Meanwhile, Lu Junheng was looking for his next victim.
Qi Shu, whom Shen Xuan had met briefly two days earlier, was wandering aimlessly through the streets, occasionally tugging at his hair in frustration.
Lu Junheng’s eyes lit up. He walked over and greeted him enthusiastically.
“Qi Jiawei, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Qi Shu blinked at him in confusion.
Lu Junheng proceeded to fabricate a nonexistent memory for this future friend of his.
“My surname is Lu. Don’t you remember me? We met once at Lingyuan Valley last year.”
Qi Shu suddenly understood. “Oh, I see.”
Although he couldn’t remember whether he had ever been to Lingyuan Valley, the person in front of him sounded so confident that it had to be true.
Lu Junheng put on the attentive expression of a considerate listener.
“You seem troubled, Fellow Daoist Qi. Did something happen?”
Qi Shu sighed. “Actually, it’s nothing serious… My father wants me to go home, but I want to stay here and take the entrance examination for Taiyi Academy.”
Everyone around here was so strong. Not being able to challenge them one by one was truly one of life’s greatest regrets.
Lu Junheng comforted him. “With your excellent talent and strong abilities, Fellow Daoist Qi, you’ll shine wherever you go.”
Qi Shu was deeply moved. “Thank you, Fellow Daoist Lu. You’re such a good person.”
After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Lu Junheng finally revealed his real purpose.
“Oh, right. Is Senior Feng here? I need to speak with him.”
Without thinking twice, Qi Shu turned around and called out, “Feng Zhao!”
A calm-looking attendant emerged from the shadows.
Feng Zhao watched helplessly as his intellectually challenged young master was turned into a fool within minutes. He calmly reminded him, “Young Master, I’ve emphasized this many times. It’s working hours. Please call me Qi Yi.”
This title represented his position as the strongest and most capable among the countless servants of the Qi family. It was enough to demonstrate his leading position in the servant profession and would also look excellent on his résumé if he ever decided to change employers.
After all, his young master’s brain had been coming and going lately, and changing jobs was becoming increasingly necessary.
He looked at Lu Junheng and confirmed that he had never met this junior before.
“You’re looking for me?”
Lu Junheng immediately brought out his adoptive father.
“Ah, it’s actually nothing important. My adoptive father suddenly thought of you a few days ago and asked me to personally send you his regards.”
Feng Zhao became even more confused.
“…Who is your adoptive father?”
Lu Junheng looked innocent.
“Lu Fengsheng.”
Oh. The man who had fled the Second Divine Temple sixteen years ago.
Feng Zhao thought for a long time but couldn’t remember having any friendship with that scheming man. However, seeing the seemingly innocent and unsuspecting young junior before him, he still maintained the dignified composure expected of an experienced senior cultivator.
“Senior Brother Lu? It really has been a long time since we last met. Those days certainly bring back memories. How has he been lately?”
Lu Junheng put on a sorrowful expression and lied without blinking.
“Everything is fine. It’s just that he’s getting older, so he often thinks about his old friends.”
Feng Zhao: “…”
He began wondering whether he really had some deep friendship with Lu Fengsheng that he had somehow forgotten.
Lu Junheng handed him a bottle of Soul-Clearing Dew.
“And… he asked me to thank you.”
Soul-Clearing Dew was produced from jade marrow found on the peaks of snow-covered mountains. Only one drop could be obtained every ten years, and it was extremely beneficial for injuries to the soul.
Feng Zhao didn’t accept it. He frowned.
“You don’t need to give me such an expensive gift just for those few words.”
“For being willing to come out and listen to me ramble, and also for… the child you saved on that snowy night many years ago.”
The lazy expression on Lu Junheng’s face became serious.
“I owe you a debt equal to the value of my life. If you ever need anything, Senior, you can redeem this favor from me at any time.”
Feng Zhao’s gaze shifted slightly, moving from Lu Junheng’s face to the sword in his hand.
He was somewhat dismissive.
“A kid who doesn’t even have any spiritual power…”
Lu Junheng smiled brightly.
“It’s fine. Don’t underestimate a young man just because he’s poor and inexperienced.”
Feng Zhao was silent for a moment before finally accepting the gift.
“If you have the chance, send my regards to your adoptive father as well.”
Although he didn’t particularly care whether some stranger was doing well or not.
A flash of red spiritual light disappeared from beneath his sleeve.
Lu Junheng’s gaze paused briefly on the red light. Then he smiled at the two of them.
“Well, I’ll be leaving now. I hope you two enjoy your time in Qingxi.”
Qi Shu was completely confused by the entire conversation.
After Lu Junheng left, he finally turned to his attendant.
“Who is Qi Jiawei?”
Feng Zhao answered calmly, “Young Master, that should be you.”
Qi Shu was stunned.
“What?”
He genuinely began searching his memories to see whether he had ever changed his name.
Feng Zhao looked at him with an indescribable expression.
“…You don’t know him?”
“No. I might have met him at Lingyuan Valley, but I forgot.” Qi Shu became even more confused. “…Aren’t you the one who knows him?”
Feng Zhao shook his head.
“I don’t know him. To be honest, I don’t know his adoptive father very well either.”
Qi Shu asked, “Didn’t he say that you saved him?”
Feng Zhao spread his hands.
“Who knows? The person I saved wasn’t him at all.”
The master and servant stared at each other, both finding the whole situation absurd.
“Are people from big cities all this friendly with strangers?”
Feng Zhao changed the subject.
“By the way… Young Master, did you notice the sword in his hand? That’s the sword of the Shen family’s eldest young master.”
Qi Shu’s eyes widened.
“Shen Xuan’s? How do you know?”
Feng Zhao began worrying about his young master’s intelligence again.
“…Yesterday, you paid a high price to buy a recording of Shen Xuan fighting someone. I thought after studying it for so long, you would at least recognize his weapon.”
Qi Shu fell into deep thought.
After a moment, he hesitantly offered a theory he could accept.
“…Then it must be a spare sword, right?”
Not only sword cultivators—even cultivators who didn’t rely on weapons in their cultivation would never casually lend their personal weapons to someone else.
Feng Zhao rejected his theory.
“Probably not. Shen Xuan has always used that exact sword in every recording.”
Qi Shu immediately became irrational.
“I don’t even let other people touch my saber! How can a sword cultivator lend someone else the weapon he is most accustomed to using?”
The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became.
“Is Shen Xuan really a sword cultivator? What kind of behavior is that? How disgraceful! How disgraceful!”
It was practically the collapse of all proper etiquette!
Feng Zhao stopped paying attention to his unreasonable young master.
He lowered his head, and a flower resembling a mixture of jade and silk slipped out from his sleeve.
The flower was in full bloom. It had no petals, revealing only its blood-red center.
The Mirror Flower was a token of the Third Divine Temple. Tokens of its highest rank were held only by deputy temple masters and those of higher rank. They were connected to the sea of Mirror Flowers surrounding the Divine Pillar. The flowers bloomed once every hundred years, and each time they bloomed, they gained one additional petal.
But now, even though a hundred years had not yet passed, the flower was completely open…
And all the petals it had accumulated over the years were gone.
Feng Zhao had been retired for a long time. He had spent all these years living quietly as an ordinary cultivator, and had long since lost interest in getting involved in these matters.
…But this time, things seemed genuinely interesting.
The Mirror Flower blooming before its proper time was interesting.
Its petals disappearing were interesting.
And the fact that someone among the younger generation actually knew his identity was even more interesting.
Lu Junheng walked to a place far away from the crowd and took a white crystal stone from his sleeve.
This was a crystallized substance left behind by a Mirror Flower after it withered. It had no special function. It merely resonated with blooming Mirror Flowers and reflected their image.
Because he had just come into contact with a fully bloomed Mirror Flower, a tiny blood-red mark had appeared in the center of the originally transparent crystal, resembling the flower’s exposed center.
…There were no petals.
His guess had been correct.
The Mirror Flower was a derivative of the Third Divine Pillar, and the Third Divine Pillar possessed an important authority—
Time.
Water was the recorder of time.
Lu Junheng had expected to be reborn, but he hadn’t expected to be reborn this far back in time.
According to his original calculations, if he and Shen Xuan were lucky enough to survive, they should have returned to a hundred years in the past.
Another kind of power must have interfered with his formation along the way.
The order of time in this world probably really did conceal some extraordinary secret.
Lu Junheng tossed the crystal into the air and caught it again.
…How should he deal with this thing?
After thinking for a while, Lu Junheng decided to cause a little trouble before the examination began.
He changed direction and entered Tianbao Tower. In a corner, he found a counter that offered long-distance delivery services and handed over the box containing the crystal.
The old man behind the counter weighed the box and asked Lu Junheng,
“Young Daoist, where would you like this delivered?”
“To the First Divine Temple. Send it to Zhao Chunfeng.”
The old man inspected the box from behind the counter and confirmed that there was nothing dangerous inside. He then wrapped it securely and handed a receipt through the window.
Lu Junheng took the receipt and carefully checked it.
Then, without hesitation, he signed his full name in large characters at the bottom.