The familiar announcement made the inside of the Bronze Ancient Coffin fall silent. The tense, panicked crowd found a small sense of familiarity, as though they really were riding a train.
"An interstellar train?" A careful girl caught the key point, but her voice still trembled as she asked, "Y-you... who exactly are you?!"
In an instant, the crowd that had only just calmed down seemed to fall into an icy hell.
It was a train, but not one for sightseeing and leisure. It was an interstellar train—an entirely different concept.
"An interstellar... train? Is the conductor an alien?"
Someone asked shakily, gathering the courage to raise a phone. Its faint light pierced the darkness and revealed a humanoid silhouette.
Alien? More accurately, a person from outer space.
Lin Xian silently mocked them before saying, "I'm not an alien. I'm human."
Those words seemed to give them courage. The others raised their phones as well, and under the glow of more than thirty screens, Lin Xian's true appearance was revealed.
A human. A living human. Someone similar to them.
"So he's human."
"That scared me to death."
"Why were you pretending to be mysterious?"
Most of their fear dissipated, and the crowd began talking among themselves.
Some rejoiced, some wept with relief, some calmly analyzed the situation, while others, enraged after their fear faded, felt that they had been threatened and humiliated.
Liu Yunzhi's face darkened as he shouted, "If you're human, why are you pretending to be mysterious? What exactly do you want?!"
"That's right!"
"What are you trying to do?"
Liu Yunzhi had a little influence and quite a few close followers among their classmates. Combined with their earlier ordeal, everyone had pent-up anger with nowhere to vent it.
Now that they had found an outlet, they lost their reason in their fury and began firing accusations without regard for the facts.
It was as though a barrage of curses and questions could return everything to normal and get them out of danger.
Lin Xian remained calm. "I'm only stating a fact. This is a train traveling through the stars. By now, we've probably already left Earth and are heading for Mars."
"Mars?!"
A wave of unrest swept through the crowd. Faced with something they had never encountered before, they were at a complete loss.
"Who knows whether you're telling the truth?"
"Mars? Who are you trying to fool?!"
Liu Yunzhi sneered. Seeing himself as a leader, he urged the others, "We're all classmates. We know each other well enough to trust one another."
"But his origins are mysterious. He's an outsider spouting nonsense—who could trust him? Without using a few methods, I'm afraid he won't tell the truth."
"I propose that we capture him first."
When faced with such a sudden upheaval, how many people could remain calm? After encountering danger, humans were more inclined to band together. Their shared identity as classmates made it even easier for them to unite.
In just a few words, Liu Zhiyun had turned everyone's attention toward Lin Xian. He intended to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys and establish his authority so he could survive better in what came next.
Lin Xian was the chicken. As for who the monkeys were, that went without saying.
As Liu Zhiyun persuaded the crowd, he glanced from the corner of his eye toward Ye Fan in the corner, a hint of wariness flickering in his pupils.
Ye Fan was around 1.79 meters tall. Though he looked gentle and refined, he was actually very strong. Back in school, he had been a key member of the football team and was often called a brute on the field.
In the city, those skilled at using rules held the upper hand.
In the wilderness, brute force often solved everything. One force could break ten thousand methods.
"I don't think that's acceptable."
Ye Fan seemed to sense Liu Yunzhi's gaze. He stepped forward and said firmly, "Without any evidence, what reason do we have to seize someone?"
Liu Yunzhi's expression turned stern as he sneered. "Ye Fan, we're all classmates, yet you're taking an outsider's side?"
"It's precisely because we're classmates that I don't want a tragedy to happen."
Ye Fan frowned and shook his head. "Offending someone for no reason will only bring disaster. I'd rather use peaceful means to communicate with this friend."
He had watched everything unfold and felt that this outsider who had suddenly appeared was somewhat mysterious. His imagination ran wild, and he could not help feeling wary.
"Disaster?"
Liu Yunzhi laughed disdainfully. "There are thirty of us, and only one of him. What disaster could there possibly be?"
Compared with Ye Fan, who longed for Ancient Antiquity and noticed every detail, he favored bullying the weak with strength and using numbers to overwhelm the few.
More people meant greater momentum. I was the overall situation!
As he spoke, quite a few people moved closer to Liu Yunzhi, clearly agreeing with him.
Thirty against one. The advantage is ours!
"Weakness and ignorance are not obstacles to survival. Arrogance is."
After watching for some time, Lin Xian shook his head and slowly rose to his feet. Looking at Ye Fan, he extended a hand and said, "Master Ye, I want to fight ten of them."
"Master Ye?"
Ye Fan looked strange as he touched his face. It was full of collagen and hardly looked old.
Besides, it was now 2010. The 2008 film Ip Man had already been out for two years.
Enjoying the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon's Plain Questions did not mean Ye Fan did not watch movies.
He was still a modern person, after all. In this age of information explosion, he had encountered all kinds of knowledge.
"You know martial arts?" Curiosity appeared in Ye Fan's eyes. After all, since Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin had appeared, the existence of a few ancient martial artists was only natural.
"Martial arts?"
Lin Xian chuckled. He raised his hand into a stance, divine power surging forth, and said leisurely, "Young man, this is Immortal Cultivation."
His skin was fair, his fingertips like jade, and his body glimmered with a soft radiance, as though an immortal had descended into the mortal world. His arms moved as if forming seals, yet when he attacked, he charged like a primordial beast and knocked Liu Yunzhi's group unconscious in short order.
There were no flashy techniques, only raw, bone-shaking power in every punch.
The Shrouding Method had been created by the Desolate Heaven Emperor through combining ancient methods. Its potential was extraordinary, and it made the fleshly body invincible. When the Sea of Bitterness was first opened, one possessed several thousand jin of strength. If the Sea of Bitterness reached completion, a single swing of one's arm might wield one hundred and eight thousand jin of divine strength—enough to lift even the Golden Cudgel.
Smack! Smack! Smack! One person after another fell to the ground, while Lin Xian alone remained standing.
In an instant, everyone looked at Lin Xian with awe filling their eyes, as though they were seeing a deity.
Ye Fan's expression was even more complicated. He loved researching Ancient History and was fascinated by the strange legends of mountains and seas, deeply yearning for the Ancient Era.
Yet when Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin, the legends of Immortal Cultivation, and all these bizarre events truly happened, he did not feel the slightest excitement. Instead, he was filled with apprehension and unease.
Lord Ye loved dragons; Supreme Beings loved immortals. The principle was the same.
Lord Ye did not truly like dragons. What he liked were merely things that resembled dragons without actually being dragons.
When Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin appeared before Ye Fan, what he felt most was fear and reverence toward the unknown.
The Restricted Area Supremes boasted every day about fighting the path of War Immortals, seeking immortal traces, and defying the heavens to slay immortals. They were incomparably fanatical.
But if a flawless True Immortal truly appeared, the Restricted Area Supremes would immediately calm down.
What the Self-Slashed Supremes pursued was not truly a True Immortal either, but their own obsession—the most perfect image in their hearts.
What humans feared most was the unknown.
And Lin Xian happened to know part of the future. That was where his confidence came from.