Ruili, the Tao Family.

Two heavy-duty trucks were parked in the big manor, which looked rather out of the place. Both were the so-called “four front and eight back”—there were four front steering wheels with and four pairs of rear driving wheels, both two-axled.

They were the type of heavy-duty trucks commonly used throughout the country. The loading capacity was around 50 tons and both had a Hollow Stone on their flatbeds.

There was no other way. The stone was way too big—twenty meters long, eight meters wide, over ten meters tall, and weighed over a hundred tons—so even if they had a truck with that loading capacity, there was no flatbed big enough. The stone had to be cut in half.

It was Gu Yu’s first day back.

When Ge Thantwe’s main force arrived at Hpakant in a haste, they were welcomed by the scattered bones and blood-soaked ground. The commander was a smart guy. He was only after the power and the money; anything else was not worth shedding the blood.

Hence, intimidated by Gu Yu’s martial prowess and persuaded by his money, they soon agreed to offer their help. The trucks were arranged to take the stone to the border, from where the Tao Family took over the task.

“Master, if you want to take these two pieces back to Phoenix Mountain, there are two options.” Right now, Tao Yu was walking behind Gu Yu and explained in a humble manner, “The first way is road transport, which is quicker. Or they can be transported by ship, which goes from Ruili to Guangdong, then to Dongyun via a cargo ship. It takes longer, but is very safe.”

“By sea?”

Like most people, Gu Yu had travelled frequently by air, but had little experience with ships. The country had a coastline of over 20,000 km from Dongyun in the north to Beilun in the south. If they chose to transport the stone by sea, the journey would take it all the way up the coastline from one end to the other.

“I don’t think going by sea is an option. It’ll take at least half a month. I’m afraid our younger sister over there cannot wait that long. Let’s use trucks,” said Gu Yu.

“No problem. In that case, are you going straight back home or do you want to travel with the trucks?” Tao Yu asked.

“Um…”

Gu Yu felt his temples thumping at the thought of that.

Xiaojin was obsessed with Hollow Stone and could not let it out of her sight. The stone was not going anywhere without her as a chaperone. Come on, the journey would be over 4000 km and he was not going to travel that far stuffed in the cabin of a truck.

“That can wait.” He changed the subject and asked, “We’ve been away for quite a few days. What’s happening in Diannan these days?”

“Everything is happening! You won’t believe it!” Tao Yu’s face suddenly became alive and he began to talk enthusiastically, “The second day after you left, there was a murder case in Tengchong. A family of four was killed and the police had no lead whatsoever. We knew nothing about it until the rumor began to spread, saying those four people simply died in their sleep without any accident. It was said they were killed by Tame Head.

Then Lord Priests of Zhenqing Temple joined in. One was Abbot Chen and the other’s name I don’t know—they said he’s from some birthplace of some sect. They conducted some investigation and found out that it was indeed the doing of the black magic of Malaya. It was a paid assassin for revenge.”

“Lord Priest?” Gu Yu chuckled, finding the title quite interesting.

“Um, that’s what everyone has been calling them,” replied Tao Yu, a little embarrassed.

“That’s totally fine with me. Go on, what happened after that?”

“After that was that fight! A lot of people were there that day and some have videotaped it. It’s all over the internet now. That visiting L-priest was using a fine steel flying sword…”

“Wait a minute!” Gu Yu interrupted him. Where the hell did a fine steel flying sword come from? “Are you sure it was a flying sword?”

“I, I… oh, I have the video here. Please have a look.”

Tao Yu did not know how to describe it, so he took out his phone and tapped open a short video. Gu Yu took the phone in his hand and looked closely. The image was blurry and shaky, but it was obviously showing two men fighting.

One had the typical appearance of a Malaya man, while the other was none other than Shi Yunlai himself.

The video was only a little over twenty seconds long. The black sorcerer turned around and tried to flee when Shi Yunlai threw out his long sword, which flew out in a blue flash and nailed the man to the ground.

Then everyone began to scream.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Murder! Help!”

“Flying sword! Flying sword! I saw an Immortal!”

“Immortals are real!”

‘Tsk!’

Gu Yu grimaced. That was not flying, but lancing at best. He did not miss a thing. Shi Yunlai’s long sword was not much different from Xiao Qiu’s, both were relatively basic refined instruments.

Yes, it was a refined instrument! For in the last two seconds of the video, he saw Shi Yunlai made a gesture of withdrawing the sword, which instantly disappeared from sight. It was obviously stored away in his mental space.

Tsk, that was fascinating. The Taoist community seemed to have obtained the method of refining with mental force!

“…”

Gu Yu was not at all threatened by this discovery. Instead, he was exhilarated. With the arriving of the new world, he was glad to see as many “insiders” as possible. Only with an adequate population could they overthrow the old world and start a new one.

He gave the phone back to Tao Yu and asked, “Anything else?”

“Just similar stuff. Somehow the entire Southeastern Asia seemed to be coming here these days. It was unbelievable. Apart from Diannan and Guangxi, they are seen in Guangdong as well. Everybody is saying a great change is coming and Taoist temples everywhere are having more worshipers than ever. Many are becoming Taoist followers. Here, we used to… um, please don’t laugh at us, but people around here used to believe in the black magic. Now, well, everybody is saying our own ‘magic’ is much better.”

“There’s no panic at all?” He found it remarkable.

“There was, but it was nothing serious. A bunch of hoodies brought a riot to the streets and robbed a few shops, but they were arrested in half an hour.” Tao Yu paused a little before saying, “Oh, I actually saw something online the other day. A foreign Celestial Master Zhang wants to challenge Longhu Mountain.”

“A foreign Celestial Master Zhang?”

That surprised Gu Yu a little. He was about to ask for more details when his phone rang. It was from Mu Kun.

“Hello? Where are you now?” Mu Kun sounded a little anxious.

“What’s wrong?”

“‘What’s wrong!?’ With the mess you left behind in Hpakant, you’re actually asking me?”

“I left no mess. Enough with the browbeating. To the point, please.”

“Humph!”

Mu Kun snorted and gave him a brief explanation.

With the absence of a president, Myan was controlled by the armies of three forces, of which two—Soe Win and May Myo—had filed a joint compliant toour ¹ government, basically saying “your people have been killing at random in Myan and robbed our resources, and your government has to answer for that,” blah, blah, blah.

‘Answer my a*s!’

They couldn’t care less about the soldiers killed, but that old ghost woman was a different story. They were “Three Gods,” and the two “sibling gods”, who could sense her death, were still out there.

All black sorcerers of Myan were disciples of the three and many were honorable guests of influential figures in political, business, and military circles. The two brothers needed someone to blame for the old ghost woman’s death, hence the complaint.

“Xiao Gu, you have pushed it too far this time. There is much tension on the international front and we’re going to attend that conference at the end of this year. Don’t make things more complicated than they already are.”

Mu Kun tried to make his reprimand stern, but he failed to hide the swaggering tone in his voice.

“Haha, how about this? Pass on a message for me: I will go to Myan again and anyone from the cultivation community is welcome to settle their account with me.” Gu Yu chuckled. “I’ll bring an end to all their vengeance!”

“!!!”

Mu Kun could no longer pretend to be crossed at those words. “Ok, you won. One dead body is quite enough, please leave the rest to us. Oh, I was going to ask, why were you looking for that stone?”

“For fun,” said Gu Yu seriously.

‘Tsk!’

Mu Kun knew he would not get a straight answer, but those two words still annoyed him. He hang up without another word.

“…”

Tao Yu was dumbstruck by what he heard and stammered, “Master, whom d-did you say y-you killed?”

“An old ghost woman. Oh, she was one of those ‘Three Gods’ you talked about.”

***

Night, the bedroom.

Gu Yu finished catching up on recent news, which was all about the foreign Celestial Master challenging the local ones. He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Interesting. I guess I must see it for myself.”