Chapter 336

Chapter 337: Elder Senior Uncle Is A Strange Man

Yu Sheng shared what he had learned from the Special Affairs Bureau, including how the cult had dug up a “Shadowless Skeleton” in their homeland, and how a small ship vanished while trying to send out an Anka Aila crystal. He knew Bai Li Qing would soon pass this to the major factions anyway, so there was no need to hide it from a rising talent of Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain like Xuan Che.

Xuan Che’s calm face turned serious, then grim, and finally his brows almost stood on end: “You suspect Featherwing-13b might already be parasitized by the Dark Angels?”

“It’s only a possibility,” Yu Sheng waved a hand. “We still don’t fully understand why the Hermitage Order built the Pillar of Order. The only cultist who could talk was weak and fainted halfway through. But the ship is clearly expensive. It even has a chapel set aside just for religious rites. If they built it on your turf, they didn’t build it for fun. Even if it isn’t about the Dark Angels, it must be something on that level.”

“Something on the same level as the Dark Angels?” Xuan Che grimaced. “Hard to imagine. Really hard.”

He lowered his head, thinking. His expression changed a little. Then he looked up: “You also mentioned a small ship disappeared?”

“Yes. While trying to send the Angel Catalyst out of the Mistbound City, it sent a string of creepy audio like it was cursed, jumped, and then vanished,” Yu Sheng said. “Why, do you have an idea?”

Xuan Che hesitated: “Not really an idea. I just remembered another strange event my Elder Senior Uncle told me about from his travels.”

Yu Sheng’s eyes widened at once: “What did your Elder Senior Uncle run into this time?”

“Ahem,” Xuan Che coughed, a bit embarrassed. “My Elder Senior Uncle loves to roam, so he’s seen many weird things. He said once, while crossing the stars, his Celestial Ship suddenly failed while passing a Great Void with no celestial markers. That Great Void stretched for billions of light years with nothing inside. He used all his strength to keep the Celestial Ship’s Spirit Disk from falling apart and sent a few distress calls, but he could not move at all. It was a desperate situation.

“Just when he had no way out and was ready to die, a signal came from that empty region, answering his call for help.

“Three days later, he saw the wreck of a huge ship appear near him.”

Yu Sheng froze: “A wreck?”

“Yes, a wreck. He couldn’t tell where it was built, only that it was massive, more than ten times larger than his Celestial Ship, but torn into pieces by some unknown force and floating in the void. The replies to his distress kept coming from inside that wreck.

“He felt something was wrong and didn’t dare approach. He forced the Celestial Ship to keep its distance and watched for a whole day. Suddenly, the wreck flashed and became a gray, intact ship. Lights were on. He could see people in the portholes, walking and talking.

“But from the moment it turned intact, it kept sending terrifying signals. My Elder Senior Uncle said the Celestial Ship received cries for help from countless people, the last screams before death, and sounds of a hull being ripped apart.

“A moment later, the big ship turned back into wreckage. While drifting after his ship, it sent messages that said, ‘Help received, we are on our way to assist.’”

Xuan Che paused. Irene stared, then squeaked: “Yikes, that is scary.”

“I read a horror story like that when I was a kid,” Foxy added, “everyone on that ship died in the end.”

“It was frightening, even for my Elder Senior Uncle,” Xuan Che said. “He did not dare answer any of the communications. But his Celestial Ship was damaged, so he couldn’t escape. For about ten days they faced off like that. The ship kept switching between wrecked and whole. On the last day, something changed.

“The big ship suddenly stopped and sent one final message to my Elder Senior Uncle. It said only one sentence:

‘Make sure to stop the Lapis Lazuli from launching from Soma-4 on June 12, 2044.’”

Yu Sheng stared: “And then?”

“Then the big ship vanished, as if it made a jump, but there was none of the space-time ripple a jump should have. It was like it fell into an invisible hole that opened in space. No one has seen it since. After my Elder Senior Uncle got free, he searched everywhere and found nothing.”

Listening to the strange space tale, Yu Sheng asked: “So how did he get free?”

“He told me he suddenly had an insight. He entered the Immortal Arts, saw the great way with clarity, shattered the void with great wisdom, and sent the Celestial Ship out of the Great Void. But later, the senior brothers of Divine Armaments Peak checked the ship logs and said the Celestial Ship fixed itself the moment the big ship left. They told my Elder Senior Uncle to offer thanks to the Artifact Spirit. In the Borderland, people call it the Machine Spirit.”

Yu Sheng blinked: “Alright, and the Lapis Lazuli launch?”

“There is no registered large ship called Lapis Lazuli anywhere,” Xuan Che said. “Among legal ships, either the name fits but the class does not, or the class fits but the name is wrong. No one knows where that ship came from.”

Yu Sheng frowned, then raised his head: “So you think the strange ship your Elder Senior Uncle met is similar to the Hermitage Order shuttle that carried the Anka Aila crystal and then had that weird accident?”

“They are similar,” Xuan Che said clearly. “Both sent signals showing total crew loss. Both vanished as if from the world after one jump. The difference is my Elder Senior Uncle stared at that ship for over ten days and saw many of its strange changes, while the Hermitage Order shuttle only lasted three minutes from the first abnormal sign to the jump and disappearance. It had no time to show more.”

He paused, then shifted topics: “Speaking of my Elder Senior Uncle, he will likely return to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain soon.”

“He’s coming back?” Yu Sheng felt a tug of interest. “I thought he was roaming and out of contact.”

“My master told me yesterday that they reached him,” Xuan Che said quickly. “Twelve years ago, he went down the mountain to go clubbing and ran into a sweetheart from his youth. She tied him up to force a marriage. The Immortal Alliance Rectification Task Force helped him, and he will return to the sect in a couple of days.”

He stopped and sighed with feeling: “My master is relieved. He always misunderstood my Elder Senior Uncle and thought he ditched sect duties to chase danger again. Turns out it was just a lifestyle problem. He got tied up so the immortal maiden could vent her anger, which even saved a bit of karma.”

Yu Sheng: “…?”

Irene, Foxy, and Luna: “…”

The living room went silent.

“Ah, why is everyone quiet?” Xuan Che looked around, confused.

Yu Sheng snapped back to himself and stared at the handsome man in front of him, not quite believing what he had calmly said. He looked Xuan Che up and down, then asked, careful and slow: “I… you… so your Elder Senior Uncle went down the mountain to…”

“Clubbing,” Xuan Che said calmly.

“And then he ran into…”

“An old flame,” he nodded. “She tied him up to get married. It also smoothed out a knot in his heart.”

“You can say that so calmly…” Cold sweat formed on Yu Sheng’s forehead. A dozen snarky lines jammed up behind his tonsils and broke his train of thought. “Wait, your Elder Senior Uncle… that unusual man, roaming the world, seeking secret realms, living a legendary life…”

He could not keep going. He did not know whether to complain first about clubbing, or about getting tied up by an old flame to marry, or about the Immortal Alliance Rectification Task Force. As for his master’s very subtle attitude, he had no energy left to think about it.

Xuan Che stayed calm, only a bit wistful: “My Elder Senior Uncle is fine in every way, except he is chained by love debts. Since he started on the path of cultivation, he has not met a Heavenly Tribulation. All his trials turned into love tribulations.”

Yu Sheng fell silent.

After a moment, he glanced at Irene spacing out on the coffee table, at the fox beside him with clear eyes, and at Luna across from him, who had crashed and rebooted.

“I think this is a culture gap,” he said, very serious. [There has to be.]

Irene and Foxy nodded in deep agreement.

Luna nodded too: “Mm, right.”