qilins—three noble races—along with other mighty beings, subdued the vicious creatures.

Yet soon after, these three clans clashed in a struggle for fate and fortune, wreaking havoc upon heaven and earth, incurring immeasurable karmic sin, and ultimately withdrawing from this world.

Later, several powerful figures engaged in battle in the western lands, and today, the ultimate victor achieved sainthood.

It was the resonant sound of this saint’s attainment that had just jolted Bai Jing awake.

This sound reverberated throughout the world; whether the supreme Da Luo immortals or the lowliest celestial soldiers, all heard it clearly.

It was as if the sound resonated from the depths of their very souls.

With the echoing of this sacred sound, purple clouds surged from the east, celestial blossoms rained down, golden lotuses sprang from the earth, and an endless golden rain, imbued with boundless holy power, nourished all living things.

High above the sky, an old daoist with a horsetail whisk appeared out of thin air. For a moment, everyone could see him, yet in the blink of an eye, he vanished, as if he had never been there at all.

No one knew how much time had passed when an overwhelming pressure swept across the land. The old daoist’s voice sounded: “I am Hongjun. Today I become a saint, attuned to the heavenly way, and wish to give back to the primordial world. Three thousand years hence, I shall expound the Dao in the Zixiao Palace beyond the firmament. All with destiny may come and listen.”

With those words, the old daoist disappeared again, as though he had never appeared.

Bai Jing was dumbfounded upon hearing the daoist’s voice.

That old daoist was Hongjun? Then the scenes in his memories must have been Pangu vanquishing three thousand chaos fiends and creating the world!

That meant this was the primordial world—he had transmigrated to the legendary Honghuang!

And the one who had protected his soul was the Chaos Green Lotus, one of the supreme treasures of chaos itself. His soul had fused with one of its lotus seeds; in a sense, he was now a child of the Chaos Green Lotus.

At this realization, Bai Jing’s first thought was to confirm which lotus seed he had become.

Before the creation of the world, the Chaos Green Lotus was a supreme treasure, nurturing both the great god Pangu and five lotus seeds.

One seed matured and became the Twenty-four Petals Creation Green Lotus, but as it lacked the merit of world-creation, it was not accepted by the world and eventually shattered. At that very moment, the Three Pure Ones passed by: Taiqing obtained the walking stick formed from the red flower, Yuqing the scepter formed from the white root, and Shangqing the treasured sword formed from the green lotus leaf. The saying that the Three Pure Ones were originally one family came from this very origin.

The remaining four lotus seeds, having not yet matured, transformed into the Twelve-petaled Golden Lotus of Virtue, the Twelve-petaled Red Lotus of Karma, the Twelve-petaled Black Lotus of Destruction, and the Twelve-petaled White Lotus of Purity.

Looking around, Bai Jing saw that the place was shrouded in drifting spiritual mist, distant mountains stretched endlessly, winding and rugged, with immortal cranes flying and spirit deer running, and great eagles soaring with sharp cries—truly a paradise on earth.

Hongjun had already become a saint, and the Creation Green Lotus was probably about to transform into the treasures of the Three Pure Ones. The Golden Lotus of Virtue was now in Hongjun’s hands, the Black Lotus of Destruction had disappeared after Luo Hou’s defeat, and the Red Lotus of Karma was with the River Styx immortal of the Blood Sea. That left only one masterless lotus: the White Lotus of Purity, which had never emerged.

So, he was now a white lotus blossom?

At this, Bai Jing breathed a sigh of relief—at least he didn’t have to worry about being refined into a spiritual artifact. But soon, anxiety returned.

In the novels he’d read in his previous life, the Twelve-petaled White Lotus of Purity resided on the Three Immortal Isles.

The Three Immortal Isles were formed from chaos fragments that fell into the primordial world, drifting above the Eastern Sea, hidden from the heavenly way. After the second lecture at the Zixiao Palace, the innate restrictions on Penglai, one of the isles, would erode, revealing its presence to the mighty figures of the primordial world, who would come to plunder it.

Afterward, the Eastern King would seize Penglai, moving his Daoist court there and establishing the Celestial Court.

Of the two remaining isles, Yingzhou had never appeared, while Fangzhang was said to have been occupied by the Daoist Yangmei.

Considering this, Bai Jing guessed that he was likely on Yingzhou. If he were on Fangzhang, Yangmei would have already refined him into a treasure; if he were on Penglai, the many mighty powers searching Penglai would never have missed him. Therefore, he was most likely on the never-before-seen Yingzhou, meaning he was safe for the time being.

Next, Bai Jing knew he needed to take human form as soon as possible. Only then could he fully escape the fate of being refined into a magical artifact.

Fortunately, after so many years of nurturing, his soul had grown strong, and he was just a step away from transformation. What’s more, Bai Jing could consciously absorb spiritual energy to strengthen himself—far more efficient than passive absorption.

And so, by the time of the first lecture at the Zixiao Palace, Bai Jing finally achieved his transformation.