Forty millenniums of cul.., p.773
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 773
Chapter 1179: Li Yao's Wedding! |
"Tsk, tsk, tsk!"
The hostess, whose curled hair made her look like a golden-haired lion, changed the diaper for her baby while smacking her lips. "Look at that. Li Yao, the great hero of Floating Spear City, has shown up again. Even his old classmates are swaggering around!
"As far as I've heard, was this guy Zhao Liang at loggerheads with Li Yao at all? He was merely beaten up by Li Yao twice! But after Li Yao became the Ultra-Level Federal Hero, the guy bragged to everybody about the incident, claiming that he was a man who could still stand on his feet after fighting Li Yao twice in a row. He even brought the video of his fight with Li Yao in high school to his fighting club and played it every day. A lot of students were actually fooled by him. What a shameless guy!
"The fellows who graduated from No. 2 Crimson Nimbus High School are telling everybody that they are Li Yao's alumni everywhere they go. Li Yao clearly went to another school in the end, and I'm told that he left because he was pissed off. What kind of alumni are they?
"Hey, Old Meng!"
The hostess finished changing diaper for her daughter quickly. Patting the little baby's bottom, she went over to her husband and jabbed his nose with a chopstick.
"Didn't you graduate from No. 2 Crimson Nimbus High School, too? I remember that you were in the same class as Li Yao. Why do I barely hear you talking about that?
"Was your relationship with Li Yao bad?
"It doesn't matter. Look at this Zhao Liang. A Mr. Nobody who jumped out of nowhere has earned some fame by bragging about his experience of being beaten by Li Yao all day long!
"Just think about it. Let's figure out a way to be connected to Li Yao. If we can take advantage of his popularity, won't our business thrive?
"The simplest of all. You can put a picture of you and Li Yao in front of our shop. If you don't have a picture where there are just the two of you, you must have a group picture of your class, right? Caption it 'Makeover from Li Yao's Alumni'. Make 'Li Yao' big. Other people might think that you are Li Yao's personal beautician. How marvelous that would be!
"Haven't you been saying that you will make your salon into the best one in the federation and even branch out into the universe beyond the Heaven's Origin Sector? This is a great opportunity!
"Just think quickly! Was there any interaction between you and Li Yao? It will do even if you two once peed in the toilet together!"
Seeing his wife's glowing face and her eyes that were about to become coins, Meng Jing grinned and drank a bowl of soy bean milk slowly. He then grabbed the egg pie that had not bored him after more than ten years. Taking a huge bite, he chewed with great satisfaction for a while before leaning back in his chair comfortably. Reminiscing about the past, he shook his head. "I won't. I am different from Zhao Liang."
The hostess frowned. "How so? Zhao Liang can take advantage of Li Yao. Why can't you when you are Li Yao's classmate, too?"
Meng Jiang smiled and said, "Zhao Liang is willing to sell some things, but not me. Not in the world!"
The hostess was angry. Her eyebrow furrowed, and she was about to say more when the wind chimes hanging on the door clattered. Somebody walked in.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we aren't open yet. Would you please come back later?" a beautician told the stranger politely.
"It's alright. I don't want a haircut. I'm here to see your boss."
A slightly dull voice came from the thick mask. Meng Jiang was slightly surprised because he found the voice quite familiar.
He turned around, only to discover that the newcomer was wearing a peaked cap and pressed it low. The guy was also wearing a pair of big, broad sunglasses. Along with his mask, his entire face was covered without the slightest gap.
The hostess pouted at Meng Jiang. "Old Meng, he is looking for you. Who's this guy? Covering up his face and acting mysteriously like this? You haven't done anything bad outside, have you?"
Meng Jiang immediately blushed. "What are you talking about?"
He stood up, holding the remaining half of the egg pie, and eyed the newcomer suspiciously. "You are…?"
"Ha. Smells good. I haven't smelt the flavor of such delicious egg pie for more than ten years."
The newcomer took off his sunglasses and mask with a grin, revealing a face that the couple occasionally saw on TV. His clear eyes, however, still had a hint of his youth from more than ten years ago.
"Ah!" the hostess exclaimed and accidentally dropped the chopstick to the ground. She forgot to pick it up and simply covered her mouth tightly.
Meng Jiang's eyes bulged wider and wider, and he grinned so hard that his lips almost reached his earlobes. "Li Yao!"
"That's right, my friend!" Li Yao smiled. "I'm getting married. I'm here to give you the invitation. I'm really sorry that I was still in the Flying Star Sector when you were married, but you must come to my wedding!"
"Of course, I will. I certainly will!" Tears in his eyes, Meng Jiang said, "I will be going even if it is raining knives that day"
The two best friends in high school burst into laughter and hugged each other despite the astonishment of the hostess and the workers in the salon!
…
At midnight, in the underground ghost market of Floating Spear City, Meng Jiang, who had toured their old hangouts with Li Yao for an entire day and drunk too much wine in the barbeque booth, was sound asleep on the greasy table.
Li Yao, on the other hand, sat aside and sent a message to Ding Lingdang.
"All the invitations of Floating Spear City, my last stop, have been sent. I have truly met a lot of old friends on this trip and remembered many things from the past!
"It is needless to mention my senior brother, Peng Hai. The Double Dragons Union is now rising quickly under his leadership and will be marching into the desolate space zones of the Flying Star Sector soon as the first sect to begin the new adventure. I'm sure that the gains will not be small!
"The moment he saw me, the bald Jiang Shaoyang lunged at me, crying, claiming that he would butcher me because I cracked the Venomous Scorpion Bone Biting Shackle, which he had produced over years of hard work, in only several minutes through crooked methods!
"Haha. The bad guy has defeated his uncle, 'Supernova' Jiang Sheng, fair and square in a competition of refining. He will likely be the youngest dean in the history of the Refining Department of Deep Sea University. Now that the brand of the 'holy land of refiners' is in his hands, it is not going to be easy to take it away!
"Do you still remember Mister Ding Yin, who guided me to become a Cultivator on the train to the Grand Desolate Plateau? He's doing fine, too. He is now the deputy president of the Association of Spectral Cultivators. His arts of refining are even more profound than the old days. In terms of the magical equipment that involves the soul, his skills are certainly better than mine, and he has offered me a lot of enlightenment.
"Right, there's also Wei Qingqing, the girl who was determined to be a rural teacher. It's a shame that she perished on the train, too!
"But she luckily turned into a spectral Cultivator as Mister Ding Yin did. Right now, she is teaching the children who unfortunately passed away and turned into ghosts in a special school designed for such children. Other than her main job, she is also a popular novelist and has written quite a few fictions.
"My other friends are fine, too. Everybody is working hard and making their contributions in their respective field!
"Hehe. Although I've only just met them, I can't wait to see them again at our wedding!"
…
In December, the coldest month of the year, the Grand Desolate Plateau was frigidly enshrouded in ice and snow.
However, on the remains of the city, in the middle of the dilapidated buildings that had been frozen into ice, red flags were flapping like thousands of roaring dragons. Countless tents had neatly been established on the ground. The noises that were soaring up to the sky shattered the frozen air!
This place used to be Wild Wave City, where the Grand Desolate War Institution was located, but it had been destroyed in the beast tide.
Now, hundreds of thousands of workers, soldiers, and Cultivators had gathered in the place. They would melt the snow, build walls, and reshape the Grand Desolate Plateau with their hands, sweat, and blood!
On the horizon, many super heavy tanks, which carried large engineering magical equipment, were driving toward them. The fulminations from the vehicles sounded like the drumming of giants and the horns of another war!
At the center of the innumerous tents, guarded and blessed by all the workers, soldiers, and Cultivators, a special wedding was about to begin.
Hiu! Hiu! Hiu!
Shuttles and carriers were arriving through the clouds.
"Li Yao!" Fiend Blade Peng Hai, his tall and handsome senior brother, leapt out of the shuttle.
"Li Yao!" 'Solar Eclipse' Jiang Shaoyang, who had kept his iconic bald head and always seemed angry, flew out.
"Li Yao, congratulations!" Mister Ding Yin and Wei Qingqing both arrived. Wei Qingqing was still hiding inside a small mechanical blue bird, which stopped above Mister Ding Yin's head and uttered crisp, oriole-like sounds.
"Li Yao, we are here, too!" Lei Dalu, captain of the Great Horn Exo Society, and Bai Kaixin, his advisor, as well Xiong Wuji, the chief of the Furious Bears Tribe on Iron Plateau, and all the good friends who had once fought side by side with Li Yao had come to the wedding from the Flying Star Sector.
Li Yao and Ding Lingdang were sitting in the middle of a pile of debris. Li Yao was wearing a slim, black suit while Ding Lingdang was in a long, fiery dress. The two of them were holding a heavy shovel that was tied with a giant red flower.
"The wedding begins now!" Wu Mayan and Xie Anan shouted at the same time, dragging their voice, with obvious delight and amusement in their tone.
Li Yao and Ding Lingdang raised the shovel high together.
On behalf of the workers on the Grand Desolate Plateau, they would be making the first step of the reconstruction of the Grand Desolate Plateau.
In such a way, they were telling the world that, no matter what happened and no matter what kind of difficulties and challenges they were faced with, they would build and defend their home side by side.
In that moment, all the workers, soldiers, Cultivators, and their family and friends held their breath and looked at them quietly.
On the horizon behind them, the sun was slowly setting, and the long, cold night was falling.
But did it really matter?
However cold and long the dark night was, it could never stop the stars from glittering!
Chapter 1180: Welcome to Earth! |
Wu!
Wu!
Ten thousand roars of thunder seemed to be passing his ears quickly, and a flock of birds were flapping their wings together. The ear-shattering noises, as well as the itching feeling on his bottom that seemed to indicate an electric shock, made Li Yao's adrenaline spike. His every cell was energized, and the fire in the deepest part of his soul was ignited!
The highway, the opponents, the rivers, the mountains… The entire world seemed to be gone. He and his modified car were all there was.
Huchi! Huchi! Huchi! Huchi!
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Li Yao heard his own panting, which sounded like that of a cornered animal, and his heart that was beating faster and faster.
He had been engaged in car racing countless times, but this was the strangest of all. He had never been so anxious that his spine was about to be compressed into a small cluster.
It felt like a pair of invisible eyes were staring at him coldly from somewhere in the dark.
It also felt that a fatal viper was hiding inside the small cockpit, looking for the best opportunity to attack.
Gritting his teeth, Li Yao pressed his right foot hard, as if it had been welded to the accelerator. The speed of the car rose continuously and soon surpassed two hundred kilometers an hour!
Every part of the modified car had been adjusted by him personally. It was vibrating with every cell inside his body and shrieking in the most ear-splitting sounds.
Every indicator on the dashboard was shaking crazily as if they were on drugs. The reading on the LED screen was changing quickly every second and lost all meaning!
The racing car that he had modified was about to collapse… in midair!
After he surpassed the two hundred kilometers an hour, the car was like flood that had broken the dam. It accelerated and accelerated unstoppably. Very soon, it had surpassed 220 kilometers an hour… 250 kilometers an hour… 280 kilometers an hour… until the vehicle was almost flying!
It was a speed that completely exceeded the specifications of the car and even violated the laws of physics.
However, as if spellbound, Li Yao felt none of it.
In his bloodshot eyes that were about to explode, the straight highway became zigzagging. It looked like both a mountain road and a mysterious channel of space and time.
Vaguely, he smelt sulfur and smoke. Li Yao, the modified car, the highway, and the entire world seemed to be on fire.
"Ahhhh!"
Li Yao found himself in such an uncanny state that he completely forgot everything. All he knew was how to accelerate, crazily accelerate, and then accelerate some more!
Every indicator on the dashboard was rotating rapidly like a fan. Li Yao could not tell whether it was a mechanical error, or he was really rushing at a weird speed of more than one thousand kilometers an hour. The LED screen was emitting brilliance that was even more dazzling than the sun until it exploded into nothingness in the end!
BOOM!
In front of Li Yao, at the end of the highway, a crimson lotus was slowly blossoming. The giant red lotus swallowed him and the modified car. The world broke apart in front of his eyes, replaced by runes that were dropping down rapidly like waterfalls. The octagonal, glittering runes lunged at him like locusts and drowned him.
In a trance, Li Yao felt that the modified car hit the rail on one side of the highway. It rolled more than ten rounds in midair and crashed heavily before a serious explosion erupted.
At the same time, he also felt that he was a strengthless baby that was picked out of a womb.
His eyelids were like gates that weighed ten thousand tons. Summoning all his strength, he managed to open a tiny gap. Observing ahead of him, he realized that it was an extremely ugly woman with scars all over his face who picked him up. The woman was wearing ragged leather armor, carrying a bloodstained chainsword on her waist and an impressive three-barreled storm bolter on her back.
Li Yao did not have time to observe the environment. He only vaguely felt that he was in the middle of a wasteland-like desert.
The super ugly woman grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth, before she cackled. "Welcome to Earth!"
Li Yao shuddered violently. Everything was gone all of a sudden. He jumped from his bed and fell to his knees. It was not until he gagged for a long time that he felt he was back to himself and recalled who he was in the freezing air.
"I am Li Yao, a Cultivator of the Heaven's Origin Sector and a citizen of the Star Glory Federation. I am now in a temporary settlement on the Grand Desolate Plateau. I've been married for a month!
"However—"
Looking back at his bed, he found that it was empty. He checked the watch and realized that it was four o'clock in the morning, the darkest moment before dawn.
Ding Lingdang should have gotten up early and gone to train herself in the world fragments.
Li Yao was sweating hard and barely able to lift his hands or feet. He also felt that his lips were wet. Wiping with the back of his hand, he found that it was red now.
He must have bitten his tongue while he was having the nightmare.
"Hu…"
Li Yao heaved a long sigh in relief. He poured a glass of cold milk for himself in the kitchen and drank all of it. After resting for five minutes, he finally calmed himself down.
Another weird dream about Earth. I haven't had such dreams for a long time.
The weird dreams about Earth had been haunting him ever since he could remember things.
The weird dreams that appeared every other day reminded him constantly that he was different from those around him. It was also one of the greatest motivations for his crazy training.
At the same time, the weird dreams had also given Li Yao the memories and wisdom of an adult when Li Yao was merely a little kid, which had allowed him to survive in the perilous magical equipment.
Since the weird dreams barely affected his daily life, Li Yao had gradually become used to them.
After he became a Cultivator and embarked on the journey to the sea of stars, the weird dreams had hardly harassed him anymore.
Except for the information about the Vulture Plan that popped up in the weird dreams while he was dealing with the Blood Stripe Virus, he only dreamed about Earth once every two months. Plus, the dreams were just mottled pieces, no different from the dreams that other people had.
Furthermore, Li Yao was occupied by the affairs of the collaboration of the three Sectors and the resistance against the Imperium of True Human Beings. Since he was just married, he was having competitions of beliefs quite often. Therefore, he gradually left Earth and the Vulture Plan behind him.
But the weird dream that day was different.
Li Yao had not had such a vivid, devastating dream for a long time.
Also, new information had appeared in his dream, something that was entirely opposite and contradictory to the information in his previous dreams.
That's not right! Li Yao frowned, baffled.
He remembered having the same dream.
This particular weird dream had popped up in his head countless times. It was the memory of his last car race, in which he had unfortunately had an accident.
However, according to the development of the dreams that he used to have, he would be sent to the hospital and declared dead later.
