Chapter 49: Hello, New World

"Beep! Beep!"

The bridge was jammed solid with vehicles, and the sound of car horns echoed endlessly.

"Are we going to move or what?"
"Hang on, it looks like something happened up ahead!"

Nobody knew who had gotten out of their car first, but as the word spread from person to person, more and more individuals abandoned their vehicles. Driven by the simple human instinct of rubbernecking, they crowded against the guardrails and craned their necks to look ahead.

Yet, even so, not a single person saw when the woman in white had appeared.

She seemed to have popped straight out of the empty air, suddenly standing right there.

Swish, swish, swish...

The crowd's reaction was remarkably uniform as they whipped out their mobile phones and aimed their cameras at the woman in white.

The figure on their screens possessed an inexplicable coolness. The woman's long sleeves fluttered in the wind; though she looked slender and frail, she stood as steady as Mount Tai upon the narrow guardrail. Neither the bustling traffic behind her nor the shouting of the surrounding crowd seemed to exist in her eyes.

If immortals truly existed in this world, this must be what they looked like.

Liu Shuyue, however, was experiencing a completely different state of mind at that moment.

This was her first time seeing the city where the Recluse of Lushan dwelt, and she had confirmed that it belonged to no known continent beyond the Abyss Sea. There were far too many things she had never laid eyes on before—people and objects alike—giving her a profoundly novel sensation.

At the other end of the bridge, the mountain-like rolling skyscrapers were even more soul-stirring than the magical treasures of the Lotus Cloud Sect. After all, magical treasures could only be wielded by a tiny fraction of disciples, whereas these creations of titanic might were meant to benefit thousands upon thousands of ordinary people. If the Lotus Cloud Sect ever hoped to see universal harmony achieved across the world, perhaps the closest thing to that vision was the scene unfolding right before her eyes.

Did all of this simply fall out of thin air?

The stories chronicled in *The Comprehensive History of the Ages* suddenly felt heavy and realistic. Generation after generation of changes, step-by-step innovations, leading ultimately to universal harmony—the price that had to be paid along the way was far beyond what one or two sect disciples could ever offer.

Feeling the river breeze brush against her face, she felt her state of mind grow clearer than ever before.

Of course, Liu Shuyue did not enjoy putting on such a public spectacle, especially when it involved putting on a mystifying act in front of a crowd. Such behavior ran counter to the teachings of the Lotus Cloud Sect.

Being pointed at and discussed by hundreds of strangers also made her feel somewhat uneasy.

However, the person who had asked her to do this was Chen Xuan.

Moreover, judging by what he had said, the matter was of great importance and concerned the future development of the shop. That was why she had decided to break the rules for once and temporarily set aside the dignity of her sect.

*Hurry up,* she signaled to the Rune-Horned Deer.

"Even if I die here, it will be a glorious death, and my people will never let you go, you vi—vi—vicious... sinister and despi—despi—" The "barbarian" leader suddenly began to stutter.

"What's going on? His momentum seems to have dropped."
"Did he forget his lines?"

The onlookers immediately noticed the anomaly.

"Oh no," Lin Qing muttered softly. "He's lost his nerve again."

Chen Xuan shook his head. It wasn't that the Rune-Horned Deer had lost his nerve; rather, his honest-man disease was acting up again. Facing an immortal master whom he respected from the bottom of his heart, even knowing they were just acting, he simply couldn't bring himself to hurl curses fluently.

This was no longer a problem that the Mind-Clearing Mantra could solve. He immediately pulled out a precious sound-transmission talisman and relayed a message to Liu Shuyue: "No waiting, move to the next stage!"

Liu Shuyue stepped forward expressionlessly and leapt off the bridge in full view of everyone.

"She doesn't have a safety rope tied to her!"
"Jumping from this height is going to be fatal even if she survives!"

The people on the bridge instantly leaned over the railing with gasps, and then they witnessed a scene straight out of a special-effects blockbuster. Liu Shuyue was as light as a kite, gliding gracefully toward the water's surface before treading across the waves and charging fiercely toward the three figures on the opposite side!

The Rune-Horned Deer no longer needed to recite his lines; he swung the wooden club on his back straight at Liu Shuyue.

The two sides immediately clashed!

Of course, this had all been arranged by Chen Xuan beforehand. In any case, the three villagers stood no chance of scratching the immortal master even if they tried their utmost, so they were treating it like a routine sparring exercise. Liu Shuyue did not use a weapon either, relying solely on fists and feet infused with vital energy to attack, emphasizing a hard-hitting, full-contact impact.

Yet, in the eyes of the others, it was an entirely different story.

The woman in white executed fiercely sharp maneuvers, and nearly every blow produced a booming sonic crack. The sheer force behind them was enough to chill the heart from afar; it was nothing like the rigid choreography seen in movies, and when her strikes collided with the weapons, showers of wooden splinters actually exploded into the air.

The other three barbarians were no weaklings either. Although they wielded wooden weapons, their momentum was astonishing, leaving behind afterimages whenever they swung. The onlookers could easily imagine that taking even one blow from those clubs would leave a person gasping for their last breath with broken ribs.

Even more incredible was the fact that none of the four individuals wore any visible wires, nor were there any stepping platforms beneath their feet. As they darted, shifted, and leaped, they were stepping solidly upon the water, kicking up sheets of spray with every lifted foot.

At first, the clamor of voices was lively, but gradually, everyone fell silent. Every single person focused their attention, eyes wide as they stared fixedly at the battle on the river, terrified of missing the slightest detail.

As the woman in white was once again forced back by the combined assault of the three men, she finally lost her patience.

"You've improved, but not by much." She pointed a single finger toward the sky, and her feet slowly lifted off the water's surface, hovering as if suspended above the Sha River. "It's time to end this."

With that, the previously clear sky darkened instantly. Rolling dark thunderclouds gathered above the bridge, and dazzling lightning darted through the clouds like restless dragons ready to leap out at any moment.

All the witnesses were struck dumb with astonishment.

If the earlier battle on the water could still be explained as some kind of stunt performance, how was one to explain the clear sky transforming into a tempestuous storm in the blink of an eye?

Liu Shuyue raised her hand and swept it forward.

This was the exact technique she had used to frighten away the royal army beneath the walls of Zhangwei City.

In an instant, lightning flashed and thunder roared!

Countless bolts of purple lightning cracked down from the dark clouds, swallowing the trio whole in the blink of an eye. Steam billowed everywhere across the river surface, making it look as though the water were boiling. Not only that, but several bolts of lightning also struck the streetlamps along the sightseeing promenade, unleashing a barrage of crackling explosions and showering brilliant sparks in all directions!

At this point, the crowd truly panicked.

Nobody wanted to get struck by lightning just while harmlessly watching the fun!

Screams rang out everywhere as the onlookers scrambled for cover, desperately trying to find a safe place to hide. However, the dark clouds came and went just as quickly; in less than ten seconds, the afternoon sunlight spilled down from overhead once more, illuminating both banks of the Sha River and causing the fleeing crowd to stop in their tracks in unison.

Only then did they realize that the woman in white had vanished without a trace.

The trio opposing her had likewise disappeared from the steaming river surface. All that remained in the water were the charred halves of a wooden club and a few tattered shreds of cloth.

"Was I dreaming just now?"
"My phone was recording it! This can't be fake, right?"
"Who on earth were those people?"
"That was so cool! I want to learn that water-floating technique too!"

Everyone was utterly shaken. Whether they were tourists on the promenade or drivers on the bridge, the entire place erupted into utter chaos!

"Let's go," Chen Xuan said with satisfaction. "Time to pick them up."

Liu Shuyue had been directly transported back to the shop via the "Manager's Invitation," while the Rune-Horned Deer and the others had plunged into the water the moment the illusory thunder struck. Relying on breath-holding talismans, they had drifted downstream and would resurface once they found an uninhabited riverbank, meaning they still needed to be picked up.

Listening to the intensely excited discussions behind him, Chen Xuan knew that the curtain was finally rising on this grand drama.

...

"Mind-blowing! Another bizarre spectacle in Jiangcheng following the uncanny mirage!"
"Family, something huge has happened! Aliens weren't found, but immortals came down the mountain first!"
"Live recording is here, don't forget to leave a like."
"I've been saying superpowers definitely exist; superhero movies are actually documentaries!"

The event fermented at an astonishing speed. By the afternoon, various discussion posts had sprung up like bamboo shoots after a rainy rain across major forums, and by evening, the incident had surged to the top of the trending searches, while YouTube was flooded with related short clips.

"Young man, do you know what happened on the Sha River Bridge this afternoon?" Even the elderly man who frequently came to the convenience store to buy cigarettes brought up the "grand drama" from midday.

"I know, didn't the television station go to the scene to report on it?" Chen Xuan skillfully helped him scan the QR code. "Two packs of Furongwang, 40 yuan."

"Heh, that's nothing. The biggest coincidence is that my daughter happened to be on the bridge at the time, only a few meters away from that woman in white, and she happened to have her camera with her, snapping a bunch of photos on the spot," the old man declared proudly. "I heard people are offering high prices to buy high-definition photos of the scene now—several hundred yuan a piece!"

"Really? Your daughter is so lucky. What does she make of all this?"
"I'm not too sure about that. If you're interested, do you want to chat with her? I can give you her WeChat."

Chen Xuan never expected the conversation to pivot into matchmaking from this angle. He hurriedly handed the cigarettes across the counter. "Ahaha... maybe another time, another time."

"Tsk, young people really don't know how to appreciate an opportunity." The old man shook his head in deep dissatisfaction and ambled out of the shop door.

At that moment, Lin Qing, who had been cleaning the display tables nearby, walked over and whispered into Chen Xuan's ear, "The Limiting Agency has made a move."