The Sacred Ruins

After a good night’s sleep, Chu Feng felt relaxed and refreshed.

“I wonder how Yellow Ox’s been sleeping,” Chu Feng murmured with a grin, but curiosity alone wasn’t enough reason to turn on the communicator just yet.

After a while of searching, he finally found a mountain spring. He scurried over and took off all his clothes. Then, he strolled into the clear and refreshing water.

“So comfortable!”

It had been a night-long battle in the mountains. Tired as he was, Chu Feng had chosen to rest before looking for a spring to rinse off the stains on his clothes and body.

It was early winter, but the forest was more verdant and dense than it was in summer. Climate change after the upheavals had increased the temperature. The weather was just as warm as it was in late summer.

The things that people had grown accustomed to were all norms and conventions of the past. The rules that governed the functioning of this world were just as vague as the rising vapor on a summer morning.

Chu Feng bathed himself in the warmth of the spring for a long while. He washed off the bloodstain and the substance that formed during the evolution. He felt relaxed, comfortable and refreshed.

He walked out of the water, showering in the light of the rosy dawn. A glittering luster formed on the surface of his skin. There was also a delicate smell of fragrance hovering in the air around him.

This was the phenomenon that signalled the beginning of human sanctification. As long as Chu Feng kept on evolving, he would be closer and closer to the acme of perfection on this path.

“I need to be cautious in front of people. Don’t let anyone realize anything about me that is out of the ordinary” Chu Feng warned himself. He chucked his clothes into the water. After a few scrubs, he dried the clothes on the side.

He changed into his clean clothing. Facing the rising sun, Chu Feng began to exercise his breathing rhythm.

“Huh?!”

Chu Feng was amazed. It was only the start of the exercise, but he felt as if he were being scorched in a furnace. He had been surrounded by golden brilliance.

The splendid morning glow scattered on his body surface. Suddenly, columns of flames started flickering over his skin. It looked eerily sinister but holy at the same time. The radiance of the sun seemed to have grown many times stronger, and the rays flowed inwards through the pores.

What was happening? Chu Feng was astonished. The burning sensation inside him was growing more vigorous.

He resumed the breathing exercise. Chu Feng found that the effect of the exercise had grown more noticeable than before. His body felt thoroughly hot while the skin emitted a brilliant golden radiance. In the end, even Chu Feng himself seemed to have been reduced to just a vague silhouette when looking from a distance; for Chu Feng, he could barely see or feel himself either.

He was thoroughly shrouded in the golden brilliance!

Chu Feng was now convinced that the breathing exercise was indeed an astonishing practice. Its effectiveness could not be surpassed by anything else.

He was shocked. The breathing exercise was almost like a shortcut now. Chu Feng only needed to practice the breathing exercise consistently day after day, and his body constitution would drastically improve.

He kept on breathing rhythmically with all his heart and mind.

Golden brilliance flowed in and out of pores, connecting the blood with his flesh. His muscles were lightly tapping in a rhythmic style. Meanwhile, the internal organs of his body were also rhythmically resonating with the gentle tap of his muscles. This time, it was not just his soul but virtually everything was being cleansed.

If things went on like this, he would one day see a complete transformation of his own body!

Chu Feng had never felt so at ease before.

Soon after a while, he stopped the exercise.

This breathing exercise had a short and precise time frame, and only the exercises that were done within this time frame were effective.

“Pollen. Catalyst!”

Chu Feng believed that the increased effectiveness must have been caused his encounter last night. The silver vine, the white flower and especially the dense white fog were all the catalysts to speed up the process of evolution.

“Does the great improvement in body constitution make me more suitable for this breathing rhythm?”

Chu Feng thought to himself. Pollens, body constitution and breathing rhythm are inextricable from each other. The path to the acme of perfection would only become harder in the future. How much further he would proceed on this path would solely depend on how well these three factors function and interact with one another.

Having eaten some roast meat after the breathing rhythm, Chu Feng was on the road again.

“Let me test my speed!”

Chu Feng was zippy on the road. As he ran, the trees on the roadside became blurry shadows, rapidly falling back from the field of view. Gales whistled at Chu Feng’s ears; pebbles were rolling and sands were flying, but when the dust settled, Chu Feng was nowhere to be found.

He was too fast and fierce when running. Astonishing air currents formed on his trails; at the same time, his steps were heavy too. The earth cracked, and the ground fissured.

After about ten seconds, Chu Feng was already five li away from where he was before. His speed was beyond what a human was capable of.

Along the road, birds and beasts were wakened up with a start as Chu Feng passing by. They gazed at the receding figure of this scurrying man with a look of astonishment.

A normal human being wouldn’t have so much life force within him. Unquestionably, Chu Feng’s life index had reached a shockingly high level.

“Two hundred and sixty meters a second!”

Chu Feng himself was just as equally shocked. The speed was almost three times faster than before. He was now utterly worthy of being called as a monster.

When he adjusted the speed to a maximum, he could reach over a hundred meters in the distance with just a leap and a hop. This was truly terrifying.

“I can go wherever I want without the burden of this bow now.” Chu Feng was confident of protecting himself with his own power and strength.

If he encountered Silver Wing, he wouldn’t have to fear and retreat. He wouldn’t have to rely on the bow either.

Then, he tested his hearing and vision. Sure enough, every sense of his had improved dramatically. If news about these achievements were passed on to the public, it would sure create a great stir throughout the globe.

Standing still, he could sense the presence of a few mosquitoes amidst a thick growth of grass far away from him. He could hear the fluttering of their wings and see the stripy lines on their bodies.

The buzzing noise sounded so clear for him.

Of course, to sense these inconspicuous things, he would have to concentrate and breathe at a particular rhythm.

“No. I need to turn off these senses during my day-to-day life.” Chu Feng found his sensitive senses to be quite a nuisance. Noises were plenty in this world. Even a rustling a grass sounded so blaring in his ears.

There were no needs for the high sensitivity if he was not in a dangerous place.

He noticed that as soon as he sealed his breath within the boundary of his skin, his body would no longer emit the fragrance and the skin would no longer have that enticing luster. He was just like a normal human being.

This was just what he wanted. Something that could help him stay undercover.

Finally, he tested his strength. He looked for targets to test it on.

A boulder that weighed at least tens of thousands of pounds came into his view. Chu Feng pressed down with his feet on the ground, then with a swish, he darted towards the boulder. He raised his fists then landed them on the innocent boulder.

Boom!

His fists were like the horns of Demon Ox. They smashed into the giant boulder like a punching into a piece of dead wood. The fists drilled into the boulder then his entire body followed.

Bang!

Just in the twinkling of an eye, Chu Feng smashed into the boulder then came out from the other side, littered with pulverized stone all over his body. He was like a sharp dagger, cutting through every obstacle that stood in its way.

Chu Feng lowered his head, gazing at that pair of all-conquering fists. The surface of his skin was sparkling and crystal-clear. Chu Feng could finally feel the strength of his body. This time he went into Shuntian, he was ready to fight back anything who had threatened him and his family.

He also noticed that his body was now immune to blasts from any firearms, let it be bullets or cannon shells, nothing could harm him anymore.

Kong Kim had achieved this, but Chu Feng felt that he had achieved something even greater.

“Shuntian, I’m coming!”

Knowing what an invincible fighter he had become, Chu Feng was in high spirits.

He turned on the communicator, browsing through all kinds of messages while hurrying on his way.

As expected, there were more than just a dozen notifications for unanswered call from Yellow Ox alone. The calf kept on calling.

The latest call was made just a few minutes ago.

As to written messages, they were great in numbers; the content, however, were almost identical. Cursing word after cursing word, the calf had surely tried to give Chu Feng a good dressing-down. It accused Chu Feng of being disloyal to friend, labelling him as a no-good son of a b*tch.

Just as he read through the messages, the communicator rang again. It was Yellow Ox’s number.

Chu Feng unhurriedly answered the call then said, “Hello, Yellow Ox, my dearest friend. How have you been sleeping?”

Then, he hastily pulled away the communicator from his ear.

“Moo, moo, moo...”

A deafening sequence of bellow blasted through the speaker.

Luckily, Chu Feng was wise enough to distance his ear from the speaker in time. Otherwise, those bellows would certainly leave him tinnitus to suffer.

Yellow Ox was furious. The calf didn’t sleep for the whole night, and it knew that Chu Feng knew this, so the fact that he still chose to greet the calf with those unctuous words really pissed the calf off.

“This is just flagrant provocations,” Yellow Ox though to itself, “Chu Feng was lucky that he didn’t get to see me anytime soon, or let’s see how I would trample my hooves on that brazen mouth of his!”

Chu Feng’s face was all smiles. He was in high spirits.

The two was still on the phone, but Chu Feng didn’t mention anything that had happened to the seed last night.

Of course, Yellow Ox was resentful. How it wished that it could trample its hooves on Chu Feng’s skull right now, just so that it could make him understand why the stars were still so shiny on a sunny day.

“Oh, my brother! Finally, I get to talk to you...” Another voice came through the speaker. It was the voice of Zhou Quan who sounded rather tearful.

Zhou Quan snatched the communicator and spoke to Chu Feng. He was all tears. “Do you know, brother? I didn’t get to close my eyes for a single minute last night. That goddamned cow said it had to chat with me in the middle of a night!” Zhou Quan tearfully said.

“What happened?” Chu Feng asked.

“Why are you asking me why? What did you do to that bloody cow, brother? The calf...” Zhou Quan sobbed out his grievances.

Yellow Ox couldn’t sleep no matter what, and it wouldn’t let others to sleep either. It harped on about something that Zhou Quan couldn’t understand, but he still had to keep his eyes peeled and listen.

“Ay, young man! I warn you! Don’t bully the calf!” Suddenly, the black yak came over and snatched the communicator off Zhou Quan’s hand. It yelled and shouted.

Because it hadn’t slept for the whole night either. Yellow Ox was just like a dead pig who was not afraid of hot water; it woke up the yak in the middle of a night too, nagging away on something over and over. The calf even took a beating from the yak but still couldn’t stop.

“No way! How dare I bully the calf?” Chu Feng awkwardly laughed, then he added, “I don’t even eat beef now.”

“What? What did you say? Say that again?! Moo...” the black yak trumpeted like a mad man on the other end of the line.

The noise was so blaring that Chu Feng had to chuck away the communicator. The ear-splitting bellow of Demon Ox was destroying the phone.

“Son, I warn you! If you ruffle up my boy the wrong way again, next time you see me, you’d better pray that I don’t kick you’re a*s for it!” the black yak threatened.

Chu Feng didn’t reply. He stood there, listening. He swore to himself that the first thing he would do when he got to the city of Shuntian was to treat himself with boiled beef, spiced beef, curry beef, beef braised in brown sauce... anything that’s beef-related. He would munch away at these beef until his stomach burst!

Finally, Yellow Ox was back on the phone.

“Yellow Ox, I really miss you. Are you eating well? Are you sleeping okay? What? What did you say? Moo? What is that? I don’t understand.”

“Moo, moo, moo...” Yellow Ox was driven mad. Obviously, it came back on the phone to hear more about the seed from Chu Feng, but Chu Feng, on the other hand, was still acting like an annoying prick.

“Okay, okay... I know what you mean. Quickly! Find somewhere quiet, somewhere away from that yak. I’ll tell you everything,” Chu Feng whispered.

He didn’t want Yellow Ox to freak out.

Yellow Ox finally calmed down. It cradled the communicator in its arms and sneaked away from the yak’s prying eyes.

Chu Feng recounted every detail of the event that happened last night. In the end, he even sent a few pictures of the white seed to Yellow Ox via his communicator.

On the other end of the line, Yellow Ox sounded very hurtful. The calf was angry too. Its nostrils gushed out steam, and its ears jetted out flames. In fact, how could the calf not be angry? For almost twenty days of endless waiting, not even a single root hair could have been seen.

However, just as soon as it left, the seed sprouted. It even went as far as flowering and yielding fruits. If this was not intentional, what was?

“Moo!”

Yellow Ox lashed out with its back legs then started striking on a stone hill with its head until the poor innocent hill burst into pieces. Things had gone violent.

The calf felt no more sunshine in this world. Everything had turned gloomy and dark.

Missing out on such a mysterious seed was such an inexcusable mistake. This was unforgivable!

Yellow Ox’s regret went as deep as its gut. The calf could have stayed for just a few more days, or given up on the plan of going to Kunlun Mountains altogether.

It had never felt so hurtful in its life. It mooed and mooed to vent out its sorrow.

In the end, the crying calf even picked up another language to express its crippling depression: “Moo, moo, moo. Aww...”

“What? What sound is this? Is the calf mutating or does it have the blood relationship with another species?” Zhou Quan doubtfully asked, but the black yak gave him a knock on the back of his head in response.

In the end, Chu Feng sent another message.

“Yellow Ox, remember to look for strange soil when you’re at Kunlun Mountains. Bring them back to me for the white seed to sprout.”

Yellow Ox lowered its head, but after reading the message, the calf cried even more plaintively.

“Mo. Aww, aww, aww...”

In the distance, the black yak raised its head and said, “For real?”

Chu Feng felt happy. Heading north, he ran and shouted, “Shuntian! I’m coming!”