Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao’s Adam’s apple seemed to have been punched heavily. Then, a ton of cement was poured into his chest from his throat, making him unable to breathe.

An inexplicable fury rose up in his heart, making him want to swallow the entire computer.

Did he stop updating? He actually stopped updating! How could he stop updating? Wasn’t this author too irresponsible?

Who would win the war between the federation and the imperium? What would the so-called ‘Alliance of Holy Accord’, which was ten thousand times more evil than the imperium, look like? What was the truth behind the Pangu Civilization? More importantly, what was the damn ‘Vulture Plan’ up to? Would the ‘Cultivator Li Yao’ find Earth and return to it?

In the beginning, the author had dug so many pits and painted a splendid, splendid universe, whetting one’s appetite. But in the end, the author had cut off the chapters irresponsibly and abandoned the pits.

How could it be?

Li Yao could not wait to crawl into the computer and find ‘Master Snail’ through the wireless network. Then, he would hold the guy’s collar and force him to confess everything.

Li Yao’s eyes were bloodshot. He gnashed his teeth, not knowing why he was so frustrated and angry.

He opened the comments section and saw that there were many people who were equally furious as him.

After seven days of no updates, the comment section was in chaos.

Li Yao read the post in order of the time it was posted. In the beginning, some people were concerned about the author and asked him to explain to them. But as the author disappeared, more and more readers couldn’t hold back their anger and started cursing in the posts.

“In the beginning, the book had 400-500 chapters. It was quite smooth and easy to read. What was the author writing at the end of the 500 chapters? Was he writing a novel or was he writing a thesis? It was really too ugly! I pinched my nose and read the latest chapter. I thought that I would be able to restore the top level. I didn’t expect that the author would actually stop updating? Damn eunuch!”

“I’ve never seen such a f*cking f*cking f*cking f*cking f*cking f*cking novel. Every once in a while, the two of them would sit there and converse like a broken toilet bowl. “Hua hua hua hua hua hua” 3-5 chapters in a row, 10 or so chapters. When it came to the latest chapter, the ‘Ancient Saint Chapter’, it was even more excessive. The f*cking Ancient Saint 12 powerhouses! The 12 of them chattered for several dozen chapters in a crooked meeting. There’s no end to it, right!? When I saw this, I knew that the author’s talent had run dry. He couldn’t continue writing. Sure enough, he became a eunuch, right? He abandoned the f*cking f*ck!”

“In fact, I knew a long time ago that this author was going to be castrated. At first, he could still be considered to be doing interstellar training. But when he wanted to level up his monster fighting essay, he insisted on bringing a lot of personal goods with him. He made the scene bigger and bigger. He talked more and more sense. He reversed the plot time and time again, dragging the plot to the extreme. His grades are getting worse and worse, right? In short, with the author’s skills, it’s simply impossible for him to handle such a big theme. In short, he just kept digging pits and then used bigger pits to cover up the small pits in the beginning. In the end, when he really couldn’t fill them up, he simply castrated. Sigh. It’s a pity that I wasted so much time and money!”

Updates by

Of course, there were also some diehard readers who were trying their best to defend the author. They said that they had communicated with the author in the WeChat group a few days ago and the author had only taken a few days of rest because something had happened to him and he had broken his hand. He would continue to update after he recovered.

In the thread below, there were immediately people who ruthlessly rebutted, “Come on, I can only fool new readers like you. In fact, this author’s background has long been exposed by us. This guy is now wearing an alias named ‘Master Crouching Bull’. He is still pretending to be some pink and tender newbie, but in fact, he is an old turtle whose skirt reaches the ground. His original name is ‘Zhang Daniu’. However, he is always a eunuch and has a rotten tail. He can only change his alias time and time again to deceive innocent new readers. Sigh, I didn’t expect that I would be fooled this time. Damn it!”

Li Yao browsed through a lot of reviews and comments. Many indignant readers were shouting that they were going to send razor blades to the author. Some of them were planning to beat the author up, etc.

But Li Yao was still brooding over the previous message.

Something had happened to the author. He was injured?

Li Yao recalled that had stopped updating seven days ago. In other words, if the poster was not lying, the author should have been injured seven days ago.

It happened to be the time when the author of the online novel was smashed to death by the headlights during the Pegasus Lake International Anime Festival, when Gilson, the master of fantasy novels, and the mangaka Takaya Ebo unfortunately passed away.

Was it a coincidence?

So many coincidences.

“This won’t do. I must find ‘Master Snail’. It will be best if I can ask him face to face what exactly is going on with his novel.”

Li Yao mumbled to himself. Then he hesitated, not sure whether or not he was too obsessed.

However, when his eyes fell on the dumbbell in the corner, all his hesitation was gone.

The pair of dumbbells had been bought by four people in the dormitory together for the purpose of exercising. They were very solid and big. All the barbells added together weighed more than twenty kilograms.

However, Li Yao was not talking about the dumbbell, but the grip made of steel. On the grip were two deep handprints, which were the traces of his strength yesterday.

Even if he was the champion of the Hercules competition, could he leave his fingerprint on the grip?

Li Yao walked over and picked up a five kilogram barbell. He held it in his hands and exerted his strength. The barbell was torn open like a sugar cake.

“Clang!”

Li Yao threw the torn dumbbell to the side and looked at his terrifying hands. His heart was in turmoil and could not calm down for a long time.

Admit it. It was not a power achievable by human beings. With such power, he would never be able to live a normal and peaceful life.

Of course, if he ignored the matter and buried his head in the sand, deceiving himself, such strength and dreams would gradually wither and fade away.

However, what kind of person was he exactly?

Li Yao pulled himself together and searched for information about ‘Master Snail’.

In the information era where the network was highly developed, it was difficult to completely hide a person’s information. Master Snail had his own social media account. By searching for words and micro-message numbers, he could gather clues about him.

First of all, according to the search entry, Master Snail’s real name was ‘Zhang Daniu’. He was a resident of Lishan County under the jurisdiction of Jiangnan City and lived there all year round.

“In the same city as me? That’s easy!”

According to Li Yao’s research, Lishan County was the most remote county in the mountainous region of Jiangnan City. However, with the current state of transportation, even if the author were to hide in his hometown to recuperate, it would not take a day before he was found.

Then, following the name of ‘Zhang Daniu’, he found some of the novels written by the author in the past. Well, they were all in the same style as the first 500 chapters of ‘40,000 Years of Cultivation’, which did not move him at all. This made him even more certain that the 500 chapters of ‘40,000 Years of Cultivation’ did not seem to be written by the same person.

Then, Li Yao entered the ‘Old Bull’s Meeting Room’, a group of ‘40,000 Years of Cultivation’, and asked the readers about the author, pretending that he knew nothing.

The smell of gunpowder in the book group was slightly less intense than in the book review section, but it was only ‘a little’. Many people were pessimistic and thought that the book was really wasted. Some of them were even cursing and venting their dissatisfaction.

However, Li Yao asked patiently and got a few useful information.

Firstly, three to five days ago, the author had appeared in the group and explained to everyone that he was really injured. However, some of the readers did not believe it and had an argument with the author. In the end, the author said, “I’m a f*cking eunuch. I’ll be a good man if I change my alias.” From then on, he never went online again.

Alright. At the very least, it meant that the author was not in an accident at that time. Well, not a serious accident.

Secondly, there was the author’s WeChat number in the group. Many readers proved that it was indeed Master Snail himself.

However, many readers had sent messages to the author, and none of them had received a reply. It seemed that it was impossible to contact the author through this method.

Li Yao opened Master Lie Niu’s WeChat and sent him a message. “Hello, Master Lie Niu. I’m a loyal fan. Can we talk?”

As he expected, there was no reply at night.

Li Yao was impatient from waiting. He simply contacted Zhao Kai. “Zhao Kai, do you know that has stopped updating?”

“I do.”

Zhao Kai replied very quickly, “It’s just a web novel. It’s normal to break off. Just read another one. What’s wrong? You’re not still reading a novel in your dormitory, are you?”

“No. I was just asking.”

Li Yao thought for a moment. “You’ve read a lot of web novels. Do you know how to reach out to the author and ask him to talk to me?”

“Crazy!”

Zhao Kai seemed to be amused. “You’re not a girl, so why would the author want to chat with you? Hey hey hey, Li Yao, what exactly do you want to do? Are you really staying in the dormitory and not going out?”

“A girl?”

Li Yao was dazed. He tilted his head and thought for a moment. Then he put on a smile that he didn’t notice himself and said, “I have something to tell you right now!”

He closed the chat window with Zhao Kai and thought for a long time.

Very good. He remembered that this damn pervert, Yu Xin, had trained with a female character’s alternate account when he was playing games last year. In order to fool others, he had specially applied for a micro-message number that looked like a girl’s. There were all kinds of photos, moods, patterns, and everything.

Therefore, Li Yao opened Yu Xin’s profile picture.

After much persuasion, at the risk of being mistaken for a fellow Cultivator by his roommate, he finally got the female version of his WeChat account. After careful modification, he changed his name to ‘Rabbit in the Sea of Stars’ and signed it with the words ‘Love when you want and leave when you want’ before he added a few fresh, slightly naughty, and slightly sexy pictures.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yao applied to join the ‘Old Cow Meeting Room’ again under the name of ‘Little Rabbit in the Star Ocean’ and opened Master Lie Niu’s profile picture.

“Hello, Master!”

“I’m a second-year student of Jiangnan Normal University. I’ve liked reading science fiction since childhood, and I especially like your works. Can I talk to you?”