141: Chapter 141 Global Spiritual Energy Subtly Recovering? The Old Ghosts of the Ancient Martial Arts World Can't Sit Still Anymore
That pillar of light shone on the horizon.
The ground shook again and again, causing the empty teacup on the desk to hum with vibration, and the tea stains at the bottom shifted.
People on the streets went crazy.
Someone rushed out of a bathhouse shirtless, still covered in unrinsed soap bubbles, shouting wildly.
"Seriously, this earthquake came at just the right time."
Gu Qianqian sat down on the floor with a thud.
The potato chips in her hand spilled all over the floor, gathering dust, but she didn't bother picking them up, still having half a piece stuffed in her mouth.
Qin Yuan reached up and scratched the back of his neck.
Just a moment ago, he felt the hair on his body stand on end, accompanied by an itchy sensation.
"Boss, your neck is covered in a large red patch. Are you having an allergic reaction?"
Gu Qianqian sniffled and wiped her face haphazardly with the back of her hand.
The pile of used tissues in front of her emitted a medicinal scent.
"It's not an allergy."
Qin Yuan looked down at the purple clay teacup on the table.
The few tea leaves that had been floating on the water were now actually sprouting.
Green, tender shoots were pushing out at a speed visible to the naked eye, pushing the water right out of the cup.
"This tea... it's growing on its own?"
Gu Qianqian craned her neck to look, a speck of black keyboard dust still stuck to the tip of her nose.
"Spiritual Energy."
Qin Yuan spat out these two words.
His voice sounded muffled, as if his throat were stuffed with cotton.
Ah Fu walked in from outside, his gait leaning slightly inward.
He had a slight limp in his right leg, an old ailment from a gunshot wound in the past.
"Young Master, the green belt outside has gone crazy."
Ah Fu spat into the trash can, his throat dry as if it were on fire.
"Those holly bushes have grown taller than a person and blocked the road completely."
"Also, Big Brother Wang Hu called."
Ah Fu wiped the sweat from his forehead; the sweat felt sticky.
"He said that the Tibetan Mastiff he keeps bit through its iron cage just now and ran away."
Qin Yuan walked to the window.
The smell in the air had changed; the usual exhaust fumes and gasoline scent were gone.
There was an indescribable sweetness, mixed with a damp, earthy scent.
Breathing it into his lungs felt cool, yet his stomach felt a bit warm.
"The Heavenly Dao is getting desperate; it's smashed open the gates."
Qin Yuan wiped his fingertip on the windowsill; it came away covered in black ash.
"Gates? What gates?"
Gu Qianqian scratched her messy hair, spinning a screwdriver at her fingertips.
"The seals. The rules that prevent extraordinary powers from existing in this world."
Qin Yuan turned most of his body to look at her.
"It has released the Spiritual Energy now. Those old monsters who were waiting to die in the mountains are likely all going to come back to life."
"Then, are our guns still useful?"
Gu Qianqian pointed at the light machine gun in the corner and asked in a low voice.
"Useful, but not as effective as before."
Ah Fu chimed in from the side.
"I just tested my internal energy; it's more than twice as smooth, and those old hidden injuries seem to be purging themselves."
He rolled up his sleeve.
Some blackish sweat was seeping out of his arm, smelling sour and foul.
"Then won't the world be in chaos?"
Gu Qianqian muttered, uneasily pulling her legs up onto the chair.
"Chaos is good; only in chaos can one fish in troubled waters."
Qin Yuan tugged at his collar.
The hot sweat made his undershirt stick to his back, feeling sticky and uncomfortable.
"Young Master, there's movement from Vampire Princess Anna as well."
Ah Fu sniffled.
"She said her heartbeat has returned, and her whole body feels like it's burning up."
"Heartbeat? Vampires have heartbeats too?"
Qin Yuan turned his head, his brows furrowed together.
"That's what she said verbatim. She said she wants to eat something spicy; before, eating that stuff was like taking poison, but now she wants to eat the Malatang from that place in Jiangzhong City."
Ah Fu picked at his slightly reddened nose.
Qin Yuan snorted coldly.
"Tell her to stay put and not run around everywhere. Showing her face at a time like this makes her an easy target."
"Alright, I'll go tell her right now."
Ah Fu retreated, his leather shoe heels making dull thuds on the wooden floor.
"Boss, look at the monitor for the Kunlun Mountains! There's a feed!"
Gu Qianqian shouted, clicking the mouse frantically, her saliva nearly spraying onto the screen.
On the big screen, the Kunlun Mountains, which had been covered in snow and wind, were seeing huge swaths of snow collapsing downwards.
Revealing the dark green mountain ridges beneath, with mudslides rolling down the mountain like giant pythons.
In the ruins, a palace that looked incredibly old was emerging bit by bit from the mud and sand.
The plaster was peeling off, revealing the pitch-black wood inside, emitting the scent of rotting timber.
"This temple... it must be several hundred years old, right?"
Gu Qianqian leaned her face close to the screen, her eyes wide.
"Not several hundred, but over a thousand."
Qin Yuan stared at the three large characters on top of the palace.
The handwriting was a bit blurry, but still recognizable—Kunlun Void Sect.
"That is the lair of the Ancient Martial World."
The image shook, and the camera zoomed in.
In front of the palace gate, an old man wearing a tattered Daoist robe was sitting on the stone steps with his eyes closed.
His hair was gray and white, his beard hanging down to his chest, covered in a bit of dust.
Standing beside him was a Little Daoist, holding a broom and wiping away tears.
"Master, you've finally opened your eyes. The snow at the foot of the mountain has all melted, and our vegetable patch has been washed away by the water."
The Little Daoist sniffled; his sleeve had the stale smell of someone who hadn't bathed in years.
The old man slowly opened his eyes.
His eyeballs were gray and murky, as if covered by a film of dead fish-eye white.
But deep within that deathly white, two rays of light suddenly flashed.
Like two needles, staring straight ahead.
"The murky air of the secular world has become heavy."
The old man slowly stood up.
The straw sandals on his feet were in tatters, revealing his cracked heels.
"Master, what do we do now? Should we go down the mountain to buy rice?"
The Little Daoist shrank his neck, his stomach grumbling with a loud noise that echoed in the empty valley.
"Buy rice? No."
The old man brushed the dust off his Daoist robe and grabbed a rusty iron sword from the side.
"We are going to the capital."
The old man exhaled a puff of white breath, which carried a fishy, earthy scent.
"What are we going to the capital for? The hunters at the foot of the mountain say the Qin Family there is very powerful and has a lot of guns."
The Little Daoist rubbed his shriveled stomach, feeling a bit scared, and shrank back.
"Guns? They are nothing but burning iron pipes."
The old man snorted coldly and took a step into the void.
With this step, his foot landed directly in mid-air.
As if there were invisible stairs beneath him.
"To take back what belongs to us."
The old man's voice echoed in the valley.
The Little Daoist, watching from behind as the old man stepped into the air and ascended, was so scared he dropped the broom and knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly.
"An immortal... Master has become an immortal!"
And the old man's gaze.
At this moment.
Across thousands of kilometers of clouds and mist.
Stared straight.
Toward the direction of the capital.
"Boss, it's not just the Kunlun Mountains; the Skynet alarm hasn't stopped ringing since just now."
Gu Qianqian rubbed her red-rimmed eyes and threw a wad of tissue onto the floor.
"Over at Shaolin, a blind monk who rings the bell lifted that ten-thousand-jin bronze bell with one hand this morning."
"Over at the Wudang Sect, a paralyzed Daoist who had been bedridden for ten years did eighteen somersaults in front of the statue of the True Martial Emperor today, and is now clamoring to go down the mountain to take on disciples."
She piled a large stack of documents in front of Qin Yuan; the documents were covered in greasy fingerprints.
"Are these people all considered Children of Destiny?"
"Not really."
Qin Yuan lit his second cigarette.
"These are just small fry borrowing the light of the Heavenly Dao; the real big fish are still to come."
"Then what do we do? We can't just watch them steal our trump cards, right?"
Gu Qianqian bit on the stick of her lollipop.
"Steal?"
Qin Yuan exhaled a puff of smoke; as the smoke dissipated, it revealed his face covered in red marks.
"On this land, no one has ever been able to steal anything from my, Qin Yuan's, hands."
"If guns aren't effective, then use cannons. If cannons aren't effective, then use nuclear bombs."
"I'd like to see if the Body-Protecting Qi of these old bones can withstand temperatures of over ten thousand degrees."
He grabbed the teacup from the table.
The few tea leaves that had sprouted emitted a strange, fragrant aroma in the boiling tea water.
Qin Yuan tilted his head back and swallowed everything, tea leaves and water alike.
A burning, stinging pain shot through his throat.
"Alright then, I'll have Ah Fu fill up the helicopter with fuel; we can leave at any time."
Gu Qianqian wiped her nose and tossed the tissue ball on the table into the trash can.
"No rush. Let them come to us."
Qin Yuan's lips curled into a cruel arc.
"I'll be right here in the capital, waiting for them to come and take it."
His gaze pierced through the mist outside the window.
And thousands of kilometers away, the old man's gaze from the Kunlun Mountains seemed to pierce through space, colliding fiercely with Qin Yuan's gaze in mid-air.
"Master, I heard that Qin Yuan is a demon who specializes in killing us cultivators."
The Little Daoist, clinging to the old man's leg on the stone steps, cried out.
The old man lowered his head, looking toward the direction of the ancestral grave, which was now empty and left with only a pile of ashes.
"A demon? In the face of absolute power, he is nothing but a whetstone."
He patted the Little Daoist's head.
"Come, follow your master to meet this King of the secular world."