Chapter 116: Cloud (7)
116 – Cloud (7)
“Whatever you do, don’t tell my master and the others I’ve returned.”
The car arrived downstairs, and without another word, Lin Xun scooped up the cat with one hand, grabbed Jia Gou’s black jacket with the other to cover his head, and swiftly dashed toward the third floor. As he fled, he couldn’t help but think his getup made him look like he’d just robbed a bank.
Just as he reached the landing between the second and third floors, he heard footsteps descending, accompanied by a hoarse yet powerful voice: “Halt.”
Lin Xun halted.
“Who goes there, sneaking around?” the voice continued.
Lin Xun had no choice. He pulled down the jacket covering his head. “Mas… Master.”
Standing before him was a man dressed in a black Tang suit, its hem embroidered with pine trees, cranes, clouds, and water—none other than his master, Old Man Huo. In his hand was a woven basket, as if he were on his way to buy groceries. Of all the luck, why did he have to run into him now?
Seeing him, Old Man Huo narrowed his eyes. “So you still remember to come back?”
Lin Xun replied obediently, “Your disciple has been unfilial.”
With that, he lowered his head, trying to avoid his master’s scrutiny.
Then Old Man Huo asked, “You’ve been gone for days. Did you find a girlfriend?”
“No,” Lin Xun denied immediately. “Not a girlfriend, just… made a friend.”
Old Man Huo’s gaze swept over his face like a knife. “Is that so?”
Lin Xun: “Yes.”
“Good.” Old Man Huo continued, “Have you been diligently cultivating lately? What’s your current realm?”
“Huh?” Old Man Huo suddenly let out a puzzled exclamation.
Lin Xun: “Master, what’s wrong?”
Old Man Huo frowned deeply, looking him up and down once more. “Why can’t I see through your cultivation level? Are you using some kind of artifact to conceal your cultivation?”
Lin Xun knew why.
In cryptography, there’s something called a security clearance. Each piece of information is assigned a different level of confidentiality, and each person also has a different clearance level. Those with higher clearances can view information with lower classifications, but those with lower clearances cannot access information above their level. The same principle applies in the Cultivation system. Elders with higher realms can easily discern the cultivation levels of juniors, while juniors with shallow cultivation cannot perceive the true depth of their seniors’ cultivation—this is the suppression of hierarchy.
Now, Old Man Huo couldn’t see his cultivation level because Lin Xun had already entered the Soul Division stage, surpassing Old Man Huo’s Nascent Soul stage.
From now on, not only Old Man Huo but also Xiaoyaozi, Butterfly Madam, Bihai Xianzi, and all the other elders would be unable to see through his true cultivation. They would surely easily deduce the reason for this situation. It was precisely because Lin Xun didn’t know how to explain it to his elders that he didn’t want them to discover him. But now that things had come to this, he had no choice but to explain.
Actually, it wasn’t such a big deal. Throughout his science classes growing up, he had countless experiences of solving problems even his teachers couldn’t handle. So surpassing his elders in Cultivation realms wasn’t anything particularly unusual.
Lin Xun said, “Master, while studying computer science, I had a sudden inspiration and advanced two major realms.”
Old Man Huo stared at him deeply for a few moments.
He continued to gaze at Lin Xun, unmoving.
Just then, Wang Anquan, Zhao Jiagou, and Jiang Lian finished parking the car and walked up the stairs. Wang Anquan, leading the way, saw Old Man Huo standing motionless and muttered under his breath, “Did he have a stroke?”
Old Man Huo’s eyes shifted and glared at him.
Wang Anquan immediately fell silent.
Only Old Man Huo’s voice carried a slight tremor: “Come with me.”
Lin Xun obediently followed. The door on the fourth floor opened, where a group of seniors were drinking tea and chatting in the living room, engaging in lofty discussions. Not only were they exchanging experiences of battling demons, but they were also sharing insights on current national affairs, uttering phrases like “absurd enough to make one spit out their rice.”
Old Man Huo said nothing, but the serious expression on his face spoke volumes.
Lin Xun followed him straight into the inner room like a rabbit held by its ears. Perhaps noticing Old Man Huo’s unusual demeanor, the other elders also filed in one after another.
The room fell silent. Lin Xun looked at the jade coffin embedded in the wall and the Chixiao Longque Sword inside—it seemed that after failing to find the Emperor at the amusement park, the seniors had completely given up and moved the sword back for safekeeping.
Old Man Huo spoke succinctly: “Pull it out.”
Lin Xun: “I can’t pull it out.”
Old Man Huo: “Just pull.”
Lin Xun stepped forward. He had already tried to pull this sword twice before.
He placed his hand on the cold hilt. The patterns on the blade were just as he remembered—sharp and vast.
He exerted force, lifting upward, his arm muscles tightening.
The surrounding seniors held their breath.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, five seconds.
The serious expressions on the seniors’ faces gradually faded, and they began to breathe calmly again.
The hilt remained unmoving. The strength Lin Xun had mustered earlier slowly dissipated. Without the right tools, one shouldn’t take on a difficult task. Perhaps he truly wasn’t cut out to be the Emperor, unable to lead the cultivation world in repelling the demon realm.
Old Man Huo let out a soft sigh.
Lin Xun gathered his Qi and tried again, activating his Heavenly Eye technique to observe the code of the Chixiao Longque Sword. Such excellent code—he wondered who would use it in the future. But no matter how hard he tried, the blade remained as steady as ever. Lin Xun slowly released his grip.
At that very moment, his heart suddenly skipped a beat. He looked at the blade of the Longque Sword in disbelief—just then, as if it were a fleeting illusion, he felt the blade tremble slightly. Without hesitation, Lin Xun exerted force once more to pull the sword!
Suddenly, immense pressure surged from all directions. The code on the Chixiao Longque Sword began to float, transforming into flickering black-and-white illusions. Code, numbers, and symbols flooded his vision. As dizziness washed over him, a voice suddenly echoed in his ear.
“Think of a name, quick! What should the divine artifact be called? What should it look like?”
Another familiar, lazy voice replied: “A sword. Those who use swords are more impressive.”
“What should it be called?”
“How should I know? Jia Gou will come up with one, right, Jia Gou?”
“Let me find a martial arts novel,” a third voice chimed in. “This book has ten divine swords—one called Chixiao Sword, another called Longque Sword, and one—”
Before he could finish, he was interrupted.
“Then call it the Chixiao Longque Sword. And set a key. Let me think.”
“Make it something easy to remember. I want to play with the divine artifact too.”
“Get lost. If you can play with it, can it still be called a divine artifact? I’ll set it myself.”
The soft tapping of a keyboard sounded.
“Don’t be like that. At least give a hint.”
“Then listen carefully. The hint is—”
At that very moment!
A surge of immense power erupted from the Chixiao Longque Sword, pushing him outward!
Consciousness returned. Lin Xun abruptly released his grip and was thrown back five steps before he could steady himself.
The seniors sighed and dispersed one by one.
“Why was he even pushed back?”
“Did he anger the divine artifact?”
“The divine artifact is touched by people every day, so it does develop a bit of a temper.”
“Timing and fate…”
“Where is the Emperor now?”
Lin Xun spread his palm, staring blankly at his own palm lines.
Old Man Huo walked over to him. “Why were you thrown out?”
Lin Xun shook his head. “I don’t know.”
He looked up at the Scarlet Sky Dragon Sparrow Sword, unable to determine whether what he had just seen and heard was real or an illusion.
Old Man Huo clasped his hands behind his back, turned, and walked out. As he walked, he said, “Then what realm have you reached now? Could it be you’ve already reached the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm?”
“No,” Lin Xun replied. “It’s the Soul Division stage.”
Old Man Huo’s expression stiffened for a moment before he asked, “Then… what enlightenment have you gained?”
Lin Xun scratched his head, unsure how to answer. If he were to speak the truth, it could only be described as the inevitable progression of computer science. When the operating system runs perfectly, internet speeds increase, and personal computers are fully equipped, countless pieces of information and data are destined to surge from various devices, converging into a river of data. The data generated by the internet comes from all users, essentially recreating the entire real world in another dimension. Faced with such data, how does one collect and store it? How does one filter out valuable information to generate other forms of value? The sheer volume of data makes it impossible to process using traditional methods, inevitably giving rise to new devices and platforms. Thus, modern technology has given birth to a series of terms like cloud computing, big data, data mining, and the platforms and algorithms that support them.
Therefore, the development of this discipline is not a willful pursuit of arbitrary goals. It is a gradually accumulating pyramid, where every achievement is built upon countless previous accomplishments, and each achievement, in turn, paves the way for future technologies. When key technologies mature and new user demands emerge, these factors converge to drive the creation of new technologies—technologies that are destined to arise. “Timing and fate” refers precisely to such a situation.
After much thought, he could only say, “The laws governing the development of all things in the world may be universal. For example… after blooming, flowers naturally bear fruit. After reaching the Nascent Soul Realm, one gradually comprehends the meaning of Soul Division.”
Old Man Huo pondered. “Could it be that my understanding of the Nascent Soul Realm is not yet thorough enough?”
Lin Xun said, “Master will surely succeed.”
His own ability to enter the Soul Division stage was merely due to his understanding of the technological progression, not some praiseworthy innate talent. Presumably, if his master carefully analyzed it from the perspective of cultivation, he would also gain many insights.
Old Man Huo said, “Very well, you have your own path. For now, do not tell others about your Soul Division stage. When danger arises, you can play the fool to surprise everyone, shining brightly and bringing glory to our sect.”
Lin Xun replied, “Alright.”
Old Man Huo added, “You’ve come at just the right time. We are discussing where the next demon realm rift might appear. Come and listen in.”
Lin Xun followed to listen.
No new demon realm rifts had appeared for many days, and neither had any demonic creatures.
Lin Xun thought that the demonic creature and the prop master he and Qi Yun had encountered that day were indeed demonic creatures, but they were certainly not new ones—the prop master had followed them through the haunted house journey, and the demon realm rift had opened precisely at that time. The demonic energy on him originated from that moment, not from the emergence of a new rift.
If the demon realm were to vanish from then on, that would be a good thing. The fear was that they were merely lying low temporarily, planning something big. For this reason, the cultivation world decided to take preemptive action, predicting the next location where the demon realm rift might appear. Based on known information, the seniors proposed that demon realm rifts always appear in crowded places with dense human traffic and extensive underground facilities.
Subway stations and underground shopping malls were designated as key surveillance targets, with personnel assigned to guard them.
Lin Xun couldn’t contribute to the discussion, so he obediently listened.
“However, there is another place,” Yufeng Zhenren suddenly said.
Xiaoyaozi asked, “What do you mean?”
Yufeng Zhenren pointed to a spot on the map. “The Technology Exhibition Center is also a possibility. Recently, promotional news has been everywhere, saying that some ‘Technology Expo’ is going to be held. It’s a grand event with a large number of exhibitors and massive foot traffic. I believe this is also a suspicious location.”
Xiaoyaozi agreed, “Indeed.”
Lin Xun was lost in thought when he suddenly heard a familiar term, snapping him back to attention.
He raised his hand. “…Senior, I’m going to bring Goddess of the Luo River to that exhibition.”
Butterfly Madam clapped her hands. “Great! Then we’ll go to cheer for little Lo!”
Bihai Xianzi said, “Is little Lo going to make her debut? Such a clever child is bound to steal the spotlight.”
Even Xiaoyaozi added, “I’ve already prepared funds, just waiting to invest.”
Seeing their kind and amiable expressions as they shifted their discussion to Goddess of the Luo River, the atmosphere inside and outside the hall was filled with joy.
Lin Xun mused that he was about to fall out of favor.