Chapter 36: Pointer (3)
36 – Pointer (3)
With a single “Holy shit,” the entire venue fell silent.
Lin Xun genuinely couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing.
“Holy shit… so many people.” Qi Yun forced a fake smile.
The audience below cooperatively erupted in laughter.
Quick-witted, he effortlessly masked the awkwardness—Lin Xun felt like applauding him.
Qi Yun stared daggers at Lin Xun for three full seconds, then cleared his throat and announced, “The name of this rap is… ‘Sheathing the Blade and Hanging Up the Sword.'”
Fans enthusiastically clapped in response.
Lin Xun was curious to hear what kind of mess this guy could come up with.
Out of respect for Qi Yun, he even took out his phone and searched for the stage name “Qi Yun” on a search engine. The results were eye-opening—this Qi Yun turned out to be a fairly big internet celebrity.
He had risen to fame on a short-video platform, his identity shrouded in mystery—one winter a year ago, dressed in white, he sat in a dilapidated Taoist temple amidst a vast expanse of snow, strumming a guitar and performing a self-written rap titled “The Wandering Lute and Sword,” which told the story of a swordsman roaming the world.
This enchanting, melancholic scene in the heavy snow quickly went viral online, and Qi Yun became famous overnight. After gaining fame with that one song, he created the “Sword” series, including tracks like “Hidden Blades Are Hard to Guard Against” and “Flashing Blades and Gleaming Swords,” solidifying a dedicated fanbase.
—Lin Xun chuckled as he read.
Just then, the music started—a frantic, rhythmic drumbeat.
Qi Yun plucked the guitar strings!
As the first note rang out, he leaned back and closed his eyes!
Lin Xun watched him intently.
“The sword, the arrogance of my next life,
For you, what does it matter if I cast it aside!”
—So he’s a lovesick soul.
“The blade, his treasure of many years,
For you, he sheathes it to drink with you in bliss!”
—So it’s a story of three people.
Another note rang out, and Qi Yun’s emotions seemed to reach their peak.
“I, I see the green mountains so enchanting,
The mountains, the green mountains see me with indifference!”
Lin Xun suspected Qi Yun was trying to get revenge for that day’s sword-disarming by making him laugh to death.
But at that moment, the melody took a sharp turn—the frenzied, almost insane drumbeat abruptly shifted into an extremely slow tempo.
Qi Yun’s voice also suddenly turned melancholic and husky, transforming into a soft, metallic hum.
“Down and out in the jianghu, I await a rain to fall,
You hold an umbrella, gazing into the mist where the horizon lies—”
Lin Xun decided to take back his earlier words. He actually sang quite well, looked decent, and his voice wasn’t unpleasant. Though he had no idea what the song was really about, it might just work to charm some young girls.
So he kept listening.
—It was a melodramatic love triangle story, drenched in clichés, where the girl eventually disappeared, and the two young men—one sheathing his blade, the other hanging up his sword—drifted across the world, making nowhere their home.
Qi Yun’s rap ended with the two reuniting years later, raising their glasses and sharing a smile.
Fans began screaming and waving their light sticks.
Lin Xun clapped perfunctorily.
Qi Yun shot him a few more sharp glances before gracefully exiting the stage with his guitar.
The judges began scoring.
The live audience started voting.
Combining all scores, Qi Yun’s final result was 89.
Lin Xun thought he was definitely going to be eliminated. After all, back in his school days, on a hundred-point test, anything below 98—except in Chinese—was considered a major failure.
Just then, his phone lit up frantically with a message from the “Loving Family” group chat. The sender’s name was “Jiyan Sect – Feihong.”
Lin Xun frowned slightly. An obscure sect he’d never heard of, and an unfamiliar name.
He clicked open the chat interface, which was instantly flooded with messages.
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: Why are you everywhere??
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: Why are you here? I was about to smash the whole damn show!
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: So many fans are watching, damn it! It’s a live broadcast, you get it??
…Jiyan Sect – Feihong: You have to buy me a trending topic and make me go viral.
Lin Xun automatically filtered out the profanity and finally typed a slow reply.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Qi Yun?
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: Fuck, you don’t even recognize your own dad.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Didn’t all you sword cultivators collectively leave the group?
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: What, you won’t allow me to be an undercover agent?
Jiyan Sect – Feihong: What the hell kind of dog name is that? I’ll beat you into a sad minute hand today.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: A pointer is not an hour hand.
A Happy Zhi Zhen: Shut up, I’m not looking for trouble with you today.
A glaring exclamation mark appeared after the second sentence.
Fine. He hadn’t blocked Qi Yun yet, but Qi Yun had already blocked him first.
Lin Xun remained calm and watched the following performances.
The second contestant, wearing sunglasses, played a sorrowful erhu piece. After finishing, he took off his sunglasses and bowed to the audience, his eyes bright and shiny.
The third contestant performed a dance, but his movements were as if he were hoeing the ground.
The fourth contestant did not show up.
The fifth contestant was also a dancer. His skill level was much higher than the third contestant’s, and he incorporated mystical imagery, as if performing a ritual dance to pray for rain.
The sixth contestant, dressed in a red Tang suit, delivered a stand-up comedy routine that elicited no laughter from the audience.
The seventh contestant was absent.
By the time he saw the twentieth contestant’s group dance, Lin Xun was convinced they weren’t singers or dancers but performance artists.
Perhaps, this was just the nature of open auditions.
Amidst these people, Qi Yun actually stood out like a crane among chickens, and then became the sole standout.
Originally, Lin Xun had been worried. Xiaoxiao, driven by life’s hardships and being a fearless novice without professional training, coming to participate in such a program would likely end in utter defeat. Now, he was no longer concerned at all.
He played on his phone for over two hours and finally waited for contestant number 56, Sheng Xiaoxiao.
In the darkness, a beam of light illuminated the stage.
Xiaoxiao in a black dress appeared at the center of the stage.
Lin Xun frowned.
Under the stage lights, her face was excessively pale, but her lips were overly red. She still held that small black handbag in her left hand.
Her eyes were dull and vacant, much like the expression she had that night after her abusive father had pinned her against the wall and kicked her.
A gentle musical prelude began, seemingly a well-known nursery rhyme.
Xiaoxiao half-lowered her eyelashes and began humming along with the music.
The moment her voice emerged, Lin Xun was taken aback, his head feeling somewhat dizzy.
—It was a very peculiar vocal quality, both hoarse and clear, and her enunciation was extremely ethereal. Lin Xun could clearly understand every word of Qi Yun’s lyrics, but from Xiaoxiao’s song, he could only catch fragmented phrases like “dark dark sky” and “roses withering.”
The dizziness grew increasingly intense. Lin Xun pressed his fingers against his temples, then nudged the arm of the person next to him.
The person beside him showed no reaction.
Lin Xun patted his shoulder: “Classmate?”
The classmate remained completely motionless.
—Alarm bells rang loudly in Lin Xun’s mind.
The next moment, he grabbed his keyboard and looked toward Xiaoxiao on the stage!
At that very moment, he saw Xiao Xiao’s pale, slender fingers violently yank open the zipper of that black handbag!
In that instant, lines of complex code cascaded over her body.
Lin Xun glanced around and discovered that familiar viral code had surfaced on every person around him.
Demon seeds.
Everyone had been invaded by demon seeds in that split second.
He tapped the backlit keys on his keyboard and leaped toward the stage.
The next second, the stage lights went out, plunging the entire venue into dark silence.
Lin Xun’s vision went black, but Lo automatically turned on the phone’s backlight. He saw that the stage was now empty.
—Meanwhile, the crowd below surged forward, the people invaded by demon seeds swarming toward him like a dark tide.
He took a deep breath, sprang up, and rushed toward the direction he remembered as the backstage.
In the direction of the backstage… appeared a person holding a glow stick—no, holding a sword, using its gleam to illuminate—Qi Yun.
“Lin Suan???” Qi Yun shouted loudly, “What the hell are you doing??”
Lin Xun: “It’s not me—”
Before he could finish his sentence, a palm struck from the side, only to be knocked away by a keyboard.
Lin Xun: “Come help, quick!”
A flash of sword light lit up as Qi Yun landed beside him: “What the hell are these things?”
Lin Xun: “Demonic creatures, knock out as many as you can!”
Qi Yun: “Demonic creatures?”
Lin Xun: “Weren’t you undercover in the group chat?”
Qi Yun: “Who has time to read your ‘loving family’ chats—”
He got punched in the head by a demonic creature.
“Damn.” Qi Yun swung his sword to block three demonic creatures lunging at him.
Lin Xun gasped for breath, looking at the hundreds of demonic creatures crowding the venue and attacking them. He finally understood why the system had said “mission dangerous.”
In that moment of distraction, his gaze sharpened as he spotted a ghostly shadow flitting past beneath the ceiling.
Xiao Xiao!
Lin Xun immediately activated the Light Body Technique, stepping on the heads of several demonic creatures as he flew after her.
Qi Yun: “What are you doing?”
Xiao Xiao was flying toward the main entrance. Lin Xun chased closely behind, with Qi Yun following.
She flew swiftly, and with a flicker of shadow at the main entrance, she vanished without a trace.
Lin Xun’s eyes fixed on a fluttering black skirt hem in the shadows under a tree. He bit his lower lip, quickly turning back to Qi Yun: “Guard the entrance, don’t let these things get out. I’ll go after her!”
With that, he swiftly closed the glass door of the gymnasium, then pulled down the outer metal door. He opened the car door parked outside, got in, closed the door, and activated the system—all in one fluid motion.
“Lo,” he said, “See that black dress? Chase her.”
A monotone system voice sounded in the car: “Automated Driving System activated.”
—Fortunately, the gymnasium was in a remote location, with few people on the surrounding roads.
The car spun around mid-air and sped off in that direction.
While keeping a tight watch on Xiao Xiao sprinting through flower beds and tree shadows, Lin Xun opened WeChat and sent a voice message to Chang Ji.
“Senior brother, I’m at the university next to yours. The gymnasium is full of demonic creatures. You need to come.”
Just as the message was sent, Xiao Xiao suddenly made a sharp turn!
“Warning, driving command conflicts with Galaxy system, unable to execute.”
Watching Xiao Xiao’s figure leap and vanish into the cluster of buildings—clearly heading toward the school’s broadcasting station—Lin Xun steeled himself, grabbed the keyboard, and smashed it hard against the screen next to the steering wheel!
The Automated Driving System was destroyed.
He slammed on the accelerator, wrenching the steering wheel hard to the right. The car shot through a sharp turn like an arrow released from its bow, hurtling toward Xiao Xiao’s direction.
The phone screen lit up again—an incoming call. Lin Xun reached over to answer, putting it on speaker before gripping the wheel again.
“I can’t hold on!” Amid a clatter of chaotic sounds, Qi Yun’s voice came through. “Get back here and save your dad!”
“I’ve called for backup! Someone will come to help you.”
“I fucking believed your bullshit, you idiot Zhi Zhen, damn it—”
“Watch your language!” Lin Xun jerked the steering wheel again, tires screeching against the pavement. “That’s a Buddhist cultivator—curse too much and you might get physically enlightened—”
Another burst of fighting noises crackled through, Qi Yun’s voice now hoarse and strained, yet still echoing inside the car: “I’ll fuck your brother!”
Lin Xun: “”