Yu Xiaogang spoke, pointing at the towering buildings on the Heavenly Screen, his eyes filled with surprise and doubt:
"These architectural styles, these moving iron shells, these scantily dressed pedestrians..."
"I've never heard of or seen anything like them before."
Ma Hongjun rubbed his chin. "Could this be another side of the Shrouding the Heavens World?"
"Just like our Douluo Continent, which has both primeval places like the Star Dou Great Forest and bustling capitals like Heaven Dou City?"
"Impossible!"
Tang San immediately shook his head. "Look at the materials and shapes of those buildings. Look at those 'iron shells'..."
"Do you think they have anything at all in common with the houses in the Shrouding the Heavens World?"
"True..."
For a moment, everyone present instinctively nodded.
After all, everything before Li Dan could not merely be called unlike the Shrouding the Heavens World-it was completely different.
After a long silence, Yu Xiaogang slowly said, "Now, there's only one explanation..."
"Li Dan wasn't teleported to the Shrouding the Heavens World at all. He went to another, completely unfamiliar world!"
"Another world?" Ning Rongrong, Xiao Wu, and the others instinctively exclaimed.
"But didn't the Heavenly Screen say this was a livestream of the Shrouding the Heavens World?" Ma Hongjun scratched his head. "Could the Heavenly Screen have made a mistake?!"
Spirit Hall.
Inside the Pope's Palace, Bibi Dong held her scepter and gazed up at the Heavenly Screen, her stunning face equally puzzled.
"Your Holiness," Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, standing beside her, spoke curiously in his hoarse voice, "this sight... I've never seen anything like it."
"What exactly are those iron shells and iron birds? They don't look like Soul Tools either!"
Bibi Dong stared at the towering buildings, the speeding cars, and the flashing neon lights, then shook her head:
"I've never seen them either."
"Is this really the Shrouding the Heavens World? Could even the Heavenly Screen make mistakes?"
She murmured to herself, tapping her scepter lightly against the floor with a crisp sound.
"Either Li Dan really was teleported incorrectly and ended up in the wrong world, or..."
Bibi Dong murmured, a trace of gravity flashing through her eyes, "the Shrouding the Heavens World itself contains places like this."
Listening to Bibi Dong, Chrysanthemum Douluo looked at Xiao Nannan's livestream on the left, then at Li Dan's on the right:
"But Your Holiness, no matter how I look at them, they have nothing to do with each other."
"They don't."
Bibi Dong gently shook her head. "That's why I'm also very curious about what's going on."
For a time, across the Douluo Continent...
All manner of speculation about Li Dan rose in wave after wave.
Meanwhile, on the Heavenly Screen, the livestream continued.
Li Dan still stood frozen in the street, at a loss, looking around blankly.
"Just... what is this place?"
And just then...
Screeech-!
A piercing screech of brakes rang out.
A silver-gray, streamlined "iron shell" stopped in front of Li Dan by a hair's breadth, less than half a meter away from him.
Startled, Li Dan staggered back several steps and landed on his backside.
Soon, the car door opened, and a young man in casual clothes who looked to be in his early twenties stepped out.
His brows slightly furrowed, he walked over to Li Dan.
"Buddy, even if you're cosplaying, you still need to watch out for cars!"
The young man's voice carried a hint of helplessness. "I nearly sent you flying, you know?"
Sitting on the ground, Li Dan stared blankly at the young man, then at the Mercedes, unable to react for quite some time.
Seeing this, the young man thought he had been scared senseless, and his tone softened a little:
"Hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Only then did Li Dan come to his senses. He scrambled to his feet and brushed the dust off his clothes.
"I-I'm fine..."
Li Dan answered instinctively, then asked cautiously, "H-hello, my name is Li Dan."
"M-may I ask... is this the Shrouding the Heavens World?"
The young man froze, his expression turning somewhat strange. "What Shrouding the Heavens World? My name's Ye Fan. I don't know what you mean."
"Ring, ring-"
Just then, a ringtone came from Ye Fan's pocket.
The next second, Li Dan saw the young man named Ye Fan naturally take out that glowing little rectangle and glance at it...
He answered.
"Hello, Pang Bo, what's up? Oh, a class reunion? When?"
As Ye Fan spoke, he glanced at Li Dan out of the corner of his eye, seemingly checking that he really was all right.
"Okay, got it. Send me the location on WeChat. See you at the reunion."
Hanging up, Ye Fan looked back at Li Dan and asked:
"Buddy, are you all right?"
Li Dan instinctively shook his head.
Although he had been frightened, the car had actually stopped in time. He had only stumbled and fallen, without even scraping his skin.
Seeing this, Ye Fan took a notepad and pen from the car, wrote down a string of numbers, and handed it to Li Dan. "This is my phone number."
"If you feel unwell anywhere later, call me. I've got something to do now, so I have to go."
"What's a phone?" Li Dan looked at the slip of paper in his hand, his face full of incomprehension.
"???"
Ye Fan looked at Li Dan. "Seriously, buddy? Are you a wild man?"
"I really don't have time to fool around with you..."
"Contact me if anything comes up!"
With that, he turned and got into the Mercedes, started the engine, and soon merged into traffic, disappearing at the far end of the city street.
Li Dan was left standing alone, clutching the note with the phone number, looking blankly at the bustling yet unfamiliar city around him.
The wind blew across his coarse hemp clothes.
The sunset's lingering rays spilled over the glass of the high-rises, reflecting a wash of gold.
Faint police sirens, car horns, and the sounds of people chatting and laughing drifted over from afar...
Everything was so real, yet so illusory.
Li Dan lowered his head to look at the note in his hand, then looked up at this completely unfamiliar world, his mouth moving.
Just then, a man in uniform walked over:
"Comrade..."
Soon, Li Dan's livestream gradually went dark.
White Jade Capital.
A sea of clouds churned, wreathed in immortal mist.
Within a spiritual hot spring pool suspended among the clouds, steam swirled and spiritual spring water bubbled, shimmering with a faint jade luster.
In the pool, a white-haired man leaned lazily against its smooth, lustrous wall, his eyes half closed.
Simply sitting there quietly, he naturally exuded an innate nobility and aloofness, as though he dwelled high above the nine heavens, untouched by mortal dust.
Behind him, a peerlessly beautiful woman without a stitch of clothing gently massaged his shoulders and neck.
Her features were incomparably lovely, her bearing ethereal-she was none other than the Heavenly Court's Empress, Tantai Guyue.
At that moment, the white-haired man seemed to be dozing, yet also seemed to be wandering beyond the heavens.
After an unknown length of time, his long, thick lashes stirred slightly, and his eyes slowly opened.
They were an extraordinarily unusual pair of eyes, pale gold in color, as though they held flowing rivers of stars and ages stretching back to antiquity, unfathomably deep.
"Judging by the time..."
"That future Heavenly Emperor Ye, Ye Fan, should be driving his Mercedes to that special class reunion of his, and then..."
"Be brought to the Big Dipper by nine dragons pulling a coffin, shouldn't he?"
The man reached out, picked up a translucent vermilion fruit brimming with spiritual Qi from the jade platter floating beside him, and placed it in his mouth, savoring it unhurriedly.
"Nine Dragons Pulling a Coffin... the Three-Life Bronze Coffin... should I go take a look?"