As the Bean God Palace relentlessly hunted Fang Yuan, on a low sand dune far in the distance, a young Gu Immortal sat cross-legged.
He wore a blue robe, exuding an air of scholarly refinement. He appeared young, but his gaze carried the weight of ages.
He was none other than Chen Yi — the Supreme Grand Elder of the Yuan Lian Sect, one of the ten great ancient sects of the Central Continent, dispatched here by the great wisdom-path Gu Immortal of Heavenly Court, Purple Violet Fairy.
At this very moment, his eyes were shut tight, the aura around his body suppressed to nothing, seemingly merging with the surrounding heaven and earth.
As he continuously activated his Immortal-level killing move, wisps of blue smoke rose from his shoulders and the crown of his head.
The blue smoke drifted upward, and upon reaching a height of roughly six feet above his head, it slowly came to a stop, swirling continuously until it took the shape of a great tree.
The tree's trunk was thick, its branches dense, its green leaves lush. Among the foliage hung several dozen fruits.
But these fruits were truly bizarre — every shape and color imaginable. Some resembled pitch-black walnuts, others looked like pink peaches the size of washbasins, some had shells covered in sharp thorns, and others were hollowed out, their flesh and pits visible from the outside.
After a moment, Chen Yi ceased the killing move, and the blue smoke tree above his head slowly dissipated.
His eyes opened gradually, revealing a look of understanding. "So that's how it was," he thought.
Everything, from start to finish, was now clear to him.
Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable had been the master of Heavenly Court, reigning after Red Lotus Demon Venerable and before Dao Tian Demon Venerable.
Three hundred thousand years ago, during the Middle Antiquity Era, Yuan Lian traveled west.
At that time, he had already achieved the position of Immortal Venerable, invincible under heaven, yet he concealed his identity and disguised himself as an ordinary Gu Master to roam the world.
One day, in an oasis deep in the desert, he received warm hospitality from the old and young of a village.
Among them was a child. The child, upon learning he was a Gu Master, desperately begged him to resurrect his mother, who had died of illness.
"The dead cannot be brought back to life." Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable declined gently, about to offer kind words of comfort.
"Fine, if you won't help, then don't!" The child turned and ran away, seething with resentment.
Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable thought nothing of it at first — when suddenly the blue smoke above his head trembled, nearly surging forth.
He was startled, thinking to himself: "This Ninth Transformation Immortal-level killing move of mine, the Tree of Karma, was inspired by an inheritance left by Limitless Demon Venerable and created by my own hand. It treats fate as soil, rooting within it, and fortune as water, nourishing its branches and leaves. It can cut through the clutter of external things and the confusion of all matters, finding the beginning and end of any event."
"My refusal just now was but a small cause, seemingly a trivial matter. But the stirring of the Tree of Karma reveals that in the future, this small cause will grow into something far greater, bearing terrible karmic fruit."
Though Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable now understood this, he did not act to kill the child on the spot.
"All things are like seeds, planted in soil, taking root and sprouting, gradually growing into trees. The myriad forms of sentient life produce millions upon millions of trees, forming the labyrinthine forest of destiny."
"Only by letting the trees grow on their own, without imposing interference — governing through non-action and naturalness — can the world flourish and remain beautiful."
"If one imposes interference, using human desires to disrupt the laws of heaven, the losses would far outweigh the gains — what would be the point?"
Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable was the master of Heavenly Court, acting in accordance with destiny.
"The dead cannot be brought back to life" — this was the decree of destiny. Therefore, even though Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable possessed the ability, he would not resurrect the dead.
Likewise, his encounter with the child was, in his view, an arrangement of destiny — there was no need to resist it.
"However, once the tree matures and bears evil fruit, it should be harvested in time to stop evil and promote good. We immortals are nothing more than pest-birds in this world of heaven and earth."
With this thought, Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable sighed with emotion and left behind the Immortal Gu House in his possession — the Bean God Palace.
He did not give the Bean God Palace to the child, but instead cast it directly into the village well.
But as events unfolded, the village was buried by sandstorms, and the Bean God Palace accidentally fell into mortal hands. Thus it passed from hand to hand, tossed about in the mortal world through ups and downs, until it eventually came into the possession of the Qing Family.
The Qing Family obtained it, recognized it as Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable's possession, and were beside themselves with glee. This provoked Spectral Soul, who had not yet become a Venerable. Spectral Soul attacked, and in a great battle, massacred the entire Qing Family, shocking the world.
At the moment of the family's annihilation, the Qing Family's Supreme Grand Elder sealed all of the family's treasures into the Bean God Palace and hid them away. He also set up mechanisms that could awaken the seeds of life to revive, struggling for a sliver of survival.
Though the Qing Family was utterly destroyed, the resentful energy of all living beings and the fragmented souls of countless Gu Immortals were drawn in and stored within the Bean God Palace.
As time passed, the Green Ghost Desert gradually took shape. Under the influence of this environment, these soul fragments — which should have been unable to revive — gradually condensed and fused together, forming a legendary Ancient Soul Beast such as the world had never seen.
The soul beast possessed human nature and was full of intelligence. It swore an oath to take revenge upon Spectral Soul. It kept "Qing" as its surname and "Chou" as its name — it was Qing Chou!
But by the time Qing Chou came into being, Spectral Soul had not only become a Venerable, but had also disappeared.
Qing Chou sought out Spectral Soul Demon Venerable's friends and family to exact its revenge, but was instead imprisoned within the Bean God Palace.
Back then, the Qing Family's Supreme Grand Elder had attempted to find life within death, using the Bean God Palace to set up his arrangements, but he had never fully unraveled the mysteries hidden within.
Long ago, three hundred thousand years earlier, the Bean God Palace's original owner, Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable, had planted a hidden contingency for this very purpose — to timely eliminate a source of evil karma for the world.
The root cause of this evil fruit traced back to Yuan Lian Immortal Venerable's journey across the world, when he had refused a child's plea to resurrect his mother.