Watching that voice line, blooming with purple light as it crossed the void, Huang Tian turned over one guess after another in his heart.
He steadied himself, nodded once to the assembled Daluo beings, and took a single step toward the Zhonghuang Yuanji Heaven he had opened. In the blink of an eye his figure vanished into Chaos.
The Daluo exchanged a look. Some showed regret; some had deep thought in their eyes. In twos and threes, they dispersed.
"Fellow Daoist Luohou, do you think what Fellow Daoist Huang said is true?" Amid a layer of clouded heaven, Patriarch Minghe caught up with Luohou and asked.
Luohou turned his head and gave a short, mirthless laugh. "True or false, solid or empty—what meaning is there in it? Don't tell me you still mean to do something. For the sake of an opportunity above Daluo that may not even exist, you'd go looking for trouble with him?"
A being who could overpower the Three Pure Ones fighting as one—how were the likes of them to provoke such a person?
Patriarch Minghe was unconvinced. "Why not? Daluo do not die. He will not die, and neither will we. What is there to fear?"
Luohou shot him a glance. "Wait until you've been suppressed for endless epochs. Then you'll behave."
Death was not frightening. What was frightening was to be sealed away forever, in lightless dark, unable even to stir.
Even a Daluo being was unwilling to endure torment like that. This was also why the Daluo were unwilling to tear away all courtesy and fight to the death. In all things, leave a thread of leeway, so that one might meet again in days to come.
If one was truly too enraged, one opened an alt account, put on a sockpuppet, and went to fight it out—win, and one could vent; lose, and one could only accept it.
Patriarch Minghe retorted, "I think I am certainly not the only one whose heart is moved by that opportunity. If I invite a dozen or so fellow Daoists, once we join hands we might yet be able to beat him—"
Luohou raised a hand and cut him off. "Then gather your people first, and tell me after that. Right now I have no wish to get involved."
With that he moved, and in a flash he was gone.
Patriarch Minghe knit his brows. "That old thing used to be unbearably arrogant. How has he grown so timid now?"
He stood thinking for a moment, then let out a light breath. "Forget it. I'll go sound out the other fellow Daoists first. I refuse to believe no one is tempted!"
Hua~
His figure turned and became a streak of blood-light, vanishing where he had stood—
Hu hu~
Among the mountains and the myriad trees, Huang Tian sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, watching the bright, gleaming purple voice line. His gaze stirred. Following the voice line into the distance, a scene unfolded before his eyes.
A little past seven in the morning, the clear light beyond the window was thin and pale. In a student dormitory, a young man lay on a bed, his face ashen. His chest no longer rose and fell, and his body was gradually growing stiff.
He was clearly already dead.
Inside the room were three other beds. On two of them, young men slept soundly, soft snores rising. The last bed was empty. Not only was there no one in it, but the desk beneath it held no clutter either. Its occupant had probably moved out.
Aside from the young man who had already died, this was an utterly ordinary university dormitory.
Huang Tian's brows lifted slightly. He sent his power along the voice line, preparing to envelop that world with his divine sense and look into matters first.
And yet—
"Useless?" Huang Tian was somewhat startled. "My power can't get through? No. It did get through, but the loss is far, far too great. By the time it reaches that world, almost nothing is left—"
He thought it over. "What is the reason? Is the distance across time and space too great, or is that world special?"
After pondering for a few breaths, he leaned toward the latter. This voice line was purple, a color that had never appeared before, and it had appeared only after he pushed the Daluo realm to its limit.
"That world is very likely tied to my special ability. Above Daluo, then—"
He drew a deep breath, his gaze growing ever more resolute. Without hesitation, he at once split off a bit of spiritual thought. Following the purple voice line, it crossed endless dimensions of space and time and fell into that world!
Canxing. The Shenwei Federation. Inside an underground secret base.
Liu Qingqing walked along a corridor with an easy look, then stopped before a room. A plaque hung on the door. It read: "029."
She pushed the door open and went in. The room was utterly ordinary: four white walls, one table, and two chairs. Behind the table sat a middle-aged man in a long green robe, rather handsome.
"Hello, Mr. Yu Feng." Liu Qingqing sat down and greeted him with a smile.
Yu Feng was expressionless, and only nodded slightly.
Liu Qingqing did not mind his coldness. After all, this Mr. Yu Feng had been a proper Golden Core cultivator in another world, his dharma power formidable and his status lofty. Now he had inexplicably transmigrated to Canxing. Not only was his dharma power entirely gone, but he was under what amounted to house arrest. That he had not fallen apart was already something.
"Mr. Yu, can you roughly recall the course of your transmigration?" Liu Qingqing took out a voice recorder and began making a record.
Yu Feng glanced at her, let out a soft sigh, and shook his head.
Liu Qingqing asked next, "Then did you happen to touch anything?"
Yu Feng shook his head again, and asked in return, "When will you let me leave?"
Liu Qingqing answered, "I'm afraid we must ask you to bear with staying here for a while. Please rest assured, we have no intention of imprisoning you.
Once we have finished learning the relevant information, and you have also studied the history and technology of our world, you will be able to go out. Otherwise, once you reach the outside, you will understand nothing, you will not be able to get by at all, and you will cause all sorts of trouble."
"You really won't keep me under house arrest?" Yu Feng raised a brow.
Liu Qingqing said with certainty, "We will not. So long as you do not reveal your identity to outsiders after you leave, and live as an ordinary person, that will do."
Yu Feng smiled thinly. "Here in a spirit-void land, with all my dharma power gone, what would I be if not a mortal?"
Liu Qingqing smoothed her hair. "Could we trouble you to write down the cultivation methods and spells you know? We will give you a generous reward. That way, once you reach the outside, you will at least be a wealthy gentleman."
"In a spirit-void land, what use are cultivation methods? The Golden Core I cultivated bitterly for two hundred years has already dissolved." Yu Feng was puzzled.
Liu Qingqing said earnestly, "The world changes too quickly. They might come in useful someday. We have to prepare in advance."
At that, Yu Feng wavered. His greatest value now was the great many cultivation methods and secret arts in his head. If he handed them over, and the other side then refused to let him go—
After a moment's thought, he finally decided to give the cultivation methods over. After all, the other side seemed decent enough for the present. They had not put him to cruel torture or forced a confession from him under duress. And here in a spirit-void land, these cultivation methods were basically useless.
He sighed, and was about to speak, when his expression changed drastically. He nearly jumped up from his seat!
Liu Qingqing was utterly at a loss. "Mr. Yu, what's wrong?"
Yu Feng was silent.
Liu Qingqing pressed him with several questions in a row. Yu Feng remained silent.
The air fell still at once.
Liu Qingqing was completely baffled. What on earth had happened?
He had been about to lay out every cultivation method and secret art. Why had he stopped all of a sudden?
Both of them fell silent.
After a long while, Yu Feng seemed to have worked something out. With a strange look he said, "I want to join you."
"What?" Liu Qingqing grew even more lost. What did any of this have to do with anything? How had the subject turned this way?
Yu Feng went on, "I can give you a piece of extremely, extremely important intelligence, in exchange for the right to join you."
Liu Qingqing's face grew grave. "Extremely important?"
"That's right. This matter is extremely important to you, and to the entire world." Yu Feng spoke with certainty.
Hesitation showed on Liu Qingqing's face. She thought for a while, then stood. "I have to ask those above."
"All right. I'll wait for you."
Liu Qingqing left the room. Yu Feng simply sat and waited, though his eyes were bright, and a smile touched the corner of his mouth.
After a while, Liu Qingqing returned.
"Well?" Yu Feng asked, his expression serious.
Liu Qingqing said slowly, "Although our Oddity Management Association is an organization founded less than a year ago, we answer to the Federation, and our authority and duties are extremely heavy. So we cannot allow you to join directly.
However, if your intelligence really is extremely important, we can consider giving you the status of a probationary member and observing you for two years. If there are no problems after two years, you can basically be confirmed as a full member."
Hearing this, Yu Feng instead felt somewhat easier. If they had agreed at once to let him join, he would probably not have escaped being disposed of once he had served his purpose.
"Then, may I hear it now?" Liu Qingqing said.
Yu Feng nodded and raised his right hand.
"Peng~"
A tuft of orange-red flame suddenly surfaced from his palm.
Liu Qingqing's eyes went wide. "This... this—"
Yu Feng smiled. "Just now, I sensed it. Spiritual qi has suddenly been born in your world! It is still very thin at present, but it is slowly growing denser."
Liu Qingqing shot up from her chair, her scalp prickling. "Spiritual qi? The spiritual qi needed for cultivation?"
"That's right." Yu Feng nodded. "Well? This intelligence matters a great deal, doesn't it?"
Liu Qingqing nodded before she knew it, then said hastily, "Mr. Yu, I have to go report this to those above right now—"
"Go on. No need to mind me. I'll take the chance to do some breath cultivation, and return to the Golden Core realm as soon as I can." Yu Feng waved a hand, unconcerned.
Liu Qingqing left the room at once and broke into a jog. As she ran, her head ached. "How could spiritual qi suddenly come into being? Could it be the effect of some oddity? Ai! What a mess. The world is getting harder and harder to make sense of—"
Changnan University. The men's dormitory building, Room 208.
Huang Tian opened his eyes. A warm current circulated through his body, warming the "corpse" that had been somewhat stiff.
Then he slowly sat up on the bed and moved his arms a little, letting his qi and blood flow more freely. After that, he concentrated and looked through the original body's memories.
"—The original body's name was Huang Tian. His father, Huang Dong, came from an ordinary family. His mother, Bai Yin, came from no small background; she was of the Bai family of Yuzhou.
The Bai family was a family of some renown in Yuzhou. Its head, Bai Zhenxiong, had founded the Hengming Group. To this day his fortune stood at ten billion yuan, and he had two sons and one daughter.
His daughter Bai Yin was rather rebellious. She had fallen in love with the penniless Huang Dong, and the matter was already past undoing—she was with child. Bai Zhenxiong was furious beyond measure, and from then on he paid this daughter no more mind.
The two sides had no contact for more than ten years, until two years ago, just when the original body had started university. Bai Yin and her husband died in a car accident, and only then did Bai Zhenxiong come to regret it deeply.
But regret was meaningless. The people were already dead. In his grief he took up the duty of looking after the original body, giving him a sum of money every month. It was not all that much: a hundred thousand yuan.
The original body was a stranger to this maternal grandfather he had never met, and did not know how to get along with him. Added to the death of both parents, the pain was extreme, so for a time he muddled through in a daze, and his mood sank into gloom.
As time went on, brooding turned to illness. He also took up the bad habits of hard drinking and staying up late. Last night he drank until past two in the morning. After lying down on the bed in a daze, he died outright of the drink—a sudden death—"
Having sorted out the memories, Huang Tian shook his head. "Brilliance too keen invites harm; feeling too deep does not grant long life."
After that brief sigh, he concentrated and sensed this heaven and earth.
"There is very thin spiritual qi. So this world should have no extraordinary power? Still, it's hard to say. This world must have something special about it, or else how could the voice line be purple— My first task is to cultivate, and gain some power to protect myself.
Mm. Taking in spiritual qi alone is a little slow. The original body does have nearly two million yuan in savings. I can use it to buy some ginseng and lingzhi. They are not spiritual objects, but they ought to be of some use."
He turned and glanced out the window. The daylight was growing brighter, so he rose, got down from the bed, and went to the washroom. He washed up properly and got the smell of alcohol off himself, then sat at the desk, took out his phone, and began searching for words such as "cultivator," "immortal," and "superpower."
After about ten minutes: "Sure enough, nothing turns up."
He shook his head with a wry smile, stood, and looked at his two roommates, Zhou Dongqiang and Murong Hao. Both were still fast asleep.
"I'll go get some breakfast."
Phone in hand, Huang Tian went downstairs at an easy pace. A few minutes later he entered the cafeteria. It was nearly eight, and there were quite a few people inside. The smells of all sorts of breakfasts drifted about.
He casually bought a flatbread and some milk, sat down, and ate slowly, while taking in the looks of the people around him—those chatting, those wolfing down their food, those hurrying past, those flirting—
Too plain. Too normal. Almost exactly the same as the university life I once lived—
After breakfast he went straight back to the dormitory. He had thought Zhou Dongqiang and Murong Hao would both still be asleep, but to his surprise the former was awake—not only awake, but unusually keyed up, packing a folding fishing rod into his bag.
"Old Huang, been to breakfast?" Zhou Dongqiang asked offhand when he saw him.
Huang Tian nodded, his gaze flicking to the rod. "Going fishing again?"
In the original body's memories, Zhou Dongqiang had gone out fishing every day these past few days, and seemed to have done rather well. Every time he came back he was bouncing with delight, unable to hold his smile in at all.
When asked whether he had actually caught anything, and what, he would only smile and say nothing. There was no telling whether he had truly gone fishing, or gone off to do something else.
Zhou Dongqiang chuckled. "That's right. I've finally found my hobby. Who knew fishing was this much fun!"
"But I remember there isn't anywhere near the school where you can fish, is there?"
"There is, there is. But I'm not telling you where. This is a fishing fanatic's own blessed land!"
Zhou Dongqiang finished stowing the folding fishing rod, then slung on his bag and ran out of the dormitory, full of excitement.
Watching that retreating back, Huang Tian looked thoughtful. "Fishing?"
A university student who had suddenly become obsessed with fishing, going out every day—and he had never seen him bring anything back. He couldn't have come up empty every single time, could he?
After thinking it over, Huang Tian kept the matter in mind. Then he returned to his chair and went on searching his phone for anything about the extraordinary. After a dozen minutes he still found nothing, and stopped wasting the effort.
Instead he opened a shopping app and looked for shops selling ginseng and lingzhi. He placed a small order, meaning to test whether they were of any use.
Then he set himself to breath cultivation. Thread by thread, spiritual qi invisible to the naked eye was drawn in by him, pouring into his body and altering skin, flesh, sinew, and bone—
Chapter 230