What exactly did members of the Daoist Order use as mounts for their everyday travel through the skies?
The answer was simple: whatever appeared most often in folk legends was what they used. Ordinary people weren't blind; they had eyes.
According to statistics, more than eighty percent of Mystic Order practitioners chose to ride clouds. The Colorful Cloud 1988 had already become the bestselling means of transport in history.
Among the rest, quite a few rode cranes. To members of the Daoist Order, an intelligent mount was the best kind. Otherwise, they had to handle things like turning and changing direction themselves, which undeniably diminished their mystique.
The drawback was the high upkeep. The cranes refused to go anywhere without three to five bags of spirit beast feed, and having a mount that was too clever wasn't necessarily a good thing.
No farting while riding, no eating or drinking, no journeys too far away, no trips anywhere too cold. These were also major reasons why fewer and fewer people chose to ride cranes.
Especially as China developed, many immortal cranes would discover that all they needed was a band around one leg to go wherever they pleased across the Divine Land, enjoying free food and drink everywhere.
Wasn't that far better than being someone's mount?
Of course, that was a story for later.
The remaining options were all oddities, mostly chosen by unconventional Mystic Order practitioners with eccentric ideas and a taste for individuality.
There was supposedly even a mighty cultivator nicknamed Missile Perfected Lord who, for reasons nobody understood, insisted on making his mount look like a missile.
He claimed that only a mount shaped like that could be called imposing: one glance was enough to strike fear into people.
He hadn't been airborne long before the ground-based Air Defense Forces mistook him for a real missile and shot him down, earning the soldiers a collective second-class merit citation.
Fortunately, his strength and quick reactions barely let him escape with his life. Still, it left him with a lasting condition: he trembled whenever he saw anything flying with fire trailing behind it, including bottle rockets and double-bang firecrackers.
After briefly introducing Malfoy to Eastern mounts, Zhang Xiao hadn't expected him to still have the nerve to mock him.
"So even with all your wealth, fame, and status, you've never enjoyed the thrill of Quidditch?"
Zhang Xiao immediately grew flustered, muttering something about how nothing was perfect.
Malfoy had finally found something he could show off about in front of Zhang Xiao. He began holding forth among the young witches and wizards, going on and on about his Quidditch experiences.
He especially liked telling stories about choosing a broom from "a broom room with thirty-six brooms" and dodging Muggle helicopters. Don't ask why the number of brooms in that room kept growing. The answer was that he had money and bought more whenever he pleased.
The young witches and wizards from the other houses were no less eager. From the way Seamus Finnigan talked, he seemed to have spent most of his childhood flying around the countryside on a broomstick.
Even Ron, whenever he found someone willing to listen, would talk about the time he'd ridden Charlie's battered old broom and nearly collided with a hang glider.
In short, they were all complaining about the rule that first-years couldn't play on their house Quidditch teams, acting as though they would become star players the moment they joined.
The young witches and wizards who had never encountered Quidditch listened eagerly to every word.
They hoped to glean a little useful knowledge from the stories. Hermione had simply memorized everything about flying in Quidditch Through the Ages.
Although Malfoy had mocked Zhang Xiao over Quidditch, he was honestly quite interested in flying. After all, soaring through the sky was a wish buried in every human heart. Otherwise, people wouldn't consider flight one of the most basic abilities of a deity.
Amid the first-years' tangled feelings of anticipation and anxiety, their first flying class finally arrived.
Zhang Xiao followed the young witches and wizards through the main doors and outside.
The weather was unusually lovely that day, with warm sunshine and a gentle breeze. As Zhang Xiao strode down the sloping grounds toward a level lawn on the opposite side, little waves rippled through the grass.
Zhang Xiao narrowed his eyes, enjoying the brief moment of ease. It felt rather like an outing. Twenty or so broomsticks had already been laid out neatly on the lawn.
They were rather different from the brooms displayed in the shop windows of Diagon Alley. The paint on their handles had peeled away, exposing dull, weathered wood.
Their twigs stuck out every which way, making them look more like the battered broom Filch carried, the one that never seemed to get the floor clean.
Madam Hooch, their flying instructor, stood between the two rows of brooms with her arms folded. With her short gray hair and yellow eyes, she looked like a majestic hawk.
"Well, what are you all waiting for? Stand beside your brooms! Quickly! Quickly! Quickly!" Madam Hooch's opening words were brief and forceful. With a single sentence, she pulled the young witches and wizards out of their excitement about flying and replaced it with a healthy respect for classroom discipline.
"As this is the most dangerous class in the school, I'm warning you: anyone-and listen carefully, I mean anyone-
"Who dares break the rules, I guarantee they will be saying goodbye to Quidditch for the rest of their time at Hogwarts!"
The young witches and wizards watched her nervously, terrified of missing a single word.
Madam Hooch was very satisfied with their response. "Now hold out your hands and call to your brooms! Put some feeling into it! Don't treat them like lifeless objects!"
Zhang Xiao steadied his breathing and focused all his attention on the broom. This was a little trick he'd worked out himself, one that proved very effective when casting spells. It worked just as well now, and the broom obediently jumped into his hand.
Not many managed that. Of the twenty or so young witches and wizards present, only two or three summoned their brooms immediately.
Beside him, Neville was sweating with anxiety. As he looked at the broom lying on the ground, his voice had already taken on a pleading note.
"Up, please, up!"
But the broom didn't budge. Neville stole a desperate glance at Madam Hooch. He really didn't want to be scolded by another professor or laughed at by his classmates again.
"Please, I'm begging you. Up." Neville's voice was gradually taking on the edge of a sob.
Neville couldn't understand why. Why did he mess things up every time, even though he worked so desperately hard to keep up with everyone? Last time, Snape had even sneered that his head made an excellent container because it was completely empty inside.
"Neville, don't rush. Take a deep breath." A reassuring voice suddenly came from beside him.
Neville knew him: the genius whose reputation had recently soared, Slytherin's rising star. Unlike Neville, every professor liked him, lavishing all sorts of glowing praise on him.
Even Professor Snape, whom Neville feared most, praised his excellent work in class. He was Zhang, a genuine genius from China.
Neville admired him and dreamed of shining just as brightly himself one day.
But Neville was never jealous. He knew plenty of people were jealous of Zhang, including older students who thought his reputation was undeserved and that, in a real fight, a single little spell would be enough to knock this genius to the ground.
But Neville couldn't understand. Why be jealous of someone just because they were better than you?
He knew Zhang was a very good person. On their first day at school, he had helped Neville find Trevor. Even now, Zhang was one of the few people who never laughed at him, despite being a Slytherin.
But so what? Neville muttered inwardly. Who judges whether someone's good or bad by their house? Shouldn't real kindness be judged by what's in their heart?
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