Chapter 22: Feather Immortal
The relief sculptures on the two magnificent bronze doors presented two starkly different artistic conceptions and flavors.
The “Myriad Lights of Homes” on the left door was like presenting a real ancient city full of the hustle and bustle of the mortal world.
Just gazing for a moment, Li Weiyi felt as if his soul had been pulled inside. Walking on the streets under the night curtain, surrounded by hawking calls and the bustling energy of carriages and horses.
The “Yellow Springs Starry River” on the right door had a grand and majestic aura, a river formed by densely packed stars. Like the Milky Way Galaxy in the night sky, but this starry river was not silver, but a dim yellow.
“Is this where the owner of the bronze ship lived? Has It truly passed away?”
Li Weiyi thought that the garden could emit immortal radiance and mist, perhaps containing spring water and mysterious exotic treasures inside.
On the ship, water was extremely scarce.
Golden Crow Blood and Black Flood Dragon Blood obviously could not be drunk casually; they were extremely dangerous and not a fundamental solution to the problem.
“Sand sand!”
Just as he stepped onto the stone steps, a gust of wind force came from nowhere.
Li Weiyi had supernatural power at his side and was full of courage, continuing to walk upward.
He reached the top of the stone steps.
He first peered inside through the gap between the two doors.
The gap was two fingers wide.
In his field of vision, behind the door was very spacious, with a shadow wall made of black stone below, and a black-and-white Tai Chi lake at the base.
In the center of the lake, a giant sword that intimidated the soul was thrust in, its sword body forged from two starkly different materials: pitch black and scarlet red.
Li Weiyi extended both hands, channeling the scalding hot qi flow surging from the sole of his right foot, attempting to push the door.
“Boom!”
His hands were still half a foot from the bronze door when a force like a landslide and tsunami surged wildly, shocking him to fly backwards like a falling leaf, lightly landing on the ground below the stone steps.
“New master of the Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish, this door is not one you can enter now. You are the bearer of karma, not its creator. Be on your way…”
A faint voice came, seeming to ring directly in Li Weiyi’s mind, or as if transmitted from the bronze door before him.
“Who are you, and what karma are you talking about?” Li Weiyi asked.
There was no response.
“Whoosh!”
The air trembled, and a semi-transparent light screen rose along the courtyard wall, enveloping the entire garden.
It persisted for a long time before dissipating.
They had issued an order to see him out!
Li Weiyi immediately retreated, staring at the massive bronze door, feeling that the voice just now did not seem to exist in this spacetime, more like a conversation between an ancient person from a thousand years ago and someone from the present.
A very strange feeling.
Undoubtedly, the bronze ship’s setting sail, including their fall into the micro, was absolutely inseparable from the Dao Ancestor Tai Chi Fish.
Master, oh Master, you must know something.
What terrible karma did becoming the head of the Chan Sect entail?
“Li Weiyi!”
Cai Yutong’s voice came from behind.
“Senior Student…”
Li Weiyi let out a long breath, quickly clearing the various distracting thoughts from his mind, turning around… The smile that had just appeared on his face instantly froze, his eyes scanning Cai Yutong up and down in disbelief.
Was this Senior Student Cai?
Cai Yutong was wearing Doctor Qi’s white physician coat, which only hung down half a foot below her waist, her two straight and excessively long jade legs almost completely exposed.
More importantly.
Her skin was whiter than the physician coat on her body, delicate and moist, like carved from immortal jade, crystalline and translucent, containing a faint glow.
Her jet-black long hair naturally cascaded down, contrasting sharply with her white jade skin.
Those eyes were like they had been washed by divine spring water, far brighter than before, containing spirituality.
Her lips bore no lipstick but were moist and rosy red, like carved rubies.
Her appearance had already been extremely high, but now…
It was no longer a matter of appearance; it seemed she had already become immortalized.
There were no flaws on her body anymore, as if she represented all the beauty in the world. Just standing there turned the surroundings into an immortal land, even if outside was the eerie and terrifying Soul Sea.
Li Weiyi considered himself highly immune to women’s beauty, more focused on martial arts training. But the current Cai Yutong brought him a huge shock to his heart.
Where was this still Senior Student Cai?
This was Yu Xianzi!
If he took the red clothes from the White Bone Demon in the ice coffin in the tomb and put them on her, wouldn’t she be perfectly an immortal fairy descending to the mortal world?
“Staring at Yutong like that, don’t tell me you know she’s not wearing anything underneath?” With Cai Yutong there, the fear Qi Shanshan felt toward Li Weiyi had lessened somewhat.
Li Weiyi quickly withdrew his gaze, secretly performing the Jade Void Breathing Technique to let his heartbeat return to normal, then took off his outer garment and handed it over: “Wear mine first. Do you… need pants?”
Cai Yutong said: “If I wear your clothes and pants back, what will the scientific expedition team members think?”
Li Weiyi thought carefully and realized she had a point.
So, his gaze turned to Qi Shanshan.
Qi Shanshan said: “If I take them off again, it’s not impossible, but then I’d only have…”
Li Weiyi said: “What I mean is, Doctor Qi can first return to the cabin on the bow side and bring some clothes over.”
“Alright!”
Qi Shanshan didn’t dare complain and walked toward the ship tower passage.
Seeing Cai Yutong drink Golden Crow Blood and shed her mortal shell, breaking out of her cocoon to gain a flawless fairy-like body, she who always loved beauty was naturally envious.
But thinking that she could also drink Golden Crow Blood, that envy naturally dissipated.
As long as Zhao Meng recovered, the future was still promising.
Li Weiyi, don’t think you’re so fierce now; who knows who will be on top in the future.
…
Cai Yutong seemed indifferent to whether she was wearing anything underneath, without that contrived shy awkwardness: “She just told me everything! She actually… sensed the crisis of life and death in advance, had no sense of security, and wanted to seek a way to live.”
“Senior Student is pleading for her?”
“She saved me.”
Li Weiyi said: “Does Senior Student know what happened on the ship? Hearing it from others and seeing it with your own eyes might be two completely different experiences. And I think Senior Student may not understand Doctor Qi that well!”
“She saved you too.” Cai Yutong said.
A sea breeze blew, lifting large swathes of the white physician coat’s hem.
Li Weiyi quickly looked away and sighed: “Precisely because she saved me, it was harder for me to decide than ever before… Senior Student, you should still put on my clothes first. I even suggest you wear a hat and face mask. If you go back to the scientific expedition team like this, I’m afraid it will soon spark another turmoil.”
He felt that Cai Yutong’s current beauty was irresistible to most people, too tempting to crime, enough to make many take desperate risks.
Red beauty brings disaster; nothing more than this.
“Alright then, everyone should be responsible for their own mistakes; you make your own decision.”
Cai Yutong looked up at the sky: “It seems like dawn is breaking; the light is coming from… the bow direction.”
Calculating the time, it was indeed about time for dawn.
But one must know, there was no night or day on the Soul Sea, only the starry sky.
How could light appear in the sky?
Not only did light appear, but clouds too.
“Dawn broke?”
Li Weiyi found it unbelievable.
In the direction the bronze ship was advancing, light indeed appeared ahead.
The stars were rapidly thinning and dimming, darkness receding.
Just like morning arriving.
Looking again at the sea surface beyond the gunwale, the originally ink-black seawater now had many broken golden ripples. There were no more lost souls in the sea, and cloud masses actually appeared in the sky.
Only, the cloud masses were huge and low, and golden.
“Great, those eerie and terrifying hordes of lost souls have finally disappeared. I have a premonition that this world definitely has shores.” Li Weiyi was in high spirits, his face full of a bright sunny smile.
For this recent period, both the external environment and internal turmoil had been too oppressive.
After waiting nearly an hour, the darkness and starry sky had long completely vanished.
Sea and sky were both dyed with golden rosy clouds.
The view was wide open, refreshing the mind and spirit.
But Qi Shanshan still hadn’t returned with clothes.
“Something’s happened; we can’t wait any longer.”
Cai Yutong tied Li Weiyi’s clothes around her waist and headed first toward the ship tower passage.
Li Weiyi thought Cai Yutong’s judgment was correct; something must have happened to Qi Shanshan. Otherwise, it was impossible for her not to return after so long. But what danger could there still be on the ship?
Li Weiyi and Cai Yutong walked all the way to the bow but didn’t encounter Qi Shanshan.
Outside the medical tent, they met Qin Ke.
Qin Ke said joyfully: “Brother Weiyi, where did you go? Everyone’s been looking for you. Hurry to the bow outside the nether mist; a miracle, a miracle has appeared!”
“Brother Weiyi?”
Cai Yutong looked at Li Weiyi.
She clearly remembered that these students of Professor Xu were all graduate students, several years older than Li Weiyi.
Li Weiyi asked: “Qin Sis, have you seen Doctor Qi?”
Hearing the address “Qin Sis,” Qin Ke was slightly stunned before saying: “No, everyone thought she was with you last night.”
Li Weiyi and Cai Yutong exchanged glances.
Qi Shanshan couldn’t have fled out of guilt, could she? Where could she flee to?
Moreover, Li Weiyi believed he had made it very clear: he wouldn’t expose her and would give her a chance to reform.
Qin Ke’s gaze shifted from Li Weiyi to Cai Yutong and couldn’t move away again.
More importantly, Doctor Cai had Li Weiyi’s clothes tied around her waist.
So they had been together last night.
“Doctor Cai… you…”
Qin Ke, a woman herself, was stunned by Cai Yutong’s beauty, mouth agape. Then she lowered her head, falling into self-mockery and inferiority, wanting only to flee immediately.
“I’ll go look in a mirror first and change clothes.”
Cai Yutong felt her appearance might really be a bit outrageous. What’s the use of a researcher being good-looking? Could it win a Pulitzer Prize?
Li Weiyi walked out of the nether mist to the bow.
Finally seeing the miracle Qin Ke mentioned, his scalp instantly went numb, shocked to the point of holding his breath.
