As a Father, I Just Want to Watch You Achieve Immortality Chapter 1757: The Monkey Who Defies All Rules Within the Heart, Gathering the Final Qitian Mask

"Brother, have you ever secretly eaten all the flat peaches in the garden? This job you surely must not have done?"

Yet Li Che’s face took on a strange look as he answered.

"I have."

Truly, with complete assurance.

Nearly posing with hands on hips and chest puffed out like Xi Xi, righteous but bold.

The Monkey King erupted in laughter, convinced that Li Che had really sneaked and devoured them.

His guffaws echoed up to the skies, and the Monkey King yanked off his official hat, hurled it down, and trampled it: "Since holding this office can’t shield my monkeys and kin, and just brings pointless disgrace, this minor sesame post, better to quit it!"

Chuckling wildly, the Monkey King departed the Heavenly Que and headed back to his demonic abode.

Li Che trailed after him silently, or more precisely, the Temple God Resonance guided him to persist in the pursuit.

He witnessed the Monkey King getting blamed by the Heavenly Court, and in rage, smashing the accusing Heavenly God with his staff.

In a daze, Li Che appeared to recall himself once slaying an Imperial Official alongside Xi Xi in the Divine Capital...

The visions overlapped strangely.

The Monkey King acted for his monkeys and descendants, while Li Che... acted for his daughter.

As though a wild monkey dwelled in the hearts of both!

Buzzing...

From his arm, the Heart-following Gold Iron Divine Rod quivered without stop.

Li Che’s heart quivered faintly, enveloped by layers of enigmatic mists.

Then the vision changed.

He beheld the Monkey King confronting a Golden Great Buddha, immense as the heavens, boundless in stature, almost merged with the cosmos.

The Monkey King’s Golden Armor broke apart, but he stood unbowed.

Observing this, Li Che sensed a strangely familiar feeling.

He barely stirred, but the Temple God Resonance around him was evidently surging upward fast.

It appears...

A resonance echoing the Monkey King’s deeds had long existed within him.

He, too, had rebelled, stood firm, and challenged formidable foes.

However...

The Monkey King’s rebellion, his steadfastness, his guarding, served the monkeys of Huaguo Mountain.

While he, Li Che, guarded his daughter, his kin.

Yet the identical resolve, the same spirit...

Maybe, it forms the perfect harmony.

In his right hand, the Heart-following Gold Iron Divine Rod shook nonstop, with enigmatic mists pouring out without end.

On Li Che’s countenance, a flash of realization appeared.

"Thus, from the start, I’ve been performing Temple God Resonance, in Golden Light Prefecture City, in Dao City, in the Divine Capital... my deeds, all echoing the Temple God."

"Thus, I began harmonizing with Equaling Heaven long ago..."

Li Che let out a soft chuckle.

Abruptly, the grin on Li Che’s face started to diminish gradually.

Enigmatic mists billowed, the vision altered.

The Monkey King fell, pinned under the peak, for his monkeys and kin, he struck a deal with the Buddhist Sect, aiding a reborn monk on the westward quest...

On the path, this ex-Demon Saint Monkey King slew numerous known Demon Saints, carving a path drenched in blood.

But the Monkey King’s spirit turned ever more desensitized.

Upon triumph, the Monkey King’s brow bore a constricting ring aglow with Buddha’s radiance, and his features shed their free-spirited majesty.

The kasaya billowed, the form with the constricting ring resembled a monk upon a barren summit.

It was Huaguo Mountain, razed to cinders, wreckage, charred ground, dark fumes coiling like a Jiao Long.

Shattered Spirit Stone fragments littered the earth, gleaming with rainbow hues.

But the Buddha’s compassionate glow swept by, fading the rainbow shine of the Spirit Stone, as if stripped of all vitality.

Much like the present Monkey King.

He perched on the barren mountaintop, clutching a stone bereft of spiritual sheen.

From this stone he was born, the stone granted him essence, and now the essence had fled...

Gazing at the burned wasteland of the mountain.

The monkeys and kin he once shielded and yielded for, all turned to ashes.

He parted his lips, attempting a faint roar, yet failed to muster even one tear.

He sat shrunken on the mountaintop, his spine slowly curving.

"Are you a Buddha?"

"To safeguard what lies in your heart, would you consent to becoming a Buddha?"

Raspy utterances arose, a serene tone issued from the Monkey King’s lips.

The resonance halted then, unable to advance more.

As if awaiting Li Che’s reply.

A reply deciding fate.

Should Li Che reply amiss, the resonance would dissipate at once.

Should Li Che reply rightly, the resonance would surge forth anew, fulfilling the complete Temple God Resonance.

Li Che touched the Divine Monkey Mask upon his face.

The mask lay fractured, in three segments, with two now gathered.

Hearing the Monkey King turned Buddha, composed, no longer challenging with wild abandon.

He breathed out slowly.

Li Che stated steadily, "I am not a Buddha."

"Even if to shield my daughter I must yield, but my daughter... she’d only desire her father as a mighty hero, riding rainbow clouds, sweeping away all hurdles for her, not a Buddha who yields to harsh truths, cloaked in claims of her benefit, yet cold to her feelings."

"Hence, I refuse to become a Buddha."

Li Che lifted his hand, and the Dream Master’s Dao Fruit pulsed in his torso.

In his grasp, multicolored brilliance wove together, gradually forming a scroll like a dreamlike vista.

Inside the scroll was Xi Xi.

Every image featured Xi Xi, his daughter Li Che.

Each instant showed Xi Xi beaming with joy for her father.

The Monkey King stared blankly, watching that lively young girl, as though beholding the monkeys and kin who once frolicked and bounded for him across the peaks.

The peaks lay waste, with scorched patches everywhere.

"Your daughter is truly adorable," the Monkey King remarked.

Li Che grinned faintly, "I agree, thanks."

Every lad harbors an Equaling Heaven within; once wild and fierce, but with years passing, settling, wedding, fathering a daughter, he’ll unwittingly tame the Equaling Heaven inside, letting it quiet, no longer rampant.

But Equaling Heaven quieted doesn’t mean erased.

It’s akin to a fierce blaze.

As long as it endures, that Equaling Heaven who once wrecked the Southern Heavens, overturned the Immortal Furnace, trod the clouds, lingers eternally!

Someday, it will blaze back fiercely in rebellious guise!

Folks grasp Equaling Heaven differently, and this marks Li Che’s grasp of Equaling Heaven.

The Monkey King rested at the mountain crest, as if grasping something, he lifted his hand, placed it over his chest, a quiet chuckle slipped out.

"Thanks, little brother."

"I once failed them, but now, I won’t fail them further..."

"Time to come back."

Thud, thud, thud—

A grand heartbeat thundered, like an ancient shadowy forge abruptly flaring with dread flames to scorch peaks and seethe oceans!

In the instant after, he tilted his head back roaring with mirth, dark clouds churned across the firmament.

As if rent by his booming hilarity!

Woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh—

Enigmatic mists ballooned sharply, like a gale ravaging everything nearby.

Clang, clang...

The clatter of chains rattling nonstop came from the Inner City, as if some ultimate dreadful being started to strain fiercely, seeking to snap the bonds, break loose from bonds, return unbound!

With the world-shaking guffaws, that shrill merriment seemed to rip the vault, shatter the cloud barriers.

The whole Qi Tian City appeared to quake!

Three hundred zhang distant.

Lv Taibai, Fang Hanshu, and the rest felt a huge shock, all staring with bulging eyes.

"Temple God bursting forth!"

"Has the Temple God Resonance outcome appeared?!"

"This fast?!"

A peculiar glint flickered in Fang Hanshu’s gaze.

He fixed his stare on the enigmatic mists cloaking the three hundred zhang path, spotting the Divine Monkey’s silhouette had silently materialized at the Qi Tian Inner City gateway.

Still, no chance to ponder.

Fang Hanshu got pulled by other sights.

He looked up at the Qi Tian Inner City ramparts.

And beheld, myriad enigmatic mists, as if savagely cleaved by a fearsome blade, divided clean through.

Enigmatic mists dispersed wholly, and then, upon the city bastion, a dark stone column there quivered lightly, gradually, the charred shell started to flake off with snapping noises.

Once flaked, brilliant golden radiance exploded from inside.

A reawakening blaze flared to scorch!

Lv Taibai, Fang Hanshu, Lv Qiankun, and fellow Temple God Resonance failures could merely watch from three hundred zhang away, while the various Divine Tribulation Cultivators inhaled deeply.

"That’s..."

"Qitian Temple God Weapon!"

"Hunyuan Ruyi Golden Cudgel!"

...

...

Li Che’s eyes snapped open, he slung the Heart-following Gold Iron Divine Rod over his shoulder, positioned before the ebony portal.

That marked the Qi Tian Inner City entry.

Temple God Resonance three hundred zhang, he had traversed to the terminus.

Nevertheless, Li Che remained motionless.

For...

Before him, a cracked mask hovered, radiating a soft sheen.

That was...

The final Equal to Heaven’s Face!