That night, rain poured down and fierce winds howled.
Rumble-
Above Rongcheng, lightning tore through the pitch-black night, filling it with silver cracks like branching roots.
The wind coiled like a raging dragon, and the trees roared.
A tall, beautiful woman fled desperately through the curtain of rain with an even more beautiful woman on her back, sending up sprays of water with every step.
Wu Moling's white shirt was soaked through, clinging to her body and outlining her graceful curves.
In her panic, Wu Moling rounded a corner into an alley, only to stop short with a slap of her foot.
"Why is this a dead end?!" She stared at the wall before her in terror and despair, her slender body trembling uncontrollably.
Ji Yaoguang lay unconscious on Wu Moling's back. Her lashes fluttered, and her red lips parted as she murmured in her stupor, "Lin... Fei..."
Wu Moling's heart burned with anxiety. She immediately gave a bitter smile. "My dear Sister Yaoguang, we're about to die, and you're still saying that name. Who is he, to deserve so much of your attention?"
Just then, a man's calm, resonant voice came from behind her. "Me."
When had someone appeared behind me?!
Wu Moling's heart jolted. She spun around and stepped back, watching the man behind her warily.
He had refined features and wore casual clothes. His eyes held the composure and tranquility left by the settling of endless vicissitudes.
"Are you with those assassins?"
"Get lost, or I'll kill you!" In this moment of peril, Wu Moling dared not let her guard down and made no attempt to conceal her icy killing intent.
Lin Fei smiled dismissively and walked calmly toward her.
Wu Moling clenched her teeth. Without any further hesitation, she swept a vicious whipping kick at him.
Her leg swept out like an iron rod, instantly whistling through the air with enough force to shatter a tree trunk as thick as a bowl's mouth.
Yet Lin Fei merely waved his hand, and Wu Moling felt the air grow impossibly resistant. Some mysterious force seemed to imprison her, leaving her completely unable to move.
Wu Moling remained frozen in her kicking stance, like a still picture.
She was utterly horrified, unable to believe any of it.
Lin Fei merely glanced at her and shook his head. "The illustrious Ten Shamans of Spirit Mountain once swept across the world, their might striking awe into the primordial wilderness. Who would have thought their descendants would decline to this extent!"
Wu Moling felt as though a thunderclap had exploded in her mind. Her heart trembled without cease.
The Ten Shamans Clan had long since changed their surname to Wu. How had this mysterious man seen through her identity at a glance?!
Lin Fei paid no attention to Wu Moling's horror. His gaze rested on Ji Yaoguang on her back, a gleam shining in his deep eyes as he slowly approached.
Lin Fei lifted the unconscious Ji Yaoguang off her back and gathered her into his arms, sighing with emotion. "Three thousand years. I've remained in this mortal world for three thousand years. Heaven has not failed me. I've finally found you, Yaoguang!"
He reached out to tuck Ji Yaoguang's disheveled hair behind her ear, but his expression suddenly changed.
For Lin Fei had already sensed that Ji Yaoguang had been gravely poisoned.
In that instant, a cold light blazed in his eyes, and a terrifying aura radiated from his entire body. "Tell me, who dared harm my wife, Yaoguang!"
Wu Moling felt her heart violently contract. A suffocating sensation bore down on her, and she could not utter a single word!
Never in her life had she seen such a terrifying gaze!
Just then, hurried footsteps sounded behind Lin Fei. The group of gun-wielding assassins in black had pursued them into the alley.
They were well trained, and the killing intent they exuded cut deeper than the cold wind on that rainy night.
Silent, deadly, cold.
The moment the assassins saw Lin Fei holding their target, they leveled their dark gun barrels at him in unison.
"Brat, hand over the woman in your arms, or I'll put a bullet in you!" the assassins' leader threatened, his voice as hoarse as scraping iron and utterly vicious.
"An ant trying to shake a tree. You don't know your own limits!" Lin Fei sneered and turned around.
In an instant, intricate, profound patterns appeared in his pupils, as though stars were flickering out of existence within them.
Under Lin Fei's icy gaze, the fully armed assassins instantly turned into black tribulation ash and were annihilated!
Still immobilized beside him, Wu Moling witnessed this scene and felt as though a thunderclap had exploded in her mind. She stared at Lin Fei in horror.
She could not understand at all. Who exactly was this man, and why was he so powerful?
Perhaps even Su Caiwei of Douque Palace, a legend of the ancient martial arts world, was no more powerful than this?
This mysterious man filled her with unprecedented awe and curiosity.
Lin Fei pressed a finger between Ji Yaoguang's brows. Strands of purplish-black mist immediately seeped from her smooth forehead. The mist condensed into liquid that swirled around his finger.
Lin Fei flicked the purplish-black venom onto the wall. It instantly hissed, releasing a puff of white smoke and corroding a large hole in the wall.
As though alive, it even merged with the concrete, transforming into a dense swarm of strange venomous spiders that suddenly sprang toward them!
The sight frightened all the color from Wu Moling's face.
Yet Lin Fei merely glanced at them. The instant his gaze met them, the venomous spiders turned into black ash and vanished like smoke in the wind.
If the Medicine Sect's sect master learned that someone had neutralized the Thousand Spiders and Ten Thousand Poisons so easily, he would probably have coughed up blood in fury on the spot.
Unable to hide her shock, Wu Moling widened her clear, limpid eyes.
Not only was this man incomparably powerful, but he had so easily neutralized a deadly poison that even Divine Physician Hua had been helpless against?!
Snap.
Lin Fei snapped his fingers, and the invisible restraining force in the air dissipated. Wu Moling immediately regained the ability to move.
He looked at Wu Moling and said coldly, "A descendant of the Ten Witches who failed to obey the Shaman Clan's ancestral teachings and could not even protect Empress Yaoguang's reincarnation. Under those teachings, you deserve execution."
"But in recognition of your ancestor Wu Xian's great service and toil, I will spare your life and grant you an opportunity to atone through meritorious service!"
Wu Moling was nearly petrified.
Wu Xian was the leader of the Ten Shamans of Spirit Mountain. Through divination, he could consult the supreme god Di Jun, and he served as the bridge between the Heavenly Emperor and the Human Emperor. The Yellow Emperor sought his counsel before every battle and could not act rashly without his approval. By following his words, the Yellow Emperor met with success at every turn and ultimately even slew the demon god Chiyou.
Divination was only one aspect of his abilities. His medical skills could raise the dead and defy heaven to alter fate, while his curses could wither trees and send birds plummeting.
A divine shaman of his age, he possessed incomparable power and was the person the Yellow Emperor respected most.
Yet in this man's mouth, such a divine shaman was merely his... servant?
"Who... exactly are you? What is your relationship with my ancestor and Sister Yaoguang?" Wu Moling's scalp prickled as she asked in a trembling voice.
"Who am I?"
A trace of reminiscence crossed Lin Fei's face, as though he had recalled many past events. Then he smiled faintly. "The multiverse has too many names for me. Some call me the Celestial Venerable of Ten Thousand Sages, some call me the Chaos Emperor Lord, and others call me Heavenly Emperor Lin."
"You can just call me Lin Fei."
"As for my relationship with them... you can see for yourself."
As his words fell, Lin Fei casually sent out a ray of spiritual light, which sank between Wu Moling's brows.
In an instant, scenes from Lin Fei's memories flooded into Wu Moling's mind.
She saw dinosaurs running across a primeval wilderness, while Lin Fei lay leisurely atop a tyrannosaurus, basking in the sun with one leg crossed over the other!
She saw ten divine shamans kneeling respectfully on mist-shrouded Spirit Mountain, listening to Lin Fei expound the Dao! It seemed as though a hundred thousand gods and Buddhas were chanting, while golden lotuses blossomed in the air.
She saw the First Emperor ascend Mount Tai, leading over a thousand ministers in kneeling worship and performing the Feng and Shan sacrifices. And the one receiving their kowtows was none other than Lin Fei, sitting cross-legged on the mountaintop and playing a zither!
She even saw a fairy-like figure gently playing a bamboo flute for Lin Fei beneath the moon, making no attempt to conceal the tenderness and love in her eyes.
And this fairy looked exactly like Ji Yaoguang. Wu Xian respectfully addressed her as Empress Yaoguang!
Wu Moling's expression changed. Then, with firm resolve, she dropped to her knees before Lin Fei with a thud.
Wu Moling kowtowed deeply, prostrating herself with both hands, both knees, and her forehead against the ground.
"Wu Moling, descendant of the Ten Shamans of Spirit Mountain, pays her respects to Master!"