Who Really Moved?

High above Qiu Luoye's territory, a brilliant light flared without warning, illuminating the entire realm as bright as day. Shui Yongquan shouted, "Heavenly Light! Take cover, quick!" Transforming immediately into a will-o'-the-wisp, he darted into the nearest wooden hut. The Heavenly Light he spoke of was clearly not the gentle newland Heavenly Light, but the formidable proper land Heavenly Light. No matter a cultivator's tier, being struck once by proper land Heavenly Light was perilous. Qiu Luoye ducked into a wooden hut as well. Could a wooden hut block Heavenly Light? It couldn't block it completely, but it was far better than being caught directly exposed to it. Li Banfeng gripped He Yuxiu in one hand and Ma the Fifth in the other as he plunged into a hut. Lu Chunying carried Xiao Yeci in over her shoulder. Juanzi yelled at the top of her lungs, "This isn't Heavenly Light!" Yang Yanzheng brought Chu the Second into a hut. Zuo Wugang took Cao Zhida inside. The tiger clutched the rock as it dashed into a hut. Xiaoshan shouted desperately, "It really isn't Heavenly Light!" Shouting did no good. Everyone scrambled for the closest cover. Only the three-headed people stayed where they were, because they were the most familiar with Heavenly Light. It truly was not Heavenly Light; it was the midday sun. You couldn't blame Shui Yongquan, nor could you blame Qiu Luoye. They hadn't seen sunlight in far too long, and sunlight was never supposed to appear in the newland. The somber, heavy mist had suddenly been swept away, bathing a vast swath of territory in brilliant sunshine. This was far more anomalous than Heavenly Light, and in the sheer panic of the moment, even Li the Seventh and the others who normally lived in proper lands had failed to tell the difference. Xiaoshan chuckled. "Let's go invite Seventh Master out!" Mengzi frowned. "What are you laughing at? Laughing at Seventh Master? Seventh Master isn't like us—we see Heavenly Light all the time. When you see Seventh Master in a moment, you're not allowed to laugh!" Taking control of the body, Juanzi was just about to go into the hut to call everyone out when the ground shuddered violently beneath her, sending her stumbling to the ground. Rumble, rumble, rumble— A wave of violent shaking swept through, knocking the three-headed people down one after another. Even so, their situation wasn't too bad. Li Banfeng and the rest, crammed inside the wooden hut, were pitched back and forth and tossed about by the tremors, several of them bashing their heads until blood flowed. Relying on his foundation as a journey cultivator, Li Banfeng managed to keep his footing. The sensation felt strikingly familiar, as if he had experienced something like this before in the Outer States. Where had that burst of light just come from? And what was going on with this earthquake now? Li Banfeng looked around at the others. Everyone was clutching their heads and curling into balls, rocking back and forth inside the hut. Quite a few had sustained scrapes and cuts, and several were already throwing up. Creak, creak, crack! The hut's main crossbeam was on the verge of snapping. The roof was about to collapse. Seeing that everyone was about to be crushed beneath it, He Yuxiu leaped toward the rafters and held the beam in place through sheer brute strength. In the violent jolting, He Yuxiu's footing began to slip, but Li Banfeng sprang up behind her and braced her. The other wooden huts could no longer hold out. With deafening crashes echoing one after another, who knew how many had collapsed? The tremor lasted for nearly twenty minutes. There was a period in the middle when things were relatively steady, with only slight pitching, but right toward the end, the ground lurched violently, nearly knocking even Li Banfeng off his feet. That sudden jolt brought back memories of his time in the Outer States. It felt remarkably like a subway train malfunctioning and screeching to an emergency stop. The others tumbled messily to the floor. He Yuxiu shouted, "Get out, quick! The hut's coming apart!" Get out? The Heavenly Light was still glaring outside. The people in the hut were all cultivators; being hit by falling wood would cause injuries at worst, but being struck by Heavenly Light could blow them apart. From outside, Juanzi cried out, "Seventh Master! Everyone! This isn't Heavenly Light, it really isn't Heavenly Light! Come out, quickly!" He Yuxiu looked at Li Banfeng. Li Banfeng nodded slightly. He trusted Juanzi; Heavenly Light was an everyday sight for her. Li Banfeng stepped out of the wooden hut first, and the others followed close behind. After standing outside for a moment longer, Li Banfeng realized it truly was not Heavenly Light. Earlier in the panic, he hadn't been able to tell, but now that everything had settled, the difference was clear. He had been exposed to Heavenly Light before; it was vastly brighter than this. The light before his eyes was nearly identical to the midday sun over Lüshui City. Midday sun... Li Banfeng looked over at Shui Yongquan and Qiu Luoye, who had just emerged from their hut. Qiu Luoye glared at Shui Yongquan. "Old Shui, you made a huge fuss over nothing and scared the life out of everyone. What kind of Heavenly Light is this? The sun just came out, didn't it? Then again, how long has it been since we last saw the sun?" Shui Yongquan looked up, and sure enough, the sun was hanging right there in the sky. "Qiu Elephant, the sun came out on your land?" Qiu Luoye fell silent for a moment, then turned to ask Shui Yongquan, "Yeah... why did the sun come out?" Bruised and battered, the others filed out of the wooden huts one after another. Wiping away the blood on her face, Xiao Yeci looked up at the sun in the sky and said to Li Banfeng, "Benefactor, 'When the sun rises, proper land is attained.' According to what's written in the books, this territory has become proper land!" Turned into proper land? How? Wasn't it supposed to require ten thousand permanent residents? There weren't ten thousand people here right now, let alone permanent residents! Before Li Banfeng could wrap his head around it, Qiu Luoye burst into roaring laughter. "'When the sun rises, proper land is attained'—I understand now! My place has turned into proper land!" Shui Yongquan rejoiced as well. "Old brother, congratulations!" Qiu Luoye hurriedly returned the courtesy. "Congratulations to us both!" Shui Yongquan laughed. "You know, it really is a shared joy! I have to head back and take a look at my territory. Since yours has seen the sun, mine is bound to share in the blessing!" "Of course! With a sun this big, maybe your territory has brightened up right alongside mine. Let's go see together!" The two old brothers set off in high spirits. Since the last plot of wild land had been ceded to Qiu Luoye by Shui Yongquan, Shui Yongquan's border was very close by. In the blink of an eye, they reached the border and saw a very tranquil little village. There had been an earthquake just moments ago, and the villagers were visibly tense, standing near the boundary line and peering in their direction. Shui Yongquan stared across at them for a moment, then murmured under his breath, "Where's my home?" Qiu Luoye stroked his beard. "Yeah... where did your home go...?" Panic seized Shui Yongquan. He had no idea where these villagers had come from, but the other side of the boundary line was unmistakably not his territory. He was about to charge across when Qiu Luoye held him back. "No, you can't go over there! That looks like a proper land boundary!" Qiu Luoye's judgment proved correct this time. On the other side of the line, not a single blade of grass grew within several meters. On his side as well, quite a few plants and trees had vanished. This was the hallmark of a proper land boundary. Shui Yongquan raced along the border line. He couldn't find his own territory anywhere, spotting only a dazed rabbit sitting near the line. Shui Yongquan snatched up the rabbit and demanded, "What did you just see?" With panic written across its face, the rabbit squeaked, "I just saw the other side moving! It was moving so fast! I don't know what happened either!" "Moving?" In his agitation, Shui Yongquan still couldn't understand. Qiu Luoye's territory had turned into proper land, so how could his own home have moved? Qiu Luoye's mind caught up. "Old Shui... maybe it's not you who moved. Maybe it was me." That single sentence jolted Shui Yongquan awake. The two hurried toward the northern border. When they reached it, Qiu Luoye's familiar old neighbor was gone as well, replaced by an unfamiliar forest. The neighbors along all the other borders had vanished too, every side bearing traces of proper land boundaries, save for a single corner in the southeast that led into newland—and even that stretch of newland was entirely unfamiliar to Qiu Luoye. What on earth was going on? Qiu Luoye looked at Li Banfeng. Li Banfeng looked at Xiao Yeci. Xiao Yeci shook her head. "This... I don't know either..." This was indeed far beyond Xiao Yeci's understanding. Li Banfeng took a lap around the borders of the territory; the surrounding scenery was something he had never laid eyes on either. Finding a chance, he returned to the Portable Abode and asked the wife. Chhh, chhh— The wife pondered for a long while before saying, "Precious husband, it is always shallow land that turns into proper land. You turned deep land into proper land; this servant has never heard of such a thing either. Could it be that the deep land moved on its own and ran right up beside proper land?" The Portable Abode ought to know this best, but though Li Banfeng asked several times, the Portable Abode gave no reply. The gramophone said to Li Banfeng, "Husband, let's not disturb our old master for now. He seems to be deep in thought. Right now, two things are of the utmost urgency. First, go see what kind of neighbors we have around us; with a territory suddenly barging in, they might not be friendly toward us. Second, check how many anomalies are still on the territory. Some anomalies are of low tiers and have never seen sunlight in their whole lives; such anomalies will surely cause trouble." Li Banfeng left the Portable Abode. Just as he was about to look for Qiu Luoye, a chorus of roaring and hissing erupted from the wooded hills. What kind of creature was making such a racket? Li Banfeng rushed into the woods. Other places were one thing, but nothing could be allowed to happen to this forest. Qiu Luoye hurried over as well. After searching the woods for a short while, they discovered it was a stick insect. The stick insect wasn't especially large, only a meter or so in length. In the newland, it was considered a docile anomaly. But having been exposed to sunlight for the first time today, it had turned violently frenzied, gnawing madly at the ancient tree beneath it. Enraged, Qiu Luoye stepped forward to tear the stick insect in two. Unexpectedly, the old tree, wounded from the gnawing, was furious as well; its roots surged in a wild frenzy, nearly ensnaring Qiu Luoye. The old tree's roots crowded out those of the neighboring trees, causing several other spiritually endowed trees to become enraged, their roots competing aggressively to expand. As the tangled mass of roots violently writhed, subterranean creatures could no longer survive below; a swarm of guinea pigs, snakes, earthworms, and salamanders burst out from the ground. None of these creatures had ever seen sunlight. Hiding underground had kept them safe, but now, under the sun's glare, they instantly lost all reason and swarmed Qiu Luoye, biting at him from every angle. The situation spiraled out of control, and Qiu Luoye lost his patience. Hoooonk— Transforming directly into an elephant, he prepared to flatten the entire forest! Li Banfeng hurriedly held Qiu Luoye back. This forest could not be destroyed—beneath it lay Li Banfeng's train station! "Brother Qiu, trouble seems to have broken out over there too! Go have a look first, and leave this place to me!" Several dog-headed dragonflies had gone wild and were barreling into the cropland. Qiu Luoye ground his teeth. "I should have dealt with them long ago! Every last one of these things is a menace!" Truly, neither Qiu Luoye nor Li Banfeng was to blame for this. Both had assumed that gathering ten thousand people would be no easy feat, leaving them ample time to deal with the anomalies. If worse came to worst, they could have conferred with Old Shui and sent all these mindless anomalies over to Old Shui's territory. Mindless anomalies wouldn't follow Qiu Luoye in any rebellion anyway, nor would they pose a future threat, so Shui Yongquan likely would have taken them in. Who could have known that the moment the land reclamation finished, the newland would turn straight into proper land? And now, they didn't even know where Old Shui's territory was. Food was vital for survival, so Qiu Luoye couldn't afford to worry about the woods and sprinted off to the farmland first. In the forest, anomalies great and small were still running wild. As Li Banfeng was pondering how to calm them down, an object suddenly nudged against him from inside his pocket. It was an item he rarely used, the music box Ling Miaoying had given him. Classifying this item had always been tricky. Hong Ying claimed it was a spirit object, while the wife felt it possessed consciousness and ought to be considered a magic treasure. The music box could move on its own, which was indeed a characteristic of a magic treasure, but it had never been able to speak. Li Banfeng took the music box out and wound it up fully. The little figurine atop the music box began to twirl. Li Banfeng set no specific direction, letting the soothing melody drift out toward every quarter. Before long, calm gradually settled over the forest, and all the creatures sank into a deep slumber. Only Li Banfeng remained unaffected; the melody he heard was different. Yet simply putting this horde of anomalies to sleep did not solve the root problem. Once they woke up, they would continue to raise hell, and if this chaos went on, the train station would be exposed. Li Banfeng touched the frenzied stick insect. The creature was sleeping so deeply it seemed no different from a corpse. This gave Li Banfeng a bold idea. He glanced down at the music box. The little figurine atop the music box looked up at him, wearing a smile brimming with confidence.