Chapter 234

Chapter 234: Wandering God

Wang Jie sat up in a daze, blinking at the white world around him.

The girl appeared in front of him in an instant, voice low and urgent. “Do what I do. Hurry.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She spun and chased after the big madman.

Wang Jie scrambled up and followed, still half-stunned.

The big madman bent at the waist.

The girl bent at the waist.

Wang Jie bent too.

The big madman lifted a leg high.

The girl lifted a leg high.

Wang Jie lifted his leg high.

The big madman pounded his chest with both fists and howled like a beast.

The girl’s face turned purple with humiliation, but she pounded her chest and let out a strangled howl anyway.

Wang Jie stared at her, then decided he’d survived worse. He pounded his own chest and howled louder than both of them.

They ran in circles, repeating the same absurd motions again and again.

Gradually, Wang Jie felt something beneath the madness.

A rhythm.

A pattern.

He couldn’t name it, couldn’t explain it, but he could feel it pressing against him—like a current he could fall into if he stopped resisting.

Day after day, they kept running.

The girl looked numb, as if she’d accepted her dignity was already dead.

Wang Jie’s mind worked in the background, piecing it together.

Passive.

When his own exercises took him, the force came as a warm current he could only submit to.

Now, the big madman’s movements carried a different current—something drawn from the void itself.

That was why it felt familiar.

He couldn’t grasp the void actively. He couldn’t “touch” it in any normal sense.

And yet, as he followed, he began to sense something like texture—like his fingertips could catch on the air.

After several more days, the big madman’s path carved a pattern into the frozen earth.

It was unmistakably deliberate.

Wang Jie’s own path left a hazy version of the same pattern behind him.

Only the girl’s path left nothing at all.

She noticed.

She looked at the big madman’s pattern. Then at Wang Jie’s faint trail.

Her face twisted with pure, offended disbelief.

Then the big madman vanished.

Not a retreat. Not a leap.

Just—gone.

Wang Jie and the girl slowed, panting hard.

Wang Jie bent over, hands on his knees, staring at the pattern on the ground. It was clear there was meaning there, but he couldn’t read it.

He started to glance toward the girl’s running path.

Her voice cracked like a whip. “Don’t look.”

Wang Jie jerked his gaze away, startled.

The girl’s cheeks were red, anger and embarrassment tangled together. She stared at the ground as if it had insulted her.

After a moment, she turned on him. “You didn’t see anything today. If you breathe a word of it, I’ll kill you.”

“I won’t,” Wang Jie said quickly. “I swear.”

“Hmph.”

She looked back at the pattern, then at him, grudging. “Did you learn it?”

Wang Jie blinked. “Learn what?”

She jabbed a finger at the ground.

“Oh.” Wang Jie hesitated. “I just… followed and ran.”

Her eyes narrowed as if that answer personally offended her.

Who wasn’t just following?

Then why didn’t she have a pattern?

She swallowed that thought, furious, and said instead, “Teach me.”

Wang Jie stared. “Teach you?”

She fixed him with a hard look. “I’m telling you. Teach me.”

Wang Jie frowned, honestly confused. “These movements… do they even do anything? They feel useless.”

“Stop talking,” she snapped. “Teach. If you teach me, you’ll get benefits.”

Then, with a casual wave of her hand, she knocked Wu Yan unconscious.

Wu Yan toppled onto the frozen earth, out cold before he could even blink.

Wang Jie’s posture straightened immediately. “I’ll make sure you learn it.”

Her expression eased—barely.

Wang Jie simplified what he could, guiding her through the loop again and again, emphasizing the feel rather than the shape.

But no matter how many times she ran it, the pattern still wouldn’t appear beneath her feet.

Her frustration built with every lap.

“Why are you staring?” she demanded at one point, voice sharp.

Wang Jie blinked. “I’m not.”

“You are,” she insisted, as if his eyes had betrayed her. “Keep going.”

He understood then: she thought he was judging her.

He chose his words carefully. “Try letting go. Don’t chase it. Accept it passively.”

The girl froze mid-step.

Something flashed across her face—shock, then dawning realization, as if lightning had struck inside her skull.

“Let go,” she repeated quietly. “Passive…”

From then on, she ran differently.

Less force. Less control. More surrender.

It took half a month.

Then, finally, a faint blur of a pattern appeared beneath her feet—far less distinct than Wang Jie’s, but real.

She exhaled hard, almost trembling with relief.

She lifted her chin in a way that was clearly meant to look proud. “You taught well. What’s your name?”

Wang Jie coughed. “Wang Jie.”

“Wang Jie…” She nodded as if committing it to memory. “Fine. I remember you. You owe me nothing—I owe you.”

She hooked a thumb at herself, smug again. “If you ever need help, come find me. In this universe, there’s nothing I, Qing Huan, can’t do.”

Wang Jie stared at her blankly.

The smugness faded. Her brows knit. “You… don’t know me?”

“I don’t,” Wang Jie admitted.

“You haven’t even heard my name?”

“No.”

Qing Huan’s shoulders slumped like a child whose balloon had popped. Even her crescent moon seemed to droop behind her as she sat and kicked her legs in the air.

“So I’m not that famous,” she muttered.

Wang Jie tried to soften it. “It’s my ignorance. I’m a lockforce cultivator. I don’t have much contact with the outside world.”

Her eyes brightened as she seized that excuse and turned it into an insult. “That’s true. You cultivate lockforce. You don’t deserve to have heard of me.”

Wang Jie stared. He’d meant it as comfort.

Qing Huan hopped down, suddenly lively again. “Whatever. Since you haven’t heard of me, today I’ll broaden your horizons.”

She planted her hands on her hips and jabbed her thumb at her chest. “Remember this: I’m Qing Huan, one of the four Wandering Gods. Say it back.”

Wang Jie’s shock was immediate and genuine. “You’re a Wandering God?”

Qing Huan lifted her chin at a dramatic angle, as if the stars themselves were applauding her.

Wang Jie didn’t just admire—he reeled.

Within Bei Dou bridge-pillar, the guardians known as guarding star realm figures were divided by level: Roaming-Star Realm, Hundred-Star Realm, and Star-Refining Realm.

And among the Roaming-Star Realm guardians, there were four.

The four Wandering Gods.

They weren’t simply young prodigies. They were acknowledged as the absolute pinnacle of Roaming-Star Realm combat power. Even older Roaming-Star Realm cultivators—no matter how long they’d lived—would struggle to surpass them.

Wu Yuan was the clearest example: Black-White Heaven’s youngest and strongest Elder, widely recognized as such, who had been a Six-Path Roamer even as a disciple—possibly the strongest of his generation.

And yet, a guarding star realm figure had defeated him in a single move.

That gap told you everything.

Guarding star realm figures held not only invincible combat power, but overwhelming authority. Their duty was to protect the entire Bei Dou bridge-pillar, and their power extended across every sect—so great that even Star-Refining Realm experts couldn’t argue.

Frostflower Sect’s decline in Hundred-Star Realm experts had happened because several of their Hundred-Star Realm cultivators were taken away under that authority.

A Wandering God.

A Roaming-Star Realm god.

Qing Huan waited for praise, visibly displeased when it didn’t come fast enough—until she saw the look on Wang Jie’s face.

Then she looked pleased again.

Wang Jie bowed deeply. “So you’re a Wandering God. Please forgive my ignorance.”

Qing Huan waved a hand, smiling. “Fine. You cultivate lockforce. It’s understandable.”

Then she examined him more closely, eyes bright with interest. “But you’re not bad at all. You’re not even Full-Star Realm, yet your battle power is already enough to crush many Roaming-Star Realm cultivators.”

She pointed at Wu Yan’s unconscious body. “Your qi is weaker than his and you don’t know how to use it properly yet, but he’s Roaming-Star Realm.”

“And you can qi refine in a place like this. Have you had contact with dead realm people?”

Wang Jie nodded. “My home planet was a slaughterstone planet. I got swept into conflict and learned it by accident.”

Qing Huan’s expression softened. “Then it really wasn’t easy for you to get this far.”

She sighed. “No wonder you ended up cultivating lockforce. What a waste. If you cultivated starforce, I’d recommend you to my old teacher.”

Wang Jie bowed again. “Thank you, Wandering God. I’m not qualified. This life will probably be as far as I go.”

He hesitated, then added, carefully sincere, “But being able to help a Wandering God today… it’s an honor beyond anything I deserve.”

Qing Huan blinked, looking briefly at a loss. “Don’t talk like that. You’re useful too.”

Wang Jie couldn’t help thinking: she really didn’t know how to comfort people.

She glanced at Wu Yan. “And him? What’s his deal?”

Wang Jie explained simply. “I belong to Black-White Heaven. He’s Second Star Cloud’s Dagger-Offering Order. We met on the battlefield. He chased me, and we were both swallowed by a polar earthworm. That’s how we ended up here.”

Qing Huan nodded. “So it’s a battlefield. That explains why it’s so loud over there. If it were closer and bothered me, I’d teach them a lesson.”

She waved that thought away. “But forget it. I’ve already learned what I came for. I probably won’t come back here again.”

Wang Jie took the chance. “Wandering God… who was that person just now?”

“Better that you don’t know.”

“And the pattern on the ground?”

“Better that you don’t know.”

“Does it do anything?”

Qing Huan opened her mouth—then hesitated, as if she’d remembered he was trying, in his own way, to be respectful.

She sighed. “Practice it when you go back. Maybe it’ll help you step into the basics of spacetime.”

Wang Jie’s breath caught. “Spacetime…?”

Qing Huan’s face turned unusually serious. “The strongest force in the universe is spacetime itself. Everything exists inside it. Everything is born from it.”

“If you can master even the most basic use of spacetime, you’ll be able to grasp the thread behind any power you cultivate later.”

“That pattern might seem useless at first, but it could help you take that first step.”

Wang Jie swallowed. “Like Void Mountains?”

Qing Huan scoffed. “Void Mountains? They’re nothing. Even their mother sect, Bu Zou Guan, is nothing. At best they cultivate the void.”

She flicked her fingers dismissively. “This is spacetime. Not the same concept.”