Teapot and Earth Vein

"Oh... okay..."

Su Wanqing responded to Ling Ye's mundane command as if sleepwalking, her body moving faster than her consciousness. She walked to the island counter, picked up the shiny electric kettle, twisted open the faucet, and clear tap water gurgled into the pot. Her movements were a little stiff, but exceptionally precise.

Boiling water.

This most ordinary of actions, in her newly awakened senses, became incredibly clear and wondrous. She could "hear" the faint sounds of water molecules colliding within the kettle, "feel" the subtle magnetic field changes generated the instant the heating element at the bottom was powered on, and even "see" the air above the water's surface, disturbed by the heat, forming miniature storm-like vortices as the water temperature rose and the molecules moved more vigorously!

Is this... the world after enlightenment?

She looked down at her own smooth, jade-like palms, which seemed to hold infinite power, her heart churning with a tempest far more violent than any she had experienced the night before! A complete transformation! This was far more than a mere metaphor! She could clearly feel a warm yet immense power flowing within her, like a newborn stream nourishing every cell! Her five senses were so sharp they could track the trajectory of falling dust! Her mind was clearer and more transparent than ever before!

And all of this... was just because her palm had touched that tiny pinch of... "trash tea leaves"?!

An overwhelming shock, coupled with an ineffable joy, as if she had broken free from the chains of fate, instantly engulfed her! She suddenly looked up, her gaze falling on the man sitting on the sofa, carrying a rag bag, barefoot, with an expression that clearly said, "I'm naturally waiting for you to make tea."

Awe! Unparalleled awe! It replaced her previous fear and anger! How could this walking calamity be so? This was clearly... a walking opportunity! No! A walking... god!

"The water... the water's boiling," Su Wanqing's voice trembled slightly, not from fear, but from excitement. She carefully unplugged the kettle and lifted the scalding pot. The temperature felt like warm water to her new body.

Ling Ye didn't move, merely tilting his chin to signal her to continue.

Su Wanqing took a deep breath, trying to calm her tumultuous emotions. She picked up the unremarkable, cracked, dark purple clay teapot. This time, as her fingers touched the cool surface of the pot, an indescribable, ancient heaviness, as if touching the origin of the universe, surged from her fingertips, making her heart tremble violently! This pot... was no ordinary object! The exotic fragrance that made dead wood bloom last night was merely a wisp of its leaked aura!

She held her breath, extremely careful and reverent, and lifted the lid. The pot was empty. She picked up the purple clay teapot and, mimicking Ling Ye's actions from yesterday, poured the scalding hot water into it.

"Gurgle—"

The sound of the water hitting the pot's walls was amplified infinitely in her ears. The instant the boiling water poured into the pot, Su Wanqing felt the teapot in her hands give a very slight... "hum"! An invisible, gentle yet vast fluctuation, like a pebble dropped into a calm lake, emanated subtly from the teapot as its center!

This fluctuation was silent; ordinary people and even common cultivators couldn't detect it. But Su Wanqing, at the peak of her spiritual perception after enlightenment and holding this primordial artifact, managed to capture this almost imperceptible ripple!

What shocked her even more was that when this fluctuation swept past the massive load-bearing pillar on the east side of the living room and touched the depths of the earth—

"Hum... rumble..."

A response, clearer and more muffled than when Ling Ye had touched it before, like the low growl of a disturbed sleeping giant, erupted from the depths of the earth! This time, it wasn't just a spiritual sensation; even the floor beneath her feet vibrated slightly!

A primordial energy fluctuation, far more potent than before, carrying an ancient, wild aura and a sense of spatial tearing, erupted from the earth's depths as if activated by the boiling water poured into the purple clay teapot, creating some kind of resonance! Although most of it was still blocked by thick layers of rock and the building, the intensity of the aura was several times stronger than when Ling Ye had accidentally touched it!

The very space of the entire villa seemed to distort minutely under the impact of this primordial aura! The light outside the window seemed to dim for a moment! A sense of insignificance and dread, stemming from primal instinct when facing a colossal entity, gripped Su Wanqing's heart once more!

Her hand trembled, and she almost dropped the kettle! Her face instantly turned pale!

The moment the purple clay teapot hummed and the earth responded, Ling Ye's gaze sharpened as he swept towards the load-bearing pillar! His body, which had been lazily leaning on the sofa, straightened slightly, and for the first time, a clear look of... surprise appeared in his eyes!

"Hmm?" he uttered a low sound of surprise, his gaze shifting between the purple clay teapot in Su Wanqing's hand and the pillar, as if discovering an interesting connection.

He had previously sensed remnants buried underground, and the primordial aura inadvertently emitted by the Chaos Breathing Soil while he slept had caused a faint revival. But just now... this woman had simply used this pot to boil some water and pour it in, and it had triggered such a strong resonance?! This pot... and the remnants underground... are they connected?

Ling Ye's interest was instantly piqued. He put down his crossed legs, his bare feet landing on the carpet, and walked directly towards the load-bearing pillar, carrying his rag bag.

Su Wanqing watched Ling Ye approach, feeling the increasingly clear primordial aura from underground that made her soul tremble, and held her breath, too nervous to even exhale.

Ling Ye extended his hand again. This time, instead of casually pressing it against the pillar's surface, he spread his fingers and hovered his palm about an inch away from the pillar.

No contact.

Yet, a more refined and vast Chaos Origin Qi, carrying an overriding will of rules, more potent than what Su Wanqing sensed, silently extended from his palm like an invisible tentacle. It bypassed physical barriers and instantly penetrated the depths of the load-bearing pillar, precisely connecting to the primordial energy source in the earth that had been activated by the purple clay teapot!

"Boom—!!!"

A massive roar from the depths of the earth's veins, which only Ling Ye could "hear" clearly, exploded in his perception!

Countless fragmented, chaotic, yet ancient primordial law fragments of information surged into his consciousness like a bursting dam, following the link of the Chaos Origin Qi!

Shattered images flashed rapidly through Ling Ye's mind:

--An endless chaotic void, the phantom of a colossal gate spanning across the galaxy!

--Around the gate, countless unimaginably huge stone foundation fragments, inscribed with mysterious runes, floated in the void!

--A terrifying attack, piercing through time and space with supreme will, like a blade tearing a scroll, fiercely struck the core of the gate! The gate shattered! Countless fragments, carrying violent spatial turbulence, scattered in all directions!

--One relatively intact foundation fragment, inscribed with a core Spatial Beacon, like a burning meteor, penetrated layers of dimensional barriers, trailing a long tail of light, and fiercely smashed towards a sapphire-blue planet! The location... was precisely this land beneath his feet!

--The fragment plunged into the planet's core, its immense spatial law power forcibly merging with and eroding the planet's earth veins, forming an extremely unstable region of spatial distortion... the so-called "Kunlun Mountain Death Valley"!

--And another smaller fragment, carrying a faint spatial anchor aura, like a splash of stardust, landed... in the depths of this ancestral home's old site!

The information flow abruptly stopped.

Ling Ye retracted his hand, releasing his hovering posture. The phantom galaxy in his eyes slowly subsided, returning to its usual calm.

So that's how it is.

He understood instantly.

What was buried beneath this villa was not a complete teleportation array, but a tiny anchor fragment from the collapse of the "Guixu Heavenly Gate," a super teleportation gate that had once connected the Primordial Era to a Great Thousand World (suspected to be a node in the Origin Universe)!

The Sign-in System, having exhausted its last bit of power, had precisely "delivered" him to this coordinate. It wasn't just because this was his "ancestral home," but more importantly, because this was the only place on the entire planet where the residual Spatial Beacon of the "Guixu Heavenly Gate" could be sensed! It was a potential keyhole for returning to the Primordial Era!

As for the so-called precursor to the "Spiritual Energy Revival"... it was merely a chain reaction caused by this fragment, after countless years, being accidentally activated by the aura of the Chaos Spirit Tea, his return, and the resonance from the purple clay teapot just now. The incomplete primordial laws contained within, which had been eroding and merging with the planet's earth veins for eons, had begun to slowly leak out, contaminating this world's rules.

Trouble.

Ling Ye mentally tagged this anchor fragment with a third label. A label more troublesome than "little bugs peeking" or "abandoned campfire." A hot potato that could attract old enemies from the Primordial Era, or be coveted by certain existences in this world.

He turned his head, his gaze falling on Su Wanqing, who was still holding the purple clay teapot, her face deathly pale, swaying precariously from the impact of the primordial aura from underground.

This woman... she can actually resonate with the Purple Clay Teapot and this anchor fragment? Could it be because... she's the owner of this house? Bloodline? Or something else?

For the first time, Ling Ye's eyes held a hint of scrutiny and... imperceptible calculation.

He needed to understand more.

"Hey," Ling Ye's voice broke the suffocating Primordial Aura in the living room, also pulling Su Wanqing's almost-departed soul back, "Is the tea ready?"

Su Wanqing jolted, like a startled rabbit, nearly dropping the Purple Clay Teapot! She looked at Ling Ye's eyes, which seemed to pierce through everything, and felt the terrifying aura from underground slowly calming down. Her heart was still pounding.

"R-right away!" She hurriedly poured hot water into the pot, put on the lid, her movements flustered from the lingering fear.

Ling Ye said nothing more, turning back to sit on the sofa. He picked up the tattered cloth bag by his feet, casually opened it, and reached inside to rummage around.

While carefully holding the Purple Clay Teapot, Su Wanqing nervously stole glances out of the corner of her eye. What terrifying thing was he going to take out now?

A few seconds later, what Ling Ye pulled out of the cloth bag made Su Wanqing's eyes widen instantly, nearly causing her to lose her grip again!

It was a... steamed bun?

A seemingly extremely ordinary, even shriveled and yellowed, white flour steamed bun that looked like it had been sitting for a long time?!

Ling Ye pinched the shriveled bun, looked at it, and seemed satisfied. Then, under Su Wanqing's stunned gaze, he very naturally... broke the bun in half.

He casually stuffed one half back into the cloth bag, holding the other half in his hand, weighing it.

Then, under Su Wanqing's even more stunned gaze, Ling Ye, holding the half-piece of dry bun, casually, as if tossing a stone, tossed it towards the gap between the floor and the wall beneath the load-bearing pillar on the east side of the living room, which had just been emitting a terrifying Primordial Aura...

"Plop."

The half-shriveled bun rolled onto the carpet, stopping in the corner, utterly unremarkable.

Su Wanqing: "???"

What... what was that move?! Using... a steamed bun... to ward off evil?!