Cultivation of immortality begins with an eighty-year-old eunuch.

Chapter 677 Someone else has arrived! A Gu cultivator!

Batu ran around the tent with a wine bowl in his hand, telling everyone he met the story of how Chen Fan named his granddaughter. His face, reddened by the sun, was all smiles all night long.

Chen Fan sat in the corner, holding a wine bowl in his hand, watching the lively scene before him. Occasionally, someone would come over to offer him a toast, and he would take a sip. When no one came over, he would sit quietly.

The cicada fluttered its wings gently inside his sleeve, seemingly also infected by the lively atmosphere inside the tent.

After Qiqige's full moon, life on the grassland returned to its peaceful rhythm.

Every day, Chen Fan would herd sheep, feed horses, and carve stones as usual. Occasionally, someone would come to him for medical treatment, and he would go to see them. Otherwise, he would sit in front of Morigen's tent, watching the old man chisel a stone mill while he carved some small things himself.

That afternoon, Chen Fan was brushing the fur of Graymane in front of the tent.

The warm spring sun shone on the grassland, and Graymane dozed off with his eyes half-closed, occasionally flicking his tail to shoo away the mosquitoes that had just woken up.

Batel sat on a wooden stake next to him, holding Qiqige in his arms, humming an off-key grassland tune.

Qiqige can already open her eyes.

Those eyes were like Batel's, dark and bright, staring straight at people without any shyness. Sometimes Chen Fan felt that this child's eyes were like Naren's, just as clear and clean.

Her full-moon celebration hadn't been long, and her tiny body, wrapped in a sheepskin swaddling cloth, neither cried nor fussed, but simply watched everything in front of her quietly.

A rapid sound of horses' hooves came from afar.

Batel looked up in the direction the sound came from, his smile slowly fading. He pulled the child closer to his chest, stood up, and walked towards Batu's tent, his steps quickening slightly.

Chen Fan didn't look up and continued brushing the gray bristles.

But his divine sense had already spread out, and he had clearly discerned the source of the sound of hooves. There were three horses, and three people riding them, two in the early stage of Foundation Establishment and one in the middle stage of Foundation Establishment, all wearing dark green Gu cultivator leather robes and with insect cages hanging from their waists.

The Gu worms in the cage were restless, emitting low hissing sounds, carrying a faint, almost imperceptible, bloody odor.

The three horses stopped in the open space in the center of the tribe.

The leader, a burly Gu cultivator with a thick beard and an old scar on his face that stretched from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth, dismounted and glanced around the tents, a condescending smile playing on his lips.

He had two tokens hanging from his waist: one was a conscription order from the Gu King Palace, and the other was an elder's order from a medium-sized tribe.

"Who's in charge here?" the bearded gu shuddered.

Batu came out of the tent and his expression changed slightly when he saw the person's attire.

He quickly stepped forward, bowed, and said, "Esteemed Gu cultivators, I am Batu, the chieftain of this tribe. May I ask what brings you to our humble place?"

The bearded man sized him up, then pulled a token from his waist and waved it in front of Batu: "The Gu King has decreed that all able-bodied men of marriageable age on the grasslands must enlist in the army to accompany the Gu King in his campaign against the Zhao Kingdom. Although your tribe is small, you still need to fill the quota. Summon all the men in your tribe who are between fifteen and forty years old; I will personally select them."

Batu's expression changed.

His voice was strained: "My lords, our tribe only has about twenty households, and the number of men is already small. Last winter's snowstorm killed several more, and the rest are either raising sheep or herding horses. We really can't spare any more manpower. I beg you, my lords, to be lenient..."

"Make an exception?" The bearded man sneered, raised his hand and swung out a palm strike. The palm wind carried a sweet and pungent Gu aura, which sent Batu flying backward and crashing heavily onto the grass several feet away.

The surrounding herders gathered around, but no one dared to step forward.

They were just mortals, and had no power to resist even the lowest-level Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Several elderly herders lowered their heads, not daring to meet the gazes of the Gu cultivators. The children were pulled behind the adults, and the dogs between the tents hid in the corners with their tails between their legs, not daring to make a sound.

The bearded man walked up to Batu, looking down at him with a contemptuous smile: "I'm being polite by speaking to you. If you dare utter another word of dissent, I'll burn your shabby tribe to the ground. Anyway, you mortals are just wasting the grasslands anyway, you might as well go to the battlefield as cannon fodder, that would be serving the Gu King loyally."

Batu struggled to get up from the ground, his left cheek swollen high, a trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. He gritted his teeth, wanting to say something, but was pulled behind him by Batel.

Batel stood in front of his father, his young face flushed red with anger. He had no cultivation, no spiritual power; he was just an ordinary boy who had just learned to raise horses.

But he stood ramrod straight, fists clenched, using his thin frame to shield his father behind him, staring into the bearded man's eyes and saying, word by word, "My father said that no one in our tribe is capable of fighting. What right do you have to beat us?"

The bearded man tilted his head to look at him, his smile deepening, yet tinged with an indescribable cruelty.

He raised his hand, and a ball of dark green Gu energy condensed in his palm, making the sweet and pungent smell in the air even stronger: "Oh, there's another fearless little brat. You're just the right age, no need to be picky, just come with me. If your father and wife know what's good for them, I'll spare their lives. If they don't, it'll be easier to kill them all."

Batel did not back down.

He stood there, his legs trembling slightly, his face pale from the Gu energy, but he did not move aside.

Inside the tent behind him were Qiqige, who had just turned one month old, and Surina, who was still in her postpartum confinement period.

The bearded man raised his hand and delivered a slap.

He used three-tenths of his strength in that palm strike, which would have been fatal to an ordinary person.

The dark green Gu energy transformed into a semi-transparent palm print, slamming towards Batel's chest with a piercing whooshing sound.

Batu roared and tried to pounce, but was stomped to the ground by another Gu cultivator.

The surrounding herders closed their eyes in terror.

But then, the palm print stopped three inches from Batel's chest.

A hand reached out from the side; the hand was dark-skinned, with distinct knuckles, and the palm had calluses from years of chiseling stone and hardened skin from holding a hammer.

Long, steady fingers pressed calmly against the dark green palm print, giving it a gentle squeeze.

The palm print shattered.

The dark green Gu energy shattered between his fingers, turning into wisps of smoke that dissipated into the air without leaving a trace.

His bushy beard and pupils suddenly contracted.

Before he could even speak, the hand released the scattered Gu energy and slapped him across the face.

The slap was crisp and clear, like a herdsman on the grassland waking up a disobedient sheep with a whip.

The bearded man was sent flying by the blow, tumbling twice in mid-air before crashing heavily onto the grass several feet away.

His protective Gu Qi dissipated the moment the palm strike touched his cheek, as if it had encountered something that made it dare not even resist.