Gao Jian walked into the living room as casually as ever, glanced at Elder Gao, then at the evening news, and asked:
"Grandpa, is there anything to eat?"
Elder Gao frowned at him. "It's all in the fridge. Just heat it up in the microwave. Have you adjusted your body clock yet?"
"Yeah, yeah," Gao Jian answered. "I slept straight through from yesterday afternoon until now. I can't even tell day from night anymore. My head feels swollen from all that sleep."
As he spoke, Gao Jian walked into the kitchen, heated all the dishes in the microwave, and carried them to the dining table. He even remembered to put the two jellies on the table for dessert before taking out his phone.
He scrolled on his phone as he ate, his eyes glazed over.
"You're looking at your phone even while you eat."
"You watch TV while you drink tea," Gao Jian muttered.
"I'm watching the evening news."
"I'm keeping up with national affairs too." Gao Jian raised his phone and waved it.
His screen showed the newly downloaded Douyin app, and a news report played through its speaker. As it happened, the report was covering the Houston missile crisis. According to the news, the two sides had reached an understanding through negotiations, and the crisis had been put to rest for now.
Elder Gao sighed helplessly. "Fine, I'll leave you alone. Eat slowly. Get some proper rest over the next couple of days, then find time for a haircut. You look like a wild man."
"I'll go after dinner."
Gao Jian's words came out muffled.
Elder Gao stopped watching the news and focused on his precious grandson instead.
After a while, the old man suddenly said:
"I spoke to some comrades at the State Security Bureau last night. The organization has already cleared everything up, so you don't need to worry. Some leaders at the Space Administration even called to ask when you'd be coming back to work. I put them all off. I told them you'd finally managed to come home, and you deserved at least ten days or a fortnight to rest."
Gao Jian swallowed his food and exclaimed, "Ten days or a fortnight? No way! I have to take the high-speed train back tomorrow at the latest."
Elder Gao looked displeased. "Would it kill you to spend a little more time with a lonely old man?"
Gao Jian didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Grandpa, I'd love to stay with you, but do you know how many major developments in aerospace I recorded during my week as an observer in the United States? Reporting even one of the things I saw could draw the attention of the entire aerospace community... If I really stayed here with you for half a month, Director Dan, Old Li, and the others would tear me apart."
"Fine, fine. Leave the day after tomorrow, then."
With the conversation having gone that far, the old man waved a hand and said no more.
Gao Jian grinned cheekily. "I'll come back to see you for the Mid-Autumn Festival."
The old man snorted. "That's almost half a year away. Can't you come home once a month? Even once every two months would do."
"I can't help it. Work's too busy."
"Busy. Being busy is good. It's good."
The old man lowered his head forlornly.
Gao Jian: "..."
His divine sense had remained locked on his grandfather, and now he was absolutely certain: his grandfather was actually a cultivator in the falsehood recognition realm too. Gao Jian was deeply shocked.
Still, according to the Yongle Fragment, throughout the dynasties, cultivators in the falsehood recognition realm had been far from rare among upright officials, renowned scholars, and great Confucian masters. After all, it was only the first realm.
Given his grandfather's position, it wasn't particularly surprising that he had reached the falsehood recognition realm.
People like him must have been widespread across Shenzhou Land.
Gao Jian simply had no idea where his grandfather had obtained his cultivation method. Could the state have provided it?
He also didn't know whether his grandfather had noticed him just now... Normally, someone in the falsehood recognition realm could easily identify a fellow cultivator, but Gao Jian had reacted quickly, using the control of a foundation establishment cultivator to force himself out of the falsehood recognition realm.
He wasn't sure whether his grandfather had gotten a clear look.
But the qi that had surrounded the old man just now had been truly terrifying.
Though it had lasted only an instant, Gao Jian had clearly seen that the qi around his grandfather was so dense it had almost become solid. Unlike the scattered, shapeless strands of transparent mist around ordinary people, his qi coiled and piled up in layer upon layer.
Combined with the old man's deep, unfathomable bearing, that qi resembled a sea of winter clouds pressing against the slopes of Mount Tai, slowly swirling in a majestic expanse of its own.
If Gao Jian's qi was a newly rising morning mist, then his grandfather's was a sea of clouds over snow-covered mountains that never melted, terrifyingly dense.
Gao Jian lowered his head and shoveled food into his mouth.
The little room grew quiet.
After a while, Gao Jian gathered up all the bowls and chopsticks, briskly carried them into the kitchen, washed them clean in no time, and put them in the cupboard.
"I'm going for a haircut."
"Mm." Elder Gao grunted unhappily.
Gao Jian left without hesitation, then climbed onto that bicycle with the scorching-hot seat again.
His thoughts were tangled, and he was trying to sort them out.
He was now certain that there had been more to the original Gao Jian's traffic accident. The original had made it clear that someone had targeted him after he uploaded the fragment in his possession to the internet. While still in high school, he had then received death threats and messages revealing his private information.
The threats had frightened the high-school Gao Jian so badly that he left a final message, stopped commuting, and applied to live on campus.
Later, however, Gao Jian had gone to the Harbin Institute of Technology and remained safe throughout his undergraduate years. He had then secured admission to a mechanical engineering graduate program without taking the entrance exam. Immersed in his studies all day, he gradually forgot about those incidents.
He had forgotten his posts on foreign websites and the fragment of the Yongle Encyclopedia tucked into his diary. His life had gone smoothly right up until he graduated.
Just as the original Gao Jian was about to enter the working world, the Dayun truck had arrived.
But what about Elder Gao?
He definitely hadn't seen that fragment of the Yongle Encyclopedia, but the old man had always shown an extraordinary enthusiasm for Ming history. Gao Jian remembered clearly that his grandfather had even found himself a late-life romantic entanglement with a woman named Gao Xiaofeng, all because she understood Ming history and 1587, A Year of No Significance.
Fortunately, the old man had come to his senses after his own grandson awakened his conscience. Gao Jian hadn't seen this "Auntie" Gao Xiaofeng in years.
How had his grandfather reached the falsehood recognition realm?
The fragment recorded that cultivators in the falsehood recognition realm were indeed not uncommon among famous scholars of ancient times, but every one of them had left a name in history. His grandfather might have risen to one of the top three positions in a province, but he was still just an ordinary mortal official.
Surely the higher-ups hadn't issued him a cultivation method?
Forget it. I'll just find someone to check.
The way to check was simple too.
Gao Jian soon turned his bicycle into the State Government grounds. Its office building stood directly in front of People's Square.
He wanted to take a look at the other two from a distance, especially the recently appointed Governor of Shazhou. But instead of seeing the Governor of Shazhou, he spotted the Jingzhou City Governor leaving the office building in a black Audi.
Governor Li.
Gao Jian vaguely remembered that this man surnamed Li had never gotten along with Elder Gao. Back in high school, he had often heard the old man complain about him.
Gao Jian entered the falsehood recognition state and observed him from afar. Unfortunately, this Governor Li, who never did business with any merchant in Jingzhou City, was merely an ordinary person, not a mental-state cultivator.
Gao Jian wandered around the building, scanning with his divine sense. He examined nearly everyone, from low-ranking clerks to the province's top officials, but found no mental-state cultivator other than himself and his grandfather.
Even the Governor of Shazhou wasn't one.
"Oh, young Gao?! What brings you here?"
Gao Jian turned and saw Hou Liangping, the newly transferred director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau. Instinctively, he swept his divine sense over him. Clearly, this energetic young Director Hou, barely a dozen years older than Gao Jian, wasn't a mental-state cultivator either.
"Oh, Director Hou..." Gao Jian trailed off, seemingly unsure how to address him.
"Oh, forget 'Director Hou.' I'm only twelve years older than you, the same generation as your Uncle Qi. Just call me Uncle Hou. Your grandfather even taught me politics and law at Handong University," Hou Liangping said with a smile.
"Oh, right." Understanding dawned on Gao Jian.
Gao Jian could only exchange pleasantries with Director Hou for a while. He hardly knew the man; they seemed to have met once during his high-school years. Hou Liangping, however, was very enthusiastic, asking repeatedly about Gao Jian's recent life and making a point of bringing up the major news story that had recently sent him trending online. Gao Jian could only trot out his explanation about Elon Musk using him as a pawn again.
Elon Musk really was awful.
Seeing Gao Jian's lack of interest, Director Hou felt awkward keeping him any longer. Besides, in such hot weather, outdoors really wasn't the place for a conversation.
"All right, young Gao, go take care of your business. I've just been transferred from the capital to Jingzhou. Perhaps I'll pay your grandfather a visit sometime soon," Hou Liangping said with a smile.
Gao Jian managed a smile too. "That'd be great. Grandpa's mentioned you to me as well. He said you were his most accomplished student and all that."
"Hahahaha, you certainly know what to say. All right, I'll come pay my respects in a couple of days." Hou Liangping patted this foundation establishment cultivator on the shoulder, then hurried away.
Gao Jian watched his retreating figure, lost in thought.
Two days later, Gao Jian said goodbye to Elder Gao and bought a plane ticket from Jingzhou to the capital. Carrying a simple backpack, he walked into Jingzhou Airport.
Jingzhou City was a coastal city, a provincial capital, and the ancient capital of six dynasties. Its high-speed railway station was a major transportation hub linking northern and southern East China. But Gao Jian hadn't managed to get a ticket online and didn't want to stand for the journey, so he had bought a plane ticket instead and come to Jingzhou Airport, next to the railway station.
Because of its location, Jingzhou Airport was an important air port of entry in southeastern China. Large numbers of people entering and leaving Handong, along with cross-border cargo, cleared through it, serving several surrounding provinces. Naturally, this made the airport a key site for Customs oversight.
Gao Jian queued up and checked in, then walked along the passage. A casual glance happened to draw his attention to the Customs channel, where numerous staff in navy-blue uniforms stood on duty farther inside.
Gao Jian paused slightly.
He noticed that every one of those Customs workers in navy-blue uniforms was a mental-state cultivator. Pale white qi surrounded them, standing out strikingly in that colorless world.
But judging by their haggard faces...
These were hardly Mindscape Cultivators. They were clearly a group of exhausted ordinary people working beyond their limits. Standing at the end of the Customs channel, they formed a tangible wall at the nation's gateway.
At this boundary, every lurking evil was kept outside.
Before you continue