Hearing Li Niansheng’s words, Chen Changsheng put down the book in his hands.
He had been standing right there in the crowd during the immortal fate testing; he had merely slipped back to the shop one step ahead of her.
Looking at Li Niansheng, who kept her head stubbornly bowed, too afraid to meet his gaze, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue.
“Do you really want to go?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Li Niansheng’s hands involuntarily clenched into tight fists. She answered softly,
“For longevity.”
The words slipped lightly from her lips, yet they carried a crushing weight.
Because only by attaining longevity could she forever remain by “Changsheng’s” side.
Seeing her stubborn demeanor, Chen Changsheng couldn’t help but smile. He walked over to her.
“Throughout history, countless mortals have become immortals, but no immortal has ever turned back into a mortal.”
“That alone proves the path of longevity is a one-way street. If one day you grow weary of walking it,”
“Just look back. Big Brother Changsheng will always be right behind you.”
With that, Chen Changsheng pulled Li Niansheng into a tight hug.
However, the moment his arms wrapped around her, his voice dropped to an urgent, barely audible whisper.
“The Cultivation world is a meat grinder that eats people and spits out the bones. Trust absolutely no one.”
Just as quickly, Chen Changsheng broke the embrace, stepping back with a warm smile.
“Ah! To have an Immortal grace this humble abode truly brings light to my miserable shop!”
Chen Changsheng fawned obsequiously, offering an exaggerated, theatrical bow to the woman hovering at the door. His demeanor perfectly mimicked the terrified awe of the local townsfolk.
Faced with his slick flattery, a flicker of pure disgust crossed the veiled woman’s eyes.
She could hardly believe that a once-in-a-generation genius hailed from such a filthy, unlucky coffin shop.
“This girl possesses Immortal Fate. Her future prospects are limitless.”
Though she clearly found him repulsive, the woman offered a stiff, perfunctory reassurance to secure her prize disciple.
Chen Changsheng’s smile practically split his face.
“It is all thanks to the Immortal’s discerning eye! Niansheng has been a mischievous brat since she was a child; I will have to trouble the Immortal to discipline her.”
“By the way, may I humbly ask which immortal mountain Your Eminence resides upon?”
“If I ever find the time, I would love to pay a visit and pay my respects.”
The impatience in the Immortal’s eyes flared into open annoyance.
“Ten thousand miles to the south lies the Linglong Sect. An ordinary mortal could walk for thirty years and still not reach our gates.”
“If you wish to try, be my guest.”
Dismissing him entirely, she turned to Li Niansheng. “I have other missions to attend to. We depart immediately.”
Hearing this, Li Niansheng gently set down her parting bundle.
“Big Brother Changsheng, I will remember your words. I will definitely come find you again.”
With a final glance, she stepped out the door and followed the Immortal into the sky.
Once they were gone, Chen Changsheng picked up a broom and cheerfully began sweeping the shop, loudly humming and muttering praises about their good fortune.
A full hour later, his cheerful facade vanished. His expression turned deadly serious. “You’ve been hiding for a while. Come out,” he said coldly.
His voice echoed through the dim shop, but aside from the cold wooden coffins, the room remained dead silent.
“Still playing games? Do you need a formal invitation?”
He issued the threat with a face like ice. After waiting another long moment and sensing absolutely nothing, his shoulders finally slumped in a heavy sigh of relief.
“Looks like that old hag really did leave.”
“So what if you can fly? Big deal.”
“I’ll be flying too after I take an eight-hundred-year nap. You’d better treat Niansheng well, or I’ll personally exhume every single grave in your ancestral cemetery.”
Spitting the threat into the empty air, Chen Changsheng methodically packed the shop’s inventory of coffins and Niansheng’s bundle directly into his system space.
He had been squatting here for eight years. In all that time, his appearance hadn’t aged a single day.
The town gossips were already whispering. If he stayed any longer, the excuse of ‘having a good skincare routine’ wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
Making his decision, Chen Changsheng stepped out of the coffin shop he had called home for nearly a decade.
“A mortal can’t walk there in thirty years? Fine, I’ll take fifty.”
“I might be short on talent, but I’ve got nothing but time.”
Grumbling under his breath about the arrogant cultivator, Chen Changsheng vanished down the empty street.
The townsfolk debated his sudden disappearance for quite some time.
Some speculated that he had ridden Li Niansheng’s coattails to heaven; that the Immortal had valued the girl so much she had taken the coffin-maker along as a servant.
Others whispered that he had offended the Immortal and was quietly reduced to ash.
Rumors flew wildly, but as the years marched on, the mortal world gradually forgot all about a man named Chen Changsheng.
……
“Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul…”
Chen Changsheng sprawled lazily across a grassy meadow, idly flipping through a tattered, worn-out booklet.
Twenty years had passed since he abandoned the coffin shop.
Naturally, he had long since inspected the parting gift Niansheng had left him.
The haul was pitiful: a single Cultivation manual, one Pill, and a handful of gold and silver.
The manual’s contents were incredibly basic, bordering on utterly crude.
It provided a rudimentary overview of the Cultivation realms and outlined a basic breathing technique for the Qi Condensation stage.
When he had first laid eyes on it, Chen Changsheng treated it like a divine artifact.
After all, it was a genuine Cultivation method!
Mastering it meant he wouldn’t have to spend centuries asleep just to learn how to fly and shoot fireballs.
But as he spent the next two decades exploring the vastness of the continent, he slowly realized just how utterly garbage the book truly was.
In the Cultivation world, one was only considered to have stepped onto the path of longevity after reaching Foundation Establishment.
Furthermore, Cultivators weren’t nearly as rare as mortal legends made them out to be.
The only reason he had never seen one during his first few decades was simply because that mortal town was located in the absolute backwaters of nowhere.
This “precious” Qi Condensation manual was nothing more than mass-produced bargain-bin trash peddled in mortal martial arts circles.
You couldn’t exactly find it in a grocery store, but any wealthy merchant with a thousand taels of silver could easily buy a copy off the black market.
Realizing this, Chen Changsheng sat up and casually tossed the booklet into his campfire.
He had studied the damn thing every day for twenty years. He could recite every punctuation mark backwards by now anyway.
“System, the book claims that anyone who reaches the first layer of Qi Condensation within three days is considered a genius.”
“Anyone who breaks through in a single day is a top-tier prodigy.”
“And breaking through in a single hour makes you a once-in-a-century monster.”
“So, what exactly does that make someone like me, who took a full twenty years just to reach the first layer?”
“Reply to Host: Cultivation realms are merely one metric for measuring strength, but they are not the only standard.”
“Cultivation techniques are simply one method of achieving power, but they are not the only path.”
“The Cultivation system of the current era is inherently incompatible with the Host’s aptitude. However, this does not guarantee the Cultivation system of the next era will also reject you.”
Chen Changsheng’s eyes immediately lit up.
“System, what do you mean by the ‘next era’?”
“There are no eternal mortal dynasties under the heavens, and the exact same principle applies to the Cultivation world.”
“The only reason sentient beings believe certain institutions will last forever is simply because their own lifespans are tragically brief.”