Chapter 292

Chapter 293: Xuan Che’s Elder Senior Uncle Is Quite a Figure

“Exactly, that feeling,” said Yu Sheng at once, then he reacted: “Wait, do you know what this is?”

“I haven’t seen this before,” said Xuan Che, shaking his head. Then he changed tack: “But I heard Elder Senior Uncle tell a strange story from his early years of roaming. It made me think of your room.”

Yu Sheng perked up: “Tell me?”

Xuan Che recalled and began slowly: “Elder Senior Uncle said that when he was seeking the Dao in his youth, he was traveling among the stars when his Celestial Ship failed. He accidentally reached an unnamed barren star. It wasn’t on any chart. No beacons or stations nearby. But space around the planet echoed with a weird howl, what outsiders call electromagnetic whistling. He had to land to repair the ship, and then he ran into many eerie things.

“He said the planet’s surface had no life, but countless black monoliths stood there. Each was a thousand zhang high and hundreds of zhang wide, like stone tablets as tall as mountains, lined up in neat rows. Between them were dry riverbeds and cliffs, with stone pillars fallen here and there. Whether standing or fallen, they were clearly cut by hands.

“He landed on top of one monolith, on the night side. On the second day, he saw a sun rise from the ship’s port side. It shone like red gold and was as big as a cartwheel. On the third day, he saw… another sun.”

“What do you mean, another sun?” Yu Sheng, who had been listening closely, froze. “Be clear. Did an extra sun appear, or did it get replaced?”

“Replaced,” said Xuan Che. “This one was orange red and about a fist in size. It rose from the port side. The whole day stayed dim because it wasn’t as bright.

“On the fourth day, the red gold cartwheel sun rose again… and so on, day after day, taking turns.”

Yu Sheng stared, stunned. A cultivation person telling a story like this felt a bit odd in style, but he didn’t care about that now. His entire attention was on the two very different suns.

“Let me confirm. How many suns were there around that planet?” he asked.

“Just one,” answered Xuan Che quickly. “From Elder Senior Uncle’s observations before landing, the red gold sun was the ‘normal’ one visible at the surface.”

“Then the orange red small sun was…”

“Also real, but it existed on the other side of the world,” said Xuan Che. “Elder Senior Uncle stayed there a long time and studied the phenomenon. His final guess was that the planet stood in two worlds at once, orbiting two suns that overlapped at the same coordinates. From outside the orbit, you could only see the sun on our side. But on the planet’s surface, the sky you observed would switch every day.”

Yu Sheng listened in a daze. After a long pause, he nodded with a subtle look: “Your Elder Senior Uncle is quite a person.”

“I respect him greatly,” said Xuan Che with a smile, then added a bit awkwardly, “but my master has complaints. Elder Senior Uncle is always roaming and ignores sect affairs. Please don’t tell my master I said that.”

Yu Sheng’s mouth twitched. He tried to adjust to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain’s style while focusing on the main issue: “Where exactly is that barren star? Did Elder Senior Uncle go back after he returned?”

“Sadly, once he left, the planet and the sun it orbited seemed to vanish,” sighed Xuan Che. “He returned several times using the ship’s old coordinates and found only cold dust clouds. He suspected the planet had fully fallen to the other side, and the sun fell with it. Of course, it might have been a coordinate error since the ship was failing. If it’s the second case, there’s still a chance to find it, though it’s slim.”

Yu Sheng didn’t speak for a moment. He walked to the far side of the room and brushed his hand over the cold mirror.

This story of a planet that ran in two worlds, with suns that alternated by the day, felt nothing like this small room. Yet in the tiny details, they shared a common thread.

At the same time in two worlds.

[Is it only two?]

He remembered the mirror had shown not only the snowy cave, but also ruins in black fog, and a dead blonde doll broken among fallen walls.

If every “scene” in the mirror marked a place overlapped with this room, then this room might be even more outrageous than that barren star.

His imagination ran wild, then he slowly gathered his thoughts.

He looked up. Xuan Che was still studying the wall around the mirror, touching here and there. Now and then he pulled a talisman from his casual wear. He muttered a few lines, the talisman burned to ash in his hand, and a brief ripple spread, as if he were testing something.

Irene and Foxy stood not far away, whispering like two kids with no diploma between them. The little doll poked the fox’s tail: “See, this is real cultivation. The style may not be perfect, but it’s way more normal than yours.”

“I know this too,” Foxy said, eyeing the things in Xuan Che’s hands with interest, but still being stubborn when she heard Irene. “We stopped using traditional talismans. We do spellcasting without talismans.”

“That sounds like it has no soul,” said Irene.

Foxy never won arguments with Irene, so she began smacking Irene’s head with her tail.

Xuan Che couldn’t help glancing at the bickering doll and nine tailed fox. Then he turned back to Yu Sheng: “I checked every corner. There are many irregular places, but as you said, they’re all ‘closed’… Can this rift be opened on purpose?”

“No,” said Yu Sheng, shaking his head. “At least for now, I haven’t found a way to control it.”

“Then we’ll have to wait on fate,” sighed Xuan Che. “Only when it opens again can we learn more. In this state, I can’t see any deeper.”

“No problem. Your story already gave me a big hint,” Yu Sheng said with an easy smile. “Let’s head back to the living room. I still want to hear more about Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain.”

“Of course,” said Xuan Che.

They left the eerie room at the end of the second-floor hall. Yu Sheng walked last, double checked that the door was shut, then felt at ease.

After a few steps, his eyes fell on Irene, who was hustling along on her tiny legs by his feet: “Wait, I just remembered something!”

Several eyes turned toward him.

Yu Sheng looked at Irene, then at Xuan Che walking beside him.

Irene Pro Max had no reliable way to recharge. Foxy grew up in a cyber cultivation society and didn’t understand ancient methods. But right here stood a standard practitioner of the old ways. Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain might not be purely old school anymore, but they still had a complete system. Maybe they could solve Irene’s battery life problem.

He cleared his throat, gathered his thoughts, and asked seriously: “You cultivators absorb the spirit qi of heaven and earth, right?”

“Of course,” said Xuan Che with a nod. “That’s the foundation of training.”

“Can that be taught to outsiders?” asked Yu Sheng, then felt that might be too direct. Since cultivation methods sound secret in novels and games, he quickly added, “I mean the most basic kind.”

“The advanced kind can also be taught, as long as you pass the license exams,” said Xuan Che, as if it were obvious. “The basics are even easier. Our sects recruit every year. Anyone of school age must enroll. Not enrolling is illegal.”

“Even non natives can learn?”

“Yes. Pay tuition and sign up. How far you go depends on your talent. From what I remember, Gyproian exchange students have the best talent.”

“…” said Yu Sheng.

He slapped his forehead.

[So Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain hasn’t hit Foxy’s level of cyber cultivation, but they’re clearly on a similar path.]

He coughed and pointed at Irene: “Here’s the thing. She might need your method of absorbing the spirit qi of heaven and earth…”