The sun and moon fell

The midday sun blazed fiercely. Summer in Jingzhou City was unbearably hot; the smell of asphalt carried a long way, and heat shimmered above the distant city streets.

After getting out of the car, Gao Jian turned to Officer Liu, who had driven him all the way from Hanbei to Jingzhou City, and said gratefully, "Officer Liu, would you like to come over to my place for a bit?"

"No," Officer Liu declined. "My assignment was to get you to Jingzhou City, not visit your home. You can make your own way back."

"Then at least drop me at my door." Gao Jian pointed at the heat rising from the road and said anxiously, "It's so hot out, and I can't even find a taxi!"

"That's your problem."

Officer Liu sat in the air-conditioned car. "It's only a short walk anyway. Walk home yourself. I won't be taking you any farther. Bye."

With that, the black sedan's window slowly rose. Gao Jian could only watch as Officer Liu stepped on the accelerator and drove away.

"You're just getting back at me for not letting you get any rest..." Gao Jian muttered.

Still, Officer Liu's casual attitude suggested that the higher-ups had finally stopped worrying about him.

Gao Jian did not mind, though. He had already figured out the trick to cultivation: constantly pour his own spiritual power into those three spirit stones, then, once all three were full, absorb their spiritual energy to cultivate. By passing it from one hand to the other like this, he could keep advancing his cultivation.

For Gao Jian, this was wonderful news. Compared with this, what did even life's three greatest joys amount to?

He no longer had to remain trapped in early Foundation Establishment until he died.

Whenever he thought about that, Gao Jian's mood brightened considerably. Flat World? Moon-landing conspiracy? Impostors usurping the world? Buddhist cultivators on the moon? To hell with all of them!

Once I reach Nascent Soul, I'll deal with you one by one!

He was only a kilometer from the family residential compound, so booking a ride on his phone was hardly worth it. Gao Jian glanced around and finally spotted some shared bicycles beside the bus stop shelter. He simply walked over and scanned one with WeChat.

The shared bicycles had been baking in the sun for too long and were rather hot.

A hot seat met a cool backside.

As a wave of heat rose between his buttocks, the long-absent warmth perked Gao Jian up. He pushed hard on the pedals.

Two minutes later, the bicycle turned into an old residential compound.

The buildings were red-brick blocks from the nineties. The young security guard immediately raised the barrier when he saw Gao Jian cycling in.

Unlike the shiny commercial housing complexes where his colleagues lived, this compound had no neatly trimmed flower beds, only rows of old plane trees. Their crowns blotted out the sky, shrouding the entire road in deep shade.

Dappled shadows rippled beneath the dense canopy. As Gao Jian cycled in, he felt noticeably cooler.

There was a bicycle parking spot inside the compound, too. He parked the bicycle, thumped up to the second floor, retrieved a key from beneath the doormat, and opened the door with practiced ease.

As the door opened, a faint scent of sandalwood drifted out.

The living room was not large, and its furnishings were rather old-fashioned: a dark solid-wood sofa, a purple-clay tea set on the coffee table, and several pieces of calligraphy and paintings on the walls. This was his grandfather's home, after all, and Gao Jian had long since grown used to the decor.

At the far end of the living room stood a row of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, densely packed with books. Most were history books, many of them hefty hardcovers. In front of the shelves, an old man sat reading in a wicker chair by the window.

He wore a white short-sleeved shirt and dark gray trousers. His hair was meticulously combed, and reading glasses rested on his nose. Hearing the noise, the old man turned in his wicker chair and saw his beloved grandson, whom he had not seen in a long time.

"Old man," Gao Jian called, recalling how the original owner of his body had interacted with his grandfather.

"Oh, so you still remembered to come home? Why didn't you just keep living with your billionaire buddy?"

Why the sarcasm?

That was Gao Jian's thought.

"No, no, you don't know what happened. That rotten Elon Musk just used me as a pawn. He saw that I was with CNSA and used me to go up against NASA. I was too young and fell for his tricks.

"After I came back, the State Security Bureau kept investigating me. But you know me, don't you? Once they found I hadn't leaked anything or been turned, they let me go. I haven't even gone back to the space agency. I came straight here to see you."

"Did you cooperate with the authorities?"

"Of course I did. Officer Liu from the State Security Bureau drove me back personally."

"Why didn't you invite him up?"

"Who knows? Maybe his wife's about to give birth. He was in such a hurry to get home."

"Huh?" The old man froze.

Old people were the easiest to fool. Gao Jian brushed the matter aside with a bit of nonsense, then walked over to his grandfather as though nothing had happened and asked curiously:

"What are you reading? Let me see."

"A Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty," the old man replied casually. "Why? Haven't you always had no interest in history?"

Ming history?

For some reason, Gao Jian thought again of the little anecdotes about Chinese history that Elon Musk had discussed with him in the management area. Unable to resist, he reached out, took the book from his grandfather, and flipped through a few pages.

"Hey, you little rascal! I hadn't finished that."

"Go read something else, old man," Gao Jian said offhandedly.

After taking A Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty, Gao Jian examined it closely. He had indeed never cared much for history before. After all, the Mortal Dynasty back home was no less impressive than ancient China in either scale or history.

But his recent experiences had genuinely sparked a keen interest in ancient history.

The old man was deeply moved. His grandson had never been interested before, yet after one trip abroad, he had actually picked up a history book on his own.

No wonder they say going abroad teaches you a lesson.

That fellow, Wang Weiheng, the internet celebrity who went by something like Doughnut, had died a horrible death in the United States last year, setting off a huge wave of emigrants returning home. And that scoundrel Ding Yizhen, a deputy mayor who fled to the United States and washed dishes for two years-hadn't he obediently come back to serve his sentence, too?

Watching his dear grandson engrossed in Ming history, the old man nodded in satisfaction.

If only Gao Jian's parents were still around... Still, the grandson I raised single-handedly has turned out quite well. He completed a combined bachelor's and master's program at Harbin Institute of Technology, then joined the national space agency as a rocket engineer. He may not have gone into politics, but he's a technical specialist, and that counts as contributing to the country.

Ever since the car accident, after waking up in the ICU, Gao Jian had become more and more sensible.

The drunk driver of the Dayun truck who had nearly killed Gao Jian had already been dealt with properly. But the mastermind who had directed that driver...

As certain memories surfaced, the old man's smile gradually faded.

A Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty was an excellent book. Gao Jian seemed to be casually turning its pages, but with the reading speed of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he had actually read the entire thing from cover to cover. Apart from the final section on the Southern Ming, which had nearly sent his blood pressure through the roof, the rest was fine.

The sun and moon had lost their light; the land lay shattered.

The second fall of China.

Thankfully, it was all in the past.

Gao Jian also noticed some interesting little details in the book.

"Old man, did the Ming dynasty's Jiajing Emperor really practice immortal cultivation?"