Something seemed to break through, but Nangong Yu saw nothing.
She had fallen into a beautiful dream.
A little girl with her hair tied into delicate braids, dressed in a handmade top and trousers with cloth sandals on her feet, was running with a gap where her front teeth should have been. Her eyes crinkled into crescents as she laughed.
The wind tousled her bangs but could not blow away the sparkling beads of sweat on her forehead. A little floral shoulder bag hung across her back, and she ran as swiftly as the wind.
“Grandma!”
“I’m home from school!”
In the sweltering summer heat, a watermelon sat ready on the small dining table, covered with mosquito netting and giving off a sweet, refreshing scent.
When the girl got home, she did not even wash her hands. She grabbed a slice of watermelon and began to gnaw on it. The melon had only just been taken from the well; it was cool and crisp, quenching both her thirst and the summer heat.
“You didn’t wash your hands again.” The old woman, whose hair had begun to turn gray, grumbled as usual. She took the girl by the arm and led her outside, making her wash her hands by the well.
The girl could not bear to put down her watermelon. She shifted it from hand to hand—eating with her right hand while washing her left, then eating with her left while washing her right.
“Grandma, the teacher praised me again today.”
“Because I’m really helpful! I broke up two children who were fighting!”
The old woman tapped her on the forehead. “Someone else is fighting. What does that have to do with you? Are you out of your mind? What if you got hurt?”
The girl only giggled, paying no attention at all. She waved her arms and danced about, chattering excitedly as she acted out her moment of bravery.
“Little Yu, look what Grandpa bought you!” As the bicycle bell jingled, an old man with a beaming smile pushed his bicycle through the gate.
Two white plastic bags hung from the handlebars. One held sesame flatbreads, and the other was filled with braised chicken feet.
Neither was something the little girl liked. She pouted. “I want fried chicken legs!”
“Absolutely not.” Still chuckling, the old man parked his bicycle. “Your baby teeth are taking too long to fall out. You need to chew more hard things.”
The girl sulked. “They don’t taste good.”
The old man continued smiling as he coaxed his granddaughter into eating.
Summer was hot, and the girl loved to play, so she was always damp with sweat. But watermelon was delicious, and the old man was a wonderful storyteller, never telling the same story twice.
After dinner, she could go outside to play and stay out until it was very late, when someone would call her home. After a bath, she would lie down on a bamboo mat while Grandma fanned her and softly coaxed her to sleep.
The girl had never wondered why other families had air-conditioning while hers did not.
Nor had she wondered why the only fruits they had all year round were apples, bananas, pears, and watermelons.
Other children ate durian, cherries, lychees, mangosteens, mangoes, pineapples… She had never tasted any of them.
Other children ate KFC, McDonald’s, Dicos, and pizza… She had never had those, either.
But she never thought about any of it. The apples Grandpa bought were sweet, Grandma made soup with pears, and every year, when summer reached its hottest, there was always cool, refreshing watermelon waiting for her.
She had no father or mother, but she had never envied the other children. Her grandparents were even better to her than other children’s parents.
Sometimes people would mock her for having no father or mother, calling her an unwanted child who had been adopted. Whenever that happened, Grandma would buy a whole pile of treats and take her to stand outside that family’s door to eat them.
“Little Yu, what is he doing?”
“Homework.”
“Mm. But our Little Yu doesn’t need to do homework, because Grandpa will do it for you.”
“Little Yu, what is he eating?”
“Virus flower.”
“That’s called broccoli. What is our Little Yu eating?”
“Fried chicken drumsticks!”
“Mm, our Little Yu doesn’t eat broccoli. If Little Yu doesn’t want to eat it, then she doesn’t have to, right?”
“Right!”
The child inside began to cry, throwing a tantrum. “I don’t want to do homework! I don’t want to eat virus flower either!”
“What do you know? If she doesn’t do homework, she won’t know anything when she grows up! If she doesn’t eat vegetables, she’ll never grow tall!”
“I don’t want to! I won’t eat it! She doesn’t have to eat it either!”
That child was beaten for half an hour, crying until he hiccupped. Nangong Yu had long since finished her chicken drumstick and was slowly gnawing on the bone, using it to grind her teeth.
Listening to the child cry was like listening to heavenly music. She enjoyed it immensely, then took the old woman’s hand.
“Grandma, I want to go home and sleep.”
Beautiful dreams were so far away.
As Nangong Yu dreamed, tears slipped from beneath her tightly closed eyes.
Later, the infinite-flow game went online, and she never saw Grandpa or Grandma again.
—
Something had happened to the Lin family of Luoxia City.
Early that morning, prominent cultivators from throughout the city walked the streets carrying congratulatory gifts, making their way to the Lin residence to celebrate Miss Lin Qi’s successful Foundation Establishment.
Yet when they arrived, they found neither the grand plaque that had once radiated Daoist grace, nor the towering walls of the estate, nor its open gates, welcoming servants, and streams of cultivators coming and going.
Nothing remained.
Before their eyes lay only ruins. Crumbled walls, shattered stone, uprooted trees—the entire Lin residence looked as though it had been ravaged by a violent storm.
“Has an evil cultivator infiltrated Luoxia City?!”
The cultivators’ expressions changed dramatically. One after another, they drew their weapons and assumed defensive stances.
The Lin family was one of Luoxia City’s four great clans, with deep foundations. Unless an evil cultivator had appeared here, it could never have been reduced to this state!
“Head of the Lin Family?” someone called loudly.
Spiritual power carried his voice outward, but no reply came from the ruins. There was only the wind blowing over the rubble, howling mournfully.
“Move!”
“Let’s take a look!”
Some rushed forward, some took to the air, and some produced compass-like magical artifacts. Each employed their own methods to investigate the scene.
“There’s someone here!”
“Here too!”
“...They’re all dead.”
The estate was vast. Dividing up to search every inch of the grounds, the group spent more than two quarters of an hour.
Most of the bodies were concentrated in the southeast.
One corpse after another lay scattered across the ground in every direction.
Some were missing arms; some, legs. Some had been severed in two. Others had been ripped apart like cloth dolls...
“How vicious!” The sight sent chills through everyone.
There was no need to piece the severed limbs together. The group identified the dead by their heads. Some were recognizable as independent cultivators from outside Luoxia City, people who had previously appeared at the teahouse and, upon hearing that the Head of the Lin Family intended to host a Foundation Establishment banquet, had come to visit the estate.
Others were unfamiliar, unknown to anyone present. Some heads had been burned beyond recognition.
“Have you found the Head of the Lin Family?” someone asked.
“Nothing on my end.”
“Same here.”
“What about Madam Lin, or the Lin family’s young masters and young ladies?”
“Seems like... they’re not here either.”
“This looks like one of the Lin family’s young masters.” Someone carried over a corpse and tossed it among the bodies. “I’ve visited the Lin residence before. I’ve seen him.”
After examining the corpses as best they could, they barely managed to identify another one who appeared to be a young lady of the Lin family.
“These people...” Everyone looked over the bodies strewn across the ground, their expressions uncertain.
There were many dead—some of them members of the Lin family—but didn’t there seem to be too few?
The Head of the Lin Family, Madam Lin, and Miss Lin Qi did not appear to be among the corpses.
The crowd shifted their attention to the charred bodies. Upon closer inspection, the remnants of their clothing seemed to belong to members of the Lin family, but they had been burned far too badly to identify.
“Who’s there?” Suddenly, a cultivator leapt into the air and dragged a figure out from behind a broken ornamental rockery.
He was a mortal. The cultivator frowned and barked, “What are you doing here?”
“Bring him over,” someone said.
Before long, the mortal was thrown onto the ground. He trembled violently, his face ashen. “Immortal masters... spare me...”
One of the more respected cultivators asked, “What happened to the Lin family?”
The mortal frantically shook his head. “I—I don’t know, Immortal Master! I’m only a gardener!”
He regretted it bitterly. When he had awakened that morning, he found himself lying amid ruins. Many of the servants had fled, but greed had driven him to return to his quarters to collect a few things before leaving.
Who would have thought that he would be caught by these immortal masters? Tears streamed down his face as he wailed, “When I woke up, it was already like this! I truly don’t know anything!”
“Is that so?” The cultivator questioning him frowned and was about to ask more when someone interrupted.
A younger cultivator behind him said, “Why waste words on a mortal? Just search his soul!”
As he spoke, he strode forward and pressed his palm to the mortal’s head.
Terror filled the mortal’s eyes. The next instant, his eyes rolled back, and his whole body shook as if he were suffering unbearable agony.
Yet he could not make a sound. He trembled without pause. After a moment, the cultivator removed his hand from the man’s head, and the mortal collapsed to the ground like a limp, ruined heap of flesh. He convulsed for a while, then lay still.
“There was no need to use such a cruel method,” one cultivator said, unable to bear the sight.
The young cultivator merely flicked his sleeve, unconcerned. “He was only a mortal.”
“What did you see just now?”
“Nothing.” The young cultivator frowned. “He slept deeply last night. When he woke, everything was already like this.”
“That shouldn’t be possible.” The others fell into thought.
Someone else said, “Catch two more mortals and question them.”
The Lin residence was vast. Before long, several more servants were found.
When they saw the gardener lying on the ground, dead or alive unknown, they immediately dropped to their knees and kowtowed. “Immortal masters, spare us! Please spare us!”
This time, no one searched their souls. One of the cultivators merely snorted coldly. “Tell us everything you know. Otherwise—”
How could they dare hide anything? But the truth was, they genuinely knew nothing. They were sweating profusely with anxiety.
“Last night—last night, it seems a thief broke into the residence and stole something from Butler Huang. Then, then Butler Huang started fighting with the Head of the Lin Family…”
“What thief? What did they steal?”
“How could a mere butler possibly fight the Head of the Lin Family?”
The servants had no idea. They lived far away and lacked cultivators’ keen senses. They had only seen the two of them fighting, but not why.
“After that, we fell asleep.”
One of the cultivators barked, “Nonsense! How could you fall asleep when something so serious had happened?”
The servants racked their brains and finally managed to recall one detail. “I remember now! I think I saw a flash of white light, and then I fell asleep.”
“What white light?”
“Where did this white light come from?”
“Why waste time questioning them? Search their souls and you’ll know.”
The servants still did not understand, but their fear of death drove them to beg desperately for mercy. “Immortal, spare our lives!!”
A moment later, one body after another collapsed to the ground.
The cultivator who had searched their souls said in bewilderment, “It really was a flash of white light.”
“What kind of white light could possess such power?”
“White light… falling asleep… Could it be that everyone in the entire Lin residence fell asleep? That would explain why no one outside was alerted.”
The entire Lin residence had been razed to the ground. Judging by the intensity of the battle, it should have been impossible for it to pass without a sound.
“If they were made to dream a beautiful dream, then I can think of a divine bird that disappeared long ago.”
“Impossible.”
“Are you talking about the mirage bird? Didn’t that species go extinct a hundred thousand years ago?”
It was not unusual for demonic beasts to appear in a city of cultivators. After all, the demon race and humanity had no enmity between them; they simply kept to themselves.
But the mirage bird had gone extinct a hundred thousand years ago. The odds of one appearing in a small place like Luoxia City were even lower than the cultivators present suddenly ascending on the spot.
The Lin Family had seemingly been wiped out.
The news spread throughout Luoxia City. In the bustling teahouses, cultivators were all discussing it.
“Fellow Daoist, why are you crying?”
A cultivator had just sat down when he noticed the young girl crying across from him.
She was not very old, appearing to be sixteen or seventeen. A plate of fragrant chicken feet sat before her. She ate quietly, and she cried just as quietly.
At first, the cultivator had not realized she was crying. Seeing how peacefully she was eating, he had taken a seat at the table. Since he was already sitting down, he hesitated for a moment but did not leave.
“Could it be… that you have some connection to the Lin Family in the city?”
Everyone knew that the Lin Family had seemingly been wiped out. The girl was crying so bitterly—could she be one of the Lin Family’s people?
“No connection,” Nangong Yu denied with lowered eyes.
She wiped away her tears. “My spirit stones were stolen, and I have nowhere to sleep tonight. That’s why I’m crying.”
The cultivator nodded in understanding. “Fellow Daoist, you really should be more careful.”
As he spoke, he suddenly realized something was wrong. “You—you’re a mortal?”
At first, he had simply thought that she had concealed her cultivation well, since there was no trace of spiritual power emanating from her. But gradually, the cultivator sensed that something was off.
Still, what mortal would be so bold as to sit among a group of cultivators and eat and drink so freely?
“Hand it over.”
The answer came in the form of the girl’s outstretched palm.
“Hand what over?” the cultivator asked, puzzled.
“Ten spirit stones for one question.”
The cultivator burst out laughing and shook his head. He took a handful of spirit stones from his storage pouch. “Big brother just struck it rich. Here—this should cover your room for tonight.”
Nangong Yu gave him a couple of sidelong glances, then pushed the braised chicken feet in front of her toward him. “I’ll treat you to some.”
There wasn’t the slightest trace of spiritual energy in the chicken feet. They were ordinary food for mortals.
The cultivator hadn’t been tempted at first, but he had nothing better to do, so he picked one up. “Mmm. Not bad.”
Unlike spirit food, ordinary food offered no spiritual energy and had no special effects whatsoever. It was simply tender, succulent, and so richly flavorful that the taste exploded across his palate. It was less like food and more like a spirit treasure.
“Where did you buy these?” he asked indistinctly as he picked up a second one.
Nangong Yu watched him eat without even looking up, her heart heavy. “They’re not for sale. I’m giving them to you.”
She wasn’t crying, but her expression clearly was. The cultivator noticed and suddenly found himself unable to keep eating.
“How many spirit stones did you lose?” After thinking for a moment, he said, “Give me thirty percent, and I’ll help you get them back.”
Nangong Yu sighed. “Two.”
One was her grandfather. The other was her grandmother.
In truth, their family’s life had already been difficult before the Infinite Flow descended.
It was only after she grew up that she realized her grandparents’ finances had never been good. The elderly couple had no children, and the savings they had accumulated over the years had all gone toward donating to children who couldn’t afford to attend school.
After adopting her, they stopped making such donations. They used the money to raise her instead, while also saving for her tuition, living expenses, and dowry.
But later, her grandmother fell ill, and the family’s savings dwindled. At one point, her grandfather even considered selling the house.
“No.” Her grandmother lay in bed, too weak from illness to muster much energy, but her expression was resolute. “The house must be kept for Little Yu. We can sell anything else, but not the house.”
Her grandfather had to care for her and couldn’t leave, so he lost his job organizing books at the school library.
“Either sell the house, or I’ll stop going to school,” Nangong Yu said.
If they sold the house, then once the two of them were gone, their little granddaughter would have no home.
But if she stopped studying, what future could a child with only a middle-school education hope to have?
The elderly couple agonized over the choice, but Nangong Yu didn’t hesitate in the slightest. “I won’t go to school anymore. I’ll find a job.”
She had given them two choices because she hoped they would choose the second.
And if they chose wrong, Nangong Yu would correct them.
