Reversing Falsehood and Preserving Truth: All Gods and Gods Are in My Hands

On Sunday morning, Zhongzhou was still shrouded in a thin mist, and dewdrops clung to the sycamore leaves, not yet falling. Zhao Lei's booming voice shattered the tranquility, slamming against Lu Yu's door: "Lu Yu! Open the door! I've come to play with you!"

Lu Yu had just finished rinsing his mouth, the coolness of the toothpaste still lingering in his lips. He quickly and quietly opened the door, afraid of waking his parents who were fast asleep in the inner room.

As soon as the door opened, Zhao Lei burst in, carrying the heat of his morning run. His quick-drying shirt accentuated the sharp muscle lines of his shoulders and back, his hair was still damp and stuck to his forehead, and his eyes shone like glass marbles polished by the morning light.

"It's only 6:30, and you're more enthusiastic than the old men doing their morning exercise," Lu Yu muttered to himself, grabbing his coat and heading outside.

Lu Yu subconsciously rubbed his palm, and the pale golden runes suddenly lit up with a very faint halo in the misty morning light, like crushed stars falling into the lines of his skin, before disappearing in an instant.

Zhao Lei's eyes widened instantly. He gripped Zhao Lei's hand and examined it repeatedly, his voice filled with amazement: "Wow! It's really bright! It's like carrying a mini flashlight!"

"What good is just being bright?" Lu Yu withdrew his hand, a blade of light condensed at his fingertips and then dissipated. His eyes darkened. "In the last battle at the mall, my physical fitness couldn't keep up at all. If I really encountered the Executors, I could only passively take a beating... I need to improve my physical fitness."

Zhao Lei slapped his thigh, his movements as swift as magic, and pulled two heavy sandbags from his trouser leg. The canvas was worn rough, and the weight of the iron filings inside could be clearly felt. "What a coincidence! You can borrow my weighted sandbags!"

Lu Yu weighed the sandbag in his hand; it made his wrist sag suddenly. He couldn't help but click his tongue in surprise: "Do you usually wear this thing when you go out?"

"Of course!" Zhao Lei proudly lifted his trouser leg, revealing a smaller version of the same type of sandbag still strapped to his ankle. "I've been secretly wearing these since junior high, otherwise where would I get my explosive power!"

The two of them carried sandbags and headed to the park outside the residential area. The morning breeze carried the crisp scent of sycamore leaves and the aroma of fried dough sticks from a distant breakfast stall.

Lu Yu tied the sandbags to his calves, and as soon as he took a step, he felt sluggish. His calf muscles quickly tensed and ached, and sweat slid down his forehead and into his collar, making his skin feel sticky.

He gritted his teeth and charged forward, his heart filled with only one thought—he could no longer be like he was in the business world, where physical exhaustion held him back.

After running five kilometers, the two collapsed on a park bench, panting heavily.

Zhao Lei chugged half a bottle of water, rested for less than ten minutes, then grabbed a cypress branch from the roadside and brandished it in front of Lu Yu with great flair: "Let's practice blocking! I'll use this branch to simulate the tentacles of an ethereal being; if you can dodge it, you win!"

The branch whistled through the wind and swept towards Lu Yu's wrist. In the past, he could at most barely dodge it by turning to the side, but at this moment, it was as if a dormant string in his mind was suddenly plucked, and his body reacted half a beat faster than his mind. With a slight flick of his wrist, he accurately grasped the end of the branch.

Zhao Lei's eyes widened even more, and he swung the branches several times at a faster pace. The afterimages of the cypress branches wove a dense net in the air, but Lu Yu seemed to have anticipated the trajectory and dodged them each time with great difficulty. Once, he even casually slapped Zhao Lei's wrist away.

"Holy crap! You're cheating!" Zhao Lei threw down the branch, shoved it into Lu Yu's palm, and stared intently at the runes. "This thing not only fights monsters, but it also increases reaction speed? That's insane!"

Lu Yu was also somewhat stunned. He could clearly sense that the deep connection between the True Dao and his body had elevated his perception and reaction by more than one level, allowing him to even detect the trajectory of the wind brushing against his skin.

As the two were marveling at the runes, Zhao Lei suddenly slapped his forehead: "I almost forgot! Call Su Wan to practice with us too; her psychic abilities can hone her combat skills!"

When the call was made, Su Wan's voice, gentle and scholarly, was like a bucket of ice water poured directly onto their passionate hearts: "Have you forgotten? The mock college entrance exam is in two days..."

Lu Yu's heart skipped a beat, and his mind exploded with fragments of formulas, classical Chinese vocabulary, and English cloze tests. The fighting spirit that had been boiling just moments before vanished like a burst bubble.

Zhao Lei slumped his shoulders, clutching his hair and wailing, "It's over! I didn't memorize a single math formula, and I can't solve a single problem! I'm doomed!"

"Let's go to Xinghua Bookstore this afternoon and study together." Lu Yu made up his mind, his tone tinged with a hint of helplessness. "Special training can be postponed, but we can't slack off on the mock exams."

Zhao Lei responded listlessly, all his previous vigor gone. He squatted on the ground, fiddling with the sandbags, looking like a wilted eggplant.

In the evening, the air conditioning in Xinghua Bookstore carried the scent of ink, a stark contrast to the sweaty smell in the park that morning.

Lu Yu spread out the math paper, his pen flying across the draft paper, but his thoughts kept drifting back to the myriad paths of the hub—the oppressive feeling of Nuwa's serpentine tail attacking, the tremor of the light blade cleaving through the chaotic mist...

Unbeknownst to him, the runes on his palm emitted a faint golden light, which just illuminated the book in front of him.

The man exclaimed in surprise. Lu Yu hurriedly clenched his fist, grabbed the phone next to him, and waved it haphazardly, muttering under his breath, "Why is the flashlight on?"

When the other person looked away, a thin layer of sweat had already broken out on his back.

Zhao Lei, who was sitting next to him, was already slumped over the table, dozing off. His head was nodding off, and drool was almost dripping onto his Chinese textbook. He was mumbling incoherently, "Don't wake me up, let me dream about the exam answers..."

Su Wan sat on the other side of Lu Yu, her pen scratching around in her notebook of wrong answers. Suddenly, she leaned closer to him and said in a very low voice, "When I went out during the day, there were a few strangers loitering on the old street in front of my house. I tried to get closer and use my psychic abilities to sense them, but they dodged so fast that I didn't have a chance."

Lu Yu's heart leaped into his throat. He glanced at the deepening twilight outside the window, then swept his gaze over the densely packed practice exam papers on the table. Suddenly, he realized that the world of teenagers is always a double burden—

On one side is the lingering shadow of the ethereal spirit, and on the other is the inescapable senior year of high school. The two are intertwined, making it hard to breathe, yet one has no choice but to grit one's teeth and forge ahead.

Zhao Lei's snoring suddenly broke the tranquility of the bookstore, attracting the attention of those around him.

Lu Yu gave him a helpless shove, and Zhao Lei snapped out of his daze, wiping his mouth blankly before blurting out, "I could die happy tonight!"

Su Wan couldn't help but smile, tapping the words on his textbook with her fingertip: "You were reciting the Analects in your dreams?"

Zhao Lei glanced down at the line "If I hear the Way in the morning, I can die content in the evening" in his textbook, and instantly became smug. He patted his chest and boasted, "I not only can recite it, but I also know what it means! It means if I find out where those monsters in the mall are hiding in the morning, I can send them all to their deaths by nightfall!"

Looking at his earnest, misinterpreting expression, Lu Yu was about to retort when a thought suddenly flashed through his mind—

Yes, where do those ubiquitous phantoms come from?