Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

There were four of them.

Li Yao had heard the footsteps of three of them when he was in Zhang Daniu’s neighborhood. They were the beer-bellied middle-aged man, the young woman who was pushing the stroller, and the muscular man who had kidnapped Zhang Daniu and was suspected to be adept at hypnotism or puppetry.

The muscular man was limping because Li Yao had pierced his foot with a nail. There was no way that he could be mistaken.

But the footsteps of the fourth person did not belong to the mysterious people in the neighborhood.

And he happened to be the most dangerous one.

The man’s footsteps seemed to be fast, but they were actually slow. Every step he took seemed to be a random landing spot, giving the feeling that he was unpredictable and unpredictable.

Li Yao imagined that, if he were a gunman lurking in the darkness, it would be very difficult to lock onto the target.

Just by the sound of his footsteps, Li Yao could tell that the mysterious newcomer was much more difficult to deal with than the other three.

Li Yao tightened every muscle on his body, but he completely relaxed after pondering for a moment. He even stopped the rhythm of his internal organs and cells and pretended that he was a cold corpse again.

There were four of them and only one of him. Also, he was heavily wounded and hungry. The energy inside his body was running dry. If a conflict broke out in such a situation, his odds of winning were slim.

Besides, Li Yao was very curious as to what these people were doing here. This was the morgue. Theoretically speaking, he was already a corpse. These people didn’t need to whip his corpse to vent their anger, right?

Therefore, was it possible for him to get some information from their conversation?

Nobody would be prepared for a dead body, right?

/

Li Yao decided to take a gamble.

The moment his heart stopped beating, the door of the morgue was opened silently. Four guys whose identities and positions were unknown walked in.

The dangerous figure that had never been seen before seemed to be a lady. A vague scent of perfume drifted into Li Yao’s nostrils and tickled his nasal membranes and brain cells, making him want to sneeze.

Li Yao was not sure whether or not it was his opponent’s way of testing him and trying to suppress all his physiological activities. Thankfully, after being reborn in the raging flames, his control over every organ in his body had reached an exquisite level. With a telepathic thought, not only could he expand the organs such as the pupils by six times, he could also completely cut off the ‘life force’ of a certain organ.

“Hiss—”

The zip of the body bag was pulled open. Li Yao could feel that the other three people could not help but cover their mouths and noses. There was no telling whether it was because of the stench of the burnt body or because they were frightened by his anxious appearance, but the dangerous woman who had just appeared stuck her head out and observed for a while. She gestured for someone to pull the body bag up.

“Who is he?”

The dangerous woman, whose body was emitting a weird scent, extended her slender fingers and tapped Li Yao’s metal bed unhurriedly, frowning.

“I don’t know, Ms. Mournful Mist.”

The muscular man who had kidnapped Zhang Daniu a moment ago said respectfully, “At six o’clock in the evening, we were looking for our target in the ‘Green Garden District’ according to your instructions. The guy showed up quietly and knocked down five of us before he took our target away. According to our analysis, his speed and agility are beyond the limits of human beings. He should be an ‘awakened one’.

“At first, we thought that he was a member of the ‘apocalypse’. What was odd was that, after he took away the target and jumped down from the back window on the third floor, he had a fierce fight with three ‘apocalypse’ awakeners. One of them should’ve been heavily wounded, too, and the other must’ve been forced to perform a secret art that consumed a lot of his vitality in order to kill him.

“It is clearly not the internal strife of the ‘apocalypse’. Therefore, he is neither an Awakener of the ‘Ark’ nor an Awakener of the ‘apocalypse’. Then, who is he exactly? Why is he involved in the matter? More importantly, what unspeakable relationship does he have with his target?”

Li Yao was dazed for a moment.

It turned out that the two groups of people hiding in front and behind Zhang Daniu’s house were not on the same side.

In the beginning, he had seen a beer-bellied middle-aged man, a young woman pushing a stroller, and a muscular man who was good at hypnotizing. Judging from their names, they were all superhumans of the ‘Ark Foundation’. Of course, they were not called ‘superpowers’ in such a cliché way. Instead, they called themselves ‘Awakened’. It was indeed cool.

The bald man, the crow girl, and the white-haired sorcerer, who he had met when he was about to run to the back of the house after rescuing Zhang Daniu, belonged to another gang with superpowers named ‘Apocalypse’.

If the murderer of the gun show in T3 was not lying and belonged to the ‘Apocalyptic Union’, and the two ‘Apocalyptic Union’ were the same thing, was he mistaken? The ‘Apocalyptic Union’ was the evil organization that wanted Zhang Daniu’s life, and the ‘Ark’ was good enough, at least to protect Zhang Daniu?

Li Yao was not in a hurry to make a judgement. He listened to the ‘awakened people’ of the ‘Ark Foundation’ patiently.

“I’ve been to the scene, Copperhead. It’s not your fault.”

The dangerous woman named ‘Grey Mist’ said, “Among the squad of awakeners sent by the Heaven’s Origin Sector, including monsters such as ‘White Night’, according to the traces of the fierce battle, White Night was planning to finish the battle with a regular spell in the beginning. But for some reason, maybe because of the abrupt changes during the battle, she had to consume a lot of her vitality and burn her own soul to increase the power and precision of the array by ten times in order to kill the guy!

“According to the analysis of the traces of the magical arrays that ‘White Night’ failed to clear, I estimate that she won’t be able to retrieve the simplest spells for at least a week—this is a crucial week for the competition between the ‘Ark’ and the ‘Apocalypse’!

“In other words, ‘White Night’ feared the guy’s capability and thought that it was worth it to annihilate him at the cost of not being able to attack for a week.

“It’s not unusual that the ‘beginners’ who have only awakened the memories of one or two lives cannot deal with such a guy.

“The guy has disabled ‘White Night’ for an entire week?”

The muscular man named ‘Tong Tou’ secretly clicked his tongue. His two companions behind him exclaimed in shock, too, because they were quite surprised by Li Yao’s capability. It seemed that, in the circle of the awakened, or at least in the two organizations named ‘Apocalyptic’ and ‘Ark’, the white-haired, golden-haired female sorcerer named ‘White Night’ was also a well-known, brutal figure.

Forget it. His identity is not important.

The grey mist said, “The most important thing is the whereabouts and safety of the target. As long as we can rescue the target, there will always be a way to pry open his mouth and find out the identity of the mysterious Awakener as well as whether or not there is a third force behind him. Right now, ‘White Night’ is unable to access the magic. The power of the Awakener belonging to the ‘Apocalypse’ of Jiangnan City has been weakened to the lowest point. It is the best, perhaps the only, opportunity for us. When the Awakener from various places arrive one after another, things will be troublesome!”

“Understood!”

The muscular man ‘Copper Head’ and his two companions heavily nodded their heads. He hesitated for a moment before speaking again, “Ms. Grey Mist, I still don’t quite understand. Just what is the value of this Zhang Daniu? Is he worthy of you leaving the Ark to personally oversee this operation in Jiangnan City? Whether it is the accomplishments of his works, his influence, or his quality, he is far from the target that we normally lock onto... He doesn’t seem to be worth wasting so many resources of the foundation for such an ordinary fellow, right?”

“I don’t know. Calculating the value of a target is not my job.

The grey mist said, “Maybe, there are unknown secrets in his work that can activate more ‘awakened people’. Didn’t I ask you to study ‘Forty Thousand Years of Cultivation’ first? What have you found?”

“Well, at least I didn’t.”

“I’ve read more than fifty chapters. I don’t feel that I’ve been ‘awakened’ at all.

“I’ve read 220 chapters.”

The beer-bellied middle-aged man said, “I can guarantee that every plot has been seen in other books. There are absolutely no ‘unknown secrets’. It’s impossible for the author to be an ‘awakened one’. It’s also impossible for him to awaken more awakened ones. What he wrote has nothing to do with his previous life’s memories. It’s pure fabrication.

“I held on for five hundred chapters and watched the protagonist jump to the Flying Star Sector and participate in a refining competition. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

The young woman said, “I estimate that the next few million words will be the same. It’s just an infinite loop. How can it contain any secrets or exciting things? Ms. Gray Mist, what about you? Have you found anything special?”

“No.”

The grey mist said, “After I finished the first chapter and saw that the protagonist was from an abandoned garbage dump, I couldn’t stand it any longer. You know how intense the situation has been recently. I wouldn’t waste my time reading such a book.

“So...”

The chief hesitated. “Is there a mistake?”

“...No.”

The grey mist was silent for a moment before it replied, “The command comes directly from ‘Red Pole’.”

“What?”

The three of them exclaimed at the same time, their voices shaking, “The Red Pole has personally issued the command. Why is the guy so important that the Red Pole is willing to risk being discovered, locked onto, and annihilated by the Heaven’s Origin Sector?”

“At first, I thought it was a mistake, too. But you should know that ‘Red Pole’ is never wrong.

The grey mist said, “The weird thing that happened in the ‘Green Garden District’ today has indirectly verified the Red Pole’s judgement. Come to think of it, if the target is really of no value and cannot be activated if he is not an Awakener, why did the Heaven’s Origin Sector send such a tough warrior as ‘White Night’ to deal with him? Wouldn’t it have been easier to find a random ‘beginner’ who has awakened the memories of one or two lifetimes and pretend that he was involved in a car accident or a robbery?

“No. Not only did ‘White Night’ come in person, the ‘Apocalyptic Organization’ acted out of the norm and did not erase the target on the spot but took him away. Why?”