5: Chapter 5 Life is always being pushed forward.

"Pack your things, go home." Xie Tianxiong's voice wasn't loud, but his tone left no room for negotiation.

To be honest, since Xie Feng transmigrated until now, this cheap father had spoken fewer than ten sentences to him in total.

Now that he suddenly popped up to take him home, Xie Feng's first reaction was vigilance.

"H—Home?"

"We'll talk about your Meridians when we get back." Xie Tianxiong glanced at him, his gaze carrying a hint of complexity. "The waters of the Qingyun Sect are too deep, you right now—"

"Clan Head Xie."

A voice interjected from behind, unhurried.

Elder Liu didn't know when he had walked over. The white-bearded and white-haired old man walked with his hands behind his back, a genial smile plastered on his face, looking just like an old grandpa sunbathing next door.

When he walked over, Xie Tianxiong's brow furrowed imperceptibly.

"Elder Liu." Xie Tianxiong turned around.

"Is the Xie Family Head planning to take the child back?" Elder Liu looked at Xie Feng with a smile. "This child quite strikes my fancy."

"My unworthy son has dull bones and Aptitude, and I fear he is unworthy of heavy responsibilities." Xie Tianxiong's tone was flat. "The Xie Family still has some ancestral conditioning methods. If he goes back and is carefully nourished for a few years, perhaps he can still make some progress. The Disciples of the Qingyun Sect are all prodigies; if he stays here, I'm afraid he'll waste the Sect's resources."

Xie Feng listened from the side.

He still remembered clearly the look in Xie Tianxiong's eyes when he kicked open the door last night.

That wasn't the look of a father looking at his son. Xie Tianxiong wanted to take him back not for any "nourishment and conditioning," but to figure out what kind of secret was hidden on him.

Probe it out and scare you to death.

Xie Feng thought to himself.

Elder Liu evidently saw it too.

"The Xie Family Head is being modest." Elder Liu's smile didn't budge at all. "Your esteemed son directly defeated a weirdness with a body of a single meridian; in the seventy years I've been alive, this is my first time seeing it. Such a rare talent being conditioned by the Xie Family's ancestral methods is simply using a great talent for a petty task. The Qingyun Sect has a Lingshu Pavilion dedicated to treating all kinds of difficult meridian problems. What the Xie Family Head cannot cure, this old man can give a try."

Xie Tianxiong's gaze sank slightly.

"Elder Liu, my unworthy son is merely good-for-nothing trash, and he is unworthy of the treatment of Lingshu Pavilion."

"What kind of talk is that? Once he enters the Sect, naturally he is worthy of it."

"The Disciples of the Xie Family will naturally be disciplined by the Xie Family."

"The Disciples of the Xie Family who enter the mountain gate of the Qingyun Sect are Disciples of the Qingyun Sect." Elder Liu's smile finally receded by half, revealing the pair of eyes beneath that were far too lucid for a seventy-year-old man. "Xie Family Head, you took out the token yourself. When you took it out, you should have thought it through clearly."

Silence.

The two old foxes stared at each other for less than two breaths, and Xie Feng saw it all clearly from the side.

Xie Tianxiong wanted to take him back to study him, and Elder Liu wanted to keep him in the Qingyun Sect to study him.

No one actually cared whether he had opened one meridian or nine Meridians; what they cared about was the "thing" on him.

Xie Feng suddenly felt a little like laughing.

Couldn't ask for anything better. Come on then, dragging one down with me means I make a killing.

"Elder Liu speaks the truth." Xie Tianxiong finally relented, his tone returning to flatness. "Since that is the case, I will entrust my unworthy son to the Sect."

When he said this, he didn't even glance at Xie Feng.

Elder Liu smiled again, resuming the appearance of a genial old man. "Rest assured, Xie Family Head. This old man will watch over him personally, your esteemed son won't be shortchanged."

Xie Tianxiong nodded and turned to leave.

When passing by Xie Feng's side, Xie Feng thought he was going to say something, even if just to put up a front. But Xie Tianxiong only paused for a split second, then continued walking. His robes disappeared into the side door of the Martial Arts Arena, and he didn't even look back.

Xie Feng looked at that retreating figure, suddenly feeling that the original body was quite pathetic.

Dumped in the remote courtyard by the Family for three years, his biological father's first reaction after discovering abnormalities on him wasn't care, but research. Now that the research wasn't working out, he turned around and left, too lazy to even say a few polite parting words.

"Let's go." Elder Liu patted his shoulder, his grip quite strong. "The flying boat departs in the afternoon. Let's return to the inn to pack your things first."

Xie Feng's shoulder slumped to the side from the pat.

Why is this old man's grip strength so big?

Walking outward behind Elder Liu, his mind was still replaying the clash from just now.

Xie Tianxiong and Elder Liu, adding the two of them together, who knows how old they were. From beginning to end, neither of them mentioned the abnormality on Xie Feng.

But every single sentence was talking about that matter.

Elder Liu definitely saw something, and Xie Tianxiong definitely saw something too.

The only disagreement between the two of them was: who gets to look.

Xie Feng walked half a step behind Elder Liu. Looking at the sparse white hair on the back of the old man's head, he suddenly spoke up: "Elder Liu."

"Hm?"

"Lingshu Pavilion, does such a place really exist?"

Elder Liu didn't stop his steps: "It does."

"Can it really cure Meridians?"

"Depends on the situation."

Xie Feng waited, but there was no follow-up.

"Old fox."

"Little slickster."

As expected, words are always only spoken halfway, leaving you to figure out the other half yourself.

Xie Feng stopped asking and quietly followed along. Anyway, asking wouldn't yield an answer, so he might as well save some strength.

That afternoon, the Qingyun Sect's flying boat parked on the mountain gate plaza.

That was a wooden multi-story boat capable of floating in the air without water, its hull covered in levitation array patterns that Xie Feng couldn't understand.

It had three stories, flying eaves, and bracket sets, looking even more grandiose than the Xie Family's mansion.

Xie Feng stood at the bow of the boat, watching Cangyun City beneath his feet grow smaller and smaller, turning into a small grid on a chessboard, and finally being swallowed by the clouds.

He looked back in the direction of Cangyun City.

The original body's nineteen years of life were there.

"Forget it, I won't think about it."

The flying boat passed through the clouds, and the wind blew his hair into a mess.

Xie Feng narrowed his eyes, looking at the churning sea of clouds on the distant skyline, suddenly feeling that something wasn't quite right.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

"Wait, the spot I was standing on just now was the left side of the bow, how did it become the right side now?"

Looking at the deck beneath his feet, the wooden grain was clearly visible under the sunlight, and every single pattern was normal, but Xie Feng always felt that those patterns were slowly moving.

It wasn't blown by the wind; they were moving on their own.

Like the skin of some living creature, slowly and imperceptibly breathing.

"Oh no, can I roll for Idea? I'm about to take an SAN check." Xie Feng looked away.

Do not delve deeply.

In this world with the cthulhu mythos, delving deeply into any detail is dangerous.

Until the Qingyun Sect's flying boat landed on the mountain gate plaza, Xie Feng still hadn't recovered from the fact that "Elder Liu actually wanted me."

The plaza was huge, large enough to place the entire Xie Family mansion side by side.

Paved with blue stone, twelve coiled-dragon stone pillars stood on both sides, their shafts covered in runes Xie Feng couldn't understand.

Directly ahead was a mountain gate. The three characters "Qingyun Sect" on the lintel were written with unknown Materials, emitting a faint golden light under the sunlight; staring at them for too long made one's eyes sour.

Xie Feng only glanced at it before looking away.

Hopefully this old plaque doesn't have some kind of artifact spirit inside; it wouldn't be good if Yog-Sothoth blows it up later.

Tu Ziguan, on the other hand, hadn't stopped talking all the way.

"Brother Feng, look over there, those are the Outer Sect Disciple dormitories of the Qingyun Sect. It is said that each person gets a room, which is bigger than our courtyards back home."

"Over there, over there, that dome-shaped building is the Scripture Repository. Outer Sect Disciples can enter once a month, and Inner Sect Disciples can enter at will."

"And over there..."

"Tu Wu."

"Hm?"

"What's with your mouth?"

Tu Ziguan took a bite of the dry ration and continued pointing at the distant buildings to introduce them to Xie Feng.

Xie Feng listened half-heartedly, thinking in his heart about the entrance assessment a month later.

Elder Liu made it very clear on the flying boat: all Disciples who enter can only be considered "Named Disciples". If they want to become formal Disciples, they must pass the entrance assessment a month later.

Assessment content unknown, examiners unknown, passing standards unknown.

"Isn't this the same as not saying anything? Teachers who don't define the scope for exams are the most damned!" Xie Feng cursed inwardly.

He lowered his head and looked at his hand; that single meridian was still lying listlessly in his Dantian.

He had spent a whole day trying to Cultivate the Xie Family's Cultivation Technique from the original body's memories. The spiritual power flowed a circle through that meridian, and the speed wasn't even as fast as a prostate patient.

It only made one cycle in a day.

In the time it took others to run a full cycle, he couldn't even finish half a circle.

With this cultivation speed, for the assessment a month later, how on earth is he supposed to pass?

Tu Ziguan finished chewing the dry ration and patted the crumbs off his hands: "Brother Feng, Elder Liu told us to go to the inn first, saying that all the Disciples selected this time live there, seems to be five people."

"Five? Who else is there besides you and me?"

"It should be the few who ranked near the top in this test." Tu Ziguan counted on his fingers: "I have seven Meridians and ranked fifth, there are four ahead of me, but as for who exactly they were, I didn't see clearly, I was too nervous during the test."

Xie Feng gave an "Oh".

He felt that Tu Ziguan was definitely talking bullshit; would a smooth person like him not know?

He reckoned that Tu Ziguan had already made contact days in advance and gotten familiar faces, and as for himself, it was probably because the Xie Family wanted to protect him that Tu Ziguan rushed over on the last day to see what kind of character he was. Such slick operators were the scariest.

Tu Ziguan going on stage to do an Aptitude test was probably just going through the motions; he must have tested it days ago, but just to get acquainted with Xie Feng, he put on that act.

Xie Feng didn't plan to think so much about it; he had no interest in making new friends, but Xie Feng currently needed a place to sit down—his legs were still shaking.

The flying boat flew too high; he was a bit afraid of heights.

"I want to take a bath, change clothes, and lie in bed with my eyes closed thinking about nothing at all."

The inn was at the junction of the Inner Sect and Outer Sect of the Qingyun Sect. It was a three-story wooden building with flying eaves and upturned corners, hanging a few everlasting lamps.

A servant stood at the entrance. Seeing Tu Ziguan and Xie Feng walking over, he immediately went up to salute them.

"Are the two gentlemen the newly arrived Disciples? Elder Liu has given instructions, please go upstairs."

Xie Feng followed Tu Ziguan up to the second floor. The stairs creaked when stepped on; the wood was indeed good timber, but after being old for a long time, every step was worn with slight depressions.

The second floor was a spacious hall. The windows opened facing south, and the afternoon sunlight shone in obliquely, cutting out several bright square light spots on the floor.

Four people were already sitting in the hall. Hearing the stairs creak, they all looked over uniformly.