"The elders have impure hearts and cannot learn the immortal arts," the immortal said. "Go again, and this time bring back younger children, preferably child servants."
"And those people..."
The immortal glanced at the dozen or so kneeling young people and sighed. "Since you have brought them, I will take care of them. You may go."
Gousheng did not even pause to catch his breath before setting off again.
This time, he traveled farther, showing the villagers his magic tricks and bringing back those who wished to seek immortality.
But each time, the immortal said it was not enough.
Gousheng could only continue his errand-running. The immortal warned him not to go to the cities, because city folk had already been corrupted by worldly desires and were unfit for cultivation.
Gousheng took the immortal's teachings to heart. But gradually, he noticed something wrong. He had brought back several dozen people, yet he never saw them again.
But Gousheng did not dare to ask. He knew the immortal had boundless power and must have settled those people somewhere.
Yet his growing anxiety made him restless. Finally, when he heard the immortal say "not enough" once more, Gousheng became cunning. Instead of leaving hurriedly, he secretly used his wall-passing spell under cover of night to enter the immortal's gate.
He saw the child servant who had first let him in giving some kind of Body-Forging Pill to the new seekers. He recognized the pill, but had never taken one himself.
Disappointment only lasted a moment, however. He remembered well the purpose of his quest for immortality.
But after taking the pills, those people's expressions gradually turned dull.
Gousheng watched them line up and walk deeper inside. Without much thought, he silently apologized to the immortal and followed them. He wanted to find the immortal, kneel before him again, and beg for guidance.
But these people crossed the garden, passed the altar, and finally headed toward the mountain behind. Gousheng had never been to the back mountain. The child servant had told him he was only a menial worker and was not allowed to wander.
From a distance, Gousheng saw two yellow lanterns.
He crept behind the seekers, thinking how he would beg the immortal when he saw him. But the stench of rot in the wind made him frown. As he drew closer, Gousheng finally saw clearly what lay before him.
Those were no yellow lanterns. They were two eyes with vertical pupils!
The seekers, dazed and dull, lined up and walked straight into its mouth. Gousheng could not tell what kind of monster it was. He screamed in fear, but none of the people he had brought paid him any attention. Even when he tried to block them, they acted as if he did not exist.
Frantic, Gousheng called out to the immortal. He knew the immortal could surely defeat this beast.
But what he did not expect was a deep, rumbling voice from the monster's mouth. He turned to see a ball of flesh writhing in the smoke rising from the creature's maw. A moment later, the immortal appeared.
Gousheng finally understood. There was no immortal here. Only a monster!
He turned and ran. But the immortal did not chase him.
Desperate to escape, Gousheng crossed the altar, crossed the garden, crossed the corridors. He even felt as if he were flying. No, not a feeling—he was indeed flying.
Gousheng stared blankly as his legs grew faint and blurred.
"Master, this stupid wight has finally caught on," the child servant said, teasing.
Gousheng looked down. His eyes passed over the "immortal" and the child servant, then stopped on a skeleton in the corner. The ragged clothes on those bones looked very familiar.
"Now that he's awake, it's time to get a new one," the immortal’s voice echoed.
Gousheng's consciousness slowly faded away.
Fang Zhiyi frowned. "Me, then?"
Xiaoxiaohei only stared back at him with wide, innocent eyes.
"Gousheng! Go chop firewood, now! Lazing around all day!" a woman's sharp voice came from behind Fang Zhiyi.
Fang Zhiyi slowly turned around. Li the Widow bustled past him, her heavy perfume making him wrinkle his nose.
"Get out now! If you delay my business, I'll skin you alive!"
"All this with no context... Where's the time traveler?" Fang Zhiyi muttered. Xiaoxiaohei just blinked at him. Fang Zhiyi sighed. He couldn't rely on the defective product Xiaoxiaohei had cooked up to be of any real use.
But that was fine. At least now his whereabouts would not be detected.
He casually grabbed a firewood knife and walked out. Not to chop wood, but to have something for self-defense.
According to Xiaoxiaohei's arrangement, the original owner must have some connection to the overall world plot. For now, he would just have to take things step by step. But if there was cultivation... Fang Zhiyi closed his eyes to sense the surroundings. To his surprise, he felt no spiritual energy.
"Old man, I've seen it with my own eyes! That dragon's body was enormous—bigger than the Blue Hua Mountain..."
"Old Cripple, you've had too much to drink again, always bragging about seeing a dragon," a villager teased. "Maybe that limp of yours is from the dragon itself."
The old man ignored the jibe. "You mortals, how could you ever see a dragon? But dragons are not benevolent celestial beings..."
"Spit, spit, spit! Everyone, go home!" A middle-aged woman shooed the surrounding children away, then frowned at the old man. "Uncle Cripple, don't just spout nonsense. If you offend the Dragon King, none of us can bear the consequences."
The old man grunted and muttered a few words under his breath before falling silent.
Fang Zhiyi studied him with interest. Someone noticed Fang Zhiyi standing there.
"Oh, Gousheng, you're out? Hasn't Li the Widow called you to serve her?"
Laughter rang out.
The middle-aged woman scolded them. "Are your fields all plowed? Talking dirty to a child!"
"Sister Zhang, everyone knows about Li the Widow. She's nothing but a madam! People are just saying what's true!"
"Pah!" Sister Zhang spat. "Enough, all of you, go!" She glanced at Fang Zhiyi with a hint of pity, then quickly left.
Fang Zhiyi narrowed his eyes. Sometimes, gossip corners in the village were the best places to pick up clues.
He had only suspected before, but now it seemed confirmed.
A widow who adopted a girl and strutted around all dolled up—any fool could guess how she made a living. Only the original addle-brained Gousheng never thought twice about it.
No wonder he never found the girl named Mengdie.
With that in mind, Fang Zhiyi narrowed his eyes and sneaked back to Li the Widow's house. As he climbed over the wall, he heard voices from the inner courtyard.
"Dear sir, I was planning to come and welcome you myself! Please, come in, come in."
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
