Miraculous Encounter

"Absurd—utterly, ridiculously absurd! The head of one of the Five Great Families of the Bright Jade Dynasty actually fought over a woman at the academy, got knocked unconscious because of her, and made us wait here for five hours! This is simply outrageous." In the Ren Family's enormous Great Council Hall, Third Elder Ren Hanlin, somewhat short, plump, and balding, had received the news and was too furious to remain seated. He rose and paced back and forth across the hall.

His gaze repeatedly drifted toward the lofty Family Head's seat at the center of the hall. The day was nearly over, darkness was about to fall, yet it remained empty. That absurd Family Head still had not arrived.

"Bang!" Fourth Elder Ren Wenxu, whose face was as long as a horse's, glared with bulging eyes. "He is becoming more and more outrageous! What does he take Elder Council Day for? He should have returned yesterday to prepare, yet he got into a fight at the academy. If word gets out, it will be the joke of the century."

As the two spoke furiously, a young man seated at the very bottom merely remained quietly in place, as if he had long grown accustomed to all this.

Yet whenever the two Ren Family elders angrily discussed the Family Head, a trace of helplessness and disdain surfaced on his face. Was it truly that prosperity inevitably declined at its peak? Under the former Family Head's twenty years of stewardship, the Ren Family had reached a glory unseen in a thousand years. Would it now truly begin to decline because it had fallen into the hands of this hedonistic young master of a Family Head?

Though he was not a member of the Ren Family, every time he thought of this, he felt deeply uncomfortable. For over a year now, Wan Hong had attended the Council of Elders on behalf of Sixth Master. He had seen such matters so often that he was beginning to grow numb.

After the two vented their anger, their gazes all turned toward the elder with a thin, long beard who sat beneath the Family Head's seat, in the second chair, his face dark and gloomy. This was Second Elder Ren Junyang, who now presided over the Ren Family's Council of Elders.

Ren Junyang had sat here for an entire day, only to learn that the current head of the Ren Family had fought someone over a woman and been knocked unconscious.

"Immediately send the Miraculous Apothecary over to see what happened. At the same time, dispatch the Guard Squad. If the Family Head is all right and wakes up, bring him back at once. Today's Elder Council meeting must be held, and several more items must be added to the agenda." Ren Junyang's face was dark as water. The thin beard beneath his chin nearly fluttered from the surging aura within him.

If Ren Junyang had not forcibly suppressed his rage with the self-restraint he had cultivated for decades, he truly would have said it: Better if he were dead. As long as he was not dead, drag him back.

What kind of Lineage was the Ren Family? One of the five founding families of the Bright Jade Dynasty, passed down for a thousand years and now at the height of its strength. Yet such a thing had happened—the dignified Ren Family Head actually...

"That's right. We have indulged him too much. From now on, he must return a day before Elder Council Day," Ren Hanlin said, nodding repeatedly.

Ren Wenxu's long horse face also sank. "Not only that. His daily expenses and the special advance funds allotted to the Family Head must be cut down further. Let's see how he can keep making trouble without money. He has utterly disgraced our Ren Family."

Alas. Wan Hong sighed inwardly and lightly sipped his tea. Is it really one generation a hero, another a worthless dog? Is the Ren Family truly about to decline after reaching its peak? If this continues, conflicts on every front will surely erupt sooner or later.

Sixth Master, you chose peace and quiet by not attending Elder Council Day yourself, yet sent me here to suffer in your place. This is more painful than being seriously wounded while killing enemies on the battlefield. It is like watching the Ren Family decline before my very eyes. This feeling truly was...

Following Second Elder's command, someone from the Ren Family immediately spurred a horse into a gallop, racing toward Jade Emperor Academy, one of the Bright Jade Dynasty's two greatest institutions of learning and also known as the Bright Jade Dynasty's academy for hedonistic young masters.

"I transmigrated? Fuck! Does this count as double transmigration?" Ren Jie rubbed his aching forehead. A lump the size of an egg had risen there, making it feel as though he had grown a horn.

But this was no horn. It was a huge bump smashed into him by an Iron Wood Bench made from hard ironwood. Only now did Ren Jie realize that he had actually transmigrated. Information that did not belong to him kept flooding into his mind.

Ren Jie felt as though his head were about to explode. The information pouring in all at once was a complete mess. Yes, absurd—utterly chaotic, with nothing serious or useful in it.

Chasing women, spending money, fighting, gambling...

Fuck, what kind of nonsense is this? This guy was also named Ren Jie. What the hell had he been doing before? Ren Jie was extremely upset, not just because of the unicorn-like lump on his head, but because he had transmigrated. In the past, reading novels and watching films or television dramas about others transmigrating and experiencing extraordinary journeys in another world had seemed thrilling and satisfying. But now that it had happened to him, he felt extremely, extremely unhappy.

His head hurt terribly, and he discovered that his body had no abnormalities at all—not a single benefit. He had also left behind the familiar technological civilization of Earth. From the fragmented, chaotic memories he was absorbing, he discovered that this was a world entirely different from Earth.

The bump on his head, the surging information, and the irritation after transmigrating all gave Ren Jie a splitting headache.

"Fuck!" Ren Jie angrily punched the wall hard. The next moment, his hand began to tremble. Though the wall shook slightly, the pain made him bare his teeth.

What the fuck was this? He had only been an ordinary student, reinstalling his laptop's operating system. He had merely borrowed several portable hard drives from upperclassmen and underclassmen at nearby academies, drives loaded with porn, to copy the files over. Then his vision had gone black, and he had somehow arrived in a strange world.

"Ah... it hurts!" The swollen bump on his head hurt, but even worse was the chaotic torrent of information flooding into his mind. Unable to bear it, Ren Jie abruptly shut his eyes, wishing he could burrow into his own mind and control the pain deep within it.

"Boom..." Suddenly, Ren Jie felt his consciousness leave his body in an instant. No, not leave his body—it entered his mind.

His mind seemed to explode in an instant. The next moment, clusters of light continuously gathered and combined.

What was this? Ren Jie was utterly stunned by the shifting lights before him.

From the small portion of chaotic memories he had absorbed, Ren Jie knew that people in this world could gain divine sense after cultivating to a certain level. Yet he had actually entered his own Sea of Consciousness with divine sense.

Gradually, those lights began to draw together and condense...

What the hell was that? Looking at what the lights were gradually forming, Ren Jie was completely dumbfounded.

A laptop. Yes, it was the laptop he had just reinstalled before transmigrating, the one he had been copying massive amounts of porn onto.

Was this a joke, or was he dreaming? He had transmigrated, and it would have been one thing if he had not received some heaven-defying divine artifact or magical treasure. But instead, he had brought a laptop with him—and it existed in his mind in this form of light. This was simply too absurd.

A pockmarked man not called pockmarked—wasn't that just screwing people over?! And from that guy's muddled memories, he also knew this was definitely not the Earth he remembered. What use could a bare computer possibly have inside his Sea of Consciousness?

Looking at the laptop that resembled the optical brain from some futuristic science-fiction film, Ren Jie gradually calmed down after quite a while. There was no point in not calming down. Things were already like this.

Ren Jie discovered that divine sense was more miraculous than his eyes. With a thought, his divine sense approached the laptop for a closer look. He found that aside from its original materials having transformed into various lights, nothing else had changed. Just as he was wondering how to operate this thing inside his Sea of Consciousness, a thought from his divine sense opened "My Computer" on the screen.

"Fuck, this is amazing." Ren Jie startled even himself. Then his divine sense operated again, and a hidden folder instantly opened. The classic films he had painstakingly selected and screened were all inside.

Yet at that moment, Ren Jie suddenly felt the urge to cry. He had no mood whatsoever to watch those classics.

He had transmigrated. His computer had come along, disintegrated, and merged into his mind, existing like an optical brain. Yet apart from those films he had just copied, the computer was practically bare. Though he still had no idea what was happening outside, fragments of memory that had surfaced in his mind told Ren Jie that the situation did not seem promising. The original owner's final memory was of being struck on the head with a bench and beaten to death.

"Hmm?" Suddenly, Ren Jie stared in shock at the bottom-right corner of the laptop condensed entirely from the special lights in his mind. Wireless... wireless... signal!! There was actually a wireless signal. Though it was only an extremely faint trace, there really was a signal.

At that moment, Ren Jie felt as if thunderbolts were crashing through his mind. What the hell was this supposed to be? Had heaven made him transmigrate and also given him Internet access so he could contact Earth?

This was not even a technological civilization. Where could he possibly connect to anything? With a movement of his divine sense, a browser immediately opened. Whatever web address he wanted to enter appeared as soon as he thought of it. But the result left Ren Jie utterly disappointed—there was no response at all.

Afterward, Ren Jie tested all sorts of other communication tools: Internet calls, video, chat software. The results were all the same.

"Alas!"

Ren Jie was full of bitter amusement. It seemed this was merely the pre-transmigration state, displaying some wireless signal around his dormitory at that time. As more memories kept emerging and being absorbed, albeit slowly, he came to understand that this place was definitely not Earth, nor was it a technological civilization. Naturally, something like a Wi-Fi signal could not possibly exist here.

His joy had been in vain, leaving Ren Jie with a profound sense of loss and confusion. In the past, he had found it novel and enjoyable to watch characters in novels and dramas enter entirely new worlds. But when it truly happened to him, the unfamiliarity, confusion, uncertainty, and countless other emotions made it difficult for him to adapt for a while.

Just as Ren Jie was about to withdraw his divine sense from the Sea of Consciousness and return to his new body, his "divine sense" suddenly stopped. Then it fixed its gaze on the screen. Though he had no body at the moment and was only divine sense, the sensation was exactly the same.

Because Ren Jie suddenly discovered something extra on the screen: video-playing software. He clearly remembered that he had installed the most stripped-down version of the system, and he had used that version for years. He knew its interface inside and out, and he remembered with absolute certainty that he had never installed anything else.

"Open!" With a movement of his divine sense, Ren Jie controlled the computer and opened this suddenly appearing video window.

"Boom..." In an instant, as if watching a holographic projection, Ren Jie felt his divine sense pulled by an invisible force. The next moment, he seemed to be standing within a strange space.

It was vast, boundless space. Far away in the distance, he could faintly see several people.

People? No. Ren Jie felt all the blood in his body rush toward his head. At first glance, he saw the distant figures, but in the next instant, he discovered in shock that one "person" had eighteen arms and twenty-four heads, his entire body enveloped in golden light.

Heavens, how was that a person?! Another stood atop a lotus platform, a sun newly risen behind his head, his face yellow.

Besides those two, there were three people opposite them. One of them was the tallest and most imposing. Immortal Qi swirled around him as though heaven and earth themselves stood at his side, and he held a pearl in his hand.

The two beside him were equally astonishing. The instant Ren Jie saw them, he felt as though his mind were about to explode. Even the new body he had just gained through transmigration seemed ready to burst apart from all the blood surging toward his head.

That was because the others all gave him an incomparably familiar impression. When he saw the old man sitting atop a Green Ox beside the pearl-holder, Ren Jie felt that his brain was truly about to stop functioning.

At first, he had not reacted immediately, but the moment he saw the old man riding the Green Ox, his mind instantly cleared. Lord... Lao...

The ancestor of primordial qi, the root of heaven and earth, the origin of all existence and nonexistence, the incarnation of the Great Dao—the embodiment of natural laws and principles. Residing above the Thirty-Three Heavens, he was, in the truest sense, the founding patriarch of Daoism, ranked third among the supreme Three Pure Ones, also known as the Moral Heavenly Venerable, Old Lord of Primal Chaos, Heavenly Venerable of Birth, and Great Emperor of Supreme Purity...

Wasn't the one with eighteen arms and twenty-four heads Bodhisattva Zhunti, one of the two Western sect leaders?

Though Ren Jie did not know them as well as he knew Lord Lao, he had at least heard of them in novels and legends. The yellow-faced man should be the other Western sect leader, the Guiding Daoist.

Then the one standing in the center, holding the pearl, even more formidable than Lord Lao, had to be the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning. The pearl in his hand should be the Primal Chaos Pearl...

There was no need to guess the last one: the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure...

The Jade Pure Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning, the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure, the Moral Heavenly Venerable of Supreme Purity, together with the two Western sect leaders, the Guiding Daoist and Bodhisattva Zhunti—the Five Great Sages!! Ren Jie was so shocked because he had a unique feeling that this was not a film, not a television drama, and even less some ordinary recording. He could personally feel something indescribable. Only at that moment did Ren Jie understand what pressure truly was. It was stronger by tens of millions—no, by hundreds of millions of times—than the feeling of an ordinary soldier suddenly seeing the marshal he idolized standing right beside him.

If this were merely a video, Ren Jie believed that if it played a horror movie, it would absolutely frighten most people to death. It was real. That feeling could not be faked...

Though he was only divine sense, Ren Jie could not move at all. Though they were far away, they still left him unable to move even a fraction...

What were they discussing? After recovering from his shock, Ren Jie gradually realized that although they were incredibly far away, he could clearly see their mouths moving, as if they were debating something...

He could not hear their voices, but merely watching their movements and sensing that remote, vast presence made Ren Jie feel his divine sense realm constantly changing. The time was brief, yet within that state of mind it was incomparably long. Though he could not hear a single sound, the sensation alone made Ren Jie feel like an ape or monkey observing human actions, his realm undergoing some sort of transformation.

The more he changed, the more intensely Ren Jie wanted to hear what the Five Great Sages were actually discussing...

At that moment, Ren Jie finally understood the saying: "If one hears the Dao in the morning, one may die that evening without regret." That was precisely how he felt. Even if he heard their voices and immediately died afterward, it would be worth it...

"Boom!" Only a moment later, just as Ren Jie desperately tried to hear the Five Great Sages discussing the Dao, the scene before him suddenly changed. He found himself "staring" at the laptop that had become an optical brain, while the video window he had opened had disappeared.

Ren Jie immediately used his divine sense to try opening that video window again, only to find that there was no response at all.

Strange. Could he no longer control it? Ren Jie moved his divine sense, and without the slightest pause or buffering, a primitive human reproduction art film featuring a man and a woman in a simple setting began to play...

It was so clear—wasn't it incredibly vivid?

In an instant, sound appeared as well. The impact was absolutely stronger than watching real people perform live. Ren Jie startled himself and hurriedly used his divine sense to lower the volume.

It was good that there was sound, but why would that video window not work? Yet Ren Jie unexpectedly discovered that his divine sense had become countless times stronger than before. Taking his current location as its center, everything here had expanded considerably.

Ren Jie's mind had never been so clear and sharp. Even his earlier confusion and fear had faded considerably.

If not for the fact that the feeling of being immersed in that wondrous state just now—so beautiful it felt like sudden enlightenment and understanding everything—had been too marvelous, Ren Jie would truly have taken some time to appreciate this unique primitive human reproduction art film.

Gone?

At that moment, Ren Jie suddenly noticed that the wireless signal at the bottom-right corner had disappeared too.

Could the two be related? How could he make that signal appear again and reconnect to that video from before...

As Ren Jie pondered this, he suddenly felt streams of unique power pour out from within his body. They instantly transformed into pure power and flowed into those signals. Faintly, Ren Jie could already see the signals shifting.

This was great! Ren Jie rejoiced inwardly. With a movement of divine sense, he immediately controlled the computer and opened that video window.

This time, it did not fail to respond. The video window opened directly, and the previous scenery and images appeared once more. Ren Jie entered that wondrous state again.

"Whoosh!" But after only a few seconds, Ren Jie felt the image shrink again. He could also clearly sense that the power flowing from within his body had been completely consumed by the video. Only then did Ren Jie finally understand what it meant for a cup of water to be a drop in the bucket.

"An expert... an expert has arrived..." Just then, Ren Jie suddenly heard someone shouting outside.

An expert? Had something happened? Had they discovered that the body no longer contained the original Ren Jie, or were they about to do something else? Hearing this, Ren Jie could not help but shudder. His divine sense instantly returned to his body, and he abruptly opened his eyes.

This glance was no small matter. Having just emerged from the Five Great Sages' discussion of the Dao, his divine sense was still in a wondrous state. The instant Ren Jie opened his eyes and sat up, he was struck completely dumb.

Because he clearly saw a naked little beauty rush in from outside, without the slightest covering on her body. Though she seemed to be only fourteen or fifteen, she had developed quite well. Most importantly, her figure was exquisite—large where it should be large, small where it should be small.

For an instant, Ren Jie simply stared. Could it be... could he still be dreaming? Or was he watching a realistic, three-dimensional classic film in the world within his mind?

Otherwise, why would a beautiful girl walk in naked like this? A dream—it had to be a dream.

The book had begun. A new beginning, and a satisfying story was coming your way. I still need the support of all you old and new brothers and sisters. As always, your support will forever be Sheng Ji's motivation to keep updating.