Yang Kelin, holding a cup of strong tea, saw the meeting room surrounded by people and asked a colleague, yawning: “Who’s in the meeting room? Why has even Chief Li come?”
“While you were interrogating the suspect, apparently someone from Wenxin Sect called.”
Hearing this, Yang Kelin immediately downed a whole thermos of strong tea, ignoring his scalded throat, and wanted to run into the meeting room.
“Don’t rush, the call just ended. There’s only one ‘future disciple of Wenxin Sect’ in the meeting room. Chief Li is inside discussing the situation with the station head and the others.”
Yang Kelin instantly sobered up: “I’m the least senior in our bureau. Serving tea and water is something I should be doing.”
Yang Kelin was dying of curiosity. As someone who had personally witnessed a paper crane turn into an iron sword, it was impossible to say his scientific materialist worldview hadn’t wavered in the slightest.
Which boy hadn’t fantasized about riding a sword and roaming the world?
At thirteen or fourteen, Yang Kelin had longed to have a natal spirit sword of his own that was in tune with his heart. But at twenty-three or twenty-four, the first thing Yang Kelin thought of was the series of public safety problems this would cause.
A sharpened iron long sword was already a dangerous item requiring control. The moment he thought of a group of unregistered people flying all over the sky carrying dangerous items so brazenly—
His scalp exploded!
Shouldn’t all these outlaws be arrested?!
They could split the sea, so splitting a car, a bridge, a high-speed train, or an airplane would be as easy as splitting tofu, wouldn’t it?
“Knives and guns can still be controlled from the production end, but how do you control cultivators’ spiritual power and flying swords?”
Yang Kelin’s brows were furrowed so tight they could have clamped an earthquake fissure.
“That’s exactly why I came.”
A gentle, unfamiliar voice sounded beside Yang Kelin’s ear.
Yang Kelin looked up instinctively, and a face that resembled the white-clothed sword cultivator’s by five tenths appeared in front of him.
He had watched the video of splitting the sea to save people many times on a 72-inch big screen. On his police career he’d stake it, he could not have been mistaken!
But apart from the looks, the young man before him had no element in common with the white-clothed sword cultivator. A simple white shirt and black casual pants, with clear eyes, he looked just like a good-looking ordinary college student.
Lu Xiuyuan took the initiative to hold out his hand in greeting: “Hello, my name is Lu Xiuyuan. I’m the Director of Admissions at Wenxin Cultivation University and also the Hall Master of the External Affairs Hall of Wenxin Sect. I called before coming. Who would be best for me to see?”
The gentle, polite smile made Yang Kelin feel somewhat awkward. In his impression, the white-clothed sword cultivator should be powerful and cold, while Lu Xiuyuan was the exact opposite.
The similar features had none of the white-clothed sword cultivator’s coldness and majesty. His eyes drooped slightly, and even without deliberately curving his lips, he looked as if he were smiling. The smile at the corners of his lips was polite with two tenths of distance, gentle but keeping a distance.
Yang Kelin raised his eyebrows: “Didn’t your sword cultivator from Wenxin Sect come?” He couldn’t help thinking in his heart, although not the image of a white-bearded old man, he had to say, he had quite a heavy swindler’s smell.
Lu Xiuyuan’s smile didn’t change: “Senior Brother Guanji has gone to slay demons. With spiritual qi reviving, the demons sealed in various places are gradually waking up. Compared with keeping the world safe, a small matter like Wenxin Sect’s transformation is enough for me to handle.”
Yang Kelin pondered the information revealed in Lu Xiuyuan’s words, his brow twitched, and he was about to speak when the colleague beside him pulled him back.
“Comrade Lu, let’s go inside to talk.”
Yang Kelin was just a newly transferred newcomer, and by rights he had no qualification to go in, but he was thick-skinned enough that, following behind Lu Xiuyuan like a sticking plaster, he went in too.
The station head glared at him, but seeing that Lu Xiuyuan said nothing, did not drive Yang Kelin out.
Yang Kelin quietly breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that although this Lu Xiuyuan had a slightly mystical swindler air, he was quite a nice person.
The meeting room of the neighborhood police station wasn’t big, and quite a few people sat squeezed inside.
But Lu Xiuyuan saw at a glance the olive branch and two flowers on the shoulder.
Chief Li, past fifty, looked extremely serious when not smiling, but his gaze toward Lu Xiuyuan was gentle: “Comrade Xiao Lu, no need to be constrained. My surname is Li, and you may call me Uncle Li. You said you have important things to tell me. Is it related to cultivation?”
Lu Xiuyuan nodded, but did not get into the main topic right away: “Please give me a moment.”
Lu Xiuyuan walked up to a nervous girl: “Hello, I’m the Director of Admissions at Wenxin Cultivation University. Senior Brother Guanji has mentioned you and several other disciples to me.” He looked around. “Where are the others?”
Huang Ruihe nervously twisted her fingers: “They went to be eyewitnesses and cooperate with the investigation.”
On the way to the police station, Huang Ruihe had fallen into an inexplicable anxiety.
She was absolutely certain Master was not a swindler, but too many people kept questioning it. She kept explaining and kept presenting evidence, but they didn’t believe her.
The sarcastic remarks wouldn’t shake her admiration and trust for Master, but caught in the endless cycle of proving herself, her whole person had become very irritable.
On the way here, Tao Yuxiang had held her hand all along, and the other’s warmth had given her a great sense of calm. But now her best friend wasn’t beside her, and in an unfamiliar environment full of police, Huang Ruihe’s mental agitation was about to explode.
—Even though she had done nothing to make her conscience uneasy.
She was afraid of being interrogated and questioned nonstop once again.
“What do I do… Will Master be very disappointed when he sees me? Can I really pass the trial? I can’t even keep a calm mind over such a small matter. Am I very useless?”
The draining emotions of self-denial kept interrogating her mind, until a pleasant voice sounded beside her ear.
Huang Ruihe looked up and saw a smiling face that felt like a spring breeze.
“Mas—?” Huang Ruihe’s mood was soothed by that face full of approachability. The address “Uncle Master” almost slipped out, but remembering she hadn’t yet passed the trial to formally enter the sect, she forced herself to stop.
“Just call me Uncle Lu.” Lu Xiuyuan gently patted her shoulder. “Your video was edited well. The sword-cultivation major’s enrollment this year may depend on it! Would you be willing to authorize me the copyright to this video? If you’re admitted after the assessment ends, I can add credits for you.”
Huang Ruihe’s bit of agitation was instantly thrown into some black hole in the universe: “Admis-admissions promo video?! I, the video I edited…” She was dizzy, struck by the sudden delight.
“We’ll discuss this in detail a bit later.” Lu Xiuyuan took out three file envelopes and gave them to her. “Senior Brother Guanji is magnanimous and doesn’t bother with small matters, so he forgot to give you the admission tickets and the exam scope. After you fill in yours, hand the other two to Junior Nephew Zhou Xingjian and Junior Niece Tao Yuxiang.”
“!!! I, I, I’ll start preparing for the exam right away!” Huang Ruihe, hearing it was such an important matter, was left with only exam preparation in her head.
Lu Xiuyuan turned to the police officer beside him: “Could you trouble yourselves to find a quiet small room for them to review in?”
Some things the disciples had to know, but not now. Especially since Huang Ruihe had just experienced cyberbullying, her emotions were at the brink of collapse from big ups and downs. Zhou Xingjian and Tao Yuxiang’s mental states were normal, and precisely for that reason, they had been questioned separately to verify the truth of the information.
After Huang Ruihe left, the smile on Lu Xiuyuan’s face faded considerably. It was still gentle, but with an added measure of seriousness and gravity.
“I know you’re still doubting whether cultivation really exists in the world. Words alone are no proof, so I will prove it to you.”
Lu Xiuyuan held out his hand and deliberately showed Yang Kelin his empty palm. Then he made a grab in thin air, and a thick stack of talismans spread out like a deck of playing cards.
“Pick any one.”
Yang Kelin drew one and took the chance to touch it with his fingertips several more times. It was a bit rough and a bit soft, just the feel of ordinary tissue paper. He had also seen exposés of magic tricks that conjure playing cards, but the person before him was wearing short sleeves and had no table beside him to serve as a space for props. How on earth had he hidden such a big stack of things?
Lu Xiuyuan turned his hand again, and the talisman paper in his hand vanished, and then, under Yang Kelin’s probing gaze, he took the talisman paper from his hand—
“With my spirit united to that spirit, with my qi united to that qi, the moment a thought arises, everything seen is bright!” ①
Red talismanic script crawled over the paper, then a golden light flashed out of the talisman, and the talisman paper scattered into starlight that fell across the sky.
The crowd waited quietly for a few seconds, and when no thunder or fire descended, they were a bit disappointed: “The magic trick is over, just like that?”
“Can’t he fly on a sword once more?” Yang Kelin couldn’t help being let down. “Sword flight is more direct, isn’t it?”
“This sort of magic—”
The crowd’s murmuring stopped abruptly.
“Crack crack crack…”
“Squeak squeak squeak…”
Some black dots were gnawing at the walls, the floor, the table, even their shoes, making a faint, teeth-grating rubbing sound.
As the black qi grew thicker and thicker, the crowd realized that it was not their eyes playing tricks, nor the sky darkening, but that they were seeing demonic qi, and clusters of demonic qi bit by bit condensing.
Lu Xiuyuan dropped a heavy bombshell: “Wenxin Sect’s appearance in the world is not spiritual qi reviving, but the barrier that protected Blue Star and kept out the demons ten thousand years ago is on the verge of collapse. The heavenly demons from beyond the realm are about to attack.”