Passing Clouds

"Are you chowing down while swallowing wind and consuming qi, attending a banquet, and playing the suona?"

Zhu Zhengwei watched the movements of these Immortal Herbs, his face darkening slightly as he could not help complaining.

You Mining Machines are something else. Even as spectators, you get this excited.

Zhu Zhengwei could not be bothered to care how they wanted to make a fuss or stir things up. They could not cause any real trouble anyway. After directly exiting the "Rational World," he could not help letting out a sigh of relief.

Finally, it was done!

He had to admit, every word and sentence had felt like walking on thin ice.

He had been afraid that one wrong move on his part would easily cause some major problem, and that the world would head in a bad direction, which would spell disaster.

After all, he ultimately had no experience dealing with something like this.

The pressure was enormous!

"But judging by the current results, I did a fairly decent job."

Only then did he completely relax. His eyes held too many emotions. "My answer can be considered the perfect conclusion to the life of that emperor who spent his entire life on the move."

After all, that man had laid the extraordinary foundation for his world, and his achievements were astonishing.

He could be called the foremost emperor in the mining territory of the current Dream World.

When he opened his eyes, it was already midnight.

Outside, the faint chirping of cicadas could be heard.

On the beds beside him, the two animals were sleeping with VR headsets on. These specially designed headsets also functioned as pillows, so they actually slept quite comfortably.

Usually, the pair of idiots had the excellent habits of one snoring and the other grinding his teeth. But after getting this hypnotic scenic game at night, they slept soundly.

"My mouth is so thirsty."

He had clearly been speaking in a dream, yet in reality he inexplicably felt thirsty as well. He reached for the thermos on the table beside him and took a sip of water.

When he suddenly lifted the cup, he happened to glance at the brilliant stars filling the night sky outside the dormitory. The moon hung overhead, and the silence was indescribably serene.

He could not help sighing.

"Life is like the rising and setting of the sun and moon. It passes in the blink of an eye. Life is still far too frail!"

Although he knew he had to get used to such things, his thoughts were still somewhat unsettled.

He recalled what he had just said. "I promised just now that the world's territory would be infinitely vast. But for it to truly become as vast as this starry sky, there's still an incredibly long way to go."

But why think about so much now?

At that moment, he only felt more exhausted than if he had completed a hundred exams.

"Ah! Awesome! I suddenly feel completely free of pressure!" He could not help stretching lazily, feeling that this ending was already quite perfect.

That man had chosen death.

He had helped Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng complete his Daoist Canon, filling in the final "divine category." Then he had completed all kinds of visions and hopes for the world's future, displaying one possible path forward for them.

Using history as a mirror, one could understand the rise and fall of nations.

Using modern twenty-first-century society as a reference was not necessarily a bad approach either.

Thinking of this, Zhu Zhengwei could not help feeling accomplished. He had created a good beginning, and could be considered to have lit the beacon illuminating the world's future together with the god and the first Human Emperor.

But after being busy with so much, he was truly exhausted!

Once he let out that sigh of relief, fatigue washed over him. He could not help turning on the fan and lying on the bed, pulling the covers over his head to sleep until the sky and earth grew dark.

This was not entering a dream. This was genuine rest.

Whoosh!

Early the next morning.

A ray of bright sunlight spilled down. Zhu Zhengwei climbed out of bed and saw the two idiots beside him enthusiastically fiddling with the computer, their expressions agitated.

"It blew up!"

"Our post from a few days ago absolutely blew up!"

"Holy crap, this game is too outrageous! The production quality is insanely good! And with last night's story outline added in, it's unimaginable!"

Their hoarse, duck-like voices were piercing.

Zhu Zhengwei got out of bed, switched off the electric fan by the headboard, and could not help asking as he rubbed his bleary eyes, "What blew up?"

"You didn't go in last night? Then you seriously missed out!" The two of them chattered nonstop, their faces and eye sockets flushed red. There even seemed to be traces of genuine emotion in the eyes of the two grown men.

"We're going to make a post! Holy crap! Hurry, hurry!"

"The god and the Human Emperor were absolutely incredible!"

"What a pity. The game's built-in forum can't upload videos or pictures. Otherwise, wouldn't the outside world explode?"

"Hehehe! We explained it in writing, and even those cloud players outside were stunned. They're jealous of us!"

The two of them organized their materials, preparing to make a post.

Zhu Zhengwei immediately understood. It was probably about those Chives.

He could roughly guess what had happened. After all, the events of last night had indeed been rather spectacular, so there would probably be quite a few more people analyzing them.

However, Zhu Zhengwei could not be bothered to pay much attention. He could wait a while and see what happened online. There was no rush. Besides, only one night had passed.

But while only one night had passed here, things were different inside.

During the time he had slept, four or five years must have passed in that world.

He felt refreshed now and planned to go in and take a look first, to see what the civilization of the entire world had become several years after Stone Light Emperor Zhizheng's death.

He was somewhat curious!

However, as an ordinary person, he still had to fill his stomach.

He leisurely began washing his face and brushing his teeth. After looking at his messy hair in the mirror, he washed his hair as well and dried it with a hair dryer, then used concealer to cover his beauty mark again.

"You're going to the cafeteria? Bring us some breakfast!" Li Xiang shouted.

Zhu Zhengwei was immediately speechless. "You need me to help with breakfast too? Are you two pigs?"

"We're busy with something even more important. Just wait until we amaze you!" Wang Jun said smugly.

Zhu Zhengwei went downstairs.

Since the exams were over and it was summer vacation, there were naturally no classes now. He went to the school cafeteria and had breakfast.

By chance, he saw that same fat man again, standing in line at the cafeteria and dozing off. Clearly, he had been exhausted from working to earn money for his girlfriend's birthday.

Zhu Zhengwei felt that the fat man was still the same, while he himself had merely blinked and already felt as if a lifetime had passed.

After eating breakfast, he brought a serving back for each of the two animals and returned to the dormitory. Then he sat on the bed, gently closed his eyes, and entered that world.

When he opened his eyes, he once again found himself in a desert.

The blazing sun hung overhead. The sweltering heat seemed never to have changed. In the distance, the City of a Hundred Stones appeared much the same, yet it had undergone new changes. Things were no longer what they had been, and the people were no longer the same.