Hao was mentally crying out in frustration. He had been perfectly fine staying at the leader’s place on the Saint Bear Star; if things had gone really bad, he could have always resorted to selling love potions. Yet somehow, he ended up in this strange place, being kicked around like a ball by this bizarre woman.
However, Yang Hao could not have known that even worse things were yet to come. After being pierced through dozens of dimensions by Xin Mei, he finally arrived at the divine realm where the gods resided. But Yang Hao did not arrive safely. Before he could even get a sense of his surroundings, he felt himself crash into something.
With a loud crack, his spine hit something unknown, and a wave of thick, sticky liquid poured down from above, drenching him completely.
“Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! What the heck is this?” Yang Hao opened his eyes only to find himself completely soaked, covered from head to toe in a gooey, egg-like substance. “So unrefined! Who leaves eggs lying around like this? Just wait until I fry them all up and eat them.”
“Goodness, my dear apprentice, how did you end up in a chicken coop?” Hunyuanzi said with a hint of amusement.
“Chicken coop?” Yang Hao finally took a moment to observe his surroundings. He noticed that he was actually floating in midair. The space around him had returned to normal: green trees and earth below, a blue sky with drifting clouds above. Yet strangely, all around him floated a number of enormous eggs.
These eggs looked just like regular chicken eggs, except each was about as tall as a person—easily over 1.7 meters. Yang Hao had been kicked through the air and had collided with one of these giant eggs. Now, the egg had shattered into pieces so completely that not even a trace of it remained.
“Giants’ eggs? Giant eggs?” Yang Hao was at a loss for words. Who could have guessed that the moment he arrived in the divine realm, he’d be drenched in egg liquid?
“Oh no, oh no… we’re doomed,” Xin Mei said, her face pale.
“Too late to worry about that. What a waste! I should have fried it with some tomatoes,” Yang Hao casually replied, unaffected, as he pulled out a tissue to wipe off the egg goo.
“No, this is serious. We’re really doomed,” Xin Mei snapped, her eyebrows furrowing in anger. “This egg belonged to the divine race’s Garuda. He placed it here to be hatched by the natural energies of the world. A Garuda only lays one egg every ten thousand years, and it takes another ten thousand years for the offspring to hatch. In other words, this egg was literally his child. You just smashed his son to pieces. He’s going to tear you apart.”
“No way!” Yang Hao’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “It’s just an egg! You can buy as many as you want at the supermarket. I could have bought a few boxes to replace it. Besides, there are so many eggs floating around here—only one got broken. What’s the big deal?”
“You idiot!” Xin Mei was furious. “All the other eggs are decoys, meant to protect the real one from clumsy fools like you. Out of all these floating eggs, only one contains actual life—the one with the egg liquid. And guess what? You had the worst luck in the world and hit that one right on the head.”
“I’ve always had great luck,” Yang Hao muttered bitterly. “Otherwise, how could I have ended up in this place to be tortured by you?”
“Haha! Well, now you won’t need me to torture you anymore. Someone else will take care of that,” Xin Mei said with a sarcastic laugh. “Garuda is known for his terrible temper. Next to the Dragon Clan, he’s the one most likely to eat people. In a bit, you’ll probably end up on his dinner plate.”
As she said this, Xin Mei gave Yang Hao a look usually reserved for a dead man, shaking her head in mock pity, clearly considering making a quick escape.
“Wait! Calm down!!” Yang Hao quickly stepped forward to block her. “Uh… Divine Lady, the main responsibility for this incident lies with you, right?”
“What do you mean, ‘my fault’?!” she replied, trying to maintain her ladylike image.
“Come on! Don’t you remember? It was you who kicked me up here with your ‘Flying Phoenix Kick.'”
“Did I really do that?” Xin Mei feigned innocence, blinking her eyes with exaggerated cuteness. “Impossible! I’m a lady, after all. How could I do something so crude? You must be mistaken.”
“Mistaken!!!” Yang Hao was furious. He thought he was the biggest scoundrel around, but clearly, there was someone even worse. “How can you forget something like that? Hey, big sis, you kicked my butt so hard that I can still feel your footprint there on my beautiful, cute behind! Don’t even try to deny it!”
Faced with the undeniable truth and Yang Hao’s rising temper, Xin Mei finally gave in a little. “Okay, so maybe I did kick you. But you were the one who smashed the egg, right? You’re still covered in egg liquid! Are you really going to try to blame me for that too?” She said the last few words in a sweet, cutesy tone that could almost melt a person’s bones.
“Exactly! That’s right, my good apprentice. Just admit it quickly. Why make things hard for such a pretty girl?” Hunyuanzi, clearly smitten, jumped in to support her.
Thankfully, Yang Hao wasn’t completely clueless. Before coming here, he had heard that the divine race often ate humans, and no one who had been sent there before had ever returned. If Garuda discovered that his precious ten-thousand-year-old egg had been destroyed, he would certainly seek vengeance. Yang Hao had no intention of taking the blame for this.
“The truth is this…” Yang Hao began, leaning on his silver tongue. “Back on the dewdrop, you raised your leg and kicked me away. At that moment, I was in a completely unconscious state. Without consciousness, I couldn’t be considered a person. So technically, I wasn’t even human at that point. You kicked me with a perfect arc, like David Beckham himself. Deep down, you were treating me like a ball—a poor little ball kicked high into the sky.”
Yang Hao concluded dramatically: “To sum it all up, you treated me like a ball and kicked me straight into the sky, where I hit and shattered the egg. Therefore, you are the sole culprit. I was just a poor little ball. Have you ever heard of someone blaming the ball instead of the kid who kicked it through someone’s window?”
Yang Hao’s speech was so passionate and eloquent that it nearly moved Hunyuanzi to tears. The old man immediately changed sides: “Apprentice, you’re absolutely right! It’s the lady’s fault.”
Even Xin Mei was momentarily speechless. Though she was sharp-tongued and good at playing dumb, she had lived for so long among the gods in this remote, birdless place that she had little experience arguing. How could she possibly outwit the experienced Yang Hao?
Just then, a blinding golden light suddenly filled the sky, as if ten suns had risen at once, nearly blinding everyone.
A massive figure slowly descended from above. Yang Hao looked up and saw a man nearly five meters tall. The man wore nothing on his upper body, and only a few silk ribbons around his waist. But behind him stretched a pair of enormous golden wings. His face had the beak of a chicken, glowing with golden light, giving him a solemn, imposing presence.
As soon as the man landed, he floated toward Xin Mei and spoke: “Hello there, Xin Mei. The weather is lovely today. What brings you here?”
When Xin Mei saw the man, her face turned pale. She inhaled sharply a few times before forcing a smile: “Oh… Garuda, you’re home. Today is just the day when the mortals deliver new humans to us, so I…”
“Humans?” Garuda glanced at Yang Hao, his golden eyes shooting cold beams of light that enveloped Yang Hao’s entire body. “Hmph. The mortals are getting lazier. This human they sent is pathetically weak.”
“Yeah, yeah!” Xin Mei wiped sweat from her forehead and tried to leave. “I have things to do. I’ll be going now.”
“Wait!!” Before either of the two troublemakers could take a step, Garuda roared. His eyes fixed on the empty space where the giant egg had been moments ago. Now, it was completely gone.
“Let’s deal with business first,” Garuda said, quickly advancing toward them. In an instant, the sky darkened. The bright, sunny sky turned gloomy, as if a storm were about to break. Garuda’s face was grim, his golden eyes now glowing with a blood-red hue, and his voice dripped with killing intent. “Where is my egg? My son? It was right here! Where did it go?”
“Where did it go… it went…” Xin Mei began to tremble. Though she was tough, she was nowhere near as powerful as Garuda, who ranked among the top ten fighters in the divine realm. If she wasn’t careful, not only Yang Hao but even she herself might not survive this.
“How should we know where your egg went?” Yang Hao quickly spoke up, helping Xin Mei out of a tight spot. “Mister Chicken, you should keep your eggs better hidden. If you don’t have a better place, just keep them tucked in your pants. If you keep showing them off, sooner or later you’re going to lose one. That’s a lesson for you.”
“ROAR!!!” Garuda bellowed furiously, his hair standing on end as he glared at Yang Hao. “Who are you? What right do you have to speak to me like that?”
“Eh-hem,” Yang Hao, who had felt a momentary flicker of fear, quickly regained his composure. In chaos, he remained calm—that was one of his greatest skills. “Well… I’m actually this Xin Mei’s little lover. Of course, we’re keeping it a secret. Although, you could also consider me one of the ‘humans’ you’re so fond of eating… want to try?”
“WHERE IS MY EGG?!” Garuda, already furious without any aphrodisiacs, roared so loudly it seemed like the heavens and earth might collapse and the universe might reverse itself.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage