Chapter 23

When Ye Fu passed the last stitch through the cuff, pulled the thread taut, gathered it in, and finally set down his needle, an ethereal, boundless presence poured from the clothes and his fingertips.

Qin Sanyue, standing beside Ye Fu, was the first to feel it. Her eyes instantly grew clear and vacant, and a milky-white presence wrapped around her body before vanishing in an instant.

The presence pouring from the finished set of clothes spread uncontrollably in every direction. Everyone present fell into a state of clarity and emptiness. Some flushed crimson, some had eyes that shone with clarity, and some had glowing fingertips...

The presence could not be contained and burst out of the room.

At once, strange sights appeared all around the Cloth Robe Workshop. The clouds overhead were scattered, then gathered into a slowly rotating circle. The peach tree in the courtyard had already shed its blossoms, yet now it was renewed. Ripples rose, and pink blossoms appeared one by one on its branches.

A strange fragrance startled the insects, and birds gathered nearby, circling the Cloth Robe Workshop and calling out.

The phenomenon was astonishing. Many people in Black Stone City looked up, drawn by the strange sights at the Cloth Robe Workshop.

At that moment, an observant person would surely have noticed that many unfamiliar faces had appeared throughout Black Stone City. And now, those unfamiliar faces were making their way toward the Cloth Robe Workshop from every direction.

"A strange phenomenon out of nowhere. Could the Great Curtain have come early?" A youth with snow-white hair and beard gazed toward the Cloth Robe Workshop from atop the city gate, a thoughtful look on his face.

"But according to the timing, aren't there still seven days left?" a tall woman beside him asked.

"Let me calculate."

With that, the youth closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were entirely white, without a trace of black. His eyes gave off an endless, flickering glow, and an eerie presence flowed from him, withering a blade of wild grass atop the city wall.

In the span of a single breath, blood streamed from the youth's eyes and ran down his face. Seeing this, the tall woman beside him hurriedly covered his eyes.

The youth's presence instantly withered, and his face turned pale. In a hoarse voice, he said, "I can't calculate it, I don't dare calculate it, and I can't calculate the answer."

After those three statements, he fell unconscious. The tall woman hurriedly picked him up, and her figure flickered and vanished from the spot.

Elsewhere, a black cat with emerald-green eyes moved lightly across the rooftops, making its way swiftly toward the Cloth Robe Workshop.

Below, a person wearing a bamboo hat walked briskly with his body upright. Every step seemed precisely measured, each stride exactly the same length, without the slightest difference.

The handsome youth with a cinnabar mark between his brows, who had appeared at the Cloth Robe Workshop earlier, was now boating on a lake beside Black Stone City. Lying on his back in the boat, he smiled at the clouds floating in the distance and said softly, "Good thing I left early. Otherwise, if someone had seen it, they would have thought it was me."

The Cloth Robe Workshop.

This was the first time Ye Fu had shown his handcraft skills, and he had no idea that finishing the work would cause such a commotion. He had yet to familiarize himself with all the weighty skills in his head.

Seeing that the onlookers had all fallen into a daze, he hurriedly beckoned, drawing back all the strange phenomena that had appeared.

The swirling clouds overhead instantly returned to normal, the blossoming peach tree withered again, and he grabbed all the ethereal presence that had poured out and stuffed it back into the clothes.

In the blink of an eye, strange phenomena had sprung up, and in another blink, they all vanished. Everything around them returned to normal, and the unfamiliar faces heading this way all stopped in their tracks.

It stopped? Looks like it isn't time yet. The same thought occurred to all of them at once.

As far as they were concerned, when they had not discovered any other competitors in Black Stone City, they absolutely should not expose themselves before the Great Curtain arrived. So they quickly blended back into the crowd, becoming ordinary people who attracted no attention.

Inside the Cloth Robe Workshop, Zhong Suihua was the first to come to her senses, and she immediately saw Ye Fu admiring the clothes. She turned to look at them. It was a style she had never seen before, made with workmanship she had never seen before. Every detail was something she had never seen or heard of.

Ye Fu smiled and asked, "Boss Zhong, two garments in the time it takes an incense stick to burn."

"Two?" Zhong Suihua was stunned. She looked more closely and discovered that Ye Fu was holding two identical garments.

"Yes, I made both of them at the same time."

Zhong Suihua felt dizzy. Making clothes of such quality in so little time was already beyond her imagination, yet he had made two at once.

After recovering herself, Zhong Suihua said, her eyes bursting with boundless admiration, "I lost." Yet she looked nothing like someone who had lost. "Thank you so much, honored guest, for letting me witness such divine craftsmanship."

Ye Fu scratched his head. "It's really not that much. Where I come from, that's considered slow." In terms of speed alone, it was indeed slow compared with an assembly-line machine.

Those words made Zhong Suihua realize that this guest must come from a great nation, perhaps even the legendary Central Continent! The way she looked at Ye Fu changed even more.

The others gradually came back to their senses, but none of them could remember why they had fallen into a trance. Zhong Suihua, who had been too focused on the two garments in Ye Fu's hands, had noticed it even less.

And so, all manner of exclamations of admiration and surprise filled the room. Only those who practiced needlework truly understood just how superb Ye Fu's skills were, but what they did not know was what mysteries of the Great Dao lay behind those skills.

Ye Fu then made himself a set of clothes, though he followed a style from Earth. After all, he was used to wearing it and did not want to change his style. It was a black hoodie and a pair of sweatpants.

In accordance with their wager, Boss Zhong charged nothing and made an additional promise: no matter what Ye Fu came to the Cloth Robe Workshop for in the future, she would charge him nothing, on the condition that he allow her to watch when he made clothes.

Boss Zhong herself also asked Ye Fu to make her a garment, even offering to spend her entire fortune, but Ye Fu refused. He felt that if he really wanted money, there were easier ways to get it. He only wanted a simpler life, but out of courtesy and consideration, Ye Fu ultimately chose some red cloth that suited Zhong Suihua and made her a lady's fan.

Zhong Suihua was so grateful that she was a step away from offering herself to him. But she knew full well that a woman like her was not worthy of someone like Ye Fu.