There is a reason why there are so few foreigners.

After listening to Linglong's account, Chen Jue remained silent for a long time.

Since this was a karmic entanglement between Lin Tianchen and Linglong, it was not his place as an outsider to pass judgment. He soon spoke up, "Fellow Daoist Linglong, I take back what I said earlier and offer you my apologies. I originally thought the two of you shared some bonds coming from the same school, but I never expected such despicable and sordid affairs to lurk beneath the surface."

"If I were ever caught in such a situation, I wouldn't even bother to endure it. I would beat him to death right on the spot and not even leave him with the wits of an idiot."

Hearing Chen Jue's fierce remark, Linglong let out a faint smile. "The overseas environment is chaotic. Without a bit of skill, it is easy to lose your life, and if you happen to possess even a fraction of good looks, you easily lose your chastity. Ever since my bones fully matured at the age of sixteen, I followed my master to practice the Xingyi Dragon Form."

"My master was a grandmaster of Xingyi who took in three disciples: myself, Lin Tianchen, and our senior martial brother, Lei Jiao."

"Perhaps due to my innate talent—my master used to say my heart was pierced with seven apertures, allowing me to learn anything with great speed—I lived right on the edge of the knife blade and the barrel of a gun within the gang circles every single day. We engaged in real combat and bloody gang wars constantly, unlike the peaceful environment here in the mainland. Back then, it was either kill or be killed. After practicing martial arts for three years, by the time I was nineteen, my martial prowess had already reached the realm of perfection, and I earned the moniker of 'Blood Dragon' out there."

"My second senior martial brother earned the nickname 'Dark Serpent' because his Snake Form's hidden energy targeted people's hearts and kidneys, while my senior martial brother struck with the force of thunder, carving out the reputation of 'Thunder Flood Dragon' using the same Dragon Form as me."

"Neither of them is anything good. The moment our master passed away, the Xingyi Sect was monopolized by my senior martial brother in league with several elders. I took advantage of the chaos to return to the mainland and hid here in Heizhou to contemplate the true essence of the Dragon Form. A year ago, I finally achieved perfection in marrow-cleansing, swallowed the pill into my abdomen, and mastered the Dan-holding and hip-sitting posture."

Hearing Linglong's description, Chen Jue sighed inwardly, recognizing that the woman before him was a prodigy cut from the same cloth as Yun Xiaomei.

Yet, listening to her seemingly understated description of her upbringing overseas felt as though he were witnessing a teenage girl emerging from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

Although she currently appeared to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, she had actually spent a prolonged period living a life where she danced on the blade's edge and gambled with her life. Having fought her way up and survived in such a tumultuous environment, it was no wonder she could enter the Golden Elixir realm through martial arts at such a young age.

Born into a peaceful era, Chen Jue, an immortal of the mortal world, found it difficult to truly empathize with such harrowing experiences.

"By the way, Fellow Daoist Linglong! Ever since you mastered the Dan-holding and hip-sitting posture, you should also be able to sense the Innate Qi contained within this object, right?" After a long silence, Chen Jue reached into his pocket and pulled out the metal tube. With a firm tug, he peeled off the outer metal packaging to reveal the small pebble soaked in a yellow oily liquid inside, and handed it over.

"Indeed, I can sense it!"

"Ever since I attained the Dan-holding state, I once perceived the faint resonance emanating from a fetus within a pregnant woman's womb, which also reminded me of the sensation of Innate Qi mentioned in Daoist scriptures."

"I never expected, however, that any material could harbor this Innate Qi without dispersing... The Extreme Sports Association... There must be a profound secret hidden behind this organization." Linglong accepted the metal tube from Chen Jue and examined it closely for a moment.

"Then, Fellow Daoist Linglong, what are your thoughts on the concept of eternal life mentioned by that foreign devil just now?" Seeing that she possessed overseas experience, Chen Jue felt a stir in his heart and continued to ask.

"Eternal life?"

"It is nothing more than self-deception!"

"If those people truly mastered the mysteries of eternal life, why would they bother seeking out people like us?" Linglong toyed with the metal tube in her hand, then lightly scratched its surface with her fingernail, leaving a faint mark.

"This should be a lead pipe!"

"Used for radiation shielding... Viewed in this light, Innate Qi is an energetic entity akin to radiation or high-frequency electromagnetic waves... I hadn't paid much attention before, but it seems someone has already studied this kind of energy, and quite thoroughly at that... As for the substance inside this tube, I reckon it resembles a fragment of some meteorite rather than any kind of crystallized formation."

"If the Extreme Sports Association could synthesize crystals of Innate Qi on their own, I imagine they wouldn't need to come knocking on my door and beg me to come out of seclusion."

"The foreign devil from earlier also mentioned inviting me out of seclusion to explore natural mysteries. My guess is that a meteorite carrying Innate Qi shattered into pieces and plummeted into some inaccessible, uninhabited regions."

"No wonder those extreme sports enthusiasts are all so fond of burrowing into remote places where no human footprints exist!" As if a sudden realization struck her, Linglong analyzed the situation aloud, toyed with the metal tube for a moment longer, and tossed it back to Chen Jue.

Hearing this, Chen Jue felt quite moved. His mind raced as he combined her insights with what he had previously seen and heard, finding her reasoning to be extremely plausible.

He glanced at the small pebble inside the metal tube. Had it not been for the dark golden patterns on its surface, its texture did indeed resemble a fragment peeled off from a meteorite.

Closing the metal tube, he shoved it back into his trouser pocket, found a large pebble nearby to sit on not far from Linglong, and pulled out the business card from his pocket. Glancing at the text printed on it, his brow furrowed slightly. "Hongmou Group? Is that the company that manufactures Hongmou functional beverages?"

Back when Chen Jue first ventured into the mountains, he frequently drank functional beverages, so the name Hongmou naturally left a deep impression on him.

Linglong nodded. "Precisely! That so-called Extreme Sports Association is funded by this very conglomerate. Foreign youths love to chase thrills, and countless people die or sustain injuries in extreme sports every year."

"Once one's martial arts reach a level like yours or mine, we should all be able to comprehend the principle of 'snatching secrets from heaven' embedded within it."

Chen Jue smiled slightly, recalling an internet meme he had seen before, and chimed in, "There is a reason why the foreign population is relatively small! If you court death often enough, death eventually finds you. Still, training in such a manner can indeed rapidly forge one's courage and intent, allowing one to master genuine skills."

"In those online videos, I often see foreign parkour masters leaping across walls and scaling roofs, possessing truly exceptional physical agility."

Hearing Chen Jue's remark, Linglong let out a light, noncommittal chuckle. "Snatching secrets from heaven comes with a price, after all. The heavens do not grant shortcuts and open back doors for people every single day."

"Many of these foreigners enjoy training their bodies and wills through such methods, just like those yoga masters who practice major hand seals. Their physical bodies can even be trained to rival the Buddha Shakyamuni himself, but they do not understand combat applications and still fail to master their inner intent. Any random practitioner of hidden energy could effortlessly strike them down."

Nevertheless, seeing that Chen Jue had kept the business card, Linglong kindly offered a word of caution: "Those foreign devils harbor no benevolent intentions. You would do well to exercise caution, Fellow Daoist! It is best not to contact them, and if circumstances force you to do so, do not engage in deep associations or sell your labor to them."

"Understood! Thank you for the warning, Fellow Daoist Linglong!"

"I'll take these meteorite fragments back first to study what purpose they actually serve. If they turn out to be completely useless, I won't bother paying those foreign devils any mind." Chen Jue nodded, flicked his wrist, and tossed the business card away, watching it flutter into the river and drift along with the current. With his current level of intelligence, he had long since acquired a near-photographic memory, and memorizing a string of phone numbers took merely a glance.

...

Afterward, the two sat by the river, discussing and exchanging insights on martial arts and spiritual cultivation. Chen Jue learned a great deal about overseas customs and local conditions from Linglong.

Meanwhile, Linglong was immensely astonished to learn from Chen Jue that there existed yet another practitioner who had formed the Golden Elixir within the mainland, sighing inwardly that one must never underestimate the talents of the world.

The two mutually verified their respective martial arts disciplines by the riverside. When lunchtime arrived, they headed up to the dilapidated cabin in the navel orange orchard and shared a meal.

The dishes prepared by the elderly woman were remarkably delicious. However, judging by the situation, she was not related to Linglong by blood; rather, Linglong was merely lodging there while the two women looked out for each other and shared a simple domestic life.

Furthermore, an elderly woman living deep within such secluded mountain forests would rarely venture out and chatter about her household affairs, which had allowed Linglong to conceal herself quietly in the wilderness for so long, evading the Xingyi Sect's intelligence network until her traces were finally unearthed recently through the resources of the Tianchen Group.

As for why Linglong had been practicing martial arts by the river in Heizhou county town, it was simply to closely observe the dragon totem and the statues of the dragon's nine sons. Her subsequent willingness to meet Chen Jue stemmed from sensing his pure and sincere nature.

Just as Yun Xiaomei had not avoided Chen Jue in the past, someone who had progressed to her level in martial cultivation could essentially discern a person's benevolence or malice at a glance.

Unless the other party possessed an extraordinarily high level of spiritual cultivation and understood how to obscure the heavenly secrets—much like how a lie detector fails when encountering someone who has undergone specialized training—such instincts rarely missed the mark.

The fourth update is delivered!

Pianfeng is going to rest now to maintain a good state and continue tomorrow~ As for the issue of experts being as common as dogs, their numbers don't even exceed the fingers on one hand; counting the protagonist, there are only three. Out of billions of people, three doesn't seem like much at all. The Quanzhen patriarch accepted seven immortal disciples, and the Buddha is even more exaggerated with countless bodhisattvas and arhats. One encounters people of their own tier—that's the only way I can analyze it for everyone (covers face and begs for mercy).