Chapter 21: ddos (3)
21 – ddos (3)
Lin Xun despaired as he confirmed he couldn’t break free.
Butterfly Madam pinched his cheek again: “Little darling, why do you seem a bit unable to make expressions? How about sister gives you a cute bunny with a poker face persona!”
Lin Xun: “…”
Butterfly Madam finally released his face and ruffled his hair: “Come with sister, alright?”
“No… no thanks,” Lin Xun said: “I’m quite content fixing computers.”
Butterfly Madam laughed: “Still being stubborn.”
At this moment, Peacock Madam finally extended a helping hand: “Junior sister, you’re going to scare him.”
Butterfly Madam said: “Be good, don’t be scared, sister won’t eat you.”
Lin Xun was scared.
Fortunately, Butterfly Madam’s peripheral vision caught Yuanxiao behind Xiaoyaozi: “Oh my!”
The next second, Yuanxiao shrank behind Xiaoyaozi, though it proved useless.
“There’s another little darling!” Butterfly Madam let out a delighted laugh.
Lin Xun thought, junior brother, I’ve already survived this ordeal, you’re on your own.
—However, he soon realized he was far from having survived it.
—After passing through Nanzhao Riyue Mountain, there was still South Sea Danding Sect; after passing through South Sea Danding Sect, there was still Hangzhou Qiushui Sect.
In short, throughout the morning he had smelled no fewer than twenty different perfume scents and been thoroughly doted on by female seniors coming and going.
As for Yuanxiao across from him, his situation was no better. After several hours, when he and Yuanxiao exchanged glances, they found each other looking as wilted as animals that had been excessively petted.
In their silent mutual understanding, he suddenly saw Yuanxiao’s eyes light up.
“Master,” Yuanxiao tugged at Xiaoyaozi’s sleeve, pitifully saying: “Can I go back to study? The second mock exam is coming up soon, I’m so nervous.”
Xiaoyaozi pondered briefly: “Very well, you’ve met most of the Immortal Sect elders already. Go and review properly. This afternoon and evening are for sect discussions. Tomorrow’s Sword Trial Assembly is when you young disciples will have your chance to shine.”
Yuanxiao said: “Thank you, Master!”
Then he looked at Lin Xun: “Master, I’d like to leave with Senior Brother Lin Suan, so I can ask him math questions.”
Xiaoyaozi looked inquiringly at Old Man Huo: “Brother Qingshan, what do you think…”
Old Man Huo said heartily: “Of course little Yuanxiao’s studies come first! Disciple, go and properly tutor your junior brother with his schoolwork.”
Lin Xun responded with “Yes” and was pulled away by Yuanxiao, escaping as if for their lives.
Outside, the cool breeze was refreshing, the mountains and rivers vast—how wonderful it was.
Lin Xun took several deep breaths of the free air and finally regained his happiness.
He asked: “Shall we do some math problems?”
Yuanxiao looked distressed: “Actually, I was just saying that…”
Lin Xun laughed.
He said: “Then…”
Yuanxiao seemed conflicted: “But I really should be studying.”
Lin Xun: “Then let’s go.”
Yuanxiao first completed a math test paper, asking Lin Xun whenever he didn’t understand. After mastering the material, he prepared to start reviewing comprehensive humanities subjects.
This fell outside Lin Xun’s area of expertise.
Gazing at the faint green mountains outside the window, he remembered his time-limited “Secret of Shangqing” mission and asked Yuanxiao: “Are there any special places in the back mountains?”
“Just mountains,” Yuanxiao said: “Quite a few small scenic spots, several homestays. Do you want to go explore, senior brother?”
Lin Xun: “Are they all ordinary people?”
Yuanxiao: “Yes, the back mountains don’t have good Qi flow. Masters and uncles don’t like going there.”
Lin Xun became thoughtful.
He told Yuanxiao: “I’m going out for a walk, might not be back soon.”
Yuanxiao obediently replied, “Okay.”
Lin Xun then left with his keyboard.
He activated the Light Body Technique, leaping several times within the Shangqing Palace before leaving the area and continuing onward, arriving at the vicinity of Qingcheng Mountain’s back hills.
As a newly initiated disciple, Yuanxiao naturally wouldn’t know Qingcheng’s secrets, and given his own status, asking other Qingcheng members wasn’t very realistic either.
However, the task itself provided a system-hinted clue—
“The sword cultivators… have long coveted a well-guarded secret of Qingcheng Mountain.”
In other words, the sword cultivators might be investigating information about this secret.
And since they came to Qingcheng Mountain to provoke, they must have a place to stay in the mountains.
—This place definitely wasn’t the Shangqing Palace, so it could be a farmhouse inn or guesthouse in the back hills.
If he started from this angle, he might very well find a clue.
Having made up his mind, Lin Xun opened his phone’s map and began navigating.
—Qingcheng Mountain was vast, its scope incredibly wide, but with the Light Body Technique’s enhancement, it wasn’t too strenuous.
About an hour later, he reached the area dense with guesthouses.
The Qingcheng Mountain scenic area had stopped selling tickets three days ago, with all sold tickets refunded, and guesthouse business was also quite bleak.
Lin Xun went to one of the larger ones and asked the owner if any strangely dressed, thuggish-looking young people had checked in together recently, or if any strange incidents had occurred.
The owner gave him a hesitant look, then shook his head. “No.”
He asked several more places, all with the same response.
However, if he happened to encounter the proprietress, Lin Xun would also receive a bottle of soda.
Another hour passed, with no results. It seemed the sword cultivators hadn’t chosen to stay in the mortal realm.
This path was blocked.
Lin Xun left the area, chose a secluded spot, sat on a rocky outcrop, fingers touching the keycaps, pondering other strategies.
He was deep in thought when suddenly he heard rustling sounds from the woods above, as if something alive was moving.
Instantly alert, he grabbed his keyboard and looked in that direction.
Suddenly, an extremely sharp, miserable cry rang out: “Ah!!”
Then, the rustling sounds intensified abruptly, accompanied by the noise of something heavy tumbling down.
Someone was falling!
Lin Xun estimated the distance and the person’s falling speed, leaped up, jumped onto the steep rocky slope, and grabbed the person’s backpack at just the right height!
With the force of his pull, the person finally stabilized, no longer accelerating, and managed to brake with difficulty.
It was a young man, very thin and light. Lin Xun pulled him onto a flat rocky surface.
The young man’s legs trembled, his chest heaving violently as he stared at the sky. It took a full three minutes for him to calm down enough to look at Lin Xun.
“Th-thank you, bro, I…” His voice was still shaky. “I… I was scared to death, damn, bro, I really almost died.”
Just then, Lin Xun faintly heard shouts from above: “Second? Second? You alive?”
Second took a deep breath. “I’m alive!”
The voice asked, “Where are you?”
Second: “I’m here!”
Lin Xun: “”
Fortunately, Second’s brain hadn’t completely shut down. After a moment, he added, “Down below!”
The voice said, “Okay!”
Lin Xun: “Don’t, what if he falls too.”
Second quickly corrected himself: “Don’t come down! I’ll climb up!”
He struggled to prop himself up and said to Lin Xun, “My boss is up there. I need to go find him.”
Lin Xun thought for a moment, then decided to follow.
—Just in case this guy caused some trouble, the next day there might be a news headline: “Unidentified Body Found at the Foot of Qingcheng Mountain, Believed to Be a Tourist Who Fell.”
Then, the police would come to investigate.
And once they started investigating, the Shangqing Palace would inevitably be affected. At that point, a group of cultivators carrying controlled knives, venomous snakes, and scorpions would be captured, and the Qingcheng Mountain police would soon achieve a major victory in their crackdown on crime.
He followed the second brother. Thanks to the Light Body Technique, he moved as lightly as a swallow, occasionally even lending a hand to the second brother, who was sweating profusely.
The boss and the second brother finally met halfway.
Second brother: “Didn’t I tell you not to come down?”
Boss: “What if you died?”
Second brother introduced Lin Xun to the boss: “Bro, this guy saved me.”
The boss nearly knelt on the spot: “Benefactor!”
Lin Xun: “…”
…
He asked, “What are you two here for?”
The boss was slightly more robust than the second brother, but only relatively so—both brothers had gaunt faces.
The boss scratched the back of his head: “Well… this…”
Lin Xun shook his phone, expressionless: “Poaching? Cutting down trees? I’m calling the police.”
“Don’t!” the boss said. “Actually… we came here to seek immortality.”
Lin Xun: “…”
The boss continued, “We yearn for life in the mountains! We’ve been vegetarians for half a year. Originally, we planned to go live in seclusion on Zhongnan Mountain… but then Zhongnan Mountain underwent demolition and renovation, and they wouldn’t let us build houses there. We thought about becoming monks or Taoists, but they require a master’s degree to join. So… we decided to come to Qingcheng Mountain to build a little hut.”
Lin Xun: “And then you fell down?”
“Not exactly…” the boss said. “We were just trying to find a good spot…”
Lin Xun: “…”
Thinking of the divine inspiration behind the phrase “I’m here,” he figured that with these two’s intelligence, they probably wouldn’t succeed in cultivation anyway.
Qingcheng Mountain had plenty of treacherous spots. If you didn’t stick to the proper paths, the risk of falling was high, and if you took a solid tumble, your life would be over.
He recalled back in college, when he was bored late at night, chatting idly in the dorm with Wang Anquan and Zhao Jiagou.
Wang Anquan had raised a profound, philosophical question.
He said, according to Darwin’s theory of evolution—survival of the fittest, where only animals with superior genes survive in harsh natural environments, passing on their genes and gradually optimizing the gene pool of the entire population through generations of elimination—then in our stable human society, where everyone can survive safely, wouldn’t the gene pool stop evolving? Wouldn’t human evolution come to an end?
They hadn’t reached a conclusion that night.
Now, Lin Xun knew the answer to that question.
Even in a peaceful and stable world, there would always be people tirelessly trying out different ways to court death, providing ample room for Darwinism to play out.
He asked, “Why do you want to cultivate?”
The boss lowered his eyes: “Society today is filled with material desires. I’m exhausted. I think only in the mountains can I find happiness.”
Lin Xun: “Can’t find a job? Or got dumped by your girlfriend?”
The boss visibly fell silent.
Lin Xun: “Come on, I’ll take you down the mountain. From now on, walk properly.”
“No,” the second brother cried out. “Cultivation is real!”
Lin Xun: “Hmm?”
The second brother said, “Last night, right around this area, something kept flashing on and off. It’s been like this for two nights in a row—there must be a master performing magic!”
Lin Xun carefully observed his expression; it didn’t seem like he was lying.
He asked, “Where?”
The second brother replied, “Big brother and I were standing high up at the time, so we saw it clearly and even marked the spot.”
As he spoke, he unfolded a detailed map of the Qingcheng area from his backpack and drew an ugly circle on the western side.
The second brother said, “It’s roughly around here.”
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes, confirming that this wasn’t the location of the Shangqing Palace, and said, “Take me there.”
The big brother and second brother exchanged a glance, and finally, the big brother nodded.
The three of them set off together.
Along the way, Lin Xun looked at the sea of trees and forests and felt that this wasn’t the best approach.
He took out his keyboard and, following Old Man Huo’s example, summoned a web crawler program.
As for what to use the crawler for, he wasn’t sure, so he simply set it to an empty value—unexpectedly, it actually started running.
Lin Xun’s vision blurred for a moment, his senses extending outward as if by fifty or sixty meters. It took a brief spell of dizziness before he could adapt.
This feeling… was as if within a sixty-meter radius, wherever he focused his attention, he could see, and if there was a sudden change somewhere, his gaze would automatically be drawn to it.
Having learned their lesson from last time, the big brother and second brother no longer took obscure, out-of-the-way paths. They followed the plank bridge deep into the back mountains, and only when there was truly no path left did they begin climbing.
The deeper they went, the more secluded and remote it became. A chill seeped in, and in the empty valley, only the chirping of birds could be heard.
…The second brother seemed to shiver a little. “Big brother, is it really here?”
“It’s here,” the big brother pointed ahead. “See that slanted tree? When the light flashed the night before last, it illuminated this thing. I remembered it.”
The three continued forward, rounded a bend, and suddenly, the view opened up. On the steep mountain path, a flat area abruptly appeared.
Lin Xun lowered his voice. “You two, stay here and don’t move.”
The two brothers didn’t understand why but still stopped.
Lin Xun narrowed his eyes and looked ahead.
At first glance, this flat area seemed ordinary, but behind a highly deceptive thicket of low shrubs, there was another bluestone platform.
And at that moment, several black-clad sword cultivation disciples were sitting in a circle, meditating with their eyes closed.
He observed the code on these individuals and found that they were once again connected into a computing platform, performing some kind of large-scale operation—he didn’t know the purpose of this operation, but it seemed like part of another, even larger calculation.
Lin Xun thought for a moment and hid behind a rock again.
He whispered, “Lo.”
The phone screen lit up, and his intelligent control system activated.
“Save location information,” Lin Xun said. “Await voice command…”
He thought for a moment. “Voice command: ‘Cultivation.’ Operation: Simultaneously send location information and distress signal to Master, Senior Xiaoyao, Butterfly Madam, and Yuanxiao.”
A line of text appeared on the screen: Executed.
With no more worries, Lin Xun put away his phone, gripped his keyboard, and walked forward.
The only fully-formed skill he currently possessed was the Light Body Technique—nothing flashy. If something happened, it seemed he’d have to face it head-on.
Walking through the bushes on foot seemed somewhat undignified in front of sword cultivators. He activated the Light Body Technique, leaping lightly into the air before landing gracefully right before several sword cultivator disciples.
Just then, the person directly facing him abruptly opened his eyes.
“It’s you?” the man said.
The voice was familiar—it was Qi Yun. His features were fairly decent, though heavy dark circles under his eyes gave him a somewhat haggard appearance.
The other sword cultivators also opened their eyes, watching him warily.
Their attitude was vastly different from their arrogant and overbearing demeanor of the previous day. Lin Xun sensed something was off.
However, Qi Yun’s attitude remained as arrogant as ever.
“What?” Qi Yun said. “Just because I mocked your magical tool yesterday, you’d come all the way here seeking revenge?”
Lin Xun felt something was wrong.
Qi Yun’s words sounded more like an attempt to fish for information, probing his reason for coming here.
The bait was too obvious—he couldn’t be bothered to bite.
He looked at Qi Yun and replied calmly, “I don’t hold grudges.”
Qi Yun drew his sword and stood up. The blade was brand new, gleaming coldly as if freshly forged. “Then why are you here?”
Lin Xun didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced at Qi Yun’s program—it had already returned to normal, likely after his master had realigned his meridians.
A fine set of meridians, but unfortunately, they were about to be ruined again.
His fingers lightly touched the keyboard.
—He truly didn’t hold grudges.
Because he usually settled them on the spot.