One person: Senior brother Zhang Zhiwei, the Celestial Master begged me to descend the mountain.

Tianjin West Railway Station, exit.

The crowds surged and the noise rose and fell.

Zhang Chulan dragged the enormous suitcase, big enough to fit two people, with one hand, while his other arm tightly gripped Wang Ye's neck, as if afraid that this newly acquired duck would fly away.

"Old Wang! Don't look so gloomy!"

Zhang Chulan's face was flushed, and he waved three paper plane tickets he had just taken out in the air with his other hand, grinning like a fool who had just won the lottery:

"See that? That's efficiency!"

"Direct flights to South China! I've checked, the earliest flight departs in an hour and a half!"

"After we get off the plane, we'll hire a car right away. We should be able to land at that Biyou Village before midnight tonight!"

"We'll give Ma Xianhong a surprise that seems to fall from the sky! Wouldn't that be exciting?"

At this moment, Wang Ye looked like a kidnapped hostage, his eyelids drooping, his sunglasses askew, and he looked utterly hopeless.

He glanced at the elated Zhang Chulan and groaned weakly:

"Exciting my ass..."

"We're going to our deaths, can't you even let me catch my breath?"

"Besides, that's Biyou Village, not Biyou Resort. What are you so excited about?"

"Hey! Since we're already here, let's just make the best of it!"

Zhang Chulan completely ignored Wang Ye's吐槽 (tu cao, a Chinese internet slang term for sarcastic or critical remarks), turned to look at Zhang Taichu who was walking ahead, and approached him with a fawning expression:

"Grandmaster Uncle! What do you think of my arrangement?"

"First class! Everything's arranged, you can..."

Sizzle—!

A crisp sound of tearing fabric rang out, particularly jarring in the noisy exit.

Zhang Chulan's smile instantly froze.

He was still in the posture of handing out the tickets, but the three tickets he was holding, which were printed with the words "first class," had now turned into shredded paper flying everywhere.

It was like an expensive snowfall that suddenly occurred.

Zhang Taichu withdrew his hand, not even glancing at the falling scraps of paper.

He stood by the roadside, looking at the traffic jam that stretched out like a sausage, then looked up at the hazy sky shrouded in smog, his brows furrowing slightly.

"Too slow."

Only two words.

Indifferent, and leaving no room for argument.

Zhang Chulan stared wide-eyed at the scraps of paper on the ground, his heart aching and trembling.

"No...no, Uncle-Master?"

"This is first class! Full price! No discounts!"

"And... this is slow?"

"This is an airplane! The pinnacle of modern human transportation! It's faster than anything else, except rockets!"

Zhang Chulan felt that his worldview had been shaken.

From Tianjin to South China, it's over a thousand kilometers, and it takes two hours by plane. You think that's too slow?

Are you perhaps planning to use the "shrinking the earth to an inch" technique to get there step by step?

That's enough to exhaust a horse to death!

Wang Ye, however, perked up. He reached out and straightened his askew sunglasses, looking at Zhang Chulan with a hint of schadenfreude:

"I told you, when you go out with this man, all your worldly arrangements are completely useless."

Zhang Taichu ignored their reactions.

He turned around, his gaze sweeping across the surroundings, finally settling on an unfinished high-rise building next to the station.

That was the highest point in the vicinity, probably over thirty stories high. Construction had been halted for a long time due to a broken funding chain, leaving only a bare concrete frame standing in the wind.

"Keep up."

Zhang Taichu uttered a single sentence and then his figure blurred.

next second.

His figure had vanished from the spot, leaving only a faint afterimage.

"Holy crap?!"

Zhang Chulan rubbed his eyes, and when he looked up again, he saw that the white figure had already appeared on the edge of the top floor of the unfinished building.

"This...this is way too extravagant!"

Zhang Chulan looked at the heavy suitcase in his hand with a bitter expression, then glanced at Wang Ye, who was watching the show with amusement.

"Old Wang, want to lend a hand?"

"Get lost, take it yourself."

……

Five minutes later.

The rooftop of an unfinished building.

The wind howled, whipping up sand and stones from the ground.

Zhang Chulan, panting heavily, threw his suitcase on the ground and slumped down beside it, completely losing his composure.

"Uncle-Master... what... what are we doing here?"

"There aren't any planes here...are we supposed to jump?"

Although Wang Ye didn't speak, his eyes were full of doubt.

He walked to the edge of the rooftop, looked down, and felt a wave of dizziness.

"Master, are we going to set up an array here?"

Wang Ye asked tentatively.

In his view, the only way to go faster than an airplane would be through some kind of large-scale spatial teleportation array.

However, such things are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the materials are hard to find. Even the ancient books of Wudang Mountain only record a few words about them.

Zhang Taichu stood at the very edge of the rooftop, hands behind his back, his robes fluttering in the strong wind.

He didn't answer, but slowly extended his right hand.

Palms facing upwards.

Om-!

A deep humming sound suddenly echoed across the empty rooftop.

Followed by.

An indescribable, terrifying pressure erupted from that seemingly frail figure.

The dazzling golden light, like a flood bursting its banks, gushed forth from Zhang Taichu's palm in an instant.

But this golden light was different from the previous ones.

It is no longer an ethereal Qi, but carries a heavy, substantial texture, as if it were flowing gold or a liquefied sun.

"What...what is this thing?!"

Zhang Chulan suddenly sprang up from the ground, his eyes wide open like copper bells.

The golden light that filled the sky did not scatter, but instead rapidly intertwined, condensed, and shaped itself in the air.

ka ka ka-

Accompanied by a series of teeth-grinding metallic scraping sounds.

A golden ship, ten zhang long and shimmering with light, suddenly appeared above the three of them!

That's not an illusion.

Every intricate cloud pattern on the hull, every upturned eave, and even the wood grain on the deck are clearly visible, as if they were real.

The entire ship exuded an ancient and noble aura, hovering in mid-air, casting a shadow that enveloped the entire rooftop.

Wang Ye's sunglasses fell to the ground with a clatter and shattered into pieces.

His whole body stiffened, his lips trembled, and he pointed at the cloud boat, unable to utter a complete sentence for a long time:

"Created out of thin air?!"

"Is this Qi manifesting in form? No! This is practically tangible!"

"This isn't scientific! This isn't mystical! What the hell is this method?!"

As a sorcerer, Wang Ye's worldview completely collapsed at this moment.

Sorcerers believe in following the natural order and incorporating the principles of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements.

But what I saw before me completely defied the law of conservation of matter and utterly humiliated the so-called magic.

How could this be considered supernatural?

This is clearly a miracle!

Zhang Taichu leaped lightly, his figure floating like a feather, and landed steadily on the golden deck.

He looked down at the two dumbfounded men below with a calm expression.

"Come up."

"I'm in a hurry."

"Coming...coming!"

Zhang Chulan was the first to react.

The heartache and exhaustion I felt earlier vanished instantly, replaced by a feverish excitement.

He grabbed the suitcase, a golden light flashed around him, and he leaped up like a monkey.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! That's so cool!"

As soon as he boarded the ship, Zhang Chulan leaned over the gunwale and reached out to touch the golden railing.

It feels warm to the touch, yet is as hard as iron, and you can even feel the immense energy flowing within it.

"Old Wang! Come on up here!"

"Is this the legendary magical artifact? Or a flying artifact?!"

"We've hit the jackpot this time! This is way better than first class!"

Wang Ye stood below, looking at the cloud boat that defied common sense, and swallowed hard.

He now finally understood why Zhang Taichu had torn up the plane ticket earlier.

Compared to this thing, an airplane really is just a tin can that burns oil.

He took a deep breath, channeled his Tai Chi energy, and with a light step, landed on the deck.

As soon as he stood firm, he felt an extremely stable sensation under his feet, without any feeling of floating or being suspended in mid-air.

"rise."

Zhang Taichu stood at the bow of the boat and uttered a single word indifferently.

boom--!

The entire cloud boat suddenly trembled.

The surrounding air seemed to be instantly pushed aside by some force, forming a visible air wave.

next second.

The surrounding scenery began to rush past us.

Unfinished buildings, train stations, overpasses, the entire cityscape of Tianjin...

Everything became insignificant in the blink of an eye, eventually turning into a map beneath our feet.

Clouds swept past, and the wind howled in my ears, but they were completely shut out by a faint golden light curtain surrounding the ship.

Zhang Chulan lay on the side of the boat, looking down at the ant-like stream of cars below, and excitedly yelled:

"Wuhu—! Takeoff!"

"That speed! That view! I'm going to post this on my WeChat Moments! I'm going to make those two country bumpkins, Xu San and Xu Si, green with envy!"

Compared to Zhang Chulan's carefree attitude.

Wang Ye, however, was huddled in a corner of the deck, his face deathly pale.

He clung tightly to the railing, not because of his fear of heights, but because of a tremor that came from the depths of his soul.

Just now, the cloud boat took off.

He subconsciously opened the interior view again.

At that moment, what he saw was no longer a blurry glint of blood.

Instead, it was a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

In that sea of ​​blood, the golden cloud boat was like a sword of judgment descending from the sky, carrying the will to destroy everything, and plunged straight into a certain place in the south.

"It's over..."

Wang Ye muttered to himself, cold sweat pouring down his forehead:

"This time, we've really gotten ourselves on a sinking ship..."

"Such a huge karmic debt, such a heavy sin of killing..."

"My small frame can't handle it."

Just then.

A voice suddenly rang out above his head.

Are you afraid?

Wang Ye shuddered and suddenly looked up.

Zhang Taichu had turned around at some point and was looking at him with his hands behind his back.

Those deep eyes reflected the ever-changing clouds in the sky, yet they showed not a trace of human emotion.

"Dao... Daoist Master."

Wang Ye swallowed hard, forcing out a smile that looked worse than a grimace:

"Don't make fun of me."

"I just had my fortune told at the train station."

"A very bad omen."

"This trip to South China will surely bring bloodshed."

"Moreover... this bloody light is too intense; it's likely that not only Biyou Village, but even we ourselves will be stained with its blood."

At this point, Wang Ye's tone became somewhat bitter:

"Master, we're going there for the truth, is it really necessary to make such a big fuss?"

"If things really get out of control, what will happen to the company..."

"A bloody disaster?"

Zhang Taichu interrupted Wang Ye.

His lips curled up slightly, forming a playful arc.

He turned around and looked again at the endless sea of ​​clouds in front of him, his voice carried by the wind to their ears:

"Xiao Wang, your Feng Hou Qi Men is indeed quite interesting."

"He can calculate the timing of the heavens and predict people's fortunes."

"but……"

Zhang Taichu's voice suddenly turned cold, carrying a domineering aura that sent chills down one's spine:

"You only anticipated bloodshed."

"Then have you considered... whose blood is being shed?"

Wang was stunned.

He stared blankly at the figure's back.

The afterglow of the setting sun shone on Zhang Taichu, turning his white Taoist robe into a blood-red stain.

In that instant.

Wang Ye suddenly realized something.

There has never been any ominous sign on this person's chessboard.

Because of him.

It is the greatest evil in the world.