This Was a Fucking Mirage? What Kind of Mirage Overtook a Plane!

Ten thousand meters up.

A sea of clouds churned.

Less than ten meters from the Boeing passenger jet's right wing, a figure hovered steadily in midair.

He wore a gray T-shirt washed almost white, a pair of flip-flops on his feet, and a black hood that left only his eyes exposed.

Dressed like that, he wouldn't have earned a second glance in a vegetable market in Jiangzhou City.

The problem was, this was ten thousand fucking meters in the air!

Clang.

The stemmed glass in Zhou Zihao's hand slammed onto his tray table, spilling most of his champagne over the crotch of his bespoke trousers.

He didn't even notice. His eyes were practically popping out of their sockets.

The little boy was still waving his arms beside him. "Mom! I told you someone was flying! Look, look!"

The young mother, her face full of impatience, was about to drag her son back when she glanced in that direction out of the corner of her eye.

Snap.

The sleep mask she had pulled halfway down sprang straight back, smacking her hard in the face.

"Aah!"

An extremely shrill soprano instantly tore through the quiet of first class.

The young mother scrambled back into her seat, her hand shaking like grain in a sieve as she pointed outside. "A ghost... an immortal! An immortal!"

That scream jolted every passenger in first class awake.

Several nearby passengers craned their necks to look outside.

The next second, gasps erupted throughout the cabin, one after another.

Outside the window.

Braving raging winds dozens of degrees below zero, Lin Bei was so cold his teeth were chattering, but he held his back ramrod straight, doing his best to strike the pose of a peerless master looking down upon the world.

Although he couldn't hear the commotion inside the cabin, the system notifications in his head were practically deafening him.

"Ding! Extreme shock from Zhou Zihao. Sensation Points +5,000!"

"Ding! Shattered worldview from Bystander A. Sensation Points +1,000!"

"Ding! Scalp-tingling shock from Bystander B. Sensation Points +1,000!"

"Ding! Self-doubt from the chief flight attendant. Sensation Points +1,500!"

Watching the numbers race across the panel, Lin Bei's heart blossomed with joy.

This was pure profit!

Especially that Zhou Zihao. His contribution alone matched five ordinary bystanders. What a top-tier sucker.

"For a god-tier draw, I'm going all out."

Lin Bei sniffed back the snot brought on by the cold and gave the spiritual energy beneath his feet a slight push.

The iron sword hovering in midair gave a crisp hum, carrying him another three meters toward the cabin window.

Now the people inside could even see the hairs on his legs clearly.

Refracted in the sunlight, the azure light flowing over the blade lent it an unfathomably mysterious quality.

Combined with his gray T-shirt snapping in the wind, it forcibly created the illusion that "the great Dao was simplicity itself, a return to one's original nature."

The right side of the cabin descended into complete chaos.

Not just first class-even the window-seat passengers back in economy noticed something strange.

"Holy shit! There's someone outside!"

"Quick, pinch me! Am I fucking dreaming?"

"An immortal! A living immortal! Hurry up and make a wish!"

Click, click, click.

Countless passengers unbuckled their seat belts and scrambled to the windows on the right, whipping out their phones and hammering the shutter buttons.

Fatty Wang had been stuffing macadamia nuts into his mouth. Hearing the commotion, he curiously craned his neck and glanced outside.

"Cough-"

Half a nut lodged straight in his throat.

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!"

At that moment, Fatty Wang's meager vocabulary proved woefully inadequate. He could only express his inner shock in the plainest language.

"Qingwu! Look! A sword immortal! It really is a sword immortal!"

The chaos in the cabin had left Ruan Qingwu irritated and restless.

Frowning, she took off her noise-canceling headphones and looked in the direction Fatty Wang was pointing.

The moment she made out the scene outside, her cool eyes abruptly contracted.

Her usual icy, keep-your-distance demeanor vanished completely, replaced by astonishment she couldn't conceal.

Ten thousand meters in the air, flying on a sword.

This completely exceeded everything she had understood as common sense in her eighteen years of life.

Yet, for some reason, as she watched that figure standing on a battered iron sword in a black hood, an extraordinarily strange sense of familiarity suddenly rose within Ruan Qingwu.

That loose, sloppy stance.

And that gray T-shirt...

Ruan Qingwu's heart suddenly skipped a beat, and an utterly absurd thought flashed through her mind.

Lin Bei?

"Impossible." Ruan Qingwu shook her head hard, throwing that ridiculous thought out of her mind.

Lin Bei was a blockhead whose emotional intelligence hadn't even finished developing. He was usually too lazy to walk a few extra steps without taking a taxi. How could he possibly be some reclusive master who rode clouds and commanded mist?

She must have been so angry at him for standing her up that she was hallucinating.

The atmosphere inside the cabin had reached a full boil.

Two flight attendants hurried over to restore order, but after squeezing to the window and taking one look, they didn't even react when their radios fell to the floor.

Meanwhile, Zhou Zihao finally recovered from his extreme shock.

He looked down at his soaked crotch, then at the passengers going wild around him, his face turning the color of pig liver.

He had just declared that if someone was flying, he would gnaw through his seat raw.

What was this supposed to be? A slap in the face in front of everyone?

"Why are you taking pictures? What's there to photograph?"

Zhou Zihao's voice shot up an octave out of sheer insecurity.

"It's fake! It's definitely fake! Have you bumpkins never seen anything before?"

Fatty Wang turned and gave him a sidelong look.

"Well, well, Young Master Zhou. Who was it who said he'd gnaw through his seat raw if someone was flying outside? How about starting with an armrest to entertain everyone? I'll livestream it for you. Guaranteed to make you famous."

Several nearby passengers couldn't help looking over, stifling their laughter.

Zhou Zihao flushed scarlet. He pointed beyond the glass, stammering out excuses.

"Th-this is definitely a fucking mirage! Right! A mirage! Or a holographic projection! Some tech company is pulling a publicity stunt!"

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses looked at him as though he were an idiot.

"Young man, read a few more books. Can a mirage keep pace with a plane? Can a holographic projection show every fold in windblown clothing that clearly? Does your holographic projection even cast shadows in the clouds?"

"Then it's a reflection in the glass!" Zhou Zihao remained stubborn as a dead duck with a stiff beak, flatly refusing to admit his worldview had shattered. "We're ten thousand meters up! Forty or fifty below zero! And he's flying around outside in a T-shirt? What is this, a Marvel movie shoot? It's definitely an optical illusion caused by refraction through the cabin windows!"

His followers exchanged looks. Although they also found it ridiculous, they still steeled themselves and chimed in.

"Right, right, Young Master Zhou is right. It's definitely an optical illusion."

Outside the window.

Although Lin Bei couldn't hear what Zhou Zihao was barking about, one look at that bastard's furious mouth movements told him he still refused to accept it.

Through the thick bulletproof glass, Lin Bei's gaze settled lightly on Zhou Zihao.

Their eyes met.

Lin Bei's eyes held the undisguised contempt of someone looking at a moron.

He slowly raised his right hand.

Under the gaze of hundreds of eyes throughout the cabin.

Lin Bei leisurely raised his middle finger in Zhou Zihao's direction.

The cabin instantly fell silent for a second.

The expression on Zhou Zihao's face completely cracked. He pointed outside, trembling. "H-he's looking down on me! The mirage is looking down on me!"

Fatty Wang laughed so hard he slapped his thigh. "Hahahaha! Even an immortal can't stand your bullshit!"

Lin Bei couldn't be bothered with these mortals anymore and glanced at the system panel.

In just this short time, his Sensation Points had already broken past two hundred thousand and were still soaring at a terrifying rate.

He reckoned he had pretty much fleeced all the wool off this plane. There was no need to keep playing with them.

Besides, a thick bank of thunderclouds lay ahead. If he didn't leave now, getting struck by lightning would be no joke.

Lin Bei lightly tapped the iron sword with his toes.

The spiritual energy of his Qi Refining First Layer erupted instantly, surging wildly through his meridians into the longsword beneath his feet.

The iron sword, which had been glowing faintly azure, suddenly burst with dazzling streams of azure light.

The air surrounding the blade visibly warped under the violent fluctuations of energy.

Whoosh-

A deafening sonic boom erupted outside the cabin.

Immediately afterward.

Under the fixed stares of dozens of eyes in first class.

The man in the black hood, standing on a battered iron sword, turned into a streak of azure lightning and vanished completely into the depths of the sea of clouds ahead.

Inside the cabin.

Deathly silence.

Everyone remained leaning forward with their hands against the glass, as though someone had pressed pause.

A full five seconds passed.

All of first class exploded at once, the wave of noise nearly lifting the cabin ceiling.

"He passed us! He fucking overtook the plane!"

"Did I get that? Fuck, I forgot to hit record! Did you film it?"

"This was a fucking mirage? What kind of mirage overtakes a plane? He didn't even use a turn signal!"

"An immortal! Definitely an immortal! Hurry up and post it on Moments!"

The cabin boiled over completely. Some shouted in excitement, some frantically replayed the blurry footage they had just recorded on their phones, and others even pressed their palms together and bowed toward the window.

Zhou Zihao slumped on the floor, his face deathly pale and his lips trembling, unable to squeeze out a single word for ages.

The instant that streak of azure light had flared, his worldview had shattered so thoroughly that not even crumbs remained.

His face flushed with excitement, Fatty Wang grabbed Ruan Qingwu's arm and shook it.

"Qingwu, did you see that? He overtook us! Mother of mercy, that's faster than a rocket, isn't it?"

Ruan Qingwu didn't answer.

She stared blankly at the rolling white clouds outside, letting Fatty Wang shake her arm, her mind a pot of churning porridge.

That departing figure, standing on a sword as he vanished in a stream of light. That casual posture with its hint of smug satisfaction.

Why did he look more and more like that bastard Lin Bei?

Ruan Qingwu bit her lower lip and reached into her pocket to touch her phone.

Lin Bei had said he had his own private transportation.

Could it be...

She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, but her wildly pounding heart simply refused to settle.