Chapter 157: Mortal Dust Immortal, Dragon of the Conjoined Continents!

By the time Zhou Ping'an and the others were close to the hotel, they realized that Chen Jue was the only one missing from their group.

At that moment, Chen Jue had already appeared near the confluence of the three rivers they had admired earlier, having failed to keep up with the main group.

Right now, Chen Jue felt just like Lü Chunyang, the Patriarch of Pure Yang, achieving enlightenment in the Quanzhen tradition of the Eight Immortals桩 (posts); he too had attained a profound comprehension of his own Dao.

In that instant, his thoughts flowed smoothly like a crucible of the mind, and his spiritual will, much like his physical body, became restrained and began to round out into a state of pristine clarity.

It was as if Chen Jue's body and will had simultaneously formed a Golden Elixir and attained the Dao, akin to the sudden enlightenment experienced by the sages and worthies of ancient times.

At the very moment Chen Jue achieved clarity of mind and saw his true nature through enlightenment, a brand-new status bonus emerged on his attribute panel: [Mortal Realm Immortal].

[Mortal Realm Immortal]: Stroll leisurely through the mortal world, taste the myriad flavors of human life, and be the sole immortal among ordinary mortals.

Status Description: Buffed by this status, willpower, concentration, sensory perception, and comprehension are significantly enhanced.

With the appearance of this brand-new status, Chen Jue felt the sparks of his intellect flying rapidly. Countless memories and pieces of knowledge flashed through his brain, and past confusions regarding life and cultivation began to resolve effortlessly. Meanwhile, his intelligence attribute, previously displayed as 1.61 (1.11), twisted and shifted in this exact moment.

The value 1.11 inside the parentheses began to climb at a speed visible to the naked eye until it completely vanished, fixing itself at the peak value just like the other three attributes, perfectly aligned with the current value.

Looking at the converging and swirling waters of the three rivers, Chen Jue felt as though his consciousness had plunged into some peculiar state. By the time he snapped back to reality, the surrounding sky had turned pitch black, and the nearby Wenfeng Ancient Street was glowing with brilliant, dazzling lights.

"Clear of mind and seeing my nature, achieving complete and sudden enlightenment! So this is what it feels like to attain the 'True'." Chen Jue felt that when he looked upon this mortal world now, it was far clearer and more transparent than ever before.

Gone was the hazy, chaotic, and elusive feeling of the past, and any remaining doubts in his heart regarding spiritual cultivation had vanished entirely.

It was just like how ordinary people view the world after it rains: the dust in the air has been washed away by the rainwater, visibility is heightened, and there is a distinct sense of crystalline clarity.

Picking up his phone, he saw several missed calls. When he called back, the other end was noisy—presumably his roommates playing cards and messing around, all asking where Chen Jue had run off to.

Chen Jue offered a quick apology over the phone. Coincidentally, his attributes had surged following his enlightenment, leaving his stomach feeling empty. Upon returning to the hotel, he joined the group for the wedding banquet feast and participated in the evening's celebratory activities.

"When life is joyous, one must enjoy it to the fullest." Although Chen Jue was now a Mortal Realm Immortal who had attained the Dao, he still retained human emotions; he was neither a Buddha nor an immortal entering the void, devoid of sorrow and joy.

Eat when it's time to eat, drink when it's time to drink, make merry when it's time to be merry. The seven emotions and six desires intertwined within the mortal world—this was the "True" that Chen Jue had comprehended.

...

After partying with his roommates all night, everyone retired to their respective hotel rooms to sleep. Chen Jue also returned to his room and began practicing the Sleeping Dragon Pill-Cultivation Technique.

That night, Chen Jue felt that his sleep was exceptionally peaceful, secure, and sweet. Even the Sleeping Dragon Pill-Cultivation Technique advanced to Level 2 overnight, greatly increasing its efficiency.

Waking up the next morning at a mere six o'clock, his dormitory friends, having stayed up too late the previous night, were probably still deep in dreamland.

Chen Jue washed up, left the hotel, and found a roadside noodle shop to suck down another bowl of rice noodles. This time, however, he skipped the lamb offal, changing his flavor to sliced mutton instead.

Since he wanted to taste the myriad flavors of human life, these culinary experiences naturally had to be rotated frequently.

...

After slurping down the noodles and filling his stomach, Chen Jue strolled leisurely toward the banks of the Fu River. Last night, while joking around with Zhou Ping'an and the others, he had heard the young man mention that the confluence of the three rivers in Hezhou frequently flooded, and there were legends of people seeing dragons swimming in the river.

Walking along the riverside park of the Fu River, Chen Jue noticed that this small city, filled with the warmth of human fireworks, truly carved the image of the "dragon" everywhere. At the upper entrance of the park stood a large dinosaur sculpture, while the guardrails of the riverbank embankment were covered with diverse statues of the nine sons of the dragon.

The drop of the embankment was quite high and stretched on endlessly, appearing to be seven or eight meters away from the park above.

"Qiuniu, Yazi, Chaofeng, Polao, Suanni, Baxia, Bianan, Fuxi, Chiwen... Fortunately, I've thoroughly read Taoist classics, otherwise I really wouldn't have been able to name them all." Chen Jue walked along the embankment, touching the statues on the guardrails. In the middle of each guardrail section was a true dragon totem with claws bared and teeth brandished.

The totems were painted with gold lacquer, though the colors were slowly fading under the erosion of wind, rain, and time.

As he strolled all the way from the Fu River Second Bridge to the Third Bridge, Chen Jue's ears suddenly twitched, and he heard a whistling gale-like sound of rushing internal force from the park above—the sound of someone practicing martial arts and generating power.

Listening closer still, he heard a muffled thunder-like roar rising from the spine, growing gradually stronger before fading, accompanied by the swishing sound of rushing blood and vital energy.

Under normal circumstances, Chen Jue would have found it very hard to hear. However, ever since awakening the [Mortal Realm Immortal] status yesterday, his sensory perception had been vastly enhanced. Even with the great vertical distance, the roaring river water beside him, and the noisy traffic on the road above, the sound was still clearly captured by Chen Jue.

"An expert!" Chen Jue's heart stirred, and he quickly climbed up the embankment steps. He saw that in the deserted morning park woods, a woman of about twenty-five or twenty-six, with a ponytail, a lake-blue tracksuit, and striking, heroic facial features, was standing in the three-body stance (San Ti Shi), practicing a Xingyi martial art that looked somewhat like a dragon yet also like a snake.

Seeing Chen Jue suddenly pop up without warning from the embankment below, the woman was startled. She reined in her technique, stood straight, and stared at Chen Jue in silence, as if guarding against something.

"Beautiful..." Chen Jue opened his mouth to greet her, but the heroic woman suddenly spun around and sprinted away. Her surging, undulating figure resembled a dragon soaring through the mist, and with a few agile leaps, she hopped onto a newly arrived bus by the roadside, riding it away at high speed.

Chen Jue did not chase after her, instead staring intently through the bus window at the heroic woman who was likewise staring back at him. A trace of wariness and suspicion flickered in the other party's gaze, which left Chen Jue somewhat baffled.

"Bizarre!"

Chen Jue watched the woman's vehicle depart into the distance, recalling the few striking boxing and movement forms he had just witnessed. Although the viewing time was extremely brief, Chen Jue's concentration and sensory perception—boosted by [Mortal Realm Immortal]—confirmed without a doubt that she had been practicing the Xingyi Dragon Form.

Moreover, her internal energy was restrained, clearly showing that she had pushed her martial arts to an extremely profound level. Even if she hadn't formed an elixir, she was undoubtedly a consummate Xingyi grandmaster.

Just as Chen Jue was pondering this, having spent an hour strolling step-by-step back toward the hotel and feeling that he had missed an opportunity to converse with a fellow practitioner, a Mercedes-Benz business van with out-of-town license plates roared past him on the road, revving its engine.

The van was traveling very fast, clocking at least eighty or ninety miles per hour. Yet Chen Jue's sharp eyesight, awakened by his Night-Walking technique via the [Day and Night Indistinguishable] trait, still managed to catch a fleeting glimpse through the dark, anti-peep tinted windows of the vehicle. He clearly recognized the flat-topped bodyguard in the driver's seat who had left such a deep impression on him earlier.

"Huh?"

"It's him!"

In that split second, Chen Jue's gaze hardened, sparks of thought leaping in his mind. He hurriedly hailed a passing white-and-green checkered taxi.

"Driver, can you catch up to that Mercedes van ahead?" Chen Jue pulled open the door, jumped into the back seat, and pointed at the dark rear of the vehicle about to vanish around a corner.

"What did you say?"

"Brother! Are you filming some police-and-thief blockbuster with me bright and early in the morning? I don't do car chases!" The taxi driver was stunned, hastily shaking his head to refuse.

"Mister, please have mercy! That turtle's son driving the Mercedes owes me over a million! My family can barely put food on the table, the elderly need medicine, and this bastard even blocked my number and won't take my calls! Please be kind, I'll pay you two hundred!" Chen Jue whipped out his phone, scanned the QR code, and paid immediately.

"What a heartless bastard! Owe over a million and still driving a Mercedes?"

"Little brother, hold on tight! Watch me go all out!" Hearing that the money had arrived, the taxi driver instantly perged up. Shifting gears like the wind and stomping hard on the accelerator, he gave chase.

Yet just as they rounded the bend, both Chen Jue and the driver were dumbfounded: before them lay a three-way diverging fork in the road, with varying elevations, and not a single vehicle in sight.

"Little brother, it's not that big brother won't help you..." The driver pulled the car over to the side of the road.

A sudden thought stirred in Chen Jue's mind. The image of Lin Tianchen flashed through his brain—the man carrying that strangely seductive, serpentine air of a poisonous snake. He then recalled the snake-like coiling hidden within the Xingyi Dragon Form practiced by the woman he had seen earlier. Sparks of intuition flashed, and he asked the driver, "Master, where does the XX Route bus go?"

"Route XX? That goes to Dashiguan Township," the taxi driver replied.

"Then please be so kind as to drop me off at the XX Route bus terminal! I know where that turtle's son is hiding!"

"You got it!"

Hearing a destination was far better than chasing cars aimlessly, the taxi driver channeled the spirit of the Akina Mountain God and drove for over half an hour, dropping Chen Jue off at the Dashiguan Township bus terminal.

At the bus terminal, Chen Jue spotted the very bus the heroic woman had taken. He boarded and asked the resting bus driver for information.

Hearing Chen Jue's out-of-town accent, the bus driver wore a wary expression, shook his head, and flatly claimed he knew nothing.

Helplessly, Chen Jue got off the bus. Just as he thought the trail had gone cold, he suddenly noticed that at the rear of the bus, the heroic woman from his brief encounter had emerged from somewhere, her eyes filled with caution.

She stared at and sized up Chen Jue for a long time before relaxing her furrowed brow and saying, "Fellow Daoist, this is no place to talk. Follow me!"

With that, the woman turned swiftly and strode into a small path leading into the mountains. Filled with curiosity and without asking further questions, Chen Jue followed closely behind her, walking over ten kilometers of mountain trails until they reached a deep, secluded mountain forest echoing with the roar of a cascading waterfall.

Surrounding them were towering rock cliffs, their walls covered in ancient trees that blocked out the sunlight. The torrent of water plunging from the cliffs crashed into a pool below, churning up yellow mud where the clear and turbid waters met sharply, resembling a giant, churning Taiji vortex.

Seeing such a miraculous pool for the first time, Chen Jue felt a deep sense of wonder. Before he could voice his questions, however, the heroic woman took the initiative to introduce the place: "This is called Dragon Pool Bay. Legend has it that long ago, a jiao-dragon swam from here into the river."

"Fellow Daoist, you've followed me all the way, and I sense no malice from you. I assume you aren't someone sent by the Tianchen Group, right?"