Chapter 202: How Could Immortals Have Such Fortune?
“Don’t ask questions you won’t understand; that thing has nothing to do with you at all.”
“I remember learning it once.”
“What you did wasn’t learning; it was being dragged by the teacher to be looked at by the real students.”
“Look at what?”
“Look at the difference between humans and monkeys.”
“Am I a monkey?”
“Good, you have a good sense of self-awareness.”
Yun Ce’s head was extremely stiff. He turned over and fell asleep. The Red Date Horse saw Yun Ce lying naked on the ground pitifully, so it picked up a blanket with its mouth and covered him with it.
Though the man had fallen asleep, his internal breath surged through his body like spring water. The damaged cells, the blocked meridians, and the disrupted arrangements all immediately burst with vibrant life after being nourished by the internal breath.
Yun Ce was awakened from his sleep by a murmuring sound. After opening his eyes, the murmuring vanished. He got up and walked out of the cave, where a full moon hung directly overhead.
1 Blood moon in the south, crescent moon in the north, full moon directly overhead.
1 Yun Ce listened attentively; the murmuring was actually the sound of grass rubbing against each other, interspersed with some insect chirps, giving the murmur rises and falls.
1 The moon was too bright, so the stars couldn’t be seen.
1 Yun Ce sat in the grassland with his arms hugging his knees, relaxing his mind and immersing himself in the sky, feeling as if wind grew from his sides and he was floating toward immortality.
1 The chronic numbness and swelling in his left arm had completely disappeared, as had the feeling that his left arm might detach from him at any moment. Like long ago, his left arm was now fully integrated with his body.
1 “Strolling naked at midnight isn’t a good habit. At least put on some clothes.”
1 Yun Ce shook his head and said, “You’re just an artificial intelligence, not advanced enough to enjoy this moment’s tranquility. This is a happiness only humans can exclusively savor.”
1 “A person who can’t even learn calculus?”
1 Yun Ce was silent for a moment before saying, “You won’t forget that I studied history, right? In other words, I’m a liberal arts student.”
1 “Liberal arts students are great. Come on, come on. You seemed to have some enlightenment just now. First, give me a seven-character quatrain to broaden your mindset.”
2 “I studied history, not a poet.”
2 “Fine, fine, fine. Since you studied history, then expound on ‘whose history is history’ for me, and prove the relationship between the ‘directionality of history’ and necessity versus contingency.”
2 “I didn’t study that deeply or research that thoroughly.”
2 “So what exactly do you want to do now?”
2 “I’ve gained great freedom and want to run wildly under the moonlight on the grass.”
2 “Strolling naked plus streaking?”
2 “You put it so harshly. Forget it, I’ll go back and put on clothes.”
2 “Put on clothes?”
2 “Go home.”
2 “Sounds good. I like E Ji and also like Zhang Min…”
3 The Red Date Horse was still skinny and taciturn, with ribs visibly protruding under its skin. However, it felt full of strength. When leaping forward, there was no jolting underfoot, and the dull sensation requiring muscle exertion to absorb shock had also vanished. One step followed another, smooth as a metal machine fully oiled with lubricating oil.
3 The ground continuously flickered past. Every time the Red Date Horse stepped down, Yun Ce felt his spirit tightly connected to the ground. This feeling was great, but like a fledgling eagle unwilling to fly, it prevented Yun Ce from sensing the vastness of the sky.
3 “After you go back, are you going to eagerly start mating to produce offspring?” Doggy asked with ill intent.
3 “Not as urgent as you think. Besides, you’re an artificial intelligence—why are you always so interested in others’ married life?”
3 “No other meaning. I just don’t want you to keep fantasizing. If you continue, I think you’ll lose interest in life in the human world.”
3 “We’re not uninterested.”
3 “If that’s the case, why did you sink your spirit into the ground to watch insects mating underground?”
3 “I wasn’t watching insects mating. I was just curious.”
3 “Stop being curious. Human thoughts are limited. If you spend more spirit on other things, you’ll inevitably neglect other aspects.”
3 Yun Ce, you should know which is more important.
4 Also, even as an artificial intelligence, from the data I’ve searched, becoming an immortal is a dead end that no one has ever successfully walked.
4 “We want to become immortals.”
4 “No, your actions just now prove you’re cultivating immortality. Many sources say it clearly: sink your spirit down to a depth beyond the reach of your five senses, and you can see light in the darkness. I think that’s inadvisable.”
4 Yun Ce was startled. Though he’d been denying it, this spiritual freedom had indeed made him lightheaded. Compared to exploring the mysteries of heaven and earth, farming, building cities, and married life all seemed rather dull.
4 Seeing Yun Ce reflecting, Doggy continued, “This is actually the knowledge barrier. Things low-level sentiments hold as life itself, high-level sentiments discard like worn shoes. Spiritual sublimation is never a good thing.”
4 When your emotions can’t connect with most people’s, right and wrong become less clear. Even if you’re doing evil, you won’t realize it’s evil, after all, your spirit has sublimated, differing from most people’s perceptions.
4 Also, your spiritual sublimation isn’t step-by-step from personal experience but a false sense of vastness produced after being scorched by shehuo. Go back, interact more with your wife and concubine, and you’ll recover.
4 Yun Ce laughed loudly: “So, I just contracted a condition called ‘elegance allergy’ and need human world mundanities to correct it?”
4 Doggy laughed along: “You just need to understand that shehuo’s foundation is myriad homes’ lights—it’s protection, shelter, not standing on high ground issuing orders. Those proud existences respond to every plea; what are you?”
4 Sure enough, Doggy was right. After the Red Date Horse crossed a large wasteland and Yun Ce saw a fierce beast that ran at the sight of him, that lightheaded feeling immediately vanished.
5 Seeing it couldn’t outrun the Red Date Horse, the fierce beast simply lay on the ground with limbs up, pretending to be a dead dog.
5 Yun Ce didn’t harm this pitiful fierce beast. He urged the Red Date Horse to hurry home. At this moment, he truly missed E Ji.
5 Many people searching for food on the wasteland saw Yun Ce and the Red Date Horse and raised their hands in cheers. Yun Ce waved back in greeting, as amiable as ever.
5 The Red Date Horse ran into the Yun Clan Villa, dropped off Yun Ce, and left on its own. E Ji saw Yun Ce but for the first time didn’t rush up to hug him. Instead, she stared at him intently with reddened eyes. After a long while, she stepped forward, took his hand, and said, “Weren’t you in secluded cultivation? Why did you run out without saying a word?”
5 Yun Ce went forward to hug E Ji and clearly felt much less flesh under her robe. As he was about to speak, he saw the equally gaunt Feng An and Liang Kun emerge from a nearby room. They said nothing, their eyes red as they deeply bowed to Yun Ce before returning.
5 Entering the room with E Ji, she closed the door. After An Ji chased away unrelated people, she buried herself in Yun Ce’s arms, opened her mouth wide, and cried silently.
5 “You didn’t come back at night and sent no message, so I knew something happened to you…”
5 “The next day you still didn’t return, and the Red Date Horse was gone. Feng An and Liang Kun sent many people to search for you on the wasteland. They feared finding you yet worried about not finding you…”
5 “On the third day you were gone, many people asked where you were. I didn’t dare say. Feng An said you were in secluded cultivation practicing martial arts. Zhang Min personally went to the wasteland to search for you and even found Cao Kun. From Cao Kun, she learned you were being pursued and killed by a powerful enemy and fled all the way to avoid implicating us.”
5 “After getting confirmation from Cao Kun, Zhang Min returned and moved to Jingkou Pass to live. She said an enemy you couldn’t beat, she certainly couldn’t either—not even qualified to die trying.”
6 She also said she had to guard your life’s work, not let your efforts be in vain.
6 “I couldn’t help you with anything… so I locked your training room, guarded outside, told everyone you were practicing martial arts, pretended daily to bring you food and clean clothes… An Ji and the others saw through it and cried…”
6 “I hit them, forbade them from crying. Every day going out, I had to wear a smile. If they couldn’t smile, I’d carry the rice bowl out as before, smilingly listen to their chatter, smilingly watch them do needlework… Wuwuwu, An Ji said I have no heart, that Young Master was being chased by enemies, yet I could smile so happily…”
6 E Ji cried extremely miserably. Yun Ce felt coolness on his face and touched it to find tears, immediately thinking Doggy’s worry about him cultivating immortality was pure nonsense.
6 He was still the same Yun Ce who craved warmth, unchanged from beginning to end. At most, his senses had become sharper, his strength greater, he ran faster, and one punch could kill a thousand-man general.
6 E Ji cried herself out. With Young Master back, her tense body and mind relaxed after days, exhaustion washed over her like a tide, and she drowsily leaned in Yun Ce’s arms.
6 Before sleep, she forced herself to ask, “What about that enemy?”
6 Yun Ce tucked her dangling hair behind her ear and softly said, “I killed him.”
6 E Ji mumbled indistinctly, “Good as long as you killed him, good as long as you killed him…”
6 Placing E Ji on the bed and covering her with a blanket, Yun Ce turned to Zhang Min, who had been standing at the door for a long time, and frowned: “You know I’m good at running away, so why get so tense?”
7 Zhang Min slowly walked over, reached out to touch Yun Ce’s cheek, stroked for a while, then lifted his arm and bit down.
7 While biting, she made the whimpering sound Doggy makes when biting things.
7 Yun Ce’s body was already as tough as an elephant pig. Zhang Min biting him was like biting a rubber tire, especially since it was his left arm.
7 Just as Yun Ce worried Zhang Min might break her teeth, she lifted her head, tearful, and said, “Next time you encounter a strong enemy, remember to bring me. I can at least harass the enemy for you.”
7 Yun Ce kissed her lip corner and said, “Your husband is very strong now. Next enemy, one slap and it’s dead.”
