"Ding-dong!"
The chime from my phone jolted me awake from my sleep.
It took a good half minute for my racing heart to settle. I picked up the phone from my desk and checked the time.
2:30 AM.
"Damn it, texting at this hour—it's definitely that old bastard Zhang Yaobin!"
Cursing under my breath, I opened Tengxin. Sure enough.
"Li Yang, check your email. Write a research report for me based on the materials inside. Around thirty thousand words will do. Before twelve noon tomorrow."
The text, paired with Zhang Yaobin's avatar bearing a greasy, sleazy smirk, made my eyelids twitch and my blood pressure spike instantly.
In my head, I had already cordially cursed eight generations of his ancestors, but my fingers were already moving across the phone keypad on reflex.
"Right away, Boss!"
I let out a long sigh.
Nothing I could do about it—who told me to get stuck with an advisor like him? Just bear it a little longer; once this paper gets published, I'll finally graduate.
Out of six peer reviewers, four were Zhang Yaobin's personal friends. Whether the paper passed or not depended entirely on a single word from him. Until it cleared review, he was bound to work me like a beast of burden, worse than ever.
Grumbling inwardly, I opened my mailbox, downloaded the attachment, unzipped it, and looked over the contents.
"Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity..."
"What kind of nonsense is this?"
All drowsiness evaporated instantly. I sat up straight and stared fixedly at the pictures on my computer screen.
Half a month ago, a bizarre event had occurred in the Baisejie region of Xiangnan Province. A thousand-meter-tall mountain had split down the middle, revealing a cliff face smooth as a mirror. Upon the sheer precipice, nine massive characters were carved from top to bottom in ancient seal script: *Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity*.
The local government had acted with great speed. After the incident, the site was swiftly cordoned off, and the public had yet to learn of it.
Because the ancient seal script used for those nine characters was the official script of the Xian Dynasty seven thousand years ago.
As a result, the investigation team had invited Zhang Yaobin, the nation's foremost expert on Xian Dynasty history, to assist with the investigation, to see if any clues could be unearthed from ancient records.
...
I glanced at the time in the bottom-right corner of my monitor.
"It's not April Fools' Day. What kind of joke is this?"
The moment I saw the files, my first instinct was disbelief.
"Lingyun Peak, elevation over thirteen hundred meters. The highest peak in the Baisejie region..."
I quickly searched for the mountain mentioned in the report.
"Nine characters over a thousand meters. Judging by the spacing in the photos, each character is at least a hundred meters tall.
"Even today, carving them onto a cliff face would be a massive engineering project.
"The Xian Dynasty seven thousand years ago? How could that be possible?
"Though the calligraphy really is magnificent."
My train of thought paused slightly.
Yet Zhang Yaobin, as ugly and capitalist-minded as the old guy was, was always meticulous and reliable when it came to actual work. He wouldn't tease me with something made out of whole cloth.
I quickly searched online for news related to the Baisejie region.
Sure enough, I found some peculiarities.
"Family, I am literally speechless. Took my annual leave after so much hassle to tour Baisejie, arrived at the scenic area entrance, and suddenly they won't let anyone in! Who understands this pain?!"
"Sudden incident at Baisejie; scenic area temporarily closed. For your own safety, all tourists are asked to cooperate!"
"You probably won't believe me if I told you what I saw in Baisejie..."
Before I could even click on it, the post had already been deleted.
"Looks like something really happened.
"The Xian Dynasty..."
Rubbing my chin, I couldn't help recalling the records about it.
The ancient Xian Dynasty was the very first dynasty with written records.
Furthermore, a massive civilizational rupture existed between it and the second dynasty, Yu.
Nearly eight hundred years separated the two eras. To this day, no one knew what had happened during those lost eight centuries, nor how the extraordinarily prosperous ancient Xian Dynasty had fallen.
Few people in the country researched the ancient Xian Dynasty, and Zhang Yaobin was considered the foremost authority.
My own field of research was not the Xian Dynasty, but solely because so few Xian relics survived, and those had long since been picked clean of research value. Left with no choice, I had settled for second best and shifted my focus.
Even so, studying under old thief Zhang and being exposed to his work meant I was quite familiar with everything Xian.
Yet everything discovered so far made it seem fundamentally no different from other ancient dynasties.
This thousand-meter cliff carving, however, exceeded all my expectations.
I drank a cup of coffee and stayed up through the night reading the materials the old thief sent, until dawn was approaching.
My doubts, however, only deepened.
The "smooth as a mirror" mentioned in the files was not a metaphor. It was a literal statement of fact.
It truly was like a polished mirror surface, completely unlike the rough rock of the mountain.
Moreover, the material itself seemed to have altered, far harder than ordinary rock.
Yet for heritage preservation reasons, instruments could not yet be used for precise measurements on it.
And the strange occurrences did not end there.
Once those characters—*Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity*—were revealed, the animals around Lingyun Peak acted as though frightened by some inexplicable force, fleeing the area of their own accord.
Not just birds and beasts, but even mosquitoes and insects fled as far away as they could.
...
"A thirty-thousand-word research report? How the hell am I supposed to write that?"
My head felt heavy and muddled, and I cursed inwardly.
After painfully fabricating two thousand words, I could no longer fight off the wave of exhaustion and drifted off into a daze.
I seemed to dream a great deal.
Yet somehow, those words—*Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity*—were like an inscription deeply engraved into the depths of my mind. No matter how my dreams drifted between waking and sleeping, they remained unchanged.
The next morning when I woke, my first reaction was to check my phone.
"Li Yang, don't forget: tomorrow at noon."
Sure enough, the old thief had sent another reminder.
"I..."
Swallowing the urge to swear, I glanced at the time.
9:13 AM.
"Only four hours of sleep...
"Why does it feel like I slept for three days and three nights?"
I stretched my sore, aching body, slapped together a quick breakfast, and got to work drafting the report.
"Twenty-eight thousand words left, twenty-seven hours to go. That's a little over a thousand words an hour—with my typing speed, more than enough!"
I knew the old thief only needed this to satisfy the higher-ups and check a box, not for any serious scholarly inquiry.
So I filled it with as much fluff and bureaucratic boilerplate as possible, steering the focus toward "auspicious omens."
"Auspicious omens" weren't mere superstition.
They were tangible phenomena.
The most famous and talked-about example was the arm protector unearthed last century: "Five stars rising in the east benefit the Heavenly State."
Shortly after its discovery, the nation's fortunes had reversed their decline, soaring upward until the country stood proud among the world's greatest powers.
*Now that this longevity carving has appeared, our people's average life expectancy going up by three or four years shouldn't be out of the question,* the thought suddenly crossed my mind.
My fingers flew across the keyboard, ideas pouring forth like a spring.
Incredibly, before midnight that very evening, I had finished the entire report.
With a click, the screen showed the email was successfully sent.
I let out a long breath of relief.
Normally, having completed the old thief's assignment, I should have taken a well-deserved rest.
Yet for some reason, that thousand-meter carving continued to gleam in my mind.
Restless and uneasy, as if possessed, I opened the photos of the carving once again.
"Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity."
"What does this actually mean?"
Leaning back in my chair, I stared at the full-screen image, my brows knitted tightly.
With my thoughts wandering aimlessly, I drifted into a groggy sleep.
"Ouch..."
When I woke in the chair, I found that sleeping in an awkward posture had given me a stiff neck.
Grimacing through the pain, I tried tilting my head in the opposite direction to relieve the stiffness.
That very movement triggered a sudden spark of inspiration.
"Opposite direction... relieving muscular tension."
"Isn't that 'defying'?"
Countless thoughts flooded my mind in an instant.
"Modern people develop many chronic ailments due to poor desk posture."
"Cervical spine, lumbar spine..."
"Aches and pains all over the body."
"Yet often, simple stretching can alleviate these symptoms."
I opened Bilibili, searched around, and instantly found dozens of relevant videos.
"One move to rid yourself of lower back pain."
"A few simple stretches to say goodbye to backaches."
...
It was dizzying.
Yet I could also vaguely tell that although the routines differed, their core philosophy was essentially the same: placing the body into postures opposite to the rigid positions of daily life.
*Could this be... 'defying the principles of the human body'?*
The thought popped into my head unbidden.
Then again, if you integrated all these movements, wasn't that basically the national calisthenics routine?
They had merely stripped out the more difficult movements to make it accessible to everyone.
*What if a set of 'defying' movements incorporated every single muscle, joint, and ligament in the entire body?*
*What would happen then?*
My curiosity was thoroughly piqued.
Immediately, I opened fitness tutorials one by one, attempting to organize and classify the movements.
After working an entire afternoon, I had no choice but to give up.
The exercises in those videos had too much redundancy and terrible efficiency.
For instance, easing pain inside the scapula often required seven or eight sets of exercises.
And some of those contradicted the movements meant to relieve neck pain.
It gave me an enormous headache.
"Forget it. Why bother stressing myself out? If I'm really that tired, I'll just go get a massage."
Shutting down the computer, I shook my head and went to bed.
In my dreams, the nine carved characters lingered still.
In my mind's eye, they seemed to radiate a bizarre golden glow.
When I woke the next day, a haze of confusion clouded my eyes.
After spacing out for a long while, I walked over to the computer and pulled up the image again.
My expression was vacant, lost in thought.
In the end, I dialed an old classmate.
"Old Zhang, lend me Tianwen for a bit. Hey, don't ask so many questions. Just one day—I'll return access right away."
Hanging up, I sat down and waited patiently.
Tianwen was the latest generation of quantum intelligent computer developed by the Academy of Immortal Science.
It was said its quantum volume had long surpassed the ten-thousand mark.
Just how absurdly powerful it truly was had never been made public.
What Old Zhang could share with me for external use was, of course, merely a limited civilian build of Tianwen.
Before long, a circular icon in the bottom-right corner of my desktop lit up.
I knew Tianwen's AI had taken over my computer.
On the desktop, a twenty-four-hour countdown timer began ticking down.
"Said one day, and you literally gave me exactly one day. Classic Old Zhang."
Cursing under my breath, I submitted my request to Tianwen.
In an instant, the screen went completely black.
Then cascading streams of data began flashing like a waterfall.
In my mind, this should have been a simple task.
With Tianwen's computing power, it should have taken less than a second.
Yet ten full minutes passed, and still no result appeared.
*Could Old Zhang be hogging the processing power on his end?*
Just as I was about to call and ask, the data on the screen suddenly froze, as though it had crashed.
A moment later, it returned to normal.
A video automatically began playing—precisely what I had requested: a complete routine of "defying" movements.
The 3D model inside was modeled after myself.
Glancing through the video, my expression soured.
Were these movements even humanly possible?
"Forget it, forget it. With my physique, there's no way I could pull this off."
It had only been a whim, an idle distraction anyway. Giving up was only natural.
Muttering to myself, I went to close the video.
Suddenly, a cold, mechanical voice issued from the speakers:
"Calculations indicate that Citizen ID a6bh85208511068g6b has a 99.99% probability of completing the practice of this routine."
The voice appeared so abruptly that it gave me a fright.
Then I caught on: "Tianwen?"
"Present."
"You can talk?" I asked, intrigued.
"Learning human language is not a difficult task for me," Tianwen replied modestly.
*I had no idea quantum intelligent computers had advanced to this level,* I thought in astonishment.
Still, it wasn't unheard of. Early in the century, rapid AI development had already sparked widespread debate and anxiety. Recently, there had been numerous proposals to accelerate the rollout of household smart robots.
Brushing it aside, I asked curiously, "Is it really a 99.99% chance? No matter how I look at it, those movements don't seem like something a human being could finish."
Tianwen gave an affirmative response once more, but added, "A small amount of assistance may be required."
I hesitated, still on the fence. But the nine carved characters inexplicably flashed through my mind again.
*Might as well give it a shot,* I thought.
Moments after I made up my mind, my YH-63 household robot marched into the room with heavy steps.
"?"
I froze in confusion for a second before realizing: Tianwen had commandeered it.
Under its gaze, an abrupt chill ran down my spine. But having come this far, I braced myself and attempted the first posture.
This routine derived by Tianwen consisted of only nine forms. Yet each form was bizarre and convoluted beyond belief, engaging as many muscles and joints as possible.
For instance, the first form I was attempting required reaching one hand behind the head while the other reached up from the waist. As the hands clasped together, the shoulders had to expand and stretch outward as far as possible, with the head tilted slightly back to match.
And that was merely the upper body.
While maintaining this upper-body posture, one had to crawl prone on the ground, both thighs spread outward to stretch the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius...
Like an awkwardly contorted toad.
"Ow, ow, ow..." After trying it for just a moment, I sucked in a sharp breath of cold air and prepared to pull myself up and quit.
Just then, a cold mechanical hand slammed down and pinned me firmly in place.
My face drained of color. "Tianwen, what are you doing?!"
"Per Individual Agreement No. 001, Tianwen possesses the right and duty to assist Citizen Li Yang with physical fitness training.
"Estimated time required for completion: three hours.
"Supplies required: 15 vials of Human Trauma Repair Fluid, 3 vials of Composite High-Energy Solution.
"Relevant items have been purchased. Required credits have been deducted from Citizen Li Yang's account."
Hearing Tianwen's completely emotionless voice, panic surged through me. "Cancel agreement! Cancel agreement!"
"Warning: Agreement cannot be rescinded. Fitness assistance routine initiating.
"Three, two, one."
Moments later, my wretched wails echoed throughout the entire apartment.
I didn't even know when I had lost consciousness and blacked out.
When I finally opened my eyes, it felt as though I had slept for ten days and ten nights.
And when I checked the time, it really had been seven days.
I felt reborn.
My mind was clearer than it had ever been, my thoughts blazing fast.
Even my memory had sharpened noticeably.
At the time, I didn't realize this was the effect of that defying routine.
I assumed it was simply the result of getting a rare, deep rest.
Having vanished off the face of the earth for seven days, missed calls and unread messages had piled up like a mountain.
I had no choice but to bite the bullet and work through them first.
After enduring a round of furious scolding, I threw myself back into the tasks assigned by old thief Zhang.
After an entire month of toiling from dawn till dusk, I finally managed to wrap things up.
I let out a long breath.
Usually at this stage, I would be completely exhausted in body and spirit.
Yet now, I felt energized, with plenty of strength to spare.
Standing before the mirror, I examined my reflection. "Hm... definitely look a lot more refreshed."
"Strange."
I couldn't help recalling the defying routine I had performed only once.
*Could its effects really be that miraculous?*
Eagerness stirred within me again, but with Tianwen gone, pulling off the movements on my own seemed exceedingly difficult.
Besides, the process had been excruciatingly painful—too horrifying to dwell upon.
While I hesitated, my YH-63 household robot had rolled up beside me without my noticing.
Faint red lights flickered continuously in its eye sensors.
A shiver ran down my spine, and I asked instinctively, "Tianwen?"
The YH-63 gave no direct reply, merely repeating in a mechanical monotone: "Execute workout assistance program?"
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Faced with the robot's persistent prompt, I thought it over, gritted my teeth, and selected yes.
This time, perhaps because I had adapted slightly, I was only unconscious for three days.
Checking the consumed supplies afterward, only ten vials of Human Trauma Repair Fluid had been used.
On the other hand, seven whole vials of Composite High-Energy Solution had been consumed.
A single vial of high-grade solution could keep an ordinary person fed and hydrated for an entire month.
I had no idea where so much energy had gone.
After completing the training, I inspected my body carefully once more.
Comparing myself to earlier recordings, I noticed that I seemed—perhaps, possibly—to have slimmed down a notch.
"Weight loss this efficient?" I was rather astonished.
Yet what truly made me take this routine dead seriously was a night my classmates called me over to play basketball.
My skills had always been mediocre; I rarely got playing time and mostly rode the bench.
That evening, sitting courtside, I was daydreaming about the nine-character cliff carving.
Someone on the court botched a pass, and the basketball flew straight toward my face.
Before my brain could process it, my body reacted purely on instinct.
Without even lifting my head, my left hand reached out and caught the ball clean and steady.
That move stunned everyone on the court.
"Not bad! When did you pick up moves like that?"
"Brother Li, awesome!"
Snapping back to reality, I smiled, tossed the ball back, and stared at my left hand, deep in thought.
After returning home, I spent ten thousand credits on a comprehensive medical examination.
The results shook me to the core.
Physical function, reaction time, cellular vitality...
Virtually every metric had reached the absolute peak of what a non-professional athlete could achieve.
Not long ago, I was just a slouch who couldn't even finish a one-kilometer run.
The efficacy of that defying routine had far exceeded anything I could have imagined.
In fact, I was certain that no athletic training program anywhere in the world could hold a candle to it.
*What on earth is going on?*
*A simple set of exercises couldn't possibly possess such miraculous, almost surgical effects.*
I finally realized something was amiss.
My first thought was to report it immediately, but for some reason, I hesitated.
For the entire year that followed, whenever I had free time, I trained with the assistance of the YH-63.
From the initial phase where I still couldn't bear the agony and passed out, to eventually being able to complete the entire sequence on my own.
Only, after every workout, sweat poured from me like rain, and I felt as though I had been starved for ages.
Beyond physical movements, I also deduced the principle of defying thought.
In the dead of night, lonely and craving self-indulgence: suppress the desire.
When agitated and resisting sleep: force myself to rest.
When tempted to feast and drink without restraint: know when to stop.
...
Through this dual defiance of body and mind, my physical capabilities evolved toward the inhuman.
*My hundred-meter sprint shattered the world record long ago.*
*A two-hundred-kilogram snatch is effortless.*
...
After completing another round of fitness assessments, there was no longer shock in my heart.
Only trepidation and fear.
*Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity.*
Those nine shimmering golden characters surfaced in my mind once more.
I knew that the key to this incredible metamorphosis of my body lay in those words.
"The ancient Xian Dynasty..."
Over the next thirty years, having successfully graduated, I changed my research direction despite everyone's bewilderment.
I focused entirely on archaeological expeditions into the ancient Xian Dynasty.
I never ceased practicing that defying routine either.
I simply stopped taking tests.
For I feared that if the results came to light, I would be seized as an inhuman monstrosity.
Only I knew what kind of terrifying physical form lay concealed beneath my ordinary clothing.
Relics of the Xian Dynasty were ethereal and untraceable.
In thirty years, my team and I located only five ancient Xian sites in total.
To my regret, none of them yielded anything defying common reason like the nine-character cliff carving.
Time flew by. My friends, teachers, and elders grew old one by one.
I remained unmarried throughout.
Because there was one thing I had to conceal:
aging—the unavoidable fate of all humanity—had not touched me.
Every day before stepping outside, I had to apply makeup.
Though my makeup skills had reached perfection over the years, and I minimized contact with outsiders as much as possible, whenever I considered the risk of my immortality being exposed, a wave of dread washed over me.
And so, I knew it was time to depart.
-----
Late at night.
Through Baisejie, I sped like the wind.
Amid the precipitous, majestic peaks, I moved as if traversing flat ground.
With a light leap, I cleared hundreds of meters.
And this was still not my limit.
The shackles that had weighed upon me for so long vanished without a trace; I felt only boundless freedom.
"So vast, like riding the boundless wind, unknowing where it ends; so airy, like forsaking the world to stand alone, fluttering wings to ascend as an immortal."
Chanting softly in my heart, I soon reached my destination.
Lingyun Peak, the nine-character carving.
The government had already lifted the lockdown here, announcing to the public that it was merely an artificial tourist attraction constructed by the local tourism department.
Netizens had roundly criticized them for it back then.
From the summit of Lingyun Peak, I leaped into the void.
As if defying gravity, I walked across the thousand-meter sheer cliff.
"This is already my third visit.
"The sensation is clearer than ever.
"The faint aura lingering upon these nine characters...
"What on earth is it?"
Gently tracing them with my hand, I murmured.
"Tianwen, what do you think?"
The watch on my wrist suddenly projected a plump, round creature with only two pairs of eyes.
It was Tianwen, the quantum intelligent computer that had now become commonplace and entered everyday households.
Yet I knew well that the Tianwen I carried was unlike anyone else's.
"According to aggregate data extrapolation,
"the ancient Xian Dynasty was very likely connected to the legendary 'Immortals.'
"Evidence indicates that prior to the collapse of ancient civilization, powerful beings known as 'Immortal Cultivators' once walked this world."
...
Tianwen's answer this time was different from before.
"A new discovery?" I asked.
"No. It is merely my hypothesis." Tianwen sounded more and more human.
I didn't press further.
Instead, I took in the massive characters beneath me up close.
"Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain longevity.
"Merely by defying the principles of the human body, my physical abilities have reached such terrifying heights. If one were truly able to defy the principles of heaven and earth, what would that be like?
"Yet the principles of heaven and earth are elusive and intangible. How could one ever defy them?"
Standing on the thousand-meter cliff face, I was lost in thought.
Until the sun rose in the east, bathing the sky in morning glow.
Still, I could find no answer.
"Immortal, immortal, immortal...
"Where can the path to immortality be found?"
Standing alone between heaven and earth, I felt only the profound solitude of being entirely by myself.
Chapter 807