228: Find out more about Shennongjia.

Inside the conference room, everyone was silent.

Then, the old man continued to speak.

"I hope that all Sect Heads will cooperate."

"This matter concerns the fate of Great Xia."

Upon hearing this, these Sect Masters and Sect Heads were like quails, each lowering their heads, no one daring to utter a sound.

Cooperate?

How to cooperate? Are they expecting us ordinary people to deal with zombies? What a joke.

But the consequences of not cooperating… they glanced at the expressionless men in black behind the old man, and swallowed the words that were about to come out.

…

At the same time.

"How could there be Spiritual Qi on Earth?!"

Lu Yuchen couldn't sit still; he had to go out and see.

As soon as he walked into the living room, he saw his father, Lu Jianguo, sitting alone on the sofa, puffing on a cigarette, his brows furrowed into a knot, his face full of worry.

The ashtray on the coffee table was already piled high with cigarette butts.

"Dad, it's so late, why aren't you asleep yet?"

Lu Yuchen walked over and sat beside him.

Lu Jianguo looked up at his son, whom he hadn't seen in twenty years, yet whose appearance hadn't changed at all since he left, his eyes filled with complexity.

He extinguished the cigarette in his hand.

"Xiaochen, tell Dad the truth."

"You… what exactly are you?"

What was destined to come, eventually came.

Lu Yuchen sighed in his heart, but he wasn't surprised.

Yes, a person whose appearance hadn't aged in twenty years, a person who, upon returning home, could miraculously cure two late-stage cancer patients who had been given a death sentence by the hospital.

If he couldn't see the problem then, that would truly be suspicious.

The family didn't speak of it, they just had a tacit understanding.

"Dad, some things, you might not believe if I tell you." Lu Yuchen pondered for a moment, deciding to lay out the truth. Of course, it would be a selective reveal.

Lu Jianguo said nothing, just stared at him intently, waiting for him to continue.

"Twenty years ago, I was traveling and accidentally fell off a cliff in Mount Tai."

A classic, almost clichéd, opening.

Lu Jianguo's heart clenched suddenly.

"I thought I was going to die, but I was saved by a passing Immortal."

"That Immortal saw that I had an extraordinary physique… ahem, that I was fated with him, so he took me back to his Sect and accepted me as his Disciple."

A hint of reminiscence appeared on Lu Yuchen's face; his acting was simply masterful, an Oscar was practically owed to him.

"What I cultivate is… the true Great Dao of Longevity, the method of Immortal cultivation."

"Now that my cultivation has achieved success, my Master, that old man, has allowed me to descend the mountain to visit my family."

Immortal cultivation!

Lu Jianguo stared blankly at his son, his mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg, and he couldn't close it for a long time.

He had lived most of his life, what kind of storms hadn't he seen? If these words hadn't come from his own son's mouth, he would have probably thought the person saying them had read too many novels.

"You… are you telling the truth?"

Lu Yuchen smiled, offering no further explanation.

He pulled his still-dazed father, and with a flicker of his body, they appeared in the villa's courtyard.

Then, with a thought.

An ancient, plain longsword materialized out of thin air, suspended before them. On the sword body, a faint blue light shimmered, exuding an aura of Immortals.

"Dad, hold on tight."

No sooner had he spoken than he had pulled Lu Jianguo, landing steadily on the sword's body.

"Rise!"

A soft shout.

Whoosh—!

The longsword transformed into a streak of light, soaring into the sky, instantly disappearing into the clouds.

"Ah—!"

Lu Jianguo let out an extremely terrified scream, instinctively wanting to close his eyes.

But then, an unprecedented sensation of comfort, as if his Soul was being purified, spread throughout his entire body.

Lu Yuchen had covered his father with a layer of magical power.

He slowly opened his eyes.

Below, were the myriad lights of homes, sparkling like a river of stars.

Above, was the boundless night sky, with stars seemingly within reach.

The feeling was like a dream, yet real.

"This… is this… an Immortal?"

…

At the same time, in the Guangnan City suburbs, at the radar monitoring station.

A staff member, who had been idly staring at the screen, suddenly sat up straight!

He rubbed his eyes hard, staring intently at the fleeting, incredibly fast red dot on the screen!

"Holy crap!"

His fingers frantically typed on the keyboard.

But no matter how he adjusted the parameters, how he tried to lock on, the radar screen remained normal, as if the red dot that had just defied the laws of physics was merely a hallucination.

"No! It's definitely not a hallucination!"

Out of a soldier's duty and meticulousness, he didn't even think, directly grabbing the phone on the desk and reporting to his superior.

"Report! Monitoring point 03 has detected an unidentified flying object, its speed… its speed is initially estimated to exceed Mach 20!"

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.

"Xiao Liu, are you drunk again?"

"Report! I'm not drunk! It's absolutely true!"

"Alright, I understand. I'll handle this."

The call ended.

Soon, the rest of the radar station staff were alarmed, gathering around.

But after searching for a long time, nothing was found.

"Xiao Liu, you rascal, are you under too much stress lately?"

"Exactly, did you just see things? Mach 20? Do you think aliens are flying UFOs here?"

Ultimately, with everyone "confirming" that the radar was operating normally, the incident was classified as "someone illegally using a drone in a no-fly zone" and was left unresolved.

And the staff member, Xiao Liu, who was the first to discover the anomaly, was ordered to write a 10,000-word self-criticism and was suspended for three days for reflection.

…

Inside the Lu family's villa courtyard.

Lu Yuchen, accompanied by his father who was still in a state of extreme excitement and shock, slowly descended.

As they neared the ground, he had already dispelled the protective magical power, and helped his father off the sword.

"Immortal! My Lu family truly has an Immortal!"

Lu Jianguo's old face was flushed with excitement, he grabbed Lu Yuchen's arm, his eyes now welling up with tears.

"Heaven has eyes! Heaven has eyes!"

The father and son talked for a long time.

It wasn't until dawn that Lu Jianguo reluctantly returned to his room to rest.

As for Lu Yuchen, he had no desire to sleep whatsoever.

He changed into a casual outfit and quietly left the villa.

The appearance of Spiritual Qi was no accident.

He had to investigate it thoroughly!

After some thought, Lu Yuchen decided to go to Shennongjia, as this place had always been known for its mystery.

Moreover, it was one of the places where he instinctively sensed a rich concentration of Spiritual Qi.

…

Half an hour later, Shennongjia, primeval jungle.

Lu Yuchen's figure moved like a ghost through the forest, as fast as lightning.

He was now at the Soul Transformation Stage of cultivation; this distance was but a flick of the finger for him.

The deeper he went, the denser the sparse Spiritual Qi in the air became.

Just as he reached a steep mountain cliff, his steps suddenly halted.

A faint smell of blood, mixed with an aura full of Death Qi and ill omen, came from not far away.

He frowned slightly, following the scent to investigate.

Under an ancient tree, a corpse dressed in a Great Xia military uniform lay quietly.

The corpse was already stiff, its face frozen in the extreme fear and… disbelief from before its death.

On his neck, there were two extremely subtle blood holes, as if bitten through by some wild beast's fangs.

Lu Yuchen's pupils suddenly contracted!

He recognized at a glance that this was no ordinary wild beast's doing!

The Qi remaining on this wound…

It was Corpse Qi!

This person was bitten to death by a zombie!