Thunderclap Upheaval

The young man in black stroked his goatee. Though his features could not be seen clearly, he carried the air of an immortal sage. Across from him sat a slovenly middle-aged man in a gray coat, drinking.

The place they occupied looked like a cross between a computer server room and an operating theater. Network cables and screens stood alongside operating tables still stained with fresh blood, while several Hibernation Pods were piled not far away.

The young man in black lowered his head and asked, "You created the method of Technological Cultivation. Have you really decided to give up?"

The slovenly man's voice was rather despondent. "What good was creating it? Didn't it still bring about this disaster? Besides, weren't all those granted the method of Scientific Cultivation wiped out? Cultivating without cultivating the heart—ruin was only a matter of time. There might truly be no shortcut in cultivation."

After speaking, the slovenly man took several more hard swigs of liquor. The young man in black accepted the flask and drank twice as well, consoling him, "At least you tried. Not everyone can attain the Dao. At the very least, your heart for spreading the Dao deserves the words 'Eternal Dao Heart.'"

"I'm fine. It was merely a failure. But you—do you regret giving up your chance to attempt Ascension to Immortality through the Heavenly Gate in order to stay and help me?"

The young man in black shrugged. "The Heavenly Dao is impartial. This was only right."

Then, seeing several Hibernation Pods still inside the laboratory, he raised a finger and asked, "You still want to try again?"

The slovenly man shook his head. "The failed products I made before all self-destructed. I only wanted to try using corpses that had already lost their primary consciousness. But without primary consciousness, they could not awaken on memory alone. So those few were failures before they even began."

The young man in black suggested, "How about putting my divine sense into one of them?"

"Even an ordinary person's body, no matter how modified, cannot withstand divine sense. Besides, that would be cheating. It wouldn't count as truly achieving Technological Cultivation."

Bang—

As the two chatted, another explosion sounded in the distance.

The young man in black drained the liquor, rose to his feet, and said, "They came rather quickly. I'll go send them packing. Your lousy place can hold up, right?"

The slovenly man remained seated on the floor without getting up. "I have my own way of preserving this place. But if I haven't researched the true results of Technological Cultivation, then whether it survives or not is meaningless."

The young man in black said nothing more. With a stomp of one foot, he flew away, several bolts of Azure Lightning departing alongside him.

Crack—

A thunderclap sounded outside the window, jolting Ji Qinglin awake from his sleep. A torrential downpour was falling outside the General Store, lightning and thunder crisscrossing the night.

Ji Qinglin let out a long breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

The dream had been blurry, the scenes indistinct, and the conversation fragmented.

Perhaps his constant investigation into his own resurrection had given him some kind of delusion. Ji Qinglin occasionally had strange dreams like this.

Perhaps they were merely his brain's speculation about the outcome, but perhaps they were also memories searching for their way back. Yet if they were memories, from whose perspective had he seen those scenes? Ever since unlocking the cultivation phone on his body, Ji Qinglin had increasingly believed that this hazy dream was definitely connected to his awakening.

Was I an experiment in Technological Cultivation? If that were true, then just as he had heard, how could a corpse that had died and lost its primary self-consciousness possibly be resurrected? Whenever his thoughts reached this point, Ji Qinglin felt his heart palpitate and an inexplicable terror rise within him, making it impossible to think any further. This time, however, the panic was especially intense—clearly because this dream had been far clearer than the previous ones.

Could it be because of that Immortal Bone? The feeling was far too unpleasant, so Ji Qinglin stopped thinking about it. He got up, went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and calm down, then stopped by the next room on his way back to check on Yu Ye, who was sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room.

The little girl showed no sign of being awakened by the thunder. Perhaps she had been too exhausted from training these past few days; she was sleeping sprawled out on all fours in a thoroughly uninhibited posture.

Ji Qinglin raised a hand and covered Yu Ye with the blanket. Just as he was about to leave, he discovered in surprise that the inexplicable heart palpitations and fear had vanished. Having experienced it many times before, Ji Qinglin was certain this was not some psychological effect, but a genuine physical change.

After hesitating for a moment, Ji Qinglin did not wake Yu Ye. Instead, he nudged her, already tucked beneath the blanket, farther inward, then lay down himself along the edge of the sofa bed.

Though Yu Ye had been sleeping soundly, the movement still woke her. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw her Master, Ji Qinglin, lying down beside her in pajamas. Yu Ye did not scream, only asked in a soft voice, startled, "Master!? Why are you...?"

Without opening his eyes, Ji Qinglin said evenly, "I'm sleeping beside you for a while. You don't mind, do you?"

"Uh, n-no, I don't mind."

As Yu Ye spoke, she wrapped herself in her little blanket and shifted farther inward, leaving more room for Ji Qinglin. Ji Qinglin, however, had no intention of crossing any boundaries. He simply lay flat with his eyes closed and continued trying to sleep.

Though Yu Ye had no idea what her Master was doing, she had a rare chance to observe him from so close, so she did not hurry back to sleep. Instead, she turned onto her side and looked at Ji Qinglin, close enough to touch.

Thunder and rain raged outside, while her Master's breathing was steady. His broad chest rose and fell; his jawline, nose bridge, eye sockets, and every contour of his face were sharply defined. Even his slightly furrowed brows had loosened somewhat. She wondered what troublesome matter he had just been thinking about.

His eyelashes—

Before she could finish observing him, Ji Qinglin opened his eyes and looked her way.

"Go to sleep early. I still have to teach you cultivation tomorrow."

Yu Ye could only obediently lie back down again.

"Understood."

Just as Ji Qinglin calmed his mind and was about to fall asleep, Yu Ye beside him could not help asking curiously in a low voice,

"Master, you aren't afraid of thunder, are you?"

"Sleep!"

Though there were no howling winds, the dense, bean-sized raindrops still drenched the entire city beneath a torrential downpour.

Apart from the brightly lit places where revelry continued night after night, most residential districts had already fallen silent in the rain-soaked pre-dawn darkness.

Except—

Thunderclap Manor. The lights were still on in a side room within the final courtyard.

Whenever there was a thunderstorm, not a single person was allowed to remain in Thunderclap Manor's rear courtyard. This was a rule set by the manor's owner.

Lei Qiong, president of the Xin Dong Street Merchant Association, was circulating his cultivation while staring at a crystal object on the table. At the same time, streak after streak of Azure Lightning descended around the manor.

But before he could finish his final set of techniques, President Lei suddenly froze. He swiftly raised a hand to put away the object on the table, then turned toward a dark corner of the rear courtyard and said warily, "Since you're here, there's no need to skulk about."

The moment his words fell, a Black Shadow flew straight into the room.

The figure was thin and dressed in black. Though he had entered the room, not a single drop of rain trailed behind him.

"Hand over the Immortal Remains."

The voice resembled dead leaves in a mountain forest. It sounded like an old man.

Lei Qiong had never told anyone that he possessed the Immortal Remains. Yet this man had chosen to break in just as Lei Qiong's final cycle of cultivation had not been completed. He was clearly prepared, and Lei Qiong could not help tightening his grip on the crystal object in his hand.

"How did you learn of this?"

The other man did not respond to such probing words at all. He stepped forward and shot toward him. Seeing this, purple lightning flashed around Lei Qiong's arms as he met the attack head-on.

Boom—

With a deafening blast and streaks of lightning, the doors and windows of the rear courtyard side room shattered completely, while even the curtain of rain in the courtyard was punched open into a massive hollow.

The old man in black was blasted backward into the wall. Lei Qiong strode out, the lightning around his arms blazing even more fiercely.

"If you want the remains, that depends on whether you have the ability!"

The old man still did not answer. He kicked off the ground and leaped high into the air, then delivered a midair kick as he dove straight at Lei Qiong. The torrential rain and heavenly thunder behind him descended together with him.

Crack—

Amid Bangkok's torrential rain, several more bolts of Azure Lightning struck down.

I'm posting this a little early today—everyone, enjoy with confidence. Old readers know I don't dig holes and leave them unfilled. It's better to keep a little suspense about the protagonist's origins for now. There's a twist later. All right, the plot is officially about to stir things up! President: Damn it! The matter turned out to be me myself.