Tang Xiaoqi did not go directly to those three locked dangerous areas. Instead, following his heart's guidance, he truly immersed himself in the mortal world. He used great magical power to self-seal the vast majority of his cultivation, retaining only a trace sufficient to maintain vitality and respond to mortal dangers, making him appear no different from a Qi Refining period wandering cultivator, even more unremarkable. He concealed all the halo and aura of the "World Purification True Lord," becoming like a drop of water merging into the vast human sea.
His first stop was a mortal town on the edge of the Central Plains called "Green Ox Town." Here spiritual energy was thin, cultivators rare, mostly ordinary people struggling to survive. Xiao Qi rented a simple thatched cottage at the town's end, occasionally earning meager silver coins and food by helping people write letters or copy account books, living a poor yet peaceful life.
Every morning, he would follow the townspeople to the river outside the town to carry water, listening to them complain about harvests and gossip about family matters. He would crouch at street corners, watching vendors argue fiercely for a few copper coins, but also see someone secretly slip a steamed bun to a begging orphan. He would spend an afternoon in a teahouse for a few copper coins, listening to traveling merchants boast of their experiences, or to a declining storyteller recounting stock tales of talented scholars and beautiful ladies.
Here, he saw mortals' devotion to "life." Old Man Wang next door, whose son had been recruited to the border years ago with no news, whose wife lay ill in bed—he plowed his few acres of thin land every day from dawn to dusk, his back bent by years, yet his dim eyes still stubbornly gazed toward the distance, hoping for his son's return. That was the most simple protection and waiting based on blood kinship.
He also saw the powerlessness and acceptance of "old age." Old Lady Li in town, once the most famous embroidress for miles around, now had blurry vision and trembling hands, unable to hold that needle thin as a hair. Every day she sat at the door, gazing at the young people passing by, some days in a daze murmuring about her youthful glory, but more often just peacefully basking in the sun, accepting the traces that time had carved into her. That was acceptance and reconciliation with life's patterns.
He felt more closely the shadow of "illness" and "death." The town's herbalist had limited skills. A sudden plague could take dozens of lives. He watched the vegetable-selling grandmother who had greeted him just days before dying in high fever and coughing within days, her family's mournful cries heard far in the quiet night. That was the frailty of life in the face of natural law, the insignificance of any power before the laws of nature.
He did not use extraordinary power to change anything. He was merely an observer, sometimes a helper within his capacity—using his bit of spiritual power to quietly alleviate a patient's suffering; using his literacy to help an illiterate woman write a letter to her husband far away. He experienced mortals' joys and sorrows, feeling their struggle, powerlessness, hope, and resilience in the current of fate.
Several months later, he left Green Ox Town, continuing his wanderings.
He had served as a temporary guard in a caravan, crossing the vast desert, living with men who risked their lives for a few coins to support their families, experiencing how trust and betrayal often hung by a thread in desperate situations. He had also, seeing injustice, taught a few local bullies who monopolized the market, resulting in greater trouble, having to rely on wit and his bit of cultivation to desperately navigate before being helped by kind people to escape—letting him deeply understand the other side of "knights violating prohibitions with martial arts" and the complex relationship between worldly rules and power.
He walked through entertainment districts, watching performers on stage portray the joys and sorrows of love, seeing audiences moved or cheering below. That love and hate, processed through art, was indeed the projection of countless men's and women's hearts in reality. He also encountered in an abandoned temple in the wilds a heartbroken scholar drowning his sorrows in drink, listening to him speak incoherently about the pain of being abandoned by someone faithless. That intense love and hate, perhaps childish and short in the eyes of cultivators with long lifespans, could be engraved in one's heart for a mortal's entire life.
He even concealed his form, observing the results announcement of a mortal dynasty's imperial examination. Seeing scholars who had studied bitterly for decades, overjoyed at their success, their names on the golden list, bringing honor to their families. And also those who failed, faces ashen, some even vomiting blood on the spot. That intense obsession concerning future and destiny, success and failure as defined by social rules, gave him a more three-dimensional understanding of "desire" and "pursuit."
He was like the most patient student, walking between fields, lingering in markets, pausing by mountains and rivers. He watched the spring blossoms and autumn fruits, birth and death, love and hatred, separation and reunion, subtle signs of dynasty changes, the resilience of civilization's torch passing down.
He no longer merely viewed all beings from the lofty height of a "protector," but truly tried to understand each independent, insignificant individual—their fears, desires, kindness, selfishness, their brief yet incredibly real lives.
In this process, his Nascent Soul peak cultivation remained firmly sealed, yet his heart quietly transformed with each subtle touch and comprehension. That invisible barrier between the Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation seemed no longer so impenetrable, but gradually becoming transparent and soft as his understanding of "the world" deepened.
He still did not know specifically where the turning point for Spirit Transformation lay, but he could feel he was walking that correct path. Tempering the heart in the mortal world, experiencing all conditions—these were not wearing down willpower, but accumulating a deeper, broader force closer to the origin of life. This force had nothing to do with the magnitude of spiritual power, concerned rather the comprehension of "the Dao" and the redefinition of the relationship between "self" and "world."
His journey continued. Next perhaps was an overseas solitary island, perhaps a northern tribe, perhaps a southern border forests... He would continue, with a mortal body, to measure this land he swore to protect, to taste the most real flavors in this rushing mortal world.