“That just past the Beginning of Summer, how come the weather changes so suddenly?” Liu Yuntao blurted out.
The sky had been clear all along, and she hadn’t even considered bringing an umbrella when leaving home. Maybe her uncle’s shop had an extra one?
The sky was gloomy, resembling dusk in the afternoon, with continuous thunder but no rain or lightning, which was very strange.
Fei Zhengtao looked up at the sky calmly and said, “There’s a supermarket at the market entrance. If you didn’t bring an umbrella, I’ll help you buy one later.”
“Okay, thanks.” Liu Yuntao seemed to be infected by this calmness, her mood recovering as she forgot about the thunder. She turned her head toward the back of the shop and shouted, “Uncle, there are customers!”
“Coming, coming.” An elderly man with graying hair came out holding a carving knife. He looked at the painting in Liu Yuntao’s hand and then at Fei Zhengtao, asking, “You want me to carve this? What size? What kind of wood?”
Fei Zhengtao explained the requirements, and the old man nodded slightly, “Not too complicated. You can come to pick it up after next Thursday.”
“It’s better to come on Sunday afternoon.” As a senior three student, Fei Zhengtao only had half a day free on weekends.
Rumble!
The thunder was low, without lightning. The dark clouds made the market seem like the end of the world. Liu Yuntao watched Fei Zhengtao pay the deposit and turned to leave. Since it hadn’t started raining, she no longer cared about the umbrella. She picked up the wooden carving gift she had chosen and said goodbye to her uncle, preparing to go home.
Just then, she saw Fei Zhengtao running over, holding two ten-yuan disposable umbrellas and smiling, “It might rain heavily on the way.”
Seeing Fei Zhengtao’s sunny smile and his clean white teeth, without any hesitation or shyness of giving a gift to a girl, as if doing something perfectly natural, Liu Yuntao suddenly felt this guy was actually quite good.
In Class Six, Grade Three, she was a very pretty girl, always having many boys trying to please her, even from other classes. But this time, although it was an act of flattery, the other party felt it was perfectly natural.
“Thank you.” Liu Yuntao accepted the umbrella with a polite smile, her impression of Fei Zhengtao officially changing from a timid, pale, and boring classmate to a good guy.
Holding the umbrellas, the two walked toward the market exit. Liu Yuntao casually asked, “Which immortal is the wooden statue you wanted to carve?”
“Immortal… I guess.” Fei Zhengtao thought for a moment. Yuan Huang seemed much more powerful than most immortals he knew, and those immortals were just characters in stories. “He is also my ancestral master.”
He said it straightforwardly.
“Ancestral master?” Liu Yuntao looked at Fei Zhengtao in surprise. This was a term used in ancient times and in Taoist temples or Buddhist monasteries.
Fei Zhengtao smiled, “Because I was weak, I apprenticed under a master to learn martial arts. Yuan Huang is the ancestral master of our sect.”
“Yuan Huang?” Liu Yuntao repeated the two words, feeling they sounded grand and ancient, dignified and awe-inspiring.
So he wanted to enshrine the ancestral master and came here to carve the wooden statue. Liu Yuntao suddenly understood and said with a laugh, “Great martial artist, if any of our classmates gets bullied in the future, we’ll have to ask you to help.”
She deliberately quoted a movie line, not surprised at all about learning martial arts since several classmates were learning Taekwondo and Karate, so learning ancient martial arts was normal.
They chatted casually. They had never talked this much in their three years as classmates. They parted ways only after leaving the market.
Seeing Fei Zhengtao leave directly without any hesitation, cleanly and decisively, seemingly with no intention of pursuing her, Liu Yuntao nodded slightly, thinking this classmate was truly not to be judged by appearances, or perhaps learning martial arts could indeed change a person’s spirit and energy?
At that moment, Fei Zhengtao’s mind was completely occupied by the Myriad Worlds Consciousness Talisman, drawing upon cosmic energy, storing qi in his dantian, following Master Daqing’s instructions and requirements, and contemplating the bizarre and dazzling myriad worlds—online marketplaces, forums, live streams—just like any hardcore internet addict. He simply had no time to spare for how his female classmates felt about him.
A week later, Fei Zhengtao returned to the flower and bird handicraft market.
The weather had been strange during this period. Since that day when it seemed like a heavy storm was coming, it had never cleared up. The sky remained cloudy with distant thunder, the day as dark as evening, yet without rain or lightning, causing no damage. A group of meteorological experts discussed and analyzed it but couldn’t figure it out. Some suspected it was due to industrial pollution. Fei Zhengtao had even asked Master Daqing about it, but the master only said not to worry about it.
As Fei Zhengtao just entered the market, he saw Liu Yuntao ahead. A man pretending to be casual was following her. At the right moment, he took out tweezers and tried to steal Liu Yuntao’s phone from her pocket.
Liu Yuntao was alert, sensing it immediately. She turned around suddenly and shouted, “Catch the thief!”
Before the words faded, she saw Fei Zhengtao dash forward in one step, grabbing the thief’s arm with his left hand, twisting it backward, and pushing his right shoulder forward, instantly knocking the thief dizzy and helpless.
The whole process was graceful and fluid, like a dance, leaving Liu Yuntao stunned until the thief groaned in pain.
“Great martial artist, you’re amazing! Thank you.” Liu Yuntao exaggeratedly praised and thanked him.
Fei Zhengtao smiled, “It’s nothing. I am a martial artist after all.”
While waiting for the market management to arrive, picking up the phone, Liu Yuntao curiously asked, “Which sect did you join? You look much stronger than those learning Taekwondo.”
“Yuxu Palace.” Fei Zhengtao answered calmly, knowing no one would recognize it.
“Oh.” As expected, Liu Yuntao didn’t know, then joked, “Great martial artist, can you teach me some self-defense techniques?”
“If you really want to learn, sure.” Fei Zhengtao didn’t refuse, smiling, “I’m planning to start a martial arts club in college, teaching interested students under the name of Ancestral Master Yuan Huang. After graduation, when I’ve saved enough money, I’ll open a martial arts school, not letting the martial arts passed down by Yuan Huang be forgotten.”
Listening to Fei Zhengtao speaking confidently and clearly, with clear goals, Liu Yuntao sincerely praised, “It’s really good that you know what you want to do and how to do it. I’m about to take the college entrance exam and still don’t know what major to choose.”
Fei Zhengtao smiled without saying more. His biggest goal was to achieve martial arts mastery, enter the Green Abyss at the initial stage, and reach the Real World.
After handing over the thief and making a statement, the two arrived at the woodcarving shop. The old man was carving, focused and said, “Don’t rush. Just finishing touches left.”
He continued carving without stopping, polishing the details. Fei Zhengtao and Liu Yuntao watched quietly.
When the woodcarving was completed, and the image of Yuan Huang fully revealed, a flash of silver lightning illuminated the sky, followed by a thunderclap that shook the entire city’s buildings, making doors and windows rattle.
Boom!
A green lightning bolt struck through the window, hitting the statue. Scattering silver snakes crackled wildly, making the place seem like the center of a thunderstorm.
When the silver snakes disappeared, Fei Zhengtao instinctively stood in front of Liu Yuntao and the old man, but all three were unharmed, and even the statue of Yuan Huang bore no marks, as if the green lightning had been an illusion.
Dripping sounds began, and the heavy rain that had been brewing for a week poured down like a release.
“Are you okay?” The old man picked up the statue, looking left and right, very puzzled.
Fei Zhengtao looked at the woodcarving, feeling that the “Statue of Yuan Huang” had gained an indescribable quality, like a deity statue that had been worshipped for hundreds or even thousands of years.
“As long as everyone is fine.” Paying the deposit with a strange feeling in his heart, he picked up the statue of Yuan Huang, said goodbye to Liu Yuntao, and returned home.
At home, Fei Zhengtao placed the not-so-large woodcarving on his desk. He then sat cross-legged beneath the statue of Yuan Huang, which exuded a majestic and serene aura. He calmed his expression, his breath long and steady, circulating cosmic energy.
The statue of Yuan Huang stood silently, sacred and profound.
…
In the cultivation chamber of Yuxu Palace on Kunlun Mountain.
Behind Meng Qi, the space suddenly darkened, as if connecting to a certain universe, revealing a statue with five long beards, majestic and solemn. The statue was distorted and still illusory, still distant from becoming an imprint, requiring time to settle and adjustments to fully align.
He inhaled two chaotic snakes through his nose, his back’s light and shadow shifting, multiple universes appearing. Besides the statue, there were eight more shadows: one was an indescribable being formed by countless glowing spheres, connecting many different times and spaces, containing all-inclusive information; one was two giant Transformers, representing destruction and creation respectively, merging into each other, aiming to return to the origin and transform into a primordial monkey-like being; one was a warrior wearing a golden saint robe, vanished in the river of history, eyes closed, sitting cross-legged in front of a giant stone Buddha statue, peaceful and unchanging…
Different universes, different forms, but all these were extremely powerful images, themselves possessing descriptions of transcending universes, nearly legendary. Meng Qi still had a long way to go before transforming them into imprints and integrating them into historical legends.
At this moment, all his acupoints were fully opened, but transforming his internal organs into universes still faced obstacles. After all, universes were higher than myriad worlds, omnipresent, of extremely high essence. Normally, one would cultivate to this stage only at the Creation Realm to transform the real world. However, the essence of Meng Qi’s Immortal Primordial Body was special, so he had to start training partially now.
Of course, these were not true universes. Even near-universes were not easy to cultivate.
In other words, Meng Qi progressed slower than he had assessed, still needing a final step to reach the Immortal Realm.
“Just staying in retreat might take a long time to break through.” Meng Qi opened his eyes, and the nine shadows and one real image behind him disappeared simultaneously. “It’s time to return to Yuxu Palace again.”
At this moment, numerous illusory money shadows and a vast amount of sentient power, merit, and moral qi suddenly appeared before him.
The money shadows belonged to the “Yuan Huang Coin,” the virtual currency corresponding to the Daoist harvest. The sentient power, merit, and moral qi came respectively from the Great Zhou Dynasty’s court and the Myriad Worlds Awareness Sphere. Regardless of the world, as long as the upper class didn’t completely exploit the lower, things would eventually develop toward convenient interaction. The current state of the Real World was exactly like this. As for why it wasn’t another way, of course, it was due to his own preferences.
The money shadows, sentient power, merit, and moral qi rolled and brewed changes, seemingly about to condense into magical treasures or refining materials.
Meng Qi opened his mouth, inhaling all these things, took one step forward, and descended into the Fengshen World.
He knew that every move of his couldn’t escape the gaze of great beings, so this time would be very dangerous.
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